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You are viewing the most recent 25 entries.
Saturday 2012 May 26th
rosefox @ 01:19: "I couldn't make this stuff up"
 A friend was telling me today that he's having something of a midlife crisis. I confessed that I've never really understood what that means. He said, "It's like I'm looking around at my life and thinking, Is this all there is?" I told him that by that definition I don't expect to ever have a midlife crisis. We were walking down Sixth Avenue toward Bryant Park. Being there reminded me, as it always does, of the year I spent as a secretary at BPRC, struggling in yet another job that didn't suit me, thinking This is it. I'm done working for other people. It never works. It reminded me of how miserable Josh was back then, how we desperately tried to find local friends and community, how Xtina and I wrestled with the transition from long-distance to medium-distance and wondered why seeing each other more often wasn't making us happier, how money was always tight. And now I have everything. So much more than I ever thought I might have. I hear there are kids who plan their futures; I never really did, or not in any plausible way. (I wanted to be a detective. I wanted to live in a self-sustaining agrarian commune. I wanted to create a language that everyone in the world would speak. But those are dreams, fancies, not plans.) I'm not sure I believed in the concept of myself as an adult. Somehow, without a blueprint, this amazing life has built itself around me. Such riches, such beauty, such wonder, such love! To contemplate it is to be both uplifted and humbled. I look around at my life every day and I'm blown away by how much there is. I don't expect to feel the slightest bit different when I hit "midlife", whenever that is. I guess I got my crises over with early. Can't say I'm the least bit sorry. You're welcome to comment on LJ, but I'd rather you leave a comment on the Dreamwidth version of this entry. The current comment count is  .
Friday 2012 May 25th
dmmaus @ 22:58: Another night fountain
  If you go to Rome, do see the Trevi Fountain at night. It looks more amazing than it does during the day. And the crowds start to drift away around 11pm. :-)
Originally published at Carpe DMM. You can comment here or there.
Thursday 2012 May 24th
rosefox @ 02:48: " #protip "
 Useful things I have learned or figured out recently: * When staying at a hotel or spending a lot of time in a climate-controlled space where the air is very dry, drink coconut water--at least a liter a day. Bring it with you or buy it nearby. If traveling by air, see if you can buy some in the airport once you're past the security line. It will rehydrate you much more effectively than water, without all the artificial crap (and vile taste) of Gatorade. Also recommended: just before bed, apply lip balm and hand moisturizer. (In that order. It's hard to get the cap off the lip balm if your hands are slippery.) * If you experience anxiety-related muscle tension, apply heat to those muscles to reduce your anxiety. A hot bath or shower works well. A heating pad is even better. Warmth is emotionally comforting, and will physically relax you as well. What useful things have you recently learned or figured out that you wish you'd known years ago? You're welcome to comment on LJ, but I'd rather you leave a comment on the Dreamwidth version of this entry. The current comment count is  .
Wednesday 2012 May 23rd
mactavish @ 07:15: hedonism
 DJ is lying on two pillows, Owen's pajamas, a sleeping bag, a woolen blanket, and a cushy couch. She says this is her due.
dmmaus @ 09:53: Home from Italy and France
 We got home from Paris last night and had about 12 hours sleep. It’s morning and it feels like morning, yay! Here’s a photo from Piazza Navona in Rome.
Originally published at Carpe DMM. You can comment here or there.
Tuesday 2012 May 22nd
bfly, posting in
callahanians @ 17:07: Looking for Carol P.
 Calling Carol P. a.k.a. cstarp. Got an email from Spider Robinson this afternoon and he is looking to get in touch but his contact info is out of date. Anybody got a line on her?
rosefox @ 14:50: "How does it feel?"
 It occurs to me that I haven't updated on health stuff in a while. At the moment, my right ear appears to be completely fine. No hearing loss, only the barest hint of tinnitus, no vertigo. I've pretty much dropped the low-salt diet; I'm still trying to avoid massively salty things like pretzels, potato chips, and the clear noodle soup at Rickshaw, which now taste way too salty to me, but otherwise I'm not worrying about it. My guess is that the ear problems will occasionally come back, I'll do the low-salt thing for a while (or maybe a very brief course of diuretics to kickstart recovery), and they'll go away again. This is the best outcome I could have hoped for and I am very, very, very relieved. Otherwise I'm doing pretty well. Baseline levels of anxiety still a bit higher than I'd like, but it's been a while since I had a panic attack or even needed a calming dose of taurine. Of course it helps tremendously that the ear is behaving itself and I can eat normally; low salt -> low blood pressure -> dizziness -> anxiety, dietary change -> eating less -> low blood sugar -> anxiety, vertigo -> anxiety, hearing loss -> anxiety, etc. so being done with all of that is a great relief. I have not yet checked out tai chi, and I don't think I'm going to have the time to do so before Readercon. I miss dancing a bit. I would like to be moving around more. But right now I really, really can't commit to doing anything weekly, and it feels marvelously freeing to be able to do a different thing every single Tuesday night! Today's Tuesday plans involve petting the kitten (I missed her very much while I was traveling), and eating lunch, and showering, and getting dressed, and calling my mother, and answering emails from potential clients, and figuring out what time I need to leave home to get to the movie theater by 17:15 to meet Josh for the 17:30 showing of The Avengers (yes, we're the last nerds left who haven't seen it). We decided to see the movie first and have dinner after--which means not overindulging in popcorn, but see above about salty things now tasting VERY salty to me, so I may not want much popcorn anyway. It feels so good to be feeling good. You're welcome to comment on LJ, but I'd rather you leave a comment on the Dreamwidth version of this entry. The current comment count is  .
rosefox @ 02:07: "Keep calm and carry yarn"
 ( Of little interest to anyone but me and my partners: my schedule for the next two months )Okay. I can do this. I can get everything done. Everything will be okay. NOBODY PANIC. I remember when we were thinking of having a housewarming party in May. Ha ha ha. Maybe we'll have one in August, only six months after we moved in... You're welcome to comment on LJ, but I'd rather you leave a comment on the Dreamwidth version of this entry. The current comment count is  .
Current Mood: calm, dammit
Monday 2012 May 21st
hrrunka @ 14:39: Where'd it go?
 Another week (and a bit) gone by... Most of the laundry required since my brother's family's visit is now done. It would have helped if there'd been some warm sunny days so that laundry could have been hung outside to dry. When the weather's dull, grey and randomly damp that doesn't work, and there's been quite a bit of the randomly damp stuff this past week. It's also been a busy week for various club activities. Monday evening was a radio club construction evening. I'd decided to give the project a miss, but braver folk were tackling a surface-mount-heavy project. I just enjoyed nattering. There was a talk about home automation at the other radio club meeting on Tuesday evening. The speaker had done a self-build in the local area, and produced a house which both fitted in with the houses around and also scored pretty well on the various measures being applied to houses these days. He'd included fancy under-floor heating, heat-exchange ventilation, solar panels for hot water and electricity, and a very comprehensive monitoring and control system. Whether it will turn out to be worth the extra hundred grand he figures he spent, however... On Wednesday evening there was an astronomical society committee meeting. On Thursday evening there wasn't a meeting to go to, so I stayed home, and ended up playing with morse code in a way which could be construed as successful, if slightly contrived. On Friday evening there was gaming. We played Tobago. I got off to a slow start, but had the most unlikely luck when it came to treasure cards. Both the curses struck during hunts in which I played no part, and I collected far more than my fair share of high value cards in hunts in which I was a player. I ended up way ahead at game's end. On Saturday I spent a little while working in the garden. Some things are growing very well, while others are suffering badly. One well-established shrub seems to have contracted something fungal. I took out the worst of it, but the rest may not last long. The rowan tree is also looking very sick, and may well need to come out soon. One of the small crab-apples seems to have suffered in the late frosts after the warmth in March, and may not have survived. I can see some serious re-planting happening in the not-too-distant future. On Saturday afternoon I headed for London, took advantage of City Thameslink being open at a weekend to avoid a Central Line closure, and went to the ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif?v=92.1) londonfurs meet. The weather stayed dry, and I caught up with a few folk (including ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.1) arakinuk whom I'd not seen in ages), so it was worth the effort. I went home via Forbidden Planet and failed not to buy anything. It was a good but rather tiring day. On Sunday I was up early, and out of the house very shortly after 8am. I spent the day helping with an Intermediate training course organised by one of the local radio clubs, and this time the help included giving the first hour-and-a-half's talks. The day seemed to go reasonably well. I'll find out how well I explained the subjects I was supposed to be covering when the candidates sit their exam in a fortnight's time. Oh, and I've another hour or so of talks to give then, too... Today's been quite restful by comparison.
Friday 2012 May 18th
rosefox @ 03:08: "Brilliantly beautiful sterile communities"
 I'm in D.C. for the Nebula Awards weekend. The hotel got overbooked--apparently an enormous tour group decided to stay an extra day, and once people have rooms you can't kick them out--so a bunch of us were shunted off to a very posh hotel several miles away for tonight. This is a bit puzzling, as the original hotel is surrounded by other hotels and presumably they could have just sent us across the street, but whatever. Alas, the very posh hotel put all its money into building an enormous atrium with house-sized shops and restaurants inside of it, leaving none for soft beds. This entire place--not just the apocalyptically empty and echoing hotel but the surrounding extruded-plastic "walkable downtown" with meticulously kept-up lawns and a complete sucking absence of soul--feels grotesquely fake. I could believe that it was once a movie set built from a demented megalomaniac's dim, warped recollections of childhood vacation fantasies. Now the (undoubtedly dystopian) movie is done and the set has been abandoned, to be intermittently occupied by confused, wealthy squatters. The bars outside the hotel, where we went in a futile search for non–room service food, were packed full of the most desperately intoxicated people I have ever seen in my life. There is no dirt anywhere. There is no sense that anyone who had a hand in designing this place put the slightest thought into human comfort and enjoyment; it all exists simply to make an impression. It's the architectural equivalent of someone who has undergone so much plastic surgery that none of their original face is left. It's the suburbia that Information Society wrote "On the Outside 2.1" about, the sort that recalls the man with red eyes and the regimented children from A Wrinkle in Time. It is profoundly discomfiting and I will be glad to leave. The one redeeming feature is that I ended up with Dr. Danielle as my last-minute roommate, which is lovely. If I were in a room all by myself I'd be missing Josh and Xtina a whole lot. I'm still missing them, of course, but it's tempered by slumber party fun. There's hardly anything on the program that interests me (no slight to the organizers; I have this problem at all non-Readercon conventions), so once I get back to the conference hotel, I plan to spend the next three days alternating between hot tub and bar*, using my phone to record interviews, with a break to put on my pinstripe suit and liveblog the Nebulas. I love my job, even when it sends me to strange, disturbing, non-real places. * Because it's where people congregate, not because I'll be drinking. I don't drink when I'm working.You're welcome to comment on LJ, but I'd rather you leave a comment on the Dreamwidth version of this entry. The current comment count is  .
Current Mood: uncomfortable
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