The Lunatic is in my Head

Went to dentist. Early. Oops.
Got root canal. My dentist (the man dentist, not the pretty one) is funny when he's not being intimidating and stern.
Backstory on dentist: there is a lot going on in my mouth, very little of it good, and I am not in a place to be accepting helpful advice at this time. The most recent adventure was *last* Wednesday, where what was supposed to be a routine filling ( went wrong )

. Happily, the root canal fixed the pain and I no longer have to heavily medicate, and I get a coronation at some point.
$$$ ouch.
Went home promptly instead of faffing about running errands, because I was exhausted as hell.
Canceled endodontist appointment, because that was just a consult about the one that they just root canalled.
Caught up a bit with Nora.
Poked the apartment office to see when the maintenance dude was coming to chat with me about places the moving pod could be put. (Answer: they hadn't even poked him about it, because of so many emergencies.)
Called the moving pod place and reserved stuff and got more details.
Filed a ticket with maintenance with more details, since relaying things via the office has been proven ineffective.
Caught up with my bff, who is still getting used to the idea of roommates.
Untangled some very tangled crochet-cotton.
Scheduled dinner with Purple, even though both gmail and comcast were being unhelpful.
Found my glasses by using my emergency backup glasses; I'd taken my glasses off in order to untangle the yarn.
Refueled enough to get to dinner, as that was one of the errands I'd skipped. Ah well.
Got a little time with my partner, on the way to both of our dates.
Had a lovely evening with Purple.
Caught up with Dawn on the way home.
Went to bed early and slept like a rock.

So yesterday!

Judge Walker delivered his decision on the case about two seconds after I decided that there was no point waiting by the internet in suspense, I should go the hell and take a shower. After that, it was all squeeing. I was too nervous to actually eat lunch, although I did have a cup of the moderately vile chocolate-flavored hemp-based protein drink I picked up at Trader Joe's in the hopes that it would serve well for just such occasions.

IRC was a-buzz, despite the general prohibition of politics in #dreamwidth. ##crawl-offtopic was less restrained.

jd talked about the practical considerations of a quick-before-they-take-it-away marriage. I examined the contents of my wallet (enough to at least help out with the cost of a license, as a wedding present, if they went for it), and looked up the requirements for officiating at a wedding in the state of California (if doing it as clergy, one must list one's clergy status on the certificate, and the couple in question must accept one's clergy status, but there is no central registry with the state; one must also be conversant with who can and can't get married, and not marry anyone who can't get married).

teshiron commented on all the general furor.

Sadly, the chatter became moot when we discovered that there was a stay on the verdict, at least until Friday. So there wasn't to be an emergency wedding -- at least not until later. jd vowed to tell people about it, if it happened. IRC was still enthusiastic about the concept, and people made with the wedding chatter in any case.


I had it in my mind to leave early, but I wound up taking so long with my eye makeup that I was merely leaving on time. ( My makeup shenanigans. )

In addition to the eyeshadow and lipstick, I pinned my braid up in a bun, stuck my fascinator in my hair, and wore my Loud Pink Scarf, which is almost as good as a hair-on-fire boa.



I nearly started crying on the train.

I encountered a few people going my way on the platform at the Civic Center station. We greeted each other with enthusiasm and cheer. We didn't know each other. On the crowded train, I high-fived a little girl with a rainbow-striped hoodie and a rainbow flag almost bigger than she was; she asked me if I was heading to the march. Yes, yes, I was. We saw each other in the parade later. teshiron hailed me as I got off the train, and we got his iPod untangled from his backpack. The pretty silver rings I wear on a regular basis are the wrong size to fit them. I checked. Just in case. Teshi went off thattaway for the safety briefing, and I emerged into chaos.

There were Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. There were same-sex couples of all ages. Someone handed me a sign referencing the Loving v. Virginia case. Someone handed me an American flag. I collected stickers. I spotted someone with a "BLOGGER" sign in his hatband, and fist-bumped chipuni, who recognized me by name: we know people in common. I held the sign facing traffic. The police kept having to push us back off the street so traffic could get through. There was a truck with a sound system, but it was aimed at the crowd down on Castro, not up on the streetcorner. People were taking pictures, video, of everything. People snapped pictures of me. Two different reporters took my name. One asked me where I lived, how did I feel. Great! Proud. My aunt called in the middle of it all with a question about laundry; I shouted back at her so she could hear me over the noise; she told me to enjoy the party, and she'd see me for the Farmers' Market if I was awake in the morning. I started crying at a few points. There was singing. There were more American flags than rainbow ones, even in the Castro. Some people were wearing rainbow flags as capes. I got a few compliments on my eyeshadow. I kept on holding up the sign and the flag and smiling. I was surprised that my face didn't get tired.

JD texted me to ask where I was. I made my way through the crowd to their corner, then called to navigate precisely through the masses of people. They were both in SAFETY t-shirts over their long-sleeved shirts. We waited for the parade to start and kept clear of the streetcars. JD insisted that Teshi and I simply must watch Cazwell's "Ice Cream Truck", which elicited equal amounts of giggling and staring from us, peering at Ryan's Blackberry's screen, sharing a pair of earbuds, one for each of us. A woman with a tiny girl in arms walked past; I passed along the pink beads I was wearing.

The parade started out with the truck, blasting music. I fell in behind it. I wasn't sure if I was going to keep up with the parade, as I walk slowly, but I reasoned that I could start out near the head of the parade, walk as fast as I comfortably could, and drop back; if the parade left me behind, I could simply walk to the courthouse on my own, a one-woman parade.

We got the entire half of the street as we marched down Market in the direction of the courthouse. Cars honked. Pedestrians waved and snapped pictures. One guy was driving along with his cellphone stuck out his window, naughty naughty. A streetcar driver rang his bell for us. We cheered and waved back, waving our flags, our signs. There was a huge rainbow flag. One girl wasn't feeling the cold because she was drunk. People waved from windows, from the upper story of a bar. I sang: at first to the truck's music ahead, then, when I fell back out of range, I sang snatches of "We Shall Come Home" to myself quietly -- this was a homecoming, not a protest. Then I switched to "James Bondage". A fellow with a guitar came along, singing "Going to the Courthouse", and I sang along with him. We kept pace for a while, and eventually people around us joined in. Going to the courthouse of love.

jld texted me, so I knew he was in the parade somewhere. We found each other just as the parade reached the Civic Center Plaza, and he and his friend homed in on JD and Teshi as I joined all of them. A police motorcycle motorcade brought up the rear of the parade, and I realized that I had, in fact, gone from the head of the parade to the tail, but I had actually marched the whole 1.6 miles with the parade, even walking slowly, with a cane, and a sign, and a flag, and in pain. I started to realize how much I actually hurt. I limped along to the speechifying. Eventually I needed something more than my cane to lean on, and located a handy railing. I draped myself over that as I learned that on this very same day as Judge Walker's ruling, a group had released a massive document that hospitals receiving ... some sort of funding, I was too whited-out to register ... were expected to take as guidelines, with thought given to unmarried same-sex partners, same-sex parents even if the parent had not legally adopted the child, transgendered people. I cried -- broke down sobbing, rather than dribbling decorous tears as I had been doing here and there all day -- as I heard that the guideline stated that transgendered people should be addressed by their preferred gender and name. I never knew you, you were just part of the extended part of my social circle, and it is too late for you, but be damned to the ignorant, fearful people who denied you your very name and pushed your family to allow them to do so before you slipped away and died. Be damned to them.

( I was made of ow, and then social ensued. )

( Backstory. )

( Pain. )

Some guy came up at approximately this juncture, inquiring about something or other. I was not in a state to encode social responses below a certain level, and said nothing. (Close to my height, on the thin side of average, dressed in a style that screamed "young lout" when worn past the age of 25-30, which he was likely past, not physically intimidating to me, clean.) He then inquired whether there were still trains to the East Bay. Even though he would have been told this critical detail by the station attendant, this answer was simple enough and fell under the basic Laws of Transit Humanity. "No," I said, then returned to staring at my cellphone.

"I didn't catch your name," he continued, and started asking other questions (irrelevant to any possible business of his other than chatting me up). I tuned him out.

"FUCK YOU!" he burst out, along with other items in this vein, and stamped off down the platform, perhaps to join the woman who was complaining that green was the color of the absence of the knowledge of Christ and that these people didn't know what it means and therefore shouldn't be using it.

The train came. I noticed that he had come back for his things, which he'd left on the platform nearby. I got on the train and sat down in a convenient seat close to the exit; at that point I figured that a) I qualified as elderly/disabled, b) there were like 5 people in the car, and c) I wasn't going to mess with the carton of abandoned Chinese takeout on the seat across from it.

The fellow boarded the train after me. He snagged the aforementioned abandoned carton of takeout and sat down next to me, despite a) his apparent perfect ablebodiedness, and b) the plethora of other seats on the train, including c) the ones he'd snagged the container from.

I sat trying to minimize any unnecessary physical contact with him. He sat, chowing down on someone else's abandoned supper. (Yes, on BART.) I became aware that in addition to the pleasantly spicy smell from the unlawful snack, there was a certain miasma, as of a small and localized brewery. But I held my peace and found something very fascinating to look at in the other direction.

He spoke up just then, in confident but not entirely intelligible tones. The brewery scent only intensified. I managed to distinguish that he was able to discern some form of beauty or potential beauty about my person, and that he would, when I was 36 or 37 and he was 46 or 47, still respect me completely.

I decided that it was time to find a new seat.

Bereft of his unwilling seating partner, he and his things wandered up the train into the next car. I watched him go, and watched carefully against his return.

When disembarking the train, I stood on the platform in one spot until the train departed, lest I walk past his car and give him any inspiration to get off before his intended stop. (Had he, I would have paid a visit to the station attendant and requested an escort to my car, or at least some form of escort for him, and/or ensuring that he did not accompany me.

Happily, he did not follow, and the train left with him on it. I made my painful way to the car, rather relieved, and with the classic Vulcan joke echoing in my head:

"But will you still respect me seven years from now?"

Guide dog aunt was playing radio station roulette from before Donner pass to Truckee. She just gave up @ squaw valley.

We leave for Tahoe tomorrow morning at eight. I pack tonight. The connectivity should be better. We return tuesday.

Right, then. I'm off. Updates coming soon from a much-abused cellphone near you, as I grow immensely bored with the realities of travel! (ack. Where did I put the Emergency Chocolate?)

I'm planning to be in San Francisco, in zip code 94044, over the winter break. (I'm staying with Guide Dog Aunt and her family, so raranax is exempt from voting, unless he wants to poke the poll with a stick.) Last confirmed day of work is the 18th. I'm not sure exactly when I'm leaving yet, due to not having bought tickets yet, but I should be getting there sometime either on the 19th or after that. pyrogenic has claim to a slice of time sometime before the 23rd. The 24th through 26th will probably be busy, as there's a road trip and family stuff will probably be happening. I'm not sure, at this point, if I'm going to be there for the New Year or not, because of work and travel and suchlike things.

As things start to fall into place, I'll be working up one of my signature Scheduling Goddess calendars.
(Darkside hasn't responded yet to my ping about claiming holiday time with me. No clue if/when he will.)

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