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Thursday 20 November 2008
He's Coming Home; He's Coming Home....
Yes, I'm now mere hours from getting onto a flight and going back to David and Gramsci. I've only been gone for a ten nights (eleven by the time I get home), but it feels like much longer. And I've been away so much lately that I need to be back in connection with my life.
I love being here, and I love the people, but I need my baby and my kitten.
More Religion
The previously-mentioned Pope story triggered quite a heated discussion over on Millarworld, which was eventually closed and partially migrated to a new discussion about the increasing rift in the Anglican Church over homosexuality.
Now you all know that I'm fairly clear in my lack of interest in religion for myself, so I'm not actually affected by this news, but I have followed the convulsions that the church has got itself into over this with interest as a barometer of wider views. And I have to say that when I read paragraphs such as this one:
"The communique said top clerics were "deeply alarmed" that the "standard of Christian teaching on matters of human sexuality" had been "seriously undermined by the recent developments in North America"."
I realise that the world at large has even further to go than even a cynical bastard like me is usually willing to acknowledge.
"An Ideology Of *What*"???
So there's this doddering old fool right?
You know the type - thinks he knows everything; thinks he's got a god-given right to tell the world what they're doing right and wrong and what they ought to think, but doesn't appear to have done any original thinking himself since middle age - sorry, I mean 'since the Middle Ages'.
And he's got himself the job of running the Catholic Church as it happens.
And he's got a book out in which he describes, and I kid you not, moves to legitimise gay marriage as "perhaps part of a new ideology of evil".
He's already in trouble with this book for comparing abortion to the Holocaust, and it's been published a *day*.
No offence you mad old bastard, but I think I know evil when I see it, and it's in bookshops from today.
The Formative Weeks
David's sent me a couple of photos of Gramsci, and I'm feeling all miserable now because he's growing really quickly and I'm missing it....
Gah! I say Gah!
Setting The Date
Look at this!
Gay civil unions can start being registered in the UK from early December this year, so the first actual ceremonies can take place before Christmas.
Hmmm. Better start looking at venues.
To Shuffle, Or To Shuffle Not
You know, The Global iPod Shuffle Shortage™ would be a damn site easier to accept if it wasn't for the fact that Apple appear to be mocking us all over it.
Here in San Francisco, there are posters for the damn' thing *everywhere*, and the Apple Store ('Flagship' by the way) has a huge window display promoting them.
Inside the store, it's a different matter. There's a waiting list "with hundreds of people" on it, and they're getting them in "in 10s or 20s, on good days", then contacting the people on the list to get them to come in and collect them.
Presumably similar scenes are being enacted around the world.
I've never heard anything so stupid.
Astonishing
Given that I'm in town for WonderCon, I decided to head along, check out the comics, check out the panels. It's my first American convention, and even though it's not one of the really big ones, it's bigger by far than any UK one I've been to. Somehow I wasn't prepared for the costumes.
One panel I really wanted to get along to was Joss Whedon's Serenity panel, and I'm glad I did, because at the outset he called up onto the stage the artist for his run on Astonishing X-Men and they officially announced that they're going to do a second year on the comic, and a 'Giant-Sized Astonishing X-Men Annual #1" to go with.
And I was there in the room when it happened....
PS - Serenity (the big screen follow-on from his short-lived TV series Firefly) looks pretty damn cool.
A 'What' Bar Tour?
I've been remiss in my previous trips here as I haven't mentioned The Isotope before. One of the coolest comic stores I've ever visited, run in the style that all should be - somewhere that you go because you love comics and want to take time talking about them with people who know what they're talking about and have the time and interest in doing so. (Orbiital in London is another such, by the way, and unsurprisingly Damien who runs Orbital stopped by The Isotope when he was setting up the shop, and he and James from the 'Tope shared their very similar aims for their shops.)
James is quite a character, and it being San Francisco's WonderCon this weekend, he decided to kick the con off with one of his famous Tiki Bar Tours (The 'Con-Tiki Bar Tour' in fact). I had no idea what a Tiki Bar was, but it turns out to be somewhere that serves drinks loaded with pieces of fruit, umbrellas and other paraphenalia, in an environment involving palm trees, huts and a lot of bamboo. After being awake most of last night I wasn't expecting to be able to stick with it very long, but I made it from 8pm to midnight, taking in three of the bars along the way, drinking something that was on fire at one point, and finally parting company with the gang in the Tonga Room, which is a *very* well established and almost upmarket bar in one of the hotels. They have indoor rain, and everything....
Absolutely bonkers, but very enjoyable, and as I said - I lasted quite a bit longer than I was expecting to.
The Madness Of Moments
Last night I had quite a late one, helping someone celebrate her birthday, and in typical 'a bit drunk' style, the things that were already bothering me were magnified out of all proportion.
The key thing among these was how much I'm missing David. So getting back to the hotel at about 1.30am, I got online and found a flight on Saturday for him to come out and join me (he's got three days off at the start of next week). I mailed him the details (I think they were more in the way of instructions, actually) and left him to it.
He called at 4am and we had the first of several conversations about whether this was a sensible thing to do. I think we both wanted to do it, but equally we both knew that it was impractical on a bunch of levels, not least of which was the short notice cat-sitting, and the fact that he's taking this time off specifically to do nothing now that he's past a particularly grim run of deadline hell. If he was doing nothing here, admittedly he'd be doing it with me which would be good for us both, but it would be a waste of a trip, which would be bad.
So common sense prevailed at about 5.30am.
And then I went back to sleep for an hour.
Bite-Size Catch Up Blogging 8: The Forest Of Death
As part of my ongoing effort to blog all the things I wanted to blog during that blank period a few weeks back, I offer a couple more.
During our weekend in Suffolk, David and I parked alongside a wood and set off down a well-trodden path. We soon saw some yelping Hoorays coming the other way, and in an effort to avoid them, branched off into the woods proper.
It was a bit grey and drizzly, but enjoyable nevertheless, but there were a few moments which gave us pause.
Like the flattened snake at the top of the path.
And the sheep's skull we came across that was several feet from the top of the spine, which was in turn several feet from the back legs.
At one point as we were discovering these things, there was one of those silent moments which was broken by a single bird leaping up out of a tree with a flurry of wings. Very filmic.
All a little unnerving, but offset entirely by the moment when we saw a deer only a dozen metres from us through the trees. That was magical.
You Know....
.... you've been travelling too much when one of the cabin crew says "Oh, hello again, how are you?" when you board a plane.
I'm back on the west coast again now by the way.
We're Bad People
I know we'll probably go to hell for making light of a potentially serious international situation, but the news that North Korea has withdrawn from nuclear talks has triggered a round of serious Team America - World Police-inspired piss-taking between David and I.
For those not in the know, Kim Jong-Il is the bad guy in the film, and is played very .. well, let's just call it 'broadly':
"I am Kim Jong-il, and I will destroy you all! Release the panthers!"
Bite-Size Catch-Up Blogging 7: Groundhog Day
I forgot to mention that while I was in the US last week, it was Groundhog Day, so I got to see the whole nonsensical event unfold. Never in the field of human time-wasting has so much pomp and time been invested in such an entirely pointless exercise.
Check out the site....
Who, Actually, Gives A Damn?
Oh. My. God.
Last night, the BBC did a 'News Special' entirely separate from their main bulletins, on the Charles and Camila non-story, it was the lead item in all their bulletins (and in ITN's), and even Newsnight led with it for fuck's sake!
Who cares? I admit that "Man to wed horse" is a mildly diverting headline, but it doesn't matter.
I felt like throwing things at the TV.
You've Got To Be Kidding Me
"Several people were hurt in the crush as thousands flocked to the midnight opening of Ikea's newest store."
Someone was stabbed for gods' sake.
But The Big News
Forget all this 'bite-size' stuff for the minute - here's a piece of real news.
About a month ago, I mentioned that a kitten may very soon be in our lives.
Not actually intending to fulfill that possibility, we went to look at some on Saturday, and had what I've been refering to since as a "want that one" moment.
So one and all, I'd like to introduce you to Gramsci:
Bite-Size Catch-Up Blogging 6: A Heartfelt Plea
Dear TV and Press people,
Please, please, please, please......
Stop covering Ellen MacArthur.
It's only when everyone stops paying her any attention that she'll just give up and go home.
Bite-Size Catch-Up Blogging 5: What's In The News?
I always feel like I'm in a communications blackspot regarding news when I'm in the USA, even with access to the BBC online and other sources. So I was keen to get caught up again. Imagine my disappointment to discover that the main UK parties are quibbling about immigration (again) and the bizarre media obsession with Alistair Campbell has surfaced once again.
If I live to be 100, I will never fathom why the press seem so gripped by an uncontrollable urge to frenzy around the man. They're clearly determined to make him the story, which is both destructive and ultimately fails to serve the needs of the people in whose interests they're supposed to be reporting, because all the time spent on Campbell is time not spent on health, education, defence and social policy.
Bite-Size Catch-Up Blogging 4: Last Weekend
In between my bonkers travels, we had a planned weekend away last week. Up to the wilds of Suffolk for a very lazy couple of days being slightly spoiled with great food and drink, a fabulously big, open, light room, and half a hundredweight of bathtime nonsenses from Lush, the fancy bathtime nonsense stuff shop that David's suddenly got hooked on.
(What? I can enjoy crazy bubbles and fizzing 'Ballistics' in my bath if I want to.)
Anyway, the weekend was just right - we roamed off from the hotel only when we felt like it, we were on a package that included Sunday lunch, so we didn't have to clear out early, and all in all, it was just what I needed to recharge my batteries between trips.
I keep wanting to recommend the place to everyone I know, but there's a part of me that wants to keep it our special getaway.
Bite-Size Catch-Up Blogging 3: Speaking Of Books
I have some very interesting things on my 'To Read' list at the moment.
David bought me Belle De Jour a few weeks ago which I haven't got to yet (mostly because he decided to read it first). I'm intrigued to discover whether (as a number of people have suggested) the book carries with it the same issues as the blog did; that it doesn't really seem entirely true, so the anonymity becomes a bit pointless, and then you find yourself spending more time wondering about the thing's provenance than you do just reading it and enjoying it.
We had a "Buy two, get a third free" frenzy in an East Anglian town last weekend (more of which later), and I can now look forward to The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger, Strangers by Taichi Yamada (a Japanese ghost story), and The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón. All of which come very well recommended. I started the first of those three in a quiet moment last weekend, and I think I'm really going to enjoy it.
But the one I'm actually focusing my attention on at the moment is Wicked - The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, Gregory Maguire's exploration of the history of the Oz 'bad guy'. Part exploration of a fantasy world, part fictional biography, and part invesigation into the nature of evil, the picture it creates of Oz and its people is quite different than that you might expect from the film(s), though the distinctly dark underside is one that certain elements of the original film allow for. I haven't read Baum's original novels, so I'm not sure how much is invention on Macguire's part, but so far, about halfway in, I'm finding it a fantastic read.
Bite-Size Catch-Up Blogging 2: Amsterdam
You wait years for a trip to Amsterdam and then two come along in the space of a month or so.
One of my recent excursions was to Amsterdam, and the evening I got there I had a quick wander out into the city for some food, taking my book and looking for a place with character and good food, and once I'd found somewhere I realised how long it is since I just did something like that - had a quiet hour or two out with just my own company and a book, chilling and unwinding.
I used to do that kind of thing all the time, and now it just doesn't happen, except possibly when my travels take me to a solitary evening in a foreign city. I think it's a habit I should get back to.
Bite-Size Catch-Up Blogging 1: If It's Monday, This Must Be London
As noted a couple of weeks ago, I've been Travelling Man recently. I did one of those 'four countries in eight days' schedules that included a weekend away here in the UK in the middle of it and was rounded off by four nights on the west coast of the USA.
Usually when I travel I don't get hit by jetlag especially badly, but last week I simply didn't adjust. I was awake at all the wrong times and fighting off sleep in the middle of the day.
I'm still yawning my head off at inappropriate moments even after I've been back 48 hours and had a pretty restful weekend. Most annoying.