Getting a word in edgewise
I worked out for the first time since may (as in grunty-lifty followed by aerobics), and I’m feeling sooo much better now. On monday morning, after several foodless hours on a train I weighed 150. Today, after a huge italian meal last night, and an indian buffet for lunch, I weigh 147. Strange, but I won’t sweat it. =)
Calm, flowing, not at odds with the universe. Must go grunty-lifty more often, while I still can.
I’m gonna go move heavy objects in repetitive cycles, then get sweaty, then have a cold shower. (if the gym isn’t closed. Haven’t gone since the beginning of spanish 1. I am long overdue =)
Flight: Vanguard Airlines flight 777 (Non-Stop) Flight Details
Depart: Pittsburgh, PA (PIT) Wed, 31 Jul at 7:00pm
Arrive: Kansas City, MO (MCI) Wed, 31 Jul at 8:15pm
Seat: Check in at Airport for Seat Assignment. (McDonnell Douglas MD80 Jet)
Flight: Vanguard Airlines flight 709 (Non-Stop) Flight Details
Depart: Kansas City, MO (MCI) Wed, 31 Jul at 9:35pm
Arrive: San Francisco, CA (SFO) Wed, 31 Jul at 11:25pm
Seat: Check in at Airport for Seat Assignment. (McDonnell Douglas MD80 Jet)
Dear Jerks online,
If you don’t want to meet me, don’t say you do. If you say you do want to meet me, take less than 15 minutes pulling out your schedule to suggest a day/time that you might be free after telling me you can’t make my first proposal. And in conclusion, bite me.
Hugs & Kisses
-scu
So, one of the pretty guys from san fran is an actuary. Making beaucoup dollars to do something that I figure I could probably do fairly easily and make alot of money. And if it’s anything like the entry tests, I think I could enjoy it quite a bit. Plus, the guy said it’s a fairly social job.
So, as I see it, there are only a couple problems with this plan. One, it doesn’t really advance the causes I believe in outside my own wallet. Two, it would be work for the benefit of the insurance industry, which pretty much rapes most consumers. Bleh.
I will not vanish into a sucking crush hole. I will remind myself that I have never met this gentleman, and won’t for at least a month. I will also remind myself that while taking an interest is cool, obsession is not. Whee.
HIV is vile. Contemplating a relationship with someone who has HIV is rank stupidity. It is useful to look at the statistics to remind myself from time to time that my chances of staying healthy would drop dramatically if I began regularly having sex with someone who has HIV.
I do wonder how accurate those statistics are. Even if they’re off, the ‘repetition until success’ principle he’s pointing out is quite valid.
Finished it a couple of weeks ago. Liked it over all, especially after filtering out the more offensive values of the author (women are great as sex toys, especially intelligent, determined ones being the one that gets the most air time.)
But, as I’ve commented a few times, there was a passage (or two) in it such that when I first ran across I put the book down and didn’t look at it again for years. Basically, they’re condescending, “oh those poor muddled faggots, aren’t they pitiful” parentheticals. Two of em to be precise. (I know, the feminists _should_ be saying ‘cry me a river’ here, and the feminist inside me is. But it still bit.)
Reproduced for those who claimed they were not there, here you go, bold-ing my own:
The third morning after the system was installed, Jill brought a letter, category “G” to Jubal. [Category ‘G’ being “Propositions of marriage and propositions less formal”] The ladies and other females (plus misguided males) who supplied this category usually included pictures alleged to be of themselves; some left little to the imagination.
It’s harmless enough. A parenthetical reference that gave me long pause when first I read it in my early teens. But it’s unnecessary. It’s thrown in there for no other purpose than to say a) I admit this exists and b) I condemn it. Probably counted as cosmopolitan for the time.
She discussed it with Mike–but Mike could not understand why Jill had ever minded being looked at. He understood not wishing to be touched; Mike avoided shaking hands, he wanted to be touched only by water brothers. (Jill wasn’t sure how far this went; she had explained homosexuality, after Mike had read about it and failed to grok–and had given him rules for avoiding passes; she knew that Mike, pretty as he was, would attract such. He had followed her advice and made his face more masculine, instead of the androgynous beauty he had had. But Jill was not sure he would refuse a pass, say, from Duke–fortunately, Mike’s water brothers were decidedly masculine, just as his others were very female women. Jill suspected that Mike would grok a “wrongness” in the poor inbetweeners anyhow. They would never be offered water.)
Ignoring the fact that the parenthetical is larger than the rest of the paragraph… I’m pretty sure this is where I just stopped reading my first time through. The stereotyping grated on me from the get go. Throw on top of it the “wrongness” and “inbetweeners”, and I was thoroughly distressed by reading this passage. And it still grates.
A few years before I read stranger in a strange land for the first time, I read lord foul’s bane. I asked my older sister what she thought of the latter, and she was resoundingly not interested in the book. Very early on there is a rape scene in it. Knowing as little as I did about sex at the time, all I got out of the scene was that the main character was on a power trip, and did something violent the innocent young female character which gave him great satisfaction, oh, and that there was blood involved. I didn’t really even get the concept of rape, and wondered why my sister had let this stop her from reading a book that was otherwise interesting. Dark, depressing, repetitive, but somehow, to me, at the time, interesting. Never really connected that with my own reaction to SiaSL until now. Hmmm.
As I said, I write this in part because I have had two people, both of whom I admire greatly, inform me that stranger in a strange land was totally gay neutral (one actually said it was gay positive). These are the only moments when anything explicitly homosexual is discussed. (There is a later scene where one man is suddenly divested of clothing in the presence of another nude male, but I choose to interpret that scene in light of the parentheticals, and see nothing supportive of homosexuality in it)
They are, however, two parentheticals out of an entire book (and a rather lengthy one at that), so it’s trivial compared to the offense against the independent female population. And the book has literary significance.
The themes, plot structure, and some of the ideas are seminal and classic. It’s not hard to connect this book to so many other pieces of sci-fi and fantasy, the matrix, piers anthony, the xenogenesis series, and ET, just to name a few. It tells an engaging story, and has likeable characters, all 4 of them (Heinlein’s self-idealization, Heinlein’s idealization of youth, Heinlein’s idealization of woman, and Heinlein’s idea of everyone else).
Did another 2 hour ride this morning with gregoradon. I really need to do something about the knees. And purchasing a second knee brace, while a good start, would not be sufficient =)
Stretching before doing such things, and yoga may help.
<sigh>
Okay, so I’m pretty insecure about this whole writing fiction thing. And this snippet is essentially pure dialogue. It’s also like the first thing I’ve ever done, so be gentle, I’m aware that it sucks. Baby steps, it’s all about baby steps. If there’s anything you liked about it, or if you have constructive criticism, I’d love to hear it. Bleh.
Okay, I’m experimenting with multiple cuts, to satisfy my need to seperate the representation of separate thoughts, and to accomodate those who are irritated when I put multiple immediately consecutive entries.