Well, I never blog anymore, do I? I blame the Facebook, and how evil and mesmerizing it is... of course, it doesn't help that so much of the life of my department takes place on FB, making it impossible to just put the thing down. I regret LJ, though - remember the days when blogging was more or less the norm, and lots of people actually wrote more than 140 or 420 characters? ....yeah.

Anyway - I believe most people reading this have some idea what I've been up to. Grad school, grad school, grad school... and classes are about to start again (I don't have to take any more, but I'm teaching yet another introductory literature section). Meanwhile, I'm in Utah, spending time with my Dad before heading back to California. We're going to take some sort of short tour down south in a few days; the vicinity of Arches, probably, and non-National Park places that should be National Parks. It's an unusually cool summer in Utah, so it probably won't even get over 100F or so...

ugh, i'm so broke currently - i don't have $20 - that, my paid account having expired recently, i just had to whore myself out and get a plus account, which sticks glaring advertisements all over my previously comfortingly familiar page, in order to use more of my userpics. ew. ew ew ew. i always swore i would never fall to such depths. jaub nau, plz.

On a cheerful note, a very Happy New Year to you all! May be it full of luck and love and joy, and endlessly better than the horror that was 2009. I don't know about you, but I feel better already!

one of my very best friends, T., died on monday morning. she was 30 years old. she had been found in her apartment the tuesday before last, badly bruised and scratched and unable to walk or recognize anyone or speak. everyone assumed she had been very badly beaten (though now i'm not actually sure they're certain of that anymore... all my information has come secondhand from friends rather than directly from the family). in the ICU she was found to have a severe infection which turned out to be a very severe case of pneumonia. she had kidney damage as well, i think. she woke up sort of for a couple days last week, enough to write things, but i have no idea if she told anyone what happened. her breathing and blood pressure never went back to normal and monday morning her heart stopped and eventually the family decided to stop resuscitation attempts. one of my other very best friends - the three of us had known each other since our first week of undergrad - was with her when she died.

i mean, what does one say. it's only been two days and i'm shaking as i write this. my friend had been in bad shape for a long time now, serious drug issues, and we were sort of prepared for a catastrophe... insofar as you can be prepared for your friend who seems solid and endless to die. we certainly didn't expect (possible) murder. of course i still have no idea what killed her; i'm not sure anyone does. i think that a 30 year old's body doesn't give up like that unless there's something like drug-related damage involved. but what do i know? i know nothing. i don't know why she died.

i feel sort of exhibitionistic writing about all this, but... she was my friend. she was often, off and on, my closest friend. she was usually the friend i was surest of in this world. this is disastrous. no, there aren't words for what this is.

( more after the cut )

this is keith olbermann's op/ed piece tonight on gay marriage and the passing of prop 8:



it's worth watching, i promise. this is the kind of argument i wish we saw more often; so many people seem not to get that being gay is not about sex, but about love. i heart olbermann.

this has been a bad week to be queer. it's been very tiring, what with all the emotions. you want to be overjoyed about obama, but you've just been slapped in the face about five times over by states and networks and the ten million people who voted to keep you from ever marrying. and it's all over something you can't help and never could have helped and, frankly, wouldn't want to help even if you could (since in any case you can't imagine being different); and, worst of all, over something not only harmless but actually moving and beautiful, because all love is moving and beautiful.

i am still not over what grey's anatomy pulled, and i have no doubt in my mind that one of the main reasons for the firing was that the show dared to depict someone happy about being gay. why should our lives always be shown as tragic, as mistakes? my life isn't a mistake and it's not tragic, and i don't wish i were straight; i wish the people who hate or disdain or pity me would get a fucking clue.

YES WE CAN!

damn, i'm actually proud of my country. cuz right now we rock.

so i should be delighted and excited that i just got to vote for obama. i expected to be. and i am in moments. but mostly all i can think about today, and be terribly depressed by, is the firing of brooke smith by /grey's anatomy/ at the behest of ABC network execs who apparently felt that gayness is just too icky to be allowed on the tv.

it might seem stupid to a lot of people to be this upset over a tv show, but i really care about lesbian/bi representation on tv. tv representation is what changes people's attitudes; i give ellen huge props for the strides in gay rights and tolerance in the last ten years. and the grey's thing is horribly depressing to me, because they had seemed to be taking it seriously. there were some annoying things about the storyline, but they were devoting lots of episode time to it and the actresses were doing a good job and in general it seemed like finally, finally, there might be representation on network tv that i could enjoy and identify with. and to top it off, the network's decision was so abrupt that the showrunner didn't actually write the character out of the show; apparently she just disappears. so just to make everything worse, the killing of the gay storyline was done incredibly clumsily and fast, which makes it feel like even more of slap in the face to gay america.

you know what? i'm really tired of being slapped in the face. i find such reminders that i'm basically a second-class citizen really upsetting. i don't understand why the existence of people like me is so disgusting and scary that it can't be reflected on tv unless it's by scantily clad bimbos on showtime. i hate that i care so much about gay representation and can't help it, and that i couldn't help hoping that this time it would be different. i hate the show for explicitely promising the gay audience that they would treat this with respect and at length, and then buckling in to pressure from network homophobes. i hate ABC and disney for being such massive douchebags. i hate straight homophobes for being such arrogant, preening, cowardly little jerks about people who are different from them. the gay marriage ban will probably pass today. those of you who aren't queer... do you have any idea how hard it is sometimes to remain optimistic and non-hatey? it sucks.

yeah. i'm really, really depressed about the grey's thing. i wish i didn't care, and didn't feel like crying over a stupid tv show, and could just resign myself to my status among the discriminated-against. and i should be happy and excited today, on this amazingly historic day, and i hate that i'm not.

ok for some reason i have a feeling that i should be easing back into blogging, now that i won't be a TA or anything similar for probably a fair length of time (not that i'm sure that was ever a good reason to stop).

lately i mostly use lj to troll /grey's anatomy/ fandom communities and such (hence my userpic). it always makes me feel shameful to fall into tv fandom, but hey, it happens periodically, so maybe i should get over it. i have no idea how many of you care about any fandoms, but i suppose most of you must have an idea of the sort of thing i'm talking about.

( babbling about fandom and fanfic )

Hey! Happy Birthday, okapi_jeff!! May you have lots of fun, cake, and happy children!

fyi: after seeing a huge hairy centipede waving its feelers around on your bed, scaring it into running off, and spending a good hour shaking out all the loose clothes and bedding on and near the bed looking for the damn thing, and not finding it.... check the clothes you're wearing. otherwise you will find yourself thinking "what's that vague itchy feeling under my thigh?" half an hour later.

you know, these things aren't supposed to happen to me when i'm NOT in tropical/semi-tropical climates.

shudder.