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July 2009
In-flight news
I’m posting from an airplane, just because I can. Every once in a while, it actually feels like I live in the 21st century. In-flight internet access — even for a fee — is the one bright spot in my domestic flights around the US. The Atlanta and Orlando airports? Dreadful chaos. Mumbly, crabby security guys working the lines at the x-ray machine? Punchable. Children? The less said the better. Food? What food?
Actually, there are peanuts. However, there are also new developments of hysterical overreaction while traveling: They won't serve peanuts in rows 25–31 on my flight because there's a person in row 28 with a nut allergy. Apparently aggravated by floating nut particles in the atmosphere.
One other travel observation: flying with my pal Emma makes me glad that I’m not pretty, young, and a girl with a charming foreign accent. People always want to chat! I was barely able to handle the over-attentive waiters in the South. Flirty busybodies on a plane would push me over the edge.
Pink Minx
Having grown up with a life-long concern about being perceived as a sissy, largely due to a long childhood being called a called a sissy or being told not to be one, I opted to participate in Gay Shame (this year's theme: A Festival of Femininity) by confronting my neurotic aversion of wearing pink for fear of looking too girly, and by trying to look like quite a big sissy. I succeeded, and had tremendous fun.
[Incriminating photos from the lovely Mr Green, who wore white, not pink.]
The ladies and gentlemen of the ACLU LGBT Project also wore pink at last week's Pride festivities, or at least bright fuschia t-shirts I designed for them. According to the San Francisco Chronicle:
On the other hand, it was down with drab for do-gooders. The ACLU's fuchsia T-shirts with green Statue of Liberty crowns: simple yet sublimely multicolored.
I still hate wearing pink, but I am quite proud — no, I am quite pleased — to be a big ol' nancy homo fairy who likes to kiss and hold hands and stuff with other dudes.
And in case you didn't get it, this post's title is a shameless reference to Pink Mince, a little zine thing I’ve started publishing. Why haven't you ordered a copy yet?
Be nice
I love everything about these Japanese posters encouraging good manners on the subway. I’m especially in awe of how easy they are to understand without words, and how they manage to be friendly and not primly critical. Also, I wish more people actually took these lessons to heart.
