Wondrous Apparitions, Provided by Magicians.

Since I'm all out of clever, I'm gonna give this a go. I stole it from lilia_blackbear.

Please consider writing one word to describe me... just one single word. Leave it in my comments. Then post this message on your journal and see how many strange and interesting things people say about you ...

Of course, because this is my game, you can make up a word if you want to.

EDIT: Also, two things: 1) curry makes everything better and 2) 'Lex reminded me that all computer-building requires a small blood sacrifice, which is why most computer hardware has such sharp edges. This one was so builder-friendly that I didn't injure myself on it at all. This is undoubtedly related to the problem, and will be rectified when I get home.

This is gonna be long, and it's probably gonna be dumb. I'm cutting it to spare you both. I'm writing it down, though, because it's sort of a Hey Wow moment for me. (It might be a Well Duh moment for you. In fact, I expect it. Feel free to pass by.)

As it turns out, my household has been talking about trying to eat better. Our hedging justification for this has been something along the lines of "No, we're not interested in dieting to lose weight or look good, or pander to the beauty-industrial complex, but wouldn't it be nice to be a little thinner? I mean, that would make it easier to fit better into the elevators at DragonCon, right? Just a little thinner. Then we wouldn't be so miserably hot in the summer, right?". And so on.

This is, of course, lame.( Read more... )

EDIT: And, gamera_spinning reminds me that it is Lent, which means that suddenly, everybody has fish on the menu. I love fish, and consequently, I love Lent. (I fail at Catholicism.)

Happy Fill-In-The-Blank Day to everybody! (It's useless to pick a holiday -- too many spawned anti-days and reaction and affirmation days to count. So happy whatever it is you're celebrating today. Me, I'm ambivalent about Valentine's Day. I don't loathe it, but I don't love it, either. We're not celebrating. Or at least, I think we're not. And I kind of hope we're not, because I haven't done anything for anybody, and I hate to be The One That Spoils It...) Thank you to everybody who sent me a little note on the Valentinr thingie -- I'm enjoying reading them this morning. Also, anonymous is a sexy beast.

Anyway, did you miss me yesterday? I was out at a Job Fair, trying to be a good little recruiter. This meant that by the time I got home, I was pretty much exhausted. This thing, where I spend all day 'chatting' with people wears me out. triadruid reminded me this morning that this is because I am an introvert. I forget that sometimes. I have cleverly built for myself a community in which we are always planning something or working on something, or doing something. As long as I can talk about what we're planning or working on or doing together, I can always talk to people and it doesn't drain me at all. I'm an idea person. But if you take me out of my working groups, and put me in a social situation in which I am expected to make small talk or gossip, it's like every word is made of lead and I have to lift it to my lips. Blech. I'm like yesterday's xkcd. Still, I'm doing better, because I have learned by rote some of the Things that People Say, and can call them up most of the time. When I was younger, I just didn't talk unless I had something to say that carried useful information. (I think that meant that I spent my entire sophomore year of high school in complete silence. More people should try that.)

From a locked post somewhere:

She Says: My real problem (I think) is that I trust people to treat me the way that I try to treat them.

I Say: Oh hell, that never works. It presupposes that they are like you, and they're not. That's the whole damned problem with the Golden Rule -- it assumes that what I think is good treatment is the same as what you think is good treatment. You can completely be in compliance with this thing that is supposed to be the Backbone of All Real Religions, and still screw other people over because you think you're doing the right thing, but it still feels wrong to them.

I Want to Say: You know, that's one of the big reasons why nobody ever thinks they're the bad guy. Either they're trying to treat you like they want to be treated and totally not grasping that it's not the way you want to be treated, or you're doing the same thing to them, and it wounds them and they want to get back at you for it. Nobody ever says, "Hey, there's a person who has done me no wrong! I'm gonna go fuck them over!". Instead, we say "Hey, this person is having a problem, I'm going to go help them by ________", where the blank may be filled by any number of behaviors which are profoundly unsuitable. Then, you get to follow it up with "Hey! I tried to help them and they got mad! Ungrateful so-and-so, see if I am ever nice to you again!".

I understand that, absent the ability to read each other's minds, and without the depth of communication that makes mind-reading an obsolete concept, this is the best we can do. But why can't we see that this is the best we can do and sometimes it still goes wrong?

Courtesy of jackbabalon23...

Oscar Wilde You scored 13% Submission, 87% Kinkyness, and 58% Rationality!

Who better for you than the creative, eclectic, and only convicted of buggery once Oscar Wilde? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Wilde)

Link: The Historical Figure Love Test written by flowersforrozi on OkCupid, home of the The Dating Persona Test As it happens, Oscar Wilde is probably not my favorite. I mean, he's okay. I have dressed like him upon occasion, and he has the best of all possible Uncyclopedia articles. But I don't think I would consider him my historical crush. In fact, I'm having a hard time coming up with a historical crush. I mean, Tesla, okay, I'm pretty sweet on Nikola Tesla, but when it comes right down to it, I think we'd have profoundly mismatched kinks. Because I'm down with electricity play if and only if I'm the one with the generator. So I think that's out. But I'm at pains to think of anybody else. So, you guys know me, right? Who should be my historical honey? And, while you're thinking on those lines, who's yours?

None of that Glenn-Danzig-Fucking in the journal today (even if it did get more discussion than anything I've posted in months...what does that say about us?). Today's journal is serious business. (Insofar as anything is.)

See, yesterday, we performed a funeral for a young man (he had achieved the ripe old age of 23) who was shot while trying to defend his mother and younger brother from a man who had broken into their home. We didn't know him, or his family, but he was a Wiccan, and Gaia Community was the last religious group he'd had any affiliation with, so they called us. And of course, we thought it was the right thing to do, to go and honor this person who was a fellow-traveler, even if we didn't know him, and talk to his family, who were supportive of his religious leanings, but not really solid on what the whole Wicca thing was about. And so we did.
( Concerning the afterlife... )

Revelations of the weekend:
1. Having an interest in attending costumed events is a little like having a pot-smoking habit: at first, it seems like you will always be able to buy everything you need, but eventually, the urge to make your own paraphenalia will hit you, and then, nothing is safe. Went to Ren Faire yesterday, found Nothing that answered the question "What shall I wear under my new frock coat?" successfully. Saw many beautiful shirts, but none were what I was looking for. Which is, of course, something that will pass as pirate attire, made of something that isn't mostly polyester (the shirt I wore at Dragon*Con probably came from a Halloween costume, and is perilously close to plastic and completely unsuitable for warm-weather wear), and cut for someone who isn't Rennie-Sized (which is perhaps 6'2", 280, I'm not sure. I mean, I'm pretty big, but really, I could use most of the things I looked at as a tent.). So I'll probably be hitting the fabric store and begging for machine loans sometime this winter. I believe that somehow, if I follow the directions on the pattern, it will not matter that I know nothing about sewing, it will just work. This is the kind of thinking that gets me in trouble when I try to pretend that I can cook, so I know it to be false, and yet.
2. The Flaming Ball of Gas in the Sky has it in for me. While I was able to manage the day at KCRF without getting exhausted or having my feet protest (which I attribute to the recent addition of long walks to my routines), I got a monstrous sun/dehydration headache about 5:00. Blech. Fortunately, we were scheduled to go visit adammaker and jackjob after Faire, and if there's anyone who's likely to be able to help with that sort of thing, it would be adammaker. He gave me excedrin and lavendar oil, and after a time, all was well. I don't know what to do about avoiding this sort of thing in the future, but I expect more water and perhaps a pair of sunglasses are in it.
3. I am getting old. The Libra Birthday party was much fun, but I ended up asleep on the futon with the cat for about an hour from 1:30-2:30 or so. Everyone was kind enough to let me sleep, which was nice. But it would be nicer to be able to manage to stay awake.

Also of note, but not particularly relevatory, triadruid, kittenpants and I bought Chamelons (which are articles of clothing in this sense, and not lizards) from an amiable acid-head at Faire, and they are really, really neat. You can make them into practically any sort of clothing, and a handful of non-clothing things as well. Provided, of course, that you can work out what to zip or tie in order to get the thing to be the shape you want. Still, fun to play with. I've been envious of niveus_tigris' Chameleon for quite some time. And now I have one, yay.

Love was such an easy game to play, now I need a place to hide away, oh.... wait. That's not right, is it?

Yesterday, I learned some things. One was that a significant portion of my active readership is older than me. I did not know that. I'm pretty sure it means something, but I don't know what.

Another was that a significant portion of same active readership did not know what a cover song was. For you guys, a cover song is one that is re-recorded by an artist who was not the original artist. So, All Along the Watchtower (for example), as recorded by Jimi Hendrix is a cover version of the original, by Bob Dylan. And so on. All caught up now? :)

Today: triadruid says I am owly. By this, he means (I know, because I asked) that I'm mostly staring and snapping at things. I'm okay with that -- in my world, staring and snapping at things indicates being on top of my game.

Also, later, probably a thejobfairy update.

EDIT: Also also, taking meds = being alert and hungry. Not taking meds = being fuzzy-headed and uninterested in food. One would think that as clever a being as I would be able to remember that on a daily basis, and perhaps, take its fucking meds.

I caught the meme tag from several people, so here we go.

"I am listing five particularly effective bribes. I'm not saying how they rank, or if they're necessarily the Most Effective, but there you go. The assumption stands that lots & lots of money is always a good bribe, though unimaginative, so it's left off the list. If you want to continue the senseless propagation of this idea, please post it in your journal, and all that rot."

- Sex. I'm not saying I'll accept this as a bribe from everybody, but if you're on the list of people I'm likely to have sex with, it's probably a good incentive to get me to do something.
- A good scotch. This, I will accept from anyone. And it's a little like sex. If you're bribing me with scotch, I have a strong preference for Lagavulin, if your bribery budget extends to that, or Jura's Superstition if it doesn't.
- Clove cigarettes (you smoke them, and I kiss you). I can't smoke these anymore, but I'm perfectly content to watch you smoke one and then steal the taste from you. It will be effective motivation, but may also induce some smoking-related whining and/or nostalgia.
- New and interesting cultural experiences. Concerts, shows, galleries, plays, films, restaraunts, whatever. If I've never been there/seen it/etc., it's likely to be enticing.
- Clean my house. I think everybody knows I don't like to do that.

Let me join today's parade of the disaffected just for a little bit here.

I'm playing the game right now of preparing to be laid off. Some time between this Friday and the end of May, I'll be out of a job. Nobody will tell me when. So I'm trying to get ready to go at any moment.

Part of that is the old spiffing-up-the-resume, prepping-for-the-interviews dance. It's come to my attention recently that all the sharp interview clothes I used to have either have fallen apart, or no longer fit, or are so out of style as to be laughable (which I only care about in the context of interviewing; in order to present the appearance of good corporate drone, one must also present the appearance of good consumer).

So triadruid went with me on Saturday to buy a new interview suit. Sadly, the trip was fruitless, as apparently no matter how much weight I put on, I will still always be several sizes larger on the top than I am on the bottom. I tried on outfit after outfit, only to find that the pants were too big and the jackets were too small. Apparently, if I wish to have professional-looking clothes, I will have to either buy them very very large and have them tailored down to fit, or make friends with someone with similar tastes in clothing who is significantly larger in the bottom half than the top half and trade.
( Cut for gender issues, which I understand are not interesting to anyone but me. )