Argh! I've spent probably six hours today brainstorming possible domain names for my YL site-to-be, and then checking for availability on dotster.com. I've tried just about 120 possible names...

The one I really want is "youthliberation.org" -- but that, along with "youthlib.org" is being sat upon by someone in Hawaii. Since they're not doing anything with it, I'm contemplating trying to talk them out of it. But I'm afraid that the fates are probably against me. First of all, this person is registered with GANDI, a French registrar that won't transfer ownership online -- you have to send notice by post. Secondly, after doing some detective work, I've come to suspect that the mystery person is a member of Wellspring Covenant Church, "Where Jesus Christ is Building a Family of Friends".

*ahem* ...And I quote:

"Like our lives with Jesus, this section is under construction. Normally, here you would find the answer to where our church is headed; however, we couldn't wait to share exciting news about what's "Down the Road" with Youth Liberation, the youth minstry of Wellspring Covenant Church.

Youth Liberation is a place where the youth of today can come to be free from the binds of the world. Youth can be free to be themselves while learning and experiencing that Christ is the one setting them free.

This summer Youth Liberation plans to venture to California and Tennessee for once in a lifetime, crazy fun, Jesus loving summer camp experiences."

...I'll probably just have to live with "youthlib.com". Oh well.

Other, spicier domain names on my short list:

• teenrebellion
  
• agetraitor
  
• youtharepeople
  
• fightadultism
  
• youththeory
  
• agerevolution
  
• agelines
  

I ran this list past mph. And, once again, I quote: "Ooo! Agetraitor! That's pretty edgy!"

...Yeah, I kinda like that one too.

In related news, a local boy (maybe 10?) came to my door (alone) this afternoon asking if I'd pledge to buy cookies so kids at his school afford to buy school uniforms. ...School uniforms?! I don't like the cause, but I don't want to take that out on the kid. Raising money sucks. ...He didn't have the baked goods on him, and wasn't sure if he could take just a straight donation. I told him if he found out that he could, I'd make a donation later, if he came back.

Blech. I hate this situation. I've been through it before, though, when girl scouts and boy scouts (more to the point) have come by. My standing decision is to support the community first, and to challenge oppression in other ways. Still, I can't help but feel uncomfortable -- particularly with the boy scout's ban on gays.

Our garbage can lid has disappeared. I guess I keep hoping that it will simply rematerialize, which is maybe why it's still sitting on the curb almost a week after our pick-up day. I think it disappeared on the night it snowed. Now it's got like 6 inches of sitting water. [G says on her blog that it snowed last night. Damn! Missed it!]

...Which I mention mostly just as lead in to this: when I looked at that water at noon today, it was covered by a sheet of ice! Heck with what the calendar says -- once it's snowed and I see ice, it's winter.

Note to self: talk to landlord about putting some grip-tape down on J's steps. Last night the dew on the steps froze. So as I came running up them I fell on my ass, rolling head over heels onto the porch. [...So it wasn't all bad. :-) ]

Spent time over at J's last night, her playing Sims on her laptop, me playing Riven on mine. Jeez, we played from like 9pm til 2am. She felt very warm, cozy, happy about it. I enjoyed it (until I didn't), but tend to feel emptified by video games. I think it's just a fact of nature: skipping chatty chair time makes me irritable and defensive (in a low-level, building kind of way).

Riven. It's fun, until it's not. I was pleased as peach with myself for solving some puzzles. But now I think I'm stuck. And that just sucks.

Album I'm hooked on right now: "Welcome Interstate Managers" by Fountains of Wayne. Listening to it right now, natch.

News item: a new house is being built just up the hill from us. Noticed yesterday; a steam shovel has just begun clearing the area behind the Russian family's house. No big deal, really, I s'pose. With a house in front of it, it's not like it's going to do much to the view. With the log cabin going up now at the very top of the hill, I think that's going to fill in all the open lots on the hill.

I've never been entirely clear about the ownership of the open area directly across from my front door. I think (and hope) that it belongs to the neighbors beside it. I've seen them playing badminton there, when they had a party. ...If that lot develops, then I'll be more unhappy.

Sigh. I had heard that this area was already over-developed and that renters were having trouble finding tenants. I was hoping against reason that all the unsold lots in the area would just always remain so...

Time is trickling away, but I've got three items I might be doing today: house cleaning, YL writing, movie making (picking up the HPL project again).

Ooh, ooh! And I think I may try to pick out a domain name today! That mensch, mph, in addition to hosting Notepad and Generator, is offering to help me with getting registered. He's my one-stop shopping source for getting wired into the 21st century, baby!

In the Harry Potter books, when you're attacked by a dementor, the cure is to eat a big block of chocolate. I always thought that was an excellent thought. ... I'm eating chocolate right now.

G & I had a leisurely morning and afternoon, heading out for a breakfast / lunch / dinner (??) meal after 3. On our way out, we were dismayed to see a dead squirrel in the road in front of J's house. Meh!!

I said we should continue on to have our meal first, so we did -- having an excellent mushroom / red onion / feta / roasted red pepper za at Flying Pie Pizza on Stark. A lovely game of scrabble, sans scores.

Back home, I put on latex gloves, grabbed a shovel, newspaper, and lantern. I wrapped the squirrel in the paper, and tried to collect the loose bits of gore... We walked up the hill to the butte... A lovely, dusky sunset, sad but not traumatized.

We found a spot beneath a tree not too far off the path. G dug most of the hole, then I dug a little more. I said an improptu blessing for the squirrel -- sending it back to the earth, hoping that it would become a tree someday, feeding other squirrels, returning to its species. G spoke. And then we covered it, and tried to disguise the grave with surrounding leaves. Thank you tree; hopefully you'll benefit from this nourishment and forgive us the rootlets we severed.

And then we walked back down the hill. G called Michael, and headed off to the Lord of the Rings marathon.

Sigh.

It's shabbat. In a short while I'll head over to J's to play munchkin. She's been craving. It'll be nice to play something low-key together. [Though personally, I think I'm in the mood to play some more Riven right now...]

Yesterday G & I had lunch at Cup & Saucer on Hawthorne, then went to her house, watched Angel. [Lindsey is back!! Ooh, this is going to be a good season after all...]

I put in 45 min on a new YL essay using Confessor at her kitchen table. This is the first real demonstration that the laptop can actually be used outside of the home... It's good to pick up writing again. It's been way too long since I tackled an essay. Working title: "An Ideal YL Organization".

At 8, G & I met with Leopoldo, Carl, and Andrew at the Fresh Pot to hash out ideas for our next short film. My "mirror person" concept has been pushed back, being deemed a bit too complex for our second outing. When Powell's was closing, we motored back to Leopoldo's, where he showed off "spare parts" and his film work from college. We finally came up with a story about baking cookies called "satisfaction" -- it's meant to exemplify that emotion.

Discovery for me: I think very visually, am somewhat frustrated that other people don't construct stories out of ideas for specific shots, but rather out of more abstract ideas. Looks like storyboarding is going to be one of my key roles in the group.

Discovered when I got home that my second blog hosted by mph is up: "Notepad". It shall be where I keep fragmentary ideas about YL, hopefully being able to engage people more in conversation because I'm not driving toward my own point quite so much. Yay! I'm so excited about this!

I'm back, I survived.

"Scintillate, scintillate, globular vivific
Fain would I fathom thy nature specific
Loftily perched in the ether capacious
strongly resembling a gem carbonaceous
Scintillate, scintillate, globular vivific
Fain would I fathom thy nature specific"

G & I caught falling stars in our mouths, lying on the picnic table at Cottonwood, "the smallest state park in the world" (or so we dubbed it). Slept cozily in the Svan til nearly 5pm the next day, then headed back, catching dinner and a "we're not dead" phone call to J at the Burgerville in the Dalles.

Alas! It had snowed in Portland that morning! But we stopped at a park on the way home, and built a snow man -- Leo, of the Leonids. G flopped down backward suddenly and made a snow angel. *melt*

The car is unpacked, and we're now planning on going to G's house (after a first-time brunch at Wild Abandon, and a few errands) where I shall try writing away from home on Confessor for the first time.

How happy it is to wake up warm and clean in a soft bed when it is cold outside...

Tonight G and I jump in the car and start driving East with abandon. This may be my last post...

Leonids. Meteor showers. We're going to head East, either on I-84 or 26, and see if we can't find a patch of clear sky and a stretch of flat desert from which we can view little pieces of heaven raining down upon us. I've thrown blankets in the back of the Svan; there's a good chance we'll simply sleep wherever we end up.

Saturday (Nov. 15) I hosted a movie party here: "Soylent Green" and "The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover". I didn't go fancy on invites, but if it had been titled I might have called it the "What's on the menu?" party. Leopoldo, mph, Alison, Neinmeyer, J, E, & G were in attendance. Only Leopoldo and G stayed for the second film.

After the movies were done, I wrangled a meeting of Leopoldo, G, and Carl at The Fresh Pot (inside Powell's) on Hawthorne. Finally, the key players in my plot to establish a movie-making group, all in one place! With further "how about now?" comments from yours truly, I led our intrepid fellowship back to my house... With a quick drive-thru at Taco Bell for sustenance. My treat.

Back at the Butte, I roughed out a quick storyboard of a series of shots that had just then occured to me. We shot footage, took the cam up to the workhorse, and in under 2 hours, had completed a 40 second film: "Gretchin's Thirst". The nay-sayers will complain that it lacks plot -- but me, I'm thrilled with the results. There are 7 shots strung together, nicely composed, and flowing together so well that it doesn't even occur to you that they might not have. Plot, schmot.

Youth lib stuff is bubbling right now. NYRA is discussing a plan to raise big money via hosting a benefit concert, and I contributed meaningfully to the conversation. I've been wrangling with Adam Fletcher of freechild.org for a face-to-face meeting. [We were going to meet this Friday, but it looks like that's changed.] A woman just now founding an "education for adult allies" (my words) group in Eugene just contacted me today. I get the impression that she wants me on the board of directors (!). ...And today I gave mph the necessary information to get my second YL blog ("Notepad") up and running. Wheeee!

Things I keep meaning to get back to for further explination: the 8 year anniversary with J at Breitenbush, my birthday celebrations back on the 1st.

Sunday I helped G pick up a free (free!) light table in Gresham, using the Svan. Stayed for the rest of the afternoon at her place, helping to de-scuzz the thing. Now it is a sight to behold. Feeling very pleased with myself for the help I've rendered, toward making G's art room a good place to work. [As you may recall, a month or so ago I helped clear the space of boxes.]

Looks pretty certain at this point that I'll be doing Thanksgiving with G. A tag along of a tag along. But, hey, Thanksgiving is a holiday where that can be OK. Just need to do what's necessary in advance to make sure that the whole veggie thing doesn't cause undue awkwardness.

...Y'know, Tofurkey puts out a nice option (stuffed with stuffing even!), but for my money the Qorn brand Turkey substitute has better flavor and texture. Oooh -- I'll have to make my famous cranberry sauce. That'll win friends and influence people for sure.

Post-mortem on some Crisis Line issues. The staff has unionized under the IWW, and at last night's board meeting we voted to recognize that representation. The birthday event only brought in $250, and had low attendance (40?). Barbara was dismayed, but I wasn't too surprised. I'll use this to further my push to quit hosting events and move into member recruitment strategies.

I'm finally beginning to be able to read the PWCL budget somewhat. The "income" section is what concerns me most, of course. I was surprised to see that around 80% of our money comes from government grants. The percentage coming from events and individual donations is not big at all. I'm thinking I need to do a pie graph, just for my own sake, to get a better sense of just how important or insignificant the fundraising committee really is.

I've just learned that work on the grant proposals is not on schedule. This is bad, and I'm worried; I don't think other folks realize just how crucial those grants are right now. ...But after last night's meeting, I'm left wondering if I've been misled about the "$30,000 by the end of the year or we fold" line. The person who told me this may not be as reliable a source of information as I first thought.

Instead of really focusing on the grants, people are talking about the mass-mailing donor letter, now re-slated to go out on Dec. 1. I'm dubious that it will bring in much money, especially with our mailing list in such disarray -- but I've been assured that this strategy has worked for PWCL. We'll see.

I wonder how long it'll be now til G arrives?