I watched some of that tornado footage last night; so terrifying. I am aghast at the loss of life. And yet I live in earthquake & fire country, so.

I hate my neighborhood. As my sister & I were cooling down from our run this morning (at 630 AM), we heard breaking glass, and looked around, to see a young couple fighting inside a car across the street. The girl had her door open and she was shouting but the windows were tinted and we couldn't quite see what was happening.

So we stopped and just stared, and the young man in the driver's seat leaned out the door and shouted obscenities at us (the only word I really caught was "bitch"). We announced loudly that we were really glad "things were all right over there", and then as we walked back to my house the girl got out of the car and went indoors.

The car had no license plates, and I saw no way to report what had really been a minor disturbance. But I made sure he went on past and couldn't see us before I went into my house.

Bah. Hate that shit. Hate it. I hope that girl's okay.

I have a quick question: What does the word "slut" mean to you? Does it mean "has a lot of sex" or "has a lot of indiscriminate sex" (for personal levels of discriminate) or something else?

To me it means: "Someone doesn't like that girl and is using her perceived sexuality as a way of shaming her."

I have some friends in Tuscaloosa. One set are fine (yay!) and the other set I haven't been able to reach yet. I really hope they're okay.

My family is okay (they're in N. Alabama, S. Alabama and Tennessee). Some power outages, but that's it. Thank heavens.

I agree with Consuela, but I think the general use is "has a lot of indiscriminate sex". For whatever definition of "a lot" or "indiscriminate" the user decides.

I have a quick question: What does the word "slut" mean to you? Does it mean "has a lot of sex" or "has a lot of indiscriminate sex" (for personal levels of discriminate) or something else?

Well. I think I see the second definition more widely used, definitely as a pejorative. But I also see people (mostly women, but some men) using it in the first sense, often as a re-claiming of the word.

To be totally honest about my own brain, I think of it as a pejorative, in terms of "indiscriminate" sex. I realize that's uncool; it's not up to me to decide if someone's sex is "indiscriminate." But that's how the word is lodged in my brain. I own that, but I would like to change it. I don't particularly use the word in converation, as far as I'm aware, but it still has that negative connotation when I think it.

If that makes sense.

So you see it as inherently gender-specific, Consuela?

Unrelatedly, someone is supposed to be transferring a complex project to me, and will NOT make herself accessible to actually talk to me about it. This is intensely frustrating. I can't lead any more meetings until I get more grounded in the project and she sends me the documentation, but she's been putting this off for over a week, and I just look vague in front of the users as a result. Grr.

Never mind the business user on another project who seems to be avoiding me entirely. Dude, my boss still thinks your project is important. I look bad in front of him if I can't report progress, and blaming you for being inaccessible makes me look ineffective too.

It's possible that I have a bad headache and just want to cry.

My buddy Michael just texted me to say that his house in Tuscaloosa is nothing but shambles. Presumably this includes all of his guitars and home recording equipment. But he's okay and grateful for that because he lives in that neighborhood behind the stores at the beginning of the video above.

I can't comprehend a mile-wide tornado. I had to map out in my head how far 1 mile is from my house, and I am gobsmacked to think of a tornado that huge.

That's the thing that gets me. In that video, the guy starts recording with the tornado about a mile off, presumably at the far end of Forest Lake neighborhood - my friend Michael's neighborhood, a place I lived for many years - which has nothing standing in it any more, not even the trees. It's on top of him within four minutes. Where could he go?

In other news, the tornado watch sirens just went off here.

I would say sex with a lot of people and/or indiscriminate.

In other (or related?????) news, I just accidentally started talking about abortion with coworkers. I should know that is a bad idea, even if it goes well.

serial:

Okay, that took a long time to compose.

I totally get that the term "indiscriminate" is highly loaded, and not something you should hold someone else's sex life up to, but I'm not mistaken in interpreting the term as "you're having not just a lot of sex with a lot of people, but with the wrong people"?