Back and Living, With e-Paranoia

Pen!s! C!alis! V!agr@!

Someone hijacked my art website e-mail account yesterday.  In about 20 hours, I received over 300 messages, mostly "undeliverable" e-mail notifications and denials of requests to join Yahoo groups.  My bulk folder / trash held an amazing 5000 more.  The body of the few I opened consisted of the usual ads for erectile dysfunction medication and penis enlargement.  Obviously, some enterprising spammer used the mail linked to my domain name as a launch pad for a major campaign to capitalize on little, limp penises.

Talk about pricks.

What does it say about our society that the biggest bane of online communication is almost entirely driven by male sexual anxiety?  When was the last time you received spam related to female sexual dysfunction?  We have a lot to complain about, but there's no magic pill to teach men about foreplay.

I've added more spam filters, adjusted some settings that may have left me vulnerable and notified Yahoo, for all the good that will do.  So fair warning, if you send me an e-mail with any of the above, bold-faced terms or variations thereof in the subject line, it's gonna bounce back.  Sorry.

More e-Paranoia

It has come to my attention that someone is doing Google searches with my first and last names and the terms "gay" and "lesbian."  Sadly, the pickings are few.  I've never used my full name here on the blog and I'm not about to, so that didn't come up (or out).  Still, I'm obviously not doing my part to create a queer online presence.  Unlike Senator Larry Craig, I am eager to do so, however, and I apologize to whomever is checking my rainbow credentials for my failure up till now.

On the off-chance that individual reads this blog, rest assured, I'm queer as a 3 score on the Kinsey scale.  That means I'm bisexual.  That means I fall in love and in bed with men and women.  Not lately with any two-legged mammals, my (also queer) boycat Peabody and Kitch the feline Bitch are my most viable sleeping partners for the past while, but that's by choice.  I am out and support the rights of all sentient beings to make their own choices. 

If there is any ambiguity on this subject, you know my name, look up the number, and I'll amplify at great and glorious length.  In the meantime, I could forward some of my recent spam if you have any personal anxiety on sexual topics.

Hope this clarifies things for you.

Living, In General

I'm fine, even if I've dropped from the radar lately.  Since late winter, I was in a non-communicative mode, a familiar cycle.  I seem to have regained writing ability and desire to do so in the last week, so I may (no promises) return here more regularly, now that my only hits have dropped to obscure Google searches.   I may even read your blogs again. 

Highlights of the last months: travel, instruction, introspection, blue ribbons for art at the County Fair, enjoying the perfect spring and summer weather here in paradise, missing old friends, cooking, elder caregiving, nightly viewing of (and cheering for) Countdown on MSNBC, Netflixing my way through the entire oeuvre of Daniel Craig, my sweet local queer church, oodles of reading on my various obsessions: infectious diseases, American frontier history, theology, the Manhattan Project, brain function, genetics, germ warfare -- along with some damn good recent fiction.  Recommended titles in various categories: The Kite Runner, A Beautiful Mind, Born on a Blue Day, Mere Christianity and the Narnia Chronicles (again),  The History of God, The Memory Keeper's Daughter, The Last Solution, The Genome War, Little Children, Bioterror (by Ken Albiek), 109 Palace Road.  Look 'em up on Amazon yerself, I don't have all day here, ya know.

Comments

[Kathy Hatfield]

My name is Kathy, and I am the primary caregiver for my 79 year old Dad who has Alzheimer's disease and lives with me in North Carolina.

I am writing a daily blog that shows the lighter side of caring for someone with dementia.

Please pass this link along to anyone you feel would enjoy it.

www.KnowItAlz.com

Thanks,

Kathy

[Peter]

I was wondering how you were... good to hear from you again!

[athena]

I apologize for the Googling. I probably came off as some kind of creepy homophobic stalker. I am so embarrassed. I saw your profile on the HHS alumni web page the other day. I was not in your class (younger) but remembered you, had a crush on you back then, and wondered if you were a lesbian like me. Thanks for the, um, clarification. I am sincerely sorry your email account was hijacked. That had nothing to do with me. Again, I apologize for making you paranoid. I'll just back on out of here now....sorry sorry sorry. Won't bother you again. Promise.

[Harriett The Spy]

Athena! Darling! I'd know you anywhere!!

Actually, I don't know who you are, but I'm deeply, deeply intrigued. HHS? Woah. ANCIENT history.

Do please contact me at my artsite email (link upper left, go to Contact) and I promise to reply. Just don't put "Viagra" in the subject line of the message.

*smirking*

[Harriett The Spy]

Oops. Link is upper RIGHT. Maybe I'm dyslexic. I never could get that left-right thing straight. I can't remember which are the red states and which are the blue, either. Reminds me of a t-shirt I loved at the Gay Pride Parade in SF: "I'm so queer I can't even march straight!"

[A]

One afternoon in the early-mid seventies I sat slumped in the backseat of a car as my older sibling gave you a lift to work....were you working a shift at a movie theater that day? The Sands? The Alex? The Roxy? The Capitol? Were you carrying your lunch in a brown paper sack? That's my memory--I could be wrong. I thought you were so. full. of. light. I was a depressed queer teenager with really good gaydar. All I did was listen to Patti Smith's Horses and fret about girls. Why did a twenty minute ride make such an impression that I Googled you (into paranoia, to my regret) all these years later? Thinking about it...

http://youtube.com/watch?v=uoGdx3I3dPE (just a song, nothing creepy).

[Lisa Bailes/fragile industries]

God I love that song. Remember the cover of "Horses" -- that scuptured uncompromising face, the necktie. It got me too. I still have a fetish for women in ties.

That's some good gaydar.

You are who you say you are ... no one who wasn't there would have known my first entry into the Working World -- I don't remember the name of the theater, but my first job at 16 was a candy girl at a downscale single screen towards the southern end of Brand the summer of '73. I probably did carry a sack lunch, but I secretly ate the popcorn nonstop, dipping each nugget into a dixie cup of the "butter" under the counter -- god knows what it was really.

I was one summer away from my first girlfriend, who broke my heart. ("Oh, I was drunk. I'm not really 'that way.'" You know the drill.) I already knew, had known for years. Had fallen catastrophically in love with each of my female BFF's since 1968. Can show you evidence in the form of a really bad poem in 1973 "Expression" magazine, HHS's literary journal, the one with the big lips on the cover, a ripoff of the Stones logo. "We Two, Too."

Man oh man. Who drove me to work? A sister in the back seat? Oh I wish I had been a little less narcissistic and a little more perceptive. Who did I know then? There was Bob D. in a wheelchair and a hot Chevy, he had siblings. Matt D. had a big family. Damien W, another big family, oh god, Peter M? None of my female friends that I recall had a younger sister.

This is fun, Athena.