(no subject)
Tue, Jun. 18th, 2013 13:27![[personal profile]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pantryslutOh yes, my biggest challenge of the weekend was finding a book to lend to G.'s mother to read -- on the spur of the moment as we headed out the door, no less. I ended up giving her The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland but I never did hear back as to what she thought of it. Which might be a good sign, I suppose, considering the alternatives housed on my bookshelf.
Cataloging help?
Tue, Jun. 18th, 2013 16:14rivkatOK, so do/how do you all separate fiction from comics? My system is breaking down. (We use Library of Congress for nonfiction, but that's terrible for fiction.) I have a rough system of "nonsequential comics like Gorey or xkcd shelved with fiction, sequential shelved as comics." But it's only rough and I'm not really sure I want Maus shelved alphabetically by title with the comics instead of alphabetically by author name with the fiction.
Any suggestions? (To make matters worse, I shelve tie-in novels and scripts alphabetically by series title in with the fiction, except for screenplays by Robert Bolt.) A pure mix is unlikely because of shelf height issues; I think it makes sense to have the noncollected comics, issue by floppy issue, segregated from regular fiction, though I could probably be argued into a change.
Any suggestions? (To make matters worse, I shelve tie-in novels and scripts alphabetically by series title in with the fiction, except for screenplays by Robert Bolt.) A pure mix is unlikely because of shelf height issues; I think it makes sense to have the noncollected comics, issue by floppy issue, segregated from regular fiction, though I could probably be argued into a change.
Business must be bad...
Tue, Jun. 18th, 2013 20:20oursinEmail today anent my website by somebody representing 'a low cost website design and promotion company', exhorting me to install Google Analytics and to take advantage of their company's special offer discounts for their 'low cost social media service where we "tweet" and post for you regularly every day... about your products or services as well as lots more'.
Apart from not proof-reading their emails before they send them, or perhaps they really believe that possessive its boasts an apostrophe (not the only error), this representative appears to have failed to register that, hello, this site is not a business! ain't no money in it atall!
I mean, I would be very grateful if people could be driven to my deconstruction of historical myths about sex, but on the whole, not to the extent of paying someone to send semi-literate tweets on my behalf.
Okay, I realise that my web design is so out of date that by now I am probably qualified for some kind of English Heritage listing as a handcrafted website, c. 1998, though with some minor alterations over the years ('no! no! don't destroy that rare period feature!'). I daresay it could do with a spruce up, but then, you know, unspoilt period features...
I'm also thinking of doing away with some of my curated link pages, on the grounds that although I update them with incoming information, these days I no longer have time to check these regularly to see if the links still go anywhere or 404 (or worse); and surely most of this information is far more readily available than it was when I began this project.
I might, however, install Google Analytics: I'm a bit unprepossessed with sitemeter at the moment.
Catching up
Tue, Jun. 18th, 2013 10:57pantryslutSunday we went down to Santa Cruz for G.'s niece's graduation. It was my first time visiting Santa Cruz, although there are plans in the works for a birthday trip later in the summer.
It felt like I spent half the day waiting in the sun for the bus. But afterwards there was cake, and Korean-style short ribs, and fruit, and kids running around in the yard making bubbles. Random thoughts:
1. Everybody praises UCSC for its beauty, yes? It occurred to me therefore that I might have been a little spoiled for aesthetically pleasing academic settings by where I grew up. I mean, it was nice and all. Though kinda sprawly.
2. Santa Cruz proper, from what little I saw of it, seemed nice enough.
3. Except for that one bus driver, who insisted we pay full fare even though the buses were supposed to be free all day.
Monday I went into the city for a picnic in the park with friends; took the kids, who proceeded to get soaked in the park's water feature. Next time I bring water shoes and swimsuits. Kids ended up topless. Nobody seemed to mind.
From there we went and ate ice cream and then met G. at work, giving Daddy a chance to show off his children to his co-workers.
Today is summer camp and a spot of dental work for me.
It felt like I spent half the day waiting in the sun for the bus. But afterwards there was cake, and Korean-style short ribs, and fruit, and kids running around in the yard making bubbles. Random thoughts:
1. Everybody praises UCSC for its beauty, yes? It occurred to me therefore that I might have been a little spoiled for aesthetically pleasing academic settings by where I grew up. I mean, it was nice and all. Though kinda sprawly.
2. Santa Cruz proper, from what little I saw of it, seemed nice enough.
3. Except for that one bus driver, who insisted we pay full fare even though the buses were supposed to be free all day.
Monday I went into the city for a picnic in the park with friends; took the kids, who proceeded to get soaked in the park's water feature. Next time I bring water shoes and swimsuits. Kids ended up topless. Nobody seemed to mind.
From there we went and ate ice cream and then met G. at work, giving Daddy a chance to show off his children to his co-workers.
Today is summer camp and a spot of dental work for me.
anti-anxiety meds
Tue, Jun. 18th, 2013 12:04blueraccoon posting in ![[community profile]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
fucking_medsDear Seroquel/quetiapine:
You suck. You're supposed to make me less anxious and sleepy, not ramp my anxiety up into high gear and leave me tossing and turning and so anxious I can barely breathe. Maybe that wasn't you last night, maybe that was just the panic attack, but you certainly did nothing to stop it. You've really been falling down on the job of helping manage my anxiety, so I think we need to go our separate ways. I remember taking you years ago and sleeping for fourteen hours a day...what happened?
no love,
becc
Dear lorazepam:
I don't want to take you, I'm going to make that clear. I worked to get off benzodiazepenes a couple years back and I've been doing okay without them, until recently when the anxiety and panic attacks started creeping back in. You were really helpful in the ER a couple weeks ago, though, so I'm hopeful that you can help me get through the next couple months without losing my mind. I'm still surprised my psychiatrist was willing to prescribe you given how much he wanted me off the alprazolam, but I guess I worried him enough when I mentioned I'd been in the ER for anxiety. (That sucked, but you made it a lot easier.) So work with me here, okay? Help me sleep at night and fight the panic attacks and we'll be copacetic.
cautiously,
becc
You suck. You're supposed to make me less anxious and sleepy, not ramp my anxiety up into high gear and leave me tossing and turning and so anxious I can barely breathe. Maybe that wasn't you last night, maybe that was just the panic attack, but you certainly did nothing to stop it. You've really been falling down on the job of helping manage my anxiety, so I think we need to go our separate ways. I remember taking you years ago and sleeping for fourteen hours a day...what happened?
no love,
becc
Dear lorazepam:
I don't want to take you, I'm going to make that clear. I worked to get off benzodiazepenes a couple years back and I've been doing okay without them, until recently when the anxiety and panic attacks started creeping back in. You were really helpful in the ER a couple weeks ago, though, so I'm hopeful that you can help me get through the next couple months without losing my mind. I'm still surprised my psychiatrist was willing to prescribe you given how much he wanted me off the alprazolam, but I guess I worried him enough when I mentioned I'd been in the ER for anxiety. (That sucked, but you made it a lot easier.) So work with me here, okay? Help me sleep at night and fight the panic attacks and we'll be copacetic.
cautiously,
becc
Breathing Is Good For You
Tue, Jun. 18th, 2013 19:53ailbheAstrid's operation was a roaring success, and she's much weller.
She's happier and less whiny. She's fatter. She's much much less clumsy. She doesn't bump into things or fall over half as much. She's heavier. She's asking for food and eating it and asking for more. She's sleeping for a couple of hours at a time.
Along with this, the older children have recovered from their anxiety, more or less. Rob and I are still tired. But it will be fine.
She's happier and less whiny. She's fatter. She's much much less clumsy. She doesn't bump into things or fall over half as much. She's heavier. She's asking for food and eating it and asking for more. She's sleeping for a couple of hours at a time.
Along with this, the older children have recovered from their anxiety, more or less. Rob and I are still tired. But it will be fine.
QOTD
Tue, Jun. 18th, 2013 14:34giandujakissAlexandra Petri:
“Please, look as beautiful in this swimsuit as you possibly can while telling me why gender should not determine your level of compensation.”
Don’t we notice how ridiculous this is?
No man will ever be asked this. There is no explicit beauty portion of the competition, whatever the competition. “Thank you, Jim, for that insightful reply about job creation. Okay, trousers off.” That’s not a phrase you will hear on national TV.
Booklist 2013, 43 - 47
Tue, Jun. 18th, 2013 19:06lizwThis is a quick roundup of the paper books I've read since my last post; there will be another one for the ebooks at the weekend. Probably.
43. Polly Lloyd, About Glastonbury
44. Nicholas R. Mann, Glastonbury Tor
Two guidebook-ish things that were in my B&B when I went to Glastonbury for the Starhawk workshop, the former an okay-ish account mostly focused on the Christian remains and the second mostly describing a rather romantic vision of the prehistory.
45. Kim Stanley Robinson, The Wild Shore.![[livejournal.com profile]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
boxcat had this with him in Millport, so I read it after he'd finished it. Robinson uses the tropes of a coming-of-age novel set in a postapocalypse North America to explore how stories shape our identity, and how we deal with conflicting desires. Passages in it reminded me of Kerouac. Recommended.
46. John and Carole E. Barrowman, The Bone Quill. Second in a children's fantasy trilogy set on an altered-geography version of Cumbrae (the island of which Millport is the only town). I read the first last year and enjoyed it, but expressed some concern that the ethical implications of the worldbuilding were not fully recognised; the sequel did nothing to lead me to expect that these will be addressed at any point, and I was more conscious of being the wrong age group for this one, so I think I may not bother with the third.
47. Kate Bornstein, My New Gender Workbook. I never read the old edition, but from what I gather, the main difference is that the new one has a lot of discussion of intersectionality. I get the impression that the concept was still quite new to Bornstein when she wrote the revisions, and it shows a bit; it approaches intersectionality very much as something that may shed additional light on gender and never really looks at how some gender discourse might inadvertently contribute to other forms of oppression. That said, the theory section does explain the basics of gender theory pretty well and would be worth giving to a newcomer to the issue for that alone. I probably got most out of the second part of the book, which consists of exercises to help you understand your own gender better; the third part, which offers suggestions for how to "do" your gender, assumes that the reader is trans and therefore didn't have much for me as a cis person. Normally I wouldn't mind this, because more stuff that isn't about the privileged people is generally a good thing; but there was more than a whiff of "everyone's trans really" about the way the assumption was presented, and that grated.
Bechdel scores:
The Wild Shore: I didn't make notes, but I think it fails by not having its named female characters talk directly to each other (always a risk with a male POV character).
The Bone Quill: Again, I didn't make notes, but I think it also fails, this time because the conversations between the female characters are all about their male relatives (one of whom is effectively the Big Bad.)
43. Polly Lloyd, About Glastonbury
44. Nicholas R. Mann, Glastonbury Tor
Two guidebook-ish things that were in my B&B when I went to Glastonbury for the Starhawk workshop, the former an okay-ish account mostly focused on the Christian remains and the second mostly describing a rather romantic vision of the prehistory.
45. Kim Stanley Robinson, The Wild Shore.
boxcat had this with him in Millport, so I read it after he'd finished it. Robinson uses the tropes of a coming-of-age novel set in a postapocalypse North America to explore how stories shape our identity, and how we deal with conflicting desires. Passages in it reminded me of Kerouac. Recommended.46. John and Carole E. Barrowman, The Bone Quill. Second in a children's fantasy trilogy set on an altered-geography version of Cumbrae (the island of which Millport is the only town). I read the first last year and enjoyed it, but expressed some concern that the ethical implications of the worldbuilding were not fully recognised; the sequel did nothing to lead me to expect that these will be addressed at any point, and I was more conscious of being the wrong age group for this one, so I think I may not bother with the third.
47. Kate Bornstein, My New Gender Workbook. I never read the old edition, but from what I gather, the main difference is that the new one has a lot of discussion of intersectionality. I get the impression that the concept was still quite new to Bornstein when she wrote the revisions, and it shows a bit; it approaches intersectionality very much as something that may shed additional light on gender and never really looks at how some gender discourse might inadvertently contribute to other forms of oppression. That said, the theory section does explain the basics of gender theory pretty well and would be worth giving to a newcomer to the issue for that alone. I probably got most out of the second part of the book, which consists of exercises to help you understand your own gender better; the third part, which offers suggestions for how to "do" your gender, assumes that the reader is trans and therefore didn't have much for me as a cis person. Normally I wouldn't mind this, because more stuff that isn't about the privileged people is generally a good thing; but there was more than a whiff of "everyone's trans really" about the way the assumption was presented, and that grated.
Bechdel scores:
The Wild Shore: I didn't make notes, but I think it fails by not having its named female characters talk directly to each other (always a risk with a male POV character).
The Bone Quill: Again, I didn't make notes, but I think it also fails, this time because the conversations between the female characters are all about their male relatives (one of whom is effectively the Big Bad.)
Do you believe in life after LEAF
Tue, Jun. 18th, 2013 13:04attractivegeekeryYesterday I jogged again.
I wasn't looking forward to it. I hemmed and hawed about whether or not to do it at all, because I wasn't really "feeling" it, but...as we say here at the LEAF blog: Something has to be done.
SO I did it.
And while I still didn't enjoy it, I did get it done. And maybe, just maybe, I felt a little better about myself after the fact.
That's take 2 of Week 5/Day 1, for those keeping count. Which...is basically me isn't it?
No really, that's okay. I prefer it that way to be honest.
( And now is the time on Sprockets where we delve just a bit too far into the neurotic bag of crazy that is Bing and her amazing brain weasels... )
Then after jogging I biked into work, which was lovely. Just absolutely lovely.
The way home...was less so. I left just as a huge thunderstorm hit, so there was a good half hour yesterday where I was seeking shelter in the shadow of an elevated outdoor tunnel. There were a couple of too-close-for-comfort peals of thunder that made me jump, but short of that it was pretty uneventful.
That is until I got home and realized I'd done something to my ankle. It's a sharp, localized pain at the base of my Achilles, but only on the lateral side. So...I took some Advil and resigned myself to being ginger with it to see what's what. This means that today instead of riding my bike to work I took the bus.
I miss my bike.
I wasn't looking forward to it. I hemmed and hawed about whether or not to do it at all, because I wasn't really "feeling" it, but...as we say here at the LEAF blog: Something has to be done.
SO I did it.
And while I still didn't enjoy it, I did get it done. And maybe, just maybe, I felt a little better about myself after the fact.
That's take 2 of Week 5/Day 1, for those keeping count. Which...is basically me isn't it?
No really, that's okay. I prefer it that way to be honest.
( And now is the time on Sprockets where we delve just a bit too far into the neurotic bag of crazy that is Bing and her amazing brain weasels... )
Then after jogging I biked into work, which was lovely. Just absolutely lovely.
The way home...was less so. I left just as a huge thunderstorm hit, so there was a good half hour yesterday where I was seeking shelter in the shadow of an elevated outdoor tunnel. There were a couple of too-close-for-comfort peals of thunder that made me jump, but short of that it was pretty uneventful.
That is until I got home and realized I'd done something to my ankle. It's a sharp, localized pain at the base of my Achilles, but only on the lateral side. So...I took some Advil and resigned myself to being ginger with it to see what's what. This means that today instead of riding my bike to work I took the bus.
I miss my bike.
Families
Tue, Jun. 18th, 2013 19:00livSo a friend made a locked post about definitions of family, and it reminded me of several things that have been in my mind recently. I'm not sure this is going to be very coherent, just a bunch of stuff.
( thoughts )
Like I said, somewhat rambly and not very coherent thoughts. This probably ought to've been several posts, really, but let's see what people think.
( thoughts )
Like I said, somewhat rambly and not very coherent thoughts. This probably ought to've been several posts, really, but let's see what people think.
noncon, dubcon, and fannish standards
Tue, Jun. 18th, 2013 12:49thingswithwings[This post discusses lots of examples of noncon and dubcon porn in fandom, as well as detailed examples of rape culture narratives.]
I sometimes read fanfiction in the genre "noncon." I also sometimes read fanfiction in the genre "dubcon." Lately I've been getting increasingly frustrated about the way fic writers in my fandoms will label things "dubcon" even when they're noncon, ie, involve nonconsensual sex.
I get that fannish meanings of these words shift and change, and with most fannish labels, I'm cool with that. If words like "fpreg" or "a/b/o/" or "Mary Sue" have slippery meanings and vary from fandom to fandom, that seems like natural variation. But I don't think we should be quite so cavalier about what we call dubcon and what we call noncon; not only is it a huge accessibility issue for people with triggers, but it's a way in which many fandoms, to my thinking, reinforce rape culture.
( more words on this )
I sometimes read fanfiction in the genre "noncon." I also sometimes read fanfiction in the genre "dubcon." Lately I've been getting increasingly frustrated about the way fic writers in my fandoms will label things "dubcon" even when they're noncon, ie, involve nonconsensual sex.
I get that fannish meanings of these words shift and change, and with most fannish labels, I'm cool with that. If words like "fpreg" or "a/b/o/" or "Mary Sue" have slippery meanings and vary from fandom to fandom, that seems like natural variation. But I don't think we should be quite so cavalier about what we call dubcon and what we call noncon; not only is it a huge accessibility issue for people with triggers, but it's a way in which many fandoms, to my thinking, reinforce rape culture.
( more words on this )
OTW Fannews: OTW and the Press
Tue, Jun. 18th, 2013 11:55otw_staff posting in otw_news- The Kindle Worlds story didn't just result in hundreds of media outlets running pieces on the story, but also quite a few requests to the OTW for comment. While some have been previously linked to and some have yet to be published, several more have made an appearance. The Verge talked with OTW Communications staffer Nistasha Perez about the Amazon's new move as well as similar efforts to commercialize fanfiction in the past. "In 2007, former Yahoo executive Chris Williams decided it was time to make money off fan fiction. 'I work for a brand-new fan fiction website called FanLib.com and my colleagues and I want it to be the ultimate place for talented writers like you,' read an email sent to hundreds of authors." But "[a]fter barely over a year, FanLib's infrastructure was bought by Disney, and the fan fiction archive was quietly shut down. Six years later, media powerhouse Amazon is giving the idea another try." ( Read more... )