Enthusiastically Ambiverted Hopepunk
General ramblings connected to my personal life and activities.
Woke up this morning with a head cold, and it’s just gotten worse as the day’s gone by. I’ve been drinking OJ like it was water all day, and just popped two NyQuil tablets, so hopefully I’ll be feeling a little more human by tomorrow.
For now, though, it’s an early bedtime for me.
iTunes: “Crablouse, The (No Visible Symptoms)” by Lords of Acid from the album Crablouse, The (1994, 5:26).
My node id stubbed up, my head hurds, my throad id raw…today’s gonna suck.
iTunes: “Erased, Over, Out” by Nine Inch Nails from the album Further Down the Spiral (1995, 5:58).
…K-I-S-S-I-N-G, first come love, then comes marriage, then comes a baby in a baby carriage!
A few days ago, I got word that my brother and his fianceé had just discovered that they’re going to be having a baby, due to show up in early August. Yesterday parents let me know that the long-awaited wedding has been scheduled — for next month!
This has been an exciting week! Kev & Emily are getting married Feb 15, with the baby due early August.
The wedding will be at a botanical garden in Memphis, outdoors if the weather is good, or indoors if necessary.
That’s about all I know. They didn’t want any fuss, but Emily’s aunt convinced her today that a small family wedding would be ok, so they “booked a place” then came home and told Kevin!
We’ll be there, of course.
I’ll be there too — I fired off an e-mail to my manager last night, and got confirmation this morning that I’ll be able to get a few days off to head down there. Tennessee, here I come: my lil’ brother’s getting married!
Of course, given that the wedding was announced after the baby was announced, and the ceremony is going to be in Tennessee…well, one has to wonder whether I’ll come back with wedding pictures featuring a shotgun-wielding father in the background…;)
I’m exhausted this morning, for no particular reason whatsoever that I can think of. Slapped the alarm for about an hour after it went off, and it was still a chore to drag myself out of bed.
The weekend was fairly uneventful — mostly just kicking back here at home, bouncing around the ‘net and importing a ton of CDs back into the computer. Nothing really overly stressful. I think this is just “one of those mornings.”
Hit the Vogue Saturday and Sunday night. The more Sundays I go, the more I think I prefer them over Saturdays.
Saturdays (and Fridays) are a mix of 80’s, 90’s and modern new-wave, gothic, and industrial, and Sundays are the club’s “Fetish Night”, with similar but slightly darker music. The biggest difference is that Fridays and Saturdays are more “tourist friendly” — there are definitely the regulars each night, but there are also a lot of the people who either just come by occasionally or are “straights” coming to get a taste of the scene. There’s certainly nothing wrong with that at all — most of the time the “tourists” aren’t too bad, it’s rare that they get overly obnoxious or offensive, and some of them actually seem to really get a kick out of the atmosphere and the music, even if it’s all new to them. It’s just that the club often gets incredibly hot and crowded. I’m usually not overly tweaked by crowds, especially in dance clubs, but I ended up leaving early on Saturday when it got to be too much for me.
Sundays, as the “Fetish Night,” are rapidly becoming my favorite night. It’s not nearly as crowded, which is probably due to a combination of it being a Sunday night (and many people have to be up early on Mondays to get to work) and the theme itself. The music is a bit darker and outfits tend to be a bit more extreme — it’s not at all rare to see people (men and women both) in little more than chaps and leather studded g-strings, “schoolgirl” outfits, bondage gear, etc. — which can be seen as extreme enough that it doesn’t lend itself to a “tourist” atmosphere. I’ve never had a problem with things like this, myself, while I don’t have any outfits along those lines in my wardrobe (I tend to neither be that flashy nor have the budget to indulge in outfits like that), I often enjoy the look of them, and many of the clubgoers are wonderful to watch (whether it be because of their personal attractiveness, their style of dress, the way they dance, or any combination of those). All in all, it’s a more relaxed night, and I’m enjoying it more each time I go.
I’ll likely not entirely cease hitting the Vogue on Saturday nights, as there are definitely times I like the busier, bustling atmosphere of a weekend night, and the slightly “pop”-ier music gets some songs in that I like dancing to that are less likey to show up on a Sunday night. However, if I had to choose just one night to hit the club on any given week, Sundays would definitely be my choice.
iTunes: “Godhead” by Nitzer Ebb from the album Ebbhead (1991, 4:29).
I’m not sure how long this is actually going to go on, but so far, due only to a combination of laziness and idle curiosity, I’ve yet to shave my head this year (and hadn’t for a good week or so before Jan. 1st). I’m starting to wonder just how long I can go before I get sick of the curls and shave my head again. It could be just a few days — or it could be months.
I guess I’ll find out when I find myself in the bathroom, clippers in hand.
iTunes: “Light (Vengeance)” by K.M.F.D.M. from the album Light (1994, 5:39).
Wow.
My brother and his fianceé just found out that Emily is pregnant!
hello family. here it is. we are excited. we went to the docter yesterday. em is 11 weeks along. this is a big suprise to us. sooner than the original gameplan. oh well nothing left to do but celibrate. i love you all. keep us in your prayers. kevin, em and ?
Many, many congratulations!
Here’s something both interesting and disturbing (hopefully not the first thing you’re reading this morning). A friend is conducting an impromptu, informal poll on her LiveJournal:
Mostly for the girls. But if the guys feel they can contribute, feel free.
Feel free to answer this one anonymously.
For how many of you was your first sexual experience consensual?
For how many of you was your first penetrative sexual experience consensual?
Just curious and doing my own little impromptu poll.
Me? Neither.
So far, the responses tally like so:
Where both experiences had the same answer, it’s almost — but not quite — 50/50, and the nonconsensual experiences are in the lead. If you combine all instances of nonconsensual firsts into one category, then out of the 27 responses, barely over a third had fully consensual first sexual experiences — and just under two thirds were forced or coerced in some way into their first sexual experiences.
Admittedly, it’s a small sample group to work with, so no real statistics should probably be drawn from this. But I seem to remember hearing fairly often over the years that one out of every three women (people?) would end up being sexually molested at some point in their life. By this sample group, it looks more like two out of every three. Not an encouraging thought in the least.
Just for the record, all sexual experiences I’ve had have been consensual. One of the many things in my life that I’m quite thankful for.
* One comment indicated that both were “technically” consensual, but given the details that were explained, I’ve taken the liberty of adding that tally to this category.
Things are slowly starting to return to a semblance of normality as the weather warms up and all the snow starts to melt. However, slowly is definitely they key word. The promised warm temperatures that were supposed to melt everything away overnight never quite materialized, instead bringing us freezing rain. Today we’ve got more rain, so the town is blanketed in half-melted snow, slush, huge puddles, all on top of still-icy streets.
I won’t be surprsied at all if today turns out to have more accidents, simply because since it’s not snowing, people will think that they can drive normally. Conditions like this certainly don’t make for safe driving, though, and it’s my bet that quite a few people will be figuring that out over the course of the day.
Meanwhile, as a pedestrian/bus rider, I’m stuck with slogging through slushy sidewalks, wading through ever-growing puddles (storm drains designed for Seattle’s usual rain don’t work nearly as well when clogged with snow and slush), and trying to avoid being splashed by drivers who go tearing through the puddles. I swear some of these people actually drive in the gutter on purpose when they see some poor sap slogging along on the sidewalk! Shmoes.
I was yet one of many, many people across Seattle today who, though I did have to go into work, I ended up getting there late and leaving early due to today’s weather. Heavy snow in the morning that has now turned into sleet and freezing rain essentially shut down much of the city — and while the Alaskan in me likes to joke around about how “this is nothing,” I’m also quite aware that for Seattle, this is a very big deal indeed. Besides, who am I to complain about getting to leave work early for a snow day? ;)
A gallery of pictures of the downtown Seattle area that I took during my quest for a bus to get me to work have been uploaded to the Hanscom family photo gallery. Enjoy!
Lots more Seattle snow pics can be found from various local area bloggers, including Tandoku (and again), Funk as Puck, Client and Server, The Wisdom of the Illiterati, and Beans for Breakfast (all via SeaBlogs), Whybark (via Beans for Breakfast), and Anita points to these great pictures of ice on the Pacific Science Center fountains!
More (discovered in the comments at Whybark): In a Puddle and Buffoonery.org.
Looks like I’m going to be late to work today — after waiting for my bus for about 40 minutes, I came home. From the looks of things, several of the steeper hills have been closed down, which is playing all sorts of games with getting around. While I was waiting, though, I got to watch some people shut down the hill right next to my bus stop and work on improvising sleds from cardboard boxes and play in the snow — many pictures were taken, of course.
I’ve got about half an hour before my next possible bus (on a different route), so I’m going to head back out and get some more pictures. Expect a fairly large gallery when I get home tonight!