things and stuff

Finally got the Berkeley team thing resolved. And I know now who to take private lessons from at Metronome. Dan Katsis; he was trained by Nadia Eftedal, who rocks.

A warning to all:

I am having a weird week. I have been off. I have been irritable. I have been oblivious even once or twice despite my best efforts and feel like shit about it. I had the worst nightmare I've had since I was little and have woken up a basket case twice this week already. I have been spending time with nifty people I like and gotten irritable and started to feel like people were invading my space and any touch was bad.

If I act weird or unreasonably, it's NOT YOUR FAULT. The Questioner is just Off this week, and apologizes in advance. Please treat me as slightly insane or anyway as volatile and go from there.

I'm taking extra b-vitamins etc. and hoping that will help. In the meantime, I'm sorry to any I've been weird around this week.

speechless

I'm speechless. I'm sure I'll find my misplaced speech, but wow. This person is, um, special, and in the pagan community! Just goes to show that you can find crazy right wing folk anywhere.

Edit: He appears to be in a lot of communities he doesn't actually belong in. For lovers of Howard Dean or feminists, go to his lj and read the previous post. It's EVEN WORSE.

Gender roles

BTW, when cos was visiting a few weekends ago, he and I went to a fundraiser for something called GenderPAC. It was way cool. It's an organization dedicated to eradicating Gender Discrimination. This figures in a lot to transgendered folk, but also for straight people who try to stray outside their strict gender roles.

For instance, from their website (and this happened here, in Pacifica):
Mark Shaposhnikov says he has recorded incidences in which 33 students of Ingrid B. Lacy Middle School have harassed his son with epithets like "gay fashion model," "fag," and "girl." Shaposhnikov says his son faces on ongoing taunting and assaults because he is a champion ballroom dancer...

Check out their website at www.gpac.org. They are, imo, a really important cause. I'm very excited about them. Oh, and they are actively working on seeding college campuses with youth chapters which will do out reach to high schools.

Redwoods and Nature getaways

unseelie and I are hoping to "getaway" to nature to be pagany on Saturday. The only redwoods we know about is Muir woods, which are usually crawling with touristy types that we want to kill.

Does anyone have any suggestions for where to go to get in touch with oneself and the universe? Non-obnoxious-tourist redwood groves, foresty places, etc.? I suggested Harbin hot springs as an option.