Random musings: lesbians

There were quite a few couples on the tour with us. OK, fair enough. But there were also two girls, an anglophone Canadian and a French Canadian, who I was 95% convinced were together. But they were doing the very careful not touching thing, and I felt so sad for them, surrounded by all these straight couples who were happily snuggling up together. And I really wanted to tell them, well, there's at least one person here who accepts you.

But I didn't know how to say it tactfully, without offending them if in fact they turned out not to be a couple. The fact that I was one of the people doing the blatantly het thing didn't make it easier. Does anyone have any suggestions as to the etiquette in such situations?

It's somewhat depressing that the situation should exist in the first place though. Even if I was wrong about these particular girls, it's a very likely occurence that a same sex couple, travelling with a group of strangers, would feel obliged to hide the fact that they were together.

Book: The death and life of great American cities

Author: Jane Jacobs

Details: (c) Jane Jacobs 1961; Pub Pimlico 2000; ISBN 0-7126-6583-8

Verdict: The death and life of great American cities has some interesting ideas but the style got wearing.

Reasons for reading it: M was reading it a few months ago, and wanted to talk about some of the ideas in it.

How it came into my hands: M lent me his copy. One of many reasons why I like M is that when he recommends a book, he quite often lends it to me as well, rather than getting offended when I don't manage to find a copy very quickly.

( detailed review )

Torah study: Ruth

Well, I got to study Ruth with Prof S this morning. Which is always good fun, and made up for the fact that I so blatantly didn't manage to stay up all night Thursday night (or study at all, to be honest). Ruth is cool; it's one of the books of the Bible that would be a good novel if taken out of its religious context.

( gleanings )

Then I ran a service, which was fun (and I had some sort of congregation this week). Though I observed that the Singer siddur is a nightmare to navigate when the service deviates from its norm. And I had a slight dilemma about the fact that people wanted to do Shavuot-type stuff, but I don't in principle celebrate two days of the festivals.

We had cheesecake. Much cheesecake. I like Shavuot. Then when I was absolutely stuffed with cheesecake, I taught Ruth to the kids. And then came home and messed around on livejournal all afternoon. All good fun.