Sympathy for the trolls: do everyone a favour and walk away from fights online

Everybody's been a troll at one point or another. Sometimes we know when we're trolling, but mostly we're just having a bad day (or week, month, year) and we take it out on someone else.

Sometimes we take it out on customer service representatives on the phone. That's the trolling I'm particularly guilty of, and the one I'm most ashamed of: for some reason I always find myself railing at the phone company. (Which phone company? Any of them.  All of them.)  Thankfully, although those conversations are recorded, they aren't (yet) transcribed and posted publicly.  (Now that would make people behave better on the phone.)

But mostly, it's a case of Duty Calls (when Someone is Wrong on the Internet) and we allow a disagreement to escalate.  I had one of these happen to me today, and I (for once) didn't make it worse.  I was proud of myself because I responded with grace and humour, attempted to defuse the situation, and didn't respond when it got truly nasty.

Instead of mixing it up and making things worse, I went for a walk with my husband and dog, where we saw flames peeking out of a big paper recycling bin.  My husband got someone to call the fire department while I ran to find a fire extinguisher, and then another when the police had used that one up and the fire had reignited.  Very exciting, but at least the fire didn't get out of control for very long before the firefighters arrived:

Later I was especially pleased that I didn't bite because I looked at the troll's Twitter account and saw that he was genuinely upset, having left the forum because of poor quality conversations (apparently a pattern he is experiencing). A woman I know once cried in frustration, "why is it that wherever I work, there's always some bitch who makes life miserable for me?"  Indeed.

Nothing I said could have made it better: he needed me to be the villain.  Okay then.  But that doesn't mean I had to feed the fire; I didn't need to correct him, I didn't need to have the last word, and I didn't need to humiliate him.  He took care of it himself.  And it turns out I really did have better things to do.

In closing: not the most mature choice of videos, but hey, gotta be me.

"Fire! Fire! Come in through the back door...
Fire! Fire! I want to be a fireman... and handle your hose."

Job satisfaction: the passionate dermatologist, the chair, and the metal hook

As a teenager I had terrible skin.  It was just average-bad until I was nineteen, at which point it went absolutely Vesuvian, requiring Accutane to tame it.  Each pill came in a nearly impregnable (hah) blister pack which required multiple steps to open: first, slide open the box and see the outline of a hydrocephalic fetus; second, remove a serrated paper tab with the silhouette of a pregnant woman and the red ban-symbol through it, and finally pop the liquid-filled gel pill through a rather tough plastic laminated foil surface.  (The packaging shown at right is nowhere near as extreme.) I would later give the paper tabs with the "no pregnancy" symbol to friends and co-workers to encourage contraception.  But I digress.

Rewind slightly: at sixteen I was taken to a dermatologist.  I went with my mother, who always tried very hard to get me to take care of my skin.  I can't count the number of doctors who looked at my face, looked again, mumbled uncomfortably, then handed me a bar of Purpose soap and gently indicated that I might try using it.  I didn't, of course - the only thing I was willing to do was take the erythromycin that would stain my teeth.  I went through a couple of dermatologists over the years.  But I digress.

So, the dermatologist: somewhere in the northern woods of Fulton County, a rather long drive from my parents' house in Marietta.  Picture me hurtling across the suburbs in a gray 1979 Ford Mustang: one time I recall taking a corner through a freshly red light, tires squealing as I accelerated through second gear, laying on the horn to make sure the other people didn't act too soon on their green light and get in my way.  But I digress: obviously I'm stalling.

The dermatologist was a woman in her mid-to-late thirties, average height, and sensible black hair.  Her skin had obviously been ravaged by acne.  She did the usual first visit: yes, here's your bar of Purpose soap, your prescription for Retin-A, your bottle of pills, whatever.  Then she put me in a reclining dentists' chair, fixed the spotlight on my face, and proceeded to squeeze out each and every one of my blackheads through use of a metal implement.  It hurt like hell: she pressed with that damn thing really hard, all across my nose, forehead and cheekbones.  Push down, scrape across, wipe on a tissue, repeat.  No small talk, no lectures, just intense concentration.

This took at least forty-five minutes, and at least a half hour on each of my subsequent visits.  Each time my face would eventually stop producing the goods and she'd reluctantly let me go.  This was back in the days of full insurance, no copays, and no referrals, when you could go to a specialist all you wanted, for anything you felt like doing.  I have no idea what this woman charged, and it probably wasn't cheap, but she was doing the whole thing herself: no receptionist, no assistants.  Just her versus the zits.

The last time I went she came out to the waiting room to get me.  I stood up and said hello to her, and she never looked me in the eyes: she mumbled hello as she started scanning my face.  I sat through that last agonizing session as she pushed, scraped, and wiped my throbbing face.  Yes, I stopped going because it was a long way from home, because it was painful, and because it didn't stop the pimples that actually bothered me, but mostly I stopped going because that woman creeped me out.

She obviously loved her job, but she loved it way too much: she was a sebum junky, a zit juice vampire, a woman on a mission of vengeance against the acne that had obviously scarred her for life.  To this day, when people talk about being "passionate" about their job I think of her.

Asking more from family and friends on queer rights

Following the election last Tuesday, I am very happy and hopeful about the future. Even though Proposition 8 passed in California, President Barack Obama will appoint liberal Supreme Court justices who will eventually give me full equality in the United States, maybe even in my lifetime. I have hope.

But in the meantime, it's going to be rough. Each step forward will be met with stiff opposition. Queers have long been convenient targets for political hate campaigns. This will get worse before it gets better. It already is.

Recently I've discovered that several long-time friends don't agree I should have equal rights, including the right to be married. Some of them have participated in campaigns specifically intended to take away my civil rights. By definition, these people are not my friends, and I will no longer encourage such behaviour with my continued association. These people will no longer be able to truthfully say "I have gay friends, but..." – not if they're referring to me.

I am also raising my expectations of my friends and family. In the past I simply asked friends and family to accept me and not say bad things in my presence. I didn't feel I had the right to ask them to volunteer for a cause, contribute money, or vote a certain way. Although I knew in some cases that they were opposed to my rights, I ignored it. I had very low self-esteem, and I just felt happy that people actually liked me: Internalized homophobia is powerful and insidious. Those days are past.

Now I will call on my friends and family to help advance my civil rights whenever I see fit. Since my friends and family love me as I love them, I expect they will be willing to help me. If friends and family are engaged in or supporting organizations that hold anti-gay agendas, it is my expectation that they work to improve those organizations from within. To be clear, I'm not unreasonable: I don't actually expect my friends and family to live up to my every expectation any more than I live up to theirs.

Queer issues will never be as important to most of my friends and family as they are to me. But now I'm not going to hesitate to ask for help, and if that turns out to be a problem, it will be short-lived. It will be fantastic if they choose to help, and it will be okay if they don't, but no friend will be allowed to work against my civil rights and remain my friend. This is called self-respect, and it starts now.

The fat of the land: berry season in BC

It took me nine months to appreciate Vancouver. We arrived here just after the torrential rains which flushed tons of particulate matter into the water supply, prompting a boil water advisory, and just before the windstorms which blew down 40% of Stanley Park. Since it rained for five months after we arrived, it took some getting used to.

When it changed for me was August, when the blackberries came into season. Morning and afternoon I'd bury myself in a briar, stuffing my face with berries and picking a pailful to eat the rest of the day. After that, I saw the city differently: the rain didn't bother me so much, the laid-back nothing's-going-on nature of the city life didn't leave me anxious, and Toronto seemed a bit farther away. This year I've picked so many of them that we can't keep up, and we're freezing them for wintertime. They are sweet and moist, ripe and ready to eat, the kind that can't be transported because they turn to mush so quickly after picking.

Two or three times per week I've been picking up a 5kg flat of blueberries on my way home. I strap it to my bicycle rack and drag it up the hill, trailing berries that escape through the slats in the side when I go over a bump. It's unbelievable, but between the two of us we polish off those blueberries in 24 hours. They're so ripe, so fresh, so fat and juicy – the texture is completely different from those sold in supermarkets.

Louie is also excited when berry season comes around because blueberries are his favourite treat. Here he is demonstrating his ability to shake hands. He gets so excited that he sits, stands, shakes, lies down, and repeats his repertoire until given his due.

Berry season has passed its peak and we're sliding down the wrong side of August now, but we'll still have berries for a few more weeks. I'll be there in the ditch, picking my breakfast like a bear.

Dave's liposarcoma, and what to do about it

My friend Dave Novak is in the hospital, getting chemotherapy to treat liposarcoma, which he discovered he has just a little while ago. He's documenting his treatment on his blog, and I really appreciate it. I'm thinking about him a lot.

Since Dave is going to be spending the next couple of days in the hospital, I thought I might help him to stay focused on his recovery. Since he just got rid of his old hair, I thought it would be a good idea to start weighing the replacement options:

the Shag:	the bob cut:	Geddy Lee's mullet:

I have supplied a few good options here, but please feel free to submit additional proposals in the comments (with pictures, please). I've set up a poll for voting. Good news, Dave – you also get to vote!

Not just for lovers

Valentine's Day in North America is understood to be for lovers, and that is very nice.  In Latin America it is also Friendship Day, which I think is even nicer.  Not to knock love, familial love, romantic love, all of those forms, but friendship is special and deserving of a special day.

Despite the risk of breaking into a chorus of Auld Lang Syne, today I'm thinking of everyone I love, and all of my friends, because every one is special - new and old, near and far.

Fifty year countdown

According to statistics, today I have fifty years left. Wow, I'm not middle-aged after all! Forty is the new thirty!

I've been thinking about my second act lately, and this helps put it in perspective. It looks like I have enough time for two more acts before I get cut down by the reaper (maybe more, if you listen to some folks). Then of course, we could all get swallowed up in the Rapture of the Nerds before that – if we do, I hope it looks better than MySpace.

Wired founder Kevin Kelly came up with this as a motivational tool: he has a countdown on his desktop that tells him how many days he has left. This keeps him focused; everything else can be bought, but more lifespan does not currently scale.

My sell-by date: 28 September 2057. I have 18,263 days left; roughly 1.6 gigaseconds. Stay tuned for the agenda.

(via BoingBoing)

New house

We're working through a deal to buy a new house here in Vancouver. Did I say house? I meant "tiny little 71 m² condo". Have a look at it. Note: in real life, the building is finished.