Figure out linux. Quickly. I got the most important thing (web browser) to work, but I also would like to figure out why I can’t get some Perl modules to install (others work fine) and why some package installations just fail. Also I suspect that my file organisation sucks and I will soon run into problems with it. This is very irritating.
Apparently reasonable accommodations now mean that we need to say that gender equality is more important than religious freedom (except for Roman Catholics). Charest, in a desperate attempt to buoy support in the rural areas, is planning on tabling a motion to say that gender equality trumps religious freedom, which will mean — well, I don’t know what.
Will I be allowed to say I prefer a female gynecologist? Maybe, but only if I say it’s a personal preference and not a religious requirement? Will I be allowed to wear a hijab, but only if I think it looks cool? Will men be allowed to wear them? I can’t see exactly how this will go, but I look forward to seeing people suing the Roman Catholic church for not allowing women to do something that men are allowed.
It seems to focus on whether you can make a request for a woman/man to test you when you want a driver’s license, which is an oddly specific problem. The other question seems to be whether you can wear obvious religious symbols as a public employee, where obvious religious symbols seem to mean anything other than a cross on a necklace. I look forward to being able to complain if public servants have pictures up with Santa, or wish me happy religious holidays.
Of course, the quotes are always “we want equality, but to not lose our Roman Catholic heritage”, or “we don’t want to see any overt signs of religions, but we’ll just exclude ours and call it culture”.
I just finished Un Lun Dun, which strikes me as The Phantom Tollbooth meets London Below. This isn’t a negative — I enjoyed both those books.
The book follows the Shwazzy (choisi), Zanna, and her friend, Deeba, as they go into unLondon, an abcity for London. (Other ones include Parisn’t, Lost Angeles, Baghdon’t.) The Shwazzy is prophecied to save the city from the Smog, which is like smog, except sentient. Lots of things are sentient here — Deeba picks up a pet, Curdle, a discarded milk carton, there are a set of guards called Binjas, trash bins that know martial arts, and so on. Lots of other things could be sentient, but have been somehow taken over, so there are a number of kinds of zombies.
Every now and then the overt political themes (not just “pollution is bad”, though it does sort of imply that air pollution is bad, but leaving garbage on the street is ok, because it will end up living in an abcity) show up a little too obviously, though I’m not sure children would catch it.
I love the sense of wordplay, in locations and names, especially when it’s not attached to the doom-and-gloom Bas-Lag books. (I like those books, too, but they’re depressing.) I loved, also, the subverting of a lot of fantasy tropes, most of which will be understandable even to children. (Some are, I think, a bit more subtle.)
It’s light, it’s funny — I have trouble saying that about a China Mieville book because hey look over there, hell has frozen over. But it is. It’s a long book, and the beginning needs some tightening up, and if you’re a big fan of giraffes, it’s not the book for you, but otherwise, it’s an excellent young adult fantasy.
The reality is that I am not really okay, and that part, though not all, of why I was quiet for so long was that I didn’t want to admit it — well, have it in writing, at least.
The weather has turned unpromising for this weekend, which means that probably I will be here, doing I am not sure what, but probably not very much. I have no idea if I am pleased or disappointed. Maybe both, or maybe I have just been that successful at insulating myself from anything I feel, an old skill, but one I have not lost the touch for. I’m so very proud. See, intellectually, I know this isn’t actually positive, but it has the bonus of allowing me to ignore that knowledge without much caring.
My grandmother has, for years, long before I was born, had Friday night dinners for the family. When I was young, I was made to sit on a towel in case I dropped food on their chairs. When I was young, my aunt and uncle came every single week. We still have fights about politics. Except we don’t, not anymore. Suddenly, my grandmother can’t manage it. Suddenly, she’s on and off sick (a recurrence, we think, of Meniere’s disease), on and off unable to get out of bed for a day or more at a time. She can’t hear properly. And so, lately, no family dinners. Oh, my mother and my aunt intend to do them, sometimes, but I am not sure whether they will. Even if they do, it’s just not the same.
And I know, of course it’s not the same, it hasn’t been the same in ages, but this is a real ending to something I am not ready to see end, and I can no longer ignore that my grandparents are mortal and in their late 80s.
Well, my slight hope that in writing something again, I would have something to say again washed out. I haven’t read anything good in ages, if I think any more about politics I will shoot myself — I haven’t even taken any cute cat pictures in a while. I’ve been madly antisocial, even for me, though I did have some lovely Indian food lately. Plus there was a portable tandoor right next to our table, and a small elephant with its butt hanging over the hole. Up there on the most unusual decor I have seen. On the surrounding few blocks, there are half a dozen Persian restaurants, including one called Pers-O-Mush, which is perhaps not the best restaurant name choice ever, despite being memorable.
This weekend I am headed to Maine, where I will be pleased about the dollar.
If my blog has come to this, I should not have bothered starting writing again.
I am still here, just without any interest in writing. But it’s a new month, and a new year (I was thinking of posting for the new year, but didn’t), and here’s a new post. Maybe this will inspire me for tomorrow, or at least make me feel guilty enough that I write the usual stupid uninspired stuff.