woman who reads too much

04:03 am: pleased with myself
I went to Pan Morigan's voice workshop again this year. She began by asking each of us to tell her something about their voice, and she began with me. Everyone else said something negative or neutral about their voice but me, I said, "I have a nice voice. People like it."

Other than being almost entirely unable to sleep, I'm having a very good Wiscon.

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Tags: wiscon

07:33 pm: wiscon reading list
(hat tip to wired)

I'm in the middle of Akata Witch. I have Beauty Queens out from the library, because it is on the Tiptree Honors List, though it does not look like my sort of thing. But I am tempted to abandon them both, because The Chaos and Fire and Hemlock both arrived on my doorstep today! Also I should look at all the sex ed books that have been published in the last ten years, because I am moderating this panel:

Let's talk about how we talk about sex with kids -- our own OR other people's. Sex ed has become increasingly politicized and all too often schools wind up catering to their most conservative demographic -- how do we frame these debates and argue forcefully that EVERYONE'S children deserve accurate sex ed? On a more informal level, how, when, and in what level of detail? There are a million books out there for parents about how to talk about sex with their kids, and a million more designed to give to your kids instead of actually talking to them -- are there any that are feminist, explicit enough to include the clitoris in their diagrams, frank about contraception, and sex-positive (...but maybe not TOO positive)?

[I did not write the panel description.]

Are you reading anything for Wiscon?

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10:35 pm: Who's a mighty hunter?
Aiko caught a squirrel!

The squirrel mostly caught itself. I think it walked into the house while the back door was standing open to catch the morning air and then, I don't know, hid for a couple hours? Because the door had been closed for at least a couple hours when I heard the screaming. The other possibility, which I would think more likely except that squirrel clearly knew that the back door was the way out, is that it came in through the attic and fell through the open attic access into the kitchen.

Anyway, there was lots of screaming, both canine and sciurine. Aiko did not object to releasing the squirrel and getting into his crate. He was shook. Squirrel hid in the spare room, then went to the back door, then hid again while I opened the door, then, when I poked at its hiding place with a broom, ran back to the back door and out. It did not seem injured.

Aiko got a mouthful of squirrel fur, a tiny scrape on his nose, and a trip to the vet for boosters on all his vaccinations.

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Tags: aiko

05:40 pm: the value of a particular cow
The reason we let cows and pigs carry dead fetuses until their bodies expel them isn't because it's natural; it's because it's economic. You weigh the cost of any veterinary treatment against the value of a particular cow, multiplied by the chances she'll die or be seriously damaged without the treatment. It's that simple.

For a pet, it's less simple, because you also have to factor in the suffering of the owner, but we still don't presume to pass laws about it. The vet decides what to charge, the farmer or pet owner decides what to do, and the politicians recognize that it is not their place to interfere.

Now Terry England wants to put himself in the role of the farmer, who gets to make the decisions, and women in the role of cows, who get to take the risks. (I think wanting such a thing should disqualify him from any position of authority over any other person, but I am in the minority.) England's not even pretending that this is for your own good; he's saying that the harm his law will do to pregnant women is outweighed by the good it will do for the anti-abortion movement. You see, a doctor who can help remove a stillborn baby can also perform a late-term abortion. Terry England wants doctors not to learn those skills, so he'd like to pass a law making them unnecessary.

Yeah, it's kind of like the law making pi equal to 3. It's not that it's true, it's just that it's more convenient.

Terry England doesn't know anything about the harm and risk his law would inflict on pregnant women, but I do.

( Bad pregnancy outcome behind the cut. )

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01:35 am: My sewer woes turned out to be so much less woeful than I feared. No tree roots, no collapsed pipe, just a clog from flushing tampons down a pipe that has acquired a bunch of bellies due to its decades in Colorado's expansive soil.

Unfortunately, a few days after the plumber left, a terrible smell returned. I kept sniffing all the drains, and the dog, and my shoes, but could not localize it. I wondered whether I should brave the crawl spaces, perhaps to find a pile of rotting raccoon poo? Then I slept. Unlike my conscious mind, my subconscious was not stuck on the idea of sewage. So when I woke up, I thought to check the mousetraps. Yes! It is amazing what an enormous stench one tiny mousie body can make.

You know that feeling, when you want to watch something, but not any of the dozens or hundreds of things available to watch? Or hundreds of millions of things, really, since I ended up at Youtube, where I watched an episode of QI, which was very gratifying (since I got to see Stephen Fry made acutely uncomfortable by being hugged) but left me in the same unsatisfiable state. I've got Turn Left at the End of the World paused in my CD drive, 29 minutes in. I should be eating this up! It has two teenage girls from clashing cultures, living in a third culture which is uncongenial to them both, who like each other! But I... I want a Chloe liked Olivia story so much. And I've taken a chance on so many stories that promised to be Chloe liked Olivia, but turned into Chloe betrayed Olivia in some terrible and unforgivable way, probably because of a man, and one or both of them learned valuable lessons about life and being a woman. And I am afraid that this is going to be yet another one of those.

Also I haven't written anything for weeks.

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08:22 am: plumbing advice wanted
My toilet is draining very poorly. As far as I can tell, the plunger and the snake are having no effect. Except, I've just noticed, plunging the toilet forces air out of the floor drain near the toilet.

1. Does this mean that the obstruction must be past the place where the floor drain's pipe connects to the toilet's waste pipe?

2. When I had a plumber in to install a washing-machine hookup, he commented on how long it was taking him to detach and reattach everything because the pipes and their connections were so old, and he had to be careful not to tug too hard on anything for fear of opening a leak somewhere else. Does this mean that I should not try to detach anything?

3. Should I try a chemical drain cleaner?

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06:52 pm: generation gap
So fan_eunice mentioned That thing I saw on Tumblr with the argument between kids born in the 80s and kids born in the 90s over whether the former are too 'old' to be on Tumblr and I said

I was just thinking, when my 19-year-old was home for winter break, that we don't have a generation gap like the baby boomers and their parents did, at least not over culture and our ideas of fun.

We like different things, of course; we're different people. But when we talk to each other about what we like, it isn't a different kind of conversation than I have with friends my own age. And when I murmur "Socially Awkward Penguin moment" to her she knows exactly what I mean.

What do you guys think? Is there a generation gap? Between you and older people, or you and younger people, or both? What is a generation gap anyway?

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09:34 pm: dream dogs
I dreamed I had agreed to take care of a friend's dogs during the workday, so my dog would have someone to play with and her dogs wouldn't eat her house. They were pit-bull mixes, but not inclined to the slam-dance play that pit bulls often do, so I thought it would work. The great thing about this dream was the dogs' names, which were Boney and Parallelepiped.

Aiko is doing okay as an only dog. The woman who gave him to me was sure that he was a nervous wreck because she had no other dogs, and I think she was right, but while he was living with Tai Aiko also became securely attached to me. My husband said, "When you first got him I thought you were nuts-- well, I still think you're nuts, but you've done really good work with him."

My two old dogs weren't young when I got them. I had them for seven and eight years, which was as much as was reasonable to expect. When they died barely a month apart, I was determined that my next dog would be a puppy, but I'm mostly over that now. I'll take whoever the universe sends me. Hey, universe! I'm open!

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Tags: aiko, dogs

09:08 pm: more joy day
My plan for More Joy Day was to leave comments on fic I like, saying what I liked about it. I managed a little of that. It is so stressful, you guys! It combines making judgments and writing!

I taped a note that Nixie wrote me and a holiday card from oursin to the wall next to my computer, to bring me more joy.

And I made a little progress on a project. I want to record a story for you guys, so I'm learning to use Audacity and Soundcloud. Of course, the first time I tried recording, Aiko started barking. If you'd like to hear his voice and then mine, press the play button below.

Oh great by boxofdelights

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02:48 pm: more joy day
This is the best thing I've ever seen.

Sledding crow. From othercat.

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10:37 am: meme
Pick up the nearest book to you.
Turn to page 45.
The first sentence describes your sex life in 2012.

Well, there's two books nearest me, I'll check them both. Delia Sherman's Changeling:
"Didn't she know I could take care of myself?"

Bwahahah! Yep, that works.

The other is Karen Lord's Redemption in Indigo:
"'Mission accomplished.' There was a certain amount of self-satisfaction in this communication."

Okay, I get the message already!

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10:21 pm: we are still married
A few days ago, Neal asked me, "Is it twenty-five?" I looked around, puzzled. Is what twenty-five? "What year is it, 2011? And it was '86?" Oh! Right! Wedding anniversary! And it was '86. "Happy anniversary," he said, "for what it's worth."

We are still friends and good co-parents, which is what I wanted. And I couldn't have done it without him.

Also just past is my ninth LJ-versary. I plan to keep crossposting, and to keep reading those of you who post there, but, mentally, I've moved out. Dreamwidth is home now.

However I do not have a native understanding of the split between subscription and access filters. I think it is an excellent idea! It just doesn't do anything for the way I use DW. There was a while there when I was subscribing without giving access as a way of saying, "I would like to read your posts without presuming that you want to read my posts." That would work if I were meticulous about noticing and granting access to anyone who subscribed back, but I am not meticulous. So I think from now on I'll unite subscribing and giving access, and hope it does not seem presumptuous.

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02:35 pm: anxious
I'm having a lot of trouble with anxiety these days. A lot of anxiety, and a lot of trouble coping with it. Like, I'm not coping. I can't see any reason why it should be particularly difficult right now, except that anxiety is good at vicious circles. You're anxious about something that isn't a real problem, so you avoid doing it or looking at it or even thinking about it, and while you are not looking it says, "If you don't stop being anxious I will GIVE you something to be anxious about!" and turns into a real problem.

What I am particularly anxious about today is the book group dinner. I looked at my email today and discovered that the dinner is today, at 5:30, so I could, theoretically, go. Leaving the house, meeting people, those are always fraught; book group has its own special anxieties. And if I were going to see people then I would have to wash, and put on clean clothes. I believe I have clean clothes, but I am anxious enough that taking off my clothes is going to be a problem.

I'm probably not going. And book group is not going to turn into a real problem. But if you wanted to say something comforting anyway, I would appreciate it.

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11:14 pm: family stuff, wilby
I'm planning a trip to Portland to see Nixie next semester. Would any of you like to hang out with me?

Nixie was here for Thanksgiving week. She had a tilt-table test, because she fainted again at school, so now we know she doesn't have postural hypotension. Not sure what the next step is.

Mungo turned sixteen, and got a set of wheels: a second-hand bike.

There's a movie I love, called Wilby Wonderful, that you can watch streaming, with commercials, on Hulu:

http://www.hulu.com/watch/59586/wilby-wonderful

sasha_feather mentioned that it's also streaming on Netflix.

It is written and directed by Daniel MacIvor, who goes very light on the existential despair, for a Canadian filmmaker.

It has Paul Gross looking nearly as unattractive as is possible when you are Paul Gross, who gets to say ( the best line in the movie: )

It has Callum Keith Rennie, which is why I watched it, but not why I'm recommending it. Callum Keith Rennie has been in lots of bad movies and you don't see me recommending them, do you? All right then.

It's sad and sweet and funny, and morally complex, and humane:( spoiler )

And if you watch it, then you can read there's a warm town in the shadow of you.

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Tags: movie, mungo, nixie