I'm not sure what you mean; all I see in the sky are silver linings.

VIRGINIA, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They believe Pics Or It Didn’t Happen. They think that nothing can be which is not google-able by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be adults’ or children’s, are little. In this great universe of ours humanity is a mere insect, a bedbug, in its intellect, as compared with the boundless world about us, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of wikipedia and wikileaks.

Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and kickstarter and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. WTF! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no TUMBLRS. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no slashfic to make tolerable this interwebz. We should have no enjoyment, except in hulu and youtube. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be 4chan’d.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in Harry Potter! You might get your muggles to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor tweeps can see. Did you ever see a Nielsen Family? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or mythbust all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You may tear apart the double rainbow and see what makes it so intense, but there is a veil all the way across the sky which not the strongest meme, nor even the united strength of all the strongest memes that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, vimeo, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. What does this mean? Ah, VIRGINIA, in all this world there is nothing else so bright, so vivid.

No Santa Claus! ZOMG! Thank Ceiling Cat! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

I'm not skeptical just about religion. I'm skeptical, full stop. I don't need to see something to believe it's true, but I do need to have some good evidence presented to me in a rational fashion. I've never found any for any religious belief systems, thus I don't believe in their tenets and parables.

That doesn't mean I disagree with all of their concepts. Some religious ideas are quite nice. But any religious idea that a person should be punished just for being who they are and not harming others in any way that I can see, is an idea I dismiss.

As for what I believe, it would take too long to write it out here but I can sum up: Make good choices, not evil ones. Leave others alone so that they can try to do the same. Knowledge is good, denying reality is evil.

I am a vegetarian because I neither want to kill animals if I can avoid it, nor be responsible indirectly for such actions, if I can avoid it. But the origin story is here: http://blog.paulidin.com/?p=297

I think @genderbitch seems angry that most people who tag #allyweek only seem to pay attention to cisgender and straight folk. I think... I don't understand everything tweeted there. If I'm right, it's an understandable but not helpful anger. Getting mad at someone clueless who tries to help just makes them shy away from trying to help. And actual bigots who think they should only care about one more classification of gender status than straight won't change from an angry confrontation, either. I'd think a more helpful approach would be to let good-hearted people with a limited view (and mine is still very limited) know where they can look to learn more.

I do, however, think that something like an #allyweek should only be the start of learning to be respectful and protective of all people, all the time. A true #allyweek just just start an #allylife towards everyone regardless of whether their status fits into an acronym or not.

It starts with a girl, as many of my stories do. I was just out of university, working at a museum, and a cute girl there with whom I'd been flirting asked if I'd take a swing dancing class with her. I may have only heard the "with me?" part but certainly said yes. We took classes at a little dance studio outside Baltimore. I stuck with it and she did not. Over a decade later, the Lindy Hop has run me ragged in good ways and bad but has never left me. I think I chose well.

When I was staying with Mandy just before her wedding, I had a dream about her and her fiancé and earmuffs. I dreamt her fiancé donned bright yellow fluffy earmuffs and then placed sleek, thin, modern, but still bright yellow earmuffs on Mandy. This is while they were on the stairs between the second and ground floors of their new house. Then, they both walked down the stairs and went off to start their separate days. The groom left first and as Mandy followed behind, she said, "I love you!" and I think he said it back without turning around. I didn't seem to be in the scene; I was just invisibly observing it. When I told Mandy about it, she asked what I thought it meant and I said I didn't know but I didn't tell her what I guessed.

Just read Storm Front by Jim Butcher in one sitting, on my flight from CA to DC. It's the first in the Dresden Files series and it's a fun, clever fantasy noir. 4/5 stars.

Mad Passionate Love is still what I want, but I'm not generally a fan of prints that are just text. That one's not bad, but I think it'd look better as graffiti on a public wall.

My laptop, my dog, and my backup hard drive. But, of course, this is the wrong question to ask. As Terry Pratchett points out: If your house were on fire what's the first thing you'd take out of it? And the best answer is: the fire.

Kate Earl's "Melody"