With A Sound Like a Lawnmower Backfiring

Got an email from my very sweet and otherwise intelligent Mormon friend. Almost directly because of her religion, she's now a single mom with a small scar under one eye. This has not deterred her faith at all, and she's already "courting" another guy. Why is it that "good with children" says "family-oriented" to these women and not "manipulative" or "enforcer of gender roles"? He's probably a genuinely nice guy, but none of her descriptions of him sound different from the last one.

She refuses to date until her legal divorce is final because of the sanctity of marriage. I have no idea how her church grants divorces and I'm sure it's after/when the legal divorce goes through (she has to wait for residency to finalize the legal one at least), but if she's worried about sanctity, that's the only divorce that matters.

Seriously, a friend of mine used the phrase "sanctity of marriage". When referring to her civil marriage. Because she can't tell the difference.

Mormonism isn't that strange to me. Certainly where its scripture differs from the norm, it's insane. Then again, "ridiculously unlikely scenario" doesn't mean much on top of "impossible scenario" upon which its closest related religions tenuously sit.

I have 17 days left in the term, and I have half of my grade in ALL my classes still left to turn in!

I. will. die.

Well, I've discovered the key to why I can't be a webcomic writer: I can't write chronologically. And even writing in random flashbacks requires me to have enough written to know how they fit together to correctly reveal information.

To be fair, when I finally puzzle through the graphic novels I'm working on, I intend to post them online in a webcomic schedule, but they're the limited-run sort since I will have finished them before posting. Limited-runs are actually refreshing and I've read a few good ones lately (wish I had links lying around. Veiledtruths.com has some current runners and one finished storyline). Still, they don't have the mass appeal of churning up a following.

Yeah, I started another graphic novel. None of these are ever going anywhere. *headdesk* This is THREE now I've got significant backlog of concept art for, and ONE finished plot outline (that I'm nervous about). Universe? Check. Characters? Check. Antagonists? No checks. Therefore, movement? No checks. It doesn't help that two have Villain Protagonists, and one is primarily romantic.

The romantic one might be the easiest at this point because I know the whole plot arc from when I wrote it before the crippling writer's block of my entire adult life, but it also has only internal conflict, which I feel may be boring. Yet people eat these things up. Would the same audience who enjoyed "Juno*" enjoy a transgendered protagonist and lesbian love story?

*It only resembles "Juno" in that there's a problematic underage pregnancy, and the characters live in a weird subculture, but not the indie-quirkiness one.

It has come to my attention that American automakers have argued, and still do, that energy efficient and alternative fuel cars are not marketable and Americans would simply buy foreign status cars instead.

Did I miss some sort of memo? Since when are there any foreign competitors in the giant, boxy, overpriced, gas guzzling category? All the foreign cars I see are tiny little fuel efficient or alternative fuel cars Americans are forced to buy because American automakers aren't competing there.

On Wednesday, I had to tack my latest costume design class project to the wall and talk about it. As this is the scariest thing I do, I was a terrible speaker. I thought the designs were pretty good though, which is why, after a barrage of "constructive criticism" like "I can never tell what's going on in your renderings" from a group who never says shit about each others' work, the professor came back into the classroom after class to retrieve his coffee and found me sobbing.

Apparently, my musical script outline made everyone very...uncomfortable. I'm an adult, in a humorously liberal Theatre Arts program, surrounded by people who just applauded the gay guy's musical about drag queen battles, and I made them uncomfortable with a story about adorably shy high school lesbians. Seriously. SERIOUSLY.

Saying "My harsh judgment of Katy Perry's song stems from my own experiences with girls faking bisexuality to attract male attention" made people squirm. When one girl ASKED a question and I ANSWERED her, she looked at me like I hit her. That is, one of the characters was wearing a devil costume, and the tail was pulled through her legs in a very suggestive manner. Said classmate asked if this was intentional, because it would be very easy to mistakenly color the drawing that way. I said yes, it IS intentionally suggestive. She looked sick, whether because jukebox musicals aren't allowed to have overt sexual themes (LIES!*) or because she didn't get to catch me in a mistake, I don't know. FUCK THESE GUYS.

The rest of my week was awesome.

*See the "tiger" portion of Moulin Rouge. Or the rest of Moulin Rouge.

A rather big logic hole: "I am good person because, while I actively work to remove or withhold civil rights from a specific minority, I would gladly share a friendly meal with members of said minority."

I don't care (much) if you don't want to share a friendly meal with a minority you don't like. I certainly can't make you do so. That's the point.

Today is the day I realized I'm glad my maternal grandmother died.

It wasn't until she and my mother had a huge argument and stopped talking to one another weekly that my mum finally let loose and became a hippie again. The argument was about nothing, and we're pretty certain her temper was caused by her brain tumor-thing, or at least the constant itching caused by her brain tumor-thing. They made up before she got noticeably sick, too, so my mum doesn't even feel guilty about that. Now that she's gone, my mum is having much more fun. She actually asked questions when I gave her my "Jesus Was NOT the Ur-Sacrificed God Archetype" speech, and works PT as a docent at an art gallery her work is in.

Seriously, my mum has a BFA in Art and used to smoke pot every weekend and play her guitar. Then she got married to another hippie, graduated, and worked for 20 years at the student bookstore. I know the shitty town we lived in is largely responsible, and my dad's awesome job, and slim job market in his field, prevented him from pursuing relocating to a better place for all of us. Still, she cut her hair the way Grandma wanted until she (my MUM) was 56 years old. I'm not even exaggerating. She had one of those awful 60's bouffants in high school, went to college and got awesome hippie hair, then got married with a perm and spent most of her adult life with one.

My grandmother was sadistic and had terrible taste (see "perm"). I'm really glad she's dead, because now my mum's free and doesn't have to feel guilty about it. It's basically Grandma's fault I went to Catholic school. My parents didn't attend Mass until I was old enough to be dragged there, were never huge on Catholicism and identify as Episcopalian and Ba'hai respectively. This all came up because we were discussing hilarious 60's hair in makeup class today, and then I was linked to a blog about awesome parents by hawkster's twitter, myparentswereawesome.tumblr.com/. Man, my parents used to be awesome. Now my mum's awesome again; my dad's kind of too sick for his usual levels of awesome.

 Is Rep. Virginia Foxx some sort of smaller, more vicious Virginia Woolf? No? No similarity whatsoever? Damn.

 I'm a little weirded out by health care reform detractors who exclusively complain that Medicare is in peril. That's a valid concern, less so than they're claiming since we can run the USPS fine, but still relevant since we're an entire country of fuck-ups. I'm just confused as to how seniors deserve socialized medicine but nobody else does. No, working for it for longer doesn't count.

 *sob* Went to GLBTA bowling today, got stuck playing with only two people, a very shy couple. Met no one, flirted with no one, bowled so-so. Got free curly fries! Bowling is fun, but much more fun with people you can joke around with.

 I've been reading Fred "Slacktivist" Clark's criticism blog of "Left Behind" and find him, an avid evangelical Christian, frequently pointing out something delightful: according to original Pauline Christian tradition, "Grace. Therefore works", which means that we can only be saved through God's grace, but if we didn't have God's grace, we wouldn't do good works. Also, in the sheep and goats story, everyone is judged solely on their works*. So, basically, my theory of how I want the universe to work is theologically correct, and it's just been ass-raped by stupid, stupid church leaders. Mind you, I think St. Paul was one of those stupid, stupid church leaders who mucked everything up. I figure the universe works like this: Believing in Christian God(TM) is no reason to be an ethical person because it indicates a belief in hell and fear of punishment is not the same as being a good person. If there's a heaven, being a good person should earn the ticket. If there's an afterlife I can't get into, I'd hate it there anyway. If Christian God(TM) exists and "grace, therefore works", ethical atheists get into heaven.

On a related note, Calvinists can suck my balls, and fatalism is an unethical way to live life.


*Here is Clark's footnote about the same passage: " This parable utterly contradicts Calvinism-ism's notion of salvation by assent to proper doctrine. The story suggests, instead, that salvation itself is unrelated to concern about salvation. The Son of Man tells the sheep that they are blessed and they reply, "I'm sorry, have we met? What's a 'Jesus' and what does that have to do with me?" They have no knowledge or understanding of the mechanics of salvation and it turns out they didn't need any. Soteriology is a red herring."

 Today better be amazing, because it feels like it's going to be hell. I couldn't really sleep. Stayed up too late finishing a giant midterm project and my body doesn't take "less than 8 hours of sleep" for an answer. I've missed/been late for about 4 classes this semester already from trying to convince my body to wake up after a perfectly reasonable amount of time (6 hours, maybe) and just sleeping straight through two different alarms, both set to auto-snooze at least once at fairly high volumes. That, my friends, is some talented somnolence.

So I stayed up instead, which is really only a few hours off schedule if I got to sleep after class. But I have work! I have work with an artist who'd be perfectly happy if I had to reschedule, but I don't have any other time this week, and if we don't finish his grant proposals by Friday, I won't get PAID. Work is going to be a blast, I'm sure, even if I'm completely out of it. It's presenting this midterm I'm terrified of. If I just had to hand it in, that would be one thing. It's talking about it in front of a group of grad students who make tetchy comments about color theory that really irks me. I'm already dead-terrified of unscripted public speaking. And it's beginning to dawn on me that this was technically due Monday. Prof said we switched this project's due date with another, which was due today, but he also said we'd start presenting when he got back from a business trip and only mentioned being gone last Wednesday. Which means there was probably class on Monday which I missed and my midterm is late. I mean, we'll still be presenting half of them today, I'm sure, but I suck and don't want to be in trouble with Mr. Favorite-Professor.

Also, my place go 'splodey-boom mess during project last night and roommate needs to move in soon, so...cleaning in order. Have to bring cat over to friend's house tonight to acquaint them...may be adopting 2nd kitten until March, as her roommate issued ultimatums about moving to cat-free house until Canadian uni spring term. Stupid property manager is being useless about getting lease signed with new roomie, who's stuck living with parents until this gets worked out, so now I have to be responsible for the both of them and get a meeting together. Hopefully no progress on that until after I get sleep. Tomorrow's overly full for cleaning time as well, though, with practicum.

I'm already tired (though I'm not overdue for sleep quite yet) and my day hasn't yet begun.

Fred "Slacktivist" Clark on WWI:

People may desperately pray in foxholes, but if they live, they emerge disbelieving in gods creating a world containing war. Also, requesting that a god who may or may not exist help you isn't the same thing as believing one exists, so the phrase is a piece of shit. If I were a god, I'd much rather be prayed to by someone who's afraid of dying than someone who wants to win the lottery. "I like this one," I'd think. "He doesn't ask me for much." Actually, I believe there's an entire article devoted to why Xian God prefers atheists along that line.

My cat is lucky to be alive. He was perfectly happy to use a dish of litter on the toilet, but then I moved the dish down below the lid and he hates it. He tried pooping in the bathtub, which I just scooped up and placed in the litter, figuring that he'd want to bury it. He buried it, I assumed he'd gotten the idea, all was well.

Today, he pissed on two blankets and all the way through to my futon. The worst part is, I know he pissed there and not the tub because I moved the towel and he wanted to "bury" it with fabric. I actually cleaned all the towels and anything else I could find off the floor last night so he'd have nothing to bury anything in and have to use the litter, but NO, he found something not on the floor. I'm trying baking soda, but this is still the worst thing ever.

And I need to be up in 6 hours for class, after which I have only 4 hours until party time. *sob*

My new job is the most amazing thing I've ever done, though, so at least this happened after one of the best days of my life. Otherwise, the cat might not have survived.

Not really. It's not his fault. He's just a cat. He's just too stupid to realize he can stand on the edge of the toilet instead of standing inside the litter.

AUGH! BURST BLOOD VESSELS!

I discovered halfway through my delicious chicken last night that part of it had gone bad. AUGH again. So I induced vomiting just in case (although...I'm not really sure the odds of that helping at all, but it was worth a try and I haven't gotten sick). Responsible and disgusting AUGH. I threw up so hard I burst some blood vessels in my eyelids and now they're pink-speckled. I hope this clears up in a few days rather than the internet's prediction of a few weeks.

I think it's cute how the Catholic church has started trying to convert Anglicans who are pissed about female priests. If the Catholic church wanted to survive, it would also allow female priests. It'd basically solve their entire problem. And their problem of not having enough priests isn't new. Before the whole altar boy problem, my hometown priests were still doubled up on parishes. Of course, just letting the male priests marry would also solve the problem and not piss off the new Anglicans.

The cat can't grasp the concept that humans can't see in the dark.

Every time someone trips over him, he's mad at them for hours.

Luckily, the guilty human is usually asleep again for most of the pouting.

I love the guy at slacktivist.typepad.com. His self-awareness makes his evangelicalism more dangerous, but at least he wants to spread the Jesus-as-hippie message. He even knows exactly why skeptics remain skeptics when confronted with the circular reasoning of most modern evangelicals:

"II Timothy 3:16 sums up what we evangelicals believe about the Bible: "All scripture is given by inspiration of God." But evangelicals rarely cite this passage as a mere statement or summary of what they believe. They cite it, rather, as though it were proof and validation of that belief. (See also II Peter 1:21, Psalm 119, etc.) Every word in the Bible is true. How do we know? Because it says so right here in the Bible and every word in the Bible is true."

Reduced fat Oreos are proof there's no god.

I use a roommate matching site of ill repute because of the huge glut of people on it. It has so far been useless. It offers the ability to select your potential roommate's(') gender and sexual orientation, which I suppose is fair enough and useful (and illegal, since most are looking at pro housing, which means the ads are discriminatory, but it's not relevant to me).

I am utterly sickened by women who claim to be fine living with straight or gay men and straight women, but not lesbians. I can actually understand women who only want to live with gay men or straight women, even though it bugs me. Not having roommates attracted to you can be advantageous. But women who are okay to live with a STRAIGHT MAN?! What could ever be more uncomfortable about a lesbian than a straight man? Hell, your odds are that lesbians are socialized better to not try to jump you. I do think some people use the site for dating (I certainly got some horrible emails when I was listed as straight), so that's more fair.

Then there are all the women who are only okay with straight men and straight women. How can a person be so homophobic that she's more uncomfortable living with a gay man than with a straight one? UCK.

And so you don't think I'm a massive hypocrite, I'm mostly criticizing women here because I have to check theirs to make sure they're okay with me. I've been looking at gay and even straight men just as much. I'm registered on the site now as lesbian because they only offer straight/lesbian and I don't want to be completely dishonest. I'm single, I'm active in the queer community again and I may date a woman this year, though I doubt I'll date anyone for awhile. Men who are okay with lesbians and straight women but not okay with gay men bug me too. It's the same creepy "gay people of my own gender are disturbing to me" mentality, yet they're okay with people of the opposite gender who may become attracted to them, and okay with homosexuality just enough for lesbians (I am guessing most men who claim to be okay with lesbians really aren't. They're completely homophobic, but they mark it down anyway, thinking a lesbian roommate and some hidden cameras would be the best idea ever).

People are fucked up. People are really, really fucked up. And my friends who wanted to rent me a room in their place, but had a foreign exchange student? She moved out like a month ago with no warning and they got a new roommate immediately. I'm kind of pissed, b/c they didn't know if my place was month-to-month or not, so they could have asked me, but they assumed it wasn't (it isn't, so it's fine). But how did they find this guy so fast?! I even have an ad in the student paper. What am I doing so much more wrong than them? They don't even know how they found someone so fast, just using Craigslist. Man, people never get back to me after initial contact, even if they're the one initiating.

I've made maybe half a dozen appointments with potential roommates since I moved in here, and only one has ever actually shown up. I was just cancelled on with 1.5 hours notice by a guy who's been spottily emailing for over a month, saying he finally found another place and wasn't even going to come look. I spent the last 4 hours cleaning this place obsessively. Which, ultimately, is still good, but I have a lot of homework I should have been doing instead.

And the girl who did show up never responded to any of my emails or calls. She was 21 but still living at home, financially independent but emotionally stunted, and so irresponsible that she refused to even contact me to confirm her rejection. I found on her blog that she'd decided if she was leaving the nest, she was going all out and moving to California. Great for her, I thought. But now her profile is updated on the site where she found me, still looking for a local place starting in January. Maybe I'll contact her then if none of these other fuckers EVER SHOW UP and see if she just pussied out rather than outright hating me. Her mum had a careful inspection of my bookshelf, which would reveal I'm either Jewish or Nazi to the respectively racist or stupid eye, with the large swastika emblazoned on my prominent collectors' edition of "Maus". God, her mum came to the showing. Seriously, little girl?

Oh, and one of my friends is half-heartedly looking for a place, and she hasn't even had the decency to get back to me. She has a serious anxiety disorder as well, but it's not like I'm threatening. In fact, the option to live with someone you already know, I can say from experience, is muchmuchmuchmuch less threatening than searching alone.