Other that some passing linkage, I haven’t weighed in on the controversy surrounding actor Isaiah Washington and his use of the F-word twice in the last three months on the set of “Grey’s Anatomy” and at the Golden Globes. The New York Times summarizes the events. Given that there has been lots of commentary, I think I should say something.
For me, the use of the words “faggot” and “dyke” are as unacceptable as using the N word. Having been the victim of a violent hate crime in which I was repeatedly called a dyke (an event where I was threatened with death and where I honestly didn’t know if I was going to be killed) I’ve had a particularly strong reaction to the word ever since, no matter who uses it (I’m still pissed as hell at that being called that recently, and still intend for there to be some accountability for it eventually.)
There are souls out there in the universe for which the words “faggot” and “dyke” are the final words ever they heard as they were beaten and killed. For that reason alone, I don’t think the use of them should be taken lightly, and I think trying to “rehabilitate” the words diminishes the suffering of those souls.
People who use these words with malicious intent should be shunned in the same way that we ostracize and revile people who use the N word. I care about free speech too much to suggest that there are words that should never be used (I think the fact that we censor “swear” words is egregious to say the least) but I do think we can institute social consequences for bad behavior where legal ones are not appropriate.
One of the cool things about my new MacBook is that I could load several video games I own but couldn’t really play on my old machine – Age of Empires, Zoo Tycoon, Black and White – so I’ve been goofing off playing video games all weekend. I did managed to write a couple of blog posts, hang curtain rods in the living room, clean up the kitchen and finally clean the Aquarium so the fish could see. I also updated my inventory of all of our electronics with models and serial numbers, to include my new stuff and all of Stephanie’s geekbling, too. We had one of Stephanie’s friends over for a tour of the house, and we used the snowblower for the first time here. I managed to run over the dog chain with it, so we spent 20 minutes untangling that from the blades of the machine. But it was fun. Normally I’d be excited about the snow, but I’m worried about our gutters still being undone.
I still have to write reviews of Fun Home and The Boy Detective Fails which I finished last weekend.
We cocooned in the house again this weekend. I went to water aerobics, we ventured out to go to the IMAX Theater 10 year celebration, (I had to go, it was Big Thing) and Stephanie went skating, of course, but otherwise we hung out at home and enjoyed spending time with each other and the kids.
It’s so lovely to finally be able to just hang out with Stephanie and enjoy her company – we spent so much time driving back and forth to one another’s houses before we lived together, and even the first six months of living together were filled up with getting things squared away, and so many obligations and activities. Now even doing simple stuff like cooking or reading is more fun because we’re in the same spot, sharing the experience. I love my girlfriend.
Looks like I’m going to be here until 9 p.m. or so. Had a sudden emergency because we apparently we have designers working for our company who don’t know how to use Macromedia Fireworks and can’t figure out how to take a Fireworks file and open in bloated behemoth Photoshop. So I’m taking a layered Fireworks file and recreating it layer by layer in Photoshop because someone else is lacking and/or lazy. And it normally wouldn’t be that bad, but I’m trying to work on my rapidly dying hard drive which takes about five minutes or so to process every time I move a layer. So while it’s cranking, I’m running to the bathroom, getting a drink, making dinner, blogging on my other computer.
Spike is probably dying at home, and there were two household projects that I’m not doing because of this. And I had to put aside other work that’s due, so I’m going to get yelled at tomorrow for not having my actual assignments done.
Yep, I’m a bit peeved.
It’s not going to arrive until Tuesday. God, that is frustrating. I deliberately ordered it very early so it would arrive before the long weekend, and I paid for 2-day shipping, which was the fastest possible rate. After getting off the phone with Apple, they’ve refunded my shipping charges entirely, and they were very apologetic, but it’s still not at all cool. They don’t make it clear on their messaging that two days is two “business days.” I hate that fracking concept. In this day and age, shipping carriers should be delivering 7 days a week.
Worth about $20 today on eBay. It’s been supplemented for the last several years by my high-powered Powerbook from work, but that’s not really very cool at all, and I try hard to minimize my home-use. Especially since my work laptop is now having some hard drive issues. Yikes! We were going to wait until my house sold to do this, but it’s high time to cut the cord.
So now begins the anxious wait for the shipping and delivery. Order tracking is great and all, but I really wish Apple had a “Now were taking it off the shelf. Now we’re configuring it for you. Now we’re moving it across the warehouse” real-time notifying system. I wanna know exactly where my new toy is. Sadly the only information I have is “Not yet shipped.” Sigh.
It’s my girlfriend Stephanie’s first “blogiversary” – please go visit her page and say congratulations. Also, if you clicked on a google ad while you’re there, that would be great, too. We need the money. We have three houses, ya know. She updated her templates and added a blogroll – let her know if you want to be on it.
I stayed after my water aerobics class tonight to take an extra half-hour resistance weight-training course in the pool. Man, I thought I had endorphin highs before. I feel great. There were tons of people at the Y tonight — the construction on their new wellness center is finished and they have a lot of new equipment, so that was at least part of the crowd, along with all the New Year’s resolution folks. But as long as there’s room in the pool, I’m okay with that. I’m just glad that I have some physical activity that isn’t tedious and boring to do.
I have this trouble where I try very hard not to do something — drop a screw, tip over a paint can, upend a box of packing peanuts — and whatever I’m working so hard to avoid is exactly what I end up doing, because I’m trying way too hard.
That same self-defeating thing happens with my new year’s resolutions. Every year I make some resolutions, and I succeed wildly — at everything else. And then at the end of the year, I go over my resolutions and despair at habits I haven’t managed to break or to form, while ignoring all the stuff I got right. So I start off the year on a downer, which is totally unnecessary, and keeps the spiral going. This year, screw that fuckin’ noise.
This year, I’m going to make a list of hopes for the year instead of resolutions — positive wishes to start the new year out right.
1. I hope we have a quiet, relaxing, fun year.
The last couple of years have been full of stress for Stephanie and I. Between surgeries and home purchasing and moving, we’ve been caught in several storms and I think we’ve come through them stronger, both as individuals and as a couple. But I’m hoping this year will be a lot less of “you and me against the forces of the universe” and a lot more of “you and me in sync with the forces of the universe.” I know that unexpected things always come up, but I think we’ve got a pretty good foundation to deal with them.
I hope we have a lot of time to just hang out in our house together, and with our friends. We’ve created a nice space for ourselves and our pets. I enjoy hanging around the house with Stephanie and playing games, reading and relaxing. And I enjoy having friends over. I hope we can do a lot of that this year. I was intrigued by the idea of creating a Porch Sitter’s Local here in Indy – we certainly have the porch for it.
I hope we can get a some stuff sold on eBay this year. I still have a stash of stuff to sell on behalf of my mom, and we’ve been collection a pile of sale-able items post-move sorting, and I’d love to get through them.
There are lots of festivals and events around Indianapolis that happen every year, and that I’ve never attended. I’d love to do some of them. We’ve missed the pride event a couple of years running, and I’d like to do that this year, if we can. And we have a great new neighborhood to explore.
2. I hope my frikin’ house sells.
I think I’ve done all I can really do to make that happen, and all I can do is routine maintenance and keeping on top of things. This is just one I have to leave up to the world to take care of.
3. I hope I can take time to express some of my creative energy.
I hope I can finish some webdesign projects that have been lingering around. My dad has a site he needs created, I have Stephanie’s blog design to work on, IndyScribe needs an overhaul, and I have another art site I need to work on.
I hope I can get some more work done on my novel. I still think I have a great idea, and I want to build out some time to get it working. I think that what I was missing with NaNoWriMo was some element of illustration/art/design that I want to go with it.
I have some furniture I want to refinish – I’ve done some of that in the past and found it to be a really relaxing, rewarding type of project. I’d want to work on some of the stuff I have stashed in the garage.
I hope to design a nice garden/lawn space around our house. I want to plant some vegetables and a raspberry bush this year – things I have no experience with at all, so that should be a fun challenge. I’m hoping to find out if some of the more experienced gardeners in our neighborhood will give me advice and let me look over their shoulders.
I hope to get some time to work on the interior design of our house — we have lots of fun art that still needs to make it onto the walls, and we have some areas where we can make some creative use of space. There’s lots of interior painting we want to do, also.
I hope I can become a better photographer and get some great, fun pictures. I’m learning more about my camera and how to adjust for lighting and other factors. Maybe our trip on Route 66 will be a good opportunity to get better at taking pictures.
I have some art projects dinking around in the back of my head, too, and I want to find time to work on them.
3. I hope we get to do some more traveling this year.
Stephanie has a work conference to go to in January, in Wisconsin, and I have one in March, I think. We have plans to drive Route 66 with a New Beetle Caravan in June, and I think those are solid, unless something unexpected happens. We talked about visiting my family in Iowa in the spring, but we’ll have to see if that fits in for them and us.
I haven’t got Stephanie’s skating competitions this year sorted out in my head yet, but those will need to go on the calendar, too.
One thing I’ve never done is go to the Michigan Women’s Music Festival. It’s usually in August. I don’t know if we can swing it after a big trip in June, but it’s one cultural activity I’d love to go to someday.
I’d also like to explore Indiana a little more, if we get a chance. I’d like to pick out some touristy things from the Enjoy Indiana website and got to them, like French Lick or New Harmony, or maybe the Park County covered bridge festival.
4. I hope I can be less angry all the time.
I have such a level of frustration and irritation, and it gets in the way of getting things done and of my relationships with other people.
I was blaming that on reading too much negative stuff online, and too many angry political discussions, and I’m sure those things don’t help. But I have to acknowledge that it’s something inside me and how I interact with the world that needs to change, not just external things. I’m trying to change the way I react to things that bother me; to not have knee-jerk reactions without thinking about what’s going on first, and that seems to be helping.
I’m trying to set limits and say no more — lots of my stress comes from being overwhelmed by obligations; occupationally, financially, socially, politically. I’m becoming better at not letting other people hijack my time and energy, and letting myself recharge in between. I’ve noticed that going to water aerobics is amazing for de-stressing; I always have an endorphin high and feel completely zen-like when I’m done, so I have at least one outlet for stress.
5. I hope we can help defeat Indiana’s anti-marriage equality amendment in the Statehouse this year.
I foresee this being an exhausting, stressful experience, and I’m not looking forward to it at all. But we do have a much stronger position after the 2006 election, and I hope that will make the coming fight much less painful.
1. Stephanie and I bought a house and moved into it together.
Considering that we were just talking about moving in together at the beginning of last year, and we hadn’t decided to take the plunge, the whole thing happened really quickly. Heck, in January, I was painting my old kitchen, not realizing at all that we’d soon be painting a new place. By March, we found the house we wanted, and we finally got it at the end of May, when we immediately started painting it.
Wow. I’m still amazed at everything we got done. We both cleaned out loads of old junk, both literally and figuratively, managed to merge two already well-established households together, and have ended up, finally, with a pretty keen place.
2. We took a road trip to Kansas in April.
We went for my cousin Sarah’s wedding, and did a lot of fun site-seeing along the way, including visiting the arch in St. Louis. Considering that this was in the middle of the house negotiations and moving planning, that was pretty amazing.
3. Stephanie skated in the Chicago Gay Games and won 2 Gold Medals
That was an exciting and interesting experience, and I’m hugely proud of what she was able to accomplish. We spent a week at her Dad’s in Valpo and traveled into the city every day for her competitions. Making it into the city every day was tough, but it was totally worth it for the experience and enjoyment of it.
Watching Stephanie compete is always fun, and seeing her improve constantly as an athlete is amazing and inspirational to me. I’m always impressed by her dedication to skating – she gets up early to practice and has a routine that keeps her healthy and strong and always learning something new.
I learned a lot about figure skating, and being immersed in a culture of athletics for an extended period was really educational and inspiring. One of the goals of the Gay Games is to inspire everyone, no matter who they are, to find their inner athlete, and to encourage people to explore sports that in many circumstances they aren’t encouraged to engage in. That’s a very positive, healthy message, and it had resonance for me.
4. I did a ton of gardening at our new house, mostly in the front flower beds.
Most of what I’ve done in the past at my old house was very trial and error — this time I did a bit of reading and did some good foundation work on the soil so the stuff we’ve already planted and will plant will grow well. I did a lot of cleaning up and organizing. There’s still lots to do, especially on the lawn, but that’s for this year.
5. Stephanie and her Dad got her old house ready to rent.
They worked hard on getting the house in great shape for her new tenants, and Stephanie spent a lot of time interviewing people before she found the right couple to move into the little house she loves.
We did some volunteering for neighborhood clean up, I roamed around taking pictures of the historic architecture, and Stephanie was elected treasurer of the neighborhood association.
1. There’s a new production of “Annie” out — why does little orphan Annie always have to have a red curly hair helmet wig? It looks bizarre. Why can’t get a girl with real red curly hair, or at least dye the girl’s hair red? In the original stage production with Andrea McArdle, they used her real hair.
I know way too much about Annie, don’t I?
2. I think “Rudolph’s Shiny New Year” is the most bizarre Holiday special ever, surpassing even the Heat Miser and Freeze Miser in “The Year Without a Santa Claus” which was another Rankin-Bass sequel they put together after the success of Rudolph, but probably shouldn’t have.
I guess the premise of the story makes sense if you read the synopsis on Wikipedia (sort of) but if you’re watching it without the sound on like I am now, seeing Rudolph traipsing around with a caveman, a knight and Ben Franklin and a camel with a clock for a hump – it’s hard to see how that all fits together.
I guess I’m not the only one who thinks it’s bizarre.
