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Phoenix (凤凰)'s Log |
2010-02-07:
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0737 hours - I found Hell! |
Night before last was TV Freakout night. Last night was Oh, That's Why People Get Their Wisdom Teeth Out night, when sleeping was fitful and miserable. This morning? This morning was Oh Fuck, The Goddamn' Dog Pissed On The Floor At Six Fucking O'Clock, Where Is It, Oh SHIT There's Some Of That Too, Oh Look It's In Two Places What A Darling Creature, Oh There's The Piss Too How Lovely morning.
Arrgh.
Will try to write some emails today but it's the last day before six-day school weeks start, so....
Emotional state:  sleepyOn audio: sleepy
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| 2010-02-06:
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0901 hours - still in the city (written at 2:00 |
Note to self:
Checking out new TV shows while you have access to a TV is fine. Checking out Dr. Who at night, knowing some eps are known to be seriously scary, was not so bright, especially knowing you're a wuss about scary film. Opting to watch two eps of a crime show afterwards, especially as an alternative to more of the same? Yeah, don't do that again.
(Marc Warren was in the Dr. Who episode. Took me a while to recognize him, even though he narrated the entire thing, because he wasn't evil. He and David Warner are always evil to me. Makes Hogfather great fun, that.)
Emotional state:  scaredOn audio: scared
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| 2010-01-31:
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0152 hours - po'try |
I wrote some sonnets for the School for Heroes -- one about honor, which was very well-received, so I decided to do the self-portrait assignment using a different sonnet form, and came up with two rather different ones, one of which seemed more suited to here. So I decided to let you lot read all three. Chronological order.
( In which I lift lines from Raffi, Stevie Wonder, and more )
Emotional state:  artisticOn audio: artistic
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| 2010-01-30:
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1215 hours - it's all relative |
Growing up I have always understood the word "aunt" to have three pronunciations: the one that rhymes with "haunt", which is best but sounds a little affected; the one that sounds like "ant", which is dialectically appropriate but undignified; and the one that rhymes with "saint", which means any one of my Texan great-grandaunts. (My maternal grandmother's aunts, both sides.) Now I have only one of those left, and indeed only one I really remember, and she's 92, so we're trying to spend more time with her so we won't regret not having done so when she gets old. So we went to visit her yesterday. It was wonderful -- she's sweet as can be, and her daughter who lives with her is probably the cousin I feel most comfortable with, though I'm working on a few others. (I have a zillion cousins, because my great-grandparents on that line both had a zillion siblings.)
It's interesting to me how nonjudgmental and supportive my great-grandaunt is in contrast to her ex-sister-in-law (scary great-grandmother I've mentioned before, whose gay descendants all live in terror of her and who makes clear her disapproval of Mum's parenting at every opportunity,) given that they're from the same approximate place and time, but took what they were given and went completely opposite directions with it. Also interesting is how both of them have maintained a pretty strong dialect, but my great-grandaunt has a much stronger Texas accent despite having left there earlier -- maybe that's a personality thing too? I've decided that I much prefer spending time with my great-grandaunt, especially with her daughter there too.
Visiting my grandmother this coming week, may see other relatives (she's openly sick of my not having talked to gay cousins properly since I came out, so I daresay she'll try to arrange that) and/or do exciting San Francisco things. Expect to maybe hear from me.
Interesting side effect of Merlin's having a new computer: he's been hugging me more, when I help him with things mostly. I think this is also linked to his increasing ability to back down in fights and eagerness to be helpful (he's learning to cook, and is very sweet about sharing out treats and such.) He's getting more mature, and part of that is feeling and showing appreciation when people do things for him. I feel kind of like parent #3 with him, and I definitely helped raise him in a way I wasn't old enough to do with the others, so I feel ridiculously proud of him sometimes. Right now is one of them. Oh, he's not perfect, and he was in an unusually temper-y stage before he got to the helpful one, but still, he's a wonderful kid. It makes me glad I'm still home to watch him grow.
Emotional state:  relaxedOn audio: relaxed Emotional state: Bruce Springsteen - Girls In Their Summer ClothesOn audio: Bruce Springsteen - Girls In Their Summer Clothes
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| 2010-01-28:
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1950 hours - erasing and retyping |
I had a post I had started about "religious homeschoolers" (homeschoolers whose motivation is religious, vs. other ideologically-motivated homeschoolers and/or homeschoolers who happen to also hold religious beliefs of some kind but were not motivated by them) that was somewhat unfocused and angry, but I erased it. I did the same thing, the other day, with one about how the disaster in Haiti could have been much, much less horrific if the richer nations now sending them money to clean up had helped to prepare for it instead, and how generally an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure but societies and governments operate on the shorter term and this is a problem, but I erased that too. I haven't started my planned post about Uhura (how Star Trek made me a feminist, version whatever, or in defense of not shipping) but I've written and erased a few mental drafts. My long-planned history of eugenics post is going the same way.
Today I edited my profile -- started with the interests, simplified them and changed criteria, then rewrote the profile to be much briefer. Waffled about whether to include the pronoun bit, because in a cultural context that implicitly puts me in a group I don't feel a part of, and explanations will need to be made. Waffled even harder about linking the NAACP, even though I'm a card-carrying member, because I guess I feel like I shouldn't make a big deal about being anti-racist because it looks like trying to establish cred. But since it's a bit stupid to care about what it looks like, whereas supporting the NAACP is not stupid at all, I decided to go with the non-stupid option in the end. Which reminds me, I was going to make a post about being an ally, how to and why one should.
The reality is that I'm away next week, and then I'm on-campus six days a week, and so I won't probably write most of this stuff for a long time. There's never enough time to write all the stuff you want, especially if you keep wussing out.
Emotional state:  lazyOn audio: lazy
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| 2010-01-27:
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1838 hours - more on computers |
Merlin got his netbook the other day, and today I finally managed to get Ubuntu's netbook spin on it (tools to make USB sticks replace install/liveCDs aren't really there in most cases, I don't think, but as it turns out Ubuntu-for-netbooks has a built-in one that is) and tweak the GUI a bit. When he gets back from the park we'll modify whatever else he wants changed together.
(The more I work with it, though, the more I can't help thinking I shouldn't have encouraged him to get the pink -- I'll be using this part-time during the semester, and while I like pink in the right settings, I hate the idea of using a pink netbook in front of strangers because what will they think? Which is hypocritical of me, because I believe in affirming the value of the feminine and I actually have taught (or helped to teach) my brothers to be unashamed of any girly things they like, but I still haven't really taught myself that. Though I'd probably be okay with purple.)
Merlin named his computer Ivanova, very smug about having beaten me to the name. This means he has joined me in the fictional character camp, rather than going with the rest of the family: my computer is currently Landru, having been previously Juanita (after the Snow Crash character) and Horatio (Hornblower) because I am superstitious and change my computers' names to end bad-luck streaks; my parents and sister have Harmony, Integrity, and Community, following the theme they started in the '90s of naming their computers after values/virtues, and my mum's netbook is Ipso-facto because it's an Eee PC and it's nicknamed Ipsy, get it? (We also had an ancient Sparc once named Hex because of its size, but I picked that one's name too.)
Meanwhile, my dad has switched his old laptop from Kubuntu to the lighter-weight Ubuntu spinoff WattOS, which he seems to love. I'm probably going to help my sister's best friend (a family friend, but especially close to her) set up Ubuntu on his laptop at some point, too. Because I am currently of the opinion that Ubuntu and its derivatives are the best distros in terms of being beginner-friendly without being power-user-unfriendly, and that makes them ideal for non-hackers to get over their fear of the scary, geeky thing that is Linux.
Incidentally, Matisse's friend also wants to watch some Star Trek with us. Picking episodes is proving to be difficult -- we'll only have him for a weekend, see. Advice, fellow Trekkies?
Emotional state:  cheerfulOn audio: cheerful Emotional state: The Indigo Girls - Three County HighwayOn audio: The Indigo Girls - Three County Highway
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| 2010-01-25:
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1442 hours - phobia, continued |
Dear people around me:
Stop appointing yourselves to be my special telephone-phobia therapists. In particular, cut out the part where you refuse to make calls for me "for my own good" because you "don't think it will help me" and therefore forcing me to go through the trauma must be the best way to cure me. Here's the deal: I don't want a cure at that price. I'll work around it and pray for the obsolescence of telephones as we know them and that's fine, really, I can handle that lifestyle. But I'm not going to take myself through the panic and sickness again and again on the off-chance that it will pay off long-term, because that to me is not worth it. And you aren't qualified to prescribe treatment for my psychological issues anyway (well, except my grandmother, who hasn't given me that kind of pressure.)
Sincerely,
Phoenix
Emotional state:  pissed offOn audio: pissed off
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| 2010-01-23:
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1722 hours - shall we sing Baby Beluga together? |
A couple of weeks ago, Matisse came back from the park agitated, and complained that she had spent the entire time biting her tongue because she wanted so badly to tell some of the parents there off for raising their kids wrong. Her chief objections were to the father of a toddler who ridiculed the child for not being able to play a game as well as the nine/ten-year-olds he was playing with, and the mother of a little girl who -- having taken the child's rainboots off -- was saying "no, no, no, don't play in the water, it's dirty!" and dragging the little one away from a reasonably clean puddle as though seriously convinced that she could take a small child to a park and bring them back clean.
( On parenting and gender, with BONUS RAFFI!!!!! )
Emotional state:  surprisedOn audio: surprised Emotional state: Raffi - Baby BelugaOn audio: Raffi - Baby Beluga
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| 2010-01-21:
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2144 hours - so, uh |
Have not been around much because it's been fearfully rainy and fairly windy, and so the power keeps going out. And when it's been on, I've been hacking my Gentoo side. I'm getting 1337er by the second.
Snippets:
-Got my permit to drive, so now when it stops being so stormy and dangerous I can step up my learning-to-drive stuff. Yay! DMV guy made me redo the eye test even though the optometrist filled out the form all proper, grr. Next time I'm just asking for the form, 'cause I'll never pass their test but my optometrist understands my problems.
-Merlin has been very cranky lately. His latest meltdown, today, was that he wanted a netbook like Mum's, and some people were concerned that he might not be ready for his own computer. Tension and upsets resulted. Mum eventually helped him look up the different models and he at first wanted one like hers, but pink (hers is blue) only that turned out to cost a lot. So then he was thinking maybe a white one, but I suggested considering a similar model that was cheaper instead, and after evaluating the pros and cons he decided that it would do, especially since he could get it in his preferred color that way. Mum asked if he were sure, which upset him because he felt like she was trying to stop him from getting it at all. (I should mention that he's spending most of his past allowances on this, so it's not that he's spending family funds.) It's sorted and ordered, and I'm downloading Cruncheee for him to try (also at his request.) Matisse thinks this is all a bad idea. *sighs*
(I get to borrow the netbook in exchange for his being allowed my machine, during the semester. I think this is an all-around win.)
-Seriously, you guys, it is wet. I know people where it snows can be scornful of rain, but with mudslides and trees/branches falling (redwoods don't, usually, but firs do) we get a lot of power losses and roads going out, not to mention the property damage, so when I say it's storming, understand that this is not much ado about nothing. I do love rain, but it's better when it doesn't mean losing power every day for hours/every week for days.
Emotional state: sleepyOn audio: sleepy
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| 2010-01-19:
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0123 hours - tossing my two cents into the slash debate |
I've been watching a conversation that seems to go like this:
Gay cis men: Slash is straight women fetishizing us and should stop.
Straight (cis) women who slash: No it's not/don't harsh our squee!
Everyone else who slashes: Um... guys? We're here too. Actually we think there are more of us.
Gay cis men: You're still not US!
Me: *facepalm*
( On lesbian porn vs. slashfic )
That said, I've got a personal history with slash, too.
( Ah, those were the days )
Emotional state:  aggravatedOn audio: aggravated
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| 2010-01-15:
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2238 hours - what is a gamer? |
I watched today a video about why there are so few girl gamers (ultimate theory: sexist marketing practices.) It rubbed me the wrong way, well-intentioned as it was, and I wanted to talk about why, because I do that sort of thing. There are several irritating ideas I want to address.
( Cut for length and hostility )
The reason girls/women don't play games, Serious Gamers? It's because you've defined "games" as the sort that (mostly men) play on consoles, and written us out of the history books for good measure.
Emotional state:  irritatedOn audio: irritated
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| 2010-01-13:
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1934 hours - another day |
Best WTF of the day's arguments: "one of the reasons of marriage is that (hopefully) fewer children will be born out of wedlock." Uhhh....
Side WTF: commenter on the post, discussing monogamy in gay women, asks how one can define infidelity when penetration is not in the picture. Because only having penetrative sex counts as cheating, apparently. My one-word response to this would be "handjobs."
Gender fail from the comments: I post, commenting on the specific statistics and so forth being about men, and the generic image of a gay person being the (young, white, well-off, childless) male variety, and how it might be good to discuss women specifically -- and someone immediately responds to tell me that, as half of the plaintiffs are men, it would be wrong to specifically talk about women. *facepalm*
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| 2010-01-12:
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1556 hours - feeling ill |
"I’ve never before been on trial, but today every gay or lesgbian [sic] person in the country is on trial." -Rick Jacobs
Reading the Prop. 8 trial liveblogs (the Supremes not letting them put the video up on YouTube may be a good thing; we're getting all of it anyway and I prefer transcripts in cases like these) and I have to agree with Rick. It hurts -- the rhetoric, the reminders of history, the stupid questions -- and I can't stop watching, even though I know it won't end here no matter how they rule. It's scary too, even as I'm aware that California is still one of the best places to be queer anywhere.
A few things that stood out for me:
Discussion of polygamy appears to be confusing it with patriarchal polygyny, that is, one man having multiple wives (implication that he is the "head of the household" and they are subordinate.) Talking about that, the argument that it's not implied by same-sex marriage is valid, because that form of polygamy is not an equal partnership of consenting individuals under most circumstances. (Individual relationships, of course, have power dynamics not necessarily consistent with the general expectation.) But as I have dear friends and relatives who practice or have practiced consensual polyamory, I find the equation of the two offensive and troubling. I wonder how long before kids like my brothers' best friends, who have three parents and are not all legally related, can have their family protected by law?
Historian: "Estimate at the height of the [Red] scare, the State Dept. fired more 'homosexuals' than communists." I'd put communist in quotes too, because like all terms used in witch hunts it was applied to any enemy they could, but I'm trying to not alter the original too much. Regardless, this is a little bit of history I didn't know, though it's consistent with what I did -- it's easy, when "homosexuals" are a target, to use it as a sort of catch-all for troublemakers, because it's relatively easy to fake and hard to disprove; I believe the Nazis did this too with certain political enemies.
They're on Anita Bryant. Ugh.
So, yeah, I'm not being very productive -- I owe several people emails, for one thing -- because I basically read some, get upset, play some Avernum 6 (AWESOMERAD game, harder than its predecessors and I have a feeling I'm playing it wrong) and then repeat the process. I'm getting physically ill over this.
Emotional state:  sickOn audio: sick
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| 2010-01-10:
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0001 hours - The owl and the pussycat went to sea in a beautiful pea-green boat |
Today was my grandfather's memorial. it was 120+ people, all told. My siblings and I, and one cousin, gave performances: Merlin told one of my grandfather's favorite jokes, I recited one of his favorite poems (The Owl and the Pussycat, which I did with funny voices) and the others had musical contributions. There were funny anecdotes, snippets of opera he particularly liked, the requisite slideshow of his life, and poems. It was nice, light-hearted for the most part with sober bits and of course occasional tears.
Afterwards there was the requisite Talking To People I Know I'm Related To But Don't Remember How (some cousins, an uncle) and Meeting People I've Heard All About But Never Met (my grandfather's sister, another uncle, my grandmother's business partner, my newest cousin-in-law.) I had the Gay Cousin Talk, not with either of the gay cousins I had figured it would be with -- my mum's first cousins, one recently-out and the other apparently always -- but with my mum's second cousin I didn't know was gay before. We're all related in a line that connects through my homophobic great-grandmother, incidentally -- my grandmother thinks this may indicate a genetic factor that might also explain said homophobia (suppressed tendencies towards the non-heterosexual often correlating with said type of bigotry.) At any rate this cousin was very nice and I hope to see her again soon -- it'd been a long time. Still need to talk to the other ones -- I haven't since I came out to the family three years or so ago. Yeah, I know.
I think the best bit was somehow having my soul-uncle (Mum and Dad's best friend from before I was born, who has been much less present for a number of years but is finally getting back into our lives) there to share with us. Having him around so much more lately feels wonderful -- the best was on my mum's birthday, when both he and my brother-in-all-but-blood, who I don't see nearly enough because he's at school, were here. It feels good having this kind of chosen family in addition to the wonderful blood family I was born into.
They say blood is thicker than water. As I tried to tell the people at the memorial today, before I began to recite, I don't think I agree. I grew up with three grandfathers. One died refusing to see me or any of his other grandchildren. Another I have seen twice in my memory, though he's alive and well and not far away. The one I said goodbye to today was the only one who was family to me, and he was my mum's stepdad. Blood's nothing. Love's what counts.
Emotional state:  drainedOn audio: drained
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| 2010-01-05:
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1540 hours - ... |
My dad, some time ago, switched to Linux, but opted to use WinXP in a virtual machine. However, for some reason the license key that came with his computer didn't work, so today he called Microsoft about it. After making him enter the key again, etc. to prove that the problem really existed, they said he'd need a new key and would therefore have to call Dell, the manufacturer, as Microsoft doesn't give out new keys. So my dad calls Dell, and explains the problem in detail, what he's done and what Microsoft said and all that jazz. The Dell rep says they never give out new keys, which means either she or the Microsoft rep is talking out of their rear and has no idea what they're doing. Based on her closing comment, the Dell rep seems like the one; her parting advice to him?
"You should call Linux."
Yeah. He gave up. WELL PLAYED, MICROSOFT AND DELL!
Emotional state:  shockedOn audio: shocked
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| 2010-01-03:
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2330 hours - tidbits |
Tips for spammers: If you're sending a message titled "hi it's Jenny," don't have the sender's name be "Roger." If you're sending a chatty message opening with the line "Mike asked me to forward this," don't send it from "Discount Rolex online." A message saying I have a message on "our dating site" is unlikely to convince because not only am I not on any dating sites, but real sites would put their names there. Similar for the "I found your profile on the internet" line -- where on the internet? And does anyone seriously buy Russian mail-order brides because of online advertising? (Why Russians, anyway?) Why does all the spam assume I have a penis? You're missing half the market!
My mother and brother have taken to using "awes" (pronounced "oss") instead of "awesome" and I am befuddled. Is this something people generally are doing, or is it just my family?
(Went to bed at 7:30 after six episodes of B5. Watching out of order really makes me aware of how much the characters evolved. The bad bit is that I woke up at 9:00 when my sister's alarm went off and then again at 11:00 when she Skyped me to say when they were coming home, before getting up at noon, so I am now quite tired.)
Emotional state:  amusedOn audio: amused
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0607 hours - whee sleep deprivation |
It's 6:05 and I haven't slept yet. Parents and sister out of town so the lads and I decided to stay up listening to music, watching B5 (five eps so far; we'll do one more in a bit) and in Malcolm's case gaming. We plan dawn to be bedtime. IT'S MADNESS.
P. S. Ivanova is still God. Yisss.
Emotional state:  awakeOn audio: awake
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| 2010-01-01:
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2225 hours - oh, yeah, internet |
Had a short, fun stay in SF. I don't like that city -- I mean, I don't like cities, but SF's really painfully laid out. The six-way intersections, one-way streets, and silent crosswalks/buses* make getting around frustrating no matter what method you use. Grid, please! But it was good to be there to spend time with my grandmother.
Got back and Mum had gotten herself a slightly early birthday present -- a netbook, Eee to be precise -- and wanted me to help her fix it. It came with Windows 7, see, and she didn't want that. It's now purring away on Ubuntu and she's happy. (I think a few features of the thing, especially the behavior of the power button and the irritating touchpad, need work, but I'll admit it's a very cute thing.) Lot easier than setting Dad up with his Linux box, because Mum's a hacker -- I take after her, see -- and so requires less help.
Made an appointment to go in and apply for a driver's license. Next up: written exam. Then, I have to find time to practice driving, with next semester coming up even busier than last semester was. Oy.
Anyway I'm back. I'll probably be around a bit now. Except the boys and I are going to be here without the rest for a couple of days, which may mean I spend all my time rewatching B5 with them or similar.
*Our crosswalks beep and our buses announce stops aloud, for the benefit of the blind. I like this because I am absent-minded and because I like to think that blind people can be independent on the streets of my town.
Emotional state: lazyOn audio: lazy
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| 2009-12-27:
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0110 hours - bye |
Going tomorrow to San Francisco for a few days to stay with my grandmother. Will leave you all with a brief revelation I just had:
The book Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb, which I loved as a child of two or three, can be read as a series of sexual innuendos. (Example: "Hand, hand, fingers, thumb/one thumb, one thumb, drumming on a drum.") This is worse than when I worked out the song "A Whole New World" from Aladdin.
Emotional state:  dirtyOn audio: dirty Emotional state: Guess.On audio: Guess.
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| 2009-12-24:
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2338 hours - of rum and slaughter |
I have a post to make later about racism, and one about healthcare, but today I want to talk about the family. First, Dad.
Dad's not a drinking man. He shares my taste in beer, but hardly ever touches it, and he's no big fan of wine, either. Supposedly as a teen he experimented, but he came out of it free of addiction, so it hasn't greatly impacted his life. However, he read a book last year about rum, and from an anecdote in it he got the charming idea of rum as a traditional Christmas present. From families to the father of the household, specifically. So last year he asked for rum, and received two kinds. This winter, reminded of its existence, he began to buy eggnog to drink it in. The bottle ran low.
Alcohol in my family works thus: when someone imbibes it, Matisse proceeds to tease them mercilessly about how drunk they are (even if they're only mildly tipsy, and acting more reasonable than she normally does.) So today, when a "family present" was revealed to be a shot glass (bought by Dad, who insisted on calling it a "measuring cup" to the great amusement of all present) and Dad's yearly rum had been unwrapped (one of seven presents altogether: two for him, one for the boys, and the rest for the family) Mum, Dad and I decided to measure out the rest of the previous bottle. Dad was singing earlier, which he never does unless there's something on the stereo, insisting that rum doesn't get people drunk, and generally being comical. Now he's arguing that the shot glass isn't a shot glass again. Matisse is greatly amused. I think it's funny, but then I had a couple too.
Today the boys and I did some advance cleaning because my grandmother's coming day after tomorrow, and we didn't want to do our chores all tomorrow. Then we rewarded ourselves with a couple of episodes of Babylon 5, chosen by a series of die rolls and coin flips -- I had forgotten how dark the fifth season is, but remembered most of the commentary on the second-season ep we wound up watching -- and followed that with some of the Scottish Falsetto Sockpuppet Theatre on YouTube, and played a few hands of Zar, as we were alone in the house and could freely do these things.
Speaking of watching stuff, we're into the fourth season of Futurama, which seems to us less funny than the earlier seasons. Also I'm sick of Bender. Still pretty good except for the bad bits.
Haven't been writing much as I've been busy conquering people. Matisse and I have reinvented a lot of history -- did you know Attila the Hun's two chief weapons were tons of castles and a cracking navy? Or that Mongols teamed up with the Japanese, Persians, and British to wrest the Black Forest region from the control of the Mayans and their allies? Neither did we, before. Ah, Age of Kings.
Emotional state:  tipsyOn audio: tipsy
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