Thanks to a certain kindly gentleman I've been given a dreamwidth account where cross posting will occur. Please feel free to friend me there if you are of the mind to do so.

IN the mean time, I'm posndering how to escape my cube and go home and do adult things.

Experiments in natural lighting and flash and a practicing of photoshop layers skills. These pictures were taken about a minute apart.

The one on the left is natural light with
Exposure: 2
Aperture: f/4.5
Focal Length: 15 mm
Exposure: 0.00

The one on the right is a flash shot with
Exposure: 0.004 sec (1/250)
Aperture: f/22.0
Focal Length: 15 mm
Exposure: +0.55

Snagged some plums at the Ferry Building farmers market. What I did with them is to come.

A rare July rainstorm over the Castro produces spectacular results

I took the afternoon off from work to try and get some of the info needed for the requirements the State Department has demanded so I can get a new passport. As it turns out, the Social Security office was completely unhelpful for me.

1. First they had never seen the form that I need to get a complete employment history.
2. Then they told me they would mail it to their central office in Baltimore and "guess" it would get there sometime next week.
3. Then they told me that they don't take credit cards.
4. Then they told me my forms were invalid because they don't consider 2009 as part of their calculation and then please refer to #1 when they said they didn't have any more on site to refill them out.

I finally asked for the damn things back so I can redo them on my own and FeEx them to Baltimore.

I'm so frustrated with this whole process I could explode. It's becoming really clear I'm not going to get to go to Montreal for the wedding.

I headed to the Castro to go to the gym. I ran into a friend and we talked for a while. He's got some his own stuff going on that's overwhelming him as well. I'm grateful for the talk. He calmed me down alot with out realizing that he did. He gave a me a big tight hug and that helped too.

My work out was good and the Noe Valley Farmer's market was setting up as I made my way home. I snagged a loaf of cheddar and garlic bread and ate half of it before I was home. Good old carby fatty garlicky goodness and I almost felt human for the first time in a week.

Been thinking about doing some more blatantly commercial work for stock image sites. It's a different way of thinking.

Acquired some berries at the Noe St Farmers Market. These eventually landed in a cobbler

Shhhhh...

I've been complaining that I haven't had time to decompress and do some quiet time things. I was supposed to go two stepping tonight but I think it's a better idea for me to just grab one of the seven books I'm currently reading and stay put.

As our elected officials search for new words, new institutions and new arrangements to avoid giving us full equality, it is important for people to remember that right now all we have amounts to basically a system of separate but unequal. We have a set of laws at the national, state and local levels that separates LGBT folks from the rest of America.

Let's call it what it is - Gay Apartheid.

Now some of you might think that is a loaded and unfair word. I have chosen the word very carefully and deliberately. Apartheid is when a group of citizens of a nation is by law separated from all other citizens and the rights, benefits and protections all others are granted.

Having DOMA and "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" as laws of the land are apartheid laws. They set us apart from all other American citizens. State after state has singled us out in their Constitutions to create a separate body of law for LGBT citizens. States have created laws to forbid us from adopting or participating in the foster care system. Those of us who have foreign national partners are refused to right to co-habitate in America. Creating civil unions and domestic partnership laws to avoid marriage is a failed attempt to sustain a system of 'separate but equal' that didn't work in the segregationist South and won't work for us. So lets be honest about this as we see an enormous number of laws on the books specially denying LGBT Americans the rights, benefits, privileges and protections granted to all other Americans: we have created and are continuing to expand on a system of Gay Apartheid. There is no other way to look at it.

Despite the President's warm words and the lovely trappings at the White House, he continues to buy into this system and allows it to continue. In fact, it was a carefully worded warm, fuzzy speech that failed to answer many questions. The use of the words 'domestic partnership' seems like out of the 1980's. He couldn't even say the words 'civil unions'? He again mostly addressed Federal employees concerns and repeated his campaign promises to overturn DOMA and DADT. There was no attempt to stop the horrific destruction of the careers of our LGBT military personnel with the announcement of a "stop-loss" order. In fact right after the event Press Secretary Gibbs basically said it isn't going to happen and threw the entire issue to Congress without Presidential leadership. Marriage? Civil Unions? The President said not a word. Adoption and Foster Care? Not one word was uttered by the President. Immigration for partners of American citizens? Not one word.


http://www.davidmixner.com/2009/07/separate-but-unequal-means-gay-apartheid.html#more

Take a couple of wigs, some pink fabric, add vodka and a camera and this is what happens



( Clicky for More Pinky )

I see pictures of NY in the summer and part of me just aches to be there.

Happy Pride Week .... no matter how you choose to celebrate, acknowledge, or remember.



Now I'm goin' two steppin'