Living a Life I Don't Know How to Live

What I learn from linaelyn's flist and journal:

That I want ciroccoj's reading list for one of her classes. She talks about her reading, and says: Right now I'm switching between reading about a "racializing on the net" (assumptions we all make that everybody is white/female, and how that affects/is affected by racism in RL) and an analysis of circumstances surrounding the death of Konerak Sinthasomphone at the hands of Jeffrey Dahmer. Then I've got readings on "passing" from black and Asian perspectives, then a comparison of the issues around mixed race and same-sex marriages. Quite a trip.

verylisa talked about finding an interesting Harry Potter slash story, which didn't interest me in itself, but her comments about why she's not been reading in the fandom did. She said she was too old to be interested in the first fumbling sex experiments of teenagers, and it made a lot of sense to me, as did her comments about post-war stories and extrapolating what we know of the children into believable adults.

+ reading everyone else's recaps of what they've learned while swapping flists is highly interesting.

+ more people are doing the post-the-first-sentence-of-every-month meme than I ever expected. In fact, it's making me want to do it, too, even though it's become an everyone is doing it kind of thing, and I try not to follow the crowd all the time. Except that I'm doing this flist swap, and enjoying it very much, just like everyone else.

+ apparently, picking one's nose and eating what's inside is called mucophagy. I probably could have done without knowing that, but I do like having new words to use.

+ blackwhiteicons is strangely entrancing, especially black and white icons that include ships and water.

+ bookish has made me want to keep a list of the books I read this year, even though I've failed every other time I tried to do it.

+ monkeypuzzle made me laugh with her comments about Drumline (which isn't a good movie but the drumming is fun and it made me miss marching, when I watched it a couple of years ago while we were in Hawaii) and her Jaws-inspired icon. Oh man, I love that icon.

+ marquesate stuck herself in a Vermeer painting and it looked really neat. PSP is maybe not such a horrible program, though I'll stick with my beloved photoshop.

+ Also, though I've heard this from my flist, too, I'm apparently missing out because I don't use Lush products.

+ That Pirate Movie is still very popular on her flist.

+ From arielladrake, did you know that:

Superintendent of schools for the Catholic diocese of Orange County has defended St John the Baptist School's decision to allow twin five year-old boys parented by two homosexual men, to be enrolled. A prominent conservative group has warned that the homosexual couple's children might try to brainwash their classmates about homosexuality.

The quote from the conservtive spokesperson stating that children raised in homosexual environments become "little homosexual voice boxes" had me blinking in a mix of confusion and disbelief for a while, but I loved the comment from the head of the G&L Community Centre regarding the 'gay agenda':
"I wish someone would give me my copy because I have never seen it" *grin*

Keya, I though you'd be interested in that, sis.

+ There are weird people who like snow. I knew this, but I'm still disturbed.

+ Did you know there is a site for fandom cross-stitch patterns? The things I learn.

+ In my comic reading, I tend to stick to Marvel, but there are some interesting storylines going on in DC comics, apparently. I may have to start reading and see what I can find out. Also, scans of comics are intriguing yet frustrating, because I only get part of the story, and I want more, no matter whether I read it or not.

+ There is an interesting conversation going on here in fabu's journal, about reading between the lines of your flist and determining gender and appearance from what you read in your flist entries.

+ linaelyn is too cool. She plays Munchkin! MUNCHKIN! Which reminds me, I need to run over to MB and Blake's sometime this week and beg for a game. Maybe M'Lee can join us, too. I think she'd like it. What a wonderful, wonderful game. I want the horror-based one, myself. Oooh, and we need to play that pirate game that we all got pieces for in our stockings.

+ Job hunting is rough no matter where you're doing it.

+ Losing writing is a horrible, painful thing, and no writer should feel that he or she shouldn't mourn its passing.

+ bear is a 3L and now I'm reading through the journal because I've become close to addicted to the journals of law students. I suppose it is an attempt to prepare myself for the coming three years.

+ There's a google for your desktop? http://desktop.google.com/

+ I had to go to skip 120 to find one Lost mention. What is up with that? Hee hee hee.

+ commonreader said strong, interesting things about pro-choice versus pro-life and why people are called the mushy middle, etc. etc. I should put that in the memories, because some of it I'd like to refer back to the next time I write about it.

+ I refuse to do the mapquest meme until I know where I'm going to law school. And then maybe that's how I'll tell everyone my final decision. Should be miles and miles away from where my parents currently live, which is actually a sad thing, because I will miss my family.

+ gryphons_lair has a really interesting post about the Swann family from That Pirate Movie and what kind of connections they may or may not have had, and I enjoyed reading it.

+ I like parents and children a lot more on livejournal than I do in real life. That's not entirely correct, though. I think what I mean is that I find better parents through my flist and other connections than I do in real life, and so I'm not disgusted by how they and their children act. In fact, though I still don't want any of my own, I can appreciate the work some people do to take care of their kids, and applaud their actions. (Of course, this doesn't mean that I don't know any good parents in real life. There are a handful of people.)

+ I still very much want to move to England for awhile. Mostly, of course, to be near thestalkycop, but partly because everyone but one person has such great tales to tell about living there.

+ I need to back up my journal. I'm not too upset about livejournal being bought out, but I'm also very paranoid, and it's just a good idea to back it up, no matter what happens. Because I would be very upset to lose all these years of entries. This has been my first successful attempt to keep a journal. Ever.

+ I want to fence. Possibly while living in England. My desires, they are simple.

+ There is a really interesting post here by guede_mazaka about character-driven stories versus plot-driver stories and I really want to expand on that later, because of all the writing I've done (though not today, but tomorrow starts the writing in earnest).

Now I must get ready to go to MB and Blake's. We may even go play pool for awhile. (Oh, our daring!) Probably Jake and MB will play chess and Blake and I will either rant about work or talk gaming talk, because he is an evil GM and deserves to be hated. Except for the fact that he's so good at what he does, so I can't hate him.

But I've really enjoyed the flist switch, and though I only made it to skip 240, I will read more when I get back, and more of linaelyn's journal itself. I'm pleased with what I've found, and I think I'm going to add people to my own flist, because it was all very interesting. Yay for a fun experience at something new.