picked a handful of violets in my name

Recently

I've been following the latest LJwtf and going to work, pretty much. Managed to wear a skirt today, and I think every single person I work with complimented it.

Links

Plans

Get rained on and blown about. Hope the power stays on long enough to to chat with C. for a good long while. Drive up to NH with Ellie and shadesong for the art retreat, and catch the bus back. Drag Ellie to see Scott Pilgrim, get groceries, and pick up the hair stuff I forgot last week. Make attempt number 4 at purple hair: bleach a thick streak and purple it, then update the rest to black.

• oursin: More about money, extravagance, frivolity etc

  Such is the power of a-synchronicity, that it was only after making yesterday evening's post that I picked up Katharine Whitehorn's Only on Sundays, which of course fell open at the essay 'As Rich As You Feel', the vague memory of which lay behind much of my thinking in that post.

• thingswithwings: while waiting for pain to subside, I wrote this post

  But the thing that really thrills me is seeing people get more and more efficient and matter-of-fact about their content notes, especially the content notes that are providing a warning for potentially triggering content. I don't credit kink bingo with this, but rather a shift in fandom thinking at large: I see more and more notes for things like forced feeding, self-harm, characters expressing racist sentiments, parental abuse, and all sorts of things - a range of things that reflects the broad manner in which people are beginning to think about how their story/artpiece might be read/viewed by someone with different life experiences than the writer's or artist's own. It feels to me, subjectively of course, that people in my fannish community are more and more willing to be upfront about what their story/artpiece contains, in order to provide the best possible information to potential readers. And that upfrontness, more importantly, is an indication of self-acceptance that I find extremely exciting and refreshing.

• eruthros: some useful things on the internet

  1. Are you, too, frustrated by the new lj facebook and twitter connect buttons under your comments? Fear not, for not one but two people have made magical solutions! Do not mess with tab order or people shall make greasemonkey scripts, lj.

• whump: (no subject)

  The rest of the web is not the walled garden, Facebook is the walled garden, with a manifest destiny complex.

• zulu: *flails* I just DON'T EVEN KNOW, livejournal. I JUST DON'T.

  Not to mention people could be automatically crossposting their comments to any post you made. Triangulation is suddenly that much simpler for stalkers, abusive exes, and potential or current employers. Any work you've put in to keep your fandom presence separate from your real life or professional presence is suddenly tissue paper where once it was at least nice sturdy cardstock. Feedback on your latest PWP that says "Fuck, you write hot man-on-man action, I totally got off to that," could end up side-by-side with your grandma's cookie recipe.

Links

Plans

Scissor Sisters concert with Ellie.

Notes

Not dead! Back in Boston since Saturday, and already caught up on things!

Recently

Just finished eating half the curry I made tonight; the other half is in the fridge. I am going to bring it to work tomorrow. Leftovers for lunch - it's almost like I'm a real grown-up!

Ellie and I went to the mall yesterday. We were supposed to get clothes for her. Instead, we got clothes for me. /o\ On the other hand, Hello Kitty rain boots in grown-up sizes, fuck yes.

I continue to experiment with purple hair. Attempt 3 (dark purple over failed single-process bleach-and-purple) is the best yet but still not quite right.

Grand Forks

Relationship Stuff

We're planning more visits, and I convinced C. to install Skype. But I think my journal will stop being All About My Boyfriend now; he'll show up from time to time along with other important people in my life.

Memery

From Ask Me Anything:

Looking back, are you comfortable with the way you reacted when your sister came out to you?

Not really. :( I could have done more. I am especially disappointed with how little help I was to her in 2006/2007, her last year of high school, while she was trying to figure things out. True, I didn't have nearly as much knowledge of gender and trans* issues then, but I probably still could have been more supportive than I actually was.

But as far as her actual coming-out? I think I did okay then, although I didn't adjust to name-and-pronouns as fast as I would have liked, even if there is a specific reason for it (trying not to out her to Mom and Dad before she had the chance to tell them herself).

Links

Plans

Figure out Netflix. Buy more $5 vermouth for cooking.

I am in Grand Forks, getting spectacularly laid. \o/ More details in a post to the sex filter.

Actually getting to spend time with C. is awesome. This was such a good idea. We just fit together. I cannot stop smiling.

ETA: Scott Pilgrim fanworks. I need them. Point me to any and all fic, vids, art, kink memes, and whatever else you know of.

Notes

I'll be out of town August 14-21. While I'll have internet access, I have no idea how much I'll be online. But rest assured I'll catch up even if I can't keep up.

Recently

Bosses and one reference desk person are away for the Society of American Archivists conference. Work is freakishly quiet.

Busy couple of days. Tuesday morning, I hauled a box of fun surprises to the post office (since the TSA probably frowns on taking rope in your carry-on), went to work, and then went to Diesel to meet up with shadesong and receive my BARCC auction winnings: a lovely flogger. After that, I ran into Andra and spent forever telling her about C. (she kept asking questions, and I am still flush with omgyay).

Yesterday I got some purple dye, and this morning before work, I put it in my hair to see what it would do. Not a lot, as it turns out: my hair is too dark. Now it's even darker, with something of a blue cast to it. While kinda disappointing, it's not actually surprising, and it's definitely not a bad result.

Leaving for Grand Forks at stupid o'clock Saturday morning. Clothes are basically picked out, and toiletries are selected and quart-size bagged.

Memes

Still open for questions.

I know so little about you, I'm afraid my question is quite pedestrian! What would your dream job be?

Pretty close to what I'm doing right now. I want to be an archivist full-time, as my real grownup job. But I'm not thrilled with the idea of meetings and managing other people, which my bosses at work have to do. I just want to work with the collections.

Placeholder

I want to write about "lazy femme," which is what I call my gender presentation. In short: I like things like skirts and makeup, but I don't generally bother with these more effortful bits of gendered plumage.

Plans

More packing, go to bed, sleep, get up, go to work, come home, eat dinner, finish packing, go to bed, get up, get on airplane, arrive in Grand Forks, get laid.

Notes

Recently

Links

• Feministe: Where There's Smoke

  Privilege is like smoke. When we’re living with it, you don’t notice it. It’s in the air. It’s all around us, invisible, ubiquitous. We don’t notice the privilege we share with others; we only notice what surprises our senses and our brains – the way I could smell pot smoke on someone, even when I was living with my cigarette-smoking parents.

• Geek Feminism: Nominate guests posts for Geek Feminism

  We’re primarily interested in cross-posts from smaller blogs, in order to introduce our readers to sites they don’t know of yet, and to introduce writers to a larger readership. But if the author of a piece on a widely read website wants it to appear here, we’ll certainly consider it.

Important things:

• Every year, shadesong does Blogathon for the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center. Her fundraising includes a charity auction; I have three pieces in the mix this year: Chains and Crippling Shoes, We Met in February, and The Awful Feeling of Knowing You Don't Remember No. Plus lots of other really lovely things that you should go and bid on!
• I am going to Grand Forks! I'll be staying with C. and will also take the opportunity to hang out with Ellen and Greg, since I missed them in New Orleans this year. I am not sure what that will do to my internet time: on the one hand, C. and I will probably be very occupied with each other, but on the other hand, I can easily see us just chilling together with our laptops for a little while every day. At any rate, I will be out of Boston from August 14th to August 21st.
• Speaking of C., we are now officially in a relationship! We put it on Facebook and everything. Current relationship status is "open" although there's an unspoken expectation that we'll be functionally monogamous at least until we can talk about it in person. There will be a more *ahem* detailed update later - hooray for filters.

An illuminating moment for me came at my post-op party. We called it a “boob party” and spent the night celebrating chests. Everyone brought magazine clippings or photos of chests and we pasted them on the wall in the stairwell. We kept a running list of all the euphemisms for chests we could think of on the whiteboard usually reserved for intra-apartment communications like We need milk and Has anyone seen my watch? and HEY GUYS I LET THE CATS PEE ON THE SOFA (just kidding it’s water).

At this party, every guest was invited to wear whatever made their chest feel good. Some went topless, some chose corsets—we even supplied glitter-encrusted adhesive craft foam for those who wanted to make pasties (the majority of our guests chose this option, which was just another sign that my life is nothing like what my guidance counselors envisioned).