Category: Uncategorized

Mom’s still in her phase (but getting better)

So, mom called to tell me about Dave’s passing. Dave was the significant other of my gay uncle (on mom’s side) for a few decades. Keep in mind, I barely know the guy, she had to remind me of his name. Nor did she tell me how he died, just that he had. But what was most interesting to me was that she said “Your uncle mike’s … paramour”. And she does tell me about the passing of all sorts of family members, most of whom I just do not know. She thought that it might matter more to me because “well, you know…”

Now, she gets points for progress, but let me provide some context. The last time I recall her discussing Dave was shortly before christmas, while both me and my sisters were at home, before I was out to the family, so we’re talking at least a decade ago here. We’d gotten a card from Mike & Dave, with both names on it, and my little sister asked who Dave was. Mom’s response was a slightly strained, “Dave is Mike’s, … um, friend.” My sisters and I teased her about that one. She got flustered and said “What would you rather I say? Lovers?!” To which my sisters cheerfully responded, “uh, yeah.”

I can’t say I blame her, I’m not quite clear on what a good term to describe Mike & Dave’s relationship would be, as a distant, outside observer. Long-term lovers? Husbands? Partners? I mean, I hesitate to use the term boyfriend for something that hasn’t passed the three month mark, but it seems inadequate to describe something that has endured more than a decade. Partners seems antiseptic and filled with plausible deniability (what sort of business do you run?). Ironically, in common usage, “lovers” denotes a sexual relationship rather than a love relationship. And husbands is, of course, legally inaccurate. *shrug*

On a barely related note, of my aunts & uncles, Dennis is probably the one to whom I feel closest. Sadly, that’s not saying alot. I think a better developed sense of connection to my extended family would be a very good thing. Of course, that means going to some pretty out-of-the-way locations and spending time with them. =)

Laptop bites it yet again

While my laptop has experienced more lives than your average cat, each one progressively more degraded than the last, I was thinking of putting it out of my misery before last night’s incident with the large glass of water spilled all over the keyboard. I turned it off immediately, and let it dry out. A few hours later, I turned it back on, and it was working fine. Then this morning, it was not. The keyboard (not exactly fully functional to begin with) is now well and truly screwed. It may not be permanent, but I honestly really don’t care. iBook, here I come.

I don’t think the hard drive is fux0red, and I’ve found relatively cheap toys on the internet that should allow me to transform it into an external usb drive (which would be pretty rockin’), I just hope it won’t be too much of a pain to get mac to read a true native FreeBSD filesystem (my understanding is that the mac default is incompatible). The spendiness of it all will, of course, be waiting until my student loan comes in. That should be next week, while I’m in DC. No later than the 11th to be precise. Oy. The wireless card, and cardbus ethernet/modem adapter should work fine, but in this day & age, who would need them? Isn’t that essentially built-in for every modern laptop? Still, no reason not to cannibalize the parts and sell them on craigslist. =)

Maybe someone would want the battery, cd drive, lcd screen, and floppy drive, (for a dell latitude CPi) but I’m not holding my breath. =)

Movies

On a recent date type thing, I went out & got a membership at my local video store. We got dirty pretty things, for the euro angle, which Shawn is huge into. It was good.

But I got basically a “your next 10-20 rentals free” card, ‘cuz it was a deal. Keep in mind I’d watched maybe 2 videos in the preceding 6 months. But there are many videos I have to catch up on.

I did see a home at the end of the world there, which I rather want to see. I’ve heard Latter Days is also out & well worth the watching. There was another film that came out around the same time as latter days and is thematically linked to it (at least in my head) that I wanted to watch, but I don’t have the faintest memory of what it is. If any of y’all have a guess as to what I might be talking about, comment on my entry and let me know. For that matter, if any of y’inz have recommendations you’d like to make, or want to talk about recommended rentals, comment. Hell, if you’re just feeling unloved and want attention, comment, but please at least try to pretend it’s video recommendation related. =)

[ed: Also, any of you conveniently located, and likeable or interested people nearby who’d like to join in watching one or more, drop me a line, and we can figure something out.]