friday five

Friday Five

1. Are you superstitious?
selectively. i don't think the fact that it's friday the 13th matters much, but it's sort of refreshing to have something a little more specific to blame it on if things go wrong today. :-) but i try not to talk about wishes i've made, or things i'm hoping for, because somehow i think that lessens their likelihood of coming true. and in theatrical matters, i'm very superstitious -- because it's tradition. you won't catch me talking about macbeth in a theatre, whistling in a dressing room, failing to leave a light on, and so forth. and i absolutely make people leave the room and turn around three times and knock to be allowed back in if they do.

i also believe almost certainly that carrying an umbrella will keep it from raining. mentioning something you think is dead certain is the surest way to jinx it. (premature self-congratulation, for instance, guarantees a loss of the good fortune.) and so on. but i don't know if that's superstition or just cynicism.

2. What extremes have you heard of someone going to in the name of superstition?
same extremes you've heard of: refusing to stay in a room numbered 13, that sort of thing. like girlfromsouth said, it's not really something i tend to talk about a lot with people. :-)

3. Believer or not, what's your favorite superstition?
um ...

4. Do you believe in luck? If yes, do you have a lucky number/article of clothing/ritual?
i believe in belief in luck. so i do have a lucky necklace, lucky number, routine i go through on important mornings to assure myself of success at whatever is important about that day, etc. but i don't think it's the things themselves that bring me luck; i think it's the fact that i have something through which to focus my own energy that helps me do well.

5. Do you believe in astrology? Why or why not?
only in the same way i believe in superstitions. i think the lore is fascinating, but i don't literally believe it's true.

yesterday, and then today

so after i posted about how much better i was feeling, i promptly started feeling worse. the sinuses filled back up, and the ears managed to feel stopped as well. nothing i did made this better. when we stopped to grab a sandwich on the way to curling, i blew my nose and almost fell down. cmshaw had to prop me up until i regained my balance. everything all night sounded like i was underwater. this is pretty much Not Okay.

did okay at curling, though. datlowen, self, jgesteve and darthrami took on MB, KR, JS, and AS, and defeated them 8-2 in eight ends. (stole one, stole two, stole one, stole one, gave them two, took one, stole one, stole one.) it wasn't very pretty. we were playing well (and well together), and they ... weren't. in their defense, though, they're all good curlers (or, good enough; i think J is the weak link), and they just haven't been playing as a team for very long. by contrast, we've been playing as a group for two years (granted, not so often, but still), and have the added bonus of extreme brain-sharing. get us in a groove, and it's tough to get us out again.

this morning, i feel better than last night but worse than yesterday still. i'm concerned about this pressure in especially my left ear. sometimes it goes away, but unpredictably and not for very long. so i've called back the doctor's office i saw on monday, to ask if they think i need to come back again or if there's something i can do on my own to make it better. i haven't lost my balance again, but i've felt wobbly ever since i tipped over yesterday.

yes, Virginia, there is a Constitution

edited to add: back-dating this as well, in a while, to appear second from the top of my own journal. it's actually 13feb2004, 14:57 EST.

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so, first off, sowilo alerted us to the nonsense going on in the VA house of delegates, and i owe the last point in what follows entirely to her. secondly, i'm aware that the house of delegates is not the US congress and is therefore not actually bound by the bits of the constitution that begin "congress shall make no law ...". s'ok. the title was right there, and i couldn't pass it up.

behind the cut is a letter i'm about to send to my state-level representatives. i'm not too displeased with it, but if anyone has any suggestions, particularly with regard to (a) coherence/succinctness/etc. (you try writing a screed to your congressman in ninety-second increments at work), and (b) trying not to sound like there's going to be Inspirational Music playing any second, i'm listening.

( Dear [fox's delegate/senator]: )

yes, Virginia, there is a Constitution

backdated ( note: )

i have made a Decision.

edited to add two things:

1. the original timestamp on this post was 12feb2004, 14:08 EST. i mention this because i'm going to post-date it, at least for a while, so it always appears at the top of the page for anyone who happens to stop by this journal.

2. either before or after you read what follows, you should also read this post by thebratqueen.

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Have been thinking about this since this morning, when I heard the latest report from Massachusetts on the radio in the car on the way to pick up darthrami. Thinking about it more, as one tends to, in response to theferrett's post about the sincerity of Christian belief (more or less). Finally reached a decision:

I'm not going to speak of gay marriage or same-sex marriage any more.

Language influences thought. Gay couples wish to be granted the right to marry, yes -- but the whole idea is that those marriages should be legally equivalent to marriages that happen to include people of opposite sexes. The political right wants to codify the definition of marriage to specify one man and one woman; and as long as people keep using the phrase gay marriage, it's going to be easier for the right to claim that this is something different than "real" marriage.

I'm not going to allow that. Language belongs to all of us, and we can and should be aware of the implications of the words we use and construct our speech with care. (Over here on the pro-choice side, don't we describe our opponents as anti-choice, because "pro-life" suggests that we are "anti-life" or "pro-death", which is sort of off-message? And don't they call us pro-abortion, as though we were insisting that people have the operation whether they wanted it or not?) So from now on, instead of talking about gay marriage and same-sex marriage and whatnot, I'm going to call it like it is: the debate is about marriage, which is available to some and not to others on legally artificial grounds. What the equal-rights crowd wants is for marriage to be available to everyone. Full stop.

Dot it, file it, stick it in a box marked "done."

Who's with me?