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Congratulations, California!

Two days left to donate to the Walk for Hunger

The 40th annual Walk for Hunger takes place this Sunday, May 4, 2008. It's a 20-mile walk through Boston, Brookline, Newton, Watertown and Cambridge. It's the oldest continually running pledge walk in the country. Last year, the event raised $3.4 million for hungry families.

You can go here to make an easy online donation to me or my team. Or, if you want to help hungry people but don't like me, please go to the Project Bread page and make a general donation. Hungry families thank you!

Amusing fun fact: In Philadelphia, they walk against hunger.

Fun with cats' brains

I was messing with my cat Dexter just now, because, really, what else are cats for? I've always known that he's particularly smart (makes up for the other two stupid cats in this household), but he surprised me just now.

He'll answer to "Dexter" consistently, which I knew, but I discovered that he won't answer to "Hamster!" or "Dumpster!" in the same intonation. That's good to know; at least he won't go crashing through the window if someone is screaming outside chasing their runaway trash container.

Friends of gays should not be allowed to edit articles

This little work of satire summarizes how-not-to-fuck-up-the-internet better than any actual
guidelines could.

So many people are just so fucking stupid: Part 384293748392749823 in a series

There should be like a $5000 fine for jaywalking with a child in one's care. (Or an adult who has a guardian appointed.) I see people doing this just about every day. It's about one of the most irresponsible things a person can do, and it isn't like speeding or drifting in your lane or something where one can legitimately say that it happened accidentally. It isn't like you just space out for a second and look up and realize the place you're leading your child is the middle of the fucking road. And the fine should be doubled when the person towing the child or pushing a baby carriage outside the crosswalk (or against the light) glares at the cars that aren't stopping, as if there's some special law where you yield to people who are endangering their children.

Homophobia within the queer community

Purple Roofs is a worldwide directory of queer-friendly lodging. I use it to find my accommodations pretty much every time I travel.

Each listing contains the basic overview of price range and amenities, along with whether the place is either "gay owned," "lesbian owned," or "gay friendly. The "gay friendly" designation appears to mean "gay" in the broad sense, and every property that isn't gay or lesbian owned is listed as "gay friendly." I've not yet come across one that's bi-owned or trans-owned.

The listings also specify who is welcomed there. Most listings say this:

Clientele Welcomed: Gay Men Lesbian Bisexual Transgender Straight

Some of them list only gay men or lesbians. This seems reasonable, because there are some resorts and B&Bs that are hangouts pretty much exclusively for one group or the other, and while the ones I know of wouldn't be unwelcoming toward an outsider, most people who don't belong to that group would probably feel a bit out of place. I'm perfectly down with there being gay male hangouts, and I just view them as somewhere that I'm glad exists, but where I'd be out of place, thus appreciate the forewarning. I'd feel the same way if there were listings of places with a largely trans clientèle, though I haven't come across any of these.

There are a few places, however, which list everyone but bisexual, or everyone but trans, or everyone but straight. I'm not comfortable with this. Again, I'm fine with the idea of safe space, where a specific marginalized group with a lot of shared experience comes together to feel comfortable and feel like they fit in. When gay males or transpeople are looking for somewhere to spend a few days with a group that's homogeneous in respect to this part of their identity, that makes sense to me. (Get it? Homo?) I don't at all feel like they hate females or straight people or cisgendered people.

But what doesn't make sense is when somewhere is welcoming to a broad group of queers, except for one specific type of queers. Why would somewhere just exclude bisexual folks? Or transpeople? If you have a group of queer people, male and female, single and partnered, why on earth wouldn't bisexual or trans folks fit nicely right into this group? Oh, right, because some queer people are biphobic and transphobic. Which, sure, all of us have prejudices, but this goes beyond that. It's just alarming to me that there are so many business owners who would consciously check off a box on a form stating that an entire category of queer people are not welcome in their mixed queer setting. It's just bad business, too, because I don't stay anywhere on Purple Roofs that isn't welcoming to my bisexual or trans brothers and sisters.

And why would someone exclude straight people? I understand that some straight people might not want to be in a heavily queer setting, but why would the place turn them away outright if they otherwise have a diverse groups of folks spending time there? If a place welcomes gay men, lesbians, bisexual folks, and trans folks, they're going to have all sorts of family configurations hanging out there. Straight people aren't going to be intruding on safe space when the crowd is this diverse to begin with. Homophobic straight people might, but they haven't eliminated that possibility, since I'm sure they end up with biphobic and transphobic queer folks staying there anyway. A few of these anti-straight places even mention that they're child-friendly. That one really confused me. So, queer parents can't bring their straight children? Did they think before coming up with this policy? Even at the places that don't mention children, why would a resort want to object to, say, my family vacationing there along with a straight friend or two?

Yeah, so, the caucus...

Overall, it was really interesting. I enjoyed seeing how the process works (never mind how there's no reason whatsoever that we're still using the electoral college system instead of popular-vote-by-phone or similar).

It was kind of intriguing to me to think about how really pointless the process is when you're talking about a district that's made up of Somerville, Cambridge, and most of Boston. Basically, we spent four hours trying to choose delegates from a pool of big-name politicians who have considerable media coverage in terms of which candidates and issues they support. Yes, there were some no-name candidates who made it impressively far (and I voted for a few of them, mostly because I like to support the less-connected political newcomers, as long as they have a solid platform), but in the end, we were voting over and over to narrow our decision between Major Politician A and Major Politician B. Remember, the reason we're choosing delegates in the first place is because we're trying to choose someone who we think is most likely to continue to support Barack Obama at the DNC. Sure, in smaller districts, there might be issues with the chosen candidate changing their support, but I just don't see this happening in Boston where we have all the press coverage to look back on, in addition to the major candidates all being people with political aspirations aside from just running for delegate.

My highlights, in no particular order:

Roy Owens ran for delegate, and got eliminated in the first round. Someone explain to me what the hell he was doing supporting a progressive candidate. Google the guy, and granted many of the hits will be things I've written or have been quoted as saying to media sources, but he's blatantly anti-GLBT rights, not-subtly anti-immigrant, and, well, just isn't progressive. He enjoys running for things though, and one of the beautiful things about this country is that people like him are allowed to get on the ballot and allowed to preach homophobia. And the smarter and more compassionate folks are allowed to wonder openly about what on earth is up with him.

Representative Capuano was banging on the lectern with a red stapler to get people's attention. (If you don't understand why red staplers are funny, I'm really not sure what it is that you see in this blog, but welcome nonetheless.)

The process involves electing two male and two female delegates. First of all, what the fuck? Is this the 1600s? Why not also sort them on the ballot by race? Or age? Second of all, I am genuinely curious what laws apply in terms of how one's gender is determined in this process. Are they going by legal sex? (Ignoring the fact, for the moment, that there is absolutely no reason for a society to even have a concept of legal sex). When the process is taking place in Boston, do the laws prohibiting discrimination on the basis of gender identity or expression apply? Which would mean, of course, that any candidate could self-identify his/her gender, provided that s/he consistently identifies this way in everyday life, as the laws specify. In the same vein, would the caselaw of using sex discrimination laws in other jurisdictions to fight the same discrimination apply similarly? Or, since this is a federal process, would federal law be able to trump local law, similarly to how the Passport Agency cites the DOMA? I can't find any information either way indicating whether they're going by legal sex or by current gender presentation.

Since this is One Smoot, I do also want to point out that, at one point, several members of the audience asked Representative Capuano to please read the numbers of votes (written on a chalkboard on the stage) out loud, since the numbers had gotten progressively harder to read as the board had been erased and reused several times. He stated that he would not do so, since it would be unfair, as he had not been doing so all along. I don't understand this logic at all, but isn't this an ADA violation? The political process is required to be accessible, and it's certainly not an undue hardship to ask him to read four or five names and vote counts out loud when requested to do so. I realize that the people asking him to read it probably had normal vision (I couldn't read it after the board had accumulated enough chalk dust, and I have normal vision). Still, it's an ADA violation to respond to a simple request for accommodation by asking the person why they need the accommodation, or assuming the reason they need it. I know specifically that if someone in a setting asks to use an elevator that requires staff to activate it, it's illegal to ask why they need it or to say that it's "only for the disabled" or similar action that indicates that the person is taking it upon themselves to assess the person's disability.

Come to Jordan Hall on Saturday at noon to help decide who will be the next president

One of the families I work with is very politically active, and they've convinced me to go to the caucus tomorrow afternoon. I didn't know much about the process either, but it sounds really interesting, and it's of course for a good cause.

The caucus for Barack Obama is at Jordan Hall on Saturday April 5, and the doors are locked at 1:00pm, so be there before then.

There's more info here about the process, as well as the locations of the caucuses for those of you who aren't in the 8th congressional district. FYI, the 8th district includes Cambridge, Somerville, and most of Boston except for South Boston and parts of Dorchester, West Roxbury, Roslindale, and Hyde Park. To find out what district you're in, go here, and scroll down to District Representatives: Congressional. If yours is Michael Capuano, then come to the caucus with me, dammit.

Possibly the most boring One Smoot post ever, unless you're as big of a dork as I am

But since you're reading this, chances are pretty good. Anyway, I seem to be nearing the homestretch in my bathroom renovation repairs.

(See, the City of Boston doesn't like renovations, because those add to the value of your house, so then they want to come out and assess them. Repairs seem to be fine though, even though they inevitably also will add to the value of your house. Mortgage lenders, on the other hand, consider periodic replacement of fixtures and so forth to be "maintenance" and don't want to hear about it unless you do major gutting. So this entry will just talk about how I was poking around at my bathroom fixtures and tile to check out some water damage that had occurred due to improper installations of things throughout the bathroom, so then I had to repair said damage, as well as the damage from my poking around. And my repairs just happened to be much more attractive than the previous state of the bathroom. I can't help it if I have good taste.)

So here's the bathroom before:



The entire thing was covered in godawful off-white tile, along with off-white fixtures. The place came with gold faucets, door hardware, towel bars, and toilet paper holder, plus a gold-trimmed oak mirrored bigass medicine cabinet thing and matching soap dishes and toothbrush holders. The medicine cabinet and all the accessories were taken down within hours of buying the place. Shortly after, I put up a normal mirror and towel bars, but didn't do much else for a few years.

My flickr set has more details about looking for water damage, finding it, how just about everything in the bathroom was installed wrong, and so forth. Here's a lovely pic:



I'll spare the details for those who aren't total DIY geeks (some are in my flickr, or feel free to e-mail me), but here's an almost-done picture, taken tonight:



IKEA Freden vanity (which is on closeout!), Höllviken sink, Apelskär faucet, Molger shelf. Still loving the fishy shower curtain I bought years ago. I'll put the mirror back up once the paint dries completely, and then probably going to get some Molger or Grundtal wall shelves. I'm going to swap out the toilet in a few weeks (nothing fancy, just one that's white rather than off white, and which I plan to install properly so it doesn't get all effed up like the current one). When I'm rich (um, yeah), I'm going to replace the tub with a deeper one with jets and redo the tile. Word.

EDITED TO ADD: This is a later "after" photo, taken since I put up the mirror and put stuff on the shelf. Click through to my flickr to see more after photos as they appear.


Before and after, side by side

Tollbooth worker goes postal

I was driving on the Pike back into Boston this morning with my friend Brian. As we approached the Allston/Brighton tolls, we noticed that one booth had a red light, but people were lining up anyway. This of course resulted in the usual idiocy of people realizing they'd gotten into a closed lane and wanting out of that lane. They either did this by either being so timid that no one really believed they wanted to move over, or suddenly yanking the wheel and swerving out of the lane without looking where they were going. I think I might have seen one person change lanes appropriately. Oh, and every time someone moved out of that lane, someone from one of the other two (green light) lanes would over course jump at the opportunity and swerve over into the now-vacated spot in the line, which had of course closed in in the meantime. Lovely.

As we got closer, we saw that the line with the red light was actually taking tolls. When we got to our booth (I'd just stayed in my line the whole time, since I have this rare gift of recognizing that the way to get through the lines fastest is to just fucking stay put), I mentioned to our toll collector that the next lane over had its red light on, which seemed to be confusing people. He looked back at the traffic, said, "oh yeah, you're right...thanks, I'll mention it to her." He gave me my change, and as we took off, I heard him shout across the lane, "Hey, your light's on red, asshole!"

I really hope these two know each other.

Anyone know where I can find a House of Pizza around here?

This is a little project I've been doing, in which I take photos of Houses of Pizza.

The rules are simple:

1) The name on the sign must be "[Locality] House of Pizza," in that order, with no exceptions. Any sort of name of a nearby neighborhood or landmark qualifies as a locality.

2) The photo must be taken by me. Feel free to suggest houses for me to visit, but don't bother sending me photos of HoP that I didn't personally visit and photograph.

Oh, and I suppose I'm limiting it to Massachusetts, though if I happened to spot one somewhere else, I probably wouldn't be above shooting and posting it.

So far I've been told to visit the Millis House of Pizza and the Milford House of Pizza. I also seem to have deleted my picture of Andrew Square House of Pizza, so I need to take that one again.

I should mention that I've never eaten at a HoP, and I'm not sure I plan to. Most of my informants who've clued me in to the existence of a HoP in their neighborhood have also mentioned that the place was terrible. Just adds to the intrigue, as far as I'm concerned.

American Library Association publishes full 2008 Rainbow List

Available here.

Fun story about them guerrilla gay bar folks

Rundown of what happened when they took over Bell in Hand, here.

Dear humanity: "people of faith" does not refer only to Christians. Thanks.

This website from care2.com links to a booklet using Christian principles to illustrate how environmentalism is a Christian issue and why followers of Christ need to care about the environment. The campaign is a great idea, except for one thing: the Care2 e-mails and website refer to the campaign being geared toward "people of faith" and "G-d's creations" and "believers in G-d."

Christianity is not the only faith nor the only group of people who believe in G-d -- this is especially true considering the booklet itself comes from the National Council of Churches. They've generally been a very inclusive and pro-interfaith organization, and they certainly don't tend to be folks who hold the view that Christians are the only valid faith or the only true believers.

The booklet itself is great, and I'd recommend checking it out. The NCC folks who launched the campaign seem to have been really clear that it's geared toward Christians and is rooted in Christian theology. Apparently though, the Care2 people think "Christian" is a dirty word or something. I'm wondering if maybe they thought "people of faith" was more inclusive than "Christian," but the way they use it, it's actually just offensive, since you then click through to a book that's clearly Christian. Why not just say that it's a Christian campaign?

Massachusetts Department of Revenue wtf

I just got this letter from the Massachusetts Department of Revenue saying I owe personal income tax from 2004. Which has been accruing interest since 2004. Which they apparently need from me so badly that they waited three years to say anything.

I checked my copy of my return, and I ended up owing tax in 2004, which I paid. No, the letter doesn't explain which figures from my return they're disputing or anything -- just that I owe them money, plus interest, and I need to pay it by next week. As far as I know, they could be completely pulling this out of their asses. I'm not about to pay taxes that they're not even telling me what they're for.

There's an option for filing an appeal. So I went on the website, downloaded the form, and, um, wtf? The form requires that I list the line items on the tax return that I dispute their assessment of. Well, gee, I'm not sure which line items those would be, since they didn't send a copy of how they calculated that I owe them money. All I suppose I can really do is send them a copy of my tax return showing them the figures I believe to be correct, but isn't that what I did when I filed it in the first place?

Which leads me to another question: are there actually people who would just see this bill and pay it? I mean, I suppose there are a handful of people out there who knowingly left out a 1099 or something and would see the bill and realize it caught up with them, but as far as I know, I filed my taxes correctly. There's no way I'm paying this unless they can actually show me something that I overlooked or entered in two places or whatever it is they think I did.