thefourthvine | [Poll] Things That Are Normal

[Poll] Things That Are Normal

Earlier this year, I posted about the LA Conscious Life Expo, which I hope to god someone is attending and liveblogging. (Someone not leading a conscious life, obviously, since those people will presumably be ascending and whatnot and thus not really reliable recorders.) And

misspamela said, in response to my discussion of the free magazines available at our local diner (mostly on the themes of Cocks Are Awesome, Marijuana Is Awesome, and I Hear Shiny Lights in My Pancreas), "Oh, California."

I stared at that comment for quite a while before asking her what, precisely, was so California about that. I mean - these are normal magazines! Right? And after she wiped away the tears of laughter, she said, basically, that everything was. Apparently the free magazines out in her neck of the woods are on - the woods or something. I don't know. What do you write a free magazine about if it's not semi-hysterical political ranting, cocksucking, semi-legal drugs, or the way your consciousness is currently in orbit around Saturn? (Without the benefit of the cocksucking or the semi-legal drugs, I mean.)

Since then, I have spent a certain amount of time analyzing my experiences in that diner, asking myself if something that seems normal to me is actually normal, or just very California. (Always keeping in mind that there are very conservative areas of CA, too. I just don't live in one. Nor do I live in the most liberal area, I might just mention.) I mean, the free magazines within reach of a small child that feature Adam Lambert and mostly naked men in bondage gear pretending to go down on each other - normal? Or California normal? I don't know. I've lived here too long. I mean, obviously I find it normal - I let my kid carry around those magazines, and everyone in the diner, including the old people, thinks it's cute. (We go there not just because we like the food but because everyone likes the earthling.) No one has suggested he's going to be warped, not even by the one that simultaneously showcased men in bondage gear (bondage gear is something of a feature of this particular magazine) and Disney characters. But maybe that would be weird somewhere else. Hard to say.

Recently, at another visit to this diner (where I picked up a catalog of this year's Conscious Life Expo, and I tell you what: I yearn to attend this thing, because I want to know if these people make any more sense when they're speaking as opposed to writing), I overheard a conversation between four guys at a nearby table. These were middle-aged guys, maybe in their forties, of various races, and at least one of them was a blue collar worker (judging by an earlier conversation). It's always nice to hear what the other half thinks, hence the shameless eavesdropping. Their conversation turned, in short order, to two major news stories of the day. The first was gays in the military, and keep in mind as you read this that the guys were fairly obviously censoring their speech because of the presence of a small earthling who kept looking over to see what food they had. (If they had heard how one of his mothers talks, they might have been less concerned.)

Guy 1: You know, it's the emotional intimacy I worry about.
Guy 2: Hmmm?
Guy 1: In the Navy. You're out there on those boats for a long time. All packed in close together, doing stuff together. You can't tell me they won't get attached to each other. Involved.
Guy 3: Yeah. I see that.
Guy 4: Now, in combat.
Guy 1: Can't really see any problem there.
Guy 4: It's all crazy. They do it anyway.
Guy 1, nodding vigorously: It's really just the Navy I think is gonna have a problem. With the romance and so on. The rest of it, that's just normal.
Guy 4: Exactly. I mean, if you're gonna go to Afghanistan or Iraq, well...

(When I related this conversation to BB later on, she said, "So they're fine with blowjobs. They just don't want the people involved to like each other?" I was more interested in the part of the sentence Guy 4 elided. Is there any way to interpret that other than, "If you're going to Afghanistan or Iraq, you might as well suck some cock while you're there?")

A few minutes of fascinated listening later, the conversation moved on to some propositions on our latest ballot, one of which involves legalizing marijuana.

Guy 2: I've gotta vote to legalize.
Guy 3: They've done studies. You know, which is the most harmful: alcohol, pot, tobacco. And it's not pot, let me tell you.
Guy 1: If tobacco's legal, marijuana's gotta be.
Guy 4: Yeah. Can't really see it's an issue, there.

So I pondered this on the way home. Is it normal - like, everywhere normal - to have middle-aged men talking about what amounts to military slash (because they aren't really talking about the gay sex - they're talking about the emotional connection involved in the gay sex) and advocating the legalization of pot? Or is that just where I live?

Poll #4811 How we do it in California

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 308

View Respondents

What do you think about those conversations, between those guys?

View Answers

Normal for California.
247 (85.8%)

Normal for the entire US.
14 (4.9%)

Normal for Canada.
70 (24.3%)

Normal for Mexico.
1 (0.3%)

Normal for South America.
1 (0.3%)

Normal for Africa.
1 (0.3%)

Normal for Europe.
55 (19.1%)

Normal for Asia.
2 (0.7%)

Normal for Australia and NZ.
23 (8.0%)

Normal for Antarctica.
15 (5.2%)

Normal for somewhere not covered by these categories. Mars, for example.
56 (19.4%)

Not normal for anywhere. Those were just some weird dudes.
14 (4.9%)

If you overheard similar men having a discussion of gays in the military and the legalization of marijuana in the town where you live, you'd expect them to say:

View Answers

ROCK ON with the gays in the military and the legalization of marijuana!
60 (20.0%)

These are relatively acceptable things, with reservations.
100 (33.3%)

Not okay.
20 (6.7%)

God damn those liberal pink-ass commies, ruining our fine nation.
46 (15.3%)

I cannot imagine people who live here having a conversation like that.
46 (15.3%)

Locals are more nuanced than your restrictive poll options. To the comments!
28 (9.3%)

While we're on the topic, what are the free magazines in your area like?

View Answers

We Love Buttfucking Monthly
53 (17.5%)

Stoned off Our Asses and Lovin' It!
65 (21.5%)

GOD DAMN THE MOTHERFUCKING GOVERNMENT
94 (31.0%)

I Can Remotely Adjust Your Hypothalamus. Because the Aliens Showed Me How.
57 (18.8%)

Actual Real Reportage and Stuff, Just Like a Magazine You'd Pay Money For
108 (35.6%)

90% Classifieds and Personals
226 (74.6%)

We have other free magazines in my area. I will educate you in the comments.
65 (21.5%)

We don't have free print magazines where I am. You PAY for your dead trees in these parts.
32 (10.6%)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only | Expand All

I probably skewed your poll, since, well, I live here too. I also want to note that our free magazines are objectively superior since Jonathan Gold writes for the LA Weekly and he is the only food writer to ever win a Pulitzer:

In the last several years, like the Rio Hondo during a rainstorm, taco culture has overflowed its banks and spread into places where it had never existed before. A cursory drive around Santa Monica during lunchtime will reveal a battalion of wheeled cooks who slip Korean galbi, Chinese roast pork or Filipino adobo into their tortillas. The African-American tradition of tacos is long-standing — look at the line outside Sky's on Pico sometime — and I think it may not be long before we see Jamaican jerk-pork tacos, Nigerian salt-fish tacos and Indian potato tacos, although the latter may actually exist by another name. (One of my favorite cookbooks, a manual of Mexican cooking published in Mumbai, describes a tortilla as an amusingly thin chapati.)

http://www.laweekly.com/authors/jonathan-gold/

Also, I am curious about the diner. If the food is really good, would you email me its name?

*waves to you from the same general demographic*

I also want to note that our free magazines are objectively superior since Jonathan Gold writes for the LA Weekly and he is the only food writer to ever win a Pulitzer

I had no idea he'd won a Pulitzer! That does put our magazines in a rarefied territory, although, sadly, the Blade and Random Lengths and Visions and WholeLA and LA Yoga and that one marijuana one with the cover that's always so seriously messy and swirly that I can't look directly at it without getting a headache are not quite living up to the standard. Sturgeon's Law appears to be hard at work in the free magazine field.

And, oh. Taco culture. One of the few things I regret about being a vegetarian is that most of the taco trucks are out of my culinary grasp. *sighs*

Also, I am curious about the diner. If the food is really good, would you email me its name?

The food isn't, you know, orgasmic - we like it as much for the extremely friendly waitstaff as the food. It's just good basic diner fare, for the kind of local breakfast diner where half the menu is vegetarian and you can substitute anything for anything else ("Instead of beans I'd like a waffle" kind of substitution, I mean). I appreciate that. But I don't think it's worth the trip for you. Still, I will email you the name anyway, because I wish to consult with you on an urgent question involving LA candy.

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rachelmanija - 2010-10-23 21:33 (UTC) - Expand

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misspamela - 2010-10-24 01:41 (UTC) - Expand

I have no idea if that's normal in other locales. (And had to struggle not to go on a long boring "but what IS normal, TFV?" digression.) It's fairly standard for some parts of the Boston/Cambridge area, though.

As for the second question: The town where I work would be half, "Hm, odd, but mostly OK," and half, "Damn them pinko commies." The town where I live would be like, "Hey, cool."

We also have a free magazine that's all about Local Fashion And Important Parties. Oh, and a humor one. And a weird architecture one I only intermittently see. Also, the apartment advertisers.

Edited (DETAILS are IMPORTANT. I'm done now.) 2010-10-22 06:17 (UTC)

We also have a free magazine that's all about Local Fashion And Important Parties. Oh, and a humor one. And a weird architecture one I only intermittently see. Also, the apartment advertisers.

Oh, the apartment advertisers. I'd forgotten about them.

I'm curious about this Important Parties thing. Here, Important Parties are typically covered by our highly-trained crack battalions of entertainment journalists, often for national publications. I'm not sure what kind of Important Parties might end up in the free press.

(And I figure "normal" can be, in this case, defined as whatever doesn't feel weird to you. Like, recently I stood in line at the supermarket behind a guy who felt the need to tell the cashier his opinions on the damned political correctness gestapo, and every single person in line, along with the cashier, reacted with squirms of silent discomfort. That, therefore, is not our local normal. But no one blinks at the bondage magazines. Hence, normal!)

(here via network)

i'm laughing so hard over here. i was born in berkeley, spent my mid teens to early 20s hanging out in berkeley and s.f. (mid 70s to early 80s), lived 40 years in the east bay, and then moved to berkeley north (aka eugene, or)

i'll be 50 next year and it STILL trips me up that things that are so very, very normal to me are so very, very NOT to most of the usa *g*

the conscious life expo sounds rather fun -- and a bit like the old whole earth expos and whole life expos that used to be in s.f. i still have a groooovy poster of ufos over albuquerque. but, alas, i no longer have my portable pyramid kit (recharge your brain and your cellular energy!) from circa 1979. it is to weep.

i'll be 50 next year and it STILL trips me up that things that are so very, very normal to me are so very, very NOT to most of the usa *g*

Yeah. Maybe we should change the name of the entire west coast to Out of Synch with the Rest of It. (Or the Swirly Nation. I could go for that.)

the conscious life expo sounds rather fun -- and a bit like the old whole earth expos and whole life expos that used to be in s.f. i still have a groooovy poster of ufos over albuquerque. but, alas, i no longer have my portable pyramid kit (recharge your brain and your cellular energy!) from circa 1979. it is to weep.

I am not sure how you could possibly sacrifice something as wonderful as a PORTABLE PYRAMID KIT - I mean, come on! - but I tell you what: the internet is there for you. I know for a fact you can get all the recharging minipyramids you could ever hope to have online.

Although most of them seem like the kind of thing you could build yourself with some doweling and gold spray paint, to be honest. Pyramid power has gone low rent.

(I tell you what, though - the Conscious Life Expo is anything but, and I would LOVE to go. I have no clue what could possibly go on in some of these sessions, and I yearn to know. This year, they have one that explains how to free the earth from the Reptilians! Tell me that wouldn't be awesome.)

I live in freaking Pittsburgh. Where people mostly *are* tolerant of the gays and closetly supportive of the pot, but you don't have CONVERSATIONS about it. unless you're some CMU type.

I mean, more than once I've walked through my neighborhood and smelled pot on the breeze. (If I tried to triangulate the source for a contact high, that's my business.)

The local free paper is the Pennysaver, full of ads for pressboard tables, looks like new, $15, and Labrador puppies, 2m 2f, $350 male $400 female.

*waves to Bas*

BUT you guys do have that one free, way-out-there magazine available in your area (Points of Light? I think) if you are in the right New Agey hippie-type store.

(not that I used to pick it up & read it on a semi-regular basis or anything. *koff*)

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thefourthvine - 2010-10-23 20:31 (UTC) - Expand

Sweden (and a lot of Europe) tends to look at marijuana as something a lot worse than alcohol, so I think these men would have the convo about the emotional gayness, but not about legalizing marijuana.

I find that fascinating! I mean, you have Holland RIGHT THERE, and it hasn't gone to hell in a handbasket, so I would think people would stop fearing pot so much.

But I am impressed with Swedish men for being willing to talk about FEELINGS. Apparently that's what's really tripping some people up about being able to imagine this conversation - that a man used the phrase "emotional intimacy" voluntarily, without a gun to his head or anything.

I have coworkers who would probably attend a Concious Life expo, our free print weekly is less GODDAMN THE GOVERNMENT and more Goshdarn the Government, Save the Trees!!, and everyone I've spoken to supports legalizing pot like it's the only reasonable possibility. (I'm not sure about gays in the military, but my sample size of one is tentatively in favor.)
In conclusion: Totally NorCal. Never lived anywhere else, so I wouldn't know any other normal.

Awww. Northern California, how I love you. Although sometimes think we are less different than we like to think. (Most people talk about Southern California and Northern California like they are two perpetually warring nation-states. And I have been guilty of that myself. But our free magazines suggest we are ever closer to a meeting of the minds! Of course, we will have to move the Central Valley out of the way first.)

I'm from downtown Houston*, and in much of the Inner Loop, that conversation wouldn't be uncommon (in Montrose or the Heights, it'd be downright normal). However, once you leave the Loop, everything shifts quite rapidly towards the "God damn those liberal pink-ass commies, ruining our fine nation" option. To give an example of the rapidity of that shift, my middle school had mandatory LGBT anti-discrimination curriculum administered in homeroom, a zero-tolerance policy on bullying (it still happened, of course, but there was a policy!), and a tiny but visible population of students who were out. Thirty miles away is where Asher Brown went to school.

Yeah. I don't get it either.

The main freebie in Houston is the Press, which is 15% GODDAMN THE MOTHERFUCKING GOVERNMENT, 15% Actual Real Reportage and Stuff, Just Like a Magazine You'd Pay Money For, 15% Arts and Entertainment, 5% Stoned off Our Asses and Loving It, and 50% ads for tranny hookers. Not kidding.

*Clarification: often people from suburbs of Houston will say "I'm from Houston," because if you say "I'm from Spring, TX" or "I'm from Katy, TX" no one knows where the hell you're talking about. I live fifteen minutes from City Hall by bike.

Edited 2010-10-22 06:33 (UTC)

To give an example of the rapidity of that shift, my middle school had mandatory LGBT anti-discrimination curriculum administered in homeroom, a zero-tolerance policy on bullying (it still happened, of course, but there was a policy!), and a tiny but visible population of students who were out. Thirty miles away is where Asher Brown went to school.

Yeesh.

The main freebie in Houston is the Press, which is 15% GODDAMN THE MOTHERFUCKING GOVERNMENT, 15% Actual Real Reportage and Stuff, Just Like a Magazine You'd Pay Money For, 15% Arts and Entertainment, 5% Stoned off Our Asses and Loving It, and 50% ads for tranny hookers. Not kidding.

I'm impressed, I admit it. Seems like you should build a tourism campaign around that, but I suppose if you sold t-shirts reading "Houston: Transsexual Prostitute Capital of the Nation" someone would complain.

Re: To the Comments!

paxpinnae - 2010-10-24 08:36 (UTC) - Expand

I'm in the Seattle area (note: I live on the Eastside, which is NOT Seattle, but I have to say I'm from Seattle because if I say "I'm from Kirkland" no one knows what I mean. Although Redmond gets some recognition for being the home of Microsoft. But anyway) and things are fairly liberal out here. The Eastside itself tends to be more conservative than Seattle proper, but the whole area's vastly liberal as compared to, say, Spokane.

So I would not be surprised to hear conversations like that at my local diner, but I confess I don't know what our free magazines are because usually the free ones are in Seattle itself and I don't go into the city all that much. However, I would not be surprised to find most of the categories above somewhere...

So I would not be surprised to hear conversations like that at my local diner, but I confess I don't know what our free magazines are because usually the free ones are in Seattle itself and I don't go into the city all that much. However, I would not be surprised to find most of the categories above somewhere...

You've got the Stranger in Seattle, which is all of the above and more! You can be justly proud of your civic free press accomplishments, and rest on your laurels.

I live in Las Vegas. We don't have free magazines, we have free things in newspaper dispensers full of nothing but ads for "strippers" who come to your hotel room.

Yeah. I mean, I've been to Las Vegas, and that was all I ever saw, but I did have hopes that perhaps actual residents (who weren't in their eighties, like the great aunt who was my reason for going) might have access to different things. There's not even one free magazine for people who *aren't* in a hotel room? That is tragic. Where do people put their "Bicurious SWM seeking uncut fratboy type, 18 - 28, for Wednesday afternoon playtime" ads?

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innocentsmith - 2010-10-24 23:40 (UTC) - Expand

College town in IL here. I would not be a bit surprised to hear the pot conversation, even among non-students. I am not sure I would ever recover if I overhead the "emotional intimacy" conversation.

Would the shock be because of the discussion of gays in the military, or because the speakers actually used the phrase "emotional intimacy"?

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lydiabell - 2010-10-23 23:31 (UTC) - Expand

California is too big to be one choice!

That said, I once had to explain why all the massage ads were decorated with pictures of scantily-clad women. To my tween daughter. I said, "They're really offering sex, they just pretend to give massages" because what, I'm gonna lie?

California is too big to be one choice!

True fact. But then, all of Africa is just one choice, so California is in good company, here.

And, no, of course you couldn't lie. (I say this as the person who had to explain the concept of being genderqueer to a group of eight year olds at a birthday party because of that same attitude, so this can take you to some places you didn't mean to go, but they're not inherently bad places.)

I've lived in Santa Monica all my life, but have no idea about magazines because I've never noticed any.

Look for them, is my advice. They will bring you joy!

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torachan - 2010-10-23 20:50 (UTC) - Expand

Yeah, totally California, though a few other places (like coastal chunks of Oregon and Washington) are close (how I miss it!). I've also lived in Arkansas, where such things are NEVER discussed in company, and hippyville New Mexico, where it's oddly kind of similar to CA, but not as friendly. It's eternally odd to me just how different the cultures of other areas are. California is just really interesting because it really does seem to assume the rest of the country's not that different, where the rest of the country assumes that places like California and New York are completely different from their own homes.

hippyville New Mexico

Taos? Or Santa Fe?

California is just really interesting because it really does seem to assume the rest of the country's not that different, where the rest of the country assumes that places like California and New York are completely different from their own homes.

Yeah. California suffers from a severe case of - statecentrism? I don't know if there's even a word for it. It's our local thing!

What kind of throws me is the combination of their unreserved openness to legalizing marijuana and their homophobic fretting about "OH NOES WHAT IF SOME GAY PEOPLE BECOME FOND OF EACH OTHER." Where I'm from it's normal for people to be all "yay marijuana and gay people!" (though they'd probably throw in a lot of anti-military ranting too), but I'm not so accustomed to the "marijuana fine, gay sex fine, gay love bad" school of thought.

They were fretting but not rabidly homophobic, which is maybe progress? I wonder if they're worried that straight guys who get (or give) blowjobs would "turn" gay, that seems vaguely likely.

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julian - 2010-10-23 04:12 (UTC) - Expand

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lizzy_someone - 2010-10-23 05:07 (UTC) - Expand

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thefourthvine - 2010-10-23 20:52 (UTC) - Expand

i live in leftie commie land, which is also our capital city.
the magzine at the coffee shop today, which i happened to peruse while waiting for my organic soy ristretto latte....

Something on how pet cats kill the native birds
Local music/bands/touring musicians in town doing concertos
show programmes for a group of local theatres (seems it's all the rage to do modern interpretations of shakespeare)
Festival guides for this weekend's folk festival run by hippes in Wainuiomata.

...o hai, fellow Wellingtonian.

(I spent the first 6 years of my life in Wainui, as it happens - being raised by hippies! They weren't involved in the folk scene, although they had quite a few Simon & Garfunkel records...)

i'm in the northern central coast, and you'd still hear those conversations, but not with the enthusiasm or general positiveness that you would an hour north.

free magazines are mostly touristy, and local news. gotta love places that call themselves "america's last hometown" and the neighboring "village" that refuses to create actual mail boxes for anyone or street numbers so directions involve "dolores between fourth and fifth, and it's the third building in the back. yeah, the mews. no, on the right side of the street."

but people are definitely discussing the props in our county. kern county? hah. you might as well be in colorado springs.

however, i lived in manhattan for nine years, and these conversations were totally normal. heck, the first time i met a now-close friend introduced herself by wanting to know if having anal sex made her a slut. and the free magazines there are mostly news oriented (am new york, metro, etc) with "the onion" and other random things. but mostly news. neighborhood news too. not so many touristy things.

i'm convinced it's mostly proximity to the pacific and/or the repelling quality of statan island.

In Germany Bondage Gear Guys have to be up on a shelf high enough that children cannot see it. If your child were seen lugging one around, people would be calling CPS all over the place.

The free magazines around here feature stuff like when the next flea market is and which doctor is on call that particular weekend and stuff like that.

(Although I kind of want to move to California now.)

On the gays in the military/legalisation of marijuana, I'd have to split the question. Gays in the military are basically a non-issue here. They're here, they're queer, they serve openly. I'm sure lots of people don't like it, but they're not debating it, because it's a fait accompli. Whereas weed's still illegal. I think a lot of people go by the status quo.

Free magazines over here:
1. Several LGBT magazines, but AH HA HA HA HA DON'T EXPECT TO FIND ANY LESBIANS, BI PEOPLE OR TRANS PEOPLE HERE. But still LGBT in name.

2. A couple of local magazines or newspapers for each suburb/region, with very boring articles on local news, and puff pieces about whoever bought advertising in the paper. Plus personals and trade ads and real estate ads. Lots and lots and lots of sex work ads. It's against the law here to advertise sex work by race, but they still try to find ways around that. I think the real estate companies bankroll these magazines.

3. Mx. Mx is a free newspaper owned by News Limited, the biggest newspaper corporation in the country. It is targeted at commuters, available in great piles in the city centre and particularly train stations. It delivers actual news, with lots of puff pieces on fashion. There is a page that says in so many words it's only for women (about fashion and weight loss.) There is a sidebar called 'boring but important', about politics. There is another sidebar called 'bummer' so you can easily avoid the bad news. It also, of course, has funnies and (very easy) puzzles. If you're looking for something totally mindless to read on your way home, Mx is just the ticket.

Edited (I forgot about Mx) 2010-10-22 08:31 (UTC)

I think your next earthing post needs to include at least one diner shot of him wandering around carrying a leather daddy magazine.

I find myself saying "Hooray for Seattle!", because our weekly free newspaper is 1, 2 and 3 above. And sometimes 5. But really, I'm happy that it's 1, 2 and 3.

The Stranger! The Stranger rocks hard. :)

(no subject)

coraa - 2010-10-22 08:49 (UTC) - Expand

I'm from Calgary, and I'm not sure whether or not it would be likely that I would hear a conversation like this. Alberta is often explained as the Texas of Canada - probably the most conservative region, both fiscally and socially. I would not be at all shocked to hear bigotry or an anti-pot stance in a diner.

On the other hand, people tend to get their backs up about things that are new. We've got plenty of anti-gay rhetoric (including a complete jackass of a Catholic bishop and a provincial newspaper that got in trouble for hate speech), but I have never heard anyone worry about anyone's orientation in the military, where gays can serve openly. I also haven't heard any overt complaining about gay marriage for years, despite the fact that when the court declared the right our premier railed against it and proved to everyone that he didn't understand Canadian constitutional law.

On my third hand (extra for typing), I get surprised a lot by people in Calgary. I think we are kind of missing the middle - we have a lot of intolerant jackasses, and a lot of people who surprise you with their acceptance. I think we have less of the 'I don't like it but I'll tolerate it' folks than most places do, maybe because of the combination of a relatively progressive country and a relative acceptance of bigotry in the area. I've had roughnecks startle me out of my assumptions about their views, and a good friend's mother horrify me with her lengthy explanation of why our friend the faggot is going to hell.

tl;dr You could hear this conversation or the exact opposite in a Calgary diner.

PS Our free magazines range from irritating free dailies with poorly written news, to a weekly targeted at trendy lifestyles, to a couple of monthly magazines with real (although flowery) articles on city events, architecture, etc. Also a good food monthly. No free bondage magazines at all.

I would have said 'normal for the west coast,' really. Eugene or Portland or Seattle would have very similar magazines. ;)

Here, we have mostly free magazines about Nationalism and the Welsh language and also sheep.

We allow homosexual people in our military. To the extent that I worked for the place that had the contract for the defence force after hours relocations service (people moving from place to place, accomodation falls through or luggage doesn't arrive, etc) and we were taught to say "partner" to EVERYONE.

There was a situation where a female couple, both serving in the armed forces broke up, and we were worded up on that, and told to try and make it as trauma free as possible.

On the other hand, marijuana is not legal here.

Oh. And the free magazines out here, apart from the religious ones and the ones put out by looney political parties (which I always read. They're entertaining. There was one put out by a party which wanted to channel the defence force spending into developing a network of flying yogis.) the most common ones are council related. You know, a feelgood story or two, reports of new community organisations, there's a problem in x neighbourhood with people parking on the nature strip, there's a redevelopment happening. Interesting, if rather dull.

(no subject)

lilacsigil - 2010-10-22 10:22 (UTC) - Expand

(Now that I've stopped laughing, I can type a reply. Seriously, I love your posts.)

I'm in London, and I have been struggling to imagine any man of my acquaintance, gay or straight, young, middle-aged or old, uttering the words "emotional intimacy" out loud to a group of his mates in a diner.

The gays-in-the-military conversation wouldn't happen, I don't think, because legally it's been a non-issue for a decade. (It might happen in one of the navy or garrison towns, but I'd never hear it because I would be unlikely to go into a squaddie pub.) Here's an article about a gay wedding this March, with one of the grooms in full ceremonial military uniform (complete with medals), all held in the warrant officer's mess of one of the most elite regiments in the country: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/a-very-modern-military-partnership-1928748.html - and they get married quarters, too, which is possibly even more important.

I'm pretty sure we wouldn't get the leather-daddy magazines in most cafes (except some specifically gay cafes and bars), not necessarily because of the gay content, but because of the pretend-gay-sex content - a double standard, to be sure, because you would get all the red-top tabloids with all their het nudge-nudge, wink-wink soft-porn ghastliness.

Legalisation of marijuana, sure, I'd not be surprised to hear conversations about that. Discussions of military slash, though, that would definitely make me blink.

Not that I go out much but.

On free magazines I'm not a hundred percent sure. But magazines in doctors' offices and the like are usually "New Women's Day Idea Gossip" or occasionally National Geographic or home decorating or gardening.

So I read "New Women's Day Idea Gossip" and thought to myself, "this person is from NZ or Australia - I wonder which?" And actually clicked through to your profile to check, before realising that your icon has an outline of my fucking country and I hadn't actually noticed! The giant zebra had blinded me, obviously.

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zeborah - 2010-10-22 20:20 (UTC) - Expand

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