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grrgoylAnother slow news week, but when has that stopped me?
First, some gym characters. As I've said earlier, I am refreshingly nonjudgmental at the gym, not least of all because I've hardly reached my goals either, despite going three times a week religiously. Like my good friend Dan Savage says, if I see a really overweight person there, my first thought really is "Aw, good for them." In fact my inspiration is a kind of heavy guy who plugs away on the ellipticals for 30+ minutes a day without ever pausing. After 10 minutes I'm seeing stars and wondering if it would really matter if I stopped early (however, this is up from 5 minutes back when I first joined, so that's something).
But these two people caught my attention on my last visit because they were so odd. First was a doughy woman I'd never seen before on the ellipticals. I normally wouldn't have given her any thought, except for the fact that she wore a Camelbak™ hydration system, which is a bit of overkill when you're using one machine that in fact provides the user with a cupholder for a water bottle. And Camelbaks™ ain't cheap either, so this was clearly someone who enjoyed shopping for their workout more than working out (not that I'm one to talk, having just bought my third iPod case, not to mention the $30 or $40 I blew at Goodwill on a whole new gym wardrobe).
But she was nothing next to the guy I watched during the rest of my workout (well, there aren't a lot of exciting things to look at to break up the monotony of an elliptical). He was built, obviously serious about weightlifting. Again, at first there was nothing unusual about him, until I noticed what he was doing. He was slowly collecting weights from other machines and putting them onto the machine I assumed he intended to use. He'd ponderously retrieve one weight, haul it to the machine, hoist it up onto the bar, then stand there looking around. He was also wearing earbuds so he'd occasionally mouth some words and wiggle his hips a bit (which looks really silly, I don't care how in shape you are). Then off for another weight, repeating the process tediously and laboriously.
After doing this for about 30% of my workout, to my surprise he suddenly marched across the gym to use one of the machines that I use all the time, the ones I think of as considerably more girly than the free weights. After three or four reps there, then it was back to his original machine, where he began removing all the weights, moving just as slowly and painfully (with frequent pauses to lip synch some more). He never actually used the machine he had loaded (and unloaded). It was crazy. Either he just liked creating the impression that he was going to lift all this weight, or his secret weapon to body building had less to do with actual weightlifting than weight stacking. I'm not sure. It was crazier than the guys who do like two reps (actually LIFTING the weight, mind you) and then spend fifteen minutes staring off into space.
He sort of reminded me of my coworker, Debbie at the warehouse, who was also fond of dancing and singing next to her desk when she was supposed to be working. Debbie thought she could do whatever the hell she wanted (i.e. only actually work about 10 minutes out of an 8-hour shift) and then cry discrimination if they did anything about it. She eventually discovered she was mistaken, after many long (long, long, frustrating) months of me secretly documenting her every move and reporting to HR. So I guess that's when my real career as a snitch began.
~*~
I've caught some comings and goings of Tracey on my spycam, most notably one video where she looks to be carrying an armful of something that resembles the suspicious aluminum tubes that started all this nonsense:
Breaking Update: Apparently those things that look like tent poles are just that; Tery discovered her selling a tent to an older couple in the parking lot this morning. However, this doesn't eliminate the possibility that she's just using Craigslist to offset her drug sales.
Tery wonders if she hasn't already spotted the camera -- where she used to tiptoe quietly up and down the stairs (which would make her the perfect neighbor if not for, you know, the meth lab), now she explodes out of her door and hurtles down the steps like Secretariat leaving the gate at the Preakness. I can't worry about it. Maybe if she's aware of it, it will be enough to keep her honest, or at least move her lab somewhere else, which is all I really want. I'd love to get her put away for good, but a close second would be making it difficult enough for her to conduct business three feet from our front door that she finds alternative accommodations.
The beauty of it is, even if she does find the camera, she can't do anything about it. Recording public areas is perfectly legal; she should know, she's had a camera trained on the parking lot practically since moving in. Plus I believe the only people who are bothered by being videotaped are people who have something to hide.
~*~
In case anyone is wondering why I haven't ranted about the California Supreme Court upholding Prop 8, it's because after my initial outraged reaction to what seemed like a completely nonsensical legal ruling, I searched long and hard on the intraweb until I found an article that explained it in simple enough terms. For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, well that just proves what my good friend Dan Savage says -- that gay rights headlines are like a dog whistle, only noticeable to teh gays and the nutjob bigots.
Basically, the court voted that Prop 8 outlawing gay marriage in CA and its method of passage was perfectly legal; however, lacking any retroactive wording, so are the 18,000 gay marriages that were conducted between the Court legalizing them and the voter-approved amendment.
So currently gay marriage is legal for 18,000 couples in California and no one else. Just when you thought the state couldn't get any wackier.
It's not the resounding victory I had hoped for, but I understand it was the best the Court could do after being put between a rock and a hard place. I expect Prop 8 to be shot down completely after another vote, after the fence-sitters have some time to get accustomed to the idea and realize that the sea isn't boiling and it isn't raining blood, which is what the zealots want us to think.
No, what angers me is the attitude of MyFriendDeb, who is otherwise wholly on our side.
She had a rough childhood; not rough enough to make headlines or require therapy, but enough to sour her on the whole idea of marriage, for anyone. For me, it's only partly about legalities. The bigger principle is the fact that people think they have the right to decide how other people live. That my relationship with Tery, 17 years in July and still doing better than a lot of straight marriages, is less worthy of legal recognition.
And I guarantee that if it was Deb's rights on the line (or being subjected to popular vote), she'd agree.
But she'd rather spend her energy getting worked up about the REAL injustices of life: getting a tax refund check (Uncle Sam held her money unjustly for a whole year), the fact that her 6-button mouse doesn't work with Windows Vista, and potential employers who do mandatory drug testing (violation of privacy, despite her being even more straight edge than me). Yep, 10% of the population treated like second-class citizens, and these are the things that have her panties in a bunch.
~*~
Enough of all that unpleasantness. I snapped this photo of my Mitten who appeared to be engrossed in the program on TV:
She'll ruin her eyes sitting that close
My Otta May question was too easy (JeffyJeff answered me privately in an email. It was of course Whoopi Goldberg in Ghost). How about this? Name the scary movie Kitten is watching.
First, some gym characters. As I've said earlier, I am refreshingly nonjudgmental at the gym, not least of all because I've hardly reached my goals either, despite going three times a week religiously. Like my good friend Dan Savage says, if I see a really overweight person there, my first thought really is "Aw, good for them." In fact my inspiration is a kind of heavy guy who plugs away on the ellipticals for 30+ minutes a day without ever pausing. After 10 minutes I'm seeing stars and wondering if it would really matter if I stopped early (however, this is up from 5 minutes back when I first joined, so that's something).
But these two people caught my attention on my last visit because they were so odd. First was a doughy woman I'd never seen before on the ellipticals. I normally wouldn't have given her any thought, except for the fact that she wore a Camelbak™ hydration system, which is a bit of overkill when you're using one machine that in fact provides the user with a cupholder for a water bottle. And Camelbaks™ ain't cheap either, so this was clearly someone who enjoyed shopping for their workout more than working out (not that I'm one to talk, having just bought my third iPod case, not to mention the $30 or $40 I blew at Goodwill on a whole new gym wardrobe).
But she was nothing next to the guy I watched during the rest of my workout (well, there aren't a lot of exciting things to look at to break up the monotony of an elliptical). He was built, obviously serious about weightlifting. Again, at first there was nothing unusual about him, until I noticed what he was doing. He was slowly collecting weights from other machines and putting them onto the machine I assumed he intended to use. He'd ponderously retrieve one weight, haul it to the machine, hoist it up onto the bar, then stand there looking around. He was also wearing earbuds so he'd occasionally mouth some words and wiggle his hips a bit (which looks really silly, I don't care how in shape you are). Then off for another weight, repeating the process tediously and laboriously.
After doing this for about 30% of my workout, to my surprise he suddenly marched across the gym to use one of the machines that I use all the time, the ones I think of as considerably more girly than the free weights. After three or four reps there, then it was back to his original machine, where he began removing all the weights, moving just as slowly and painfully (with frequent pauses to lip synch some more). He never actually used the machine he had loaded (and unloaded). It was crazy. Either he just liked creating the impression that he was going to lift all this weight, or his secret weapon to body building had less to do with actual weightlifting than weight stacking. I'm not sure. It was crazier than the guys who do like two reps (actually LIFTING the weight, mind you) and then spend fifteen minutes staring off into space.
He sort of reminded me of my coworker, Debbie at the warehouse, who was also fond of dancing and singing next to her desk when she was supposed to be working. Debbie thought she could do whatever the hell she wanted (i.e. only actually work about 10 minutes out of an 8-hour shift) and then cry discrimination if they did anything about it. She eventually discovered she was mistaken, after many long (long, long, frustrating) months of me secretly documenting her every move and reporting to HR. So I guess that's when my real career as a snitch began.
~*~
I've caught some comings and goings of Tracey on my spycam, most notably one video where she looks to be carrying an armful of something that resembles the suspicious aluminum tubes that started all this nonsense:
Breaking Update: Apparently those things that look like tent poles are just that; Tery discovered her selling a tent to an older couple in the parking lot this morning. However, this doesn't eliminate the possibility that she's just using Craigslist to offset her drug sales.
Tery wonders if she hasn't already spotted the camera -- where she used to tiptoe quietly up and down the stairs (which would make her the perfect neighbor if not for, you know, the meth lab), now she explodes out of her door and hurtles down the steps like Secretariat leaving the gate at the Preakness. I can't worry about it. Maybe if she's aware of it, it will be enough to keep her honest, or at least move her lab somewhere else, which is all I really want. I'd love to get her put away for good, but a close second would be making it difficult enough for her to conduct business three feet from our front door that she finds alternative accommodations.
The beauty of it is, even if she does find the camera, she can't do anything about it. Recording public areas is perfectly legal; she should know, she's had a camera trained on the parking lot practically since moving in. Plus I believe the only people who are bothered by being videotaped are people who have something to hide.
~*~
In case anyone is wondering why I haven't ranted about the California Supreme Court upholding Prop 8, it's because after my initial outraged reaction to what seemed like a completely nonsensical legal ruling, I searched long and hard on the intraweb until I found an article that explained it in simple enough terms. For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, well that just proves what my good friend Dan Savage says -- that gay rights headlines are like a dog whistle, only noticeable to teh gays and the nutjob bigots.
Basically, the court voted that Prop 8 outlawing gay marriage in CA and its method of passage was perfectly legal; however, lacking any retroactive wording, so are the 18,000 gay marriages that were conducted between the Court legalizing them and the voter-approved amendment.
So currently gay marriage is legal for 18,000 couples in California and no one else. Just when you thought the state couldn't get any wackier.
It's not the resounding victory I had hoped for, but I understand it was the best the Court could do after being put between a rock and a hard place. I expect Prop 8 to be shot down completely after another vote, after the fence-sitters have some time to get accustomed to the idea and realize that the sea isn't boiling and it isn't raining blood, which is what the zealots want us to think.
No, what angers me is the attitude of MyFriendDeb, who is otherwise wholly on our side.
She had a rough childhood; not rough enough to make headlines or require therapy, but enough to sour her on the whole idea of marriage, for anyone. For me, it's only partly about legalities. The bigger principle is the fact that people think they have the right to decide how other people live. That my relationship with Tery, 17 years in July and still doing better than a lot of straight marriages, is less worthy of legal recognition.
And I guarantee that if it was Deb's rights on the line (or being subjected to popular vote), she'd agree.
But she'd rather spend her energy getting worked up about the REAL injustices of life: getting a tax refund check (Uncle Sam held her money unjustly for a whole year), the fact that her 6-button mouse doesn't work with Windows Vista, and potential employers who do mandatory drug testing (violation of privacy, despite her being even more straight edge than me). Yep, 10% of the population treated like second-class citizens, and these are the things that have her panties in a bunch.
~*~
Enough of all that unpleasantness. I snapped this photo of my Mitten who appeared to be engrossed in the program on TV:
She'll ruin her eyes sitting that close
My Otta May question was too easy (JeffyJeff answered me privately in an email. It was of course Whoopi Goldberg in Ghost). How about this? Name the scary movie Kitten is watching.
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no subject
Date: 2009-06-02 06:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-02 08:50 pm (UTC)Rumor has it a pair of lawyers (who fought on opposite sides of the Bush/Gore election in Florida) are taking it to Federal Supreme Court, which some view as a tragic and premature mistake and others hail as the radical action needed to stop futzing around and being at the whim of the voters.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-02 08:02 am (UTC)My grandpa was quite mad about the Supreme Court ruling, mostly because he feels that they made the wrong decision legally (not just because of how he feels about gay rights). He thinks that it wasn't in keeping with precedence in California law, and that they made their decision because they know that it'll come up in the election and they didn't want the responsibility of making the difficult decision this time.
I know that someday I'll be telling my children about the days when gay people couldn't marry. I still don't know what I'll say when they ask why.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-02 08:53 pm (UTC)I know it will happen. As my good friend Dan Savage says (Tery is getting tired of me starting every conversation with "Dan Savage say." I predict soon my f-list will too!) the bigots are older and dying off, so the odds are in our favor. But as someone on his message board says, when your rights are being denied, there's no such thing as "too soon" to see justice.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-03 09:38 pm (UTC)Oh and while I'm here, may I add a heartily British "Here, here" to your American fight for gay marriage rights. Whilst the institution of marriage is an inherently silly institution (and I speak as an inmate of said institution), it is, however, one that comes with an incredible amount of checks, balances and safety nets and is therefore something that should be available for all. I do so love that wonderful post about telling your children about the days when gays couldn't marry - if that optimism is matched by only a tiny percentage of the population, you'll be there in no time...
no subject
Date: 2009-06-03 09:49 pm (UTC)Your choice of LJ name has a distinct LOLcats flavor to it.
I know it will happen. When Tery and I first got together she was dead set against the idea, but now she uses it as a soapbox to all her friends (which unfortunately is a bit of preaching to the choir). We're not getting any younger and those hospital visitation and survivor benefits might come in handy soon.
The battle for gay rights is just a symptom of the religious fervor sweeping this country that I for one have had just about enough of. But look at me, all preaching to the choir.
Edit: Not "The Omen," but good guess. The trickiness is that the kid isn't the star of the movie.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-03 10:37 pm (UTC)Hmmm. Not the Omen? Children of the Damned? Midwich Cuckoos? Herbie Goes Bananas?
no subject
Date: 2009-06-03 11:26 pm (UTC)Beth did the exact same thing (signed up to be able to comment). Then she discovered Facebook and none of us have heard from her since (not that she has much of a presence there either). But since you started on Facebook, I don't expect that to be a problem for you.
I don't want to give it away yet -- still deluding myself that there are armies of commenters that will appear ANY MINUTE trying to guess. I'll post the answer in a reply to you tomorrow morning if I prove to be wrong.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-04 07:53 pm (UTC)I wanted to say "The Omen", too. You are too modern for me.
Date: 2009-06-11 04:39 am (UTC)How insdious, forcing the elderly to camp. Your fears? Confirmed.
Plus I believe the only people who are bothered by being videotaped are people who have something to hide
I have this secret fear, after having watched a particularly unarousing episode of SVU, of being videotaped in a public bathroom. Also the Phantom of the Opera episode of Are You Afraid of the Dark taught me long ago that you should never use the stall directly under the vent, as there most likely is someone staring down at you.
Hey, back off FriendDeb! I'm sweet on her right now.
Re: I wanted to say "The Omen", too. You are too modern for me.
Date: 2009-06-11 04:42 am (UTC)So currently gay marriage is legal for 18,000 couples in California and no one else. Just when you thought the state couldn't get any wackier.
How certain are we that this wasn't just an attempt to placate Ellen, who was in danger of being untied from a fantastically more attractive woman?
Re: I wanted to say "The Omen", too. You are too modern for me.
Date: 2009-06-16 08:13 pm (UTC)Re: I wanted to say "The Omen", too. You are too modern for me.
Date: 2009-06-16 08:12 pm (UTC)Yeah, but I'd feel more foolish if Officer Jason hadn't casually mentioned the thing about "Evidence possibly pointing to her starting up again." Just because she does legal things once in awhile doesn't make her innocent again in my book.
Is there such a thing as an arousing episode of SVU? (never watched it)
Deb is awesome. But she also drives me crazy. The term "frenemy" was totally invented with her in mind.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-16 12:57 am (UTC)Ack. I'm too late for the movie quiz. How long have you been spycaming Tracey? I am late to your LJ party; I'm working my way back through your posts. .
no subject
Date: 2009-06-16 08:14 pm (UTC)Yes, you are. I thought you wuz ded.