May 28th, 2008
I seem to be unable to attend conventions without being dry-humped anymore. It’s very annoying. Even at the Folsom Street Fair I could avoid that indignity.
Granted, I have other problems at the Folsom Street Fair, which is usually a stream of low-grade, distressingly insistent come-ons rather than single undignified acts of borderline sexual assault, but this is another story, for another day.
I first encountered this unfortunate circumstance at last year’s YaoiCon, a few days before this site opened. Friday afternoon, I was walking out back to a friend’s room to adjust my costume when someone grabbed me from behind and started hip-thrusting. It was really very uncivilized, and while someone on Constaff saw it and offered to revoke the person’s badge, I asked them to give only a first-last-and-only warning. People look forward to YaoiCon all year, and it’s easy to get caught up in the sheer vibrant enthusiasm of the convention. It didn’t feel like my place to ruin someone’s weekend only a few hours in. Under certain circumstances, a gentleman is obligated to forgive.
My next con was Fanime. It happened again, and this time was far more unpleasant.
May 20th, 2008
A high-school buddy just recently sent me an interesting email. She’s doing a fundraiser for the Muscular Dystrophy Association, volunteering to be locked up “behind bars” until her friends raise some unspecified amount of money for the cause. Charity is an important part of a complete and responsible membership in society, and even though the MDA spends fifteen cents of every dollar on more fundraising and seven more on administrative overhead (compare to the Shriners Hospitals for Children, who spend nine cents on both put together), I do admire her dedication and willingness to help. My friends can usually count on me for donations to their causes.
That said…
May 16th, 2008
Yesterday, the California State Supreme Court recognized the right to form a family relationship for all its citizens, homosexual and heterosexual alike. It joins Massachusetts as only the second state in the Union to recognize this right.
Some people will call this a “special right” or “judicial activism”; they argue that the law, in its majestic equality, forbid straights as well as gays to marry others of the same sex, that asking for that right is asking for something unnecessary and somehow fundamentally wrong. I’ve never really agreed with this line of thinking; the law, in its majestic equality, has in past years, forbid white as well as black to marry outside their races, to attend each others’ schools, or to ride in the same train cars.
We have a long way to go. Most of the other states have decided explicitly to deny full faith and credit to homosexual marriages legal in other states. It’s still acceptable, in most circles, to make an insult out of someone’s sexuality; people like Sally Kern can attract standing ovations and thousands of public supporters. That said, I think it’s easy to criticize too much; progress to freedom and equality is a very slow thing. It’s only been fifty-four years since Brown took the Topeka Board of Education to the Supreme Court, forty-four since Mississippi Burning. By comparison Stonewall (thirty-nine years ago next month) is a fresh memory.
People who believe in the freedom to love have two states down and forty-eight to go. It’s a very long road.
That’s OK.
I believe we’ll get there.
May 9th, 2008
I dropped my watch the other day, breaking the glass, so I looked up a jeweler this morning and wandered in.
This time, Rio found me.
“Are you following me?” he asked, almost laughing at the absurdity of it all. I turned at the sound of his voice and found him leaning comfortably across the counter. “You know, I could have given you my number and saved you the trouble.”
“I don’t even know your name.”
“No, no you don’t, actually.” he said, his eyes glittering as he straightened and looked me up and down. With a faint smile, he brushed a speck of dust from his shirt, running his slender fingertips against the tiny antiqued-gold nametag pinned there. “I’m Rio. How may I help you?” His voice dropped, just slightly, as he tilted his head, looking at me as if he meant something more than jewelry. “What do you need?”
When I think back and wonder when I began to fall for Rio, I come back to this moment, to the way he looked at me, the way I saw myself reflected back in his eyes. It was the almost-lilt in his voice that caught me, the beautiful, casual weight of that question. “What do you need?” A small, happy noise forced itself out, deep in my chest. I handed him my watch without a word.
For a moment he considered it, holding it to his ear to hear it tick. “It’s just a broken crystal,” he said. “Call it… twenty-five, probably.”
I nodded, licking my lips. The seams of his pants were sewn with soft pink thread, highlighting his long legs and the gentle sway of his hips, and my mouth went dry as I watched him walk to the workbench in the back of the store. “Twenty-five. Right. Okay.”
“I think… ow!” he cut his finger on a stray fragment of crystal. “Uff. Yeah, I don’t have this size…” he gave his fingertip a slow, thoughtful suck as he set the watch on his table. “I think I need to grind one to fit… can you come back in an hour or so?”
“Sure. Yeah, I can do that.” His tongue was very pink, bright against his lightly tanned skin. I tried not to think too much about it as I turned to leave. Behind another counter, a very small, beautiful woman, dark and elegant in her inky-blue dress, gave me a wicked, knowing smile.
May 2nd, 2008
It is always comforting for people on grand adventures to hear stories from other adventurers. Stories are from people like Dr. Livingstone, T.E. Lawrence, and Sir Richard Francis Burton are always wonderful, because they are professionals among adventurers. Indiana Jones is supposed to come out of retirement later this summer. He is probably out of Nazis to fight so I will be very curious to see what he has been up to.
Lately though, I think my favorite stories come from an adventurer named Kino. They are collected in a nice little box called, appropriately, Kino’s Journey. Kino is not a professional, though she is very good at adventuring. Like your friendly neighborhood Catboy (me), Kino is short, friendly, cheerful, and often not entirely sure where she is going (professional adventurers know where they are going, even if they are not sure how to get there exactly). She does have a map, which is helpful, and the ever-important distinctive hat. Most importantly, though, she (and her companion, a talking motorcycle named Hermes) understands that is the getting-there and not the “there” at the end that is important about adventuring.
Kino’s world is a place full of wonder, slightly super-technological and slightly magical at the same time. Most notably it is missing airplanes and CD players and things like this, even though there are holograms, clever Victorian-looking robots, and very big computers with mysterious panels of blinky lights. It is almost like a fairy tale that way, a little bit out of step with the normal flow of time. Also it is like a fairy tale because it is a compellingly moral sort of world; Kino spends an awful lot of time having to consider the necessity of her guns and the strange justice (or injustice) of the countries she wanders through (most of the time they are really closer to large walled towns).
Even though some of the countries are not very nice (some of them are just plain dangerous), Kino believes that “the world is not beautiful; therefore it is.” What she means by this is that even the unpleasant and dangerous parts of the world make the world a more beautiful place in which to live, because they make people appreciate how wonderful the rest really is.
This is a thought of which I approve very much, partly because it is a little bit like my “flakes, raisins, and almonds” theory. I do recommend that you enjoy Kino’s story for yourself.
