Slashdot is much funnier when you're drunk

Journal spun's Journal: Slashdot is much funnier when you're drunk 2

Journal by spun on Saturday June 23, 2007 @01:51AM

Looking back on ten years at this site, I can't help but be struck by the fact that I have never, before tonight, read Slashdot while drunk. I came here before it was even Slashdot. Back when this space was Chips & Dips, I made my way here because Malda had written some doofy little applet for a window manager most current slashdot members have probably never even heard of, Enlightenment. I can't even remember what the applet did. Something about sound, maybe? Anyways, I was here way before there were user IDs, let alone a moderation system. The only reason I don't have a lower UID is that I didn't see the need for them when they were introduced. But I have signed my name "spun" here since the very beginning.

Spun was the name I used on spinnweb's Dysfunctional Family Circus, if anyone here remembers that. You can still find my captions from that period archived all over the web, look for DFC 450 to the very end, when Bill Keen personally contacted the site and asked us, please, for the love of his family who are represented in the comic, please would we stop making the incest jokes?

Well it's been ten years. Ten of the strangest and most growth filled years of my life. I went from being a hard core anarcho-syndicalist activist to a fairly conventional divorcee in those ten years. I haven't posted to or read this site continually during that time. There have been periods of up to a year where I haven't even glanced at Slashdot. But I always come back.

So why am I drunk? Good question, imaginary reader in my head. I went out to a bar tonight, that would be why. My mom has a lady's night out every Friday with other single women from Boing-SVS, where she works. I thought it would be a good test, to see if I've still got game. I do.

No! They are not all her age, if that's what you're thinking.

One of the nice things about having a hippy mom who has always tried to be "more of a friend than a mom," as she puts it, is that I can talk to her about anything. One of the only nice things, really. But that's something, isn't it? You know, I might have come out of my co-dependent childhood better off if I'd had any kind of father figure, but I guess no one can have everything.

I had to make sure my pseudo-adopted half brother, Malcolm, the Republican Native American gay ex military guy, would be there. I can't actually hang out with my mom unless both of our lives our going well, it gets too weird. But Malcolm and I are soul-brothers. We have nothing in common except our understanding of the universe.

That's one thing about enlightenment. Well, first, unless you are (and you will know), that word doesn't mean what you think it means. But the point is, we recognize each other at first glance. Or through a sentence or two of writing online. And we can verify, through a short conversation that no one else gets, each other's status. I've met more than one enlightened individual here on Slashdot. I've even met at least one person more enlightened than me. You can tell that, too, and both individuals know where they stand.

Anyway, that is a tangent I won't get into while drunk. The point is, Malcolm is someone I trust.

So I went to this ladies night, and I was charming. I know how to turn it on, and make the person I'm with feel special, when I want to. Chicks dig that. But you can't be too into them, you almost have to create this paradoxical situation where you are totally into them, but you are kind of doing them a favor. I think a lot of that has to do with the state of women's oppression in our society, but it is something real that I have observed and not just stereotyping.

I asked Malcolm afterwards, "so have I still got it?" And he said, "Oh my God! Yes." It was easier because I wasn't really that into any of the women present. I mean, they were cute, and obviously nice people, but you know? No spark. And I am not that desperate that I will hook up with someone I'm not really into. Actually, it's kind of hard to be into anyone right now, with Jenny still so fresh in my head and heart.

So is that bad? Flirting when you have no real intention of following through? I obviously don't think so, or I wouldn't have.

Afterwards, I went back to my mom's place, and we all had a nice talk about the whole breakup thing. We're all going to go see Jenny's new play tomorrow night. I talked about my conversations here at Slashdot, and we all agreed based on our knowledge of Jenny and Yanniq, it was not as bad as some here make out. But we also agreed that their relationship was pretty much dead in the water. She's too much of a princess to be any kind of healer, no matter what I may have taught her.

Yeah, my mom knew about this whole thing from the get-go. I was born into a three way marriage, after all. Jenny's parents didn't know, until I made her tell them during our break-up. Have I mentioned that they are pissed off at her, too? It's ironic, of all the people who know both of us, I am probably the least pissed at her. Now anyway, I let her have it with both barrels when it first happened.

So tonight was a good trial run. I am an attractive, desirable male of the species. There are women out there in similar situations to mine. I'm hopeful. Now, if I were really trying to hook up, I wouldn't have talked about the divorce at all. That is a total game-killer. But one of the women there mentioned hers, so I talked about it a little.

The interesting thing? One of the divorced women there was still very good friends with her ex. Similar situation, as I said. They knew that neither one of them was a bad person, but they just weren't right for each other. She said that she and her partner were better as friends over the last ten years than they ever were as partners. So that lends me a bit of hope, anyway.

The other one had married an abusive partner, and that is always a good reason to leave. Especially if there are kids involved, as in her case. If that line has been crossed with you, how can you ever trust them with your children? She was the one I really turned the charm on for because she was the cutest. But she was a little too square for my tastes.

That will be a major stumbling block for me, I think. There aren't that many individuals who are both complete rebels, and not too fucked up. The kinds of experiences that make a person a rebel also tend to fuck a person up. Unless they are also exposed to the idea of personal, as well as societal responsibility, most rebels aren't going to be able to move beyond the blame game and into something constructive rather than reactionary.

But maybe my exclusive attitude will work in my favor. After all, won't someone like me, but female, also have the same high standards? And isn't it possible that she, like me, will have given a go with someone less than perfect, and had it come to an end? I'm only thirty six, that is not too old to find someone I can actually create a family with, is it? I sure hope not.

I am so looking forward to the Rainbow Gathering this year. I've called people on the ride boards, but it seems most people want to leave earlier than the 29th. I could pull a twelve hour drive by myself, but company would be nice. Once I get there, I have more old friends to look up than I have days to do it in. I know I have mentioned that I met Jenny at a Rainbow gathering. About a day before I met Meg, for whom I left all my activist work behind me, in order to learn how to be a better person.

You know, the year I met the two of them, Meg and Jenny, I was complete in myself, and I did not need a partner. In the two years I went in between the time I broke up with Meg, and the time I hooked up with Jenny, I really wanted a partner, but did not meet anyone I wanted to be with at Rainbow. Even though (or perhaps because?) I felt more desperate than in years prior.

This year, I go with no goal of meeting anyone. I go to reconnect with old friends. I go to renew my faith in humanity. I go to experiment with anarchy in action, rather than theory. If I meet someone there, someone who feels like a soul mate, I won't turn away from the experience. But I'm more looking to find me than anyone else.

Five more days! Then I'm off to explore an alternate reality that exists only because of the freedoms that the country of my birth upholds. I tell myself things like that so I don't hate America. It is something that is almost indescribable to anyone who has never been. One can describe the actuality of Rainbow, the physical acts involved in its existence, but one can not describe the feeling to someone who has never experienced true community.

I go this year in memory of my dead best friend, Rob Batista. You made Rainbow happen in San Francisco every day for fourteen years. The Rainbow Gathering will never forget you.

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