I am the fountain of affection

I feel the urge to write a proper update, but I fail to have the time--no, really, it's energy--to write rather than passively consume. Thus! Link sausage!

Also, GIP. *points to icon*

Ahem! Courtesy of wcg, an 18th century trephination set, reserve not yet met. Bid now, bid now!

Courtesy of several people, McSweeney's Cookie Monster Searches Deep Within Himself and Asks: Is Me Really Monster?. Awww, Cookie....

As forwarded to metafandom: gaudior's thoughts on cultural appropriation as an anime fan, in response to a rant she links to. It took me a few days simply to read all the comments the original post generated in various forums. Head too full, but of stuff worth thinking about.

And in bizarre contrast, via Neil Gaiman...

The equally megatalented, although significantly shorter than Thea Gilmore, Stephin Merritt, is being defended against what seem to me to be remarkably wrong-headed accusations of racism (he said on a panel that Zip-e-dee-doo-dah was a great song from a bad movie) this morning over at Slate.

... buh? There's more to it than that, but poor Stephin (except really I'm sure he can take care of himself).

P.S. If I type the letter h into the search bar of this browser and look at the autocomplete options, I get "Harvard Shuttle schedule", "Heimdall kills Loki", and "House, M.D. episode guide". Which somehow sums up something about the state of my brain right now. *dashes off to catch the shuttle*

This isn't a mandate, this is the most votes against an incumbent ever. For the rest, go to http://www.livejournal.com/users/hammercock/350943.html

(you know, if you're eligible in the US)

Where do I stand? With Liberty and Justice over there. Mm, mm, mm.

HOPE.

And VOTE.

None of this is news by now, but here's how it was for me. :)

We spent midnight to 5 am outside Cambridge City Hall waving and cheering for every last gay couple who came out the doors with a marriage license (266 couples). Cambridge was the only municipality in the state to start at midnight (rather than 8:30 or 9) so it got all the early festivities and notice. Apparently the Rev. "God hates fags" Phelps (or some of his followers) were there early on, but I didn't see them and they packed it in around 12:05. Thousands of celebrating people were there. While we were seated on the lawn waving flags and singing interminable choruses of "Chapel of Love" (and we're gonna get ma-a-arried!) one aging hippie with a white beard stopped to chat with rmd and me and said it felt like "a love-in without the acid". It was truly a wonderful concentration of positive energy--I was giddy most of the night, waving an American flag, blowing bubbles, and making truly dreadful jokes. One guy shouted in my ear, "I'm from Toronto, where we *have* gay marriage. But this! This is amazing!"

One of the very last couples were two older men who exited carrying a poster that said "49 years together" on the front, and on the back had a collage of pictures of them through the years. So sweet and wonderful. There were about 20 of us die-hards left cheering at that point, so we got to talk with them for a bit and see the collage up close. You can see them earlier in the evening, in video at http://www.boston.com/ ("History is made in Massachusetts")

It's real. Many of the couples are waiting the standard 3-day waiting period or more, but a few have already applied for and gotten waivers, and gotten married (the first by 9:15 am).

The graphic comes from a cafeshop shadowflyer has created to benefit the Kerry campaign and Don't Amend.

I hadn't intended to campaign this around or anything, but now that Lis is linking... if anyone wants to use the icon too, you may.