Civilization is the best boardgame ever.  We have been playing for days, and we just finished the basic version.  After New Years, we start the Advanced version.

Coolest Dream Ever

So it was the future, this beautiful mix of dystopian gutter city crumbling into the sea, and a totalitarian perfect world full of good little citizens living in special, domed communities.  In all of this, I get to play a sort of sci-fi Puck, a fey creature from a realm beyond the stars we see, who feeds on laughter ad beauty.  I get to do all sorts of interesting things in this dream setting. I help a gutter boy sneak into a dome in order to get an education, started, then stopped a war between to dome city-states, and kidnapped a dome girl to show her the magic inherent in her world.  At one point, we walk along this crumbling sea wall, while looking out to the outer wall that is already half destroyed, creating a giant seething green lake pouring a thousand waterfalls into the city below, a city which looks suspiciously like a post-cascadia event Seattle.  I lecture her about having good communication with mer mother, of all things, then take her around the city, showing her all the hidden joys and beauties.  An old man, seeing me says, "You're a scalliwag, aren't you?  I didn't think you were real."  I reply, "the best of us aren't, sir."

Wake.

Bunny? Bunny!

So I was on the internet yesterday, when I found this.  My House Rabbit is all about pet bunnies, with a blog of both personal bunny stories and international bunny news, a photo gallery of pet bunnies, articles on bunny care, and much more.

I'm thinking that I might get a bunny or two.  The more I read about them, the more they seem like a good pet for me.  All I eat is "rabbit food" anyway, and having a pet who doesn't require that I sacrifice its health or my convictions sounds like a good idea.

Wear Red for World AIDS Day

 Today is World AIDS day.  People all over the web are raising awareness of this still current issue.  The UN says that new infection rates are starting to drop all over the world, a proof that prevention campaigns are starting to make an impact.  My cynical first thought was maybe the new infection rates were dropping because all the high risk members of the hardest hit populations were mostly infected or dead.


Anyway, I'd like to take a moment to look at the very specific way that AIDS has affected my life.  When I was a little girl, my mom had a friend named Billy.  Billy was a drag queen, and whenever we went to his and his partner's house, Billy and I would do our nails and play with make up, something that my rather butch mom and I never did.  It was always so much fun. 


Billy died of AIDS, when I was still young enough not to understand.  This story is pretty short, a little kid losing someone they barely ever saw anyway, but I imagine that when added to everyone else's loss, my tiny grain of sand adds to the mountain of sorrows.  


HIV is no longer the queer disease, and it is not a flag carried only by the gay community and their allies, but I have some thoughts to share on the topic of homosexuality in the US.


I am a daughter of what I think of as the first out generation, the tail end of the baby boomers, people who came of age just after the stonewall riots.  My mom was twelve in 1969.  She grew up in a time when homosexuality was still a mental disorder.  She had to hide, then fight for, her sexuality.  For my generation, it seems like just something else to be picked on in highschool, the teenage dating scene made that much more of a pit of angst, and once you're out of highschool and that shitty little backwater town where you grew up, it's pretty okay.  Gay bars aren't only in the worse part of town, and people can hold hands with the one they love without fear.  We are edgingI'm told that for young teens today, especially the girls, being bi- or homosexual is almost trendy, the newest teen rebellion now that everyone has piercings.  I hope that for the people who are being born today, it won't make any difference at all.