Despite the fact that, through the auspices of both my insurance company and myself, I have managed to fuck up my car insurance again, I'm feeling pretty OK. This is partially because it /wasn't/ entirely my fault.

It also helps that I've spent the last two days wandering around Bar Harbor (Maine), exploring parts of the College of the Atlantic, being fed amazing food, and wandering some of (but not all of) Acadia National Park. (The last time I came up here, I avoided Acadia altogether because of the fee. This was not so bright.) The weather has, in conventional terms, sucked (conversation in the bar next to us this evening: "What's the weather going to be like tomorrow?" "70ish." "Sunny?" < faux gloomy> "I don't think you people /have/ sun") but I don't care, I love the ocean however I get it, and since I'm with someone who loves the place quite a lot, I'm absorbing it through osmosis. (Thank you, Aberdeen.) Also, it hasn't rained on us once.

Must come back. Yes. (Possibly more details tomorrow. One never knows.)

There's a woman presenting stuff about some house remodeling, at my meeting. (This is one of the boring meetings.)

She's well put together in an Old Boston Preppie kind of way, perfectly rational and wonderful, and impressing the board members.

But the tag on the back of her shirt is sticking up, and ALL I WANT TO DO is tuck it in for her.

Suddenly, I understand my mother better.

The Dedham Police found a guy with 31 grams of crack and 4 grams of heroin.

"...one bottle appeared to contain crack cocaine and the other contained uncooked rice and small bags that appeared to contain heroin..."

So-- what, do you put the rice in in order to minimize humidity and condensation, like you do with salt sometimes?

If you're me, this is a confetti moment.

R. A. MacAvoy, who is a wonderful author with CFS, who had, I thought, therefore not published much in Quite Some Time, in fact published a novella in 2005.

You can buy it for 50 cents.

Just, you know, FYI.

Here, have some links. I've been trawling newspapers since I got back from work, and I seem to want to be soppy and happy about this, so why not?

A small aggregation of some quite nice photos and stories. (Actually, it has a point, primarily about the broad diversity of California.)

Sacramento photos, local LA TV news coverage (lots of George Takei and Brad Altman stuff), SF Chronicle's pictures, SF County Clerk gets married.

Here's the A #1 quality New York Times slideshow-- because I am Like That, the first picture just slew me. (Also, main NYT article about it. Kern County is lame!)

LA Times slice of life stories. Some LA Times photos. I love this one. Also, lots of other pictures, from a private organization. Rex Wockner is annoying, but... pictures!

BBC news focuses on Olsen and Tyler, two of the folks who pushed the suit. (Watch the video, parts of it are really quite sweet. A good picture, too.) This article is more general.

Bakersfield, aka the middle of nowhere, reacts, and an extremely cute Minneapolis couple gets married.

NYT article on pastors caught in the middle. Hm, and some pastors being doofs, too. Viz:

The Rev. Jack Hibbs, senior pastor of Calvary Chapel Chino Hills, said: “These judges crossed over from the realm of judicial or legislative powers into the church. They stepped inside of our churches, inside of our pulpits, inside of our Bible and redefined marriage for us.”

No, they didn't. /Your/ church doesn't have to give the sacrament of marriage to /anyone/ it doesn't want to. And lo and behold, it won't. There are many religions, some of which accept equal marriage, some of which don't, and it's your perfect right not to officiate at a same-sex marriage ceremony. Or to provide the sacrament of marriage for them. Or to approve of it. Or to get anywhere near a gay person. /Other/ religions, on the other hand, can. And, in addition, the civil portion of marriage, with civil rights and responsibilities? That, people have a right to. Durnit. (In other words, I'm still having my same argument from 2004 all over again.)


And hey! /Norway/ just passed a bill legalizing equal marriage!

Hey! Guess what!

Yesterday (as of the somewhat peculiar hour of 5:01 p.m.), equal marriage was officially law in California.

Among the first to follow through with this: Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon (a couple of heroines of mine from way back). Legally, this is, as opposed to religiously. They did it once before, in 2004, but then that got invalidated, and then! The California Supreme Court came through for queerfolk, so... people are getting married. With the full legal support of the law. (And in San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsome's case, the full enthusiastic support and impatient prodding of the law.)

Martin and Lyon are the only ones that did it last night, at least in San Francisco-- other folks did it in other places, and a whole heck of a lot of other people (including two guys on my flist) will be doing it today. And congratulations to them!

People oughta maybe send flowers again. I haven't seen any organized thing about that. Hm...

(Martin's 87 and looks to be getting frail(er). I send thoughts her way.)

I know people (*looks at Diatryma*) in Iowa, where the flooding is and was really quite depressingly impressive. I put it that way because it's mostly crested in Iowa, by now, but that flooding will, of course, be (and is currently) heading down the Mississippi. Joy. This, in addition to the fact that there's flooding in all sorts of other places, too.

Anyway, so the American Red Cross would appreciate some help, fundagewise (and probably volunteerwise, but the funds are the main thing mentioned). They're fairly strapped, and they have a pretty wide 7 state region they're trying to deal with.

Also! Blood and platelet donations'd be of use.

Direct donation link.. Or, alternately, donate to the relevant local chapters.

I would just like to note, in this time where Hilary Clinton has officially suspended her campaign, that this has been a really /fascinating/ campaign season.

Fascinating, and historic, and hopeful.

I do, however, find the folks denying that there's systemic racism and/or systemic sexism going on to also be fascinating, in a 'you are a peculiar bug' kind of way. (I'm of the camp that says mentioning that there's systemic sexism and/or racism isn't accusing anyone of anything (because, after all, you're soaking in it) -- unless a person says or does something problematic and then defends it actively afterwards, even after it's been made clear how problematic it was.)

And if I had been paying (more) attention to the mainstream media this whole time, and committed to Clinton in particular, I think I would be /really damn angry/. For those of you who have been, I give you Teresa Nielsen Hayden, being insightful. She also talks about how we can't let that distract us for too long, but personally, I really do think the folks who were strongly committed to Clinton need some mourning time, some time to accept what's happened. You just can't do an immediate 180. Doesn't work that way.

(Though I definitely think the folks being angry and deciding to vote for McCain are cutting off their noses to spite their faces.)

In other news, an elephant's funeral.

And, dog licks kitten.

Also, fox photos. Commentary in Russian.

OK! These are the top 106 books most often tagged as “unread” on LibraryThing.

First of all, I have been dying to say, ever since I first saw this meme, why on EARTH the top /106/, of all numbers?

Second of all, since the tags on LibraryThing change daily, these were clearly the top 106 unread books at some random time last year.

(Also, and just for some kind of weird public record, I have a ‘tbr’ tag on my LibraryThing, as opposed to ‘unread’. It’s got about 200 listed (out of 1200 I’ve entered so far, which is nowhere near all of my library), but a bunch of them are on there because I want to reread them.)

Anyway, caviling over with, I note that many people do a complicated code wherein they, and I quote, “Bold what you have read, italicize what you started but couldn’t/didn’t finish, and strike through what you couldn't stand. Add an asterisk to those you’ve read more than once. Underline those on your to-read list.”

I’m not doing that. Because yegods, the complexity.

I use italics for if I’ve read part of it, bold if I’ve read all of it, and I just kind of assume I want to read it if I haven’t.

Also, there is commentary, to (in some cases) tell you if I liked, hated, or was neutral about ye books.

( Booooooks. )

When I was a kid, there were several shows I watched incessantly. (I watched a LOT of TV when I was a kid. Like, no, more than that. This strikes me as weird, now, but seriously, allll the tiiiimmmeeee. Apparently I liked The Flintstones. Buh? But I digress.)

One of the shows I watched a lot was Laugh-In, which was a weird show as it was funny as heck, but it made me feel very disconnected from anyone /on/ the show. It held one at arm's length. (It was also, as I look back on it now, sexist in a very 60s way, which can't have helped.)

In any case, one of its co-hosts, Dick Martin, just died, a couple days ago. (I didn't know he'd directed TV shows. Neat. For those who never saw Laugh-In, Martin's the one on the right, in this clip.)

Also dead is Harvey Korman, otherwise known as "the tall one on the Carol Burnett show," which I /also/ watched incessantly. It was a different kind of humor than Laugh-In-- it felt warmer. Also, I imagine the fact that it was of a /slightly/ later era than Laugh-In helped. Or that it was from a more traditional type of sketch comedy. Or... something.


(Here, have the 'Gone with the Wind' skit. Because, why not? Also, in out-take-land, we have Tim Conway Versus Wheelchair, Harvey Korman Versus The Dentist, the Burnett Show doing Born Free, and a general blooper reel.)

Also also dead is Alexander Courage, who I /imagine/ did things other than the Star Trek theme, but it's certainly what I know him for. (From his IMDb entry, that would be a yes.)

Anyone /else/ famous die recently that I'm not aware of? Sheesh.

So I decided to drown myself in testosterone and went to see /both/ 'Indiana Jones and the Extremely Long Name' /and/ 'Iron Man' in the same afternoon.

Wheee! The only way to get more whee! per solid ounce would have been to see Speed Racer, too. Later for that.

( Here, have some spoilery thoughts. They're neither very spoilery nor very original, but hey. )

I had a gosling sit on my foot, earlier.

(And an adult goose beg at me. That was less entertaining, since I find I treat adult geese as if they're going to attack me at any moment.)

While I am spending about half my time, past couple days, fruitlessly being pissed at the world and the people in it for a /myriad/ of reasons, sometimes something good happens.

Like, say, California's Supreme Court ruling the same sex marriage ban unconstitional.

Welcome to the civilized world, folks!

One guy I know already proposed to his partner.

(People's reactions. A PDF of the decision. LA Times. Someone's educated opinions. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi says official (and neat) things.)