Below are the most recent 25 friends' journal entries.

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Tuesday, January 5th, 2010
sethrenn	7:49p	One of those rare appeals for help that we post or pass on only when it's something genuinely serious: An 11-year-old autistic boy is facing charges of assault against two employees of his school district (he fought back when they tried to restrain him; there were no serious injuries to anyone). He's already been institutionalized once, which his family says was a terrible experience, and he wasn't able to mourn the death of his 3-year-old sister with the rest of the family, due to being locked up; depending on the outcome of his case, he may face institutionalization once again, this time labeled as a convicted felon. His family does not have the money for adequate legal representation; he has a public defender assigned to his case, but this person apparently knows little about autism. His case is coming up on January 12, so this is a very urgent matter. Here's a radio interview with his grandmother. Unfortunately, there is currently no transcription of the interview, but perhaps someone who listens to it can do one. His grandmother has started up a fund to help with fighting the charges. Also, if you can do so, please contact media outlets in the Fort Smith, Arkansas area asking them to cover Zakh's case; the family is hoping to find a pro bono attorney to handle the case, but they need more publicity. More on that here. Again, if you can do something to help, anything at all, please do something, even if it's just writing one letter or donating a small amount of money, and passing the word around to others. The real freedom of a real person, one who's already had a traumatic experience of being institutionalized and will absolutely not benefit in any way from going back to one or being labeled as a criminal, is at stake, and it's never enough to stand by and assume that "someone else" will do something. Thanks to Cat in a Dog's World for alerting us to this. (Comment on this)
heron61	6:32p	Remarkably nifty toy Here's info and a video on a very cool looking iphone (& ipod touch) controlled microcopter. Once I get an ereading tablet, this is going to be next on my list of gadgets to acquire (assuming the price is not too high and all the bugs are worked out). I imagine our cats will learn to either loathe or ignore it :) Of course, given that this is effectively a mobile spy camera platform, I imagine that people will find all manner of amusing and annoying uses for it. Here's more info + another video. Current Mood: impressed (Comment on this)
heron61	5:45p	Poly visibility Yet another article about polyamory. Almost all of the examples are het, but the article does mention that close connection with the bi community. In any case, we're definitely becoming more visible. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
rikoshi	3:56p	A Brief Announcement The meerkat is my new spirit animal. I will explain more later. Current Mood: devious (5 Comments |Comment on this)
heron61	2:06a	Intellectual Dilettantism teaotter and I were talking today about who we found it odd that some people who are close to aren’t intellectual dilettantes. I’ve always read widely [[1]], and watch a wide range of shows on the history & discovery channels & PBS. I have a general grounding in pretty much every field of social and physical science, from anthropology to zoology, and a (often rather vague) grasp of most eras of history. What I have a hard time doing is focusing in detail on one topic. I’d vastly rather learn a little about many things than a lot about one topic. Becca feels exactly the same way. I definitely have topics that I'm more interested in – I’m most interested in space travel, the history of technology, social history, trends in modern consumer electronics, alternate energy generation technology, and a few other areas, but I lack a specialist’s interest in focusing on a small subset of a topic and gaining an actual understanding of it, and I almost exclusively indulge my knowledge at the level of books and other media designed for intelligent and interested amateurs. Unsurprisingly, this is one of the reasons that I never completed my PhD, since those by definition require specialization, and it bores me. I’d rather watch a TV show on the history of refrigeration, read a book about the social history of 19th century Shanghai, and then read a long magazine article about the latest ideas about human evolution. What struck Becca as odd is that some of the people we know, and in fact some of the people we are close to, including amberite is considerably more focused on her interests. Some of her interests shift and expand, but her tastes often involve studying one topic very extensively, rather than shifting between a myriad of more lightly studied topics. In our conversation, Becca and I both realized that we were puzzled both by the desire to focus so much on any single topic and by the lower of general interest that is pretty much an inevitable consequence of having a specialist’s interest. It was odd to realize that I really don’t understand why someone would focus when there’s so much out there of potential interest. Of course, while wonders like wikipedia and the internet as a whole are a generalist's paradise, RPG writing is pretty much the only living that I've found that makes use of my interests. [[1]] At least in non-fiction – I’ve no interest in fiction that isn’t SF, fantasy, or very occasionally mystery or horror Current Mood: contemplative (9 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, January 4th, 2010
rikoshi	6:22p	Furry Fiesta is a go! I have my flights purchased. I have my hotel reserved. I have my PTO approved. Furry Fiesta is happening. Let's do this, y'all. Current Mood: excited (4 Comments |Comment on this)
draegonhawke	6:29p	You see a character whose hair has inexplicably changed. They possess the ability to perform amazing leaps and flying tricks, and to shoot great bolts of energy from their hands. You begin to hypothesize what's happened here. Your first guess is: Poll #1507298 Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 8 Well, go on, then. View Answers They've gone Super-Saiyan. 7 (87.5%) They've regenerated wrong. 1 (12.5%) Take your time. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
rikoshi	2:11p	"The Seventh Chakra" Back Cover Text There's less than a month to go before my book is released! I'm really, really excited, but I'll try to keep my ebullience under wraps. In the meantime, I'll instead keep folks sated with some new tidbits and material here and there. Here's the back cover blurb for The Seventh Chakra. Arkady Ryswife is a devout member of the Iolite League, a religious society dedicated to building the better world of the future. Behind the scenes, however, he is an elite soldier, a member of a covert wing of the League that ensures its ends are met where peaceful means do not suffice. These operatives have a mission to recover crucial fragments of the world's lost, fractured history. Arkady's team is not the only one willing to kill for these relics—just the best. At least, until a fatal mistake leaves the team in shambles on the eve of what may be the most important mission of their lives. Forced back into the field without delay, Arkady and his companions must recover a piece of data that the League has been seeking for years. Still reeling from their loss, they must go behind enemy lines, outsiders in a notoriously xenophobic nation. Isolated and suspicious of betrayal at every turn, they plunge into the web of one of the world's most astonishing mysteries, a journey from which none of them will return unscathed. (Point of fact: I was never, ever, ever happy with the back cover text I wrote for Thousand Leaves, so much that it still kinda haunts me to this day. I like this a lot better, and I think it does a good job of giving hints at the plot without spoiling anything. As someone who usually doesn't even read back cover text until I've read half of the book itself, that's very important to me!) Current Mood: excited (8 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, January 3rd, 2010
myaru	11:19p	Links + Saiunkoku book 15 speculation. First, links. Never Stop Dreaming - MYSTINA SHRINE, PEOPLE. GO GO GO. It's good. I found out about it when elenen PMed me to ask about my Material Collection translations (which I can see now need some editing) and well, a shrine to Mystina is just plain awesome. It makes me wish I'd made one to Hrist. I guess that'd be a better use of my webspace than this, but I mean, no web skills here. Tell Me Your Thoughts On... - a Livejournal community dedicated to asking interesting meta questions and fostering discussion. I'm going to respond to #3 of the current post... eventually. I need to get some work done first. Xenogears: A Rope of Robots - Xenogears script parody. Seriously awesome. So awesome, in fact, it made me cry-- from laughing too much, of course. (It reminded me of how utterly painful D Block was, too, but that wasn't the good kind of crying.) I linked to this before, but I think that was a locked entry. fe_contest - a Fire Emblem writing community to take the place of the defunct FE Drabble, this time with variable word count requirements instead of a strict five hundred per drabble. The first challenge is still going on, if you're interested. . Okay, book fifteen of Saiunkoku. Since my response is just a jumble of thoughts, it's probably better suited to a list instead of paragraphs of me ranting. final_account has translations posted here, because she's amazing: Saiunkoku novel translations for book 15: Prologue Chapter one - part 1 --part 2 Chapter one - conclusion Basically, the coup plot is coming along nicely, and a lot of supernatural plot elements are showing up all of the sudden - and I do mean it's sudden. We discussed this somewhere else, probably via PM, but the author didn't set up half the stuff she's throwing into the plot now - Shuurei's inability to leave Kiyou without suffering dire consequences, for instance, or the significance of the Sa family shrine (and others like it in each province). She covers her ass with a conversation in chapter one between Shouka and Shou, in which they discuss the impact Shuurei's Sa province journey had on her, and why he let her go-- but there was no hint of such a problem in the earlier books, it sounds like. The thing with Shuurei's body only starts around book ten or eleven, doesn't it? Maybe I'm wrong. Anyway. I didn't check over the chapters to verify my memory because I'm in a hurry, but... ( OMG spoilers. ) Thank you so much for translating and sharing, Charmian~~~~ Current Music: Shoujo Kakumei Utena - Revive Infinite History [Medium Aevum] (33 Comments |Comment on this)
luna_manar	2:24p	Chatty Man, I have nothing to talk about. Banana bread is awesome. Does anyone have any tips for keeping cold air from wafting in from the fireplace? The flue is broken, so until I have a chance to get that fixed, we have a heat leak something awful. I think Owen is going to quit Target. This store has been nothing but rotten to him, as compared to the comfortable working environment he had at his old store. We may be living on my paycheck and art commissions for a while. But it will be nice to have someone home taking care of things, as I've been working some really long hours and haven't had the energy to keep up with things at the house lately. It is so cold (compared to what I'm used to) and I am loving it. I need to do some drabbles. I have so much story backup in my head, I need to spew some of it onto a screen. I will be sacrilegious in saying that my only interest in seeing Avatar is all the pretty colors. I am in no hurry to see it. I think that's partially because everyone is talking about it, and as a result, my desire to have anything to do with it is diminished. It's not that I think the movie will be bad, but I think that my lack-of-expectations about it have already been compromised, and I like going into movies/books/games having no idea what they really are. Otherwise, whatever it is they make me think/feel, I'm too concerned that someone else has already thought/felt it, and so it tarnishes the newness for me. Is that weird? It's not as selfish as it sounds; it's not that I'm jealous (although it is frustrating), it's that I can't get past the feeling that my reactions aren't mine; I've already seen someone squee over something, so when I start to feel squee-ish about it, I'm strongly aware that my reaction may have been influenced by someone else's, and that knowledge deadens the feeling a bit. I don't like having my feelings dampened. I want them to be raw. And the only way I can feel things without being distracted, is when it's just me, myself and I, without any preconceptions of what it is I'm about to experience. I hate being shown things; I like to find things. My cars need maintenance. I love my cars, but they are expensive little beasts. I'm thinking about $200 for the next appointment; I need tires rotated, oil replaced, transmission service, and some weatherproofing, as I have no garage (one day I'll fix that). I miss my dad. Current Mood: bored (9 Comments |Comment on this)
luna_manar	3:30a	Whoopee, change of scenery. Just for a while. I may change it back; I'm kind of attached to the old horrible color scheme, and I saved it just to be sure. Kudos to anyone who recognizes the background. (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, January 2nd, 2010
luna_manar	6:01p	Of the Two It really interests me that people reacted with unanimous sentiment to this post. The very idea of losing one's mind was far worse than the prospect of cancer. But it's interesting to me that that's true. My grandmother died with Alzheimer's. One of my good friends died of a Brain Tumor. Of the two, I think I can say with certainty that the brain tumor victim suffered the most. Because of the way the tumor progressed, she exhibited Alzheimer-like symptoms. She forgot who people were, or how hold they were, and what year it was. She forgot how old she was. She forgot she was married. She forgot she had children. Her vocabulary got smaller and smaller until she sounded like a five year old when she spoke. Her sense of balance deteriorated; she leaned sideways all the time, and if you gently sat her up straight, she would get annoyed with you for "pushing her over." In her last days, she could not see, hear, or speak. She died in silence. My grandmother, by contrast, forgot people, and names, and dates...but her personality never changed. She did not become someone I didn't know, she just became someone who didn't know me. I can't say that was a cakewalk; actually, it was quite awful, for me. And I think she did get confused and annoyed and sad, sometimes. I think she felt alone. But she did not lose herself...she just didn't know anyone else. She died of a stroke as a latent result of the Alzheimer's, but she died instantly and in her sleep. She did not endure the physical and mental anguish I saw in Donna. She got to the point she did not know what was happening to her...and that was actually a good thing. Freed of her memories, freed of her responsibilities, all she had to live for was one day at a time, and she certainly had a good time when we visited her. I think, more than anything, what's frightening about Alzheimer's isn't just the loss of one's memories and faculties, it's the idea that you might lose the people who love you. Not that you'll forget them, but that they will abandon you, because of your condition, because it's too sad or too frustrating. It's the idea of dying confused, crippled, and alone. However, if you have an attentive family, if your friends stay with you, if you're always surrounded by people who care about you, I think that can really help. It wouldn't be quite so bad, that way. I'd rather feel loved by total strangers than remember everyone and everything and feel like no one cares... Which is the plight Donna faced, I think. Her visitors dwindled as she got sicker. She spent most nights in the hospital, and they had to turn her over sometimes just so she wouldn't get bed sores. The only person who was with her when she died was her son, and she could not see or hear him. I was told that this kind of thing is sadly typical of brain cancer victims. There's a strange tendency for people to purposely avoid friends and relatives they know to be dying. Partially, it's an emotional defense; not having to face death, just letting a person disappear from your life, instead, because it's easier. Partially, we're wired to avoid the sick and the dying, even if our rational mind knows it isn't contagious. So too, Alzheimer's patients. I think the fact my grandmother wasn't abandoned had a lot to do with her going peacefully. Given the choice between her death and Donna's, I would have chosen hers. But it is true that not all cancers are neuroblastoma. Most cancers are treatable, and if you do have terminal cancer, usually you're given something nice to kill the pain and fear. Most people don't lose their memories, even as they lose their lives and their friends. There's no real point to this post, other than it just got me thinking. I'm not sure I would choose cancer quite so quickly if I were basing my choice on compromised Sense of Self. Cancer can certainly take away the same things as Alzheimer's does. I guess that's why I based the choice on how I would be cared for (good drugs, I get to stay home, vs experimental or no drugs, I have to stay in an assisted living place somewhere). Both diseases are just as scary to me, but I think that if I had cancer, I'd be somewhat less likely to be abandoned and forgotten. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, January 1st, 2010
myaru	12:07a	December Monthly Review / 2009 Yearly review Original - Empress Project: Star Home (draft 2; myth/sf; complete; + 1136 words, 8598 total) Fire Emblem 9/10 - Fragment (Sephiran/Zelgius - 637 words) - Blameless (Lehran, Sanaki - 819 words) - Elysium AU #5: Mercy (Sanaki, Ashera, Sigrun, Elincia, Lehran - 9353 words) - Amnesty (Sanaki, Sephiran - 1108 words) - The Child-Like Empress 5/5 (Sephiran, Sanaki, senators - 6778 words; complete) Fire Emblem 6/7 - Blood and Green (Lugh, Chad - 2193 words) - Morning Stars (Hellene, Zephiel - 500 words) - The Engagement Party (Pent, Douglas - 1095 words) Saiunkoku - Exchange fic - title will be added after voting Other - progress on that Percival story (FE6) - unfinished Midia fic meant for challenge one at fe_contest (FE1/3/11) - Rant on Elantris (spoilers), entry on the Swordspoint series in general. ( ...and a bit more for the yearly count. ) I guess it's good to know I technically have it in me to write a novel or two in a year. Now, if only I could shave the time down a bit more. I only achieved one of the five writing goals I set at the end of 2008: bumping my monthly word count closer to 30K. (Note some months were a total failure, but most of the year worked out great!) This year, I'll try for 40K. If I can push it up to fifty, great, but I think a 10K jump is more than enough. There are other goals, but we may as well not get into that - just in case I fail yet again. December was lacking in pretty much every way but word count. I need to read more, and learn how to put books down when they're not working - without feeling guilty about it. (Comment on this)
Thursday, December 31st, 2009
ihcoyc	11:46p	In 15 minutes, the Future arrives! Flying cars! Space Food Sticks! Transparent domes sprouting like mushrooms, everywhere! Bald headed women! Happy New Year to one and all! But the Future.... somehow, it didn't work out, did it? No future, no future for you! Current Music: oni wytars - stella splendens in monte (2 Comments |Comment on this)
myaru	8:29p	[Meme] DVD Commentary + Year of fic in review, etc. You know those end-of-the-year meme things everyone floods your F-list with on the thirty-first? Yeah, those. Have some more of it. 1. Choose one of my fics and I'll do a DVD commentary for it. For a list of fics, see: 1. runiclore, the fic journal. 2. Monthly Review tag I've done the meme before; you can see which ones here, so there are no repeats. The next meme is restricted to fan fiction, since my feelings about my original projects are mixed, and nobody has read them anyway. 2. My favorite story this year (of my own): Despite it being a failure in the realm of creativity, Glory For a Fallen King (FE6) is still my favorite. ( Best story, the most unappreciated, etc., all in my biased opinion... ) Current Mood: icon is relevant (6 Comments |Comment on this)
heron61	7:34p	Holiday Lessons & Musings teaotter & I got back home last night, and amberite arrives home on Sunday evening. We spent the previous 3 days visiting shadowmorphic, lyssabard, tlttlotd, and waterfire741, and Alice is still visiting them. Unlike the visit to my parents, this part of the visit was absolutely lovely and wonderful. Here’s a bit of what the holidays brought me. Polyamory remains amazing and wonderful. The joy of seeing one of my partners cuddling with one of her long-distance loves is amazing and joyful. There was also an abundance of non-romantic cuddling for all of us that was equally excellent. I am again struck by the joy that is unique to polyamory of seeing two of my loves cuddling and being romantic with one another or of one of my partners doing the same with someone else and sharing while my other partner and I look on with love and bliss. I am both overjoyed with the relationships that I have and also pleased to share them. I loathe my parents. They are a wonderfully useful source of expensive gifts and occasionally of money, and if it wasn’t for that, I’d never deal with them again. They are older now and considerably more pathetic, but no less mean-spirited, emotionally abusive, manipulative, or cruel. I continue to look forward to inheriting their wealth. I will not miss them. My ipod touch is very close to being the ideal easily portable device. Email, ebooks, free sms, web-browsing, note-taking, maps, and occasionally music were all used regularly. At this point, my only complaint (other than having to also carry a phone) is that a 3.5” screen is a bit too small. If it had a 4.5”-5” screen but was otherwise identical, it would be my ideal portable device. I’ll want something a bit larger for at-home ebook reading, but it’s an absolute gem. I already miss lyssabard, tlttlotd, waterfire741, and most especially shadowmorphic, and look forward to them all visiting us in 2010 and too seeing them again in any location. As much as I love my friends there, I dislike the DC area, both for the size and traffic, and for the culture. Portland, and the upper portion of the West Coast is comfortable and home, and most of the East Coast feels socially regressive and alien. On a side note, many of my observations of the DC area were summed up in visiting the high end grocery store Balducci’s . It’s exclusively an East Coast chain, and I’m not at all surprised. It sold utterly vile food for exceedingly high prices. The produce looked mostly good and the meat was acceptable (but neither were organic and cost most than high end organics normally do), but the rest of the food was horrid – fancy $6/lb applesauce where the 2nd ingredient was high fructose corn syrup (which tastes terrible, even if you aren’t avoiding for health reasons) and more egregious of all, fancy $8.00/lb “cheese” which contained large amounts of vegetable oil as an extender – IOW the sort of crappy fake cheese you normally find in low-end snacks sold for the same price as high end cheese. Definitely a place to avoid. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
luna_manar	2:16p	Right. So. Owen has H1N1. On his birthday. Best new year ever. Current Mood: sigh... (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, December 28th, 2009
myaru	3:59p	Flash fiction: what makes it, what breaks it? During my third semester in the creative writing program at SF State, I took a flash fiction class. Two things inspired me to do this, one good, one not so good: first, I wanted to learn the craft of short-short fiction, because I think I should try everything once, and be able to write as many types of fiction as possible for the sake of versatility. You never know when someone will email you and ask if you can whip up X number of words for this thing they're doing, right? Secondly, I-- I admit it - I only had nine credits worth of classes, needed three more, and thought the reading load in a flash fiction class would be much lighter than, say, a class on memoirs, or - worse - a class on monologues, which would require several performances in front of one's fellow students. Since public speaking and I do not get along, you can imagine how I felt about that. I had two slave-driving professors that semester, so I do not regret my choice. However, it's undeniable I did badly in that class. The A on my transcript is definitely for effort instead of success. (But the reading load was so light that I cried - in joy.) Officially, flash fiction ranges from 400 to 1000 words; most magazines that accept it require that you accomplish it in under a thousand, but I haven't seen a minimum word limit. Drabble communities I'm familiar with set limits anywhere from 100 to 500 words, but never more than that. The 500-1000 range in fan fiction has established itself as one-shot territory. Unfortunately for me, the majority of my fan projects falls into the one-shot category, and I find that shaving them down any farther leaves me with ugly holes and choppy prose. Now... it can be argued that the only difference between flash fiction, short stories, novellas, and novels is how you plot, but I don't think that's true all the time. Your plotting can turn a short story into a novel or vise-versa, but you will not fit that same story into a bit of flash fiction. Flash fiction, and its spiritual twin, the drabble, is more suited to expressing a single moment or vivid image-- in the singular. A memory might make a good drabble; if you can boil an argument between characters down to summary and almost no dialogue, perhaps you could turn it into flash fiction. The problem is, there's really no room for dialogue in this format. It's all contemplation, perception, flashes of moments. You have to express your conflict immediately and jump right into a conclusion, epiphany, or whatever you think a story should end with. Obviously there are people who prove me wrong, but the majority of work I read for my class fit into these descriptions. I'm terrible at this. I cannot express anything fully in under seven hundred words, and my problem may be plotting at times, but most often it's just that I assign importance to things that take up space - description, body language, concrete happenings, dialogue - and can't make the mental leap to cut that out and find another way to express the idea. I might achieve a story in under a thousand words, but I will never be good at filling out community prompts that limit me to five hundred. I've tried for years. I even edit - and you know I normally don't bother with editing fan fiction beyond a spell and grammar check, and on occasion some effort to smooth out the prose. For some reason, I just can't grasp the technique. My impression from the class was that I understand the concept but can't express it, but maybe I'm wrong. If I truly understood the way flash fiction worked, you'd think I'd be able to produce a technically appropriate piece. What about other people on the list? I know some of you hate drabbles from other conversations, but have never really asked. Do you prefer to write shorter work, or longer? Do you have trouble meeting low word counts? Is there a quality to drabble fiction that you think should be kept in mind while writing? Even beyond that: can you write a successful drabble, in your opinion? You know my answer. :P (18 Comments |Comment on this)
ihcoyc	2:30p	Tomb of King Cao Cao of Wei discovered The tomb of King Cao Cao of Wei has apparently been discovered. Cao Cao was one of the most powerful kings of the Three Kingdoms period in Chinese history, and a highly successful military commander; literary sources like The Romance of the Three Kingdoms usually treat him as a bad guy. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
ihcoyc	8:29a	Merry Herodmas, folks! Once again, my favorite day in the entire Christmas season rolls around. (Comment on this)
Sunday, December 27th, 2009
myaru	7:26p	FE: I love Minerva too much to leave her alone. Some time ago I had a conversation about FE11's Minerva, and what kind of a country Macedon might be. At the time I hadn't read the FE3 script, which gives a pretty compelling description of the country's history: ( Cut for those who don't care or are avoiding spoilers. ) I don't know, am I off here? It seems reasonable from my perspective. I don't know these scripts as well as Tellius, though. Discussing FE1/3/11 feels a little like jumping off the deep end of, uh, of something. (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, December 26th, 2009
luna_manar	4:46p	Christmas I honestly don't know how to feel about this Christmas. It was a good day, and a bad day, and I'm swamped in debt now, and perhaps for no reason. Boo is not doing well. She's presented with another huge blob on her, this time on her face. She doesn't appear to be in pain, is the thing. She seems happy, the only time she didn't seem happy was right after she had surgery. She's not a young rat. I have done everything I know how to do for her, I'm out of money, and I just...am torn. I know some people would say it's just a rat, it's not a big deal, but you get to know the little creature, and you know they can feel pain, and suddenly it is a big deal. And it's hard, and what makes it worse is that the only vet that's open on weekends is going to charge me $500 just to tell me that it's cancer. And they can't do anything about it unless they confirm it. So...she has to wait over the weekend, and the bulge is steadily getting worse. On Monday I have to go to South Carolina for a family get-together. Owen has to work early in the morning and I have to leave early so I can get there on time. My mother's side of my family are not the kind of people who would appreciate being stood up over a rat. So I don't know how I'm going to get Boo to the vet on Monday. I just don't know. I'm afraid of what will happen by Tuesday. I'm afraid Boo will be in pain. But I can't do anything. I just don't have the funds right now. I've run up a $1000 vet bill, and I can't do anything more. I can barely pay off all the debt I had. I would have been fine, but for this, and I wonder if I should have just...let it end, while she's comfortable. I'm afraid I failed her on that point, and buried myself in credit while doing so. I don't know what to do, I don't know what to do. All I can do is wait, but I'm afraid waiting will hurt her. But having a vet care for her on a holiday weekend would put me in the red. I just can't do it. ...Christmas was good, otherwise. I got a DSi, and I love it. I got a beautiful birdfeeder for the trees outside, and I got the Metallic Dragons Draconomicon. I got Spirit Tracks for my new DS, and some nice stone-and-cork drink coasters I'd been eying at the mall. We went to see The Princess and the Frog, and I thought it was excellent. I wish New Orleans actually was that cool. Maybe it was years ago. I had Christmas in my own house, next to my own fireplace, and I could do anything I wanted. That was so important, and so special for me. It seems like every such moment this year would have been perfect, "if not for..." I hate thinking like that. It's a very bad perspective. But I just keep feeling like I'm being interrupted. Every time I go to relax, and just have a good time, I'm not allowed to. Something always happens. There's always an emergency. I got this house, and moving in should have been wonderful, but my mom made a point of making it awkward and uncomfortable. My job here is great, and I love it, and it's the best thing I've ever done, except Owen's job now sucks, and his boss is rude and mean to him. Christmas would have been perfect, except one of my pets put me over the limit of what I can comfortably handle in bills, and it's going to be for nothing; even if they can save her, I can't pay for it. I'm going to see my family this monday, but I already know my mother is going to embarrass me, because she's still angry about the move. I'm getting hand-me-downs from my parents for Christmas, because they think the help they gave me when moving is good enough present, and won't spend any more money on me. A lot has happened this year. Right now, I'm really uptight, because I have a lot of things to pay off and I'm barely going to be able to do it. I'm okay, I'm not broke, just worried about bills in a way I never have been. I have realistic doubt that Boo is going to live much longer. I'm glad she's been here through Christmas, though. She really has enjoyed the pampering she's gotten. I'm just torn. I don't know how to feel. So many good things are happening, but I have so much stress to look forward to. Current Mood: frustrated (4 Comments |Comment on this)
ihcoyc	2:00p	This is interesting Someone reading the old Babel Text translation into Nuirn to an accompaniment of industrial noise. The pronunciation goes quite astray. Part of the difficulty was occasioned by the langmaker site itself where this was preserved; that site's code would not display 'þ' properly ten years ago when the text was submitted, so both it and muted 't' appear as 'th'. http://ia301530.us.archive.org/2/items/GlebMaltsevBabelo_1/PICHISMOBabelo23_Nuirn.mp3 Slightly corrected source text, a rendition of Genesis 11:1-9: Annúr hædde an viheilen véird le haonur tál yn ath upsanna uôrda. Yn dym fáranai deffrá'n oeste, quammanai a'r an lándu na Sìnar, yn þider stodanai. Yn aidden le haonur a'r upsannam, "Dá vineath. Gceirem na'r teglene, yn viheilenne brenne lem. Yn haddanai tegle æpt stéinn, yn stickem æpt meuerbrycke. Yn aidden, "Dá vineath. Byggem óss stadan, yn teuer le'h an stáng-sa i himri, yn gceirem namn æptensi, ne øfver an viheiles veirdes flattana sæmenest'ui. Quam an Drottan an, forat seen stadan ga'n teuern, som byggde 'n manlungar. Yn aidde 'n Drottan, Sé pá seónan haonur folc, yn hannai haonur tál; yn sy þæt nur an børghenn n'alle som gceirennei; inget som hugainnei sca blian ungceirsem le'm. Vinnem'ui; stithe vóss an, yn tuiflemui an tálar-sa, ne forstáhannai le haonur an tál n'elleres. Dá, sæmed an Drottan dom øfver yn frá dem þeirc an héla na véirde, yn stinteney at byggen an stad. Dá hetistet Babel, for thonna som tuiflede 'n Drottan an tála na héla véirdes, yn deffrá þider sæmed an Drottan dom øfver yn frá dem þeirc an héla na véirde. (Comment on this)
luna_manar	1:30p	Take your pick Here is a cheery article. Which would you rather die from? I'll go with cancer, thanks. Alzheimer's patients don't get awesome painkillers. (5 Comments |Comment on this)
heron61	12:14a	Wonderful story + musings on feminist stories and myths For the last four years, teaotter has taken part in the Yuletide fanfiction exchange, which focuses on rare (or in many cases otherwise completely non-existent) fandoms. This year, there was for some reason a fad for people requesting stories based on songs. Becca requested, and received an amazingly excellent story Will You Bloom Bright And Fierce, based on the well done folks song Disappearing Man written and performed by Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer. The song has a slightly Arthurian vibe, common to much of their music and a somewhat mythic feel. I’ve seen both fairly frequently in pagan influenced music and fiction, and from a feminist perspective, almost all of both fall into one of two categories – they are either appallingly and unconsciously sexist in some sort of deeply horrid essentialist sense, or at best, the song or story is clearly attempting to be feminist, and mostly does OK, but with some moderate and often annoying problems – the stories of Charles De Lint are an excellent example of this sort of thing. The song > Disappearing Man is better than most in this regard, but not perfect (at least from my PoV). However, the story is a wonder, not just because it’s excellent, but because it feels like it dropped in from an alternate world where sexism has largely vanished from storytelling. It’s both a very female-focused story, and one which is devoid of sexism. Reading it was much like noticing how light you feel when you suddenly stop carrying a heavy weight. I am again struck by both this, and to an only slightly lesser extent, the excellent film and impressively non-sexist George Clooney film Up in the Air, that we finally live in a time when people can create stories free from sexism, but that doing so is also shockingly & depressingly rare. The rarest thing is finding a story with a strongly mythic feel that nevertheless manages to avoid recapitulating that sexism that lies so deep in all pre-moderns myths. Most modern stories are not as bad as the musical Young_Frankenstein that my parents spent far too much money to take us all to (which featured among other vileness, a humorous rape scene where the victim falls for her attacker), but for every story, TV show or (rarest of all, US movie) that is most free of sexism or at least of the worst elements of sexism, there are more than fills me with rage or sadness (or both). In any case this very short story is a touch of wonder and hope of the sort that is too rare, but will hopefully become less so. This sort of thing needs to become far more common. Current Mood: impressed (4 Comments |Comment on this)

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