Reposted Introduction/10 Things About Me

Since settling into Dreamwidth, I've encountered lots of new people. (Hey, everybody!) Since it's sort of a fresh start, I thought I'd go ahead and point out 10 Things I Assume You Know About Me If You Read My Journal, which I first wrote almost 3 years ago. I keep a link to it in my profile, though, so I've been going back and updating it every now and then. Here is the current abstract:

I am a (1) 26-year-old (2) USan (3) expatriate living in Finland because (4) my other half is waxjism who is a female Finnish citizen. I am also a second-generation science fiction fan, a (5) voracious multifannish reader, writer and reccer with (6) 2 cats and a dog (Lily, the Crazy, and Perry), (7) socialist/green liberal politics, (8) social anxieties and other neuroses, and (9) a secular Jewish heritage which is important to me even though I'm an atheist. Also (10) my dad is quadriplegic and in a wheelchair due to a car accident when I was in college. EXTRA SPECIAL BONUS INFO: I like fandom_wank, so if you hate that shit you can DEFRIEND ME NOW (^TM snacky)(It's come up before).

All of this is wonderkilled and then thoroughly stomped into the ground rambled about explained at the original post.

gay adoption rage in finland

So there's a bill in Parliament about same-sex adoption right now. Don't get excited, though, it's only to allow adoption internal to registered partnerships. Registered partnership is legal (obvs by the word 'registered'), but it's illegal for partners to adopt one another's natural children right now. Well, last week a typical asshole from the right-wing "True Finns' Party" (nationalist/ anti-multilingual party) compared this to marrying dogs.

After discussing the matter with Oinonen on Thursday, Speaker of Parliament Sauli Niinistö came to the conclusion that there was no intention to cause offence.

YOU DON'T THINK ANY OFFENSE WAS INTENDED? I'M SO GLAD TO HEAR THAT, NIINISTÖ. Evidently Niinistö is fonder than previously suspected of his dogs. Or perhaps his wife? A horse. Or maybe he's been body-snatched! He's possessed by an alien who doesn't come from a culture which carries a prohibitive norm against bestiality! That's why he is able to view the comment as innocent.

Meanwhile, in the land of the Swedish Peoples' Party (originally a Swedish-speaker's special-interest group; now generally moderate, but way too conservative for us):

After a fiery debate, the Swedish People's Party voted to support full adoption rights for same-sex parents... "If we don't accept this, we cannot be called a liberal party," argued the Young Swedish. "This is political suicide. Now the Finns can call us the gay party," said their opponents.

Yeah, because that's the important issue here: whether Finns continue to use "gay" as an ethnic slur against Swedish-speaking Finns! And of course, there's nothing ironic in refusing to support someone else's human rights because you don't want to be compared to them by some random asshole in a bar fight.

Protip, non-Youthful SFP: a) Finns don't actually believe that all Swedish-speakers are literally gay; if they did, they would find it hard to explain how you continue to reproduce. b) Knowing this has not stopped them and will not stop them from calling you gay, because you are a small minority with a number of historically memorable (and visible) affluent members and a rather obvious connection with the larger and wealthier nation next door that used to count Finland as part of its empire and use it as a summer home. I know that you are not actually descended from the King of Sweden personally - unless you are, in which case, no offense meant - and that your ancestors have lived in Finland just as long as proto-Ugric speakers and since before the evolution of Old Norse, and that statistically you are not wealthier than the Finns, and that it is very hard to get service in Swedish even though it is required by law. Believe me, I feel your pain: unlike you, I don't actually understand Finnish. But suck it up. You can console yourself that your life expectancy is still longer. And if it gets too harsh, you could move to Sweden. But beware! Gay people have rights there!

The Ultimate Sneaker Machine

Vision Street Wear's fail-filledly named "Sweet MJ".

More Parental-Unit Angst: How Social Security Ruined Their (& My) Summer Vacation

You may remember how 2 years ago I found out that Social Security had fucked up and given my parents ≈$20K USD of extra benefits in spite of my dad's repeated attempts to get them to take it back, and they discovered their error 2 years too late and suddenly demanded it back when it was too late. So my parents consulted various people and went through the whole "What Can I Do About Bureaucratic Fuck-Up Ruining My Life?" process and finally came to the answer, "Nothing."¹

My parents had just gotten out of debt from my dad's extremely expensive spinal injury² on top of my 1½ years of extremely expensive college right when they finished paying off the debt from my mom's graduate school. Now my little sister is 17, so, you know, more of that to look forward to. The upshot of all this is that I've now been living in Finland almost 5 years and they haven't visited me here yet. The closest was 3 years ago when we met them in Paris for the Vacation from Hell and Daddy fell into a coma (literally).

My mom was having a pain in her soul from only having seen me 3 times in 5 years (2 times, if you don't count COMA-INCLUDING TRIPS), so they were going to come this summer for 2 weeks. But NOW they can't afford it again, so we'll be making do with 5 days in Oct when my cousin kitten_head gets married - and my parents and I will be staying in different houses, because there's only one sufficiently wheelchair-accessible house in the family.

I have one major thing to say about all this: D:

1. I hear the same thing happened in smaller scale here in Finland to my mother outlaw; that's why the knowledgeable apparently hire accountants to double-and-triple-check everything the government tells them and, IDK, never trust an authority figure trying to give them money and like, save it in a special account against the day when they have to give it back?



2. In spite of having almost the best possible insurance, government-employee Worker's Comp - because they had to renovate their 100-year-old wooden farmhouse all at once instead of gradually as planned, replacing the roof, adding comprehensive wheelchair accessibility and a new giant bathroom, etc.

css fix for profile module in my dw layout (Paper Me)

A brand-new codepush has just adjusted the layout of the Userprofile module in the sidebar (ie default icon, display name, and the add-to-circle/send message/tell a friend link icons), and it affects the Paper Me layout I've made. It's not broken, per se, because that's how they wanted it, so you can use it if you like; but if not, here's ( how to put it back )

the plebefic headers go straight to your head

1. Disclaimer: This is based in an alternate universe. It’s kind of obvious that I can’t own something that doesn’t exist.



2. Summary: It was an accident, it was some sort-of "magical voodoo", or God just wanted revenge.



3. Disclaimer: This story is Like My little imaginary pocket size Gabe Saporta, Obviously not real except for in my mind.



4. Author's Notes: So, you guys can feel free to throw boulders or refrigerators or fat people or whatever at me or make little Hannah voodoo dolls and puncture it with needles, it's cool, I totally deserve it for failing so hard. If Updating Fics At A Reasonable Time was a class, I would be kicked out of school and shipped back to kindergarden because I would have negative points.



5. Summary:When Dean decides to lets himself be /courted/seduced by Cas,this isn't quiet what he had in mind