Categories
cycling

In which Google Maps tries to kill me.

I used Google Maps a lot when I was in Houston, to map routes for getting around by bike. There, it served me really well – hey, I got through the summer alive, right? There aren’t a lot of bike lanes are shared road space, but the mapping algorithm was really good about taking me on low-traffic streets in an effort to keep me from being mowed down by cars.

I’m going to have to be a lot more careful about it in Denver. The problem is that there are many, many more bike trails in Denver than there are in Houston. But unlike Houston, the majority of trails that are marked for bikes in Denver are gravel trails. I really don’t feel good about riding on them. Maybe if I had a mountain bike, but with road tires it’s too easy to fishtail and just lose it.

I got a reminder of that today when I was trying to ride up to Longmont. The maps sent me on to a set of trails through an open space. I rode a little ways in, almost lost it in the gravel, and then decided to walk the rest of the way through to the street since it didn’t seem that far.

Which it wasn’t, except for the part where I got really, really lost and spent about twenty minutes walking in aimless circles.

The street was another problem entirely. It was a dirt track with gravel. And while I was trying to decide how much further to talk, a cloud of the biggest mosquitoes I’d ever seen descended on me. In broad daylight. It was like Hitchcock had done a movie called The Mosquitoes just right there.

You think it’s funny? Next time try to run while pulling along a bike through mud while slapping evil mutant insects who have lost their proper fear of the day star.

If I die of West Nile, let it be known that Google Maps killed me. Next time Google Maps, please try to bump me off in a more traditional way, like driving me off a cliff. I’ll be happy as long as nothing’s biting me.

Categories
grad school

Grad school update

This is hopefully my final semester of grad school. It’s a scary prospect. I have to take a class this semester – Paleoclimate – which is thankfully relevant to my thesis.

Oh yeah. My thesis. That.

You know, the other little thing I have to accomplish this semester.

I was freaking out about it yesterday, because it feels enormous and terrifying. I handed all of my samples over to be processed in May, but various delays mean that I still don’t have any lab results from them. With graduation deadlines giving me the fishy stink-eye, this is not a comfortable place in which to be.

I met with my advisor and I feel a lot better now. The content of my thesis isn’t as terrifying and huge as I was afraid it might be. I went over with her exactly what I’m expecting to have as far as parts to the thesis, and it sounds like it’s a good amount of data to weave together. I already have an idea of how I can organize it all so it makes sense.

Even better, there are things I can be doing with it right now. You know, instead of writing a blog post about it. I’ve finished my stratigraphic columns for my two cores, so I can describe them, write about my methods, go over the facies I’ve chosen, and pick pictures for illustrations from both the cores and my thin sections.

So yay, I can get to work! It’s just writing. That should be easy, right?

Right?

Categories
politics Uncategorized

About F*****g Time

Democrats approve marriage equality platform.

Freedom to Marry. We support the right of all families to have equal respect, responsibilities, and protections under the law. We support marriage equality and support the movement to secure equal treatment under law for same-sex couples. We also support the freedom of churches and religious entities to decide how to administer marriage as a religious sacrament without government interference.
We oppose discriminatory federal and state constitutional amendments and other attempts to deny equal protection of the laws to committed same-sex couples who seek the same respect and responsibilities as other married couples. We support the full repeal of the so-called Defense of Marriage Act and the passage of the Respect for Marriage Act.

My favorite bit? “…the so-called Defense of Marriage Act.” Way to indicate the distaste with which that law should rightfully be regarded.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: my marriage doesn’t need to be defended. Fuck off.

This actually even gave me a little thrill of pride that at this point, I’m a registered Democrat. This is unusual, considering my party registration has little to do with any love I feel for Democrats, but is rather dictated by my desire for the crazies to stop sending me snail mail political spam. I’ve gotten a lot fewer disgusting anti-LGBT and anti-choice political fliers since I switched away from Unaffiliated. It’s been worth avoiding that constant feeling that I should be disinfecting my little mailbox on even-numbered years.

There’s a lot that the Democrats do that causes me to facepalm or rageface. Sometimes simultaneously. (Which is much harder than it sounds, trust me.) But this? About fucking time someone did it, and it obviously wasn’t going to be the Republicans. As far as I can tell, that party firmly wants to live in the 50s in regards to social issues, but is still squabbling over which century.

Categories
books

Lois McMaster Bujold owns my soul

Well, not in a literal sense. It just kind of feels that way.

Earlier in the summer, I asked friends to recommend audiobooks to me. Right now, that’s how I’m doing most of my reading. They’re ideal for bike rides (not only do you get to immerse yourself in a good story for two hours, you get to work up an amazing sweat) and now that I’m back in Colorado I imagine I’ll be listening to them on the bus when I go to school.

You see, a few years ago my stomach decided that I read too much and it hates me. Now I get motion sick when I try to read in moving vehicles. I think it might be directly related to the many mornings I spent trying to read from the Riverside Shakespeare with its ridiculously tiny print while bouncing along US-36, which could probably even make a hardened astronaut vomit.

Anyway, my friend Oliver recommended Lois McMaster Bujold’s Vorkosigan Saga to me, recommending that I start with Shards of Honor.

I was hooked from the start. Cordelia, the main character of that book and the next (Barrayar) is clever and badass without ever being a caricature. There’s wonderful emotional complexity there. And there’s a lot in the books that is actually quite funny, both in the sarcastic dark way, and the laugh out loud way.

I approached the next book, The Warrior’s Apprentice, which a little trepidation since the point of view character had switched to Cordelia’s son. Well, I’m more than halfway through it and I don’t want to stop listening. I’ve started thinking up errands to run so I can spend a little more bike time and do a bit more “reading.” The audiobook also made me laugh out loud during my flight to Chicago, twice, which I think creeped out the other passengers.

Can’t wait to get home and pick up the next book. One of the things I’m enjoying about it is that the main character, Miles, faces severe physical limitations in a society that is very nasty toward the disabled. It’s a viewpoint that doesn’t get exercised often in speculative fiction.

As space opera goes, I like this indescribably more than Leviathan Wakes. The characters (both male and female) are so complex and interesting. It’s got wonderfully dynastic politics, clashing cultures, all the bells and whistles.

I’m glad Oliver told me to read them, even if my hunger for the next book is consuming my very soul. It’s been a long time since I felt that excited about a series.

Categories
Loki wtf

Apparently Loki + Waffles = A Thing (and it’s my fault?)

Well, this was sure a surreal way to top off my time at Worldcon.

I don’t see a point in being coy about the fact that I still write a bit of fanfiction now and then for fun, and lately it’s been Thor/The Avengers fanfic with Loki as the main character because hey, he’s my favorite, and he’s fun to write. I wrote this novella-length thing called The Calculator last year and included a sort of cute side “character” that was the Waffle Iron1.

Last night a very nice person who read that fanfic in an archive and left some comments and informed me that apparently the Waffle Iron has become A Thing, which even has its own tumblr. And has spawned other fanfics (I think that’s really cool) and porn2. The latter I find a bit disturbing, but I guess I’m not surprised. Rule 34 and all that. And waffles have now made a guest appearance in the Loki and the Loon comic, which as far as I can tell has nothing to do with me and everything to do with the terrifying internet porn.

I had no idea about any of this. Most probably because I don’t have a tumblr3. I knew people thought the little Waffle Iron in The Calculator was cute, but no one even mentioned to me that fanfics spawned from it. I didn’t even realize that people had actually, you know, read the story to that extent.

I’m not upset or anything. I’m just deeply puzzled4. I really wish I’d known this was going on because it’s kind of cool and perhaps not something best left to drop on my head sometime after midnight and my third beer5.

So yeah.

Short version: …bzuh?

1 – A sort of weird shout-out to The Brave Little Toaster, actually.

2 – No, I am not linking to this because like I needed any more proof that we live in a godless universe of pain. If you want to know that badly I’m sure you can find it so long as you don’t mind things like “loki waffle iron porn” showing up in your Google search history.

3 – I’m not on tumblr because I would rather use the time to write. Twitter sucks away enough of my life. No, I’m not getting an account. Fuck off.

4 – Well, and a little weirded out by the porn thing. I’ve never really bought into the idea of people climbing mountains just because they’re there, and I feel similarly ambivalent toward people writing porn that seems to have no purpose other than to make others snort Borax just because they can. Then again, I did just link to that website of the Roy Orbison in cling-film stories so maybe I should shut up but goddamnit those are funny and involve no actual weird sex.

5 – I also kind of want to say hi to the non-porn bits of things, but since I have no tumblr that seems a tad impossible. It does seem cool in some kind of bizarre, WTF-internet kind of way.

Categories
worldcon

Random bits from my second day at Worldcon

I’m having so much more fun here than I had at Denvention. This is probably because I’m not not in the middle of a twelve-credit summer semester and learning Japanese from the yuurei in the Prince of Darkness’ closet. Getting to actually attend most of the con is certainly helping.

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I got to have dinner with the lovely gentlemen from Machine of Death. I already was acquainted with Matthew Bennardo since I’m one of his weirdo Twitter stalkers. But I also got to meet David Malki. And thanks to him, I have something wonderful to share with you: Ulli’s Roy Orbison in Cling-Film Website

You’re welcome. Read the first story. Out loud if you can. With a German accent if possible. (It really does read like slash, only better. And hilarious.)

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The SFWA table and suite seem to be competing over which gets to eat my soul first. I’ve been at the table for an hour and a half each day at least. But it’s been fun, since I’ve gotten to meet a lot of other SFWA people that way and have had some good conversations.

Then I go to the suite and instead of sitting and having a beer (my normal plan) I end up slicing strawberries or helping unfuck the room after a party. It’s actually kind of fun, to feel like I’m helping out. Then I get to grab a plate of potato salad and a sammich and run back downstairs, consuming most of it in the elevator.

Today someone did make fun of me for putting miracle whip on white bread. I guess I deserved that.

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The Strange Horizons tea party today was excellent. I got to officially meet all the new editorial staff, which was exciting.

And there was cake.

About that cake.

(If you don’t spot why this is hilarious, look again.)

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I have been taking copious notes in all the panels I’ve attended. Once I have time, I’ll be getting those sorted out and adding my own thoughts, then posting them on the blog. So keep an eye out for that. I’ve found the panels very interesting so far, so hopefully you will too!

I also found out today that (a) there was a vote on whether or not there’d be a Hugo for Young Adult novels, and (b) the vote failed. This was all kind of a surprise to me. I’m going to be saying a few things about that as well, since I can’t imagine I’m the only one who didn’t see that coming in any way, but a little later. I can’t be coherent about it right now.

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Worldcon in 2013 will be in San Antonio, TX. In 2014 it will be in London, UK – technically it’s not confirmed yet but they are running their bid unopposed so it’s pretty much a foregone conclusion.
If you like science fiction and fantasy, particularly reading and writing, you should start thinking about your travel plans now. I hope to see you there. (I’ve already bought my membership for London 2014.)
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Valuable lesson learned: when you’re having Chicago deep-dish pizza, don’t send a slice into your stomach with a buddy. They can wreak exponentially more havoc when they can watch each other’s backs. So tonight I’m quietly partying in my room with a can of ginger ale.

Valuable lesson number two: when a man complains that two pieces of pizza might not be enough to slay his reasonable hunger, this should not be taken as a sign that two pieces is the ideal size of a meal.

Valuable lesson number three, completely unrelated to the first two: A panel about feminism in fantasy is probably not the place to look for sympathy toward your hypothesis that Buffy the Vampire Slayer is in some way emasculating and demeaning toward men because Xander is insufficiently badass.

Categories
people don't suck worldcon

Shut up and dance.

Let me tell you a little story about why you should shut up and dance.

I don’t like to dance. I feel fat and ungainly and uncoordinated. I get red-faced and sweaty and generally feel gross. Nothing I wear looks good on me when I’m standing still, let alone when I’m flailing around and showing off my lack of moves and rhythm.

Years ago I went to both of my proms, junior and senior. I didn’t dance much at my junior prom, because of the above reasons. I just sort of hovered at the tables and drank punch. My senior prom, well… that was with my first boyfriend and that’s a whole can of worms I’d rather not open right now.

So when I saw that Worldcon would have a geek prom, I decided I would go, and finally have a good prom where I had fun instead of teenaged drama. I even tried to find a “nerd date,” to no avail. Not wanting to go by myself, I almost chickened out when my last panel ended, but I swung by the ballrooom and poked my head in. People looked like they were having fun. I went up to my room and got changed into my fancier clothes.

When I got back down to the ballroom, I sat at the tables. And watched people dance. And felt stupid and awkward and lonely, because everyone was having fun and I was by myself. What was I even doing? If I was just going to sit, it was a waste of time. Then the DJ decided to play “Stayin’ Alive” and it was just too funny. I had to get up. It was scary. I felt stupid. I kind of hopped around on my own and felt even dumber. I found the spine to sidle up to a group of women and ask if I could join them. And we all danced.

You know what happened?

No one gave a shit. No one looked at me. No one cared that I’m ungainly and silly and was dripping sweat. We laughed, and smiled, and had fun.

You know what else happened?

I kept dancing, even when my group went away. I danced with complete strangers. I danced by myself. If I saw someone that looked lonely, I went and danced with them. We all had fun. We danced the Time Warp (again). I danced until I had to take off my shoes. I sweated through my jacket. I found a little dedicated group of three other people and we outlasted the DJ.

This is the lie we tell ourselves: we should be afraid of being silly and having fun because the next person who laughs will be laughing at us instead of with us.

It doesn’t matter. I’m telling you it doesn’t matter.

Dancing is about being alive, and joyful and human, and celebrating that fact. Dancing is not a zero-sum game or a contest. It’s like love. The more you give, the more you have. Being afraid of that is one more lie we swallow, one more way we try to trick ourselves into being less alive.

I think we should stop being afraid of other people and try to just be with them. No one’s watching. (Or if they are, fuck them, they’re joyless pricks and you don’t need their approval.) Enough excuses. Tell your insecurities and all the lies to shut up so you can dance.

Life is to short to deprive yourself of joy.

Categories
department of corrections feminism

Princess? Sigh.

ETA: I have since confirmed that this gifset is totally fake and I should feel ashamed of myself. I’m going to go sit in the corner. I have preserved the text of this post in all its unedited glory so (a) you can see the dumb thing I said by grace of not confirming sources [not yay] and (b) I still very much stand by what I said about the whole “princess” thing, because it doesn’t actually matter what guy is saying it, and it is a thing you hear men say all the fucking time. It’s still infantilizing bullshit.

 

I adore you, Tom Hiddleston. I do. And I totally grok what you are trying to say, here. But that word. Princess.

Sigh.

This is admittedly a bit of Rachael brain damage, but since this is a Rachael blog, I get to complain. I hate the Princess shit with burning passion. I hate it when people (normally guys) say women should be treated like princesses, unless the word princess is immediately preceded by the word warrior.

There’s a lot of baggage to Princess. Historically, what were they? Women of royalty who (normally) could not inherit or rule. They were there to basically belong to their father until they could be sold in the cause of a political alliance to another man. At which point the purpose switched over to providing (hopefully) male babies.

And then there’s Disney. Disney hasn’t exactly made the Princess into an empowering concept either. Princesses get rescued by the man and live happily ever after as someone’s meek wife. And if you look at the recent Disney “princesses” that have had more guts, most of them aren’t actually princesses.

Princess to me doesn’t hold the ring of respecting women. It conjures up images of paternalistic protectionism, rescuing the damsel in distress.  So fine, I twitch a lot less when a dad calls his daughter his little princess, because he should be looking out for her. (And presumably not looking for a husband and political deals.)

But please don’t treat grown women like princesses. Treat us like unique, powerful, and beautiful human beings who are worthy of respect.

Or if we must stick with the verbal paradigm of royalty, Queen is acceptable. But only if you mean Queen in a sort of Elizabeth I/Maleficent way. Because fuck yeah.

Categories
Uncategorized

A plus size lady on Project Runway

I cringe every time there’s anyone plus size on Project Runway. It just makes me want to curl up in preparation for the inevitable whining and disaster. In the episode I just watched, Ven complains that the “proportions are completely off.” And then keeps complaining about how hard it is to deal with a plus-size woman, how unfair it is he has to deal with a larger model. (He’s complaining because she’s almost [gasp] a 14! OH GOD.)

That’s how it feels. Like we’re constantly being told that it’s impossible for us to have nice things, no one can design anything good for us, we’re all wrong. (And hey, you have to wear black because it’s slimming! Because otherwise you’ll gross people out!)

People wonder why I act like I’m allergic to shopping for clothes. It’s one giant, miserable experience where nothing ever looks right. Obviously, there have to be some people that design for large women. But it always feels like no one’s figured out what the hell we’re supposed to wear to actually look good, so we end up with punishment clothes instead.

So watching Project Runway when there’s a plus-size woman on the show always gives me flashbacks to that personal nightmare. It makes me think well shit, if that’s how designers see us, no wonder clothing is a nightmare.

This episode felt different in one important aspect, and I really appreciated that. In previous seasons it always felt like there was just endless picking from everyone if there was a bigger lady on the show. This time, many of the other designers really attacked Ven for how he was treating his client/model. And when Heidi Klum ripped in to him at the end of the episode (“We like Teri but we don’t love your outfit.”) that made me feel a lot better too. The blame got placed squarely on Ven for designing clothes that didn’t look good, not on the woman for not being shaped like a model.

I didn’t expect that. It was refreshing. (And it’s kind of sad that people speaking out that hey you should treat a plus-size lady like a human being would be unusual and refreshing.)

Categories
feminism

LOL your personhood amendment

I’d heard that we were going to get the Son of the Revenge of the Personhood Amendment from the Black Lagoon in Colorado this year. I rolled my eyes so damn hard that I think I might have pulled a muscle.

Oh, guess not. 

The attempt to get the Personhood Amendment (tl;dr version: fetuses have rights, women don’t) on the ballot was shot down due to a lack of valid signatures. The campaign only turned in 106K signatures, and had 24K knocked off as invalid, which put it below the threshold for making it onto the ballot. Of course the campaign is now going to take legal action on this, but I have high hopes for that being a complete bullshit move.

They tried to have a Personhood Amendment in Mississippi last year. In Mississippi! It failed by something like a ten percent margin.

Maybe when Mississippi is telling you that your ridiculous anti-choice bullshit is too draconian, it’s time to pack it in.

Because I don’t know. Maybe even women who hate abortion like having access to birth control. (You know, birth control. The number one thing that helps prevent the potential need or desire for an abortion.) Or being able to have access to in-vitro fertilization. Or don’t want their vagina treated like a crime scene if they have the poor taste to miscarry a baby that they wanted. Maybe women are getting tired of being characterized as wombs with legs who lose all agency when they get pregnant. (That’s for sure one of the main reasons I have an absolute horror of being pregnant. Kat, I don’t know how you do it, you’re amazing.)

Personhood Colorado, please take the hint and fuck off.