I have archaeology knees. One of them has a 'bony callous' which sticks out when it bends. Doesn't hurt though. The other has what I think is a cartilage problem, because it sort of bubbles and pops when I bend and straighten it. That one hurts like the dickens, especially when I leave it bent for too long and straighten it.

We should form a club.

I do not know about Rocco, but there are a lot of those "Great Things About..." Shows. I think they sit a dude down, and then throw him easy questions on every topic they can think of. He will show up in "being 30" and "having luxuriant hair" and whatever other topics they have lined up, whether or not he is actually a 12 year old cue-ball.

One of the reasons, I think, that the earliest 20th is so muddled/amnesiac in our history is that it was so very messy, and not (as with the 50s) in ways that can be altogether taken as flattering our modern sensibilities. Huge anti-immigrant discrimination, at a time when immigration soared; the KKK ascendant; violent clashes between businessmen and union efforts; rampant political corruption and chockablock reform movements; muckraking journalism and federal government involvement (like the regulation of meat-packing, thanks to Upton Sinclair); nativism and the financial interest in foreign policy; women getting the vote. The car, the elevator, electric lights, instant national news -- it was bewildering. It's not like World War II, where you can trot out some Churchillian rhetoric and get into the fun tactical stuff. It's all still live issues, or sore spots, or unresolved questions.

Actually, I'd posit that the whole period between 1876 and 1917 is given short shrift, if my seventh grade US history class is any indicator. Too messy, too hard to fit into nice subheads.

Yeah, I actually took a college course on Reconstruction, and it was hellishly organized (the course, as well as the era). Lots of unmemorable presidents.

I learned more about that time from my "Anarchy and Anarchists" class.

The landlord's DVD menu has been looping for two hours now. I'm close to having a psychotic episode. I wonder if they're all dead in there? Or they went out for dinner and left it playing.

Seattle had its share of the action too, with the labor demonstrations in 1919.

The only general strike in American history, in fact.

Seattle was a very red city back then. It was during this period that the first health coop was founded (Group Health).

And most of what I learned about the post-WWI racial tensions I got from one class in college -- Black Protest Movements.

And the more I've learned about pre-WWII Seattle the more it seems like a completely different city from what's here now, like we have nothing but ruins of an ancient city sticking up amidst the 1980s glass and steel buildings.

We live less than a block from what was once a train platform. No train has run through here in 65 years, and the track's been pulled up for more than 50.

I left for krav (which is open, no matter the Jewish holiday) -- I have no plans, other than a vague one about a movie.

ita, I was contemplating Indian food for dinner. Of course I just ate lunch so for dinner means 7ish. you wanna join me?

OK, is Rocco Dispirito gay or not? He was just commentating on the Bravo Great Things About Being Queer.

Jai Rodriguez has officially denied the rumors about them being a couple, but eyewitness reports and some looks they gave each other on an episode of QEftSG make me very, very skeptical.

OMG, is anybody out there following the Astros/Braves game? I was looking up something else and saw that it was in the 13th inning, so I turned the telly on.

Now it's the 15th, and I counted: Houston has used 23 players, and has only two left: Andy Pettitte and Roger Clemens. Clemens is warming right now to come in in relief of some young sprat name of Wheeler, who has already gone 2 innings.

In the 14th, Wheeler loaded the bases with 1 out, and then struck out McCann and induced a ground ball to rescue himself. I think the game could be more dramatic, but only if the pitchers were all armed with automatic weapons.

Jai Rodriguez has officially denied the rumors about them being a couple, but eyewitness reports and some looks they gave each other on an episode of QEftSG make me very, very skeptical.

That plus this show and I'm all confused. Faux-mosexual for the publicity? Or actual homo?

Gay, not gay, or just pretending for publicity?

Funniest overheard last night at a party we were at:

So if we were to break up, we would have to figure out who gets what. When gays break up, who gets to keep the Midcentury Modern motif?