(no subject)

Dear Yes-On-Prop-8...persons,

Trust me on this one. You really, really, really do not want to go here. You really, really do not want to make this retroactively apply to the existing marriages in California. You really, really don't, even if you think you do.

After all, what would happen if you did? Other than, of course, a massive overturning of, literally, centuries of US jurisprudence? What about if homosexuals in CA decided to argue the anti-sodomy laws that were used to harass them during the 1930s, 40s, 50s, 60s? After all, by today's standards, such discrimination is illegal - so obviously it was then, too. Or what if the people in CA who were affected by the McCarthy blacklist decided to seek reparations against the studios and other persons who participated in their blacklisting? I mean, the argument could be made that that qualifies as discrimination of protected classes; certainly, that would tear up the courts for some time to come to determine that political affiliation or suspected affiliation was not grounds for discrimination, and then there's grounds to argue that because political affiliation is protected, the blacklist is retroactively illegal.

I don't know, maybe the thought of tearing up thousands upon thousands of legal rulings in California is what you get your jollies off of, now that you can't worry that the fag in the corner is gonna ruin your marvellous marriage. As an aside, were I married to any of these...persons, you can guarantee that their fear of gays would be the reason our marriage failed.

And by the way, Ken Starr, I didn't like you before, and I like you even less now. You and Cheney need to be on the special boat to nowhere.

Seriously, though, this is a friendly warning. Don't go there; you won't like it when you do.

Love,
Me

(no subject)

I am sitting at home. I have just finished dinner, I've been working on my pro blog and my email o' doom (and jotting notes about all the deadlines that are about to go screaming past me) and I'm sitting in my comfy chair, looking at the Christmas tree. iTunes is on shuffle, it's warm, there are Christmas lights above the window and a lamp on, and I feel, essentially, cozy and warm and like it's a rather pleasant night.

Meanwhile, part of my brain is on power watch.

The wind is definitely picking up; the snow that's still falling is being added to by the snow that's blowing off the trees, roofs, roads, cars - it's an incredibly fine, dry snow that can really sting for a second when it hits you. It's also blowing under my door, or was until I put a towel across it. But before, even when there were gusts of snow blowing in the light of the streetlamps, the trees were still.

Now, they're moving.

It's not bad, not yet. We're not even really to the storm; the winds are expected to last from about 10 to 1. And expected to gust up to 90 mph. Incidentally, that's 10 mph higher than the gusts from the Hanukkah Eve storm of 2006 that knocked my power out for five days. I have no idea what the temperature was during that storm, but I do know that right now, it's 23F out there. When my parents got power back in their house, three days after the HES, it was 47F inside. Draw your own conclusions.

So. At some point tonight, unless I get very lucky, which I have not notably been in the last few months, I am going to be out of power. Between the wind and the ice in my driveway, there is absolutely no way I can evacuate, certainly not before the wind goes down and probably not after; all-weather tires don't cut it in this shit.

So yeah. No wonder my brain is poking me constantly, telling me to look out the window, to know where my still-packed bag is, to know where the candles, lighter, bottle of water are. My brain, my hindbrain, knows how quickly my cozy apartment can become a cold den of misery.

*****

Relatedly, iTunes is fucking with me. It's picked "The Way The Wind Blows", "The Sky Is Broken", "Just A Car Crash Away", and "Carbon" to entertain me.

ETA: iTunes just added "Icicle", and I just had to push four inches of snow away from my door to get it open. And I just realised that I have a flat roof.