picked a handful of violets in my name

Thanksgiving was good. solarcat, Marina and Leroy came over.

We had duck gumbo. Ellie, in her determination to use the entire duck, rendered a whole bunch of fat to make the roux (too much; we now have a little container of duck fat in the fridge for future use), and made duck stock.

We also had rice dressing, apple pie, and cookies.


Friday, I was pretty exhausted. Ellie and I flyered for Slutcracker. We drove to Central Square, ate at Fourburgers, and went over to The Donkey Show.

Having been offline for a while by that point, I didn't have advance warning that Amanda Palmer and Neil Gaiman would be there. In retrospect, this was probably good. Much as I joke about how the fourth wall doesn't exist for anyone any more, I appreciate a sort of meatspace fourth wall - I'll go to signings and meet-and-greet events if my companions want to, but that's not an experience I seek on my own.


On Saturday, solarcat and I went to see Cobra Starship. It was a Boys Like Girls show, technically, but we were there for Cobra and we had m&g with them. solarcat had them sign her Harass Gabe shirt. I went with "something random" - the back of a 6x8 canvas board. I will twitpic some photos of the finished painting, as that seems to be the best method of getting them to the band.

Take action to save the Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner program.

Ellie is apparently making duck gumbo for Thanksgiving because A) fuck turkey anyway and B) we will be feeding probably more people than a single roast duck would satisfy.

( meme )

The Writer's Block prompt over at LJ made me lol. What (if any) books would you ban from a high school library? Are there certain subjects that you feel are inappropriate for teenagers regardless of literary merit?

The answer to that question is 'fuck that noise,' by the way. No hate speech (hate text(s)?). Other than that, I would rather teenagers read about sex than violence - but if I ruled the world, people wouldn't love/glorify/eroticize violence.

Related: my mom is a high school librarian right now (before that, she was retired, and before that, she was an elementary/middle school librarian, and before that, she was retired, and before that, she was a cataloger at a university). In particular, at a sports-oriented Catholic boys' school.

As I was such a voracious reader as a kid, she often turns to me for suggestions re: how to get these kids to read shit. We have come up with several solutions:
* books about sports! Biographies of athletes are relatively popular.
* the most mainstream-ly popular YA series of the moment! Teenage boys will apparently read Twilight and its sequels because their girlfriends do.
* graphic novels! This is fairly untested, as we are having trouble coming up with any graphic novels which will pass muster with the principal and interest the boys. Mom is not up on this stuff and pretty much everything I read would make the principal faint.

So your suggestions of graphic novels would be most appreciated, and remember that they must be read over and deemed appropriate by a rather conservative old Catholic [priest/friar/something].

"Here's the plan: every Friday, let's recommend some people and/or communities to follow on Dreamwidth. That's it. No complicated rules, no "pass this on to 7.328 friends or your cat will die". Just introduce us to some new things to read."

The theme for this week is NSFW!!

( 3 comms and 2 feeds )

Bonus SFW comm: dreamsheep. Yes, I know I already mentioned it yesterday. ;) Icons and graphics featuring the Dreamsheep, unofficial mascot of Dreamwidth.

And remember, visit followfriday to share your FF with others, and tag your post "followfriday" or "follow friday" so it will appear on the tag-filtered Latest Posts feed.

( whoops, half an entry from last week that never got posted )

And now what I actually came here to write about:

* BLACK DRAGON FIGHTING SOCIETY

* So my mom is going to look at all my shiny stuff when she gets up here, and then I will make her some jewelry and that will be $winterholiday. But that doesn't help with my dad or my sister.

* BLACK DRAGON FIGHTING SOCIETY

* Speaking of $winterholiday... many, many months ago, I made a post offering handmade goodies to the first five commenters. I fail at life and timeliness, and still owe insunshine and sinuous_curve their goodies. As soon as I post this, I will wander into the dining room and get started on their stuff. I will also take requests from up to three more people.

* BLACK DRAGON FIGHTING SOCIETY

Yeah, uh. That's all I got. I go make things now. BLACK DRAGON FIGHTING SOCIETY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dreamwidth just ate my login cookie!

* Dreamwidth has just implemented a Latest Posts feed, which shows public posts from users and communities which have not opted out.

If you want to exclude your own posts from the Latest Posts feed, go to the Admin Console and enter set latest_optout yes.

To exclude posts in a community you maintain, go to the Admin Console and enter set for communityname latest_optout yes, where communityname is the name of your community.

Locked and private posts will not show up in the Latest Posts feed.

* The latest posts feed can also be filtered by certain site-defined tags to entries. Currently, the only such tag is nnwm09, for NaNoWriMo. If you want your public NaNo posts included on Latest Posts page for NaNoWriMo, you will need to tag them nnwm09 in addition to any other tags you may use.

* I am going to hate myself so much by December. Not just because 2500 words per day, but because those words are going to come from putting a character I really do love through hell many times over.

Or, when I can no longer cope with Marcus and his alcoholism/depression/dead and dying friends and relatives/et cetera, the words will come from the prickly young genius who does not like to talk to anyone, not even his creator. I guess it's cheating to have a backup novel to work on, but I do expect to burn out on And In Darkness, Light early and often throughout November.

(I should note that by the time AIDL is completed, Marcus will have found some stability and happiness. But for the ending to actually get written - well, I'm waiting on some people to deliver the framework I will need. And they will not be rushed - certainly not by the likes of me - and believe me when I say I'm not the only person going nuts over it all.)

synecdochic posts some of jdn's comments. As in, to his code.

Here's the plan: every Friday, let's recommend some people and/or communities to follow on Dreamwidth. That's it. No complicated rules, no "pass this on to 7.328 friends or your cat will die". Just introduce us to some new things to read.

*cough* synecdochic, personal account of site owner denise. Monday pride thread (toot your own horn!), disability issues, Stargate fic, and other assorted awesome.

cimorene does daily shoe posts, reviews/comments on books and movies, and talks about fandom and her real life.

damned_colonial, originator of the Dreamwidth Follow Friday. Fandom, gender and tech.

If you want to know what's coming next code push, subscribe to changelog_digest, or changelog if you enjoy drinking from the firehose.

command_liners, for those of us who are not scared of that blinky orange/green/white cursor on black background.

historiann_feed: gender and academia!

I'm probably going to be offline most of the weekend - between the driving and the conference and the socializing, I won't have much time, and I will be trying to use what spare time I do have to write.

I haven't had a chance to read anyone's posts, DW or LJ, since Thursday morning, though I did skim a bit. I have barely had time to check my email. Assume I will be unavailable until Sunday evening.

:D

stuff I did...
( ... in 2013 )( ... in 2012 )( ... in 2011 )( ... in 2010 )( ... in 2009 )( ... in 2008 )( ... in 2007 )