For those who wondered about the stink bombs in Pride Jerusalem: it's a thing, as well as spitting and folks who point and laugh and harass. Not many of these, but enough to notice each year. Two years ago it was plastic bags filled with urine, targeted at us from the third floor balcony of a certain street (as usual. It's a street where lots of ultra orthodox live, after rigorous careful planing on how to march in center of Western Jerusalem without going through streets/neighborhoods with ultra orthodox population). The people involved were arrested. And hi, that's why we march. Until it'll be safe for my friends to march in the streets of my city, holding hands or kissing or just looking queer, I'll be there.

4000 marched. I was identified as "authority figure" by another volunteer who recognized me from sci-fi cons (and that was awesome. Not the part where she knew me from cons, but the part where she said "yeah, I'm looking at you and thinking "authority figure""). Met lots of friends, of course. Also have bruises and scratches on me, but that's not from oppressors to the march. That's coming from me and my own stupidity and walking directly into a stop sign (yes. a stop sign) without noticing. Age, I'm afraid, does not make me wiser.

Good on you, Shir, and screw the haters.

Shir,

I am pretty floored to hear about people throwing crap at protestors who aren't protesting for hate. People are terrible.

Nah, it's just Jerusalem. People who feel like they own the city or a part of it, never mind their religion, background or opinions, are the one to watch out for and will want you out of the city's limits. Especially those who feel like they should protect the holy city from anything that doesn't look or behave like them. And I get them - for them it's an abomination and blasphemy to have Pride in this city in particular. There's a reason why The Open House's full name in Jerusalem is "The Jerusalem Open House for Pride and Tolerance". My city, as wonderful as it can be, lacks tolerance to anything that is "other". On the other hand, it can show amazing solidarity between several groups, and some amazing subcultures thrived here over the years.

The tragic aspect is that never mind your background, religion, or how much money you've got, there's someone in this city who really hates you for who you are, and someone in city administration who will use this hatred for political gain.

But I still love it. I really do. Someone said to me a while ago that it's a place where lots of people from different backgrounds live, simultaneously, in different times. Yep.

Edited: another unfortunate incident of Shir vs. phrasal verbs.

Sometimes I think it's "Maury" or "Springer" for cats, Calli. Jackson is an interesting guy, though.

another unfortunate incident of Shir vs. phrasal verbs

I did not know there was (were) such a thing as phrasal verbs until I went and looked it up after your post. Thank you for bettering my English knowledge.

Now I have to doublecheck your post to see if I can identify what you fixed.

::dons deerstalker::

Sometimes I think it's "Maury" or "Springer" for cats, Calli. Jackson is an interesting guy, though.

He seems to be. I wonder if he actually plays guitar, or if he just salvaged a case for his work.

I read his book, "Cat Daddy", and from that, I think his original career path was as an actor and musician. Love the guitar case for cat toys, though.

Because this was heavily liked on facebook (by my standards) I thought I'd share this with the Buffistas:

According to my 91 year old Mom, Oxygen movies come in three flavors : "strong independent women who needs rescue by Prince Charming", "kidjep" (kid in jeopardy), and "What These People Need is a Honky".

It makes me feel a little ridiculous about how stressed I got.

You were stressed because you didn't know how much (And did they not know? How good is that management?) not because of the amount you were going to get.

I've actually been kind of weepy intermittently today. It's like when I get stressed about something, once the situation is over/resolved, I still have to do an emotional core dump. It's frustrating.

I also applied for unemployment today. That's changed dramatically in 18 years.