The Devil You Know

GPOY:


spacefem put up a good post about how to speak to an audience that can, I think, also apply to the written word.

An angel of the dueSouth fandom uploaded a crap ton of screen caps that I'll be making good use of in my various fanart pieces.

Today's Tumblr collection is Tuesday, October 27: Gas Masks. That wraps up the Vaguely Creepy October collections.

Dear due South Sekrit Santa,
I would like something different this year. Instead of a love story about two people, or even a non-love story about two people, I want a story about the internal life of one of the women of due South (I picked Frannie, Elaine, and Thatcher). I want to hear about her hopes, peeves, pleasures, and other aspects of her world and her own self that have put her in her current place in the world. I want this to be an exploration of character, so you don't even have to worry about a plot! It can be an exchange between her and one of the other two women, or it can be an internal monologue. I didn't choose any relationships but if you want to ship, say, Elaine and Frannie in order to fill my request, that's fine but certainly not necessary for me.

Two really good panels (two of the lesser-populated panels, I think: the supernatural/horror in television media and the one discussing Whedon vs. Miller's approach to feminism and the changing attitudes toward women in Hollywood in general). I was surprised that there were only five of us in that second one. I guess not many people want to engage in such a fraught topic at something that borders on a relax-a-con.

I had a good time at this con and if the money (and time) are available, I'll probably go next year. Did I mention more than a couple due South people? None of them are in the fandom any longer, but it's nice to talk about the show with new people who have fannish perspectives on the show.

My shuttle driver to the airport was fantastic. If you're in an area serviced by the SuperShuttle people, I can at least say the Vegas representatives of the franchise are pretty great. And I sailed through security, which was...unusual. I even got pulled aside, not for additional screening, but into the TSA pre-check line since things were backing up at the x-ray machine. I just had to walk through a metal detector. NICE. Maybe they won't search my luggage!

I tell you one thing, though, I'm done with seeing this side of 4:00am for a while. Also, I'm going to lock myself in the house next weekend and not see anybody for at least 24 hours.

So far this is going very well! The hotel is nice, and it's super quiet. Like, the hotel is quiet (my god are the room doors heavy), but also the con people. Granted, there's only a few of us, but it's such a different demographic than 221B Con. Much older, much quieter. I have heard exactly zero excited squees and observerd no jumping around or flailing about. No rapid, breathless excitement over this actor or that character, everyone is super chill and there are actually pauses in the conversation. Even when five or more people are talking together. I'm not criticizing the more excitable contingent of fandom--they're wonderful and crucial. But this is much more my style. I'm actually disappointed to be leaving so early on Sunday.

Also the WiFi is faster than our connection at home. Which, granted, is not hard to achieve, but still. And there is someone here who used to be in the due South fandom! She even wrote fic for it (but never migrated anything over to AO3).

Today's Tumblr is Tuesday, July 7: Gowns.

I know, I know, I know I link to Breaking Muscle all the time but oh my god you guys, I want to do this 90 day program so hard.

Either I misplaced my box of fandom calling cards or I gave them all away. In any case, I wanted to get more for Con*Strict. I ordered them late Friday evening and they're already done this morning. Local folks, I can't recommend Minuteman Press enough. I didn't even have to call them. You can do all your ordering online! So great, and $40 for 250 cards (full color with bleed).

I finished my badge for Con*Strict last night! It was coming together pretty well, so I decided to go ahead and make it double-sided so that when it flips over (as lanyard badges inevitably do), it'll still show the relevant information. One side is Mad Max themed and the other is Sherlock. I'll try to remember to bring it to work to scan tomorrow so I can post a picture of it.

Found on the Toast Link Roundup, here's a great Kids These Days article.

"Screen Addiction is a generational complaint, and generational complaints, taken individually, are rarely what they claim to be. They are fresh expressions of horrible and timeless anxieties. They are a tried and true form of advanced-age self-care. They apply to all children except your kids, who are mere victims of their degraded peers. They apply to the Snapchats and the sexting, but not to those Facetime conversations with your grandniece, who is too young to text and Twitter, or to turn away, and who is therefore perfect.

The grandparent who is persuaded that screens are not destroying human interaction, but are instead new tools for enabling fresh and flawed and modes of human interaction, is left facing a grimmer reality. Your grandchildren don’t look up from their phones because the experiences and friendships they enjoy there seem more interesting than what’s in front of them (you). Those experiences, from the outside, seem insultingly lame: text notifications, Emoji, selfies of other bratty little kids you’ve never met. But they’re urgent and real. What’s different is that they’re also right here, always, even when you thought you had an attentional claim."

And my favorite is the closing bit:

" A new technology can be enriching and exciting for one group of people and create alienation for another; you don’t have to think the world is doomed to recognize that the present can be a little cruel."

I don't understand why it's so difficult for parents to remove the technology when the presence of the technology is inappropriate to the situation. I understood when it was time to put down the book or the crayons or whatever. How is a tablet or phone different? That's not a rhetorical question. I honestly want to know. Is there a difference? How? Why?

I commented on The Toast that grandparents need to make themselves relevant and interesting. That's just courteous. I'm lucky. My dad's parents were fascinating people and I happily listened to their stories about throwing rocks at the National Guard when they came in to guard the scabs during a union strike. Or about how theirs was the first lunch counter in their city to seat Black people. Helping grandma in the kitchen and her telling stories about the people who bought her pies as she taught me how to make a good pie crust. I mean, I guess I didn't have the option of internet friends back then, but even today, if I had the choice to visit with them about their amazing adventures or scroll through my Tumblr dash, I probably wouldn't choose Tumblr. Old people need to get over the notion that they're deserving of time and attention just because they're old.

Tonight is my appointment with Dr. Jonah in KC. Tomorrow night is prep for Indy (making kale chips so we have a travel vegetable to go with the jerky so we don't have to stop somewhere for lunch), and also slicing up the jerky for Con*Strict (so it has four days to marinade before I put it in the dehydrator when I'm back from Indy). I'd like to make a couple more tops to take to Con*Strict. My first attempt at re-fashioning some thrift-store tees into a mini-dress was successful. I'd like to pack those instead of tops and skirts because I am all about minimal packing. Also because I need to leave enough room for my iPod speakers and yoga mat in my suitcase.

Someone on Tumblr suggested a self-insert fanart weekend and I'm going to see if I can possibly put together a piece of art for it. I want to find a famous painting of someone officiating a wedding (or some sort of ceremony with two people in it) and collage myself (officiating) Fraser and RayK. I considered doing a version of American Gothic with myself as a floating angel/putta above them, but there's enough interpretations of that painting floating around and it's actually an image of a farmer and his daughter, so making that into a romantic thing is kind of gross. Also thinking about just using a screen cap of the two of them and then pasting my head on a cherub and calling it good. I'm going to look around this morning for the base image/painting, but if anyone has suggestions, I'm open.

I ate like so much crap this weekend and I feel so gross today that I am on a complete strict Whole30 style eating plan until I leave for Las Vegas. It was a very easy decision, let me tell you. Ugh. I feel hungover in my guts. Just ugh. So if anyone needs a solidarity sister for fixing up your eating habits, I'm here.

Edit/Update: I just spent an egregiously long time looking for classical cupid/putti images that I could paste my head on and found nothing I liked very much. Not to mention putti in poses that would fit face angles in my numerous selfies. So I might be scrapping this idea of the self-insert fanart thing. Maybe if I had more time to leisurely browse for images? But if I was gonna get it done for the weekend I'd need the images by the time I leave here today to start work on it as soon as I get home and at this point I'm pretty sure that's not going to happen.

I did find a high quality Fraser/RayK screencap to use if someone asks for fanart in that pairing for this year's dS Sekrit Santa.

Today's Tumblr collection is Tuesday, March 24: Harry Potter.

I posted pics of the Sebastienne Moran cosplay on Tumblr here and here. A million thanks to stuology for taking such excellent photographs.

This oven-baked jerk chicken sounds amazing. I'm gonna try this with a whole cut-up chicken instead of just the legs or thighs. I'm also gonna try these microwaved caramelized onions (without the brown sugar, obviously). mckitterick is allergic to raw onions, and the cutting and cooking of them makes his eyes sting. But maybe microwaving them wouldn't be as bad?

Today's Tumbr is Tuesday, March 10: Due South, part...five? I don't remember. I really love due South, guys.

And that's all I can write for today because my work computer is infected with malware again and I can't stand all the flashing pop-ups telling me I need to update with some fishy-ass software. So until that's fixed...

I woke up this morning dizzy with exhaustion. I literally swayed on my feet as I walked out of the bedroom. Returning to work for full eight-hour days this week was perhaps premature. There's a fellowship deadline tomorrow but I'm not sure if that's an internal deadline for department faculty review or if it's a college deadline for nominee submission. Once I hear from my boss about that I'll decide if I can take tomorrow off. I would've called in this morning but I thought the other secretary was out today (I was wrong, it's next week) and I have a website training session and an important meeting this afternoon.

That's all gonna go real well.

I assume everyone has seen this video of Sergei Polunin dancing to "Take Me to Church." I am, apparently, the only person on the planet who was...not all that impressed by it? His talent and ability are amazing, don't get me wrong, but I feel like the artistic interpretation is lacking/wrong/nonexistent. To my eye/mind, the mood swings of the choreography don't match the music and many of the overt emotional actions (like the head in hands motif, which is repeated a few times) seem cliched as performed. He's lovely, don't misunderstand, but...I'm not feeling the musical interpretation. Could be I just don't understand ballet, which is entirely possible. shanmonster, if you're reading this, I'd like to hear your thoughts.

Because of various allergies, I can't wear lipsticks, especially ones that can be chewed/licked off (for special events, I'll use the CoverGirl Outlast stuff, but only for a few hours and I have to concentrate on not licking or biting my lips). However, for my lovelies who can wear it, this stuff looks awesome. For those of you who don't/can't wear lipsticks but like/love/are obsessed by lip balms, this brand of (plain, uncolored, unflavored) balm is the shit. I found it locally at the Community Mercantile and oh my god it's amazing. AMAZING. I'm having a difficult time bringing myself to use any of my other balms (and I have a lot of them) instead of these. My favorite is the Purely Coconut which isn't listed on the Alaffia main website which makes me very nervous and I feel like maybe I should stock up now? I have a reputation for having my favorite anything (makeup, menu items, entire places of business) being discontinued.

Marvel's announcement of Civil War was the catalyst that began my disenchantment and triggered my emotional divorce from MCU. I mean, I'll still go see the movies (probably), but my psychological investment? Gone. This latest bullshit made me realize I'd done the right thing. Related to that, now that my investment in several fandoms (Marvel, Sherlock, Supernatural) has dramatically decreased in the past year, I think I'll start reading fashion blogs again. It's been a long time since I followed things like Fashion Week, or the seasonal designer shows. Just in time for New York Fashion Week!

In other news, I'm still not eating much/well. Three times this morning I've gone to my little fridge here at the office to look at my food options (zucchini spaghetti, chocolate chili, chicken soup, and squash curry) and every time my stomach rolls and cramps a bit and I just...ugh. I'm 90% sure it's psychological, but I just can't make myself eat. So much time and effort spent teaching myself not to eat when I'm not hungry, and of course this is the side effect.

The knowledge that I only need to work three days of five this week is what's keeping me from abject despair.

I had a stomach pain episode again last night. I think that's the third one this year. I'm grateful that it only lasted a couple hours and it wasn't as bad as others I've had. Not feeling great today. Very fragile and delicate. Also hungry, but no way I'm ready to put more than ginger tea with honey and coconut milk in me, though. I'm exhausted. Even though it wasn't as bad as they've been, that sort of pain really takes it out of ya.

Does anyone who still reads my LJ sell stuff on Etsy? I cannot figure out how to add more than one shipping profile to my items in Etsy, which means I can only ship things to US costumers. I hate selling stuff online.

The due South Sekrit Santa piece is done, though. Yay! It looks fantastic. I'll be able to link to it sometime in late December or early January, once they reveal the names of participants. Not that my particular art style isn't immediately obvious, but I like to play by the rules.

Several months ago I finally found coconut milk in aseptic packaging which was great because hurray no BPA and also, cheaper. So of course suddenly the supplier stopped supplying it. I stopped by the Asian grocer on a whim yesterday and they had a different brand of aseptic coconut milk in stock. It was Aroy-D (the previous one was Chakoh) and although I like Chakoh in the can a bit better than Aroy-D, Aroy-D in a can is quite fine so I felt safe in stocking up. Of course, this was not a great plan because this coconut milk is just awful. The fat does not mingle with the fluids and it's not smooth. When I put it in tea, the fat floats to the surface and, if left overnight, actually solidifies in the cold liquid. You can imagine the state of the unused portion of the container that I put in the fridge. This morning I attempted to emulsify it in the Vitamix, but I wound up basically making coconut butter and whey. I left the solids in the fridge at home and am interested to experiment with them. I have no idea what to do with the other nine boxes of this stuff I bought. I guess maybe I can cook with it? But the soup won't be creamy, since the fat just separates out and floats on top and really just doesn't look very appealing.

I am freezing in my office again today but that might just be lack of food and sleep.