hey love, I'm an inconstant satellite

status: tired and don't wanna

Sat, 18 Apr 2020 08:32:08 GMT

I'm objectively doing well, but boy am I done with this week.

* Starting a D&D game with online friends and girlfriend. We're all going to be high elves because we think we're funny.

* Friend breakup maybe kind of? I've been mad for a while, and after trying to talk some, I'm a lot madder.

* On schedule with work! Go me! I've got full days tomorrow and Sunday, but that was planned, I'm not behind.

* Ember cat is enjoying digging in the new raised bed, which is not conducive to plant growth. Going to have to rig up some protection when I put the seedlings out there.

* The same Ember is still having a lot of trouble with her tail amputation. She needed gabapentin after only 4.5 hours today, and I've been supplementing with some buprenorphine too.

* Might need to take an all-day road trip during a pandemic? Girlfriend's childhood dog is elderly and unwell, and we need to say goodbye.

Reading:

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2020/04/us-coronavirus-outbreak-out-control-test-positivity-rate/610132/
You know what makes you not have positive test results? Not testing.

https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/status/1251271309432098816
Communications and journalism specialist gives the tl;dr on pandemic matters the US is being misinformed about.

Gates and Passages by Irina Rempt
Choppy, with multiple POVs. There's plenty to enjoy here, but it was hard to get into.

comments

catchup

Tue, 14 Apr 2020 04:46:37 GMT

This infection has been kicking my ass, I'm glad I finally feel a bit better today. I picked up my lumber order and am planning to make a raised bed tomorrow. Carrots (because idk I just always wanted to grow carrots and had clay soil that didn't allow it) and greens (because nutritious and likely to have supply problems this year) are my main targets. I also picked up some pole bean seeds, because I'm all about growing food right now aaaand we have an ongoing problem with too much sun making the upstairs into an oven. Rather than spend more money on awning ideas that we're not really happy with, I decided to try and replicate the huge cone o' bean plants that my university used to grow every year. We'll see how this solution goes.

Here, have a week of reading notes!
( Fiction )

( Politics/COVID-19 )

comments

Recent reading

Mon, 06 Apr 2020 09:35:26 GMT

Feeling crummy due to a nasty eye infection. I've had a 5-minute telehealth visit and an antihistamine prescription that didn't help... and then not been able to get in touch with the medical team beyond a note saying my message was being forwarded to triage nurses and to go to urgent care/emergency if things got worse. Luckily, my eye has gotten better, but it seems like the doctors in my area are not only staying as isolated as possible but also getting very busy.

no direction but its own bright grace by Anonymous
Sarah (with no onscreen Labyrinth pals) finding magic in her own world and doing her best to save it.

An Unexpected Life by enchantedsleeper
Obviously I need to catch up on Questionable Content, as this AI friendship story was totally my jam.

The Unseen Connections by sandalwoodbox
Wonderful and so very Steerswoman.

https://pug-lord01.tumblr.com/post/613323621825429504
https://wildandwhirlingwords.tumblr.com/post/613368783317417984/guys-read-all-of-this-please-please-pl-guys
I'm still convinced this is an adorable piece of performance fic, but it's SO adorable and queer.

https://todaysveterinarynurse.com/articles/me-owwmanaging-chronic-feline-pain/
Comprehensive and well referenced article that finally gave me the maximum gabapentin dosage for cats. Ember is feeling much better now and remains well within dosage limits. :)

cacio e pepe by serephemeral
What if EVERYONE. :D

The Arc Towards the Sun by ViaLethe
Beautiful slow-burn Andromache/Hector.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30566-3/fulltext
Original literature on how long virus is detected in patients after onset of COVID-19. Doesn't say what I wanted to know, which is how long virus is detected after symptoms are gone. Presumably the guidelines to stay isolated 72 hours after a fever came from somewhere, but it doesn't seem to have been here!

comments

Today's reading

Fri, 03 Apr 2020 06:53:51 GMT

Sentimental Reasons by Frostfire
Sam/Rick never occurred to me when watching Casablanca, but I liked this a lot.

Love Stories from the Jungle by Patrick Samphire
Response while reading: disappointment in the lack of specific place or identity
Response after reading: wow, fuck you
(It's a massive downer and feels weirdly condescending.) The language is lovely, but I hated it.
Bounced off two other free stories by the same author.

A Threadbare Carpet by Kate Heartfield
It's a little spare, I seem to want more immersive stories these days, but I liked the magic and the women characters.

Old Souls by Fonda Lee
I liked this a lot better than the Green Bone books; still pretty violent, but more relatable characters. It has a really remarkable search-and-replace error for Kegan/Mark, though, wow. I emailed the site about it, because of course I did.

The Beast and the Hummingbirds by Madison McSweeney
A good creepy little fairy tale.

Pastry Chef Attempts to Make Elvish Lembas by adspexi
:)

Other news:
Substituted a video chat for our monthly brunch with my half-sister. I wish we could have talked about anything but the news, but with everyone housebound, it was hard to find other topics. We had some good laughs, though.

I started making boiled chocolate cookies before checking that we had enough oats, and I was really down about it, but Emily happened to have a whole canister of Spare Oat. What a good girlfriend.

comments

Today's reading

Thu, 02 Apr 2020 06:39:25 GMT

Date night! Went out to burgers and milkshakes with Emily, then for a walk in Wright Park (though it had gotten pretty cold). She ran around looking at all the informational tree plaques, I ran out of phone battery playing Pokemon Go. Told her about the ending of Next in Fashion. Played Animal Crossing together.

A little reading:
Physician, Heal Thyself by WeirdLittleStories
I love the premise, but the story feels like an outline. The author says there was a length limit, and it shows.

AMY DISCOVERS JO’S AO3 HANDLE AND DRAGS HER IN THE MARCH FAMILY GROUPCHAT
From yesterday, but I'd already shared it several places and forgot to put it here. So sweet and funny!

comments

Today's reading

Wed, 01 Apr 2020 06:44:31 GMT

I wound up working most of today and being pretty badass despite being late on one submission, which normally ruins my day. The power of recreational antianxiety medication? Also I do prefer a day of illustration to solid editing; it's very soothing.

Some short reads:
Roman à Clef by ellen_fremedon (Stardew Valley NPC romance, 1000% worth it just for Abigail's chatlogs)

All the Spinach You Can Eat by Franzeska (really funny take on a Jeeves & Wooster BDSM relationship)

What's Real by slightlykylie (I agree, Meg Murry would grieve and be angry about losing Proginoskes)

Getting Down in Pelican Town by WretchedArtifact (another Stardew Valley NPC romance, cute and worth a giggle)

comments

News and stories

Tue, 31 Mar 2020 07:24:08 GMT

Mostly I've been reading good news articles today:
https://www.theage.com.au/national/the-perfect-virus-two-gene-tweaks-that-turned-covid-19-into-a-killer-20200327-p54elo.html
https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/30/australia/astrophysicist-australia-magnets-hospital-scli-intl-scn/index.html (hilarious)
https://twitter.com/trvrb/status/1243754919623974915 (GOOD DATA, been waiting for these phylogenies)

Stories included:
Let's Do the Same as They by halotolerant (Singin' in the Rain OT3 meets Steve Rogers' OT3)

The Author of the Acacia Seeds by Ursula K. Le Guin (lovely as ever, but i have Some Opinions about the plant section; obviously, plants do communicate, and their literature would be chemical)
An Orchid Keeps Its Secrets by Wasuremono, who agrees with me
The Quiet Rebellion of Tardigrade Sela Writings by Edonohana (I want to read all of them)
Mother Bonesplitter's Children by Fontainebleau (delightful! I love academic fights and new paradigms)

In other news:
Ember cat had her tail amputated due to an injury back in February and is still having phantom limb pain, so she and her meds are taking up a lot of my time and stress allowances. I had a good time hanging out with my girl tonight and playing Animal Crossing, though.

comments

Reading (free and comfort)

Mon, 30 Mar 2020 06:42:05 GMT

I'd love to say I'm okay after my long-ass hiatus, but, well. What I am is (1) stably employed in a job that was always performed remotely, which is both great and annoying, since I feel I'm missing out on the true social distancing experience, and (2) reading a lot. Most recently, M.C.A. Hogarth's Dreamhealers series for hard-core comfort purposes and a free novel called Widdershins that is definitely someone's adorable gay Call of Cthulhu campaign in novel format. (Too gross in places, but amusing overall. I appreciated the badass academic woman.) Lots and LOTS of free stories are being posted (one source is here), so hopefully I will keep from feeling quite as bonkers by writing about the ones I read.

comments

tropism

Wed, 29 Aug 2018 00:37:03 GMT

Well. It turns out that the friend who set off my libido avalanche recently is totally up for experimenting together. And it is experimenting, on both sides -- I've thought for a while that I needed a close friend who was up for messing around rather than an unknown person, because there's just too much to deal with otherwise. I have a lot of shiny new goddamn hangups about consent and my own desirability, and I haven't been managing to juggle that even with people I've otherwise felt cautiously interested in. Plus, I still haven't had penetrative sex with anyone since the hysterectomy, which maybe shouldn't matter so much but does. (She has her reasons for going slowly too.)

It's going very well, and we figured out a good edible/dose that helps with anxiety and isn't disorienting, which I've used at other times since.* It's really exciting and great?

It's also frustrating and difficult, because she lives far away and is not easily substitutable with other people. Especially since I technically could move anywhere I wanted now! But it's a bad idea. (Right? Bad idea. Even though there are a number of good things about the idea that are not directly related to sexy times. Too soon. World might explode again if move for girl again. Let's not.)

Having this awareness of a physical connection with another person is wonderful, though. Distracting at times, obviously, but it's something that I've missed and am really enjoying. Flirtation is great.

I'm still not physically well, and I feel anxious a lot, but this one thing is pretty unalloyed good, and I'm happy about it.

* The danger of using this is that you might get obsessed with the texture of a family member's shirt and demand to pet it. I'm sure she's not onto me at all, though.

comments

a weird breakthrough

Sat, 11 Aug 2018 06:06:51 GMT

So I think I might have explained my sensory/social issues to my mom almost completely earlier tonight.

I had what should've been a good day, but anxiety bit me pretty hard this afternoon, and there was no way I was going to be up for family game night. While stubbornly driving to get a Blizzard because a formerly preferred burger place where I went for lunch had decided not to have milkshakes any more (then perish), I came up with a really good analogy.

When Mom came home, I deployed it. I said, imagine if, every time you were around people, even one, your clothes started to turn to sandpaper.

And she was like OH, even before I fully explained. "It's like that for you?!"

I said, yeah, that's just how my brain is. If it's only one or two people that I know well, it's like, one cuff, and a fine grain. I can ignore that! Twenty people including screamy children at family game night is ALL MY CLOTHES AND UNDERWEAR and SUPER SANDY GRIT.

Mom is also an introvert, but "family" is somehow a different category for her, and her tolerance is higher overall, so I've struggled to really explain my deal. We talked some more about it, and sure, she was raised around a bunch of people, so part of it is training, but we also just have different capacities. We agreed that she should totally convey this explanation to the fam, and she will also help facilitate my hanging out with them one at a time, which I would actually enjoy.

The epiphany might not stick; I'm expecting to have to remind her. But it went so well this time that I think any reminders should be pretty painless and effective. Behold the power of metaphor!

comments

a mixed bag

Mon, 16 Jul 2018 16:47:07 GMT

Last night, Cousin 4 was in town, so we went over for dinner. Found out at the last minute that WAY MORE PEOPLE were going to be there, which is always so great to be surprised by. At that house, everyone just jams into the dining room until they can't fit, and it gets really loud, so I retreated pretty quickly to another room. It's nice to live closer to family, I guess, but the ways that people have never understood me are much more obvious when I'm around them more often.

Eventually, I got drawn into a game, which was better. I will talk to humans! All I ask is that there not be ten people all talking at once! And a barky dog that people are aggravating! Please.

Playing a game that a very small cousin made up by himself was the best part of the evening. I was warned about his tendency to actually hurt you if his toy is fighting your toy, and I was not entirely safe even though we started with a board game. (Pencils are swords, and his pawn was an aggressive little thing.) But he was really creative about everything. He can't read yet, so answering the questions on the cards, which is how you normally move, was out. Instead he took the four pawns we weren't using and rubbed them in his hands until one fell out, and each of us was assigned two of their colors, so we got to move when our color fell out. Smart! And then of course we got into purely imaginative play, where the game board itself became a giant shark and the box was houses. (I was responsible for the timer being a cannon, though.)

On the way home, Mom got back into her "recommending things to the chronically ill person" mode. She claims not to be unhappy or disappointed with my introversion, but it's obviously not true -- she claimed I wasn't "my best self" because I wasn't up for full-on family game night (which is like 20 people including six children) less than 48 hours after my cross-country move. Fuck off with that. And I've told her that it's hurtful when people jump in with solutions. So when she mentioned acupressure, and I said I'd tried and it doesn't work any more because my sinuses have been inflamed FOR OVER A YEAR, she literally said "have you done it for long enough?"

How long is long enough to know something doesn't fucking work? If you start from the premise that it's going to work, then I should just sit here using my hands (which are arthritic btw, and this does hurt them) to apply pressure to my face all day every day, until something that isn't working decides to work. And clearly I should also spend all my time on every other thing that someone suggests. 100% effort times the number of suggestions, FOREVER, seems totally reasonable, especially when I'm debilitated, right?

At that point, I was just like, yep, guess I'm doing it wrong. I'm sure that's it. She eventually noticed that I was blowing her off and said "well, I haven't been dealing with this as long, I still have hope."

Really.

I said, "I am doing something, and it's working, it's just not working very fast. And I'm going to keep doing it, even if it involves drinking large amounts of Limonata." (Which she has teased me about before.) She hadn't realized that was a sinus management strategy, but jfc, I'm on a million decongestants and antihistamines, I'm dry as a bone all the time, which I need to not be or my sinuses will get worse, and even I get bored with THAT much water.

So I stood my ground, but it sucks that she didn't listen when we had this conversation before. Yes, it hurts when people jump in with suggestions all the time. You're telling me that you don't think I am trying hard enough. I know how much I can try, and I'm doing it. Just because you mean well doesn't mean you're not hurting chronically ill people with this behavior.

comments

good things

Sat, 14 Jul 2018 05:02:25 GMT

1. astolat's Transformers fic.

2. Lots of useful errands today.

3. Planting things in the big dirt.

comments

good things

Wed, 11 Jul 2018 05:40:35 GMT

1. Consentacle.

2. Train trip! Still lots of lovely scenery and general enjoyment even when details get annoying.

3. Home with mom and cat.

4. Adorable trip follow-up texts.

comments

good things

Tue, 10 Jul 2018 01:17:02 GMT

1. Dance break! First time I've felt strong enough for one of those in a while.

2. Turns out I am very definitely trauma-induced demi rather than trauma-induced ace. At least at the moment. While this is somewhat frustrating at the moment, I am overall delighted that my bits still work.

3. Taking friend to sushi and planting flowers tonight! A perfect jinian vacation.

comments

good things

Thu, 05 Jul 2018 05:22:47 GMT

1. I have never seen anyone watch a show as fast as Mom is watching Scandal. It's really funny.

2. Folded clothes and vacuumed my room in preparation for going on my trip on Friday.

3. Fireworks! I know dogs hate 'em but they make me happy.

comments

plans

Fri, 23 Feb 2018 16:26:21 GMT

As I'm still not doing well (health-wise or trauma-wise) in the Boston area, I'm planning to move back to the Seattle area in a couple of months. Squeak and I are landing at my mom's place initially, and the long-term plan is to look for some inexpensive land in an appropriate biome and eventually build a house. The medium term remains undetermined; there might be a cheaper apartment than my current one to facilitate savings, or I might stay at Mom's for longer -- I am hardened to roommates now, after all, and there are fewer annoyances with Mom's housekeeping than with most, since she's the one who trained me.

The exact move date is not yet determined; I'm trying to stay a bit flexible for now, in case the person taking my room (also not yet determined) needs something in particular. I'll definitely be here throughout March, though, and my health is not so bad that I can't go out once in a while, so let me know if you want to ~~see Black Panther again~~ do something!

comments

a nice evening

Sat, 04 Nov 2017 00:47:00 GMT

I got done (well. basically done.) with my work for today in good order and decided that, rather than being completely lazy, I would go out to get the Thai food and milk tea boba that I was craving. Going past the park, kids were shouting and dogs wearing lighted collars were zooming around, and a huge, beautiful full moon was rising. I found out that I like the restaurant in person as well as I like it delivered -- I hadn't thought there was good pad see ew in this town, so of course it's right down the street -- and I was amused by the life-sized fake tarantulas still on the windows they seated me next to. I ate way too many noodles and read fanfic (setissima is amazing), then went by the comic store and fell prey to classic manga by women, a cute lesbian memoir, my own comics nostalgia (it's only been 15 years, comics, what are you doing), and the dollar rack. At home, there was a cat yelling at me, as is only right, and a package of pretty things from a friend.

I should probably actually finish my work for today, but that was really nice. I hope the weather gets cold enough to kill the ragweed soon so I can go out more without having to decontaminate immediately and itch anyway.

comments

self-care

Tue, 04 Jul 2017 03:15:55 GMT

And cat care. These are the themes of my working at home so far.

I have had a non-patchy tongue for the first time since I can remember. I'm eating my vegetables. The cats can yell for fresh food when they need it and will actually eat, so they're seeming much stronger. I have enough money to buy clothes I've been needing and enough energy to do the shopping with.

Not everything is perfect -- I need to sort out better ergonomics and more exercise, COBRA is an asshole, and my allergies are still present enough to have given me a mild sinus infection -- but this feels like progress and like recovery. I nearly went dancing this past weekend, which I haven't felt up for in ages.

And I have a paper on DNA barcoding of wild kiwifruit to read and edit next! (This morning I carefully edited a paper on hysterectomies for trans men to avoid calling the patients "woman" or "she"; they had only messed up a little and their language doesn't use pronouns, but it's important.) I'm learning how to edit to a specific standard, I'm building stamina and speed, it's effort, but this is fun.

I'm still sad and afraid and lonely, but I have something really good to do while I keep working on recovering.

comments

two weeks in (-ish)

Fri, 16 Jun 2017 13:37:20 GMT

The new job is a positive experience overall despite taking up a lot of mental energy. I'm reading lots of interesting papers, and I'm pretty fast at editing already for things in my wheelhouse (*cough* fudged my time upwards yesterday on the one about overexpressing proteins in Arabidopsis because we generated 1.21 gigawatts there easy). Minor frustrations include the existence of meetings, videoconferenced though they be, and my newbie-team leader's tendency to talk around problems instead of spelling out problems and priorities directly. Oh, and I still need to buy an exercise ball to sit on, my hips require more variety.

Still, it's brilliant to be able to go "I'm so tired right now" and lie down for half an hour, and I'm glad to be present to take care of the infirm cats, who are likely to live longer the more often they can complain to me. Mom asked whether I missed having to go out. I texted her back "it's 100 degrees out today" "so no :joy:". I can go out if I want! I prefer not to subject myself to avoidable misery, though.

I'm still toying with the idea of moving to a cheaper, more beautiful location. I'm not entirely ready to give up on finding partners, though, and cheaper is strongly correlated with fewer options in that regard. (Will attractive lesbians phase through my apartment walls to find me even in a city, though? Seems unlikely.)

comments

NYC trip 1-2 Jun 2017

Thu, 08 Jun 2017 02:48:36 GMT

Harvard stopped paying me on May 31, and my new job didn't start until the following Monday, so I took the chance to finally go to NYC with grad friend A the way we'd been talking about for months! It was perfect weather, sunny and cool, and we had an excellent time.

Thursday
We agreed that getting there early wasn't worth getting up super early, so we met at the bus station at 9. It's nice to be comfortable enough with someone that you can just read and listen to music together for a few hours.

First New York meal: a corned beef reuben at the Starlight Diner. It's near the bus wasteland, and we needed food. A had gyros, and both our dishes were good but extremely large! I ate the other half of mine for dinner.

First activity: the Met! They were having a Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons fashion exhibit, which was amazing. We only had an hour and a half, story of my life when it comes to the Met, but honestly that's about all my joints can take of museum time without being able to sit and rest a lot. The fashion exhibit was glorious and made me even more disappointed in the basic bitches who went to the Met gala without even touching on the theme. There were plenty of ways to look sexy and interesting while still being avant-garde in Kawakubo's collections.

A kept trying to stop and look at paintings. No, if we don't go directly to the thing we want, we will be looking at everything else forever. We look at permanent-collection paintings after the limited exhibit!

She did have a brilliant idea afterward, though. We needed to eat New York cheesecake. Two Little Red Hens had good reviews and was reasonably nearby, and turned out to have excellent cheesecake, plus somehow 100% perfect lemonade. We didn't try the cupcakes, but they looked good too.

We checked out our hostel after that, which was a weird one -- there had been a deal on hotels.com, so we'd booked a king-size private room. In a hostel. Well, it did turn out to be a private room with its own bathroom, and rather nice though entirely without appliances, but the mattress was very clearly a full size. Good thing neither of us is a wild sleeper.

A went out for a walk to admire the sunset, I rested and took aspirin and read a Courtney Milan novel. (Books on my phone, so much easier to carry around all day.)

Friday
In the morning, A's tamagotchi woke me up at 7. Thanks for that. More reading time! A got up at 8 and we headed off to find breakfast at Bagels & Co. I had a sesame bagel with cream cheese and fresh orange juice, and it became very clear why they charge so much for cream cheese: sheer volume. We also each got a rainbow-colored egg bagel (pride-related?) to take home; mine is in the freezer awaiting suitable toppings.

We had thought of going up to NYBG, but it's pretty far really and A can probably get sent there for work at some point, so we stayed in Manhattan instead. First stop: the Natural History Museum. We looked at very many dinosaur and mammal remains, and near the cool drawings of animals whole/muscled/bones-only we met a security guard. He complimented my spaceship shirt (based on this design) and asked if I was a pilot. No, I said, a scientist. He asked where we were based, and when we said Harvard he asked if we knew Neil deGrasse Tyson. We do not! But he does. He, in fact, gets into a Michael Jackson dance-off with him every year. Sadly, it didn't happen while we were there.

Next we took a walk along the High Line, which was much longer than last time I was in New York, absolutely hipster-saturated but a really lovely aerial park. We got pretty hungry during this but failed to find actual food in the area, so we headed off toward the Strand. My phone had run out of data (Twitter autoplay, RIP) so A was navigating, and she found that at our bus transfer point there was a Sushirrito. This is apparently a Bay Area chain, and it was highly amusing and delicious. They have a machine that makes the nori-and-rice wrapping, which is really clever, then the humans apply fish or whatever (A had chicken katsu, I had yellowtail), plus veggies and other good things. They are very tasty but less well thought out than burritos as to what happens at the ends of the cylinder.

We went to the Strand, which was actually the first time I'd been. A good bookstore. I got The Star-Touched Queen and a souvenir magnet. We left in good order with just enough time to get the obligatory Jamba Juice, which has considerately moved to be more convenient, at Penn Station, and dash to the bus.

The last adventure was at the Burger King at the bus rest stop in CT. A got not only chicken fries, which cost twice as much as chicken nuggets for being long and skinny and better spiced, but also... mac n' Cheetos. The latter is horrifying and hilarious, it's Cheeto-shaped deep-fried Kraft dinner, I do not understand who came up with this.

I made it home by midnight and then my knee hurt for four days, but oh well, it was a very good trip. :)

comments

a major transition

Tue, 30 May 2017 04:14:46 GMT

Hi. I'm leaving the academic job track. In... two days.

Why? Lots of reasons. My postdoc hasn't been successful, which is due in part to trauma and in part to disabilities. The academy is deeply fucked up in a lot of ways that I no longer see it as my job to change. There are brilliant young women out there who love science and will continue to push.

My new job is both science-related and social-justice-related: I'm going to be a manuscript editor for researchers who aren't native English speakers. There's tons of good science being done that may not get a fair shake because of the style it's written in, so I can help! It'll be fun and enriching -- I can learn new science, it'll be my job to read papers, and I'm looking forward to figuring out which grammatical errors go with which native languages. Everyone I've talked to at the company seems awesome, it sounds like a great culture fit, there's room for growth, and I'll be working remotely with flexible hours. It's delightful. I'm delighted.

It's also a loss. I'm okay and angry and thrilled all at once. I could live anywhere now, though I am very disinclined to move with two nineteen-year-old cats. But I won't be teaching students in person like I have been, and I won't be the mentor who helps make advanced degrees happen for talented people, and I won't be the cranky old professor asking pointed questions of the visiting seminar speakers.

comments

new semester

Fri, 10 Feb 2017 01:59:54 GMT

Hi, I exist. It's a snow day, or half of one; Harvard admin/staff closed, but FAS did not, so I had to go in to lecture and teaching meeting. I then came home in something of a hurry before the snow got worse. I'm here to tell you the first ridiculous story of this semester, pasted from a group chat.

My Friday section contains two people with the same first and last name.

Correction: my section contains FOUR Williams. One goes by Will. But TWO of them have the same last name AND MIDDLE INITIAL.

(Note also that there is another section at this time, why are the two identically named young men not separated from each other.)

[friend 1]
it’s a test of ur will(s)

[friend 2]
Give them new better names

William the [adjective]

[friend 3]
"you will now be willhames welseton the third, and you will be wilma willson pennyworth".... oh. that makes a lot more sense.

[various other amusing ideas]

[friend 4]
or see if any of them would rather go by internet handles? xD

jinian [6:11 PM]
Okay, the story of the Wills gets better:

The two with the identical first MI and last know each other and grew up five miles apart. They know the third.

The fourth WAS NOT THE RIGHT WILLIAM.

The fourth william was an INTERLOPER, who furthermore left early for a track meet. I said "you need this PCR product for your later labs" and he said:

"I HAVE AN IDENTICAL TWIN"

[friend 2]
wait. does that mean there's a _fifth_ william who is actually on your class list

oh my god

jinian [6:13 PM]
YES

The correct fourth William was missing and this slacker William took his place!

His identical twin IS IN FACT in this class. So twin of fifth William did the PCR yesterday in his lab section and I guess they figure they can share?!

I sent all this information to the preceptor (along with an accusation that she was trolling me with these Williams) and her response was,

"!!!!!!! No! Will contact Will."

She wins.

comments

a scientist is not always fine

Thu, 20 Oct 2016 12:45:19 GMT

I keep not posting, because I don't want to just say that I'm still not okay.

Stuff is hard. Someone on Twitter was asking people to say nice things that had happened to them this year, and, welp. I have accomplished some stuff that I worked hard on, but the good things that happen are along the lines of "this thing I worked hard on didn't unexpectedly fail anyway."

The cats are doing all right for being eighteen and a half. I'm enjoying teaching, though it's tiring. I've set up an online store for my pottery, and intend to add more items than one at some point. There's slightly more of a possibility of getting the permanent job I want, since it's on an org chart now. New roommate and I are pretty compatible. I should be able to start allergy shots next month, and the foot that failed catastrophically for no reason is seeming some better. I mostly don't feel scared when I go out. When my computer died I was able to afford a new one.

This is all not as bad as it could be. But I'm not actually okay. I'm not sure I'm going to be.

comments

update

Fri, 01 Jul 2016 04:25:36 GMT

I am nowhere near caught up on LJ/DW because of silly issues in transition between browsers and programs that I need to use for work (and quasi-work like making dragon game festivals happen). However, a lot is happening. The most important things are:

(1) Shiny new baby ball python.

( just in case of phobias )

(2) Shiny new trauma diagnosis.

(Secondhand. Usually happens to therapists, so writings thereupon are not terribly useful for my situation.)

Therapist: So I think this is what's going on.

Me: But lots of people have much worse bad things actually happen to them directly, I should be fine.

Therapist: Well, now you sound like a trauma survivor.

Me: >.>

Dragon game festival is going swimmingly, though people are a little less awestruck by our entire book than I was hoping. Managed to goad a friend into writing fanfic of it already, though. :D

comments

state update

Wed, 11 May 2016 04:06:16 GMT

Feeling down and having trouble concentrating the last few days. Still being sick doesn't help, of course. Allergist visit May 20!

I had a good time Sunday going to Civil War and Martsa with Beth and Sandry, and I made things at pottery class on Saturday.

Felt discouraged this morning and then pointed out to myself that my past few years have gone:

- Developed severe undiagnosed abdominal pain.
- Finished a Ph.D.
- Worked on a demoralizing project for a year.
- Moved across the country.
- Got dumped in a weird retconning way that gave me trust issues.
- Developed progressively worse abdominal pain.
- Had trouble doing the project I actually wanted to do because of illness.
- Finally got a diagnosis and had a difficult surgery.
- Lost my dad.
- Broke up with someone I liked because the relationship just didn't make sense any more.
- Lost my cat.
- Developed nonstop sinus problems.
- Got dumped in a particularly scalding way by the person I really wanted to be with.

(And, as usual for the litany of woe, I have probably forgotten some shit.)

It is a goddamn triumph that I get out of bed in the morning. So there.

comments