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Pride, and more chores than I planned...
Jun. 19th, 2006 10:07 amWow, it was pouring this morning on the way to work. Even with an umbrella, I'm unpleasantly damp, especially below the knees. Ah well; it's an improvement over the heat of the weekend.
Pride was fun, but exhausting due to the temperatures. And it really concerns me that as far as any of us could tell, there was no free water available. Given the weather and the crowds, that's just dangerous, and I'll probably send an email to the Pride committee about it later today. It doesn't have to be cold, it doesn't have to be any better than Cleveland city water, but they really can't assume that everyone who attends will always have money for three buck a bottle cold bottled water. Aside from that, though, it was mostly a day of running into ridiculous numbers of people I haven't seen in ages, which was fun. I've been part of the local community for six years now, and that's a lot of time to meet people, work with them, and then lose track of them again, so Pride and other large events are always good chances to reconnect.
Saturday I woke up ridiculously early and worked on the house for a while, then headed over to Pride around 10am. I helped with the Center's booth setup for a while, found a shady spot to read my book for a bit, then wandered the booths, bought a few things, and collected pamphlets from various groups (always interesting to find out what the local organizations are, and what they're doing). Mid-afternoon,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lunatickle and her band, Slackjaw, played main stage, which was my primary reason for making it to Pride this year. That was fabulous, although I wish they'd had time for a longer set. A bit later, chameleonpixie and dhimahi made it just in time for the Drag King show (I've got pics of that and Slackjaw's performance, I just haven't uploaded them yet), which was much fun, and even worth sitting in full sun to watch. We did a quick circuit of the booths again, and then headed out around 5:30pm because we just couldn't take the heat any longer.
I came home fully expecting to fall over and collapse as soon as I walked in the door, but got hit by another weird bout of energy like that morning's, so I accomplished a bunch more around the house (unfortunately not enough to get the bathroom sink back together -- I need to get over to Home Depot today for some PTFE). Sunday I felt like hell from pushing it so hard on Saturday, but still got oddly motivated (it's having parts and supplies around -- I can't seem to help it), and got the chickenwire run all around the inside of the porch railings so Leroy-boy can't squeeze through onto the roof anymore, and can play out there will less direct supervision (which also means the cats get more frequent access, which should make them happy).
I also finished the last four eps of X-Files Season One, the last segment of Penn and Teller's Magic and Mystery Tour, and watched the new Coen brothers version of The Ladykillers. The Magic and Mystery Tour was interesting -- Penn and Teller are coming from such a thoroughly western/American perspective (sometimes embarrassingly so), but the profession and obsession they share with the people they're meeting does help make an end-run around that communication and cultural understanding gap. Also, for people who are really curious to hear Teller talk, he does so in this not infrequently.
The Ladykillers just didn't impress me. I generally love the Coen Brothers, and this definitely had their feel to it, but the whole thing just never came together at all. It felt like characters had been grabbed from totally disparate movies and jammed together, and I never managed to stop being aware of it being a movie, and a very uneven one at that. I'd characterize it as "mildly entertaining in the moment, but ultimately utterly forgettable".
Bookwise, I'm still working my way through The Chronicles of Chrestomanci, although I'm enjoying it enough that I requested the rest of the books set in that world, as well as Howl's Moving Castle and Castle in the Sky, since I'm a big fan of Miyazaki, and I'm very curious to read the source material for the movies (I've seen Castle in the Sky, but Howl's Moving Castle is still in my Netflix queue -- in fact, I'll go move it to #1 now). I've also got two more Sheri S. Tepper books waiting for me at the library; Grass and Raising the Stones -- now that I've cleared my account again, I can pick them up! (I returned the overdue books on Friday in the book drop, but they'd just closed, so I couldn't pick up the ones that are waiting). Hmmm. That's feeling like a very fiction-heavy streak. *goes to library site* Ok, now I've added Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science and Infections and Inequalities. That should help balance things a bit.
Have I mentioned recently how much I'm loving my "Books to Read" spreadsheet? Boy howdy, am I! This is the spreadsheet I created back when I asked everyone on my friends list for book recommendations, and I adore having a place to store recommendations (or other books I run across that sound interesting), and to track what I've read, in case I want to recommend the title to someone else. Or, as in now, to browse through to find a genre of book I'm interested in reading at the moment.
Well, that's all for the moment. I got very little sleep last night; despite being pretty exhausted, I didn't fall asleep until the rain finally started sometime around midnight, and then I had weird dreams all night and had to get up godawful early. Blarg. Still hating this 4:30am deal. Anyway, it's taken three hours to finish the post, amidst the Monday morning craziness. Time to clear out my email accounts and be productive.
Pride was fun, but exhausting due to the temperatures. And it really concerns me that as far as any of us could tell, there was no free water available. Given the weather and the crowds, that's just dangerous, and I'll probably send an email to the Pride committee about it later today. It doesn't have to be cold, it doesn't have to be any better than Cleveland city water, but they really can't assume that everyone who attends will always have money for three buck a bottle cold bottled water. Aside from that, though, it was mostly a day of running into ridiculous numbers of people I haven't seen in ages, which was fun. I've been part of the local community for six years now, and that's a lot of time to meet people, work with them, and then lose track of them again, so Pride and other large events are always good chances to reconnect.
Saturday I woke up ridiculously early and worked on the house for a while, then headed over to Pride around 10am. I helped with the Center's booth setup for a while, found a shady spot to read my book for a bit, then wandered the booths, bought a few things, and collected pamphlets from various groups (always interesting to find out what the local organizations are, and what they're doing). Mid-afternoon,
lunatickle and her band, Slackjaw, played main stage, which was my primary reason for making it to Pride this year. That was fabulous, although I wish they'd had time for a longer set. A bit later, chameleonpixie and dhimahi made it just in time for the Drag King show (I've got pics of that and Slackjaw's performance, I just haven't uploaded them yet), which was much fun, and even worth sitting in full sun to watch. We did a quick circuit of the booths again, and then headed out around 5:30pm because we just couldn't take the heat any longer.I came home fully expecting to fall over and collapse as soon as I walked in the door, but got hit by another weird bout of energy like that morning's, so I accomplished a bunch more around the house (unfortunately not enough to get the bathroom sink back together -- I need to get over to Home Depot today for some PTFE). Sunday I felt like hell from pushing it so hard on Saturday, but still got oddly motivated (it's having parts and supplies around -- I can't seem to help it), and got the chickenwire run all around the inside of the porch railings so Leroy-boy can't squeeze through onto the roof anymore, and can play out there will less direct supervision (which also means the cats get more frequent access, which should make them happy).
I also finished the last four eps of X-Files Season One, the last segment of Penn and Teller's Magic and Mystery Tour, and watched the new Coen brothers version of The Ladykillers. The Magic and Mystery Tour was interesting -- Penn and Teller are coming from such a thoroughly western/American perspective (sometimes embarrassingly so), but the profession and obsession they share with the people they're meeting does help make an end-run around that communication and cultural understanding gap. Also, for people who are really curious to hear Teller talk, he does so in this not infrequently.
The Ladykillers just didn't impress me. I generally love the Coen Brothers, and this definitely had their feel to it, but the whole thing just never came together at all. It felt like characters had been grabbed from totally disparate movies and jammed together, and I never managed to stop being aware of it being a movie, and a very uneven one at that. I'd characterize it as "mildly entertaining in the moment, but ultimately utterly forgettable".
Bookwise, I'm still working my way through The Chronicles of Chrestomanci, although I'm enjoying it enough that I requested the rest of the books set in that world, as well as Howl's Moving Castle and Castle in the Sky, since I'm a big fan of Miyazaki, and I'm very curious to read the source material for the movies (I've seen Castle in the Sky, but Howl's Moving Castle is still in my Netflix queue -- in fact, I'll go move it to #1 now). I've also got two more Sheri S. Tepper books waiting for me at the library; Grass and Raising the Stones -- now that I've cleared my account again, I can pick them up! (I returned the overdue books on Friday in the book drop, but they'd just closed, so I couldn't pick up the ones that are waiting). Hmmm. That's feeling like a very fiction-heavy streak. *goes to library site* Ok, now I've added Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science and Infections and Inequalities. That should help balance things a bit.
Have I mentioned recently how much I'm loving my "Books to Read" spreadsheet? Boy howdy, am I! This is the spreadsheet I created back when I asked everyone on my friends list for book recommendations, and I adore having a place to store recommendations (or other books I run across that sound interesting), and to track what I've read, in case I want to recommend the title to someone else. Or, as in now, to browse through to find a genre of book I'm interested in reading at the moment.
Well, that's all for the moment. I got very little sleep last night; despite being pretty exhausted, I didn't fall asleep until the rain finally started sometime around midnight, and then I had weird dreams all night and had to get up godawful early. Blarg. Still hating this 4:30am deal. Anyway, it's taken three hours to finish the post, amidst the Monday morning craziness. Time to clear out my email accounts and be productive.
