Category: Uncategorized

I had seven job interviews today. I can no longer brain.

But please, tell me about a time you came in conflict with another person, and how you resolved that conflict.

Or perhaps you’d like to inform me about the most creative solution you’ve ever come up with in regards to a problem.

Maybe a challenge you’ve faced in the past and what you learned from it?

Or the elevator pitch on how you’d describe yourself.

But that’s all I have for you, so you can ask me some questions if you like.

(Most of the interviews went well. The one I was most excited about went really, really well. More on that later if things pan out. Two more interviews tomorrow and then I’m done…)

Second time I’ve seen this musical, but the first time in a small theater. Mike and I went with my parents, who had never seen it before. They loved it. I thought the company did a really excellent job, particularly the lady who played Gary Coleman. She was great, and was obviously having an enormous amount of fun.

The Bad Idea Bears are still my favorite characters. I think just because each and every one of us have had friends just like that in real life. And occasionally been the friend who is just like that. And hey, who hasn’t wanted to squeal “Yaaaaaay!” in a gleeful, high-pitched voice over the worst idea ever?

Anyone?

The puppets looked great. I was impressed all over again by the amount of coordination the two-person puppets took.

If you’re in the Denver/Boulder/Longmont area, the show will be running until November 3 at the Boulder Dinner Theater. The food is all right too. I wasn’t that excited about the vegan curry, but my mom loved her salad and Mike liked his potato-crusted fish thing, so there you go.

And this? Still the best song ever:

And my congressman is still the most awesome ever for adding it to the congressional record during the SOPA debate.

This just in: women are people and it’s still not okay to threaten to rape someone or encourage them to commit suicide if you don’t like their opinion. I can’t believe that it’s 2012 and this shit is still happening.

It’s easier to ignore hateful name-calling when it’s coming from people you already know oppose you. It doesn’t bother me as such when conservative assholes like Rush Limbaugh call Sandra Fluke a slut, for example. That’s the sort of behavior I expect from him and his ilk.

But what about when it’s coming from what’s supposedly our side?

I’m lucky in a lot of ways. I’m physically intimidating enough that no one has had the brass balls necessary to harass me in person, and I’m a nobody, so no one cares what I say on the internet. But I have eyes and ears. I’ve seen how Rebecca Watson, Greta Christina, and Jen McCreight have been verbally harassed, attacked, and threatened.

I’m tired of seeing all the hatred spewed at women from within communities they’ve helped build and strengthen. A threat of violence against one woman is a threat against us all; I don’t buy into the fiction that “she’s a bitch but you’re different.” It’s never acceptable.

I think it’s easier to brace yourself against hate when it’s coming as a frontal attack. It’s not so easy when it’s at your back, from people with whom you thought you shared common cause. I wouldn’t go to dinner with Rush Limbaugh. But I could potentially end up sharing a table and a water pitcher with people who have threatened and verbally abused women for having opinions, or even perpetrated the more minor but still damaging aggression of accusing women of “crying wolf” for daring to speak up about real in-person harassment. The very thought makes my skin crawl.

I have hate fatigue. I’m disgusted and exhausted beyond measure, seeing how my fellow women have been treated by groups in which they’ve invested a great deal of time and effort. And I fail to see why I should continue expending my two most limited resources (time and money) where there is such vociferous reactionary hatred and not even the fig leaf of an anti-harassment policy.

Sorry, my friends. I think my time and money for now is going to go to Worldcon rather than The Amazing Meeting. The Scifi/Fantasy community and conventions have their problems (hello continuing Readercon fallout) but at least are farther down the path.

Love will triumph in the end. I believe that. I’m going to go where I feel that love, get back my energy, and I’m going to dance.

(And what Janiece said.)

(Edited at 1815 to clarify a few statements that didn’t read correctly.)

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.)

I just realized to my horror that I haven’t had a blog post today. No, I refuse to break my streak! I was planning to get my awesome moving post done last night, but instead I just sort of stared at my computer screen and drooled until I couldn’t keep my eyes open any more. Then this morning it was all errands and returning the truck and then biking twenty miles just because I could.

Whoops.

Right now, I’m sitting in front of the computer with a towel around my shoulders and a disturbingly stained shower cap on my head. There is a good reason for this.

Every six weeks I have a good friend of mine come over to my house and smear something that’s got the color and texture of a cow pie into my hair. Thankfully, it smells much, much nicer than a cow pie. Sort of earthy and sweet and a bit like tea.

The poo is actually dried henna that’s been mixed with boiling water and olive oil. I use it because it makes my mane and tail both thick and shiny… I mean my hair. It makes my hair thick and shiny. And bright red. That’s actually the most important part. I’ve been dyeing my hair red for something like eight years (my husband has literally never seen me with my natural hair color) and henna’s been my magic bullet. Regular bleach and dye washed out within weeks and just destroyed my hair; the henna just stays and refuses to leave. To the point that if I ever want to not be a redhead, as far as I know I’d just have to make a clean break and shave my head.

Overall, I’m not worried about that because I like being a redhead, and I make a believable one. And I also find sitting around with my hair smelling funny for a couple hours while I surf the net much more pleasant than choking on bleach fumes while my scalp feels like it’s going to peel off.

And how could you say no to something as sexy as this?

I’ll make good use of this hair pooing time by answering the seven brazillion comments that are sitting in my mailbox, and then whipping up something silly for tomorrow.

I’ve never really understood the near-spastic reaction a lot of people seem to have to spoilers. This is why I’m sometimes really bad about marking for them when I’m talking about movies and the like, though I do try to be conscientious about it.

I’ve pretty much always been that way, too. I’m one of those awful people that often reads the last few pages of a book first.

Functionally, I feel like there are three general big plot twists that comes as surprises, and I just prefer the warning:

1. Joss Whedon kills off my favorite character again.
2. There’s a elevator through the center of the Earth. (Alternatively: it was all just a dream!)
3. The bad guy is actually a good guy! The good guy is actually a bad guy! Nic Cage chews on the scenery!

I have this conversation with friends of mine a lot. Oh, just tell me the spoilers. If I wasn’t interested in seeing/reading it anyway, this is your chance to change my mind. Maybe the plot is so indescribably badass I’ll change my mind. And if I was planning to spend my time on it to begin with, I’m also unlikely to change my mind unless the plot twist is inescapably stupid. That, I’d rather find out before I’m sitting in a theater with a bag of popcorn purchased at a sob-inducing price. I’m obviously not averse to wasting my time on stupid things, but that has to be on my terms.

The ending is just the ending. The journey is why I’m there.

I wonder if maybe this is also why I love rewatching and rereading things so much. I don’t know – people who are hyper-averse to spoilers, do you do much rewatching and rereading?

This time yesterday I was under the mistaken impression that my husband would be flying to Houston this evening. Oh, how wrong I was.

I texted him yesterday to double check what time he’d be arriving. He answered that he’d be getting in at 7:50, assuming he was still alive.

This kind of text message is never a good sign.

Naturally concerned, I asked him for a little clarification on why he thought he might have left the mortal coil before he could make it to the plane. Well, he’d just gone home from work because he was feeling sick. Severe abdominal pain and vomiting. He thought it might be a side effect from a medication he was on and was waiting for a call back from the doctor.

I made the executive decision that severe abdominal plane and vomiting wasn’t something that needed to get on an airplane. And additionally, not something I wanted to spend 1200 miles with in a 10 foot Uhaul truck. A lot of phone calls. A lot of panic. My mom informed me that Mike looked like death warmed over, and thankfully, she could drop everything and fly out in his place so that I wouldn’t have to try to make the drive alone.

While I was waiting for the travel voucher for my mom to get taken care of, Mike dropped another piece of information: his pain had now localized to the right lower quadrant of his abdomen.

I immediately upped the terror alert level from yellow straight to red and told him I wanted him to go to the ER. Then I asked our friend Isaac to call him and tell him the same thing, just to be safe. My mother drove him to the hospital where he brightened up considerably after they gave him two bags of fluid and a whack of pain medication.

One CT later, the pain was confirmed as appendicitis.

He had his surgery this morning and is now out, thankfully with no complications. My mom will be flying out to join me in Houston and help me move this afternoon. My dad will be keeping an eye on Mike while we ladies attempt to figure out how to best tie up a bike in a Uhaul.

This is really not an adventure I wanted to have right before moving. I’m sure it’s not an adventure Mike wanted to have either. I’m just really glad it worked out.

And please. Abdominal pain is a shitty, awful symptom that often has no diagnosible cause before it goes away. But if you’re having symptoms that could conceivably be appendicitis, go to the ER. Better safe than sorry. As seen here, sometimes sorry is a definite possibility.