I had a dream this morning that I was singing large chunks of The Pirates of Penzance to matrixx. In dream-reality, I think I sand most of the operetta, but the only bit I particularly noticed-and-still-remember was the "away the cheating world go you / where pirates all are well-to-do".

I often forget my dreams as soon as I wake; in part what makes this notable is that the last dream that I thought to record also involved matrixx, whom I've not seen in a couple of years. Huh.

We wish you a happy birthday,
A joyous and celebrated birthday
To our dear jtigermoon --
We wish you a long, long life!

I had a funny dream last night. matrixx and one of my students and I were snow-sledding in a mall parking lot. (In this part of the world, mall parking lots tend to get piled high with ugly mountains of dirty, plowed snow.)

Ms Matrixx was telling us about a friend who was convinced that any contact with plastic caused cancer. Her friend said that there were only three things that were impervious to plastic: rubbing alcohol, Gatorade, and cancer itself.

To prevent cancer, the friend recommends rubbing ones' self with alcohol after skin exposure to plastic, or imbibing Gatorade after eating plastic. (That seemed really plausible in the dream. Maybe it was the discussion of Twinkies yesterday...)

That's about all I remember...

Woohoo! I just learned that my Republican state representative (ie, the guy I didn't vote for) is sponsoring a bill making it illegal in Ohio to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity for employment, housing and a few other things.

Details (from an email from Equality Ohio:

In the next few days, Representative Dan Stewart (D-Columbus) and Representative Ross McGregor (R-Springfield) will introduce in the Ohio House of Representatives the Equal Housing and Employment Act (EHEA) a bill which will make it illegal to discriminate in Ohio in employment, housing, public accommodations and credit based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

What next?
If you live in Ohio, please call your state rep's office to urge them to cosponsor the EHEA legislation. If you live in Springfield, give Ross McGregor a call at (614) 466-2038 and thank him for sponsoring the legislation.

I'm off to the Grove for a weekend of "Drum, Trance and Ritual Energetics" with artemis112 and others. But first: a layover at the Home For Wayward Fey and a breakfast with the St. Louis Feri peeps!

Yay! See you on Monday.

We wish you a happy birthday,
A joyous and celebrated birthday
To our dear hernes_moon --
We wish you a long, long life!

Two violins and a drum and a flute
And here comes siouxiequeue in her birthday suit!
Egg egg egg
And we are so glad
That siouxiequeue has a her birthday
And we celebrate that!
(Egg egg!)

I had a dream last night... it was a long complicated dream that involved running around Denver with a bunch of librarians. But most of what I remember was this: sitting down with a stack of vinyl LPs, and finding among them a long-lost Gaia Consort album called "Missionary Man". It was pressed in clear, red vinyl, like that Gregorian Chant LP that my parents had.

The label didn't actually say anything about Gaia Consort, but I put the record on and heard suddenlynaked singing a version of "Just Because" that I'd never heard before -- a little faster tempo, a little funkier. Perhaps something like what the song would sound if re-recorded with the musical sensibilities of the later GC albums. It was a fun dream to wake up from!

In my last post, I mentioned that I shaved in Seattle. It was the first time I'd shaved in about 14 years, so it was kind of momentous for me. I've noticed a distinct pattern that the shock this elicits from people is generally inversely proportional to how long they've known me. I figured that Before and After pics wouldn't cut it, so the delightful sidhefire helped me get some In Process photos as well. One of the pics has the eyes blacked out for reasons of my own; you're happier this way, trust me.

( Llama shearing! )

What have I learned from this process?

1) I really do dislike shaving
2) I like how I look without a beard
3) There is some conflict between 1 & 2
4) Under no circumstances should I ever just have a moustache

Subsequently, I am also learning that growing back the facial hair is no big deal. I can do this any time I feel like dragging a knife across my face.

Every day in Seattle was its own particular amazingness -- each day was rich with experience and abundant in marvels. I doubt I can do justice to it all, but I'll make a start.

( just the weekend was plenty busy )

And that's as far as I'm going to get for now. It should be noted that despite the title of the post, I'd not actually been to Seattle at this point, but all up and down the coast north and south of it.

Hello all! I'm home (well, back at work right now) after a truly amazing 10 days in Seattle and environs. Met all sorts of magnificent people and escapist ducks. So much to say about all of it.

For now, just:

* hey, I'm home, let me know if I missed anything big
* my mailbox was full starting on Thursday; it's fixed now. if you tried to send me something and got a bounce message, please re-send!

joy and llove!

I'm about to head out on my first long itineration of 2009! I'm attending national meeting of the Association of College & Research Libraries in Seattle next week, and am tacking on a few vacation days to extend the trip to 10 days.

On the agenda:
* my first new-to-me state in a few years
* finally meeting sidhefire and the rest of Clan Sidhefire
* heading north to a fête at the Coopermoon residence
* visiting suddenlynaked and siouxiequeue, and hopefully the good denizens of the House of Cats and Alligators
* my first real I-don't-know-these-people-(and chickens and ducks) CouchSurfing experience
* frolicking, dancing, exploring the city
* catching up with a friend from last summer's WitchCamp
* meeting the Seattle-dwelling sweetie of an Ohio-dwelling friend
* seeing brassratgirl and jtglover in their native environment
* maintaining whoopseedaisy's claim to the title of My Favorite Person I've Never Met
* gods-only-know what unplanned activities
* and, oh yeah... attending that conference

I come bearing:
* overstuffed luggage (as per usual -- pack llama!)
* dancing shoes
* an open mind
* a heart full of gratitude
* and a few treats to share

joy and love to you all!

Happy Square Root Day

Sadly: not having square root-veg for dinner.
Happily: having jambalaya instead, not having had enough last Tuesday.

My esteem`d co-worker, K___, brought up a little linguistic oddity this morning regarding the words "former" and "latter", as in:

"Some people prefer dogs to cats because the former are more faithful, even though the latter are totally cool."

Now, those of us conversant with this construction recognize that "former" refers to the dogs, because they came first in the sentence.

But... K, who has always been confused by this construction, offers an exciting way of (mis)understanding the sentence:

When we talk about "the former president" we're often talking about "the one immediately preceding"; and the word "latter" could mean "longer ago". Thus the first thing that you mention might make sense as being "latter" and the second would be "former".

I'm not advocating that we muddle these things up. I just wanted to point out that she found another way in which language is weird and cool. She thinks I'm weird for thinking so.

So I ask you: isn't it cool that language is this weird? If you're the sort of person who thinks so, I'd like to know.

Today's New York Times includes an article on recycled v. non-recycled toilet paper: Mr. Whipple Left It Out: Soft Is Rough on Forests, which addresses the fact that the soft and cushy TP that Americans so love generally comes directly from dead trees, rather than recycled paper.

If we can make a space shuttle, I'd think we could make nice, soft, recycled TP, but apparently this challenge eludes us. And I confess: I really like soft toilet paper. Can't we please figure this out?

Alternately: bidets all around?

I've been a busy llama lately. Let me 'splain. No, is too much -- let me sum up. This is just since Friday:

* somewhat absurd dinner/symposium with colleagues
* a chilly drive to chicago
* a splendid day with hernes_moon and a whole mess of butterflies
* finally seeing Maria's Field, starring the lovely and talented hernes_moon and a bunch of her marvelously gifted co-conspirators. so very good.
* a brief cup of tea with artemis112, who is always a joy to see
* a pleasant, thought-provoking brunch-and-chat with hernes_moon, and a surprise run-in with an old friend. (i am developing a theory: eating at a hippie breakfast joint automatically increases the odds that i will run into someone i know. it happened in NoHo last year too.)
* a longish drive home that was leavened by nice phone calls with Thea and s00j
* a kind of unusual Co dinner
* a grateful re-arrival at home and a little time with branchandroot before bed
* an acceptable sort of Monday with a marvelous addition: omnisti and s00j dropped in for a little while on their way from St Louis to New York. We fed them and loved them and gave them hot chocolate of extreme tastiness, traded music and stories and plots, and sent them on their way. I trust we'll get to see them for a while longer soon!

That's what I've been up to the last few days. How about you?

On the horizon:
* cooking for Mardi Gras with a bunch of teenagers
* dancing (of course)
* some commedia dell'arte
* a mad dash through next week...
* and a long-awaited trip to Seattle and environs!

Happy Birthday to my two favoritest cuspy fish, s00j (2/22) and transfiguration (2/23).

I wish you both days and lives full of joy, wonder, and love.

We wish you a happy birthday,
A joyous and celebrated birthday
To our dear Sooj & Liss!
We wish you a long, long life.

I'm on my way to Denver to visit hatdragon and sistersolace, and to attend a library conference -- in that order or importance! I've got a bit of work to do at the conference, and a brief speaking gig on the place of Wikipedia in library instruction. (Thanks to brassratgirl for helping make that happen -- my first talk at a national conference!)

I love having a job that occasionally sends me zipping across the country -- have a beautiful weekend, y'all!

Today's New York Times includes an article on the debate over whether a BlackBerry can be made to be sufficiently secure to allow Barack Obama to continue having one as president. Technical issues aside there was this note at the end of the article:

Then there is the fashion concern. Mr. Obama is known to sport his BlackBerry in a holster on his belt, which to many is the sartorial equivalent of wearing socks with sandals. Ridding the president of the phone could avoid legitimizing that look.

The BlackBerry no doubt endears Mr. Obama to one element of his core constituency: hard-working, tech-obsessed professionals whose fingers are painfully cramped from trying to type on small keys. In a sense, then, the BlackBerry is no different from the accessories that other presidents used to help them relate to their political base, like Ronald Reagan’s cowboy hats and jeans.

But those fashion statements seem less risky than a BlackBerry; it’s harder to hack pants.[emphasis mine]

Are you kidding me? There is a long tradition of hacking the presidential pants, and I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that it's not as hard difficult as achieving the dire things they predict as the BlackBerry's security risks.

As I have previously observed: we finally have a president that everyone would like to sleep with, and we really, really need him to keep his fly zipped. No hacking the presidential pants!