Yarg.

One notes that I was going to do some work today. One notes that I got some work done today, but not all of it. One also notes that I have Friday off, and thus will be trying to get myself back on track before too long. I think I'm worrying too much about this. I probably am, but I still can't really shake the nagging in the back of my head that things should be done so that other things can get done. That's me....
Propaganda surrounds us all. But now that we're aware that it's there, can we defuse it? Well, if we can find the tripwires, maybe. Apparently, Silly String is perfect for the job. Now that I turn that over in my head, it seems very true in more than one way.

New TV program, though: This Twentieth-Century House. A fine exercise in satire and modest proposals. Also, excellent interview of J.D. "Iliad" Frazier, creator of User Friendly, and Jeff Darlington, creator of General Protection Fault, and their views on what tech cartooning is like .

And now for the slightly odd comparisons: On the one hand, there's Twenty Reasons to Abandon Christianity (I suspect the more hard-line version than the softer, buddy-Jesus style, but there's still some parts that apply equally well.) Working on the other hand, Saudi Arabia and the militant Islam it promotes. Worth thinking about how both sides can be just as fanatical...

I'd have more, but it's late, I've just revised a paper, today has been shot in terms of doing real work, so I think I'll go to bed and try again tomorrow.

Was a good night tonight.

I was productive today in matter schoolwork-like, in collecting some data that I will need to write a big paper. If, by any chance, any of you should know any sorts of books that teach young children (underneath the Y.A. publishing threshold) about Wicca or more standard "occult" things from a non-christian perspective, could you drop me a name of the book and the author? I'm trying to write a bit of a paper about the apparent dearth of books and the ramifications of that (one of them being "Why are people complaining about occultism being marketed to children if there are no effective children's books about it?") Am also trying not to get stuck in late nights trying to bang my head against a paper that doesn't budge. I'll get that bit done and possibly submit some sort of draft at my TA by next week. Then I can refine it and get the other thing that has to get done, done, along with the six hundred other things. Now is not the time to panic. I'm still two weeks out from a deadline. Some of my colleagues probably have not even started their work yet. Now is not the time to panic. (So why am I?)

While I was out being productive, apparently quite a few other people were, too, and not all of it "progress" in terms of a liberal viewpoint. The Intelligent Design crowd won a major victory in Kansas, successfully convincing the state education board to mandate the inclusion of intelligent design in state science standards. I note that the article quotes someone as using the term "Darwin fundamentalists" to describe those who believe in evolution as the sole acceptable standard. It is a strange term to hear, admittedly, and my first reaction to laugh it off as silly. Then again, it might be accurate.

Dover, Pennsylvania, however, took a dim view of ID and ousted all the ID-supporting board members. You win some, you lose some. Many on the Left would rather that be "you win some, you lost most." There were Democratic governors elected and Republican governor's agendas rejected. Maine held on to a provision that made sure gender identity and sexual orientation are still grounds for discrimination.

The crown glory and most Ignoble of them all is that Texas passed a constitutional amendment that can be interpreted to have outlawed all forms of marriage. Talk about a bait-and-switch. We'll see who's the first person to get sued or bring suit over the matter.

There is a meme buffer between this and tonight's self-introspection. Thus, be presented with...

( What FF character could I be? )

There you are. I was having a strange conversation with myself - mostly in text (amazing how I can imagine what sort of formatting my inner voices take...) about the things that we're worried about, if that. Good fodder for my memoirs (or my psychoanalysis when I go insane, whichever you like.)

The set-up is, we're talking about what I expect in terms of the dating realm...

You know, I just don't like changing my appearance as a potential attractor of people. I've not been big on using the outside image as a lure.
(Well, not all the time, anyway. You'll dress up if you're going out, but we don't do it as a rule.)
Yeah. I don't care about my outside appearance because I don't want people to judge me on it - and I hope that I don't judge other people on it too much.
(You're probably doing okay - you generally think, "Hmm. Attractive to the body and pleasing to the eye - she's probably be a good lay physically, but I'd have to get to know her better to make a final decision on that.")
And I'm okay with that. Although it does make for the occasional brain-split where body wants a lay and brain has to justify why it's not worth it. Generally both parties would agree on some solution and the crisis is averted.
(Right. So what we want, then, is for someone to interpret the right cues that make us attractive and discard the wrong ones that don't, and be able to see the intricate person inside. Bit of an unrealistic expectation, isn't it? After all, it's not like someone's going to be able to pick you up as the complex person you are right from your appearance, especially if you don't put thought into how you want to communicate all that depth on a level that can be easily read.)
We're in a bit of a catch-22, aren't we?
(Yeah. But are we resigned to the further realization that we're going to be looking for a rare person who's either able or willing to look past our first impression?)
Probably not. Which is why we get in those fights in the first place. So what do we do about this? We don't care enough to put effort into making our image more attractive, because we feel like we'd be putting on a false face, but we're not resigned enough that we're probably not going to find many people going about it this way.

It was about this time that we decided that was a question best left to the ether and the people around on the net. Or elsewhere. We're searching for acceptance of what we are, and we're not entirely sure we've found it in places that we'd like it to be. So perhaps if we learn to accept ourselves, and get acceptance from people, we'll resolve the issue.