My journal's friends-mostly except for The Outfit Saga,  but I friend back by default.  When you friend me, you should drop a comment here so that:

1)  I notice and friend you back;
2) I don't wonder how you found me and spend 45 minutes poking around your old entries in an attempt to determine if you're actually my Crazy Ex-Boyfriend, Who Thought He Was Jesus (no, really), But Now Sells Men's Bathing Suits.

 Internet, don't tell anyone:  I'm watching The Princess Diaries 2:  Royal Engagement. 

ETA:  Whatever, this movie is awesome.  I forgot about the Julie Andrews factor. 

Y'all, I love Tavis Smiley.  If you don't have the Tavis Smiley show on your public radio station, you are missing out in a big time serious way.

So I've returned from what appears to have been over a month of silence, not to share further anecdotes about the adventures of My Client, His Babymama, and the Babymama's Boyfriend*:  A Drama in 120 Billable Pro Bono Hours, but to rave a little bit more about Alastair Reynolds.  In the past week, I've been on a Reynolds binge (I finally got a hold of Redemption Ark, and so finished the trilogy out of order, and in the past five days I've read two of his short-story collections, Galactic North and Zima Blue, and I have on my coffee table yet ANOTHER of his novels). 

I'm bummed that no one I know has read these--Husband is "skeptical" of scifi, and it's pure SNOBBERY, LET ME TELL YOU--because they're thought-provoking in the best possible way.  That is, they deal with Big Ideas without being about nothing but ideas--you will care very much about these characters.  They also seem like very plausible versions of our future history.  In that sense, they remind me of Ken MacLeod's fantastic political scifi serious of Fall Revolution novels. 

ANYHOW.  Someone should read them, so I'm not alone!

In other news, I'm thinking about trying to make cheese.  I feel like I should add this to my repertoire, so that I'll fit in when the glorious nation of Cascadia finally forms or peak oil happens and we no longer have refrigeration or I get fired from my job and need to be useful around the house.


*Although I should share that Client decided to voluntarily return to his country of origin and Babymama's Boyfriend got shot while engaging in some unspecified "gang-related activity," but is not dead.

Brace yourselves--THERE IS HEAT.

For now.

OH MAN, PLEASE LET IT STAY.

SIGH.
All I do right now is try to keep my damn fire going. WHEN WILL MY FURNACE WORK AGAIN?

So I was reading Jezebel the other day.  YES, I KNOW.  I stopped reading Jezebel for a long time after whole "Roman Polanski raping that 13-year-old was totally cool because when I was 13, I had an older boyfriend!" post.  But recently, I succumbed again.

Recently, there was a post about how the chick from Washingtonienne recently got married.  The writer claimed that people were just hoping for this woman's marriage to fail because they hated the idea that a woman who'd had many sexual partners (aka, was a "slut") could happily settle down with one person.

And then a bunch of folks in the comments pointed out that actually, a lot of people despised Washingtonienne because she used to go through her johns' wives private things and mock the wives on her blog, with plenty of identifying information.

This is pretty awful, right?  I mean, although I'm very, very conflicted about sex work and legalization and all that, I don't hate or despise 1) women who engage in sex work or 2) women who don't engage in sex work, but have lots of partners.  I have gotten into some pretty fierce fights with a friend who was carrying on an affair with a married man, but strangely, I don't feel the same animosity towards a sex worker who has married clients (although, generally, I think the clients are bastards).  HOWEVER, either way, it's not cool to mock these women because their husbands are running around with your younger self.  It's even more wrong to do so publicly, in a way that will tend to expose them to scorn.

Except the response on Jezebel, is that these commenters shouldn't be so JUDGEY.  EVERYONE SHOULD JUST STOP JUDGING, GOD.  It's nobody's business who anyone else has sex with!  DON'T BE ALL JUDGEY MCJUDGERSON!*

( On being judgmental. )
UGH, I AM A GRUMPY OLD LADY.
*I should add that at least of the anti-Washingtonienne commenters was really not okay with the gendered insults, but the bulk of the comments were actually fairly soft-spoken.

Today I baked a pumpkin pie for Husband's birthday.  It's the first time I've made one from an actual pumpkin, and I wasn't sure how much pumpkin would result, so I baked two and of course now I'm drowning in pumpkin puree!  I'm hoping it comes out well, because it's more watery than I'm used to. I also had to make oil pastry because for some dreadful reason, I HAVE NO SHORTENING.  I know that shortening is declasse, but biscuits and piecrusts are just SO MUCH BETTER with shortening.

I got Husband a french-press travel mug and an awesome used book called UNUSUAL VEGETABLES.  It's from the late 70s, and it has that awesome line-drawing art that I identify with the copy of Our Bodies, Our Selves that my mom used as a high school sex ed teacher in 1975 in Florida.  The same book that suddenly, OF ITS OWN ACCORD, migrated from the attic to the bookshelf nearest my room when I reached about age 11 or 12, presumably so that I could, at my own pace and in privacy, be horrified by graphic illustrations of dudes with Tom Selleck moustaches performing oral sex on their ladies.  

In other news, I finally got admitted and am up on my firm's website, and suddenly I have also appeared in all of these online lawyer listings.  It feels a bit strange to be ALL OVER THE INTERNET.

The cable-knit scarf looks a bit better than it did before.  I am regaining hope.

I'm melancholy tonight.

This doesn't happen very often anymore.  I used to be a very sad person--I was clinically depressed, but I also just had sort of a melancholy temperment.  That all came out in the wash.  Pretty much no one would call me a melancholy person now; I think that I tend to be perceived more as sort of...deeply cheerful and kind of silly. 

Now and again though, I have a night when I sort of get to thinking on old things. When it seems very much as if my dead are close.  My uncle, Ted, A.  A, of course, is not dead, but is just as gone.  And before is hard not to think about--before the war, before A went crazy, before, before, before.  The thing is, we all have our befores, even if the thing that divides present from past is something much more ordinary than a friend dead, a friend lost.

When I was younger, I imagined a sort of stranger, darker, edgier adulthood for myself.  But now I'm a lawyer, and I bake and knit and can jelly with my husband, and I'm a Sunday-School teacher.  And I'm almost never sad these days.

It's a good night for movies, and red wine, and the scarf I'm knitting for my husband.  It's my first time with cables, and so far it looks good.  We're having an all home-made Christmas, and this is what I'm making.  I wonder what he is...

Wow, what a busy week this is.  I'm interviewing my client (MY client!  Yay!  And poor guy, being stuck with me) at the immigration detention center on Thursday, which will be kind of frightening.  The rest of the week is just packed with stuff to do--meetings and appointments and calls.

( I finally finished reading The Heart of Christianity. )

Oh man, y'all.

Usually academics_anon has a high asshole factor, but some of the response to this ridiculous question about Beowulf are priceless.

God, I love Chuck.

If only as an excuse for Adam Baldwin to make fun of himself every week.

I PASSED THE BAR!

ETA:  Thanks so much to the anonymous Someone or Someones who sent me V-Gifts!

Tomorrow is the wedding day of two of my lj nearest and dearest, uisinger  and detlef .  I don't really know what to say--you both mean so much to me. 

So I'll just say this, as they do in Panama: may you live a hundred happy years.  I'll be thinking of you tomorrow.

I am in Cape Cod for a wedding!  It is beautiful!  Yay, weddings!

Today's outfit:
-Brown silk empire spaghetti-strap dress
-Gold and red paisley shawl
-Gold strappy sandals

ARRRRRRRRRGH.

Reagan did not coin the phrase "city on a hill,"  mmkay, Sarah Palin?  

It's actually from a book.

A book you might have heard of.

Called "The Bible."

Today's outfit:
-Gray houndstooth sleeveless sheath dress
-Black cardigan
-Black tights
-Black pointy pumps
-Silver metal bracelet watch
-Malachite bead necklace

The necklace was a present M bought for me in Cameroon.

The first day (and the second!) were absolutely awesome.  My co-workers seem great, the firm seems like a humane place to work, and I already have a work assignment in my preferred practice area!  AND today the big fancy energy department partner, who I'd been told didn't work with associates pretty much ever, came into my office and we had a really long talk about projects I could help him with.  He asked me to send him a paper I wrote on avoided deforestation and carbon credits!

BEST WISHES THIS WEEKEND, doraphilia !

OH MAN.
So I got up at 5:15 today to run, the idea being that I need to accustom myself to getting up at this time so that I can get on the 7:00 ferry for work.

Except, erm, it's full dark at 5:15 AM.

And there are no streetlights on my street.

Y'all, it was so dark that I actually couldn't stay on the paved road.  I COULDN'T SEE MY FEET.  So I drove to the gym, and tomorrow I'm going to ride my bike (I have an amazing headlight set) a half-mile to the grocery store parking lot and try running in the parts of town that do have streetlights.

IN OTHER NEWS, I bought the omnibus of Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast novels to read on my flight back to Seattle (and my long redeye to Cape Cod for a wedding this weekend), and I have to admit that I'm bored as heck and I'm not even all the way through Titus Groan.  I just...don't care what happens to these characters.  At all.  SIGH.  If anyone has brilliant thoughts to convince me of the greatness of this, please whip 'em out.

I am home!  In WA!  Hooray!

Also, when I got home, the AMAZINGLY HUGE STAINLESS STEEL stockpot we ordered from All-Clad with the last of our wedding Macy's credit arrived while I was gone.  It is BEAUTIFUL.  It has an extra-thick bottom with an aluminum core for even heat distribution!  All I can think about is how much jelly I can make with it...

And my beloved husband found the glass snap-top storage jars with the rubber gasket that I've been wanting for the kitchen.  I couldn't find them anywhere, but he somehow uncovered them while I was gone. 

DOUBLE AND:  I am almost finished with the alpaca afghan I am knitting for Husband's best friend's wedding.  I did it with Suri Dream from Knitpicks, in gray, and it is SO soft and delightful.  I'm in love with it!