Adventures in Mediocrity

Happy Friday! and weekend open thread, evil genius edition

2012-01-27T15:05:00.000-08:00

Happy weekend everyone! This week's open thread topics are:

One MILLION dollars!

Brilliant ideas
Evil plans
Awesome shit

I have been having all kinds of GENIUS IDEAS lately, probably because of the massive quantities of cold medicine I've been consuming. I have also been thinking about Things I Like, because um well why the hell not? So here are some of my brilliant ideas/evil plans/awesome shit I've thought of this week:

Fake bachelorette party (in three easy steps)!

Step one: Put on a novelty bridal veil.
Step two: Go bar-hopping with your pals.
Step three: ACQUIRE FREE DRINKS.

Tiaras!
Turquoise hair extensions!
Fuzzy rainbow leg warmers!

So what are your evil-genius plans for the weekend? For 2012? For 'someday'? For the summer? For the good of all humanity? Discuss these and any other topics you want in the comments. Winner gets a unicorn!

And last but not least, here's some happy (hardcore) music for you to listen to while you plot:

Women! The Internet Hates You

2012-01-20T05:06:00.000-08:00

I've been felled with a terrible cold/cough/bird flu. So a couple nights ago, I found myself doped up on NyQuil and totally useless to everyone around me. Naturally, what with Reddit and Wikipedia being offline in protest of SOPA (yes, I wrote to my representatives, don’t lecture) I turned to StumbleUpon for some lowbrow entertainment to take my mind off my lung-threatening illness.

What did I find but yet another user-content driven web site capable of providing hours of entertaining fun! It’s called IdeaSwap. You're supposed to submit an idea you have but can't or won't accomplish. Like, for example, “Build a leaning tower of Portland.” Once you click submit, someone else’s idea pops up. You click that button enough times, something you DO have the resources to commit to is bound to pop up. Like, for example, “Go to sleep.”

Naturally, I typed in my brilliant idea, and what pops up but this:

It reads: "[sic]if you're a woman, get offline and go to the kitchen,
if you're a guy, tell a woman to go fetch a beer for ya :D"

Awww, thanks internet! It sure is awesome being a female on you. The internet is a glorious place where it’s nigh impossible to ignore misogyny. In real life, it's often masked and difficult to uncover. On the internet, though, people aren’t afraid to reveal the true nature of their woman-hatred, ‘cuz they get to be anonymous and add stupid little smileys after their grammatical train wreck sentences.

Being a masochist, I clicked again. What should appear but this:

It reads: "Women should not crack their backs. It's bad for their
reproductive systems."

Firstly, this is less of an idea and more of a misguided directive so five demerits there. Secondly, it's stupid. I’m no doctor. Nor do I have any chiropractic training. But a cursory Google search turns up no evidence for what this sticky note posits. Only a bit of hemming and hawing about joint-cracking in general being possibly linked to arthritis, which has no relation to reproduction whatsoever. A cursory brain search turns up … rage. As per usual, the only type of health women have worth caring about is the reproductive variety. We can certainly feel free to crack our knuckles, knees and even skulls, just so long as we can still serve as incubators for the next generation of male overlords and female incubators.

Clicking again, I got this:

It reads: "sometimes all you need to get by is a girl[sic]"

Sometimes all you need to get by is a steady paycheck and a 5th-floor walkup. Other times, a bowl of soup and a blanket. Today, though, is an object lesson in females as objects. Feeling down? Head over to your local K-Mart and pick up a late-model lady! She’ll get you beer, give you babies, and help you “get by,” apparently. It’s like a sinister version of the peppy Beatles hit:

Exasperated, I clicked again.

It reads: "Let's do a wife swap every ten years."

And that’s the topper. Not that there’s anything wrong with swinging, if that’s your bag. There ain’t. But for the luvvagod, people, check with your wives first. Nothing is less sexy than nonconsensual nonmonogamy, except maybe being traded for funsies with strangers on the internet via digital sticky note.

With that, I turned off the computer and went to bed, safe in the knowledge that I am surrounded by insane people who hate me and millions of people like me, because we have ladybits. If they're not busy hating your ladybits, they're busy hating your queeritude. If they're not busy with that, they're busy hating transpeople, or people of color, or poor people, or... all of the above. And that hatred leads to the taking-away-of-rights. And violence. And rape. And murder. And mutilation[NSFW]. I tells ya, it's enough to make a misantrhope outta me.

In any case, I'm glad that Wikipedia and Reddit are back, and that SOPA is failing miserably. Now if only we could all rally behind other causes that are just as - if not more - important. Ideas, people? Put 'em in the comments. No 'get me a sandwich' allowed. Lurkers, ummask thyselves!

And don't forget to subscribe, or join!

Pop hits of the whenever

2012-01-18T05:05:00.000-08:00

Here are some random songs with which I've been enamored at one point or another in life. Most of them started out as a sort of ironic love, and then at some point the irony left and the love remained. So if you were less awesome than I am, you'd be afraid to admit you like these:

Oh, Phil Collins. I have a factory copy of your Greatest Hits. It was actually among the first CDs I ever bought myself, along with my first real CD-playing stereo (an upgrade from the tape deck boombox and the discman from my little brother). All the boys make fun of you, Phil, but you know what? At the end of the day, you may be short, pudgy and balding, but you're still a rock star.

I came to Journey late in life. Not too late to realize the AWESOMENESS that is Journey, though. Haters gon' hate, I don't give a poopie. STREETLIGHT PEOPLE, you guys. Streetlight people. WERD.

Fleetwood Mac RULES. Everyone knows Landslide (or at least the Smashing Pumpkins cover), and Go Your Own Way, but I didn't find out about Rhiannon until Steve Jobs invented Pandora. Just kidding, Steve Jobs didn't invent Pandora. Anyway, Stevie Nicks, woooo!

EDIT to include Peter Gabriel. How could I forget the man who does duets with Kate Bush AND Paula Cole? Hot.

And that's all you get for today. What are some embarrassing songs you like? It's notable that embarrassing songs are suddenly cool when sung at karaoke night. Keep this in mind, internet people, next time you're drunkenly pawing through those giant directories of karaoke songs to sing at the local watering hole. The cheesier, the better!

The case of the disappearing couch: A Tale from 2006 (or thereabouts), Part 2

2012-01-17T15:51:00.000-08:00

(Read Part 1 here.)

So the couch. It was missing. We had nowhere to sit. Or rather, we had places to sit, but they were not cozy. They were, in fact, hard-backed wooden dining chairs, which are the same hard-backed wooden dining chairs I still have. Although they’re in rather desperate need of a refinish, especially after L and I worked so hard to refinish the dining table, now nothing matches.

In any case, we were couchless. This would make our soon-to-be-scheduled Rocky Balboa marathon viewing session rather uncomfortable. (If I haven’t espoused my love for Rocky here before, let me do so now. I loved those movies, in particular movie No. 1. “Yo Adriennneee!” What a cutie.)

So naturally being of the nonconfrontational sort, I went directly to bed, in hopes the problem would solve itself overnight. The morning revealed lovely rays of sunshine bursting through the Oregon cloud cover. The sunbeams fell, of course, on a large gaping hole in the living room where the couch belonged. (Also, the couch at the curb had disappeared, but that was less noteworthy.) So, I did what any sane postadolescent-posing-as-an-adult would do, I put on some flip-flops and stalked to each of the neighbor’s houses and asked if they’d seen anyone make off with the couch. Each neighbor shook his or her head, admitting that they’d been at work or hadn’t been paying attention, or just hadn’t noticed anyone carting a giant brown behemoth furnishing under their noses and off to Timbuktu.

By the time I got to the last house, the house directly behind ours, I let out a heavy sigh and said, “Well, I suppose I’ll just have to file a police report, then.” I mean, it was worth a pretty penny, particularly in our postcollegiate salad days. I’m sure the cops wouldn’t have rubbed two sticks together to find the missing couch but what the hey, worth a shot, right?

That’s when the tubby, prematurely balding fellow behind the Scotch-taped screen door paused. “Wait,” he said. “I … wait here.” He disappeared into the dank interior of his 1.5-bedroom shanty, which was quite likely larger and posher than our 1.5-bedroom shanty. I stood. I shifted my weight from left to right. Right to left. He reappeared, slowly emerging from black to brown to gray, smelling faintly of clove cigarettes and wet dog hair.

“Well, we have your couch,” he relunctantly admitted.

“Reaaa-he-heeeally,” I remarked.

“Well, you see,” he said.

“Yes?”

“In this neighborhood.”

“I see. Go on.”

“Well in this neighborhood, when a couch is positioned as yours was,” he continued.

“You mean, in a yard?” I asked.

“Well… yes. By the curb.”

“By the porch.”

“In this neighborhood…”

“I see. This neighborhood.”

“Well, we thought it was free.”

“I see.”
…

Much hemming and hawing later, the truth came out that they had kidnapped our couch, thinking (or at least, pretending to think) that it had been abandoned. They swapped ours for theirs, placing their 70s monstrosity by the curb, where a really real free couch ought to be positioned. Someone had pulled up with a pickup to take that one away, and naturally now they were seatless.

Nevertheless I convinced them to return our couch, explaining that it was not, indeed, free. The end result was that the burly men who lived in the house behind us were able to detach all our various doors and manhandle the couch inside. We did end up having a cozy spot to sit whilst watching Rocky’s 80s workout montages after all. Hooray!

Moral of the story? You can’t trust your neighbors. Or can you?

The case of the disappearing couch: A Tale from 2006 (or thereabouts), Part 1

2012-01-17T13:47:00.000-08:00

There we were. As if it wasn't horrible enough to be relocating to a city I hated, it wasn't even for a decent reason - my car had broken down and getting to and from work was becoming a problem. So it was within-walking-distance-to-the-office we went, and with us came our couch. Leather. Boxy. Huge. Completely un-take-apartable. Definitely not from Ikea.

A2 had decided more than a year ago to divert one of her financial aid checks to something besides tuition, instead choosing to blow that wad of government cash on something ridiculous and bulky. She'd spent three months waffling between a pool table, and this couch. The couch won, seeing as it would serve as something to sit on whereas the pool table could be sat upon, but would be the worse for wear from it.

In the early, halcyon days of our relationship, this seemed like a perfectly logical decision. Now, though, as we stood, sweaty and defeated, on opposite ends of a couch completely stuck in the too-small doorframe of our new, tiny house on the shady side of a shady town, it was revealed for the irresponsible fiscal decision it was.

"I have to be to work in an hour," I said.

"Stop dropping your end!" A2 said. "Here, try twisting it to the left. No, YOUR left." She sighed, frustrated with my incompetence.

It's a well-known fact that I am horrible at moving. Every part of it - from packing to carrying to unloading and unpacking and organizing - I despise it all. Left to my own devices it could take weeks to get fully moved, since I'd probably just tote each item to the car one by one, and stop for iced coffee breaks on the way. I am one of those people who will simply live in a jungle of boxes for six months until I am sufficiently motivated to put things in their various places.

So of course, this couch was literally and figuratively a sticking point for me. We struggled to get it in, then struggled to get it back out, since we certainly couldn't leave it hanging halfway in the living room and halfway on the porch. I was quite ready to throw up my hands. We called a friend. She came over and tried to help, to no avail. Time was ticking. I had to get to work. A2 decided to throw the couch across the yard, in order to punish it for not fitting in. Didn't think couch-throwing was a thing that could be done? Well you, of course, are wrong. It didn't go far, mind you, but the couch's feathers were certainly ruffled. We decided to leave it be until it could be properly handled. We moved it against the porch to protect it from any rain that could come along, and went our separate ways.

I went to work, and she went back to our other house to tidy up. We both figured we'd return later, with reinforcements and recovered muscles, and somehow get the couch in the house using our brains and possibly some screwdrivers. I regaled my coworkers with my sob story, hoping one or all of them would volunteer to come over and just do it for me. No such luck, of course.

Hours later, I returned from work to my house all a-shamble from unpacking. The lights were on, A2 was home, and the couch was nowhere to be seen. "Hooray!" I thought. "She's got it inside at last." Everything was as it should be - the couch inside, and me not having to do a lick of manual labor! I noticed, in the gloaming, that a hulking object was by the curb - not our couch, but someone else's. A white one, upholstered, with wood trim. Likely from the 80s. "Huh," I thought. "Someone's getting rid of a couch, how odd."

I burst into the living room, excited to flop down on the couch and revel in my newfound comfort. But alas, there was no couch to be found. Only a bewildered-looking A2 standing in a sea of half-unpacked boxes.

A bit of investigation revealed that, upon her return home, the house had been as she left it, but the couch, which if you recall had been residing peacefully in the yard when we left, had disappeared, replaced by the aforementioned curb-bound white whale of a seating arrangement. This, this did not bode well for the new 'hood. Couch thieves were afoot! Roaming hither! And thither! And more importantly, purloining our prized possessions! (And then replacing them with their inferior couches. Smooth move, robber barons. Unconventional, but smooth).

...to be continued. Cuz I got bored.

Straight men up, gay women down

2012-01-16T05:06:00.000-08:00

Since the banks are closed to celebrate our mostly-imaginary progress toward a more equal society, let's take a moment to reflect upon some recent news stories calling attention to inequalities we all knew were there, but most of us were ignoring:

As per usual, gay people get the shaft, and female gay people, being both female and gay, get the shaftiest of the shafts:

"Lesbian couples tend to have much higher poverty rates than either heterosexual or male couples," according to [a recent report from the Half in Ten program, a campaign by the Center for American Progress and others that aims to reduce poverty by half in 10 years], titled "Restoring Shared Prosperity: Strategies to Cut Poverty and Expand Economic Growth." "[Older] lesbian couples...are twice as likely as straight married couples to live in poverty." [via The Advocate]

Sinister forces are at work here, one of which is the fact that women, even today, are paid pennies on the dollar when compared with men with the same backgrounds doing the same jobs. And it's not that women don't ask for raises with the same frequency and fervor as men - they do. They're just not rewarded equally. It follows that a couple made up of two women would have a lower household income than a couple made up of one higher-earning man and one higher-earning woman, or two higher-earning men. From the Washington Post:

"Our recent Catalyst report, The Myth of the Ideal Worker, reveals that women do ask for raises and promotions. They just don’t get as much in return.

The research focused on career paths of high-potential men and women, drawing on thousands of MBA graduates from top schools around the world. Catalyst found that, among those who had moved on from their first post-MBA job, there was no significant difference in the proportion of women and men who asked for increased compensation or a higher position.

Yet the rewards were different.

Women who initiated such conversations and changed jobs post MBA experienced slower compensation growth than the women who stayed put. For men, on the other hand, it paid off to change jobs and negotiate for higher salaries—they earned more than men who stayed did. And we saw that as both men’s and women’s careers progress, the gender gap in level and pay gets even wider."

The Advocate ran the first story under the header of "shocking inequality," but is it really? Anyone with half an eye open already knew we were getting shafted. What's truly shocking is that until now I'd never seen any research on the subject at all.

Happy Monday: Lesbians on film!

2012-01-09T15:07:00.000-08:00

I'm not much one for public proposals, but I am a big fan of all the warm and fuzzies coming out of the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell (Warning: Contains CHEESE. Lots of it. The meltable variety):

And just in case you live under a rock, here's that famous kiss picture from last month:

Everyone needs a bit of warm and fuzzy on coooold January Mondays, wouldn't you agree? One can only get so far with a cup of tea and a snuggie.

What do you do to cheer yourself in the long, dark winter? Other than watch cheeseball YouTube videos and read internet feminist blogs, of course...

Retox Detox: New Year's Drunkolutions

2012-01-02T11:09:00.000-08:00

If you're like me, you know that recovering from a bender takes more than a day. Whether you're recovering from a once-a-year binge on Saturday night, or yet another week-long bender from which you're just emerging (broke, naked, and possibly sticky), here's how to get your body back to peak performance:

Day One:

3 a.m. Wake up. Try to figure out where you are.
4 a.m. Roll over. Find something warm next to you. Try to figure out what it is.
5 a.m. Go back to sleep.
7 a.m. Wake up again. Find a half-empty cup of water on a nightstand. Chug it like there's no tomorrow.
7:01 a.m. Discover that the water you drank was actually vodka. Sputter and curse. Loudly.
7:02 a.m. Warm object next to you grunts at you to shut up. Go back to sleep.
11 a.m. Wake up again. Look around you and wonder why everything is blurry.
12 p.m. Remember that you wear glasses. Go hunting for them.
1 p.m. Find and put on glasses. Learn that the lump next to you is your significant other. Breathe raspy sigh of relief. Remember that you're thirsty.
1:05 p.m. Spend several minutes drinking from the spigot in the bathroom because you can't find a cup.
1:30 p.m. By now, you have located and managed to put on most of your clothes. It was not fun, but it was necessary if you are going to fry that bacon.
2:00 p.m. Burn bacon. Start over.
2:39 p.m. Settle down in front of the tube for a Buffy marathon and burnt-bacon extravaganza. Yeah, you burnt the bacon a second time, but it's too delicious to waste.
3 p.m. - 10 p.m. Do not move from couch, except to pee, pay the pizza delivery guy, and change Buffy DVDs.
10 p.m. Consider showering. Go to bed instead.

Day Two:

12 p.m. Wake up from 14 hours of sleep still groggy. Wish your cat would bring you coffee.
2 p.m. Get out of bed.
2:30 p.m. Locate pants.
3 p.m. Cast aspersions upon said pants.
4 p.m. Climb onto couch.
5 p.m. Repeat yesterday's 3 p.m. schedule.

Day Three:

5 a.m.: Sit bolt upright in bed, alert and cheerful.
6 a.m.: While showering, notice your brand-new six-pack abs.
7 a.m.: While brushing teeth, notice your face has gotten 35% more attractive overnight.
9 a.m.: Marvel at your ability to run all the way to work without breaking a sweat, despite your 15-mile commute.
10 a.m.: Someone has brought a free box of cupcakes to your desk.
2 p.m.: Your boss inexplicably gives you a raise, while simultaneously decreasing your responsibility.
5 p.m.: Fly home on your newly-discovered retractable wings.
7 p.m. Buy a winning lottery ticket. Upon discovering you've won, hoist your significant other into the air with your newly-rippling arm muscles in celebratory jubilation.

Honestly, though, I hope you all had fun, safe New Year's extravaganzas. New Year's isn't my favorite holiday, as it always seems like a lot of hype for not a lot of payoff, but anything for a theme party, I say. I've never had any particularly memorable resolutions, other than this one. This year, as I so loudly told my roommate, I plan to gain ten pounds and start smoking. JUST KIDDING! It would be nice to tick off some of the items from my List of Doom, but I'll settle for the six-pack. AHEM.

What did you guys do for New Year's? Y'all have any resolutions?

Merry (heteronormative consumerist misogynist) Christmas!

2011-12-24T04:47:00.000-08:00

Artist's interpretation of my gayyyy
Christmas tree to go with my gayyyy scarf.

Hey! Today is Christmas Eve! That means it's time to celebrate queery feministy socialisty things, right? No? It's time to sit around and celebrate buying stuff and eating animal products, you say? Bah. My version of Christmas is awesomer than that, cuz it has rainbows.

Seriously, though, we actually do have a Christmas tree this year, and it has a faaaaabulous rainbow tinsel garland. But you'd never know that Christmas is an equal-opportunity holiday. Why? Because it ain't. That's right, kids, Christmas isn't for everyone. And it excludes lots more people than just non-Christians.

For starters, Santa gives more presents to rich kids than poor ones. Santa's kind of a dick that way. Illustrative anecdote:

In the third grade, Cole Slater, sporting his flat-top haircut, came up to me on the playground and asked, “What’d you get for Christmas?” I knew it was a trick, so I tried to avoid answering. “A few things,” I said (reality: A heap of stuff – probably a dollhouse, some footie PJs, more candy than a full-grown adult, let alone a 7-year-old, could ever possibly eat, an assortment of various other trinkets). “Why, what’d you get?”

“DIDDLY SQUAT!” he screamed so vehemently that his face turned red and blotchy.

Then he ran off to retrieve a basketball so he could spend the rest of recess hurling it at my head. Man that kid was pissed. Although in his case, he didn’t get any Christmas presents because he was a gen-u-wine jerkalope, there are plenty of angelic little sh*ts out there that do, indeed, get diddly squat for no other reason than Santa is not a fan of the Great Unwasheds. Christmas is for the rich.

Christmas is also for the straights. Specifically, straights with kids. And in particular the holiday is FOR children, not adults. Woe be to ye who is:

a)    Queer
b)    Childless
c)    An adult
d)    All three

Don’t believe me? Turn on your TV. Watch the onslaught of happy (white upper-middle-class headed by heterosexual couples with two point five tow-headed children and one golden Labrador) families (read: children, because everyone knows a family ain’t a family without kids) tearing into boxes stuffed with goodies from your favorite Holiday Retailers.

Even non-humanoid
illustrations are heteronormative.

Try finding an illustrated Christmas card that has humanoid figures on it that are not either of children (children ice skating! children looking hapless! children raptly gazing into Santa’s pedo eyes!) or families with children (the classic nuclear family portrait with surrounding sun-ray beams and matching outfits) headed by, you guessed it, one man and one woman. Man is center-frame, with his incubator wife and minion children around him.

What if you’re the adult female part of that hetero-happyland? Well then lucky you! You get to do all the work:

It’s the lady of the house’s job to make her kids happy – nay, enchanted – on Christmas, because kids that aren’t absolutely over the moon on Christmas get taken away by child protective services here in Amerikuh. Also she’s in charge of mailing all the cards to her family AND her husband’s family, as he certainly can’t be bothered with such niceties, as well as cooking, cleaning, and arranging the familial obligations and travel plans. He will carry the tree in, though. What a mensch!

All that being said, I do enjoy Christmas (particularly the excuse to mail stacks of cards to folks). It's not my favorite (that's my birthday, naturally, followed by Halloween), but any reason to gather with the three Fs (friends, family, food) is OK in my book. Passover, Christmas, Tuesday night potluck, pub crawl debauch, whatever, I dig it. What are your favorite holidays/holiday traditions? Do you notice the homogenous target demographic of "The Holidays," and how does it make you feel? And what are you doing today, tomorrow, and the day after?

Solstice: Dies Natalis Invicti Solis

2011-12-22T04:44:00.000-08:00

It's winter solstice today here in the Northern hemisphere (or, if you're an ancient Roman, the birthday of the unconquered sun!). It's the time of year to spend many hours inside, doing home-y things. Like baking cookies to mail to your friends and give to your neighbors and then eating them all instead. And reading Adrienne Rich poems about winter:

Homage to Winter
by Adrienne Rich

You: a woman too old
for passive contemplation
caught staring out a window
at bird-of-paradise spikes
jewelled with rain, across an alley
It's winter in this land
of roses, roses sometimes
the fog lies thicker around you than your past
sometimes the Pacific radiance
scours the air to lapis
In this new world you feel
backward along the hem of your whole life
questioning every breadth
Nights you can watch the moon shed skin after skin
over and over, alway a shape
of imbalance except
at birth and in the full
You, still trying to learn
how to live, what must be done
thought in death you will be complete
whatever you do
But death is not the answer.

On these flat green leaves
light skates like a golden blade
high in the dull-green pine
sit two mushroom-colored doves
afterglow overflows
across the bungalow roof
between the signs for the three-way stop
over everything that is:
the cotton pants stirring on the line, the
empty Coke can by the fence
onto the still unflowering
mysterious acacia
and a sudden chill takes the air

Backward you dream to a porch
you stood on a year ago
snow flying quick as thought
sticking to your shoulder gone
Blue shadows, ridged and fading
on a snow-swept road
the shortest day of the year
Backward you dream to glare ice
and ice-wet pussywillows
to Riverside Drive, the wind
cut loose from Hudson's Bay
driving tatters into your face
And back you come at last to that room
without a view, where webs of frost
blinded the panes at noon
where already you had begun
to make the visible world your conscience
asking things: What can you tell me?
what am I doing? what must I do?

May your days continue to lengthen, dear readers. And have a good solstice - those cookies are in the mail, I promise. *covers mouth*

101: Progress report

2011-12-19T05:02:00.000-08:00

We interrupt your regularly-scheduled sarcasm to bring you a progress report on my list of doom! Here are some things I have accomplished so far:

38. Organize one meetup per month

On Saturday I organized not one but TWO meetups. Quite the action-packed day for a misanthropic hermit such as myself. Meetup No. 1 involved me running into an old friend (this always seems to happen at meetups, who knew?) and meetup No. 2 involved regimented jello shots, rad chicks from the internet and Portland's favorite pastime. So. Much. Fun.

80. Visit some of my blog readers in person

I met Ms. Writersays in NY last time I was there (we went to disco improv! she kept me from getting run over! a lot!) and I met a couple of cool blogular ladies at aforementioned meetup Saturday. YAY!

39. Learn to do proper makeup

Thanks to the power of YouTube, I'm fairly solid on this now, so long as I continue to have internet access. Apparently having appropriate brushes with which to apply makeup is key. I achieved a most excellent "smokey golden-y sparkly eyeball look" over the weekend of which I was most proud. However, today the eyeliner has still not worn off completely (despite a lot of remover and face wash) and I am significantly less enchanted with my newfound girly powers.

Works in progress:

92. Stay up all night, then watch the sunrise

I am less enthusiastic about sleep debt than I once was, and I keep psychotically early hours, so this one's a challenge even when there's a good reason to stay up all night. Further research pending. Disco naps may be involved.

37. Yarn bomb something

Here's a picture of my first yarn-bombing knitting project (it may look like a scarf, but don't let it fool you - it's actually a stop-sign-pole cozy):

What happens to the rainbow stop-sign-pole cozy: Does it meet its destiny, or will it spend its days on a neck, forever ruing its cosmic missed connection? Tune in next time to find out!

I now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

Soundtrack for junior high

2011-12-14T05:21:00.000-08:00

There comes a time in everyone's lives where we have to stop listening to Dad's record player and Mom's piano and develop our Very Own Taste in Modern Music. For me, this happened in middle school. Sure, I also worked on maintaining my love of post-1965 Beatles and early 19th-century Beethoven, but around about the 7th grade, I began receiving music from outside sources - friends, boys and other bad influences.

Here's some stuff I started listening to then:

I first learned of Tom Petty via a mixtape. Then, a boy gave me "Wildflowers" on cassette. It's hard to choose a favorite from that album, especially with so much creepy fodder like "Cabin Down Below," "Honey Bee" and "House in the Woods," but here's one (of the many) I dug:

Much later, I would make a foray to a faraway city to see Tom Petty live with a selection of friends given to shenanigans. Naturally, shenanigans ensued.

My nascent love of Tori also began in middle school with a mixtape with two Tori songs on it. First, "Mr. Zebra" which is quirky and therefore suited my pubescent misfit image well:

And second, Caught a Light Sneeze, which is just awesome. I can't find a video or audio clip of the studio version, so you'll just have to imagine it. Tori would also be my first concert, which I went to with my dad, as I was too young to drive, or even have friends who could drive.

What middle school girl's music list would be complete without some Cranberries, huh? I purchased not one but TWO Cranberries tapes with my allowance money at the local emporium after listening to some on, you guessed it, a mixtape. Here's one from "No Need to Argue" (no, it's not "Zombie." Why is that the only song anyone remembers from the Cranberries?):

The Cure's Lovesong, which I also bought on casette:

Much later I discovered Tori's cover of Lovesong and almost died of awesomeness.

Bonus track: My favorite Beethoven song (cliche, sure, but it's popular for a reason):

There was a lot of other really horrible stuff I listened to, but this is the stuff that stuck in my mind, and wasn't too humiliating to post on the internet. What did you listen to when you were a youngin?

Portland: Not as shitty as TV would have you believe*

2011-12-13T05:00:00.000-08:00

I spend a lot of time hating on Portland, and for good reason. There are several forms of distasteful and pervasive elitism here, including but not limited to geographic elitism (more than half the city is subject to public services discrimination), nerdly elitism, and general vehicular asshattery. Also, it's cloudy all the time, public transit sucks, and we have three times as many miles of unpaved road than Nashville, Boise, Seattle, Sacramento, Las Vegas, Atlanta, Denver, Minneapolis, Boston, Austin and San Francisco—combined. Also?
In the city with the reputation for having the largest concentration of lesbians on the West Coast, they closed the only lesbian bar.

However, in the spirit of fairness to this not-so-fair city, there's a lot of cool stuff here, too. For example:

Awesome radio! I love good radio. Even radio static. Especially I am a fan of when two or more stations get mixed up so music and talking and static fade in and out, creating a creepy and old-timey and oddly comforting cacophony that would do well at the beginning or end of a certain genre of techno song. Anyway, Portland has some great radio stations:

A new one I discovered recently is KZME, found at 107.1 on your Portland FM dial. So far it is tons of really amazingly good (and local!) music.
Good ol' classic, KBOO. They have a feminist talk show! And a queer one! And a show called "Fight the Empire"! And super-early morning mellow commuter tunes!

Unexpected Art:

Someone hung a disposable camera from a bridge with a note that said "Take one picture." The results.
Vegan graffiti is a thing, apparently.
Free appliances as found art.

Community-y things:

Multnomah County Libraries: Second only to New York City in the volume of rad books and what-have-yous that are checked out. Pretty significant when you consider that it's No. 29 in population, but No. 2 in readers. Yay books!
City Repair Project is here.Their whole mission is pretty much all about painting trippy stuff on the streets, hippie-style. I have every intention to avail myself of their services come paintin' weather. Which is approximately one week a year, in mid-August.
Friends of Trees: These people will come to your house and plant trees for you. We got two trees last spring. I like to water them, because I like trees.

Event-y things:

Science Pub! My roomie told me about this thing where scientists talk about cool science-y things while audience members enjoy pub grub and boozey things. Yay science! Yay cocktails!
Arts for All! Even po' folks here are allowed to watch cool dance-y things and play-y things and music-y things. Imagine that.
Music for All! See above.
The meetup groups here are not sketchy like they are in other cities that shall not be named.

Snobbery I agree with: I am not the only person who lives here that hates:

Starbucks
Shopping malls
Wal-Mart (even though sometimes they dohavegreatdealsonstuffsoIgothereanywaydon'tjudgemeyoubigjerkyhipsterpersonnoteveryonecanaffordNewSeasonssofuckoffok?)
Fancy cars
Dressing appropriately for cold weather

And, last but not least: Our neighbors bring us cookies! Then we keep their plate for way too long, because we are all too antisocial to go over and bring it back to them. We suck.

If you live here: What do you love/hate about Peeland? What did you think of it before you moved here? After? If you don't live here: What do you love/hate about your hometown/the town where you currently reside? And what is your perception of Portland from lands afar (I know at least one of you thought it was near Chicago...).

*Or rather, shitty in entirely different ways than TV would have you believe.

Things You Find in Unexpected Places

2011-12-10T12:33:00.000-08:00

Here is a lonely shoe I found while walking from the gym to my friend's apartment, complete with creepy filter:

Where is the other shoe? How did foot and shoe become separated? Perhaps we'll never know. (Although I have a strong suspicion alcohol and foot pain were involved - those heels look pretty teetery.)

Here's a Mystery Berry:

It's so spiky! It looks nefarious and irresistible. Naturally, I brought it home so that while I slept, it could disperse its evil spores and hatch little berrylings as part of its plan for galactic domination.

Here we have a fine Bathroom Graffiti Specimen:

It reads: "Ladies, you made me feel more like a lady tonight than I've felt for soo long. You are beautiful, I am too and love yourself, try to forget insecurities and mistakes! Love, Elaine 06/21/10"

Elaine's self-esteem pep talk was, of course, located in the ladies' room at a vegan strip club. Portland is rife with them. Anyway, I suspect the men's room graffiti leaned more toward the Sharpie-penis genre of wall art, but again, we'll never know.

Found anything interesting lately?

Explaining the Patriarchy

2011-11-30T05:02:00.000-08:00

In the constellation of things that are hard to explain, patriarchy falls somewhere in between “quantum mechanics” and “proper semicolon use." Although I haven’t found a magic patriarchy-explaining bullet just yet, I have found a magic bullet explaining the experience of “waking up” to it in the form of one of my Very Favorite Comics, Sinfest:

Click here to see it all embiggened and in its natural habitat.

If you saw the move “The Matrix” when you were young and impressionable, like I did, and you’re also one of the “lucky” people who’s been awakened to the wonderful world of profound injustice in one way or another, this comic probably resonates with you.

The plain definition of patriarchy is a system run by and for men, but in practice it’s so much more than that – it encompasses sexism, racism, ableism, and too many other -isms to count. There are Feminism 101 blogs that do an adequate job of explaining some of the basics, but if you really want to jump in feet first you should probably go check out I Blame the Patriarchy.

If you want a well-organized and pocket-sized approach to learning about patriarchy, you should probably read “The Dialectic of Sex” by Shulamith Firestone. This book pretty much changed my life.

If you have found a good way to explain patriarchy to the Uninitiated, please do let me know in the comments.

On Winning: Magazine Quizzes, Self-Knowledge and Being Bossy

2011-11-29T05:05:00.000-08:00

While I was holed up over the Thanksgiving holiday (it is a family tradition to barricade ourselves in a tastefully decorated bunker designed to withstand 9 out of 10 potential apocalypse scenarios for several days while testing the limits of our sanity), I flipped through pages and pages of O, the Oprah Magazine. My mom stashed them under the guest bed so that I’d have some light reading to pass the time after my daily gavage.

Me, on a good day.

In one of the O’s, I found a little magazine quizzie. Amazingly, it was not designed to help you determine your flirting style, or choose which thigh is the fattest. It was supposed to tell you what your passion is, or your life’s purpose, or some such equally ridiculous thing. It starts off innocuously enough, asking you what you wanted to be when you grew up, and then requires you to recruit a friend to figure out your strengths, etc. Naturally, as I was alone in the dark in a room, I skipped all that and went straight to the “what motivates you?” part, where it became immediately apparent that I am insanely competitive.*

Now, this may surprise you, gentle readers, as I seem pretty laid-back, right?** I despise team sports, which are normally a refuge and an outlet for the hypercompetitive. I don’t work on Wall Street or in sales, but nevertheless, my motivate-y quiz’s results don’t lie: my main motivator is not, as previously suspected, forging deep friendships or amassing huge quantities of money, it is Accomplishing Impressive Things and Kicking the Asses of Others. Perhaps it’s tied to my misanthropy. Who knows. I do suspect there is a grain of truth in there, though I am a titch disappointed my results didn’t show that my main motivator is a quest for Truth with a capital T.

In any case, since I’ve been thinking about my List of Doom and motivation in general, I’m now stuck with the task of finding worthy competitive opponents for My Life. Thing is, I can’t compete with just anyone. There needs to be moderate enmity. It’s most effective when tucked behind a façade of friendship. In short, my relationship with my Competitrix needs to be a little… twisted.

Little-known fact: I am obsessed with LiLo.

Example: Back in school, one of my friends and I had a falling out. Before we patched things up, we were in a math class together. I aced the class, in large part due to the fact that I didn’t want to give her the satisfaction of seeing me fall behind. Twisted, right? Whatever. This is the internet. Judge if you want, but you’re the one sitting alone in a dark room reading this.

Anyway. I don’t have fights of that caliber with a lot of people – and therefore suffer a dearth of worthy foes. This is probably a good thing, but barring participation in the classic competitive arenas of team sports, sales, high school or foot races, I really have no idea how to compete. There is always the whole “competing with yourself” idea, which seems to have worked out well enough for my burgeoning running habit, but it so far has failed to deliver any brag-worthy achievements – no marathons, no relay races, no real visible notches other than a pretty damn efficient cardiovascular system.

Barring claws-concealed competition with frenemies, one motivator I’ve found no shortage of over the years is The Naysayer: people telling me I can’t or shouldn’t do something. Nothing like proving an a**hole wrong to make you feel alive, am I right? Examples and their results:

     Challenge: “You can’t be a vegetarian in Southern Oregon.”
     Results: Was veg for 10+ years.

     Challenge: “You’re a girl. You can’t run alone on the streets. Especially not when it’s dark out. You will definitely be raped and killed.”
     Results: Ran 8 miles a day at O’Dark-Thirty with no incident for years. Then got a gym membership to continue doing same, but near a heater.

     Challenge: “You can’t get into an Ivy League school.”
     Results: Done.

Some recent/pending challenges:

"You’re not built for upper-body strength, and will never do a pull-up."
"Ballet is an impractical skill." "You’ll never catch up to people who took lessons in childhood."
"Your meetup groups are stupid and laughable."
"You can’t take an aerial class because of your back injury."

What kinds of things have people told you you couldn't do over the years? Did it motivate you to do them anyway? Who do you compete against or with?

*Actually, the results were “you are highly motivated by Influence and Accomplishment.” Translation: I’m bossy and I like to win. Duh.
**More likely: I like to think I'm laid back, but in actuality am not laid back at all. Case in point: I once had some roommates that redecorated the living room without consulting me first. I had to be carefully talked down from throttling them with the full force of my lack of upper-body strength.

Day Seven: Gold star for me!

2011-11-21T05:20:00.000-08:00

Starting with Friday, I spent the weekend doing Scary and Challenging Things, some of which were on my List of Doom:

No. 56: Take a hip-hop dance class:

After my epic failures at taking dance classes in the past few weeks, it's understandable that I almost didn't go to this class on Friday. I had to drag my mopey self out of my safe, safe bed to go out. I posted several apocalyptic tweets about how 100 percent sure I was that it would be a horrifying, humiliating experience. Not so! Teacher lady was super-awesome and friendly and so were the other students. We danced to Michael Jackson. Or rather, they danced, I stumbled around and, miraculously, was mostly able to keep up.

Also: Forcing internet strangers to sign up for stuff with me is, as it turns out, an excellent way to trick myself into doing things that are terrifying. Also it helps with goal No. 38 (below). Although technically I suppose I could cross this goal off my list now, I think instead I will modify it to "go to hip hop class every week until I can dance like a crazy mad dance fiend."

No. 38: Organize one meetup per month

Above dance class was attended by two shiny new members of my dance meetup group. Yay! One of the people I've known for years, the other was a brand-new to Portland beginning dance enthusiast. WOOT! The internet truly is a grand place. Afterward we went to Produce Row and had fancy drinks. Fancy!

No. 72: Go to Barre Method class

On Saturday I got up relatively early and went to a Bar(re?) Method class. It was absolutely divine. Usually I hate the Pearl, but apparently yuppie jerkalopes sleep til noon on Saturdays so I managed to find a parking space easily, and only got hassled by one middle-aged botox victim in a North Face technical jacket with a tiny dog on a leash.

The bar studio was amazing. The people at the front desk were actually friendly and gave me a tour instead of looking at me like I was an alien (which sometimes happens when you are a new person at a fitness or dance studio - go figure). Then I got into the classroom: Plush carpets! Clean mirrors! Personal attention! Very few other people! Amazing workout! Still sore! Going again Tuesday! Seriously you guys - the teacher remembered my name AND that I have a back injury AND remembered to tell me about modifications for stuff that hurt. YAY!

No. 43: Go on 52 hikes

Sunday: I rounded up the Special Ladyfriend and the Roommate and we went trek-trek-trekking. I had to wear three pairs of pants to stay warm and I almost popped my leg fully out of its hip socket, but we made it a full 4/5ish miles through the woods, merrily kicked our way through giant piles of leaves, and only saw three or four other people, all smiling, mostly with adorable dogs. Dogs! Yay! This means I have only 51 more hikes to go...

In conclusion: Go me! Also: Please say nice things in the comments! It will keep me motivated to do other things from The List of Doom. Like visit y'all. And send y'all postcards.

20 ways in which I am not an adult

2011-11-18T05:25:00.001-08:00

It was too hard to find a picture
of a girl child in a business suit.
This saddens me.

I sometimes replace an entire day of meals with cookies.
Right before I bought my car, I wandered around the house, cash in hand, yelling “Who wants to dance for me?! I want to make it rain! Dance for me, minions! DANCE!”*
I wear contacts, but don’t carry solution with me. The space in my purse that could have solution in it instead has leftover gum wrappers, three pairs of defunct iPhone headphones, an empty prescription bottle, and various types of identification the government recommends you don’t carry with you.
I have a mobile mini-bar. (It could be argued that this belongs on The Ways in which I am an Adult list.)
I still think getting 6 or fewer hours of sleep per night is a perfectly acceptable way to Get More Done.
I think diet rock star is delicious. This is probably related to No. 5.
Novelty candy-infused alcohol amuses me.
I force people to make a big deal out of my birthday.
I once replaced dinner with four martinis. OK, more than once.
I own several pairs of impractical shoes.
I refuse to purchase one of those douchebaggy bluetooth things, even though the headphone bit that comes with my phone keeps breaking, and my favorite time to talk on the phone is while driving.
I forget about produce I have in the fridge, until it spoils.
It takes me an inordinate amount of time to get around to making doctor's appointments.
I think a trip on a Green Tortoise bus would be deeply entertaining.
I play sophomoric party games.
I cannot perform amortization calculations accurately, even when presented with a handy chart.
I am a terrible single-tasker.
I feel it is entirely reasonable to blow huge wads of cash on theme parties.
I think dead baby jokes are funny. I know they're not, but they totally are.
My filing cabinet is very disorganized. And contains craft supplies.

In what ways are you still a kid/teenager/generally irresponsible?

* No takers, sadly.

20 ways in which I am an adult

2011-11-16T05:16:00.000-08:00

Why? Why not, is more like it:

I have a mortgage and a lawnmower.
I have a cat whose vet bills I pay all by myself.
I have a car in working condition, that I bought myself, with cash.

Grown-up disguise!

I have a full-time job with benefits.
I plan my meals a full week in advance.
I have automatic debits from checking to savings.
I have automatic debits from paycheck to 401k.
I got into graduate school all by myself, and will pay for it all by myself.
I have a mobile mini-bar. (It could be argued that this belongs on The Ways in Which I am Not an Adult list.)
I throw parties where, sometimes, I don't even drink.
I host potlucks.
I occasionally play matchmaker.
I make small talk about home improvement projects.
I have not occupied anything in the past six months.
My socks always match.
I carry an umbrella in my purse.
I own several pairs of practical shoes.
I can detect very small percentages of cashmere and silk in clothing by feel alone.
I have matching furniture.
I have matching curtains, and a bedskirt.

What makes you feel all grown-up?

PS - My friend D is going to write a handbook on how to be an adult. She is the best person for the job, because 1) she has more than one mortgage, 2) she has an MBA and 3) she is awesome.

101 Things in 1001 Days: Day Zero

2011-11-14T05:01:00.000-08:00

As promised, I made a list of 101 things I want to do in the next 1001 days. You can examine it thoroughly here. Also it now has a permanent home up in the top nav bar on this site, (where the "About" page is). Some of the stuff is super-easy, like:

     No. 88: Go to the beach

...but some of it is super-hard, like:

     No. 93: Do 100 push-ups

Most of it, though, is just middle-of-the-road, been-meaning-to-do-forever, but just-haven't-gotten-around-to-it type stuff, like

     No. 61: Find the perfect black shift dress
     No. 30: Be vegan for one week
   No. 28: Visit family and friends in the Bay Area
     No. 1: Take a ballet workshop in January

I will be updating y'all on my progress on The List, more for my benefit, but if you don't hear an update in a while feel free to chastise me. Motivation is key, eh? Otherwise I'll just have to bribe myself. So hop to it!

Weekend Open Thread: 101 Things in 1001 Days (11/11/11 edition)

2011-11-11T05:06:00.000-08:00

There's this thing I've been meaning to do. It's called 101 Things in 1001 Days. Basically, you make a list of 101 things you want to do in the next 1001 days (nearly three years), and then you, you know, DO THEM. I started working on a list way back when guest blogger Mel began hers, and then I got distracted.

So in an attempt to get back on the Getting Things Done train, and to celebrate today's date of 11-11-11 (numerical alliteration, whee!) this weekend's open thread theme is Things You Want To Do! Here's how it works: You post the Many Awesome Things you want to do in the comments section, and then I promise to post my list on Monday. Deal? Deal!

Some various questions to get you started/inspired:

What do you want to do with Your Life? (easy questions first! yuk yuk)
The next five years? Fifteen?
The next 15 minutes?
Where do you want to be ten years from now?
What do you want to do this weekend?
What do you want to do before you die*?
What is your biggest, baddest most secretest talent you wish you had but don't?

Happy 11/11/11 everyone, have a wonderful weekend!

*Oh my my, how things have changed since 2006.

Not funny, Facebook: Sexism and homophobia from your friends and family

2011-11-07T05:28:00.000-08:00

What would we do without Facebook? Well, for one, we might never find out which of our "friends" are complete and utter poopheads. And for that, Facebook, I thank you. My news feed has, oddly, found itself somewhat fuller-than-usual with illogical anti-gay or sexist rants of late - go figure. A sampling, presented for your derision:

The above is one of those "link-sharing plus commentary" posts. It points to the heartwarming story of a lesbian couple being named as reigning monarchs of the homecoming court.

Here is the text from the offending (white, male, cisgendered heterosexual) Facebooker:

"If this trend continues society will be the biggest loser and women will be the second. If gender does not matter why stop here how about making the Olympics only the best in each event regardless of gender. Honoring the difference between men an (sic) women make (sic) women safer expressing femininity men better men by honoring those differences."

Like most hate speech, the rant makes little to no sense. "[gender roles] make women safer"? Last I checked it was way harder for women to run away from would-be muggers/rapists while wearing heels. Just saying! Additionally, I wonder if the OP noticed that both women in the photo are wearing dresses and full makeup? Looks like some pretty damn well-performed femininity to me. Maybe he's wearing asshole goggles.

And how about the second part of that "sentence": "expressing femininity men better men by honoring those differences"? Wait, what? Maybe if I took whatever hallucinogen this dude was on when he typed that and forgot everything I learned in grammar school, that sentence would make sense.

The best response I've heard so far is from Rebeca Arellano, the whip-smart teenager crowned Homecoming King at the high school in the news story:

"For all the girls who think tradition should be continued: go back to the kitchen, stop having sex before you're married, get out of school and job system, don't have an opinion, don't own any property, give up the right to marry who you love, don't vote, and allow your husband to do whatever he pleases to you. Think about the meaning of tradition when you use it in your argument against us."

Today's runner-up post is brought to you by the "girl-on-girl violence" club:

Transcript:

"Yes, I'm a woman. I push doors that clearly say PULL. I laugh harder when I try to explain why I'm laughing. I walk into a room and forget why I was there. I count on my fingers in math. I hide the pain from my loved ones. I say it is a long story when it is really not. I cry a lot more than you think I do. I care about people who don't care about me. I try to do things before the microwave beeps. I listen to you even when you don't listen to me. And a hug will always help. Yes, I'm a woman! Re-post if you're proud to be one, come on ladies..(heart emoticon)"

I can't decide which is my favorite kooky stereotype. Is it the finger-in-mouth, head tilted "I count on my fingers in math" statement? Because oh ho ho, that is one helluva knee-slapper! I mean, MATH IS HARD, AMIRITE ladies!? Re-post if you're proud of your inability to count past ten!!

Or is it the nonsensical "I try to do things before the microwave beeps"? Like, what kind of things? Do you set the microwave to five minutes, and then try to run a mile? Or is it something more sinister - an entire life, perhaps, dictated by an evil beeping kitchen appliance - you get up in the morning, and try to put your pants on before your microwave announces "Beep. TOO SLOW, slowpoke. Now suffer the wrath of the EVER-EXPANDING MARSHMALLOW PEEP! Muah ha ha ha!!!"

Got your own jerk Facebook
posts? Email them to me
and I'll probably post them:
adventuresinmediocrity@gmail.com

Most of them just sound like slightly amusing, somewhat sad things that happen to everyone now and again - who hasn't pulled or pushed a door the wrong way? What the hell does laughing when trying to explain something funny have to do with your genitals or gender performance? And what the hell is WRONG with these Facebook people?

What's the worst post you've ever seen on The Facebook (or any other social network, for that matter)? I'm sure these two are tame by comparison. Oh and - if you're into screencapping, take some screenshots and email 'em to me at adventuresinmediocrity@gmail.com (adventuresinmediocrity (at) gmail (dot) com), or tweet 'em at me @mediocreventure. Be sure to include how you'd like to be attributed, if at all.

Weekend Open Thread: Street Harassment Edition

2011-11-04T05:34:00.000-07:00

It's Friday, so it's Weekend Open Thread time! Talk amongst yourselves about whatever you please in the comments. I'll give you a topic: Street harassment! Yayyyy! Some questions to get you started:

What is the worst thing someone has ever said/done to you on the street/in public?
What's the funniest?
Is there any kind of street harassment that's OK or tolerable?
Have you ever fought/talked/holla'd back to a street harasser? What happened next?

Feel free to talk about whatever you want, save doing violence to other commenters, or me, or cute widdle puppies like this one:

Amusing lesboslang

2011-11-03T05:04:00.000-07:00

Cruising around the internet, one encounters quite a bit of entertaining slang. Some of it is geared toward the gay, lesbian and otherwise queerly-inclined folks. A selection, presented for your amusement:

Hasbian: One who used to be a lesbian. Often can be counted among the Five Allies in Queerland.

Lesbient: A stoner lesbian. "Ent" comes from the tree people from J.R.R. Tolkien's famed Trilogy of the Rings, in case you didn’t know.

Lesberina: This is pretty much what I wanted to be when I grew up when I was a kiddo. Just guess the definition.

Lesberjack: Urban Dictionary defines this as “a woman who wears plaid to clearly identify herself as a lesbian.” Clearly, though, nowadays, if one isn’t careful with accessorizing, one could be mistaken for a Mere Hipster.

Lesbaru: A Subaru, driven by a lesbian. Urban Dictionary says this has to be a late-model Subaru, but can be driven by any woman. I disagree, Urban Dictionary, particularly since Subarus in the Pacific Northwest are driven by pretty much everyone. Related: We also need a word for Lesbian Pickup Trucks. Ten points to the first person to come up with a clever moniker for that.

Lesbionic: Again, I disagree with Urban Dictionary here. They define it as “something pertaining to two female robots or cyborgs who are emotionally and sexually attracted to each other.” Since there’s no such thing as robots, clearly what they meant to say was a lesbian with bionic superpowers. Duh.

What internet slang did I miss (no offensive stuff, please)? What slang do you use in your own social group that the internet doesn't know about yet? Tell me in the comments.

The Five Allies You Meet in Queerland

2011-11-02T05:37:00.000-07:00

After yesterday’s post lambasting the five folks you’d rather not run into as a queer person, why not take commenter Tom’s suggestion and categorize the five kinds of people we don't mind running into? Well OK then – without further ado, here are the five allies you meet in Queerland:

1. The Liberal/Activist

Yes, we already talked about The Liberal yesterday. But I’m talking about a different kind of liberal. This is not the dinner-party noblesse obliger of yesterday, the sort that leaves you feeling dirty and used afterward. This is the true liberal – the champion of the underdog. S/he is the sort who truly believes in that moving parable “first they came for X, and I was not an X, so I said nothing…” A real-life example:

My friend D, who fights valiant social battles on my behalf for no other reason that she knows the difference between right and wrong, and feels strongly about doing the former.

2. The Academic

This person is very similar to the liberal, but a bit drier and well, more academic. They minored or majored in women’s studies, sociology or something else really cool in college. They may be straight, but they don’t say really silly, oh-so-nuanced things like “Girls are great and all, but I really like dick.” (How edifying!)

3. Allies from sympathetic groups

People of color. People with Asperger’s. People with disabilities. People who experience discrimination in all its myriad forms – whether they got made fun of for wearing glasses in the second grade or they grew up poor or they have only nine toes – know what it’s like and are sometimes (but not always) sympathetic to the Cause o’ Queerness.

4. The (un)Hater

In many cases, the phrase “haters gon’ hate” is applicable. But not with the (un)Hater. Although many of us wouldn’t consider this person an ally, since they love you in spite of your queeritude, they still love you. I have friends like this. They consider many things about me to be Highly Distasteful, just one of which is my romantic entanglements with the fairer sex. A selection of my flaws, which they are able to overcome in order to remain excellent friends:

My liberal politics
My tendency to fall off the face of the earth now and then
My ~~boozing~~ late night phone calls
The Kissing of Boys Behind Bushes in the Seventh Grade

5. The “I’m not into gay rights” gay person

They may SAY this, but really they’re just into being polite in mixed company. Which is a totally understandable urge. They’ll come around eventually, I promise.

Who have I missed?