Wednesday 12 April 2000

Pic of the day: My new glasses! And I got a freee T-shirt too!

Today was payday. I paid off a bunch of bills and went and bought my new spectacles. Or glasses, as probably most of you would say, if most of you talked about such things. They are quite sharp, and so lightweight that I can barely feel them. The wonders of modern technology! I will probably not need new ones until the time when you can use your glasses to surf the Internet.

What with the spectacles costing ca $600, and all the bills, the money is practically gone. At least if I pay the rent too, not that I need to until the end of the month. And I got my second credit card today! Now if I don't have money at the end of the month, I can just pay the credit card bill with the other credit card! This is the height of modern capitalism. This is the secret that has allowed the American economy to run full steam while the rest of the world wringed their hands and silently prayed to the saints and bodhisattvas that the Americans would ride out to save the day again, as they have done in days of yore. OK, perhaps not. But I happen to know that having two or more credit cards is very common in the USA, and the American economy did indeed save the day during the recent near-collapse of world trade.

Luckily there are no things that I need right now, except food and recharging my smart card for the bus. My computer runs quite nicely now.

Oh, yes. The portable accidentally dropped a few cm from a box it stood on, and promptly shut itself off. When I put in the power cord and turned it back on, it gave the usual reproach about how I should have shut it down from the start menu. But from then on, the batteries recharged like new. It seems that the mechanics at Telehuset have not, after all, switched the batteries for old used-up ones. It must have been a bad contact somewhere. *blush*

I read something unusual on a mailing list related to online diaries, the other day. A writer bemoaned the lack of male diarists writing about controversial topics. Only women did that, it seemed. When pressed to declare what he deemed controversial, he listed sex, emotions, relationships and passion.

Heh. Wearily I say unto y'all, heh. Religion is controversial. Abortion is controversial. Gun control is controversial. Hey, taxes are controversial. But sex? Emotions? Relationships? Passion?

I walk into Narvesen, the largish kiosk near the bus station. There are like 10 feet of shelves with sex magazines, from the nearly factual to the nearly grotesque. There is a whole section of paperback books just as obviously about romance ... emotions, relationships, passion. I sometimes buy one, if it also involves magic.

Let me in particular list the ways in which sex is not controversial. Children may want to skip the rest to keep their curiosity high for later.

-If you have sex with your wife/husband, it's about as controversial as shopping together: It may be that one is more eager than the other, but most couples manage to work it out by themselves.
-If you have sex with someone else's spouse, or a complete stranger, and all parts are agreed ... then it is controversial if your religion says so. See "religion" above. In some nations, laws may be dictated by religion, which is controversial in itself, but this is not special for sex.
-If you cheat on your trusting spouse, or someone else's, or if you lie about your feelings for someone in order to have sex with them ... that is not controversial. Everybody agrees that it's a bad thing. There is no controversy about that.
-If you force someone to sex, or take advantage of them while they are helpless in any way, including children and the mentally retarded ... that is not controversial. Everyone agrees that you deserve what comes your way and then some, with the possible exception of well paid defence lawyers. (And they probably fake it anyway.)
-Now if you are madly in love with someone who is 14 years old and who is madly in love with you, and you come from a country/state where the age limit for sex is 14, and they happen to live in a country/state where the age is 16 or 18 or 21 or whatever, and you have sex ... that is controversial. If this ever happens to me, I shall be sure to report it in my diary. Watch this space.

But as I write this, I don't have sex, emotion, relationships or passion to write about. And I guess that is as controversial as they come, these days. Or at least spectacular.