jinian

Argh, cramps. I have things to do, body! Don't fuck with me for no reason! (Maybe I will try this wild yam root, though I'm pretty sure it's the thing in the greenhouse that the manager says is chock-full of estrogen, which might be trouble.) The acupuncturist who can kill them isn't available for some reason, but I might see one of the lesser practitioners today.

I liked this Socimages post about how everyone could play up their body differences instead of trying to obscure them.

Waiting for the confocal sales reps to finish installing our new motorized stage! Can't really start anything until they're done. Hence, links:

New stuff:
Nawal El Saadawi is made of awesome. http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/apr/15/nawal-el-saadawi-egyptian-feminist

Best friendsfriends find ever: http://bk1e.livejournal.com/259483.html
In which Peter Gabriel covers "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa," including the "Peter Gabriel too" lyric -- sort of. If you're not familiar with the song, you will not have the uncontrollable hideous laughter response that I did, but you can hear the original at the bottom of the post. The videos are fun but they do help me see why people don't like Vampire Weekend; it's a lot easier to despise their corn-fed privilege when you can see them. I just listen and am anthropologically interested. Also, bouncy melodies go a long way with me. (Who is the redheaded woman who's a tennis player and a goth enchantress, I wonder?)

Match thread to fabric really well. http://blog.craftzine.com/archive/2010/04/custom_cmyk_sewing_machine_mat.html

Stuff from last month:
New Karate Kid trailer: From coffeeandink. Okay, he is clearly (and textually) learning kung fu, not karate, and a lot of the trailer is "ooh, look, pretty China" -- but there are NO WHITE PEOPLE in this entire 2 minutes 30.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxBQS_Qn5m8

From firecat. The Little Vulcan.
http://ayalesca.dreamwidth.org/1250.html

Badass woman secretary is king of a village in Ghana.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2010/03/09/ST2010030903477.html?sid=ST2010030903477

Cephalopods deceive predators with their ink. (But they look plenty smart!)
http://andrewducker.livejournal.com/1987051.html

Fantagraphics is bringing out wonderful manga!
http://www.fantagraphics.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3956&Itemid=95

Peep sushi

[Edited to add: Oh, but we did watch Project Peepway, though.]

Easter morning, I woke up and... went to the lab! Surprise! It was supposed to continue to rain forever, but the morning was beautifully blue-skied and sunny, though still pretty windy too.

I took ( pictures! )

Wim picked up his iPad (verdict: excellent for watching videos, cool graph sketching app, not actually a computer or a phone) and me, and we went to his dad's for lunch: Indian takeout made Easterish by lamb, carrot cake, obligatory vegan brownies. Still lots of milk chocolate in the basket, which neither of us can eat; my fellow grads and labmates are benefiting. Also vegetable seeds, including some from the best lettuce someone they know has ever had. Okay, I'm clearing out the veggie patch, universe, I get it.

Later, we watched Ponyo en français with

marzipan_pig. We didn't eat ham, but we could have if any of us had felt quite well or hungry.

We keep hearing frogs calling in the yard. It's very exciting. Hurray for spring!

Greta Christina on atheism and sexuality is kind of my new hero. I'm not atheist, though not at all religious right now, but the enormous wonder she talks about, of how all our different human mental states and all the life and environment around us happen naturally? I feel that, big time. And her ideas about ethics are good and right. (Link is a video but only listening is really useful; her actual talk is about an hour, and I didn't listen to the questions after.)

For my birthday:

The cold I've had for a week appears to be bronchitis now, judging by the pain and nastiness of chest-based coughing. Still no apparent bacterial infection, so I'm just waiting it out.
Posts and emails from people, yay!
forthright wrote me a book! Well, my copy of Numerical Notation: A Comparative History came today, at least. It is awesome.
Lab Tech got me a delicious Odwalla C Monster juice to help smite my illness. SO NICE.
Family meals are planned later in the weekend.

Seriously, only one person wants to come to the drag show OR to dinner tomorrow? What are all you Seattle types doing instead?

I feel that I have recently crossed the line from "busty" into "bovine" and am displeased. Hopefully I am the only one?

But there is watermelon fruit carving in the world. The recent stuff is mind-blowing. Watermelon is more powerful than grapefruit!

Puyallup Fair 2009: Spotted piglets, Demented American Ladies, a fishing float collection, noisy chickens, no cows?!, and an obligatory elephant ear.

Taxonomic upheaval! http://www.ubcbotanicalgarden.org/potd/2009/09/chamerion_angustifolium_1.php

Coming out in middle school (NYT)

State of self was: weird about food, feeling down. State of self currently: a bit tired and not very social, which is annoying as it's time to welcome new grad students with a BBQ and big party tonight.

Weaving class: Took a class and a half to set up the warp threads, which have to go individually through two different loom parts and be suspended from a variety of confusing rods, but now weaving takes no time at all. So far, I have made an inch or so of tabby, twill, reverse twill, crow's foot and its opposite, and basket weave. Whee! I want to do more weaving than I have weaving homework.

Costs of being gay (NYT)

What I've been doing pretty much all week: I can haz confocal microscope, and it fucking rocks.

Rainy day, feeling down. But hey, superhero ponies. (My favorite is Naruto.)

(Hi! I disappeared halfway through IBARW! I am still alive, and here are the links I've been squirrelling away.)

1. On being literal, which I am (sometimes to the point of problems):
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/aspergers-diary/200811/joe-and-the-mega-sized-smoothie-language-and-aspergers
(from supergee, I think)

2. On government-organized health care:
http://libertango.livejournal.com/357829.html
from ?

3. Katamari goodness at Boingboing
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/07/29/katamari-damacy-wedd.html
(needs more cowbear)

4. The stereotype of the fat woman speaks:
http://clawfoot.livejournal.com/896283.html

5. Privilege quiz result:
Y .................................................................................. (+35)
N ...............................................
Some interesting comments at link.

6. Dear NSF,
Learn to do a mail merge already. (m_pig can help!) I do not need to apply for the GRFP again this year because I AM ALREADY AWESOME KTHX.
Love,
K.

7. http://justinelarbalestier.com/blog/2009/08/06/the-new-cover/
YAY.

8. http://contexts.org/socimages/2008/05/21/human-interaction-as-chemistry/
Wonderful science-promotion video from the EU.

9. http://notesfromthegeekshow.blogspot.com/2009/08/open-letter-to-john-c-wright.html
A little overwritten, perhaps, which is what I thought of Vellum, but it picks up partway through, which is not.

10. New favorite nonsensical/menacing web command (from Picasa): Sign in to like this photo.

Raining down all over: Cold War memories (link goes to

rm, usually a good source of conversation threads, but I've seen similar topics all over due to Watchmen). What surprises me about this is, yes, that so many people understand what's in me about it, but also how I am MAD at people who don't get it and want those clueless BRATS to SHUT UP about their 1987 birthdays. Must think about this and relate it to other oppressions.

Absolutely wonderful Brandenburg Concertos with

gwyneira and

hattifattener last night. New heights/depths of geekery: Concerto #2 (the trumpet one) reminded me strongly of Rose Tyler. (Couldn't make the third movement work in canon, though. Glad of having no time/talent for vidding, else many vids like this with audience of zero.)

To conference at Friday Harbor tomorrow! I'm so happy to get to go there again, though social issues will abound. Net access will too, though if I am only as posty as usual you'd never know I was gone.

From

badgerbag: How to Make Guys Like You
(That "like" is a verb.)

From

rm: Sweet Argentine commercial with trans content

From

jeliza: Japanese ad for MAC cosmetics = Barbarella in Wonderland. I thought particularly of

rysmiel, but I'm sure others will enjoy the madness as well.

There is a whole lot of awesome in this year's Yuletide, but Hunting High and Low goes above and beyond the Fifth Wall. Magic-geeking, so I was bound to like it, but careful crafting and clever meta as well. (Fandom? A-ha's "Take On Me" video, of course.)

A hectic week has been survived. I got my research proposal draft in to my co-workshoppers on time, and my lab meeting went very well (except that I forgot one thing I shouldn't have). Teaching is going well so far -- one student got really snippy about taking her own sample of some limited material, but I had enough else to do that I was able to just leave her alone the rest of the section.

The U Bookstore finally called me to say Half a Crown was in last night. Acquired at 6pm, finished by 11, made of awesome. I've also now read McKinley's new Chalice, perhaps even more wonderful, and I have the new Gaiman and Cecil Castellucci's Beige as well as the 2008 Best American Science and Nature Writing. Orgy of reading, your time is here!

There's stuff I need to do in the lab this weekend, but I don't feel terribly compelled to do it right this minute. Time emough to sit around with cats and heating pad, and enjoy the high winds sweeping by outside. It's true that our curtains ought not to move when the winds are on the other side of the glass, but I've got blankets.

Recommended reading: "Hey There, Joe Six-Pack" by

copperwise.

The meme (brought to me by

firecat) goes: "The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they've printed." But what Big Read came up with this list?

( Google results, fun, and snark )

Where is this list actually from? I find it, without comment or justification, at the Telegraph. No sign of the "only 6" business.

( I have read rather a lot of these )

Here's my pledge: if I see somebody groping you in public, and you're not moaning Yes! Yes! Yes!, I will break through your Somebody Else's Problem invisibility field and come over and ask if you're okay. If your situation looks dangerous enough I can't help on my own, I will call over friends or, if it's a situation in which I think the cops would be on your side, I will call the cops.

This kind of thing is very difficult for me, but I am going to do my best.

Thanks to

elisem, I've been reading the thread starting at reponse 602 on Making Light's "The sky isn't evil" post all day, and found this gem:

#736 ::: Lee ::: (view all by) ::: June 02, 2007, 02:04 PM:

I have a suggestion for Greg or any other straight white male who's ever caught himself thinking something similar. This is a little thought experiment.

Imagine that every morning, as soon as you get up and get dressed, you have to put on a sign that says "I'm gay." You have to wear that sign everywhere you go, all day long, every day, for the rest of your life. How would this change the ways in which you interact with other people? How would it restrict your own actions?

Now take the experiment a step further. At random times when you're out in public, ask yourself, "If I were wearing a sign that said, 'I'm gay,' would I be here now doing what I'm doing? If not, what would I be doing instead, and why?"

Now consider that women, like black people, don't have to wear a sign. It's right there for everyone and his uncle's duck to see, as soon as we step outside the house, and we get to keep it all our lives.

There are not only good examples of male privilege (collected at response 902 most recently), there are objections to the list, and explanations of why it's useful (check out #1027), and links to "Check my what?" at Shrub.com, a Male Privilege Checklist, and Lynn Conway's web page.

I can't go to Minneapolis today, and most of you can't either, but here is a link including donation opportunities as well as memorial timing. We're down by one amazing person; donations to the library or the transplant fund can help increase the number of those, each in its own way.

rachelmanija: "What are your cool bits? What are the themes and stories and images and moments that you love to see?"

Marith's "magic that costs", definitely. Sex that's good for the participants but makes me uncomfortable. Joy in craft. Nonstandard bonds between people, especially in multi-adult chosen families but also, say, among the hwarhath, or in political marriages. Genderfuck. Snark. Acceptance of queerness. Food porn. Boys with glasses and ponytails (or blue hair). Girls with wings. Subtle wordplay.

Unresolved sexual tension -- no, don't resolve it! ever! -- and doomed love -- no, not love overcoming doom, doomed love!

Dealing with consequences. Romances in which the protagonists are OF a culture other than mine, not just in it.

From

jeliza: Was the 2004 Election Stolen? in Rolling Stone. I'm glad a more solid media outlet, such as it is, is involved, but I'm feeling awfully disenfranchised (ha fucking ha) about the whole mess.

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