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July 8th, 2009
 | 09:34 am - Nouvelle France
Reading Witold Rybczynski's City Life, as he contrasts the varying styles of Spanish, British, and French townbuilding in N America, I suddenly realize that the popular conception of the Louisiana Purchase is always that of a vast tract of land--territory--an expanded frontier, a giant piece of the Manifest Destiny jigsaw puzzle. Its French settlements (and there must have been some; St Louis, say) are ignored. We don't gloss over just the Indian presence; we are equal opportunity rewriters of history.
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July 6th, 2009
 | 12:22 pm - No More *****
I want to be very clear about this: I do not want to hear any more about anyone's kinks and fetishes. I could give examples, but that kind of defeats the purpose.
Likewise excrement. If it comes out of the body, I don't want to hear about it. Not yours, not your dog's, not your child's.
For the love of tundra, when did it become necessary to ASK for people not to discuss ****?
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June 29th, 2009
| 11:37 am - Reading
I'm doing my Hugo reading. Ballots are due Friday. In the short story category, Kij Johnson's "26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss" could absolutely be a This American Life radio piece. Seriously! Just imagine a snippet of music between each of her numbered sections, and Ira Glass saying "Act Two. Bathtub surprise." Meanwhile, Ted Chiang rocks. But you knew that.
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The Oregonian newspaper, having divested itself of nearly all content, is raising the price of a newsstand copy to $1.00. Yeah, good luck with that.
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Books read, 2009.
60. Toothpaste Millionaire by Jean Merrill, the author of The Pushcart War. Didactic in intent ("prepared by the Bank Street College of Education") but not in attitude.
61. The Secret of Scent: Adventures in Perfume and the Science of Smell by Luca Turin. Interesting, but I preferred the book about him, Emperor of Scent--easier to read and has a lot more to say. In this one, fun to see just how far I could follow his chemistry explanations. ( Read more... )
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June 21st, 2009
| 08:39 pm - Worldcon airfare: #^€£%^
Sat down after dinner to finalize flight decisions for trip to Montreal in August. Rude surprise: in the last few days, prices have gone fron $400-and-change to $683-and-up. I don't like this game.
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June 15th, 2009
 | 05:10 pm - The Search for Spock's Sweater
I succeeded in contacting someone who worked on the movie, who was glad to poke about a bit on my behalf. (Very cool!) Final answer:
It turns out that it was made in the workroom, and they make only one, so it is one of a kind. The fabric is a woven material that was found and purchased in a shop in New York; it is not knitted, but has a knitted look. It was then backed with thin neoprene to give it some body to make it appear and handle more like a real sweater.
I might still knit something "in the style of", but I won't kick myself anymore for not being able to figure out the stitch.
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June 14th, 2009
 | 05:09 pm - Previously on....
My coffee yogurt post got more response from the peanut gallery than anything else in recent memory. ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) vgqn's suggestion of instant espresso has the most promise: Medagli d'Oro brand dissolves beautifully in cold yogurt. We just have to calibrate quantities of coffee & sugar... and get a jar newer than 2007.
We looked into the Greek Gods non-fat yogurt, but it failed on price. You will recall that the original mandate was to have coffee yogurt (a) cheaper and (b) involving less packaging than the current True Yog, Dannon's 6 oz. lowfat coffee. We aren't interested in curdling our own from scratch; David has some faint yearnings in that direction but apparently it's something he "wants to have done" rather than "wants to do". The yard-sale yogurt maker just gathered dust for a couple of years before being tossed as clutter.
The Search for Spock's Sweater has some promising leads; I'll let you know if anything comes of it.
Have been taking half-dose of Effexor for a week now with no notable withdrawal effects, yay!
Also began supplementing with 1000 IU/day of Vitamin D3. I swear I am already less brain-fogged. When I saw my doctor about the anti-depressant issues and he ordered some blood tests, I asked him to include a look at Vitamin D levels. Don't have the results yet. Thanks to deedop and mkhobson for raising the question.
wild_patience asked for more about our health insurance.
We have two different plans. Between the sleep apnea, the need for antidepressant meds, and a BMI over 30, private insurers in Oregon won't touch me. And we had a letter from the group insurer under David's final employer plan (Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas) saying "Don't let the door hit y'all on the way out" when his COBRA benefits ended. ( Read more... )
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June 13th, 2009
| 03:19 pm - Books Read, 2009
54. The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals that Protect us from Violence by Gavin de Becker. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. Note that he is not advocating that one go around afraid all the time, in fact explicitly the opposite. People strung out on fear & worry are concentrating on possibilities and imaginary outcomes rather than seeing the true, real-world situation around them; therefore they are not in a position to react usefully when there's actually cause. He's very practical, talking for instance about when and why restraining orders can just be fuel for the fire & ignite the violence they supposedly help protect against. Readable, and fascinating. I kept reading bits of it to David.
55. Pike Place Market: 100 Years from Sasquatch Books. A small book. Lovely photographs and some interesting history. They link the decline that led to the Market almost being demolished in the 1970s to the internment of Japanese farmers and vendors during the 1940s.
56. Dark Sleeper and 57. House in the High Wood, by Jeffrey Barlough. I was reading Strange Cargo, and liking it, when I discovered it was book 3 of 3, and that I actually had the other two already. Perhaps I needn't have gone back to "the beginning"; Sleeper and High Wood didn't seem to have anything to do with each other besides being set in the same world. Sort of Dickens-lite meets Cthulhu-lite.
58. Upgrade Your Life by Gina Trapani, founding editor of Lifehacker.com. Tips and tricks, mostly techno-related, for making life go smoother. Right now what it's done for me is add a few xeroxed pages to my "Action wanted" pile, for further investigation. I do want to use her suggestion on keeping the email inbox clear, Real Soon Now.
59. Victory of Eagles by Naomi Novik. Book 5, I think, in the adventures of Temeraire and his Captain. I love the way she presents Temeraire's naive, out-of-the-mouths-of-carnivorous-babes viewpoint. He is often puzzled by humans' inability to see such obvious truths as "Treasure is Good."
Current shelf inches of To-Be-Read: 153.
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June 12th, 2009
| 02:03 pm - Knitting Spock's Sweater: an appeal
In the new movie, young Spock wears a sweater in one scene. This has sparked some hot & heavy discussions over on Ravelry.com, let me tell you. (Above and beyond the hot & heavy discussions sparked by Z. Quinto, period.) Fiber content, yarn weight, construction, whether or not Mom probably made it for him-- and what the hell is that stitch, anyhow?
There are definite horizontal and vertical lines to it. No diagonals, nothing offset from one row to the next--it's not seed stitch, or moss stitch, for instance. It's ribbed; you can clearly see this in the way the light catches his shoulders as he moves. But I would swear that the "in" columns look otherwise identical to the "out" columns, and how is that even possible?
I've read forum threads and searched through stitch dictionaries, even done a couple of swatches. Maybe we're all wrong and it's actually woven. I think we need to go to the horse's mouth.
These are the names of the people in the Costume and Wardrobe Department, according to the IMDb. If none of them made the sweater, one of them knows who did! So. Are any of them your second cousin, college roommate, best friend from grade school? Let's get the power of social networking onto this!
Deborah Ambrosino, Carrie Arakaki, Myron Baker, Phillip Boutte Jr., Stacy Caballero, Jessica Carpenter, Steve Constancio, Dan Crawley, Valefor De Ambershay, Lisa A. Doyle, Adrienne Greshock, Stacia Lang, Linda Matthewsk, Jessica Elizabeth Mauricio, Mustapha Mimis, Melissa Montague, Andrew Nelson, Hilary Niederer, Shelli Nishino, Grace Pyke, Leticia Sandoval, Paul Sinnott, Leslie Sungail, Brenda M. Ware
Results! See June 15 post.
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June 9th, 2009
 | 04:33 pm - Weekly weigh-in
Last week: 227.6
This week: 224.2
change: -3.4
Woo-hoo! Total of 17 lbs down, in 15 weeks. That's respectable, and sustainable. At this rate I'll be at my goal of 175 next April or May.
Biggest change I've made is portion control. That, and reaching for something other than buttered toast when peckish.
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June 7th, 2009
 | 11:49 pm - "Hey! Who forgot their Jumbotron?"
A post in the Denvention 3 livejournal community links to photos of Lost & Found items from the con. Clever.
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| 10:12 am - That dreaded To Do List
Read Gina Trapani's book Lifehacker [oops] Upgrade Your Life this week. Apropos of To Do lists, she emphasized the distinction between Projects and Tasks. Projects are multi-faceted and sometimes nebulous ("clean the garage"), while Tasks are specific, targeted, and achievable, and of course the latter are what belong on the List.
The new piece that caught my attention was where she said it should be short--twenty items, max.
I've tried having the Big List of Doom posted on the wall. We all know how well that works. I've tried identifying "just 3 key things I'll do today", whereupon my inner child tantrums and says "No! Not gonna!" while the inner adult says "three whole things? that's pathetic. Besides, you should be doing those other three instead."
Maybe the middle ground will help. I still have my big DoList.doc, but I've prioritized, reformatted the margins for just 20 items per page, and printed just page one. It's a good list.
What's your system?
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June 5th, 2009
| 06:47 pm - Random neurons firing
I had some blood drawn today. Two words: student phlebotomist.
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Listening to the news really does become more fun if you yell "Zombie Apocalypse!" whenever they say "these hard economic times" or the equivalent.
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Retired people: doing our part (in the battle against the zombies) by staying the hell out of the job market.
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Yes, I want to make a dessert involving strawberries, gelatin, and yogurt. No, it is not going to have a base of crushed Kix for ghu's sake.
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I've discovered Japanese online room-escape games. Ohhhh dear.
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June 4th, 2009
| 04:49 pm - Anti-depressants
I'm doing research prior to an appointment with my doctor tomorrow. Among other things, I want to make a change to my anti-depressant meds. Went to Effexor about a year ago because Prozac didn't seem to be cutting it, but (1) the Effexor may be contributing to high blood pressure and (2) it's not doing its primary job, anyway. Most of all, (3) after how NASTY NASTY NASTY the effects were during my involuntary blizzard-induced cold-turkey withdrawal last December, I want to not be taking this stuff any more!! Out of my body, off my shelves, not sinking its claws ever deeper.
But poking around to look at alternatives, I gotta wonder: are Effexor and Paxil that much worse than everything else when it comes to SSRI or SNRI discontinuation effects?
Or are they ALL that bad, and Effexor and Paxil only prominent because prescribed more?
I also want to talk to him about seeing somebody with more targeted expertise in mental health meds. He's a good GP, but this isn't his field. I don't even know what flavor of professional I should be dealing with. Psychiatrist?
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June 2nd, 2009
 | 11:06 pm - Fun with my sweetie
Our evenings typically involve each of us staring at glowing screens in separate rooms--David writing, or cat-waxing online which looks just like work frim the outside, while I surf too or knit & warch TV. "I'd like to do more stuff together sez David.
"What did we do before computers & Internet?". Then I remember--tho I met him 25 yrs ago, he had a Macintosh already. For us there is no "before computers", no "before the Net".
Tonight we sat sidebyside at the same screen and played a couple of locked-room puzzles from neutralxe.net. (Exact link left as an exercise for the reader bcs I'm on my phone here, no cut/paste.) Fun being a team.
Tomorrow we have a date to see a 3D-photography exhibit at the Ore. Hist. Society, lunch downtown and hit the farmers' market.
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June 1st, 2009
| 10:43 pm - The Unsweater, or Why There's a Bowl of Milk by My Knitting Basket
I'm knitting myself a sweater. The genesis of it was February 2008, when I took Karen Alfke's "Unpatterns" class. A hundred miles from home, I realized I had left behind the carefully packed bag with ALL my knitting tools and ALL my homework and ALL the yarn for my various classes. I pulled over at the next yarn shop and restocked with essentials for the weekend, including a sweater's worth of purple Dalegarn Heilo. And some navy blue for trim. This becomes important later.
Signing up for this year's classes, I said "Well I can hardly justify taking another class from the fabulous Ms Alfke when I haven't even acted on last year's yet! Damn!" So I started the purple sweater.
Five times.( Read more... )
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| 07:20 am - Daisy/Duck
Sometimes while poking around at imdb I love just looking at the names of characters a person has portrayed over the years. Consider these two women:
A) Mrs Horvath, Mrs. Cermark, Washroom Attendant, Mama Fina, Rose, Edna Vogeler, Mrs. Kransdorf, Mrs. Waldman, Resko's Mother, Louisa Pavilic, Mrs. Schwartz, Aunt Clara, Princess Zolita, Sister Teresa, Mrs. Emanuel, Sra. Rosales, Mrs. Bjornsen
B) Lucille, Lola, Gini, Mame, Helen Faye, Babs, Lulu, Madge, Mrs. Akerman, Marnie, Millie, Telephone operator, Blanche, Miss Valentine, Dolly Jameson, Flossie, Lola LaVerne, Starlet, Pearl, Lotus, Coralee, Blonde, Nina Lasalle
Princess Zolita notwithstanding, it's clear which of these two would have been cast as The Hardworking Landlady.
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In other news, e_bourne has yet another roundup of cool archeology stuff. I clicked through for the "Eight scripts we still can't read", and through again to a long article about Mayan glyphs. Fascinating stuff. I had no idea those funky gargoyle-guys we used as clip art in Bento 18 were words!
And then there's the Central American script whose only surviving instances are on a 4-tonne basalt slab, and on a jade statuette of a man dressed like a duck.
"Dressed like a duck." Can you even say that and not smile?
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May 31st, 2009
| 11:02 pm - Details
Just watched The Apartment with David (1960, directed and partly written by Billy Wilder; starring Jack Lemmon, Shirley Maclaine, Fred MacMurray). He's doing research for a story set around 1960, so we were both watching for background details--all the while wondering just which things were true to daily life, which exaggerated for comic or dramatic effect, which invented entirely by the wizards of Hollywood.
I was most fascinated by the contrasts that arise from the future arriving piecemeal: a modernish armchair and Picasso print in a very old-fashioned living room; foil-wrapped TV dinner heated in an oven still shaped like a woodstove; instant coffee(!), but to get hot water for it, he lights the burner with a match from the match safe on the wall above the stove.
Last night I saw about half of Mystic Pizza (1988, Julia Roberts with bigger hair than you can imagine). In the first hour there were at least four knit-worthy sweaters, maybe five. I'm wrestling with a pullover of my own right now, redoing the front neckline entirely. I had to let the bad one sit for a day before I could bring myself to rip it out, but it had to be done. If the neckline is wrong you'll hate the whole sweater every time you look in the mirror.
Not yet over that post-con cold. I had had hopes that today (Sunday) I could pretend to rejoin real life, but then I was awake until 4am. Pfui. I want my lungs back.
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May 30th, 2009
| 11:23 am - You can quote me on this
I, too, would hope and expect that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a (racially- and gender-privileged) white male who hasn’t lived that life.
I am saddened by the backpedaling, and by the perceived need for the backpedaling. She was right the first time.
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May 28th, 2009
 | 08:14 pm - post-con crud
Soooo sick. As sick as one can be without effluvia? Almost. I have never been so wiped by a cold before. (My understanding is that sneezing & sinus involvement rule out swine flu. Unless Occam has given up shaving and I have BOTH.)
Thanks for soup, sweetie.
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May 24th, 2009
| 12:07 am
Am finding myself rather better able to deal w/ people online than in person--midnight at Wiscon & I'm in room flipping thru email, Twitter & LJ instead of @ parties-- some of it is certainly the INSANE NOISE LEVEL in real life. Hmmm--and unlike IRL, never fumble for a word here or find that all my nouns have fled, typing. Just slower pace, or actual neurological significance?
Anyway. Came to say 2 things.
1) if you are at Wiscon and see me, please come say Hi. I know you're out there, but having very bad time reading faces/badges and correlating with assorted usernames. I'll be in a denim bustier, knitting sthg purple.
2) People in a position to listen to any re-broadcast tmw of this morning's Whad'ya Know may find a delightful surprise in the 4th half-hour. (tho I really loved the author guest near the beginning. What a cutie, in his work boots plaid flannel and shy smile)
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