make the yuletide gay

a'ight kids. I'm out for a week. Try not to burn down Missouri or burglarize my home during my Alabama pilgrimage. Happy Hannukah, Merry Christmas, Happy Festivus, a pleasant Kwanzaa and a delightful Saturnalia to all. Feel free to comment and let me know if I've left out your holiday.

Travel safe, treat yourself, and we'll meet back here. To all a good night!

my first 101 in 1001: navel-gazing

A couple years ago, when my life was in major flux, I found out about the 101 in 1001 project. I made a list of 101 things I hoped to accomplish in the coming 1001 days.

My list comes due next week, on Christmas Day. But I made a pass through it the other day, figuring I'd come as close as I'm going to on most of these goals. I completed roughly 73 of them; the biggest categories of uncompleted items included travel destinations and goals that changed when my situation did.

Two and a half years later, my life is in flux again, and I'm thinking about putting together a new list. If I do, I'll likely post it here this time. It'll at least give me a semi-regular writing topic for the blog.

I do think it's a cool idea, and I think it kept me somewhat accountable to tangible goals, on a timeline that is extended enough not to be disconcerting. Perhaps this will force me to decide what I want to accomplish in the reasonably short-term future. No promises, but if I decide to go another round, look for my list around the first of the year.

what...a d-bag

I've been digging DHAK find Low Res lately, and I found his post about Rufus Wainwright particularly salient. We all love (or loved, at some point) Wainwright's music, but with him making public statements like these...

I myself just don't want to at the moment and feel a strong tie to the traditional bohemian concept of being a homosexual, ie: the last thing we want is to be like everybody else.

...it's no wonder the gays at large need people like Jon Stewart to do their heavy lifting for them. Joe R pulls no punches in taking Wainwright to task.

technical difficulties I do not understand

I'm not sure if Wordpress is doing some upgrades or what, but I haven't been able to post anything on The TV Manifesto in two days. First I can't log in. Then the dashboard bar isn't there. Then a blank post page won't load. It's not like there's much to talk about -- it's a slow time in TV anyway -- but still, I'd like to be able to get in there. Anyway.

accomplished

I got almost everything done on my list from last week, even though it took until today. All that's left is for me to get a library card, which may well be put off til after the holidays. Plenty of books I could read around here, and all.

Also, the rental car is reserved, and in a week it's time to pack up and head South for a week of holiday festivities with family and friends.

In that vein, I'm sending good thoughts to folks in Alabama. Keep the faith. You are strong.

day without a gay: more questions than answers

Wednesday was an informative day at the Tivoli. Five dozen or so interested parties gathered to discuss various aspects of the GLBTQA (or, as one put it, Alphabet Soup) community. The three loosely defined main topics were law, the religious community, and work/school issues.

The dialogue was great, and each person had something to bring to the discussion. We scratched the surface of some deep issues which will continue to be dissected in the months to come. But what can we do going forward? Some questions:

• How do we organize the gay community in the cause for equal rights? As California's beleaguered No on 8 campaign demonstrated, this struggle requires not just strong leadership, but accountability.
  
• With so many diverse perspectives, opinions, and goals -- which can certainly be an asset to the community -- how would the movement maintain its focus without devolving into unproductive infighting?
  
• At the individual level, how do we strike a balance between militantly, unapologetically insisting that we are created equal on the one hand and not being exhausted by being held to a higher standard that asks us to prove we deserve these rights on the other?

day without a gay: "religion is far more of a choice than homosexuality."

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Mike Huckabee Pt. 2

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

things to do tomorrow

I have but one day off this week (and most weeks, lately), so best to use it wisely (which for once may not include seven hours of the Internet followed by seven hours of television). Some items I hope to accomplish:

• "Day w/o a Gay" teach-in at the Tivoli
  
• Meet Megan for a screening of Milk
  
• Tailor a resume to a new part-time job I want
  
• Call my alma mater to get the password reset on my school email
  
• Get a library card
  
• Hopefully watch a Netflix disc of The West Wing and/or a movie
  
• Not think about the restaurant
  
• Remember to fire off a couple blog posts
  

I plan to get an early start, so sleep is probably in my near future. Keep it real teh Internets.

resolved

I'm ahead of the curve with this post, but that's where I like to be, when possible. I've been thinking about my goals and I have some I'd like to share as the new year approaches. Call them resolutions if you must.

I am content with my life right now. I'm proud of what I've accomplished, even though things never turn out as we expect them to. My satisfaction breeds laziness, though. Since I can't articulate what I want and do not have, I am unlikely to pursue tangible goals. It's not that I don't have aspirations; it's that I'm not in a hurry to achieve them.

That said, there are some things I know I can do to further my enjoyment of what I already have.

I would like to explore Saint Louis. I'm still a newcomer in a city that is rich with history and culture. I intend to overcome my transportation situation and immerse myself in what it has to offer. Part of the point of moving to a big city was that there would always be something to do -- if only one were inclined to do it, though. I'm looking forward to becoming more involved in my community.

I would like to reignite my love affair with books. Libraries have been a second home to me for as long as I've been able to read. It's an ironic shame that college beat my reading habits out of me. In recent years, I do most of my reading on computer screens. While I'm up to date on TV news, world events, and my sister's MySpace surveys, my meatier reading has been lax at best. Perhaps the first step here is getting a new library card.

I would like to have a healthier body. I'm doing a lot of walking these days, and I'm pretty good about eating healthy. Exercise is where I drop the ball, which is all about laziness. I can't seem to be consistent. We have a PS2 and two Dance Dance Revolution games (great cardio), but I can rarely be bothered to drag out the mat, and definitely not with regularity. I'm told pilates would give me the abs I've been after for years. Maybe I can rent a video?

There's still time for me to get a head start on these goals before the end of 2008. And saying them out loud is probably a good way of holding myself accountable. I guess it's worth noting that I've trained myself back into the habit of writing regularly. It's just a matter of making the time for it. My brain has to want it badly enough to talk my body into putting down the remote and participating. That is half the battle.

this side of the bachelor's degree

I got a voicemail from my sister last night. She called to tell me how thrilled she was to have finished her final paper of the fall semester. I remember the jubilant feeling that accomplishment brought for me two times each year, so I definitely share in her joy. But while there are some things I miss about the college experience and the academic environment, the constant cycle of papers and reports is not among them.

I had a great time in college. There were plenty of things to get involved in, paths to explore, experiences I wouldn't have had if not for that particular time and place. Not all of them were positive, but that's the nature of life. I like to think I learned from them, and there's no denying that all of them shaped the person that I've become, just as my life experiences now shape the person I'm becoming.

The cliche that to everything there is a season is as old as the Bible it's written in (and likely much older than that). I graduated seven months ago and took a blind leap to a new city three months ago. I think I'm where I'm supposed to be, doing what I need to be doing at this point in my journey.

And maybe my strategies for navigating the college terrain (which had less to do with classes and academics than anything) are helpful to my sister. Or maybe they're just good stories and I can cash in on that one of these days. It's going to be a little while, though, before I can stop measuring my life in semesters.

bottom of the barrel

At my home, we had Thanksmas dinner on Saturday, two days after America celebrated the most overstuffed meal of the year. Now, it's Thursday night, five days later. And we're still snacking on the leftovers.

Part of the secret to this success was in making the full spread for just three people (and an insolent dog). But I don't think one can ever have too much leftover turkey. The sandwiches alone are a mayonnaise-slathered goldmine (complete with layers of stuffing, gravy, and cranberries if you're a certain collegiate mentor I know). In fact, I'm not sure I'll know what to do with myself, food-wise, once the holiday jackpot runs out in a day or two.

I did stock up on cranberry sauce, though -- both kinds. Yummy.

starring allison janney, and jack black as jesus

See more Jack Black videos at Funny or Die

tipjacking?

I'm thinking my one-year anniversary as a server is something this week (if you don't count the month I was out of work during the move). In many ways I'm still naive and perhaps too trusting. And so I was a little surprised to read a big story about dishonest servers on the P-D website (which, btw, features a plethora of super-annoying rollovers and pop-ups, which have crashed many a browser in the six months or so I've been using the site).

I'm not surprised that people are dishonest, necessarily. I guess it's more fair to say that this sort of thing doesn't ever occur to me as a potential course of action. It's possible that tipjacking is happening all around me, but I probably wouldn't know about it. I remember one instance of it happening at my first restaurant, but before I even knew what had transpired, the offending employee had been shown the door.

Now I work at a newly opened restaurant in a bad economy, and I'm sure I'll be a little paranoid during my next few shifts about whether my co-workers are quietly robbing customers blind. I disagree, also, with the story's assertion that POS software makes this activity easier to track. It seems to me that technology has made it easier to get away with this type of thing.

Perhaps this will become its own category of high-tech crime? It seems to me that it would be almost as easy for servers to steal entire credit card numbers -- in which case it would take a little more doing to trace such massive thefts back to a restaurant. I'm not a big fan of taking my mind to these criminal places; I'd rather my friends at Showtime do that heavy lifting for me.

a public transportation quandary

I moved to Saint Louis three months ago without a car. Excepting the kindness of friends and coworkers, I have been relying primarily on public transportation (and my own two feet) to get around town. As a result, my exposure to the city has been mostly limited to the epicenters in which I live and work. There's a direct, almost door-to-door bus route between the two, and it's often tempting to avoid any diversions along the way.

Aside from these considerations is the price structure of the Metro system. I can pay $60 per month for unlimited rides on the buses and light-rail trains (did this in September). I can pay $2.25 for a two-hour pass. Or I can buy a book of ten two-hour passes for $20 (been doing this since October).

Buying the passes ten at a time saves me a quarter each ride, but it also puts me in a state of furious deliberation every morning about whether the conditions really merit my catching the bus rather than trudging the 1.7 miles to work. The bus is often crowded, and depending on the other passengers, it can either be pleasantly uneventful or frightening/entertaining. Now that the weather has taken a turn for the colder, I've been more inclined to hitch a ride, and I'm starting to wonder whether I should splurge on the monthly pass.

When I did have one, though, I didn't feel like I got my money's worth, and I can always just continue buying $20 worth of passes at a time as often as necessary. Of course, the time during which I had a month pass was also major job search time, so I was focused on that rather than exploring the city and having a good time. I can't decide whether, now that I'm gainfully employed, I'd take advantage of the relative freedom of unlimited rides to spend more time out among the living.

Whatever I decide, the economics will change again very soon. Metro Saint Louis is hiking their rates at the first of the year. Glaargle!

black friday lives up to its name

Tragic. I've never been wild about the idea of Black Friday; I find retailers overcrowded, understaffed, dirty, and generally irritating on a normal day. The only time I can recall being out in the ridiculous crowd was my second year of college, when I was working at a Wal-Mart.

In some sick way, I'm surprised it's taken this long for things to escalate to this unspeakable level. We were predicting trampling deaths back in my day, and this weekend, the unspeakable/foreseeable happened. One woman at that Long Island Wal-Mart miscarried in the melee and a store employee was literally trampled to death. (Not to mention the shootout at a California Toys 'R Us.)

I don't even know what to say, other than that it's obviously not worth killing someone over deeply discounted electronics -- not to mention that they're working on figuring out a way to charge tramplers for their actions. There are no holiday specials on defense attorneys, last I checked.

The inevitable next step I foresee for this unfortunate tale: a matter of time before it's ripped from the headlines on Law & Order.