Surreptitious Opinionation

The past couple of weeks have been intense. The bay area rocked. I was inundated with the cool people. I spent a week there mostly hanging out with people, traveling to hang out with people, or sleeping. Austin was cool too. I played a character who sucked the possessing spirit of cremated demon-worshipping knights templar out of a holy man, only to be splattered by Battle Vishnu. I met , , and for the first time.

Now I’m back in MN. I’m a little depressed, feeling socially disconnected and isolated already, and lacking the crutch of a job I like which I had in chicago. Still, ’twas good to see , Joe, , some of the humphrey-ites, etc. Must remember “if hopes were dupes, then fears may be liars”.

Somehow, it strikes me as entirely appropriate that the Wikipedia Article on deconstruction starts with a heading that says “This article needs a complete rewrite…” (emphasis in original).

It is indeed a natural disaster. As per usual in any large scale break down of routine, violence, looting, and I strongly suspect vandalism and gang violence are occurring at higher rates than usual. The poor are being passed over in treatment and protection. Provision of necessities and order keeping forces have not reached all parties, though I don’t know enough and it may be a bit early to say it’s severely deficient in provision.

None of this should be a surprise.

Our government finances, and states in particular, have been reduced for a few years now. Our traditional disaster relief personell have been heavily tapped for a foreign war. How you feel about these causes aside, it makes the possibly deficient response a little less surprising.

It’s also something that does not directly affect me currently. Nor was new orleans in my travel plans. I’m not pinning the blame on any government office, agency, branch, or elected officials.

has recently made several posts on the topic of this lady who took a pic of a guy who started whacking himself off at her on public transit and posted it in hopes that he’s brought to ‘justice’. My feelings are mixed. I’m not in favor of exposing oneself in public without the consent of any immediately impacted parties. Such consent can be implied. For instance, I don’t need to say I’m okay with seeing public spankings of bare butts if I go to the Folsom Street Fair. My attendance implies that I’m cool with it.

Also, I think that our society is way too uptight about sex. Graphic decapitations are perfectly fine to show to your kids, but graphic orgasms are not. I think our society already overreacts to innappropriate sexual behavior. E.g., you don’t have a right to know if a convicted and released murderer lives on your block, but in many places you do have the right to know if a flasher lives on your block.

And it highlights the same sort of mentality that “porn/prostitution degrades women” and well, what about men? I remember a female grabbing my ass by surprise in high school (once and only once). That was ‘funny’. Had I, or perhaps, a hetero male, done the same thing to a woman, I suspect there would have been hell to pay.

In my ideal world, the woman in question would have loudly and exhasperatedly said something biting and derisive of the man’s apparent inability to get laid and inadequate genitalia and he would have been mortified. Needless to say, we do not live in my ideal world.

Student aid has been dispersed. Let the budgeting begin.

I had a dream in which I was eating meat. Specifically a drumstick from kentucky fried chicken, in a hotel room, with other people. I was trying to conceal it from them, and they apparently weren’t noticing. Hmmm, weird.

• It was a bit of a surprise to see foothills in the distance when I got out of the airport. Minneapolis and Chicago are not renowned for their dramatic terrain. I just hadn’t thought about it.
• People come in more than two colors.
• When walking back from getting my driver’s license replacement, I noticed a store front with fruit and decided to check out what they had. The place had a strong odor of incense. Turns out that they had more cooler space for cheese than meat. More for tofu than for cheese. And more for fake meat than for tofu. And there was a cat lying on the floor in the corner. I love the lower haight.

My last few days in chicago unfolded more or less as expected. I didn’t end up going to the gym, but and I did end up skating through the horde of people watching the air & water show, then up to hollywood beach and back to boystown. One of the guys I’d been chatting with at the bar on Saturday, Lee, invited me to the Big Gay Cocktail Club on Sunday, but ‘s departure was delayed so he could synch up with his coworker’s arrival at O’hare. Besides, arriving sweaty and tired from skating probably not so much in keeping with the tone of the event. Afterwards we ordered from chicago pizza. I got a deep-fried veggie variety pack (mushrooms, cauliflower, and zucchini), once again proving that vegan does not imply healthy.

was a great weekend guest. I actually think he’d make a great roommate (in case this in inobvious, this is high praise from me), but I’d have to take a pass on Phoenix.

Monday I think I packed for a bit. Dropped clothing off at the Brown elephant. Browsed pornographic superhero comics at unabridged and generally lazed around. spent some time at the Emergency Room with some worrying symptoms, but nothing terribly wrong was found. Went I got home, Mitch (whose lj, remains empty) showed the two video games he’d acquired. I played the one he got for Laura, Fable, from 11pm til 6am. I went to sleep as the sun was rising. This made my last minute packing a little more hurried. I mailed a couple more boxes back to mpls. One heavy and clunky, the other a shoebox full of books. Must remember to tape down all edges. I scratched up my inner elbow to an annoying degree on the half mile walk to the post office. Then I caught a cab to the airport because I was tight on time.

I was still standing in line for about half an hour waiting to board the plane (southwest, so no assigned seating). In line, I met Chris. Chris is a punk, homo (he’d say “queer”, he may actually be bi, but whatever), writer (particularly of zines) from Milwaukee, freelance mac support guy, who has lived mere blocks from the places I lived in berkeley and minneapolis. He saved me a seat (middle seat, towards the back of the plane). We chatted for the first couple hours of the flight. I loaned him Bear Cub to watch. I listened to my iROK podcast, watched over his shoulder, and read a bit more of Freakonomics. Then we talked some more, and took bart, then muni from the oakland airport to the castro street station, where we parted ways to get housing from our respective friends.

I watched a little charmed with Jason, had some good ethiopian food with and (rather fewer people than expected, but oh well). joined us later, got some pizza, then we got some beer (well, cider in my case). Then Josh went home, and Aaron and I hung out at, or rather, in front of, Badlands. I was introduced to a tall, skinny, blond minnesotan, who paid a flattering amount of attention to me. I quickly repaired to Josh’s.

I just finished shaving, and am now off to talk to GAO people and the ERG at berkeley. See y’all later.