Long post is really fucking long.

[sofiaviolet]

Notes

Not dead! Back in Boston since Saturday, and already caught up on things!

Recently

Just finished eating half the curry I made tonight; the other half is in the fridge. I am going to bring it to work tomorrow. Leftovers for lunch - it's almost like I'm a real grown-up!

Ellie and I went to the mall yesterday. We were supposed to get clothes for her. Instead, we got clothes for me. /o\ On the other hand, Hello Kitty rain boots in grown-up sizes, fuck yes.

I continue to experiment with purple hair. Attempt 3 (dark purple over failed single-process bleach-and-purple) is the best yet but still not quite right.

Grand Forks

C. and I had dinner with my aunt and uncle twice. Thursday because I wanted to see my family while I was in town, and Friday because it was their anniversary. 48 years! C. already knew my aunt and uncle because he spent so much time at their house while Ellie was living there, and then he took some of Uncle Greg's classes. They ♥ him.

And Aunt Ellen took us along to some garage sales Friday morning. One of my favorite things about Grand Forks, hands down. After that, we went to Kellys Slough to watch birds.

Despite being in fandom, I am actually pretty terrible about seeing movies, watching tv shows, etc. So while I was around, C. sat me down and made me watch a whole bunch of things: The Guild, Kick Ass, season three of The Venture Brothers, Stranger Than Fiction, Dr. Horrible (for the second time) and some Buffy (from the beginning through the internet demon episode). I have to get Netflix now so we can keep watching Buffy together, and probably watch other stuff. He played through Portal to show me how creepy GlaDOS is, and he taught me how to play Castle Crashers, since he and his friends needed a fourth player right then. (I sucked! But it's okay!) And we saw Scott Pilgrim twice.

In exchange, I showed him a few vids. Women's Work, because it's the first vid I ever watched, and Vogue, because it seems to be one of the best-known outside of fandom. Plus some from sources I figured he was familiar with.

We also spent a lot of time hanging out with C.'s roommate L. And L. and I spent an evening dyeing our hair. Results for both of us were disappointing but not disastrous: bleach didn't lighten her hair that much, and her blue didn't really stick. The purple bleach-and-dye-together! thing I used didn't have enough product for my hair, alas. It also turned out more pink/red than purple.

Relationship Stuff

:D!

Yeah, so. We had tried keeping things light and casual, back in the very beginning, because C. had his doubts about long-distance relationships. But that just sort of didn't work. We slid straight into fairly serious relationship mode because that's what felt right. That contributed to my visiting him last week instead of, like, October.

While I was there, we were basically glued together. Which is a big deal for me: I didn't find myself pulling away and wanting alone time. And it seems to have been a big deal for C., too, although perhaps more on the physical contact side of things. (He had originally suggested I visit for three or four days; I went with a week because I suspected we'd want plenty of together time, and even if we got sick of each other/broke up horribly/his roommates hated my guts/whatever, I could stay with Ellen and Greg. The full week... was not enough.)

I told him "I love you" by writing it on his skin with my fingertip (kind of a hedge in case of too-much-too-soon, kind of a workaround for my own terror at actually saying that). I needn't have worried, really. :)

We're planning more visits, and I convinced C. to install Skype. But I think my journal will stop being All About My Boyfriend now; he'll show up from time to time along with other important people in my life.

Memery

From Ask Me Anything:

Looking back, are you comfortable with the way you reacted when your sister came out to you?

Not really. :( I could have done more. I am especially disappointed with how little help I was to her in 2006/2007, her last year of high school, while she was trying to figure things out. True, I didn't have nearly as much knowledge of gender and trans* issues then, but I probably still could have been more supportive than I actually was.

But as far as her actual coming-out? I think I did okay then, although I didn't adjust to name-and-pronouns as fast as I would have liked, even if there is a specific reason for it (trying not to out her to Mom and Dad before she had the chance to tell them herself).

Links

laughingrat: I have an icon, and also, I'll never shut up

t's not okay to kill someone outright. It's also not okay to kill them slowly. If people don't think real women's lives are adversely affected, sometimes to the point of disability or death, by the so-called "minor" violations of their human rights in industrial countries, then they truly are not paying attention. I'd like to know at what point a woman's life stops being so important that it just doesn't matter that she's in dire straits--mentally, emotionally, physically, whatever. Is it when we stop being symbols? When we stop being political bargaining chips? Is it when investigating our own ills, at home in our own nations, becomes inconvenient and embarrassing? When it becomes easier to throw money and high-minded education at people in another country, rather than calling out our friends, family, co-workers, neighbors, bosses, government, and entertainment industry on the way they cheerfully perpetuate the routine, normalized dehumanization of women?

oursin: Some rather vague thoughts about women's liberation vs liberated women etc

Vague thoughts, vaguely generated through the acrimonious discussions about new biography of Robert Heinlein* proliferating over my reading list and elsewhere, and conversation on sartorias's lj about Wells and feminism.

BARCC Blog: Gender Performance and Rape Survivors

I love RuPaul’s Drag Race. This puzzled my husband at first - “Since when have you been interested in drag queens?” Well, since about always; my first published story has a drag queen in it. As time has gone by, I’ve been looking at why the world of drag fascinates me so, so that I can explain it better, and I think that, for me, it’s about gender performance.

via shadesong: Hello Kitty Dr. Martens

via toft: Keep Calm and Carry On

Therefore we are proud to bring you the Keep Calm-o-matic. Just enter the pithy saying of your choice, choose a few simple options, and before you can say 'coalition government' you'll have your very own Government-approved motivational slogan.

via bayleaf: I Love the Archives

Based on the comic by Derangement and Description (based on the concept by the Discovery Channel), the Jewish Museum of Maryland's staff and interns (from archives, collections, and education) bring you this short video. An ode to the archives, if you will.

Racialicious: Knives Chau vs. Bad Character Development

The film’s biggest problem might have been Universal’s decision to push it onto the multiplex circuit despite expecting it to flop.* Which makes the decision by writer/director Edgar Wright (Wright shares writing credits with Michael Bacall) to adapt five of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s six Pilgrim stories into one film even more disappointing. As a result, a year’s worth of story beats fly by way too fast (admittedly, in very shiny fashion) and characters suffer for it. Particularly the film’s collection of Asian-Canadian characters.

SPOILERS AHEAD

via Racialicious: The Voices of Hurricane Katrina, Part I

He decided to use the personal histories of six African American Katrina survivors as “found poetry”—stripped of names and context, and combined with one another—as the centerpiece poem of Saltwater Empire, without contacting the project or the survivors.

Derangement and Description: Post-SAA Howl

I worry about these kids. And I worry about you, archivists, and your profession, because I worry that these archivists will take their skills and ideas and find jobs outside the field instead of putting up with all this bullshit. And how can you truly preserve your collections in the long term if there is no one to replace you if you change jobs or retire or get crushed in your own compact shelving?

BARCC Blog: Scott Pilgrim vs. The Dominant Narrative

My only disappointment with it is perhaps an unfair one. I was hoping, really hard, that this wouldn't be a romantic movie with the standard geek-boy plotline. I kept my fingers crossed really hard that maybe, since this one had such an over-the-top tone, that it wouldn't just be about an outrageously awkward mid-20's guy who wins a token hot girl by doing something traditionally masculine that no one thought he could do. You know, the plot of every romantic comedy ever that's aimed at men?

Plans

Figure out Netflix. Buy more $5 vermouth for cooking.

Comments

[somnolentblue]

Thanks for the Post-SAA Howl link, although it's a bit disquieting to read given that my MLS classes start next week. However, new blog to follow, huzzah!

[sofiaviolet]

Heh. Not so awesome for me to read, either. :\

[pinesandmaples]

Netflix is a lovely, delicious, sexy, exciting thing that I love more than pretty much every other part of the USPS because it means I get envelopes of red cheer filled with obscure documentaries and one-hit-wonder TV shows like Freaks and Geeks. It is universally well-loved in Smell-O-Vision.

[sofiaviolet]

Woooo! Although I suspect I will get more use out of the Instant Queue thing.

[pinesandmaples]

Not everything is available instantly. Sure, I have a lot of fun with instant; but when I want to watch something specific, it's the old fashioned queue for me.

[zulu]

Yay, I'm glad the visit went well! ♥

[sofiaviolet]

Me too!

[striped]

Thanks for the many interesting links, again! And um, hi, I do read your jorunal and enjoy it although I never comment.

[sofiaviolet]

It's cool; I am bad at commenting too! Though it is always nice to hear that the links are appreciated.