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Hey, a most happy solar return to my favorite LJ friend I've never met- starcrossedlady! Dark chocolate and massages to you, my dear.

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This article both amused and frustrated me. I'll let you figure out why it's amusing but I'll tell you why it was frustrating. Allow me to be humorless and curmudgeonly for a moment. Assuming he didn't make up his quotes (and I've heard similar elsewhere, so I don't think he did) I get irked when Wiccans hold 'Secret Spell Barbie' up as a sign that people are 'finally taking Wicca seriously.' So, where is 'Orthodox Jew Barbie' and 'Southern Baptist Convention Ken-Submitting Barbie' and 'Burqa-riffic Muslim Barbie'? There aren't any. Secret Spell Barbie, Harry Potter, and poems talking about how you should believe in witches, elves and Santa Claus ('A World Without Witches' by Robert Potts, recently posted on a few Wiccan lists) because it's sad to lose your child-like wonder don't really further the cause of Wicca at all. Hey, look, those all treat witches as if they were figments of the imagination, people! Yes, it's nice to have a well-developed sense of fantasy and all that, but putting Wiccans in the same categories as Malibu Barbie and Santa Claus doesn't exactly make it easier for people to take us seriously or see Wicca as a religion that deserves the same constitutional rights as any other.

I have nothing against 'Secret Spell Barbie' and am not so humorless as to think that it should be destroyed or avoided by any Wiccans that happen to be amused by it. I just wish people would quit equating her with actual Wicca.

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Choir was great. It was fantastic. The director is cool and seems to have a great sense of humor. MIL wasn't able to come, but there were 2 people there I knew from work- one from this job, another from a former- and there is even another from a couple of jobs back that attends sometimes as well. So I had someone to talk to who introduced me around and showed me where to go and stuff. Instead of standing on risers we all sat in a circle- that was different. Everyone seemed really friendly and supportive. It was solo audition night, and I had several people apologetically tell me that there is usually a lot more group singing, and saying 'so please come back next week!', even the director. They all applauded after all the solo auditions (even the crappy ones). It sort of reminds me of the women's spirituality group I was with for awhile before I found my coven; if they continue with the supportive and avoid the snarky that can plague all-women groups, I think I will be very happy in this choir.

There seems tobe some focus on money. Pay dues, sell ad space in the program, sell tickets. Oh well. It's to be expected I guess. But I've never been in a volunteer organization that charged admission (which is to say community bands). Maybe I'll just buy tix and give them to my friends or something. Concert's 11/13, I think. This bunch is so casual, it's terrific. Apparently concert dress is 'black on the bottom and something of a bright solid color on top.' Piece of cake.

My voice has held up a lot better over the years than my horn playing has, possibly because I sing to myself a lot. If anything, it seems like it's even improved over what I remember in high school. It sounds more... I don't know, resonant or something. Some of the songs we sang were absolutely beautiful.

I am well-pleased.

(no subject)

File this under 'didn't really think about it before'...

A guy got caught videotaping nekkid women at Hippie Hollow and busted. Hub found this, and I said 'I wonder if this guy taped me.' He responded with 'ooh, yeah, neat' when I was meaning it in the 'eww, yuck' way. Which brings up an interesting point. I think it's fairly common for a woman to hold the idea of a guy wacking off to ill-got pictures or whatever of her with some disgust (yes, I know not all women feel that way, you don't have to point it out to me- I'm talking about the average woman in the US here). Non-consensual voyeurism is creepy. Hub wonders why, when women seem to generally be so hung up about their appearances, would they have any problem with the idea of a guy being sexually aroused by looking at her, even if he's a stranger. At first I speculated that women tend to see their appearance as a commodity, and view someone benefiting from it in that way in the same way a doctor gets irritated when some stranger asks them for medical advice at a party. But no, the typical woman would feel violated, which is different from just being irritated at a cheapskate. Is it because women tend to be more in control of their sexuality and don't like the idea of not being in control of sexual behavior related to them? I remembered a local DJ talking about how he had that poster of Farah Fawcett in the 70's. When he met her, he apparently told her he had wanked to that poster a lot when he was a teen- and she got offended and threw him off the set. Now, assuming he didn't state this in a completely crass way, why would this information otherwise offend her? She can't be surprised by this notion, and in fact it probably paid her bills for many years. So why the grief? Fact is, it's not logical but it's not surprising either. I do wonder why it's so.

(no subject)

Weekly newspaper in Crawford, the home of president's ranch, endorses Kerry instead
( full article )

Up poop creek at work

One of the people that's in the choir is a lady who was recently made a supervisor here at work. She is a sweet lady, and since she was very recently in the trenches with us phone jockeys, is still pretty sympathetic. I groused to her about the realignment, and the way I'm being taken from the unit of a supervisor I love and put under one who I don't have a very favorable impression of. When I mentioned this sup's name, her face screwed up in about forty different expressions until she finally burst out laughing and said "oh, I just can't think of anything positive to say." Oh, christ. She was reluctant to give me details, of course, but reading between the lines it seems like she's saying that this lady gets angry about ridiculous things, refuses to communicate with her workers if something's upset her, and will single out people to scapegoat and manage unfairly based on this. She mentioned that my former supervisor (the one I had before the current one) works closely with her.

So today I visited with former sup. We caught up and then I dropped the bomb- what do you think about my future sup? Same reaction, without the laughing. She finally said "You are a strong, excellent worker. Keep that in mind. Don't take anything she says personally. Take what you need, but ignore the rest. Her supervisor is so-and-so, and he is an excellent boss and I would strongly encourage you to talk to him if you need to. If anything happens he will take care of it. Also talk to the workers who've been under her for awhile. But you are an excellent worker, just remember that."

Christ in a sidecar. This bodes ill.