Happy Juneteenth

I never quite finished my holidays project thanks to the blog ending. I think it's important to call attention to the anniversary of emancipation in the U.S. The Senate celebrated by officially apologizing for slavery. I suppose symbolic gestures do have value, but not much.

I've been having second thoughts about kicking Panda out. For one, I wouldn't have kicked Kitty out for drug use in my house and I've been questioning whether it's valid to treat him differently. Issues like drug addiction vs. drug dumbassery and whether it's valid to have different standards of behavior for friends then others are the main issues. Also, it would make it harder to collect on his debt to me. I was thinking I'd tell him to sign over both his cars that are in my yard to satisfy his debt. One is totaled. The other just needs a new muffler. The idea of housemates was that they would either offset my house payments with rent or offset their rent by doing work around the house. As it is, Panda cleaned the kitchen once and hasn't paid rent really ever and Fox is way behind, but sometimes pay and is occasionally helpful.

Rumor has it "Ally McBeal" is coming to DVD. As far as I'm concerned, it's about time. This is hardly an obscure show and TV on DVD has been common since around the time it was on the air. There was one release with six episodes that came out nine years ago, and nada since. This is important because I credit this show, along with "Xena: Warrior Princess," which finished its DVD release four years ago, despite being a far lower rated show of the same vintage, with turning me from a religious conservative who wanted to keep women in the kitchen into a liberal feminist who hangs out with gay people. This may surprise some feminists, many of whom saw the show as sexist, but I think it's a topic that I should address in depth once I buy the show, which won't necessarily be right away when it comes out.

Imagine this: In it's sixth season, a popular teen sci-fi/fantasy genre show has an episode where the lead is attacked by a mysterious creature, then wakes up in a mental institution where they are told all the events that happened since roughly the beginning of the show were a fantasy created because they couldn't deal with the stresses of ordinary life. The mental institution offers a promise of getting out and a better life than they've known in the show, regaining relationships they'd lost and such, but this requires them to do something questionable. What am I talking about? If you said "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" episode 6.17, Normal Again or "Smallville" episode 6.10, Labyrinth, you are correct. I realize there are only so many plots, there were many points of difference and "Smallville" still did it a lot better than "Charmed" would have etc, but the truth it worked much better on Buffy, because Buffy was someone who always seemed on the verge of breakdown anyway (and was prone to impulsive and violent behavior). An earlier episode of Smallville with a similar premise about Chloe worked for the same reason. Clark is whiny and self-centered, but not really unstable. Basically, he doesn't seem like the type to be delusional and they didn't really sell that very well, and having some plausibility for the alternate world is necessary to make the story work.

When I woke up today, I had No feeling in my left arm. I grabbed my left wrist in my right hand. I could tell it was warm, but it was like grabbing someone else's arm. I couldn't feel a thing. This happens sometimes, so in itself wasn't cause for concern, but I attempted to raise my left arm and found I had no control over it. It just hung there. This passed after a few minutes, but now my shoulder aches a bit and the arm is shaking. This could be related to hauling heavy groceries. It seemed okay most of the day, but I am concerned. A little experimentation pressing on my shoulder seems to show I have a major nerve going over the top of my collar bone, which I don't think is the right place. My right arm doesn't have this problem. I've lived for years losing sensation in my arm whenever I carry a backpack or laugh and I am now told this isn't normal at all.