jinian

Well, I can see that it'll take me a while to convince my body that I would like to sleep more than six hours a night. Having my digestion settle down will help with that too.

One of the nice things about being awake Too Fucking Early*, though, is that Hex is all cutely active. He also seems more energetic in the bigger tank, so yay me for finally getting that set up.

So what actually happened yesterday?

( Lots, as it turns out )

I submitted it Friday! Sorry for not updating sooner -- first I had to go drink a super grande margarita and then I've had a stress-hangover. (Pretty sure not an actual hangover, just exhaustion and near-migraine.) Relaxation for me! I actually managed to sleep in a couple hours today, which was fabulous.

So at first I was like, I am done! Yes! Here it is!



This rapidly turned into OH NOES there are many tiny things that need fixing! and surely what I have written is all foolishness that I'm going to get yelled at about!



Then I got brusque email from the brusque person saying "whatever, I am only reading the unpublished parts, so which ones are those since I can't be bothered to look at the TOPS OF THE FILES where they say any previous publication info, also I am not doing jack until two weeks from now." So perspective has been restored. PI will tell me (probably snippily, but I'm used to that) what needs to be done, and those other people just need to say it looks fine. Useful comments are merely a bonus at this point. I will do my very own best and be awesome, so there.

Now let's talk about what's really important: my outfit.



I got just a little weird while writing, and one of the things I did was alternate between femming it up and wearing as close to pajamas as I could manage. Obviously this was one of the femme days. It kind of landed at "indie rock bishoujo," especially with those shiny eye-sparkles in this shot. What you cannot see is the thigh-high tentacle socks, which I employed to get the very dark brown skirt to play nicely with any kind of footwear in either brown or black (the Naot Sea in brown, in this case). I've even been wearing makeup, which is really strange for me, partly because I looked soooooo tired without.

The soothing features of pajama fashion seem obvious, but what's up with the girlification? This is no mere expression of my usual gender identity, which is femme but much more lazy/geeky. It is visually creative, though, and even though I was making some rockin' scientific figures I think I wanted to assemble prettiness that didn't feed back into the thesis. I also did some relaxing sewing, but always felt concerned that I was taking time away from work. But one has to get dressed every day, it's the rules.

It led to some great outfits! I regret not documenting the "rockabilly superhero" one and will have to reprise it at some point. (Royal blue long-sleeved hiking underlayer and matching tights move any outfit distinctly Superman-ward, it seems.) And I might just stick with the plum lip liner all the time, or at least for the duration of this hair color.

Sunset tonight, clear and chill and soothing with a first-quarter moon.

Pinafored little girls stompling in the ground cover on campus.

The lovely gloves I got in Kyoto last weekend: dark brown leather with lime-green topstitching, lined with lime-green knit, matching my adorable new umbrella.

My two packages from people, especially as I now have my heating pad. (Not thankful for damned customary holiday cramps; maybe this is early enough I'll be okay for Xmas.)

Ebook companies that pay attention to my billing address rather than my IP address.

All you great people that I know.

Getting to live in Japan for three months, damn, how cool is that.

Chocolate cake for my roommate's birthday.

A map of words for pillbugs.

Science!

Beautiful things to make, admire, have, and give.

I love, love, love that I can get hot drinks in a can from Japanese vending machines. Love it.

Also I finally got to wear my presentation-giving dress to give a presentation! I bought it last year when I was coming to a conference in Japan, but it was unseasonably, horrifyingly, meltingly hot so I wore something that was not fully lined and didn't also require a camisole underneath.



I might have chosen to wear something different if I'd known I was going to have to crawl under my desk for an earthquake drill, though.

Today's mystery onigiri: UMEBOSHI fuck yeah win!

Amusingly enough, this month's bout of premenstrual annoyance with my body wasn't that I felt fat -- instead I've gotten enough thinner that my jeans don't fit right, and that annoyed me. I realize no one else in this country thinks I'm sexy, but I like feeling that way, and there is only a small size range in which a given pair of jeans can make one's ass look really good.

(Of course, once the "my uterus is an evil monster the size of three prefectures" phase began, I sure as hell felt fat again.)

Going to the zoo was actually a great choice for body issues, as usual. There are people in Japan who are shaped like lots of different things, not just tiny college girls. I saw white people and black people! (Though maybe I am more judgmental than usual about the way white girls dress -- every time I see one lately I think she looks like a tart. A tank top with arm holes down to the waist and just a black bra underneath is legitimately skeevy, though, right?) There were even times when I wasn't the tallest or widest person around, though I don't think anyone beat me for bustiness. And friendly little babies don't care, they're just glad someone is waving to them.

If I fail at my science career, plan # 183.

Travel the world doing bronies' nails.

From Pride, when I did marzipan_pig's nails with magnetic polish: very subtle Rarity cosplay.


(Sinful Colors "Love Nails", Rite Stripe white.)

After finding some more drawing-type nail polishes, I noticed I had exactly Twilight's mane colors. This needs to be revised to use a lavender background behind the pink star, which doesn't show up well as is.


(Sinful Colors Nail Art "Lagoon", "Rose in your Nose", and lavender one, Rite Stripe white.)

And the reason I decided to post, because getting the right colors has been a huge pain and I wanted to say how to do it, is this alpha-testing Applejack manicure. The apples came out pretty well, though I really should have a sort of jade green for stem and leaf, and the red is annoyingly translucent. Also, yellow nails never look quite as intentional as most colors; if you just glance at them they look unhealthy, so maybe I should drop the mane-impression bit in favor of more orange.


(Thumb: one coat Sally Hansen Nail Growth Miracle "Perfect Peach" that I bought in Chicago last summer, one coat Sinful Colors "This Is It". Fingers: two coats "This Is It". Sinful Colors Nail Art "Be My Valentine" for the red bits.)

I think I need more pink. And a Rainbow Dash manicure is even less sensical than the Applejack one, but I think that will need to happen too.

Last week in the lab was Polka-Dot Week, encouraged by me on Tuesday-video-day when I noticed that J and I had unwittingly accomplished three polka-dot dresses in two days.

Monday: J - satin black-and-white dress
me - pink hairpins

Tuesday: J - another dress
me - black-and-white dress

Wednesday: J - turquoise-and-white Betty Boop dress
C - olive-and-green flats

Thursday: J - navy-and-white dress worn as shirt
me - turquoise scarf, green hairpins

Friday: J - black-and-white halter dress
me - googly-eye dress (black background, white dots, blue dots off-center within the white ones)

This was an awesome game that made me happy every day -- low key, bondish, and silly. So we had discussed whether we should have future clothing theme weeks, preferably before C leaves and with more people participating. Florals and stripes seemed like the patterns that would work, but we hadn't settled which or when.

Yesterday, because I think I'm clever, I wore a shirt that is --> both floral and striped. But I didn't see C or J all day! Crap!

Today I was giving up, but I'd noticed yesterday that I shouldn't waste my This Is Not a Pipe shirt, because that was totally floral. And it was on top of the shirt stack today. So after I put it on with stripy socks, I noticed that, actually, in itself it is ALL THREE PATTERNS: floral, stripes, and even dots.

Now I just hope I see someone! Stupid renovation* means we have lab rooms all over the building, so who knows.

* Initially typed "removation", which is actually more accurate, since they've kicked us out of our space but there has been zero teardown or construction in that space as yet.

So far, I'm managing my stress over tomorrow's filming by playing too much Snakes on a Cartesian Plane. My head hurts. I shaved my legs (and totally resent that) but still need to iron my dress. I should really have a slip, but I don't see that happening by tomorrow. Will have to remove the cosplay manicure and cut my nails.

At least the camera-to-microscope kit arrived today! We thought it wasn't going to for a while, which would mean we'd have to reschedule.

I guess it's just as well I don't need to worry about getting to the Japanese conversation class I was trying to take starting tomorrow evening. (It didn't make.)

And we have a new coordinator! I emailed mine this afternoon and got a "no longer with the company" response.

Up early due to light sleeping, I went down to Heteronormativity in YA SF and ate my blueberry bread there. Good panel -- lots of YA dystopias mentioned and critiqued, the passivity of the titles right now (so many of which are past participles), Delirium mentioned as actually referring to homosexuality ("unnaturalism"), appearance policing even when there's no romantic choice possible, overt reproductive or sexual pressures.

[I got Delirium at the library today and was surprised at how good it is. Sure, the whole reason Ordinary Girl questions her dystopia is presented as being An Outsider Boy With Golden Eyes, but there is a lot more going on than that -- some good slow reveals of just how fucked up things are, decent worldbuilding, and lots of relationships among women and girls.]

Geek Girls and Self-Objectification panel: already complained about it. Check out http://doctorher.com/?p=1208 for an updated presentation by Courtney Stoker on the same subject as the panel's source material.

Lunch: more delicious farmer's market bounty, hanging with roommate and her friends.

Reproductive Justice: lots about the different things this can mean, not just the ability to decide when to be pregnant, but access for both parents, the ability not to fear your kids will be taken into foster care, and more interesting issues. Mostly not that SFnal, though we got into some works at the end. The Testament of Jessie Lamb won awards, but the premise is appalling (pregnancy kills you! your choices are to die before or after the baby is born; also you are comatose at the time!) and one of the awards is the Man Booker Prize, so enough about that forever. It did remind me of The Clockwork Rocket, which I recommended. And in When She Woke by Hilary Jordan the scarlet A is for abortion and covers your entire skin.

Shoujo Fairy Tales: Obviously Princess Tutu was the queen of this panel, and I tweeted Håll Om Mig Nu as a panel summary. (yes, I rewatched it when I did that, taking betsy somewhat aback when she came in to very loud music partway through; and yes, I also rewatched it right now; and yes, I still got chills both times.) A few notes on Japanese fairy tales: Natsume Yuujinchou, Xxxholic, Kamichu; Susan Napier, Thomas Lamar.

[Don't go looking for my Twitter account expecting content or anything; it's just for Twit-specific things.]

I debated chilling in the room at that point, since I was tired, but found myself unable to chill while Eleanor Arnason was reading something. The thing that killed me dead at the Aqueduct reading, though, was Liz Henry's poem about the moon landing. Kiini Ibura Salaam's stories were very good, too. And this is where the Wiscon Chronicles explaining Moonfail were explained aloud. I bought all three books.

Dinner with boxofdelights, who knows me too well, at Buraka. Wonderful as always. Quick stop at Ragstock for a shirt to go with my other silk clothing-swap skirt; I genderfloomped femme this year, which I had basically planned, if only through thinking men's clothes are too hot for dancing in.

When we came in, the line for the dessert salon was still going in, and it was halfway through its timeslot. Why people do that I will never understand. I went away for a little while, came back and got leftovers (seedy strawberry-rhubarb crumble and perfect blackberry panna cotta), and watched the speeches just fine. Really liked Andrea Hairston's about SF and expectations, and bucking them to fulfill SF's promises in her own way.

After that I danced all the things. Once again I fail at dancing with people, but I think I can sometimes tell when they want to now? If you grab my hands, even I will definitely clue in, though I am still crap at doing anything about it. (Sorry, S!) The "cops" -- probably hotel security -- came by to legitimize our rocking at about 2am, and we broke it up around 2:30.

Yesterday I ate mac and cheese with salad (at Noodles, since I didn't figure anyone else would want to go there socially). Then there was NAPPING.

I had my alarm set for 5:30 so I wouldn't miss the GoH reading, but when my roommates Betsy and Matt arrived five minutes before the alarm I realized that half-price margaritas sounded a lot better than the reading, so I did that with them and Joanna. Regrettably, Frida's where margaritas used to be had has gone, and we went to Moe's, where there are four flavors of margarita and some slightly fancied-up pub fare. Good pulled pork, amazingly boring french fries.

Wiscon karaoke was next! I wore too many clothes because I was worried I'd be cold on the way home, which was foolish. Fun as always, with new people and people from last year. I sang "Dress You Up" and "She-Bop" creditably, but got lost during the Prince-freaks-out-and-screeches-a-lot section of "Little Red Corvette". The first part was good! I was tired and drunk enough not to be able to recover from losing my place, though. Annoyingly, I could intermittently hear someone in the audience singing it fine -- come up to the stage and help, then.

On my way home: Feral rhubarb next to the sidewalk at Gorham and Broom. Chautara restaurant's traditional chalk drawing for Wiscon being worked on by the artist.

Today we had roommate breakfast and then my day was All Clothing Swap. It went great, with huge volumes and lots of volunteers. We have an entire car full of donations that we need to take to Goodwill at some point; the front desk printed us directions to a drive-up donation center. (Previous years have gone to St. Vincent de Paul, but they apparently don't accept underwear, and there are some good bras here.) Currently I am exhausted, with hip, knees, and feet that are being very sad at me. I probably should have eaten lunch. The Gathering cookies disappeared before I got there. I probably should go get dinner now.

But I got such the best skirt, and some other good stuff too. I am still not convinced this very 80s top fits me as it should, but it is hot pink zebra print, come on. The octopus T-shirt may be appropriated by hattifattener when I get home, so I'd better wear it before then. And!!! A swap volunteer I met at karaoke last night not only had a Rarity toy as a keychain on his bag (<3 <3 <3) but will give me his extra one.

Tonight my plan is to curl up at the vid party for the entire night, which will be (1) awesome and (2) roughly my physical and interaction capacity.