Local relief efforts for hurricane victims.

Not to disparage the relief efforts of the Red Cross and Salvation Army, they're great agencies and they do good works, but I like my help to be a little more personal when I know people in the affected area.

I'm part of a historical reenactment society, the Society for Creative Anachronism. Two of our groups are right in the destruction zone. We're coordinating with people from those groups who are outside the destruction zone but still close enough to get help to places the evacuees are sheltering, to send down care packages.

Things we're sending down:
Toiletries:
Toothbrush
Toothpaste
Mouthwash
Hand sanitizer
Baby wipes/handiwipes (The water's out or fouled - I'm thinking alternate means to get clean would be good)
Deodorant
Diapers - disposable, lack of water means cloth may not be a good idea.
Toilet paper
Feminine products

Clothing:
Socks/slippers
Clean underwear (new, preferably)
T-shirts
Cotton one-size-fits-all pants (These can be made, will post directions)

Bedding:
Blankets/sheets

Other:
Gift cards to chain stores such as WalMart in varying denominations so that people can buy specific things they need - or water, since bottled water is a stone bitch to ship.
Phone cards so that when service is restored, people can use pay phones to call loved ones and check in.
Books to read
Crossword/wordfind
Handheld games/puzzles
Stuffed animals
Plastic cups/bowls/paper plates/plastic silverware

Food:
At this time, I'm not planning to ship down canned goods or bottled water - it weighs a lot. However, I may send down baked goods, like cookies or brownies, as something to keep spirits up.

Directions for the "one size fits most" pants:
2 yards of non-stretchy fabric at least 24" wide, cut into single-yard pieces: I usually use a cotton/poly broadcloth, or flannel, but I don't know how appropriate that would be for the area. Don't use straight cotton - it will shrink, and it won't dry fast enough if wet to keep the wearer from getting chills.

Take your squares of cloth and pin them wrong-sides together across top. The short ends will be top/bottom, the long ends will be sides. Measure to the center of the top, and down 8" from that mark and chalk a line. Pin cloth around that area. Using the sewing machine's "buttonhole" function, start at the top and button hole down one side of the line, across the bottom 1/2", and up the other side of the line. Take a scissors and carefully cut the cloth down the center of the buttonhole. This is your crotch seam. Take the square on top and fold it together so the long sides are touching, and pin all the way down the long side, to make a circle of fabric. Sew this seam all the way up the side 1/4" in. Fold the seam over and run another line of stitching to reinforce the seam. Do the same for the other leg. Fold the waist hem down 1/2" and sew all the way around it. Fold this hem down 1" and sew along the bottom of the fold /only/ - this is the drawstring loop. Hem the bottoms of the legs 1/2". Flip the whole thing inside out, and you should have a pair of very wide-waist pants. Decide which will be the front. Make a small hole in the front of the drawstring loop, big enough to get your drawstring through twice. Hand stitch around this hole. Run your drawstring.

End result: Pants which will fit a waist up to 45", with an outer seam of 34" and an inseam somewhere around 24". To adjust the waist width: buy wider cloth - you can make this up to 120". Caveat: The wider you make the waist, the wider the legs of the pants will be. To adjust the leg length: Use more than 1 yard of cloth.

These are cheap to make, extremely comfortable to wear, unisex, fit most anyone, and mine dry pretty fast when wet. I bought a bunch of pants like this when I was in Thailand, and am making a bunch to take to South America, because I can fit about 8 pairs in a school-sized backpack that would only hold 2 pairs of jeans or 4 pairs of shorts.

Enjoy.
-Peregrine

The Department of Peace campaign.

What is the Department of Peace campaign?
Details here.

Wow, that's a cool idea - how do I get involved?
How to help here.

What if I don't know who my representative is?
You can find that out here.

The last link gives you all the contact information you could possibly want about the representatives.

What can you do:
Read about the bill and the campaign. If you agree with it, shoot your rep an email or a phone call, or better yet, a letter, urging them to support and co-sponsor this bill.

The morning of the 14th, the Peace Alliance is trying to organize a massive call-in initiative. So this is me hitting up my readers - If you think this is a worthwhile cause, if you could take a few minutes on the morning of the 14th and call your rep's office either locally or in DC, it would be really appreciated.

This bill had 28 sponsors the first time it was submitted, in 2003. I went to DC that weekend and lobbied - luckily, my rep was already a sponsor, so it was really easy. I showed up with cookies as a thank-you, met with my representative, and got to express to him just exactly why I feel so strongly about this bill. It has 54 co-sponsors now, and a lot of thanks go out to a lot of people for campaigning for this since it was initiated.

I won't be going to the conference this year, but I will definitely be calling in. I've already written a very nice thank-you to my representative, telling him how proud I am that he's been one of the co-sponsors since the beginning.

So hey. It only takes a few minutes, and I'd love to see this bill passed this time. I honestly believe that the US could benefit heavily from having a Department of Peace. I could go into a very long detailed spiel about that, and perhaps tomorrow I will. For now, I simply wanted to get the word out so that random passing blogtrotters could see it in time to read up on it and make their own decision.

Peace.
-Peregrine

Good Omens - the movie?!

I love Terry Gilliam. He's a funny, funny man. I'm also more than passing fond of Johnny Depp and Robin Williams - they're both also very funny. Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett - again with the funny and the fondness.

Combine all that and turn Good Omens from book to movie with Depp playing Crowley and Williams playing Azriphale? I vote against it.

There are some books that should never be movies. Neverwhere was one of them. Brilliant, funny, creepy book - 6 hour BBC miniseries was flat and boring. Gormenghast had the same problem. Granted, they're talking making a Hollywood movie out of Good Omens, so it wouldn't be 6 hours. I always cringe to see "an adaption of.." in reference to the books, especially when it's done to make a longer book fit in a time limit. It means they're going to chunk things up and change them, and unless the director is really, superiorly clever, it causes much angst and anger amongst book purists.

Christ in chex mix, Lord of the Rings, which may have been one of the best long-story adaptions ever, damn near caused riots when changed various parts of the story. (For the record, I think they could've chopped out at least 30 minutes of 'and they're walking.. look, still walking.. yes, they're still walking..' scenes, but on the other hand, that was when I lit out for a potty break, so at least they served some purpose.) Good Omens is another book with a rabid fanbase, I shudder to think what will happen if they adapt it too much, or if Robin Williams couldn't reign in his outrageousness as Azriphale.

What happened to Hollywood producing original movies? To answer my own question, I think they got scared. Good Omens is failing because it can't raise a $15 million dollar budget. In the grand scheme of movie making, that isn't a very large budget, but it's still more money than any investors would like to lose. There seems to have been a run on original plot movies flopping, so in recent years all Hollywood has been churning out have been "adaptions" of comics, books, and other movies. If a movie does well, suddenly there are 2 more major motion pictures along the same plotlines in theaters within a month. Or a sequel, threequel, or prequel. It's ridiculous.

This is why I like independent movies. Indy movies usually can't afford the rights to some piece of published writing, and usually have to rely on an original screenplay. While not every indy movie is a Cannes runner, at least most of them aren't out butchering my bookshelf for plot ideas.

I hope the investors don't make the $15m. Most of the humor in Good Omens wouldn't translate at all well to film. Not without making it pratfall, dumbed down humour or excessively overusing voice-overs.

Blah. What a way to start a morning.
-Peregrine

Hurricane

A New Orleans Blog is giving current reports of what's happening, without scare tactics.

A friend from FL was joking this weekend that if I lived in a hurricane zone, I'd be one of the people standing in the storm with a camera.

No, I wouldn't. As much as I love storms, if that kind of weather hit where I lived I'd have long since hightailed it out of the path of the storm, taking as many people with me as I could pursuade to go. I wouldn't want to watch that storm, knowing people would die in it.

My heart goes out to the people trapped in the path of the storm, and their loved ones.

-Peregrine

Good things come to those that stalk.

For the last few days, I've been tracking a stalker out of horrified fascination. I'm googling the woman's name and reading her various reviews for the exact same reason I watch "Dollman vs. Demonic Toys" and "The Puppetmaster" series of movies. It's so awful, it's funny. In a way, I feel sorry for her, because she has obvious mental health issues. However, this kind of insane fixation is not healthy, and really frightening.

Why is it that anyone who can put two rhyming words together decides they're a poet laureate and regurgitates their "poetry" on the 'net? This particular poet stalker makes iambic pentameter cry. She also has my undying disgust for feeling the need to repeatedly make mention of gruesome factoids she found on the internet. What's sick about this is that she writes her negative glurge intending the people she's stalking to see it. So, with that intent, she's constantly referencing something that has to be an awful moment in those people's lives. She expects to be thanked and acknowledged for this. I'm half tempted to look her up and "acknowledge" her with the verbal equivalent of a sledgehammer. I won't, because I'm firmly of the opinion that maybe if everyone ignores her, perhaps she'll enlighten herself right into a clue and bugger off.

The one bright spot in the filth: following one of her links, I found some new music I like. Ringside. Their singer's voice sounds like a bastard hybrid of Bono and Rob Thomas. The website allows you to listen to some of the songs, a practice I highly approve of. I'm hopeful that the other songs will be just as good. I'll need to pick up the CD this weekend. This would be excellent car music.

Oh, wait, the car is dead. Damnit, it's always something. This won't stop me from buying the CD. I can listen to it while I'm in other people's cars and subtly pimp it to all my friends, something I enjoy so much it shouldn't be legal. Play something nobody's ever heard of, watch as it gets stuck in their head, smile as they try to find a copy of it locally, and cheer as several dozen people place irate calls to midwest Sam Goody district manager.

Rock.
-Peregrine

The rain in Spain falls mainly on .. my head.

No, I'm not in Spain. I wish.

I woke up to thunder and lightning this morning. It's amusing, how a good storm can make my day. I threw on the trenchcoat and headed out to work, cheerfully stomping in every puddle that crossed my path. My book and my glasses were safely tucked into an inside pocket and thus safe from wet. The rain poured down, soaking my hair and any available skin surfaces not hidden within the coat. I arrived at the bus stop beaming.

Who says chivalry is dead? I can't count how many nice people tried to shelter me from the rain under their umbrella, or how many strange looks I got as I cheerfully smiled, shook my head, and continued walking through the downpour.

I took the long route from the bus stop to my office building, walking along streets washed clean. Most people had forsaken the sidewalk for the dry shelter of the skyway system, and the remaining few hurried on to their destination under cover of plastic and nylon. I saw one other person on a rain walk, and we grinned at each other as we passed, a moment of joyful understanding.

The sky was dark, the streets filled with shadows when the lightning crackled overhead. Thunder boomed so loudly you could see the sonic waves in the puddles on the ground. The shops began to open up right around the time I headed through the central hub, flickering neon lights adding brief points of colour along the darkened street. Eventually I reached my building, and rather regretfully had to go inside. I'm 41 floors above the street, and that gives a whole new perspective on the storm. From here, you can see the clouds rolling and churning, and the lightning looks close enough to touch. The cityscape is covered by a mist of pelting rain, making it look as though someone slapped a diffusion filter over the window. From here, at this moment, it all looks beautiful.

I finally got my storm. It's destroying my productivity, because I want to play hooky and go run around in it. With any luck, it will still be raining when I leave work today.

-Peregrine

Is it stalking if the person you're stalking is themselves a stalker?

I was doing random Google searches for places to stay in South America, to get an idea of what's available when the Evil Temptress and I head down there in October. I bumped into a review on Amazon.com of Sweet November that seemed to mention one. I clicked the link, curious what the hell a bed and breakfast in South America had to do with that movie, started reading the review, and laughed so hard my lungs hurt. Not because it was funny, but because it was so utterly off the fifth wheel. I thought maybe it was a troll post, and out of curiousity, I Googled the poster's name.

Oh. My. Lawd. The misplaced quotes, they hurt and burn! I'm very glad the poster has a constructive outlet for their creativity, but for the love of little apples, if they're going to subject the world to their poetry, they owe at least an attempt at correct punctuation. My eyeballs were crying out for airsick bags before I'd reached the end of the first stanza. I've seen worse poetry, admittedly, and at least it scans - but then, so does "See Spot Run".

This .. woman? It's a female name, I think, but she mentions something that seems to allude to her being a part of a monastary, so I'm not sure. For the sake of finishing this paragraph sometime tonight, I'll assume she's a woman. And she's obviously not well. I can't tell if that's brain damage from the nonsober part of her life, or if it's undiagnosed and untreated paranoid schizophrenia, but in either case, it's sad.

I read the comments my cursory search came up with. I'm resisting the urge to do a more intensive search to see what comes up. I'm fairly sure that urge is spawned from the same section of my brain that makes me watch the Puppetmaster movies. Partly it's for the horrified train-wreck gawking, but another, smaller part, wants to keep searching to see if she ever mentions getting any help. She obviously wants to be locatable, so finding her contact info would probably be pretty simple. I wonder if she understands she's displaying classic symptoms of schizophrenia, and if she is a schizophrenic, I truly hope she gets help, because that's a terrifying world to live in.

For now, I'll do some more digging and reading. I've half a mind to toss a new FAQ up concerning her, because it's people like this that spawned the Original Rant page. However, I'm afraid to put her name in print - she does appear to Google her own name and trace back to the links. I can't decide whether the pointed, "You wanted to know why this page exists? THIS is why the page exists." would be worth having her bookmarking me.

I have to admit I'm slightly disappointed that she hasn't hit my Jestbook yet. She pretty much seems to have covered every other Joaquin Phoenix/River Phoenix/Keaneau Reeves site out there. Woe! I am not popular!

Oh wait. I said that like it was a bad thing. Sugar snap!
-Peregrine

Mastercard can bite me.

Repair costs to car from getting rear ended last night: $1000.
Insurance bill from hospital visit and prescription painkillers/muscle relaxants this morning: $1200.
Coming home and finding that the brownies your housemate bought you yesterday went home in HER car and are sitting on the table waiting for you: Priceless.

-Peregrine
(All prices quoted are used for effect, and not intended to reflect actual damage or repair value. Terms and conditions may apply. Taxes and fees not included. Offer void where prohibited.)

Update.

I edited the Alegria post to link to an mp3 of the song that was stuck in my head that morning. It's on a geocities hosted site, so don't be surprise if you get a buffer overrun error.

This is a blog, a program that uses FTP. I cannot ftp an existing mp3 to my blog. Blogger allows audioblogs up to 5 megs. There isn't, apparently, any way to upload an existing mp3 even if it's smaller than 5 megs. I briefly entertained thoughts of phoning in a post, holding the phone up to the speakers of my computer, and playing the song - and decided that the satisfaction of having done that wouldn't outweigh the utterly craptacular sound I'd get.

I can now safely say that I have a fairly good beginner's understanding of RealAudio, iTunes, WinAmp, and SoundForge. Right now, I don't like any of them. All of them claim you'll be able to "share your music over the internet" - and they all lie. RealAudio's the only one that will actually let you do that, buuuut you have to re-encode your mp3 to real audio files before you can. And then they play slowly and buffer horridly and tend to crash non-IE browsers. If they crashed IE, I'd make a RealAudio file and put it on every web page I build, just for spite.

The reason this is frustrating is because I was trying to be legit and make the link so people could listen to the song online without downloading it. Apparently there's no decent way to do that. iTunes used to allow it, but no longer, unless you either pay to use their iMix site or buy a podcasting license. Which I would do if it were, y'know, more than one song.

The irony is that all the mp3 music players had to crack down on file transfer ability due to the RIAA freaking out about "piracy" - and in doing so, have utterly removed any way for me to legitimately allow others to hear what I'm listening to. At this point, I care not. I encourage people to buy music they like, I highly encourage anyone to catch a Cirque de Soleil show if they have the opportunity, but if you simply want to find out what was in my head all this week, go ahead and click on the link in the post below. It will let you download the song.

-Cap'n Red Peregrine

"You're a vegetarian? So you eat fish, right?"

It's one of those days where it feels like the entire universe must come up to me and say something so profoundly stupid that it damn near provokes me to violence.

Om..... Mani..... Padme..... Hum.....

I'm trying to convince myself that I'm just on a short fuse this week and that the stupid quotient of the planet didn't simply hike up a few hundred points while I slept, but there seem to be several people trying their hardest to convince me the latter is true.

Om.... Mani.... Padme.... Hum....

So far today:
(invite to barbeque) "Thanks, but they really aren't my thing. I'm a vegetarian." "You're a vegetarian? So you eat fish, right? We're grilling salmon.." "No, I don't eat meat at all." "Oh, well fish isn't meat, so it's probably ok." "No, trust me, it's a flesh-based lifeform and thus isn't something I can eat." "I'm sure you could if you tried." "I have no doubt that I could masticate and probably even swallow salmon, however, I'm just as certain that it would be making an abrupt and unsightly reappearance moments later." "You mean you'd puke??" "Or something." "GROSS!" "Exactly."

Om...Mani...Padme...Hum...
---

(on why bus prices went up) "Well, gas prices went up, so it only stands to reason that public transit would raise their prices." "They're busses! It's not like they even use gasoline, they're diesel!"

Om..Mani..Padme..Hum..
---

"Ugh! I hate panhandlers! They're so dirty!" "They're homeless." "That's no excuse to not bathe!"

Om.Mani.Padme.Hum.
---

"Are you going to the anime convention this year??" "Nope, I'll be in South America." "Oh good god.. why would you go there?" "Vacation. Diving, rainforests, sea turtles, a Quaker mission, and a live volcano." "Oh, you're a missionary!" "..No, I'm not." "But.. you just said..?" "We're going to a Quaker village that started out as a mission." "..But..why? Are you Quaker?" "No, I'm not Quaker, but I really respect their mindset and I really want to see how their village is set up." "Oh, like buildings and stuff!" "No, like their town charter and their meeting house and school system and stuff." "But.. that's.. so BORING! I can't believe you'd rather go to some druglord-run country full of people who don't even speak English than go to the convention!"

OmManiPadmeHumOmManiPadmeHumOmManiPadmeHum
--

These are not quotes from the same person. This is a random sampling.

Vegetarianism. It's a choice. Why I made that choice is completely irrelevant, and I don't feel the need to defend my choice to anyone, ever. I don't think I'm being unreasonable in expecting people to respect it. "I don't eat meat" does not mean try to cajole me into eating it. It means don't ask me to. Here's a hint for the world in dealing with vegetarians: If you have no clue what to feed someone who won't/can't/doesn't eat meat - ASK THEM what to serve them, or ask them to bring something. Granted, it's kind of tacky to say, "Hey, want to come over for dinner? Oh, and can you bring your own dinner, because we're having steak?" - I'd rather hear that than "Hey, want to come over for dinner? We're having steak. Oh, you don't eat meat? Well, you could have the potatoes, those only have bacon in them."

Gas prices. Oh, right, sorry, I forgot that diesel isn't a petrochemical fuel, and thus, not a form of gasoline. Why is it that the same people who bitch about a $2.00 bus ticket will pay $4.00 for an 8oz cup of coffee without complaint? The mass transit system is partly funded by the state and that funding hasn't gone up in over 10 years. They have, in fact, lost a good portion of their funding and had to close down routes and lay off drivers to be able to keep the ticket prices low. Gas prices are currently at $2.87/g for unleaded $2.49/g for diesel. Comparitively, coffee, which is mostly tapwater, costs $4.00/8 oz, so $64.00/gallon.

Homeless. If you have to choose between buying soap or buying food, which would you do? I hope to all gods I don't ever have to make that choice, because if I do, it will mean that I'm in some pretty dire straits. I don't like being pestered by panhandlers probably any more than the person talking - but that's because I don't like being pestered pretty much at all, by anyone, ever, not because I lack compassion. While I am not likely to fork over cash to someone surrounded by alcohol or drug fumes, I carry the business cards with the local shelters and soup kitchen addresses on it, and I will give them that. I don't pretend they don't exist. I don't despise them for the situation they're in. It's only ok to care about the plight of the needy when they're clean and healthy? WTF kind of mentality is that? I don't understand it, and I think I'm glad I don't.

Vacation. Yes.. obviously, I am a moron for wanting to go to a foreign country with my travel buddy and explore somewhere I haven't been yet, instead of staying right here at home and going to a convention for anime, which I don't really like anyway. Obviously, my priorities are way out of whack and I should seek therapy immediately. How could I not want to go to a convention for something I don't really like, to be surrounded by people I don't know and probably don't want to get to know, and miss out on seeing anime I've already seen or have no desire to see? How can I pass up this brilliant opportunity to be a frothing fanthing that only comes around once a year, to go to a foreign country where they don't even speak English? Madness! Quick! Get the nets!

I must say though, that the conversations today are making me long to be in a country where 'they don't even speak English', because then, if they were speaking stupidly, I wouldn't know and would thus be spared the headache.

Om Mani Padme Hum
-Peregrine

Pissy about Peace.

It hurts that lately "Support Our Troops!" has become the catch-all phrase for "Support A Military Incursion Congress Didn't Approve!"/"Support A President Who Continually Makes Really Bad Choices!" - and that the word "Patriotism" has become a buzzword for rabid redneck right wing fruitloops who believe in blindly following where lead. What really hurts is that there's a reciprocal lashing back at that attitude, and it's catching all military members in its wake.

What's scary is that now, thanks to the Patriot Act and the Patriot Act Expansion Pack, disagreeing with the right-wingnuts can get you arrested without recourse to trial or even deported. How? Because if you get branded UNAMERICAN, UNPATRIOTIC, and DO NOT SUPPORT OUR TROOPS, that might make you a THREAT TO OUR COUNTRY! Don't think it can happen? Think again.

I'm a peacenik, for lack of a better term. If the world ran according to my design, there wouldn't be war. I support the creation of a Department of Peace, because I believe that if we can have top minds working on how to wage war, we should have an equal number of top minds dedicated on preserving peace. I don't support police actions, because I don't believe any country has the right to enforce their views on another. I don't believe we're inciting peace in the Middle East, not with this "America Uber Alles!" attitude.

Do I support our military? Hell yes. Because those men and women volunteered, I currently don't have to worry that young men right out of highschool will be drafted. They are doing what they believe is their duty to their country, and they deserve to be supported in that. I support military members because I don't want my siblings coming home to hatred the way my uncles did after Viet Nam.

Do I support the orders our military has to follow? Hell no, and I'm working my ass off to see to it that the next President is someone who won't give such awful orders. I've given up on the current President and am simply waiting him out while concentrating on my Congressmen/women. The time to be active, the time to be lobbying for a better person in that seat, is not in the time immediately preceding an election - it is in the four years preceding the election.

Do I support the police action in Iraq? Absolutely not. If I were the person who had to make the decision, Iraq would be working out it's own government and our troops would be home. Because I would be spending a greater portion of my time cleaning up New York and deciding what kind of fitting memorial to put up where the towers used to be.

Do I support peace? Unilaterally yes. That's the goal I choose to put my time and energy and creativity behind. It saddens me that so many people who claim to have the same goal waste so much of their time and energy directing hate at the military. Be angry, be outraged, be fueled with the fire of riteous indignation - go for it! But find a constructive outlet for it. Write Congress. Write the President. Volunteer some time for a peace-seeking group. Write an op-ed piece. Hold a rally. Lobby Congress. Speak up. Make yourself heard. Just make sure that what is being said is directed toward the ears that need to hear it, the ones who give the orders. That's where change needs to happen.

So mote it be.
-Peregrine

Lyrics gratuitously stolen from Cirque de Soleil

[edited: 8/19/05] To listen to the song, click here

Alegria
Come un lampo di vita
Alegria
Come un pazzo gridar
Del delittuoso grido
Bella ruggente pena,
Seren
Come la rabbia di amar
Alegria
Come un assalto di gioia

Feel the heart of the city, the pulse of the earth beneath the streets, in the early morning hours when the rest of the world is still asleep. Look at the world around me, sparkling in the morning dew, when everything is calm and splendid. Glory in the feeling of a cool breeze upon my skin. Song lyrics circle, a symphony swelling inside my head, music only I can hear.

Alegria
I see a spark of life shining
Alegria
I hear a young minstrel sing
Alegria
Beautiful roaring scream
Of joy and sorrow,
So extreme
There is a love in me raging
Alegria
A joyous,
Magical feeling

See the acrobats dancing, ribbons swirling, behind my eyes. Smile to myself, remembering the tears in my eyes the first time I heard this song. Her voice, reaching deeper parts of me than music normally has access to. The swelling of sheer joy trembling on her words as she conveyed that feeling to us all, her audience.

Alegria
Como la luz de la vida
Alegria
Como un payaso que grita
Alegria
Del estupendo grito
De la tristeza loca
Serena
Como la rabia de amar
Alegria
Como un asalto de felicidad

Bus arrives, I take my seat and it's a desperate measure to not break into song. My voice, not spectacular, but the words themselves, so full of joy and life.

So very full.
Joie.
-Peregrine

"You should write that down!"

"You should write that down!" is something I hear fairly frequently. I have tons of amusing childhood anecdotes. I got into more than my fair share of trouble as a child, and my family was always incredibly supportive. Every so often, I get the impression that my family isn't just like everyone else's, and usually it's followed by the above phrase.

When I was about 5, I had hair so long it reached my waist line. This was my mother's choice, not mine - I hated it. I had to take care of it, which meant washing and brushing and keeping it out of my face - all of which require patience, something I lack. Hell was the phrase, "You can't go out and play until you're done with your hair."

My older sister, a hair stylist, took pity on me and bought me a round brush. It was the 80's, these were a major fad. She didn't, however, teach me how to use it. In a spate of deductive logic, I thought "It's round, that means I must be able to just roll it down my hair! It'll do all the brushing for me! This'll be GREAT!" Anyone who's ever tried to do that with a round brush on long hair knows exactly what's coming.

After about the second pass, it tangled. Badly. As in "stuck in my hair, never coming out again" tangled. I, being the cool, collected person that I am - freaked the hell out and kept yanking on it and twisting it and pleading with it to come out of my hair - all of which served only to entrench it further. After about 20 minutes of trying everything, including just ripping the whole mess out of my head, I was sore, frustrated, horrified, and all out. I sat down on the floor and started crying.

That's where my siblings found me when they came home from wherever they'd been. Sitting in a sodden heap on the bathroom floor with a brush handle sticking out of a giant rat's nest of hair on the side of my head. They looked at each other, and my sister went and got a scissors. By this point, I'm a wretch of a child, screaming and sobbing and generally having hysterics all over my poor brother. My brother takes the scissors. He locks eyes with me, "Do you trust me?" I nod, because he's my older brother and I have a soul-deep faith that he will never, ever hurt me. He asks me to calm down and close my eyes. I'm still scared and convinced I'm going to wind up with a huge bald patch on my head, but my brother asked me to sit still and close my eyes, so I try my best for him.

I can feel the scissors working into the mass of hair, and I can hear the snick-snick of the blades closing. I feel the mass loosening, and can imagine the hair coming off my head in big clumps, like our cat when she shed fur. I'm shaking and trying not to sob, because he asked me to sit still. Eventually, he puts the scissors down and the weight of the brush goes away. I really begin to lose it, knowing it's taking a large quantity of my hair with it. My brother tells me to open my eyes, so I do. He was sitting there with the stem of the brush in his hand. He'd cut all the bristles off one by one, and I lost some hair but not much. I stare up at him, "You didn't cut my hair?" He shrugs, "No. Why save the brush?"

He and I spent a good 2 hours picking bristles out of my hair. Untangling it was easier - he stuck me in the shower again and dumped half a bottle of conditioner on my head and started working the tangles out. I did end up losing a good handful of hair, but it wasn't noticeable afterwards, and it wasn't a huge bald spot like I'd feared.

After all this, we went to the store and he bought me a wide tooth comb.

So now it's written down.
-Peregrine

And some days, my friends make me proud.

In a livejournal post, my friend J. decried against an insulting post he found in a community he's in. The post he was annoyed by was rude and insulting, a high-handed list of things bigger women "should do" to make themselves appealing to other people. Should do - not could do.

J. went on to describe exactly why he found the post to be odious here. J. and I don't always agree on things - and sometimes we spectacularly don't agree, in ways that cause other people to duck and cover - but on this, I'm behind his sentiment all the way.

What I find particularly interesting - the original "what you should do" post was made by someone who was, presumably, a BBW, a member of the very group she was lecturing and looking down on. The person defending the right of any woman to look how she chooses and stating that he prefers their natural state to something made up to the nine's, is a member of the group the original poster seemed to be trying to appeal to.

Being comfortable in your own skin and being confident in yourself is the biggest thing anyone can do to make themselves attractive. It sounds like that's what the original poster was trying to convey, but boy, what a horrible way to go about saying that - by making people feel that if they didn't live up to the list of what that poster found attractive, they were falling short. It irritated me that it looked like the post was saying, "Do these things because other people find them attractive." - trying to live up to what "other people find attractive" is a losing battle, because everyone's tastes are different and you can't please all the people all the time. All it will succeed in doing is making someone less confident in themselves. Self confidence is beautiful. It's a shame the original poster doesn't realize that.

-Peregrine

Kinetic energy

I love storms. It's tornado season where I live, and that is usually heralded by "green boomers" - thunderstorms where the sky turn a wickedly nasty shade of green. The rain pours down in fierce sheets of liquid, hard enough to sting your skin. Thunder rolls and claps so loudly it sets off car alarms, and the sky is a churning, roiling mass of dark clouds from horizon to horizon. This year, we've only had one good storm, and I'm feeling the lack. There's an powerful sense of kinetic energy when a storm is raging outside, and during the summer the rain is warm enough that I can go play in it. It feels like renewal, like the dice of opportunity are rolling and anything can happen, like the possibilities for anything are endless and within reach. If thunderstorms were a drug, I'd be a junkie. Like a junkie, I'm going through withdrawl from the lack of storms this season.

A friend back in New England is in the middle of a Nor'easter right now, and I'm so jealous I can taste it. I'm looking outside, off the 41st floor of an office building, and I can see the humidity-impregnated air hovering over the ground below. I cringe at the knowledge of what it will be like when I walk out the door on the ground floor - going from air conditioned splendor to a solid wall of heat and humidity unstirred by anything except passing traffic.

I want to be in New England right now, sitting on the rocks at Revere Beach and watching the storm rage over the ocean, churning waves crashing to white froth on the rocks. I want to feel like the earth, the sky, the very air around me is alive with energy. I want to run across the rocks and shout and laugh and dance, knowing my words will be drowned by thunder while I get soaked to the skin.

Instead, I'm here, where it's hot and humid and you must strain for every breath you take. When I walk out to the street below, I'll mentally be in New England, playing in the rain. I'll probably smile, or maybe laugh to myself, and nobody will look or care because the sidewalk in the city has its own brand of anonymity. I will feel the sidewalk shake with thunder that's 1500 miles away. I will remember the feeling of the storm, the energy flowing through my skin.

I will feel alive.
-Peregrine

On physical beauty.

I had a discussion today with a coworker who made an offhand derogatory remark. We were at lunch, and a lady walked by wearing a really neat gauze skirt. My coworker piped up with "UGH!" and hastily whispered, "She didn't shave her legs!" The first question out of my mouth was, "So?" My coworker responded, "Well, don't you think that's gross?" No. Why would I care what a person I don't know chooses to do with their body? My coworker defended, "She should shave her legs if she's going to wear a skirt, or shorts. Other people have to look at that, and it's gross." HAVE to look at it? Someone is forcing your eyelids open and turning your head in the direction of something you don't want to look at? Strangely, I don't seem to have that problem, not having any interest in looking at her legs and hadn't even noticed until the coworker pointed it out. I queried why my coworker was checking out the lady's legs. Her response was to repeat, "Because it's gross!"

According to whom? Last time I checked, there wasn't a national standard for beauty and the way an individual chooses to look was still only a matter of personal preference. My coworker made a comment about looking "socially acceptable."

Really, let's talk about that for a moment.

* In the 10th century, the Chinese Empire was a force to be reckoned with, a major trading power. Their socially acceptable basis of beauty was the bound foot. Female children's feet were broken and bound to stunt them and force them into an unnatural growth, obtaining an adult length of - at the most - 3". The bound feet would frequently become infected as the skin rotted, putrified, and sloughed off. This standard of beauty lasted until 1911, when it was outlawed because the rest of the world considered the custom barbaric. While it was outlawed, it was still practiced up until just before WWI, by mothers who had bound feet and couldn't bear to have their daughters have "common" feet - even though they knew the binding meant a lifetime of pain.

* Padaung tribal women in Myanmar have bronze rings places around their neck every two years until they are married, stretching the neck sometimes as much as 25cms, deforming the vertebrae and causing atrophy of the neck muscles until the support of the head is reliant upon the rings - removal of the rings leads to a permanently incapacitated woman, or kills her by smothering her to death. Yet, in that society, a woman's social standing is reliant on how long her neck is and how many rings she wears.

* In 1612, an Italian researcher reported on the Japanese Ainu women's custom of tattooing their faces, lips, cheeks, forehead and eyebrows. The amount of skin covered and the intracacy of the tattoos is considered their standard of social beauty to this day.

* In the 17th through 19th centuries, no respectable woman would have been seen outdoors without a corset. Young girls were fitted for corsets around age 7, wearing them daily to form their bodies into a pleasing shape and give them a "modest" waist of 18" - "small enough that a man can fit his hands around it." The small, wasp waists were considered the mod of beauty for over 200 years. This same mod contributed to the physical problems arising from long-term corseting: liver and kidney displacement, respiratory distress, uterine prolapse, digestive problems, muscle and spine deformation, and pressure on pelvic veins causing swelling of the extremities.

* For thousands of years, spanning many countries and religions, the practice of female circumcision, commonly called female genital mutilation, has been practiced because it is a socially accepted practice and women who are left "uncut" are considered unclean, unmarriageable, and shunned or worse.

* In the 20th century, the shaving of women's body hair, most noticably leg and armpit, has become popular, for reasons that are purely aesthetic.

Ah, but there's the rub - aesthetic for /who/? The person to whom the legs belong? Obviously, that person didn't mind the look, or she would have shaved - the look is aesthetically ok with her. For the people who might see her legs? Why on earth should she be accountable for providing pleasing public aesthetics? For the last 1900 recorded years, neither men nor women have paid the slightest attention to hair on the body. It was the hair on the head that mattered. Only in the last 60 or so years has the removal of body hair and the lack of body hair become something to be contemplated at all as a source of aesthetics - and who is it that is determining whether or not shaved legs are more attractive than legs that aren't shaved? Men's legs aren't judged on attractiveness based on how much or how little hair they have, and in fact the opposite is true - a man with shaved legs will often get strange looks for doing something considered so atypical for his gender.

I'm a history geek. I could ramble off all sorts of strange and unique things people have done through the ages in the name of beauty, up to and including having surgeons slice bits off of them or rearrange the bits they have to achieve a certain look. It disappoints me to be around people who have such a need to conform to a "socially acceptable standard of beauty" that really shouldn't be a standard that matters at all. In the end, how a person looks should be left up to them. If you don't like it, don't look at it. Nobody has the right to be derisive because others don't choose to suita standard of aesthetics they don't hold to.

Enough for now. More on this vein (vain - ha) later.
-Peregrine

Post the First

Many years ago, I created the The Joaquin Phoenix Anti-Page during a bout of seething. It was originally a sarcastic page formed wholly out of irritation caused by too much exposure to stupid people on the internet. I posted the page and subsequently forgot about it. In a bout of irony, I bumped into my own page two years later while on the internet looking for information on another movie, and updated it in April 2003. I promptly forgot it existed again until, again two years later, someone with way too much time on their hands tracked me down and emailed me, asking when it would be updated.

Apparently there are people out there who find my vitriolic pop-offs to be poignantly amusing, and wanted to know if I write about things other than my annoyance of idiots.

The answer is "Yes, but that's the mainstay." I write. I write a lot. Usually I write about things that bother me or annoy me, because that gets them out of my head and off my attention list and I can go on living a happy, stable life. I don't sit and seethe, hiding in a dark internal world and hating all outside. If that's what you're looking for, there are some pages dedicated to goth poetry I could point you at.

Anyway. Here it is. Cheers.
-Peregrine