Jan. 25th, 2007

I live in the north partly because I really do prefer the weather here, overall. Today was an excellent example; it's been snowing for the past couple of days. Everything is white and pretty, and the snow is coming down moderately heavily, in the nice puffy flakes that indicate (relatively) warm conditions. It's in the mid-twenties, with a wind that's mild, not biting, and in normal winter gear (coat, gloves, hat), it's quite comfortable, and exposed bits on skin just feel pleasantly chilled. In my opinion, it's very much "the best of winter" sort of conditions, and entirely enjoyable except for its interference with my ability to read while I walk (although I'll take snow over cold rain any day of the week, since at least it brushes off reasonably well).

So far today's been a lot quieter than any this week so far. It's a very nice change; I was getting to feel a bit too harried and stressed for my liking. I'm not being very productive at home; nothing really desperately needs doing, and I've been enjoying being rather lazy. I've finished up Snow Crash, which I enjoyed a great deal. I was thoroughly surprised by how long ago it was written (88-91), and that impressed me even more. Right now I'm partway into Powerful Medicines: The Benefits, Risks, and Costs of Prescription Drugs. So far I'm finding it highly readable, and a good well-balanced look at the issues (although he does make a few snarky comments about postmodernism early in that grated on me just a bit as being rather "baby with the bathwater"). I called my Dad and read him the bit about the first recorded clinical trial being in the book of Daniel. It's definitely written to be comprehensible to the average layperson, and I'd recommend it to folks who don't have a strong science background (assuming it doesn't manage to irredeemably piss me off in the next couple hundred pages somewhere).

My DVR is being replaced again this Sunday, so I'm trying to get through everything that taped while I was away, most notably the Outlaugh Festival on LOGO, which has been entertaining. Kind of hit or miss, as any assortment of standup comics is likely to be, but we've caught shows by a few of our favorites between the actual festival and the Wisecrack marathon they ran during the weekend. I'm particularly fond of Elvira Kurt and Sabrina Matthews, myself, although there are some other good ones whose names I've forgotten at the moment.

Incidentally, Gender Rebel is a pretty decent documentary on genderqueer folks, although unfortunately limited in scope (the three people it followed were all young, white, female-bodied, and primarily dyke-identified). I'm not really sure whether it was meant as a one-shot, or whether it's part of a series. I'm hoping for the latter, since I'm glad to see the concept being discussed at all, but I'd like some more diversity in their coverage. And Out in Nature is amusing just for what it includes that most Animal Planet shows leave out. Yes, I suddenly remembered that I have LOGO (this happens every few months), and went crazy with the recording again.

I did see Happily N'ever After with the family last weekend. It was amusing fluff; chuckle-worthy but ultimately pretty forgettable. I got to introduce mom to Mirrormask, though, and Dad to V for Vendetta, which was fun. I brought Firefly and Serenity with me, since I'd introduced Dad to Firefly last year. I was pleased to discover it must've taken, since by the time I saw him this year he'd seen all the episodes and the movie (Dad's responsible for my introduction to Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Star Trek, and Aliens, so I get a thrill out of finding SF/F/Action stuff to introduce him to).

I never did write anything for Blog for Choice day. It was too busy on the actual day, and I don't feel I have anything profound enough to say to warrant going back and writing something belatedly. Still, I've really enjoyed a lot of the posts that resulted, so thank you to those of you who did.

I'll probably post some more stuff pretty quickly, since it's finally quiet enough to think, but I think this is enough randomness for one post.
So, I'd suggested Fin change her visit date to the weekend of the 17th, since that's when the Vagina Monologues will be playing according to my friend Casey who has a role, and that's pretty much right up our alley in terms of entertainment. On the other hand, this is really damned tempting, and that means Fin won't be here to see it with me. And although it's probably unrealistic to think I could afford a plane ticket down to B'more this month, it also means that it's definitely not an option to see it with [livejournal.com profile] lunatickle and [livejournal.com profile] fabulousmisst (who sent me the notice) there. *continuing to think out loud* However, I should definitely talk to Casey and [livejournal.com profile] syrinx_77 about going to see it; I bet they'd both be interested, and I've wanted them to meet for a while anyway.

ExpandSex Workers' Art Show Tour )
So, belatedly, the weekend with the family was quite excellent. [livejournal.com profile] musicalchaos (my youngest brother) couldn't make it, due to school, but [livejournal.com profile] jajy1979 (my middle brother) and [livejournal.com profile] tasharowan (my sister-in-law) were there, as were my parents. Additionally, on Saturday we met up with friends of the family from my childhood and spent the day with them. Aside from missing my pets a great deal (which always happens when I'm traveling), and some very bizarre dreams (which've been happening all week, probably because of my weird sleep schedule), it was pretty mellow and ideal. I also got myself a few new items of work clothing, and jajy1979 and tasharowan got me a little stuffed octopus that's now adorning my monitor at work.

Our annual vacations are generally very chill; we meet up at the timeshare, watch movies, do puzzles, hang out, and wander the mall (it's the one time of year I actually enjoy going to the mall). It's very little about accomplishing anything, and very much about spending time together, which is exactly what I want out of it, but makes it kind of hard to write about. The most notable part was spending time with Dave and Sue. They were parishioners at Holly, where I lived from age 3-11, and which I consider to be my "home". A huge number of our parish events happened on their farm, and several of their kids babysat me regularly. Their farm is the biggest part of my memory of them; I thought it was one of the most magical places on the planet, and I loved being there. They've also been pretty close with my folks throughout the years. As a result, they're very much a part of my memories of childhood, part of the 'extended family' that'd developed from our various parishes over the years.

There were two major 'issues' the weekend got me thinking about; outness, and aging.

In terms of outness, this is one of the stranger things I find about getting back in touch with adults I was close to as a child. It's one of the only situations in my life where I'm already deeply emotionally attached to people, but may not yet be out to them, and may not know much about what they believe, since those aren't the kind of conversations one generally has with adults as a small child. All I do know is that the parish in Holly was a pretty conservative one for the Episcopal church. It's much easier to be out about anything -- being queer, or poly, or being an clinic escort* or a patient-instructor -- if I have some sense of where the person's coming from, and how to approach the topic. Generally if I don't know that much about them, it's also not someone I care all that deeply about, so what comes up, comes up, and what happens, happens. And generally there isn't the time pressure of "person I haven't seen in ages who I want to catch up on my life in a very limited time without accidentally dropping bombshells without preparation". Situations like these are some of the few where I really feel like I get a sense of what many people deal with in terms of closets, since I'm generally very lucky about how my life is and the people in it cope. Last time I encountered that feeling was getting to know my Godfather Tony as an adult, rather than just as a semi-magical character from my childhood (that went exceptionally well, incidentally -- turns out they just don't get much more queer-friendly than Godfather Tony). It didn't really end up coming up explicitly with Dave and Sue, although I wasn't super-guarded about my language either, but it was a topic that was on my mind a decent amount during that day. Incidentally, it turns out that may've been wasted worrying, at least on the queerness front, since my Mom thinks it'd come up in conversation with them at some point in the past, although she's not positive (my folks are selectively out about me -- pretty clearly so with family friends, less so with the parishioners down in AL who've never really known me anyway unless there's a reason for it to come up). On the other hand, I've repeatedly found that people who knew me as a child find me more recognizable than people who knew me as a teenager. This pretty well fits my theory that I was myself as a child, spend a while as a teen trying to be everyone else, and then grew up and went back to being myself again. This was definitely true with Dave and Sue -- I didn't get the impression that who I was as an adult, insofar as we discussed it, was surprising to them at all.

* I find there to be a substantial difference between being out as pro-choice, and being out as an abortion access activist -- people generally find the latter much harder to gloss over if they happen to disagree.

Thankfully, I don't have to deal with those sorts of outness issues at all with my immediate family; these days they're all pretty much just used to the weirdness of my ramblings, whether it's about my partners, politics, activism, sexuality, drug legalization, what-have-you. Even for our family I'm a bit on the fringe, but I got a lot of my tendency to be upfront about my fringiness from Mom anyway, so it seems to work out ok. I've been coming out to them about various things since I first started discovering them, so it's all old hat now, and I think they're pretty much unshockable (although poor Dad's long-suffering tolerance of the rest of the family's tendency toward TMI can be a bit amusing at times). In general, I think I'm really lucky in the family department. It's nice to love my family and like them and get along with them.

The aging issue is harder, but simpler. This once-a-year get-together is also when my obsessive-compulsive father (and let me mention here how grateful I am for that tendency -- he's amazing) catches all of us up on all the financial and planning aspects of the family. For the last few years that's been a rather inevitable reminder of my parents and the older generations of the family aging, and to a lesser extent a reminder of my own mortality. We have four close family members in their late 80s to late 90s and living independently -- both my grandfathers and my great-aunt and great-uncle (who are now almost 100 each, and approaching some ridiculous anniversary that most of the planet never dreams of seeing). Family plans have to acknowledge that these circumstances could change any time. Additionally, Dad is getting ready to retire in just under two years, and a good deal of our planning conversations revolve around that major life change. And it's a bit hard to acknowledge that Dad, who I remember so clearly in his thirties, is really ready for retirement, or that Mom's about to become eligible for medicare. I'm very glad Dad is so practical about all these planning issues, but sometimes the implications are a bit hard to process.

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