Maura's Illuminated Manuscript

I'll do this in chronological order. It makes a better narrative.

Yesterday afternoon, Volunteer Park in Seattle Featured two events I wanted to go that overlapped in time and were within 200m of each other. The first was the second annual trans picnic. Once again, several hundred trans and non-binary people converged near the Asian Art Museum and... had a picnic. Yeah, it was pretty low key. Some people said it was bigger than last year, but that wasn't obvious to me. There were certainly hundreds of us there, along with food, which I missed, and more importantly, water & soft drinks. It was the kind of event that makes me want to kidnap random geezers from conservatives areas, get them out of the trunk, and go, "See?!"

But instead of random geezers I got to see D from back in my Microsoft days. Her life sounds weirdly like mine: another trans techie. I put the heart sticker on my name tag that meant it was OK to flirt with me, but that didn't happen, and I didn't make much of an effort myself because...

...there was the Goth clothing swap just north of the stage. The eye candy is a major attraction. I swear, clubbers could learn a thing or two from young people who go all out for a booze-free (but, surprisingly, not food-free) event in the afternoon. I saw Shiny H looking way too fabulous for a clothing swap; I swear that girl is as big around as one of my thighs. Did I need clothes, though? No. But did I get some anyway? Yes, but only a couple of small items. I might have snarfed more if I'd shown up earlier. Then I would have been faced with painful decisions after getting the clothes clean.

I texted the coven that I was heading for the Hill to the Merc* unless somebody came up with another plan. namoda was already there and in need of eetz, so Witness it was. Pity Tacoma Girl didn't come with us, but I always have a good time with the coven and any proper subset thereof.

And then I got home on the bus around midnight, which is when my son texted me a photo of his positive COVID test. Right now he's isolating in the apartment underneath the Devil Girl House. Luckily, Ex was at the beach and hasn't been in the same room with him since Wednesday. I haven't, either. It was providence that we got his apartment all furnished just a couple of weeks ago. It's not the use for that apartment that I'd prefer, but it's very, very good to have right now. Ex asked me to get him Pepcid & Zyrtec or generic equivalents to forestall long COVID. I did as she asked. He complains of chest pain when he breathes, which I found alarming until Ex said that she sometimes gets that with colds. Poor kiddo. Seeing as he's not the social butterfly that I am, he almost certainly got it at work.

Oh: ( mild kink )




*It may have been a good thing I didn't go to the Merc. They had an open membership night that filled up the joint. It was a sardine scene, which I'm OK with, but it was all new people. Good for the Merc, though.

Going to one of Ramiro's nights at Substation with the Tickler was rather lovely. I got the time wrong, so we had some nibbles & drinks at the Blue Glass first, then got some groove on. Some hippies, some hoopers, some vendors, no skeevy dudes - OK, one mildly skeevy dude while I was ordering drinks, but I could say to the Tickler, "Quick! I need to make out in self defense!" And it happened. And we were good girls in that we confined our makeouts to the edge of the dance floor, which is classier than I've (ahem) been in the past. We shall be doing that again, oh yes.

I didn't turn out the light until 0415 Sunday. Last night I slept from 1945 to 0245. I spent the small hours of this morning doing random stuff in an attempt to make myself go back to sleep. I guess that's one way to adjust to the time change.

We had big wind yesterday, and I lost power from 1600 to 2000 along with, it seemed, a lot of my friends in the north & south ends. How windy was it? So windy that WaSDoT had to open the draw span on the soon-to-be-replaced 520 bridge. Construction narrowed I-90 eastbound to one lane, and I-5 was hopeless both downtown and at the northern I-405 interchange, so I didn't drive out to see my son last night as is usual on Sundays. The lovely cherry trees across from my bedroom window lost a huge limb; biking around Green Lake may be an obstacle course for a few days. Winter and that bridge are delivering one last "fuck you" before we're done with them both.

Fun fact: I seem to be more punctual than, well, every other queer woman I know. Maybe I should be dating military brats.

They can close the 520 bridge. They can close the ramp from I-90E to I-405N at the same time. They can't stop me from getting to & from the Merc, though, because my detour-fu is strong. Parts of south Bellevue that I drove through to get home look better in the dark anyway. It was worth the trip.

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Ganked from staxxy: the Iranian government is trolling for protesters using location & time zone settings on Twitter. If you set both of yours to sunny Tehran, you might just help hide some people who are in grave danger. I've been living in Tehran for several days now. Gosh, it's hot.

We are all Iranians now.

I've griped many times here about people swiping the ped flags that I'm responsible for. Well, today I'm going to gripe about someone returning them when they were already topped up so they pile up on the ground. I can always take them a few blocks away and help out the slackers who don't stock theirs.

Remember when I said that nobody had ever stolen of all my ped flags at once? Well, last night it finally happened. I was ready, though, with eight more. As it comes to me a saran-tied bundle of ped flags resembles ancient Roman fasces, the bundle of rods and an ax that were used for judicial punishments in early Roman times. Somebody out there deserves to be beaten with ped flags by guys who look like extras from Gladiator. I sure hope it isn't you.

The knobby bike tires seem to have paid off. No flats since I got the second. And thanks to adularia and the holy Sanctimobile, I now have a full set of lights so I'm not riding a stealth death bike.

All those meetings at city hall have finally paid off, too. There's a brand new asphalt path next to my street where Her Puppiness & I can walk or ride without fear of ending up as meat frisbees.

The quest continues. So does the acquisition of stuff for )'(.

520: closed
I-90: clogged
Mariners: starting at 1:00 in Seattle
slept enough last night: no
dog bathed yet: no
said I'd do stuff for friends & neighbors this afternoon: yes
Solstice parade: not going to happen for us this year. I'll make the fair tomorrow, though.

I suppose there's stuff happening every weekend during the summer, which is why the annual 520 closure always seems ill-timed.

You know how I said I'd been to my last traffic calming meeting at city hall? Well, I LIED! So there. The plan that's going to a vote has bupkes on my street 'cause it's a primary response route for the firemen, who say their response time is hurting as it is. I could tell that the city guys who had to break the news were walking on eggs, but that didn't stop Nibs from flaming a councilman. It won't make it any easier for me to deal with my immediate neighbors, either. I just want to, like, keep us from getting run over. Is that really too much to ask?

Local politics are, if anything, less sane than national politics. Thank Bob for Kraut beer.

So, what do you do when you have stompy boots that lace up to there but your spouse doesn't want you tracking dirt all over the carpet with them? You make elasticized shoe covers out of drab jean. And why would you just happen to have this fabric lying around? Because it's good for corset mock-ups.

Poo is hitting the fan over the neighborhood traffic calming plan. I'm supposed to sell it to the neighbors at an open house Tuesday night, but I need to have something to sell. Soccer moms are ready to call their lawyers. This could make for an interesting couple of days.

Outnumbered 6-2 by anti-humpers at city hall last night, I stood my ground. They've got some nerve trying to tweak the pro-humpers' plan B when their speed watch is plan A. I'm about five miles beyond glad there's no further meeting scheduled. I've mentioned that the antis tend to be elderly, which means they tend to talk loudly, slowly, repetitively, and meanderingly. My fellow pros who weren't there are so buying me good beer for putting up with that.

By default I now seem to be the organizer of a letter-writing campaign for a sidewalk on my street, too. (The idea came from the traffic calming coordinator: one city employee making work for another. Heh.) Can't I just, like, wiggle my nose to make public works happen or something?

Con and what Her Nibs called feverish preparations put me way behind on housework. I've caught up. Back to circumflatulation. Mm, slinky black fabric & metal parts.