Patty and I are getting read to head upstate for a couple of days to do absolutely nothing for our anniversary, other than occasionally wander across the street from our B&B for French food. Explaining this Do Nothing plan to my mother was slightly awkward. I could just see the look on her face as whatever I said translated to we are going to have sex all weekend, which, you know, isn’t untrue. Parents are definitely past that stage where they think my being queer is awesome because it doesn’t involve sex they define as sex. Anyway!
The less sordid truth is that I’d also like to get to Boscobel this weekend. Despite all the time I’ve spent in the Hudson Valley, I’ve never managed to make this happen, so if we’re feeling it on Sunday before we head back to the city for Easter dinner or if there’s decent weather on Saturday, I think that is the plan.
It should be noted, meanwhile, that planning a birthday party in NYC is challenging. This is currently Patty’s task of woe for her recently transpired birthday. Everything is difficult because of weather, people’s over-committed schedules, and just the general aggravation that so many aspects of New York living can be. Have I mentioned that we deeply, truly, sincerely love it here, though?
Meanwhile, I’ll be back in Boston twice in May. I may, may even be able to see people one of these times around. I also desperately need to call some hotels about a wedding we’re going to in Pittsburgh. Oh, this life of extreme glamour. Clearly, I need some, since I’m starting to get really excited about the West Coast trip for Labor Day already, but I suspect part of that is my periodic desire to have a better relationship with California than I do. That said, I love San Francisco, and its Chinatown and Seal Rock are two really fertile creative places for me. It’s been years, Patty’s never been, and it’s going to be a great good thing.
All of this aside, I have to confess I’ve been in a sort of funk lately. I do this sometimes. I say it’s pothos, and it’s a little bit that, but really it’s just me being a moody bastard. I struggle, even at 38, with accepting that I need to be the best me I can be, even if some things about me don’t seem as complimentary to my goals as things about other people. The storm in my head broke the other day though, so I’m hoping I can pull it together on getting a ton of stuff done soon. Actually — dance break, I’m going to go send some emails!
Okay, AWESOME. How was that for you? That was great for me.
Finally, I want to link here something I mentioned in passing on my LJ the other day: The Sad, Beautiful Fact that We’re All Going to Miss Almost Everything. I like this piece both because it’s about the beauty of sadness, but also because it speaks to a tendency that I not only have to fight in myself (often, admittedly, unsuccessfully), but that I run headlong into in other people constantly: the need to devalue, sometimes aggressively, things that don’t speak to us or that we don’t have time for; this is not, for the record, a complaint about actual critical discussion, because, man, I love me some stuff that is deeply flawed. Rather, this is an objection to “I don’t enjoy this and therefore no one else should either,” which, I’ll grant you, is sometimes what we hear even when it is not meant. Anyway, check the piece out; it’s cleverer than me on this front.
Now I have to throw some stuff in a satchel and get the hell out of here.
Letters from Titan 
Do you think this devaluing plays a role in things like the response to Ianto’s death, both in terms of how people who loved Ianto felt about COE and the way that people who liked COE felt about the people who hated it? I think I have some additional thoughts about this, but I don’t feel well and I can’t articulate anything right now.
That lesbian sex isn’t “really” sex and gay male sex is “too much/awful” sex in the minds of many really enacapsulates the shortcomings of the heterosexist view of “sex”.
Have a gorgeous, gorgeous weekend doing all the nothing you two want!
Speaking of beautiful things lost to time – I had several different friends link to this on FB, and thought of you immediately.
The house is the one that inspired Fitzgerald to write The Great Gatsby; the photographer took this series in the last year before the house’s demolition. Gorgeous, more than a little heartbreaking, and just wow.
http://jenrossphoto.com/#Portfolio/Spaces/East%20Egg/1
“I don’t enjoy this and therefore no one else should either” — I run into this attitude all the damn time and I have never understood it, but Holmes’s “culling” theory makes sense.
Interestingly enough, this post (http://www.daveexmachina.com/wordpress/?p=5032) popped up to say something similar on the men’s side of fandom.
Thank you for the link to the piece about what all that we all will miss. It points up the frustration I get all the time, which was encapsulated on a t-shirt I used to have: “So many books, so little time.” And my huge disappointment that I cannot possibly learn all the things.
In addition, your comment about people who go the “I don’t enjoy this and therefore no one else should either” route really resonates with me. I run into people with that attitude on a fairly frequent basis. The ones who really frustrate me are the ones who extend that to, “But everyone better damn well enjoy what I enjoy,” and who then project that onto everyone else as well. I’ve had people apologize to me for not liking Doctor Who, or who preface their statement that they don’t like Doctor Who with, “You’re going to be mad at me about this, but I don’t like…”
Why on earth would I be mad at them because they don’t like something I like? I might think they’re missing out on something of value, but as the article you linked to points out, we all miss out on a lot. It’s unavoidable. But I certainly don’t imagine that they must like it because I do, and I’m not going to get angry at them or disappointed in them because they don’t like the Doctor, or something else that I’m enthusiastic about. I often ask these people, “Don’t you think it would be a boring world if everyone liked all the same things and agreed about everything?”
The thing that really frightens me is that some of them answer that, no, they don’t think that would be boring at all.
Given that incoherent rage seems to the the tone of choice for discussing….well everything, I’m not at all surprised by the preemptive apologies that you have been given. Still sad though. Then again, I work in an art gallery; just because I don’t like a piece doesn’t mean someone else won’t completely love it (and drop serious change). That, and I really do enjoy helping someone find a work of art that they will really enjoy. I’m talking warm fuzzies and everything…
Not just on issues of taste, but I have also noticed that apologies for asking for info seem to be really common as well, beyond just acknowledging that you are making a demand on someone’s time. It is a habit that I work on breaking, since I am really puzzled by the demand that one seek everything from phone numbers to profound wisdom by never saying “I don’t know” or making use of Google. While they are very useful handbooks, the “…For Dummies” part of the the title really rankles me.
Congratulations on a Hugo nomination sort of for being a part of the” Chicks Dig Timelords” nonfiction book!
Thank you, but I was not a part of that book, rather Whedonistas. So maybe next year! Am happy for many friends though.