History.

When my first fiancee and I were 15 and 14, we didn't really doubt that someday we'd get married. After all, when grown-ups wanted to get married, they did. And so would we. At that age, in 1995, we, or at least I, didn't see the little catch in our plans: we were both women. Our little empire of love rose and fell within a year's time, with me none the wiser.

I can't remember when I first learned that the rest of the country, without my leave, had assumed that my people couldn't marry as they chose. I was joyful and bitter by turns, especially when my own state signed on to the asshattery and declared that marital unions between the same sex could actually not come about.

In these past few days, far too many couples for me to count have gotten married in San Francisco. A lesbian couple who have been together nearly as long as my mother has been alive were married. ataniell93 and other people I know, from LJ and from the List, have been around the event, helping and cheering on and witnessing.

Reading about all this, I have the uncanny, unwise, and unworkable plan of hopping a plane and going there -- either just to help out and be there, or -- who knows.

This is civil rights. This is history. This is much more colorful than other states. California knows how to throw a media circus, by damn, and I want to be part of it.

Bloody bastard or best buddy?

Both complete bastards and best friends have something in common -- they hurt you, and both of them do it by their very nature. Complete bastards hurt people just because -- sometimes for the fun of it, or because they want everyone else to be as miserable as they are, or because they don't know any other way of doing things. Best friends are human, and screw up on a regular basis, and since they're close, they can hurt you more, or they're the one who gets to tell you the painful truths and deal out the much-needed kicks in the arse. And sometimes it's hard to tell them apart.

Best friends tend to have your best interests at heart, or at least think they do (even if they're kilometers off), even though sometimes they'll doubt themselves. Complete bastards have their own convenience at heart, although they can be quite convincing that really, what they want you to do will actually be good for you, and in your own best interests.

Both best friends and complete bastards have the unique ability to so thoroughly say or do the wrong thing so as to make you feel like complete shit. It happens. Complete bastards may not care so much, but may make with the elaborate apologies and promise to never do it again. (Sometimes, they'll do that very thing again near-immediately.) Best friends will usually feel like hell if they screw up like that, and may make elaborate apologies (or not so elaborate, depending on the friendship) and promise to never do that again. (They'll really try hard not to, but they may slip, and it's a near certainty that they'll find some new, unique, delightful, and completely different way to screw up just as bad or even worse later, sometimes near-immediately.)

Both complete bastards and best friends will critique you on the things you do wrong or could be doing better. Complete bastards tend to make you wind up feeling lousy about yourself, especially if they tell you that they're telling you this for your own good. Best friends sometimes try to use tact, and sometimes fail miserably, but are determined not to allow you to make a certain mistake. Either party may tell you loudly, in a public place, that what you're wearing makes you look like a zebra that got run over in a school crossing, but be assured that the complete bastard will tell you from malice aforethought, and your best friend will tell you that so that you won't wear that gawdawful thing ever again.

When you screw up, as you inevitably will, the complete bastard tends to make you pay for it five to ten times over. They'll do their best to make sure you regret that so much you'll never do it, or anything like it, again. The best friend will call you on it, or at least they'd better, and somehow, things keep going on. You feel lousy because you made them feel lousy, not because they made sure you felt how lousy you made them feel again and again until you agreed to major concessions; that's the province of the complete bastard.

When the complete bastard comes out and says that their goal in life is to make you miserable, you have an open and honest enemy, and that's fairly easy to deal with. When you have an undoubted best friend who does everything right, it's clear that all is as it should be and you will keep this friend forever if possible. Those kinds of bastards and friends are easy to identify.

The most difficult complete bastards to deal with are the ones who use social rules as weapons, leave you ready to kill yourself, them, or both with no onlooker the wiser for what they just did, and leave someone less slick looking like an idiot if they call the complete bastard out for what they're really doing. The most difficult best friends have no social skills and a penchant for saying the worst possible things at the worst possible time, and they usually find a way of letting you know that you mean the world to them, even if they can't articulate it particularly well. You just know that you can't stand the bastard, even if it makes you feel guilty, and for whatever reason, with your best friend, even though they may be irritating as hell, you feel good around them and wouldn't lose them for the world.

Happy Holiday!

Happy Cheap Love-Themed Candy Day, everyone!

Sweet!

M&Ms help solve physics problem (via outofambit)

FAQ translation fun

So I pitched my insight about the FAQ translations over in lj_userdoc, and there's quite the (geeky and insightful) discussion building.

The Goods are...

Shywickedpixie, I think my odds are pretty good...

Subtitle switch: functions of the journal

Subtitle of journal has been switched from "keepin' it theoretical" to "nearly a prosthetic memory", which is from page 419 of the paperback version of Memory. I want to look up the exact phrasing of the line that goes a bit like ...could quote back to you every stupid comment you'd ever made, verbatim, with gestures, but I have no idea what book that's even in.

A 90% risk of iatrogenic schizophrenia does not deter me. I want a memory chip like that.

Now both my title and subtitle are Bujold references. This makes me happy.

LJ comment e-mails...

Some LJ comment e-mails have been arriving very, very slowly. I'm not sure why, and I'm thinking I may not be alone. So far, I've noticed them being from communities.

12 perfectly logical reasons why same-sex marriage should be banned.

Don't think I can't see that tongue just because it's in your cheek!

Duplicated...

12 reasons why gay people should not be allowed to get married

1. Homosexuality is not natural, much like eyeglasses, polyester, and birth control.

2. Heterosexual marriages are valid becasue they produce children. Infertile couples and old people can't legally get married because the world needs more children.

3. Obviously, gay parents will raise gay children, since straight parents only raise straight children.

4. Straight marriage will be less meaningful if Gay marriage is allowed, since Britney Spears' 55-hour just-for-fun marriage was meaningful.

5. Heterosexual marriage has been around a long time and hasn't changed at all; women are property, blacks can't marry whites, and divorce is illegal.

6. Gay marriage should be decided by people, not the courts, because the majority-elected legislatures, not courts, have historically protected the rights of the minorities.

7. Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are imposed on the entire counrty. That's why we have only one religion in America.

8. Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people will make you tall.

9. Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage contract.

10. Children can never suceed without a male and a female role model at home. That's why single parents are forbidden to raise children.

11. Gay marriage will change the foundation of society. Heterosexual marriage has been around for a long time, and we could never adapt to new social norms because we haven't adapted to things like cars or longer lifespans.

12. Civil unions, providing most of the same benefits as marriage with a different name are better, because a "seperate but equal" institution is always constitutional. Seperate schools for African-Americans worked just as well as seperate marriages for gays and lesbians will.

-- as seen on omichan's journal

Plus, by lastrega:

13. Because gay people might raise children and fuck them up the way children raised by straight people never are.