Every 4 years (or 2 years, depending on how you count), the world gathers for a secular ritual that is so extravagant that no religious ceremony can hold a candle to it. The rite is held not in a cathedral, nor in a coliseum, but in an extended complex of monolithic shrines, constructed from scratch specifically for each occasion. The people at ( Read more... )

This is the kind of thing we should have got in our sex-ed classes back in middle school. Not that sex-ed was useless: we did get approximately accurate information on contraception and common illnesses. We also got to put condoms on wooden dildos, something which probably came in useful the first time I had to handle a rubber. But apparently it ( Read more... )

I have of late -- but wherefore I know not -- assumed an attentive disposition towards a certain radio station of Alberta (CKUA). So here I was listening to the radio when a pure voice did take up the following ballad:

Little Margaret, sitting at her high hall door ( Read more... )

Clearly, I have boxed myself into a corner. And I know it. I can't just give up and do what the psychologists say we should all do. I'm smarter than the average psychologist. And even if I'm not, I'm different from the average psychologist. The world is a better place if I retain my distance from the mainstream, if we all can keep some distance ( Read more... )

1) She is conventional. She conforms to her small world. She doesn't challenge authority. She stands steadfastly by those she loves. She is supportive of her friends and family. She dresses and acts appropriately, she lies when appropriate, she believes what people around her believe. She acts on instinct and decides by common sense ( Read more... )

I have shifted my happy, publicly consumable blogging to Facebook... but I still have depressed, un-public-worthy things to write. This unfortunately means that my LJ blog is going to degrade into a morass of self-deprecation. Nothing for it, I guess, that's just who I am ( Read more... )

When I'm feeling like crap, the thing I most want to do is talk about it. At this same, talking about how much I feel like crap is the last thing I should be doing, especially since I feel hopeless, guilty and lonely rather often. Nobody can put up with that kind of conversation on a regular basis ( Read more... )

It is obvious to me that I am depressed right now. This is not the first time, and it won't be the last. My concentration is shot, I can't imagine anything good happening and I just want to lie around and suffer, day-in, day-out. At least I'm still forcing myself to eat an almost regular diet. On this particular occasion, I expect I'll pull ( Read more... )

I vaguely recall arguing with a libertarian that contradictions in the policies of our co-operative (and in law) were desirable, because they encoded a range of behaviours sanctioned and proscribed by the community, to be enforced more or less as the conditions warranted. They encoded to some extent organizational wisdom that would otherwise be ( Read more... )

When one cares enough about something, one is inclined to sacrifice for it other parts of one's life; to be less of a person in some respects in order to be more in a single one. Take away that favoured skill or interest, and one is left with less than would have been if that skill or interest had never consumed so much time and energy ( Read more... )