and now for something completely different.

Steven and I consoled ourselves yesterday by watching Once Upon a Time in the West.

I want to make clear that the following is a joke.

We decided that, despite the hypermasculinity on display in the Western genre, it was really all about the evils of capitalist patriarchy. Because, see, the railroad men in Westerns are always the bad guys. Always. They bring straight lines and hierarchy to the West, which are otherwise open to multivector anarchist collectivist systems. Straight lines and hierarchy = patriarchy, multivector collectives = prepatriarchal female-centered utopia.

This is why women need almost never appear in a Western. They underpin the entire system already. to actually show women in numbers would give away the game. The message remains subliminal and subversive in this way.



P.S. Thank you to everyone who has, or will, or is still expressing their sorrow and sympathy over Morgan's death. Your words mean a lot right now.

grief works in mysterious ways.

I need some distraction. And I'd like some LJ comments that aren't about my cat. (They tend to make me cry, and I have to be at work today. It's OK if I cry elsewhere, so if you see me, feel free to say whatever you feel moved to say. Also, it's not like work doesn't know why I took yesterday off, and I think they will understand my red-rimmed eyes and piles of kleenex today. But still.)

So perhaps we could play the twenty questions game.

Ask me a question, and I will answer to the best of my ability. Comments are screened for your convenience.


P.S. It's also OK to still make LJ comments about my cat :) .

answers, part 1

1. I did. I had a good time! I will tell you all the details when I am not posting in a public post :) The short version is that Spin the Bottle worked well as an icebreaker and I am so glad I did that instead of just going by myself.

2. Plans are still in the works so there's no concrete number yet.

3. I was first published when I was sixteen, in Amazing Stories. It was a poem, a very bad poem that I never show anyone anymore (but hey, I was sixteen!). I'd grown up knowing all about all of the science fiction rags, and I just checked to make sure they took poetry. They did. I think Asimov's did, too, but they rejected it.

4. "Girly" seems a fine choice to me.

5. This is by far the hardest question of the bunch. Right now, I really feel like you're on the right path to learn whatever it is you need anyway, so my input seems somewhat superfluous. This is the most honest answer I have. Otherwise, let me get back to you on this one.

it's my lj, and I'll post as often as I want to

Here's a really good article on joining a CSA farm (that's the weekly box o' veggies we get. This person subscribes to Eatwell; we subscribe to Terra Firma).

(no subject)

6. I really like "chicken under a brick." The variation I make is from Chez Panisse Cafe, which is really only noteworthy for its suggestion that you use boned chicken leg-and-thigh pieces rather than a whole butterflied chicken. Basically, you heat up enough oil (in this case, flavored with garlic and thyme) to coat the bottom of a cast iron pan or other heavy skillet; put in the chicken, skin side down; cover with foil; put a weight (another skillet, a brick, a pot full of water) on top of that, and cook until the skin is crisp. Flip over and finish off for a few more minutes. Eat.

7. I would love some sage!

8. Photography.

9. Mineral.

10. I will spare you the pornographic answer; it depends on the means of propulsion.