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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in
Artemis Jones' LiveJournal:
| Wednesday, May 2nd, 2012 | |
| 8:57 am | fragments - nearing the end of the book Plastic: A Toxic Love Story that frames the issue of plastic: its creation, use, and especially disposal, as something of a dysfunctional relationship. Getting very interested in companies and organizations that make things like this plastic bridge in the Wharton Forest in New Jersey, which takes one of the problematic aspects of plastic—its lack of degradability—and turns it into an asset, and which is strong enough to drive a tank over (after testing it thus, the Army ordered some for its bases). - a lot of my friends are out of work or else chronically underemployed, despite being intelligent, productive, hardworking people with years, in some cases decades, of professional experience. It's gotten to where my financial planner, who ought to be overjoyed at the record corporate profits because it means he makes more money for me (and thus for himself, his annual fee being tied to how much I make off investments in a year) actually expressed distress that none of these record-making corporations appear to be hiring. - one way to create new jobs is to start a business. (Not the first time that's occurred to me.) - chosen family, and how you live with them. - this Seattle Times article on the local Occupy movement, which provides a rather nice contrast to yesterday's semi-hysterical media coverage of a small number of idiots instead of the much larger group of peaceful protesters just trying to make a point. - as a bit of a contrast, the Stranger Slog on why people smash things. Agree with it or don't (I largely don't) but if you wonder why people do stuff like this, well, sometimes there's a reason for it beyond just liking to fuck shit up. (Also, unusually, the comments are worth reading, not least for the civilized disagreement all too rare in newspaper comments sections.) - the Rural Redoubt is on Mr. Darcy's and my conversational table again. I have no idea what, if anything, those are adding up to, but that's what's on the brain this week. This entry was originally posted at http://rimrunner.dreamwidth.org/1343315.h Current Mood:  thoughtful |
| Thursday, April 26th, 2012 | |
| 8:55 am | on self-management I made a rule for myself sometime around the beginning of the year: no adding new projects until I'd moved at least two current projects off my plate. And some of them, I moved off without finishing them, with the intention of picking them up again later. It turns out, one can only do so many things at once. I withdrew from my Chinese class, because it turns out that ironically, I was overly optimistic about keeping up with the course content while in China. I do intend to re-enroll in the course at a later date; I genuinely enjoy learning languages and do honestly believe that everybody should have a working knowledge of at least two. (We can't all be like Jesse's friend and student Wolfgang, who speaks something like seven of them, but Wolfgang is an unusual individual in a lot of respects: he also enjoys taking off into the woods with nothing but a knife, and once kept a bear that was stalking him pacified using a harmonica. He can also kick your ass. He's like a fictional character, only real.) I also kept just one solo writing project: I intend to have a Lightriders draft finished by the end of the summer, at which point I'll take up short stories again for awhile. It's kind of a bummer not having more shorts in circulation, especially since those I do keep racking up rejection letters, but I'm also making a lot more progress. Since SMF ended I've been working on other collaborative writing projects with Mr. P: mainly the podcast (and there are a few other potential future projects along those lines as well), but we've also got a line on another scripting project that could be very exciting and a lot of fun. If you'd told me even five years ago that I'd enjoy writing with another person, let alone several other people (the SMF script involved a lot of co-writers, editors, suggestions, and constructive feedback), I'd have said you were nuts. Aaaaaaand, we are also working on Wild Gods stuff, not least a personal ritual that we're doing in a few weeks that will hopefully help grow and strengthen some of the necessary energetic connections. (This is another one that might scale, to be repeated with a larger group. We'll see how it goes.) And there are some group events in the works as well. Did I mention I'm starting an MFA program? I'm starting an MFA program. After looking at several (with some guidance and generous information sharing from Ms. Von), I favored, and was pleased to be accepted by, the Stonecoast program at the University of Southern Maine, which included OMG LIZ HAND IS ON MY PHONE. (I love Liz Hand. Waking the Moon is one of my favorite novels, and all you Dionysians should track down and read her Black Light, not to mention her short-story retelling of The Bacchae.) Anyway, the first residency is this coming July and I'll be in southern Maine for about 10 days. I'm really excited about the program, and about spending some time in New England again. I'm also going to Burbank for a conference at the beginning of June. This in itself isn't all that exciting (well, getting to present is exciting), but it means I'll have a chance to get down to the Getty and see the Aphrodite exhibit that is currently on there. And and AND, the Sanctuaries of Demeter and Persephone at Morgantina. (Assuming I can successfully navigate greater L.A.'s public transportation system.) OMG! So that's a bit of what's on, and as it is, I feel like I'm forgetting something. Oh. I should mention what I'm reading, shouldn't I? Nonfiction: Just finished: Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences by John Allen Paulos. Currently reading: China: A Modern History by Michael Dillon. I highly recommend both of these. Fiction: Just finished: Winterlong by Elizabeth Hand (did I mention I'm a fan?) Currently reading (well, re-reading): A Clash of Kings by George R.R. Martin. Not quite reading it concurrently with the show, but it's fairly close. Oddly, this isn't causing the cognitive dissonance that watching an adaptation of a book I've read usually does. Not sure why. And I do believe that's about it for the moment. This entry was originally posted at http://rimrunner.dreamwidth.org/1342935.h Current Mood:  busy |
| Sunday, April 22nd, 2012 | |
| 5:30 pm | Happy Earth Day toooooo yoooooouuuuuu Yesterday I spent three or so hours removing invasive blackberry at the poetically named T-107 park, located on the west bank of the horrifically polluted Duwamish River. Today a fellow hiker who I met on the Wilderness Peak trail in Issaquah asked if the river was clean. Dear Duwamish River Cleanup Coalition: you're doing a great job with the PR, but it's evident that you've still got some work to do. Dear neighbors fishing in the Duwamish: you're not planning to eat that, are you? Because unless it's salmon, who are just passing through, you are either going to get cancer or mutant superpowers, and I wouldn't bet on the latter. I got to yesterday's work party by bicycle—it was only a few miles away—but drove to today's trailhead. Eventually I want to be badass enough to ride my bike to the trailhead, hike the trail, and then ride home. Boo yah. This was also my Artemis reconnection hike, which I do every year after SMF to get reacquainted with the main spiritual practice of my life. Of course the reconnection element won't be as necessary in the future, but the first hike of spring is always nice. Wilderness Peak is pretty mellow, only 3.5-4 miles round trip and modest elevation gain. The considerably more arduous Mailbox Peak is my goal, though. Course I'd like to think I'd have done these things even without Earth Day. Being outdoors, and taking care of it (cause it's the world we live in, you know) matter to me. I foresee more blackberry scratches (my arms look like I was attacked by an angry cat) and pleasantly sore climbing muscles this summer. Io. This entry was originally posted at http://rimrunner.dreamwidth.org/1342605.h Current Mood:  accomplished |
| Tuesday, April 17th, 2012 | |
| 1:28 pm | and when I go there / I'll go there with you So, I thought about a lot of different things I could write about this year's SMF. I could give you a blow by blow account of it, except that that's kind of boring even if you were there, and I haven't even finished writing it all out in my journal yet. Too much other stuff to do, including going right back to work the day after, where in previous years I've had time to sit at home and write about it. Longhand. In pen, even. And then I thought about writing about how it made me feel, because this was my most emotionally tumultuous festival ever. More than my Persephone year, or my Aphrodite year. I lost track of the number of full-on tear-drenched catharses after the fifth or sixth, no fooling. People kept asking if I was all right. And I was, eventually. And since then, I've felt joy, sadness, contentment, grief, peace, anger, and disappointment (mainly with myself) all mixed together. Mostly, though, I've felt gratitude. That, as HS said (quoting yours truly, if you please), we are here, and alive, and among friends. And that the journey is by no means over. So: Thank you to scripting collaborators, past, present, and future: to Miss Leah, and RayRay, to TJ and HS, and all the others who made suggestions, gave constructive criticism, and shared your ideas. Thank you to this year's festival cast, one of the best collectively that I've worked with in the ten or so years I've done this. There was not a weak performance in the lot. Thank you for finding the meaning in our script. Thank you for finding meanings in it we never intended—at least not consciously. Thank you for rocking it. Thank you especially to HS, our intrepid director, who had to deal with more than he ever could have expected when he signed on. As he said to me, with regard to the role he cast me in: I feel bad for what you went through, but I had every confidence you could handle it. Good thing both of us were right. Thank you to the spiritual directors, den mommy, TECH CREW, and festival staff. Everything went, from my perspective, reasonably smoothly; hitches and hiccups were handled with grace and adaptability. That's how it should be. Thank you to RR and Mrs. P, who were there when I needed them most. Dying is easy; getting up again afterward is hard. Thank you to everyone who came, seekers, initiates, the curious, the perplexed. I hope we made it worth your while. Thank you to the Big Four and those who carried them: Carolyn, Miss Erin, RR, and BB. Thank you for your gifts, and the gifts of your gods. Thank you for making the decoupling from the role I carried easier, and for making it easier to send the Hierophant to her rest. Thank you to the Hierophant, the teacher, the illuminator of the sacred, the preparer of the initiates. Thank you for your service; and for your sacrifice. I know your journey is not over and I will do my part to see you safely to its next phase. After all the gods I have been, it was a mortal who touched me most deeply. Thank you. Thank you to all the friends who supported me, the revelers who interrupted their revel for my sake, the expressions of concern and healing. Because of that, I was able to keep my emotional and spiritual crises in a time and place meant to hold them, and not bring them home as I have in years past. (Mr. Darcy thanks all of you, too.) Thank you to Mr. Darcy, for understanding. Thank you to Green Star Grove, my former coven, and to the Sylvan Tradition, for teaching me what I needed to know. Thank you to Melanie, my former high priestess and (still!) good friend, for reminding me that initiation is about crisis and it's okay to cry about it. As it is written, so mote it be. Thank you to the ATC, for creating this festival, for sustaining it, and for supporting it through the years. And thank you also for confirming the decision I first made several months ago. It's been a good run. And now it's time to go. Thank you to all those who have expressed interest in Wild Gods, Orebasia, the podcasts, and other future projects. Thanks again to RR, friend, unindicted co-conspirator, and priest. And thanks once more to Mr. Darcy for the kick in the ass I needed to get this next phase going. Peace. This entry was originally posted at http://rimrunner.dreamwidth.org/1342406.h Current Mood:  peaceful |
| Wednesday, April 11th, 2012 | |
| 1:35 pm | two things There's a longer post coming on Spring Mysteries, once I have the bandwidth to write it. Nothing like having to take up half a dozen different things right after coming home. But two things: 1. The sheer number of "best EVER" I've been hearing from people since Saturday night is truly gratifying and makes me very, very happy. 2. It would be really, really nice to get some acknowledgment from the PTB for having helped write the damn thing. Overall, though, I am proud of the collective effort and accomplishment this year, on the part of ALL of us. Speaking purely from my own observation, we did a damn fine job. And I can't wait to take that momentum, talent, and skill forward. Current Mood: accomplished |
| Sunday, February 19th, 2012 | |
| 8:52 pm | ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED. Today I bicycled from my house in Highland Park all the way to Wallingford, a distance of about ten miles each way. This required navigating through downtown Seattle, which I'd never done before by bicycle. By the time I got home it was dark, and my quads had mutinied so I had to walk the last few hills. BUT STILL. That's the farthest I've ever ridden on a bike and the first time I've ridden through a downtown urban area. I love how you have time to notice things on a bike. I could stop halfway across the West Seattle Bridge (lower span, of course) and take in the view of the Duwamish River. I could pull off to the side of the road to check the time or adjust something or just look around. I could coast down 21st Avenue SW in the twilight, and watch the world get darker. It was awesome. I don't know if I'll be able to bike to rehearsal again this year. Next week I'll be coming from Green Star Grovestead and will have a bunch of stuff with me, including a seven-foot-long spear that's a bit hard to carry on a bicycle. The following week I have to bring the hiera in. The two weeks after that I'm in China (!!) and then there's just one more rehearsal before SMF. But I'm really glad I did it. I'm pretty slow, and don't have the super-sculpted calves that longtime bicyclists have, and I probably had more layers on than was strictly necessary. But I'll get there. I like being able to get places under my own power. It's the privilege of the able-bodied and one I'm really glad I have. I spend a hell of a lot of time sitting in my car, out of necessity. It's really good to take the opportunity to get out and ride. This entry was originally posted at http://rimrunner.dreamwidth.org/1341592.h Current Mood: accomplished |
| Wednesday, January 25th, 2012 | |
| 7:53 pm | why I haven't posted much lately At the moment, I am engaged in the following: - applying to MFA programs. One application completed (with phone interview Friday morning), one nearly done, five to go. - getting things together for a trip to China in March. Tour registration and deposit are done; still need to send visa application and attendant paperwork to my brother to hand-carry to the Chinese consulate in San Francisco (they don't take applications by mail. Or personal checks, it turns out). - prepping for Spring Mysteries, which means lines, costuming, and props. The festival is Easter weekend, which SEEMS like a long way away, but see previous item—that's two weeks I'll be on the other side of the planet. - scheduling writing days on the H&H podcast with RR. I can squeeze in a couple of Fridays before spring semester starts and I'm back to full workdays. - trying to find out if I can register for Chinese 102 in spring semester. The registrar's office changed the process for unmatriculated employee registration AGAIN. - preparing for a Wild Gods ritual, and to host a SMF preparatory ritual, in about a week and a half. - working full time. - trying, amidst all of this, to see my husband and friends on occasion, which is sort of working: Mr. Darcy and I had a dinner-and-ice cream date on Monday, and I'm taking him to a burlesque show for Valentine's. RR and Mrs. P came over and made Mr. Darcy dinner for his birthday, and we played Ankh-Morpork (reasonably good fun; you don't need to have read Discworld to play the game, but it does make it more entertaining) and watched the second part of the Return of the King extended edition. I braved icy weather to see Verdi's Attila with Madcap Allie, and soon she and I and another Smith friend will get together to dress up and drink tea. There might even be pearls. I also did my good deed for the week, in the form of getting a cord of firewood delivered to the local homeless encampment. In the process I met this sweet old guy in Burien who runs a firewood business out of his garage: BLW Firewood, if you're wondering. If we ever have space to store more than a few bundles at a time I'm buying from him. However, I am massively stressed and haven't had time to work out in a week and a half. This is going to be a problem before too much longer. Fortunately, after the writing day on Friday I will have time to take a nice hour's run and then head up to Lynnwood for a spa date with Mama Von. If I can just get these damned applications (grad school, China visa, etc) out the door... This entry was originally posted at http://rimrunner.dreamwidth.org/1340219.h Current Mood:  stressed |
| Wednesday, January 4th, 2012 | |
| 4:27 pm | happy new year Came down with a cold on New Year's Day. Good thing I don't really believe that how the first day of the year goes is some sort of sign. I've taken two sick days from work, which is irritating because I'm supposed to give a presentation to a beginning geology class on Friday and I've had to postpone both working on the outline and conferring with the professor. And I haven't felt up to working on a couple of other projects with tight deadlines, either. But, so it goes. Last night, even after I stayed on the couch for most of the day, I took my temperature and it was 101. Ugh. This morning at 6 a.m. it was 100. Ugh, one more sick day. At 11 it was 99.2 and at 2 p.m. in was 99, so at least it's headed in the right direction. Also, no longer manufacturing snot by the bucketful. New Year's Eve was nice, at least. No big parties this year, just a small gathering among a few friends. Just wasn't up to any larger gatherings. Possibly, I'm getting old. Heh. So this first week is mostly about puttering along as best I can and hoping to be well enough to teach on Friday, see some Clarioons Friday night, and head down to Olympia Saturday for the SMF script read-through. I'm excited because it'll be the first time hearing it read by people other than the writing team. (Which also tends to expose flaws of which we were previously unaware. But so it goes.) I haven't done any of the year-end memes floating around, and I don't really make resolutions. But I'm hoping that 2012 is when I make another sale, get into an MFA program, get Wild Gods going, and do better at staying connected with friends. This week in the news I was primarily following the story of the ranger getting shot in Mount Rainier National Park, and the Iowa Caucus, though I rather blame the latter for making me sicker last night. I honestly wish I could be impressed by any of the Republican candidates, but overall my reaction has been somewhere between "meh" and O_o. I don't suppose there was much for Huntsman to gain by campaigning in Iowa, and frankly I'm pretty sure Romney's going to get the nomination (even before McCain endorsed him, which might be help Romney could do without). At least Bachmann is out of the race. Closer to home was this sad business, which ended about as I expected it would. Cue the usual debates about gun control (somehow I doubt a ban on weapons in parks would've been foremost in Barnes's mind at this particular juncture), military service (he clearly had problems before going into the army), and what a park ranger was doing enforcing a traffic stop (many park rangers go through federal law enforcement training; they're basically expected to be cops on top of all their other responsibilities. Lest one be moved to doubt this, let me point out that an antisocial asshole does not stop being an antisocial asshole when he hits the backcountry, and this story is a case in point). There is a very interesting trip report on NWHikers.net from a group that was camped in the park when all this went down. Book log, nonfiction: Just finished: Where the wild things were : life, death, and ecological wreckage in a land of vanishing predators by William Stolzenburg. Currently reading: Gorgon : paleontology, obsession, and the greatest catastrophe in earth's history by Peter Douglas Ward. Book log, fiction: Just finished: The New Moon's Arms by Nalo Hopkinson. Currently reading: The Children of Men by P.D. James and A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness. Though I may give up on the latter because it's waaaaay more paranormal-romance than it initially seemed, and frankly that bores the shit out of me. Hope everyone else's NYE was at least as good as mine, and that your first week of 2012 is substantially better. This entry was originally posted at http://rimrunner.dreamwidth.org/1338758.h Current Mood:  sick |
| Thursday, December 8th, 2011 | |
| 10:02 pm | |
| Monday, December 5th, 2011 | |
| 5:53 pm | busy couple of days, y0 (Crosspost from Dreamwidth is b0rked, so I'm doing it manually.) So Saturday was pretty much all work, all the time, trying to get caught up on various projects that I've just been too busy and tired lately to give due attention. Managed to get some writing in and make progress on a couple of fronts. All good. Yesterday was awesome (except I missed C's text about lunch—sorry about that, I was in SMF auditions and my phone was silenced). RR picked me up 11-ish and we went over to Seattle Center to auditions for the Spring Mysteries festival. Met a few of the other usual suspects for lunch and then went upstairs to do the auditions. I've never done a straight-up theatrical audition (though I might! I've discovered that I like acting, and I took an intro theater class at Freehold this past fall), but I gather SMF auditions differ in a few key respects. There's more flexibility in terms of time and what you audition with, there aren't usually any cold reads (there were last year, but not this year), and everybody else who's auditioning gets to hang out and watch you. This is actually rather fun, and yesterday was great: lots of really good showings. Some were flat, but I didn't see any that made me cringe, which isn't always the case. I chose Stephen Dunn's poem "Dancing with God", which I stumbled upon about a year ago when I was working on the Wild Gods project and decided to see where else that phrase had been used (there's also a poem by Hafiz that uses the same expression). I decided that I really liked the poem and chose it as an audition piece. After auditions a bunch of us went to McMenamin's for dinner, and then RR and I headed down to Studio 7 to see Korpiklaani. There we encountered Cassie and Karin, caught the very last of Forged in Flames's set, and were entertainingly bewildered by Polkadot Cadaver. They were good, in a demented-circus-music-meets-metal-meets-p Korpiklaani were absent their fiddler, who I really missed. (Their previous one left due to health reasons, apparently; the new one wasn't with them, I theorized because he's actually still in school at the Sibelius Academy. Which is, in itself, awesome.) But their show was great as usual, really high energy and a lot of fun. Crowning moment was definitely when the lead singer pulled this, like, seven-year-old kid (show was all ages) out of the audience to sing onstage with him. Just so you can picture this, Korpiklaani's lead singer is this tall, blond Finnish guy with lots of tattoos and dreads to his hips—he looks like a cross between an elf and a Hell's Angel. So he's up there with this tiny kid and they're singing some sort of Finnish shape-note folk song. Again: awesome. During the evening RR got a phone call from HS about auditions results, and then we had to behave ourselves and not call anybody we knew who'd auditioned. Let's just say that I am very, very excited for SMF 2012—I'm going to get to do a role I never would have expected and I am beyond stoked! If you're thinking of going, this would be a good one to attend: it's the second and probably final round with our script (itself heavily revised from last year and, in my totally subjective opinion, substantially improved), Deb's last year as archpriestess, and RR's last year on cast, at least for awhile. I deliberately slept in this morning, because I am too damn old to get in at 1 a.m. and get up at 5:30 for work anymore. Showed up at work at noon (work had been forewarned) to discover a catalog configuration error that was causing checked-in items to show as unavailable. Sigh. Fixed that and headed to Chinese class, and thus on about the day. So yeah, really good couple of days. Now to get on with wrapping up projects for the year so I can take winter vacation a few days early. Here's hoping. Current Mood:  pleased |
| Saturday, November 26th, 2011 | |
| 9:54 pm | things I miss about living in Maryland - huge heaps of leaves piled in the gutters, awaiting collection. - oak trees. God, I miss oak trees. - drivers know how to merge. - the service may not be cheerful, but damn it's efficient, and my waiter doesn't want to be my BFF. - I can go running without bundling up in sweatshirt, gloves, and hat. Under a clear blue sky. In November. - transit. Ah, transit... - the C&O Canal. - decent bagels. (Still not New York. But decent. And lox. Mmmm, lox.) - local rock station plays Kix. - Mr. Darcy would add Boston Market and Dunkin Donuts to this list. I am indifferent to both, but they made him happy. I have no plans to move back, but it was a really nice visit. More later. This entry was originally posted at http://rimrunner.dreamwidth.org/1337585.h Current Mood:  tired |
| Sunday, November 20th, 2011 | |
| 12:37 pm | whose woods these are / I think I know Yeah, couldn't help myself. Yesterday, after what will hopefully have been the FINAL SMF script revision meeting (there are a few bits to tie up, but they can be done online), RR and I drove down to Sidhehaven to do a Wild Gods ritual. This one was private, and initially I wasn't sure it would work with a group. But in retrospect I think it would, and we may well be structuring a group event along similar lines. The idea was to explore what happens with Artemis and Pan energies in the winter, and how to they get along in a more constricted space—in this case, around a fire when the weather is very cold. (Although, thankfully, not windy, rainy, or snowy. It was as perfect a winter night for the ritual as I could have asked for, really: still, quiet, clear, and cold.) Pan fed the fire (as He does) because, it turns out, Pan does not like the winter. Pan leaves when it gets cold for warmer climes. Yep: Pan is a migratory species. Ha. Artemis, not so much. She likes the cold, and running through the wilderness when everything is quiet and still, even the water. I did initially get visions of a masculine divine energy that was more stag than goat, but that would have been Cernunnos, not Pan. He left once the ritual got going and Pan decided to show up. What I'd hoped was to learn something about the seasonal energies of these gods, and whether there is any sort of variance or cycle. Turns out there is. Artemis is active and present in winter. Pan is not. And Artemis is less a huntress when the babies are born and the mothers are nursing, for obvious reasons. And that is a time when Pan is more present. All of the above is U.P.G., but it gave us some additional ideas for how we might work together in ritual space. Artemis wasn't quite so much a drill sergeant this time, either; She wasn't very nice to RR in the ritual we did last summer, but this time She was more curious, if not really friendly. And the sniping between Her and Pan had some good humor to it. Still no pointy objects on circle, but it was really rather fun. I had thought that there would be a hibernation element to the ritual, but not so much really: Pan migrates, and Artemis stays active through the winter. On the other hand, when we did go to sleep we had to pile so many blankets on (the Yome at Sidhehaven is heated, but it was below freezing outside) that it was a bit like huddling in a cave. A nice, warm cave, thankfully. So, thanks to Sidhehaven for letting us use their space, and thanks to the weather for cooperating, and thanks to the gods for granting us this work. And thank you to RR for agreeing to work on it with me. Onward! This entry was originally posted at http://rimrunner.dreamwidth.org/1337338.h Current Mood: pleased |
| Wednesday, November 2nd, 2011 | |
| 7:12 am | QotD "Fuck the revolution if I can't dance." — Spiritualmonkey This entry was originally posted at http://rimrunner.dreamwidth.org/1336847.h Current Mood:  awake |
| Friday, October 7th, 2011 | |
| 9:59 am | Ada Lovelace Day: My Aunt Barbara Today is Ada Lovelace Day. Share your story about a woman — whether an engineer, a scientist, a technologist or mathematician — who has inspired you to become who you are today. I think it’s time to tell you a little bit about my aunt. As many of you know, my aunt Barbara passed away very suddenly last month. Though she was active, health-conscious, and only 67 (women on both sides of my family live a long time, so this was especially surprising), she had high blood pressure, and one night she had a massive stroke from which she never woke up. Life support was terminated a few days later. I still haven’t quite come to terms with it. Although I saw my aunt rarely—mostly at holidays, and the holidays will feel very strange this year for that reason—she was part of my life for as long as I can remember. One of the photos from the funeral service shows her standing next to me and holding a kite. I am around four or five years old and wearing a ridiculous outfit, a green dress with an appliqué mouse on it, a big floppy rain hat with flowers on it, and a quilted jacket my mother made for me that matches neither the hat nor the dress. My sister-in-law asked if it was a costume. No, I just dressed funny. I tell myself that I remember that day. I definitely remember that kite, and taking it to a park near our house and flying it. This may well have been that day. I went to her wedding to my uncle Fred, when I was five. My brother was one and wore this adorable little red jacket that my mother made him. I can just barely remember her apartment before she and Fred got their townhouse in Arlington, and a tiny dollhouse-sized doll she gave me. One of her nephews remarked at her funeral that she had style, and everyone who spoke at that service commented on her elegance. It’s true. She was always so well put together, and her gifts to my brother and I were for many years the nicest clothing we owned. I still have, and wear, the jewelry she gave me over the years. To her funeral, I wore a necklace with a pendant shaped like a bird, carved of ivory. It came from Africa, when trade in ivory was still nominally legal. She gave it to me when I was six. She loved Africa, and traveled there with my uncle, who had served there in the Peace Corps in the 60s. I remember photos of them taking bike trips around Kenya, and coming back with little wooden elephants. My brother and I loved to play with them when we visited. But why am I writing about her today? Aunt Barbara majored in math, in 1965 when that was still pretty unusual for women (well, to this day it’s pretty unusual for women, though my cousin Lauren is a mathematics professor at UC Berkeley. “Math is hard” was never an acceptable phrase in our family, even if I did flunk algebra in 7th grade. I took it again and aced it). She went to Smith, a college that is all about women doing unusual things. As one of the many colleagues past and present who came to her funeral observed, a math major in the 60s had basically two options: analysis, or computers. She chose the latter. She was the first female vice president at her company, government contractor GRC International. Though she didn’t really talk about her job—nobody talks themselves up in our family—of course we knew this was a big deal. We didn’t really know how big until we read her obituary; until representatives from an alphabet soup of government agencies showed up at her funeral to talk about how awesome she was, how smart, how great to work with, how she was so kind and gentle and nice and how terrified they were of disappointing her. Kind and gentle and nice she was, but you don’t get to be vice president and in charge of 450 people by being a doormat. That, she definitely was not. She was doing IT infrastructure and security work for the likes of the Treasury Department, FEMA, and the Department of Defense. She was, as they say, the real deal. Even though I still don’t know much about her job, Aunt Barbara was and still is an example to me of what I’d always been taught: you can do anything, and being female need not restrict that “anything” one bit. She chose to forego having children, though she obviously cared a great deal about me and my brother—the number of people who came up to us at her funeral and said, “So you’re Linda’s kids—we’ve heard so much about you, she really thought the world of you” honestly astounded us. Even though she didn’t really say so to us directly, we knew it. She never missed a birthday, a holiday, or an opportunity to congratulate us on our achievements. My getting tenure mattered as much or more to her than my getting married. She worked in a male-dominated field at a time when feminism was still a novel concept, and if anyone failed to take her seriously, there was no indication among those who gathered to remember her. Did she struggle for acceptance? Did she find being taken seriously, as an intelligent, capable individual qualified for the work she was doing, to be a challenge? If so, she never said. She simply did her work and let her success speak for itself. She had, upon reflection, a quiet but resilient persistence that I’ve seen among other women scientists of her generation: the sense that as long as you judged her on her merits, all was well. If you didn’t, she’d have you for lunch. Elegantly. What her life taught me is that all paths really are open. It’s not lip service and it’s not illusion. It’s not easy, either, but most of all what she taught me was to be confident in my abilities and to follow my inclination to march to my own beat. And since I was a drummer for 15 years, I’m the drummer I’m marching to. This entry was originally posted at http://rimrunner.dreamwidth.org/1335933.h Current Mood:  reflective |
| Monday, September 19th, 2011 | |
| 11:37 pm | progress Sunday's weigh-in: 135 lbs. (I'd honestly expected it to be higher, with how last week went. Of course I got drunk at the wake. You would have, too.) In June I weighed 152. Bicycling: yesterday Mr. Darcy and I rode to Lincoln Park and back. 7.5 miles round trip. More pertinent were the HILLS. I didn't quite make it up the longest, steepest one, but I made it up the steepest part and only walked a few blocks before getting back on the bike. Next time I'll make it the whole way. Running: I'm up to 53 minutes counting the warm-up walking, adding another 2.5 minutes tonight. Distance? Probably about 5 miles. Next I start bumping up the cals and kettlebell, and bring in the bag work. Boo-yah. Current Mood: accomplished |
| Thursday, September 15th, 2011 | |
| 8:39 pm | I've been trying to write about my aunt but it's been a difficult week. To say the least. I will say this: I am tremendously honored to have been one of those to carry her to her last rest. Current Mood:  sad |
| Friday, September 9th, 2011 | |
| 1:39 pm | |
| Saturday, September 3rd, 2011 | |
| 9:50 am | wow, September 3rd So I haven't been writing about stuff because I've been busy doing stuff. Funny how that goes. Work on the podcast proceeds slowly. I'm rearranging my schedule a bit to have more time to write, which should help. RR and I had a meeting a couple of weeks ago to further flesh out the outline and I'm getting some ideas for actual dialogue. Hee. This is going to be fun. Tuesday the 23rd was Mr. Darcy's and my anniversary, which we celebrated by taking an evening sail on the Hawaiian Chieftain. The Chieftain is the Lady Washington's sister ship—everyone wanted to sail on the Lady because she's famous, but we've actually sailed on her before for a friend's pirate-themed wedding (and I got to play my fiddle on deck, too!) so we opted for the Chieftain. Added bonus: getting photos of the Lady under sail. Sweet. (I am trying to talk Mr. Darcy into doing the two-week training cruise next summer. Learning to crew a tall ship may be a skill with limited applicability in the modern era, but damn it would be fun.) Anyway, it was a good time, though I started getting a headache partway through the trip. We did find a really cool antique store in Port Orchard before the sail, on a street corner down the block from the library. If you have a desire for old-fashioned kitchen implements, such as hand grinders, butter molds, irons (the kind you heat by the fire before using), hand-crank butter churns, or cast-iron frying pans (I bought Mr. Darcy one), check out this store. They have all of that and more. It was awesome. I also picked up a couple of gifts for friends. I buy very little for myself these days, but I do like to give people things. The following weekend (so last weekend) I went down to San Francisco for my niece's first birthday. In accordance with my duties as an aunt, I gave her percussion instruments...and also some clothes, none of which are pink (other people took care of that. Ugh, pink). And a copy of Neil Gaiman's Blueberry Girl. She is pretty awesome and fun to hang out with. She also is really into putting things into other things and then taking them out again, like collecting toys in a little wagon or seeing what, aside from the designated objects, she can fit into her new shape-sorter toy. I don't know enough about kids to know if this is typical one-year-old behavior, but it's apparently not unlike what I used to do. To this day I have a thing about boxes. Hmmm. Bro's new condo is small and our parents were already staying there, so I stayed at Pacific Tradewinds hostel downtown. It was my first hostel experience and very positive overall. I hate staying in hotels when traveling alone, and hostels appeal to my sense of efficiency since paying daily for an entire room I'm hardly ever in seems sorta pointless. A bunk bed and a locker is about my speed. And the other guests were fun: French travelers on their way to Burning Man (and, may I say, HOT), a girl from London who'd spent the summer working on Vancouver Island and was traveling with her philosophy-PhD brother, a trio of women from southeast Asia who left at the crack of dawn every morning and returned in the evening with giant shopping bags, a couple from India who were new in town and looking for somewhere to live...you'd hear an interesting story just walking out of the dorm room. Next time, though, I'm bringing my own pillow. The ones provided by the hostel were very flat and my neck and back hurt the entire time I was there, which interfered somewhat with my good time. And they need a bigger water heater. On this trip I also got to have beers with the fabulous and awesome ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.2){kind=small} lexica510 at the Trappist in Oakland (and sorry to miss you this time, spiritualmonkey—though you'll be pleased to know that I did go to Farm:Table for breakfast one day after y'all were kind enough to introduce me to it. What a great place). And, I finally got to see a production of "Of Dice and Men".This play premiered at PAX last year. You'd think that PAX isn't normally a place for plays, and you'd be right. But as the name implies, "Of Dice and Men" is about gamers. Though it's not really, or not exclusively, for gamers. My mom loved it. The greater significance here for me personally is that the playwright was one of my childhood friends. We played at each other's houses and went to elementary school together. I hadn't seen him in something like 20 years and only knew what he was up to due to Facebook. He's now a professional actor and, obviously, trying to break into playwriting. And you know? It was really good to see him. Sometimes when I meet up with friends from my childhood these days, it's nice but sort of awkward as we find that we don't have a whole lot to say to each other. Not so with Cameron. We're both writing, have had some modest success, and are geeky in similar ways. It was a great conversation and if I hadn't had a headache and two parents rapidly reaching pumpkin status, I can easily imagine that we would've hung out drinking beer and catching up for hours. So I hope we manage to find ourselves in the same town again soon. (He still lives in the D.C. area but I haven't been back for a few years now.) This past week has been busy at work as we get ready for classes to start. Faculty are returning from summer and from sabbatical. I had no idea so many of them paid that much attention to how long my hair is, but the startled remarks I've gotten on its relative shortness now have been cracking me up. I've twice given a presentation on e-books at work, once to my division, once to the faculty liaisons to the library, and had it well received both times. $CO_WORKER thinks I should take it to a conference. Proposals to ACRL-NW are closed, but maybe Online Northwest...hmm. The other big thing is that we're getting the house re-sided. It's needed to be done for awhile, and the contractor who fixed our deck is back now to do our siding. So last week he started pulling the siding off...and discovered there's no plywood between it and the insulation. O_o This helps explain why our electrical bills have been so high. I can't even be surprised; these are the same builders who didn't put any flashing under the seam in the deck, which is why it leaked. So the contractor has to put the plywood in, too, which necessitates pulling out and re-installing all the windows, because the window frame flanges are supposed to be flush with the plywood that isn't there and so there isn't enough clearance. And THAT means the drywall around all the windows will have to be patched. Our contractor is starting to feel like Cassandra, I think. On the upside, since they had to do all this anyway, I took the opportunity to have them install a second window in my downstairs office. The view of the backyard isn't exactly thrilling but it means that the office now has eastern exposure, which means more daylight and hopefully not quite so frickin' cold in the winter. They put the window in yesterday and it's awesome. I love it. AND, it's given me the kick in the ass I needed to start clearing out my office and reorganizing things down there, which it's needed for awhile. I haven't been able to work in it because of the clutter, and I'm planning to reorganize it into a working, music practice, and ritual space. Among other things, this means getting rid of my giant desk, about half my books, and a whole bunch of papers and files that I no longer need. I'm also unloading a few bookshelves, moving my meditation table downstairs, and rearranging a bunch of other stuff down there. It's interesting how my perspective on keeping books has shifted. It's not just because of e-books, although that's part of it. It's also because I work in a library and know that I can get ahold of just about anything I want to within a matter of days (seriously, my library's interlibrary loan service rivals Amazon for speedy effectiveness. Not every library's ILL service does, but ours is super awesome). This means that so far I have four boxes of books to go to the SPL book sale or to Goodwill, and I'm buying a lot fewer books than I used to. (Though I'm reading more than ever, not least because SPL's e-book selection is really quite good and there's an Overdrive app for my iPad.) I'm only keeping stuff that I read or refer to frequently enough that checking it out repeatedly is inefficient, or else that is hard enough to get hold of that I feel compelled to have my own copy. (If anyone ever sees Gunther Zuntz's Persephone at a price below the $400 some joker on Amazon wants for it, let me know. Or, shit, buy it for me and I WILL pay you back. My library actually has a copy of this, but I can't keep it unless the religion librarian decides to withdraw it. At which point I shall pounce on it, mwa ha ha.) And, that about brings us up to date. It's a gloriously sunny weekend and I have an evening of ritual drinks and dancing planned, so I'd best finish my chores and get packed. Io! Current Mood: busy |
| Sunday, August 21st, 2011 | |
| 5:56 pm | drive-by update Sunday is when I update all my goals and project lists and things, and since I haven't been posting lately it makes sense to post a few capsule items here. This is also a test of the crossposting from Dreamwidth. I'm not migrating there permanently, and am still reading LJ on a regular basis, but since I can enable crossposting from one service to the other but not vice versa AND Dreamwidth is basically serving as my LJ backup...here it is. (As previously mentioned, my Dreamwidth username is the same as my LJ username. Feel free to add me there. If you have and I haven't added you back, I will get to it.) Wild Gods campout: This happened at the end of July and went, from my perspective, very well. The feedback we got was mostly positive and the constructive criticism was stuff I mostly agreed with and intend to incorporate next time. I also got a really good suggestion from one of the participants for a future event. Yay! (I've been meaning to do a longer writeup but just have not had time.) More broadly, I seem to be working my way into leadership roles in a lot of these kinds of activities. With Wild Gods, this makes perfect sense, because it's just me and RR and whoever we invite to participate, but I'm also seeing it happen in some of the other spiritual activities of which I'm a part. I'm honestly not sure how I feel about this. Being in charge was never one of my goals in getting involved with any of this stuff. But it seems to be what's happening. I hope I'm good at it. Podcast writing: RR came over last Friday and we got some notes down. Not quite as many as I would have liked, but I always think I can get more work done than I make time for. The plot arcs and detail notes are coming together pretty well and feeding new ideas. And so far we've worked in homages to Pulp Fiction and Robert Johnson. Ha. Mr. Darcy was not at this meeting but has had a lot of good suggestions, most of which are now in the project notes. I wonder if I can persuade him to take a voice part when we eventually record...hmmm... Other writing projects: Slow and steady. I've nearly finished the first pass of the novel outline, then I'll go back and layer in some subplots and complications, then I'll start drafting. In the meantime, I have several short stories in draft state. Nothing worth showing anyone yet, but I'm hoping that will come. I can tell that I'm getting better, which is what matters. And I'm still posting regularly to my writing blog and to twitfics. Revision notes for the SMF script are done, thanks mainly to RR for pulling them together after the writing team's meeting last month. Now to schedule some writing dates. Sadly, we've lost one team member for entirely understandable reasons that I can't fault her for, but we've gained two more, one of whom helped with the revision notes. Onward! Bicycling: Mr. Darcy got his bicycle recently, and we've started taking rides together, particularly our twice-weekly grocery runs for nights that we make dinner together. This has been fun, it's doing wonders for my general disposition, and the other night I finally conquered the one hill that I couldn't get all the way up on the ride back. Booyah. Today's ride took me as far as the Southwest Library, mostly on quiet back roads. It's only five miles round trip, but with plenty of hills. Mr. Darcy and I are going out again later to run an errand at McLendon's, and then get some Full Tilt ice cream. Mmm, Full Tilt. I'm still running too, and doing my cals and kettlebell. And hiking. I feel so much better when I'm moving regularly, and I've lost 14 pounds since the beginning of summer. Last week one of my co-workers called me the incredible shrinking woman. Heh. It's definitely making a difference in sparring workouts; I'm faster, more agile, and have more endurance. One need not be lean to be good at martial arts, of course, but it's not hurting me either. Work:...is, well, work. My job is looking more and more like a Systems Librarian's. I am entirely okay with this. My presentation this past week on e-books was really well received and got a lot of feedback particularly from people outside my department, which I was hoping for. $NEW_COWORKER seems to be settling in well, at least does not look so wide-eyed. I know she had substantial culture shock coming from a southern, large, well-funded, not-understaffed research university. We are none of these things and I think she's been having a tough time adjusting. I hope she stays. I hope she gets tenure. She's getting some things done that really need to be done, is revitalizing our instructional program, and is persistent. She's awesome. I, meanwhile, seem to be being groomed for a more leadership-oriented position. On the one hand, see above. On the other, I seem to have a nascent ability to see what needs to be done, plan it, and motivate people, which I should probably put some effort toward developing. I've joked about ending up in charge when $MY_DIRECTOR retires, but it's looking less and less like a joke. (To be clear: her retirement is at least 15 years away and I am honestly not sure I'll still be working there then.) Speaking of work, there have been some interesting developments. A director on the IT side left due to family concerns and her position is now open. This is very, very senior and familiarity with academic information systems is a must. We've also got a web developer gig open. You won't be overpaid, but it's a great team and a really good place to work. I'm on the hiring committee and can answer some questions about the job, though bear in mind that I am not a developer myself and only know enough about it to know when I'm making an unreasonable request of the web dev team. And my department will probably have a professional (i.e., graduate degree in LIS required) position open in tech services fairly soon; we need to get it approved, which will take awhile. But it will likely be a managerial position, running the tech services team, and probably working closely with yours truly since I'm doing so much ERM these days. I don't know yet whether it'll be a faculty position or not. If it is, whoever we hire will have to do some teaching to have any shot at all at getting tenure. But it may not be. Will have to see how it all shakes out. That sums up most of it, really. Mr. Darcy and I went camping with RR and T a couple of weekends ago, which was a lot of fun. Next week we're taking a sail on the Lady Washington, which should also be fun, then I'm heading down to San Francisco for my niece's birthday and a performance of my childhood friend C's play "Of Dice and Men" (this is the one that got staged at Pax Prime last year). I may get to see him, which would be awesome. It's been over 20 years and he's a dad now. And then classes start at work, which means busybusybusy. And that's all for now. Current Mood: busy |
| Wednesday, August 3rd, 2011 | |
| 4:21 pm | Signal Boost: Return of the DDoS Originally posted by deathpixie at Signal Boost: Return of the DDoSFor those wanting to know more about the recent DDoS attacks, yes, it looks like it was the Russian government trying to shut down the dissidents again. As I said last time, while it's frustrating not to have access, LJ is a lot more than a social network platform. From the article: "LiveJournal isn’t just a social network. It’s also a platform for organizing civic action. Dozens of network projects and groups mobilize people to solve specific problems — from defending the rights of political prisoners to saving endangered historic architecture in Moscow." So while I know many are considering the move over to Dreamwidth and other such sites, supporting LJ is a way we can help support those who use it for more than a writing/roleplaying/social venue. Also, as a FYI, LJ is giving paid users effected by the outage two weeks of paid time as compensation. Current Mood: busy |
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