picked a handful of violets in my name

Sat, 18 Jun 2011 16:31:30 GMT

helens78: I didn't really want to post this, but, well. I think I have to.

"PROMPT REQUESTS SWEET FRIENDSHIP OR G-RATED ROMANCE; FILL IS SET IN BDSM CLUB."

I get the whole "want one thing from a prompt, get something radically different" thing, and I understand that FYFF macros are frequently sarcastic or ironic. In this case, though, it's by no means the joke premise that I'm objecting to. It's the wording of the joke itself.

It's a joke, but it's one that, intentionally or no, highlights and reinforces a lot of stereotypes about BDSM -- none of them good. It's kink-shaming, and it's full of negative ideas I can't just let stand without saying something.

thingswithwings: some thoughts on manpain. um. many thoughts on manpain, actually.

I started writing some vidder's notes for that vid about manpain that I made, and they just got longer and longer, and more and more speculative and meta-y, and eventually I had to give up on making them notes and make them into their own separate post about manpain. So, for those who are interested in my opinion on manpain, here it is! For those who just want to watch the vid, I have neatly cordoned this meta off from the vid so that you don't have to care about it. It's almost unforgivably long, so do feel free to skip.

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9 links

Wed, 06 Apr 2011 03:26:31 GMT

( Read more... )

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link backlog

Wed, 05 Jan 2011 00:46:56 GMT

Actual update soon, I hope.

( 8 links )

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Thu, 16 Dec 2010 12:40:53 GMT

So that's three times now I've received spam with variations on "Big penis like a girl!" as the subject. Okay then.

Geek Feminism: “Why don’t you just hit him?”

Warning: this post and links from it discuss both harassment and violence, imagined and real.

Am I against hitting a harasser in all situations? No. Am I advocating against it in all situations? No.

However, here’s a lengthy and incomplete list of reasons why victims may not be able or may choose not to hit a harasser and why it is definitely not a general solution for the problem of harassment. I even have a special buzzer on hand that will sound when the reasons are related to gender discrimination. Listen for it, it goes like this: BZZZT! Got it? BZZZT!

The Pervocracy: Beyond body acceptance.

It's good to like your body, but you know, your body isn't the biggest deal about you. (Or rather, your beauty isn't the biggest deal, since few people insulting your body can be dissuaded by hearing how many pounds you can lift or how quickly you recover from injuries.) It's a heartbreaking waste to take a human being, a person rich in history and abilities and relationships and ideas, and judge them on how nice a decoration they make. Maybe that's inevitable when it comes to strangers, but you damn well know better when it comes to yourself. When you're judging your appearance, you're only judging one tiny part of your self.

glass_icarus: announcing: Potluck!

Potluck is intended to be a carnival for multicultural and intersectional discussions of food. There are no real limits on theme; however, the focus of the carnival is on thoughts and experiences around food through various topics that you might see around the social justice blogosphere, including but not limited to food discussions intersecting with disability, gender, sexuality, fat, animal rights and of course cultural and racial issues. We welcome you to share your recipes as well as your thoughts and experiences, but we ask that you do not submit posts with recipes only.

Anna J. Cook: Queen Everett

Then I came to a small yellowed clipping that featured a photograph of the five young women nominated in 1971 ... and the young man, Everett Nau, who had been crowned the Winter Carnival Queen of 1970. The brief caption to the photograph read (in part)
NAU GOOD LUCK GIRLS ... Everett Nau, last year's Winter Carnival Queen, bestows his best wishes upon this year's recently selected finalists (all girls if you'll notice). ... In this year's campaign, the judges ruled it mandatory that the contestants be of the female gender.

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6 links

Wed, 08 Dec 2010 01:01:55 GMT

The Hathor Legacy: It’s just a show. Really?

The truth is, pop culture is not just fun and games, and that’s why “It’s not just a show” is bullshit. Culture – and current culture has always been pop culture, and always will be – is the medium through which the privileged people educate all the other sorts of people on how they are supposed to behave so as to inconvenience the privileged the least they can with their undesirable yet necessary presence. I really am supposed to not only like flowers, but to accept them in lieu of kept promises and fidelity – not because it’s on TV but because that would be ever so convenient for uncaring and cheating men. What the person who criticizes me for diverging from TV portrayals of my gender is really saying is: “Don’t you know this is your responsibility? Even if you don’t like flowers, you still need to like the damn flowers because men need their women to be plug ‘n’ play, easily replaced! Men have nations to conquer and important things to do. They can’t be bogged down with trying to remember what each new current girlfriend likes, which is why it’s so crucial you all like exactly the same shit! Jeez, you selfish bitch!”

16 Impacts of Sexual Assault

As a victim of sexual assault I have had my life turned upside down, my beliefs and hopes decimated and my sense of self devastated. In trying to make sense of what happened to me, I have struggled overwhelmingly with a sense of isolation, fragmentation and dislocation. Despite reporting the assault to the police, despite excellent counselling and support services and despite an extraordinarily patient and supportive family, I have often felt unable to articulate, or be heard on, the devastation and upheaval that sexual assault continues to create for me everyday.

Dopp Juice: A Genderplayful Marketplace – Do you want it?

I want to build an online marketplace for gender-variant clothing solutions.

Not a store where I sell to you, but a service like Etsy and Ebay where we sell to each other, in a focused, supportive community. And while we’re at it, we also trade all sorts of tips and inspirations on how best to look the way we want, gender-be-damned.

synecdochic: Tip for chronic-pain issues

If you have chronic pain of the muscle/stiffness sort, or suffer from muscle cramps in the middle of the night that wake you, start sleeping with an unwrapped bar of soap in bed with you.

laughingrat: (no subject)

One wonders where Marc Lepine got the idea, in 1989, that he was entitled to go to engineering school regardless of his lack of qualifications, but that women who were qualified to go were not similarly entitled. One wonders where he got his tremendous sense of privilege, his tremendous sense of outrage, and the idea that if he, a man, was sufficiently angry at women, the acceptable answer was to terrorize and murder them.

copperbadge: (no subject)

To sum up: when people ask you for money, be critical. Know who's getting your money, know what they believe, and if you can't get hard facts, be suspicious. Most charities are listed on charitynavigator.org and have a website; they will have mission statements and should have financial information.

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link backlog

Thu, 02 Dec 2010 00:44:32 GMT

( links )

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links

Mon, 22 Nov 2010 01:56:46 GMT

( 6 links )

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Fri, 08 Oct 2010 23:55:32 GMT

Follow Friday

Links

"genitals as signifiers": when birth is a "social emergency"
What I really wanted to share with you in this post, though, is several paragraphs from the first chapter of Part Two in which Karkazis describes the way myriad ways in which children born with no immediately apparent sex identity are experienced as a matter of "social urgency" by their parents and the medical community. I realize it's kinda academic and somewhat heavy on the specialized terminology. But I think she's packing some pretty important stuff into these paragraphs (pp. 95-97). Reading this narrative, I just felt an overwhelming sadness in my chest for these tiny persons whose very being is somehow construed as problematic -- who cannot be incorporated into the human community, it seems -- because they lack a clear "girl" or "boy" box in which to be situated.
staranise: Automated bingo cards, get 'em while they're hot
This is just the first draft. I want to add to it--and I would be thrilled if other people wanted to add to it. This program was a fannish endeavour, if fandom itself is a fandom; I wanted to create something that would help other fans do what they love.
yvi: Flattr
Basically, it's a micropayments system to everyone on the internet who participates - you determine a certain amount of money you want to spend every month, pre-load your account, click on however many Flattr buttons on the web you want to, and at the end of the month, that money is devided between the pages you clicked for.

So I went and signed up for it: (I'd love to see a Dreamwidth feature that accomplishes this with points. I do it manually sometimes, but it's hard to remember.)

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just the link backlog for now

Mon, 04 Oct 2010 03:17:52 GMT

I've had a headache for most of the weekend, spent waaaaaaay too long trying to sleep the headache off, and then it took Ellie and I all afternoon to get groceries (we hit Allandale Farms, Whole Foods, BJ's, and Stop-n-Shop. Plus Home Depot so she could price some set-building stuff).

All in a Name: New Software Benefits Transgender Students
The new software, created as an adjunct to the Banner student information system, allows students to fill out a form specifying their preferred name and pronoun. The information appears on all paperwork seen by faculty, so petitioning professors individually, a process that gave students no choice but to out themselves, is a thing of the past.
via naraht: The Dunbar Number as a Limit to Group Sizes
My anecdotal evidence generally seems to support the idea that group sizes will usually plateau at a number lower than 150 participants. This comes from 20 years of doing facilitation both on and offline, running several software companies, and running various forums at America Online. In particular, many online communities provide good evidence for Dunbar's Number actually being an upper limit (either due to reduced efficiency or due to increased dispersion).
dw_news: Weekly Update: 30 Sept
* Development
* Code Push
* More DW Creativity
* RIP, Vox
* DW Advocacy
* Icon Renames
Dreamwidth Wiki: Advocacy

denise: DW artisans

via wordweaverlynn: Kink Aware Professionals

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Thu, 16 Sep 2010 00:31:32 GMT

Recently

Today's lulz: letter from Glamour magazine attempting to get Mr. [Sofia Blackthorne] to subscribe. My legal first name is technically unisex (I was named after my great-grandfather), though in English-speaking cultures, Dominique pretty much female (although I wonder, given the number of times people have attempted to call me Dominic to my very cis-female face - can they not pronounce -que endings or something?).

Also, Ellie is eating all my Green & Blacks milk chocolate. :\

Links

scottpilgrimslash: comment-fic-athon

via holyschist: [Activist Modus Operandi] Methods of Communication

tim: How To Fail Out Of Grad School Without Really Trying
There's a saying that you should never take advice from the survivors, and I felt that way reading this list of reasons Ph.D students fail. If I interpret this article as advice, it's good advice. But if I interpret it as a compendium of reasons why students fail, it doesn't really capture my experience or that of other people I know who left grad school. One reason why is that the author attributes failure only to individual students, ignoring the important role that unsupportive faculty members and indifferent institutions can play in encouraging failure. As Barbara Lovitts shows in her book _Leaving the Ivory Tower_, there are disciplinary and institutional patterns to grad student attrition, suggesting structural reasons for why Ph.D students fail that cannot be reduced to random individual variations in character.
via #dreamwidth: Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Names

via rydra_wong: I love the smell of dreamwidth in the morning.
Every day that you're online, scout around dreamwidth. Find one person you don't normally comment to and comment on an entry. Pick a community that looks cool or that you're a member of and don't normally post to/comment on, and leave a post/comment. Post something of substance in your journal. Start a conversation. Engage. Enrich the community.

Plans

Need to redo the purple on my hair this weekend, or maybe sooner if I feel like it. It's starting to fade significantly near the roots. Also need to go to the post office, since those bastards have stopped leaving international parcels on the porch. Also should install software updates and restart my computer, especially since it might fix the problems that exist between Adium and Facebook chat. Also also should order some tights for extended skirt-wearing season.

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yawns

Sat, 04 Sep 2010 03:09:02 GMT

Recently

I've been following the latest LJwtf and going to work, pretty much. Managed to wear a skirt today, and I think every single person I work with complimented it.

( Follow Friday )

Links

( 7 links )

Plans

Get rained on and blown about. Hope the power stays on long enough to to chat with C. for a good long while. Drive up to NH with Ellie and shadesong for the art retreat, and catch the bus back. Drag Ellie to see Scott Pilgrim, get groceries, and pick up the hair stuff I forgot last week. Make attempt number 4 at purple hair: bleach a thick streak and purple it, then update the rest to black.

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just links today

Sat, 28 Aug 2010 21:17:33 GMT

Links

( 10 links )

Plans

Scissor Sisters concert with Ellie.

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Lazy Femme

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 00:44:27 GMT

As mentioned in this earlier post of mine:

I want to write about "lazy femme," which is what I call my gender presentation. In short: I like things like skirts and makeup, but I don't generally bother with these more effortful bits of gendered plumage.

I like femininity. I like pink and glitter and high heels and lace and whatever. That kind of stuff is fun to play with; I'm also attracted to femininity in other people.

( I am not, however, very good at doing femininity. )

To sum up: I guess I'm kinda sorta femme? Why am I not more femme? Because it's haaaaaaard. Therefore: lazy femme. The end.*

* This is a really sketchy and disjointed post; there may be more later. For now, it is done, but please feel welcome to ask for any clarifications and expansions in the comments.

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Long post is really fucking long.

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 02:52:25 GMT

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

( Spent nearly every waking moment with C., got to see my family, consumed much media. Was not really online. )

Relationship Stuff

( :D! )

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

( 10 links )

Plans

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

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long post is long

Fri, 13 Aug 2010 04:25:47 GMT

Notes

I'll be out of town August 14-21. While I'll have internet access, I have no idea how much I'll be online. But rest assured I'll catch up even if I can't keep up.

Recently

Bosses and one reference desk person are away for the Society of American Archivists conference. Work is freakishly quiet.

Busy couple of days. Tuesday morning, I hauled a box of fun surprises to the post office (since the TSA probably frowns on taking rope in your carry-on), went to work, and then went to Diesel to meet up with shadesong and receive my BARCC auction winnings: a lovely flogger. After that, I ran into Andra and spent forever telling her about C. (she kept asking questions, and I am still flush with omgyay).

Yesterday I got some purple dye, and this morning before work, I put it in my hair to see what it would do. Not a lot, as it turns out: my hair is too dark. Now it's even darker, with something of a blue cast to it. While kinda disappointing, it's not actually surprising, and it's definitely not a bad result.

Leaving for Grand Forks at stupid o'clock Saturday morning. Clothes are basically picked out, and toiletries are selected and quart-size bagged.

Memes

Still open for questions.

I know so little about you, I'm afraid my question is quite pedestrian! What would your dream job be?

Pretty close to what I'm doing right now. I want to be an archivist full-time, as my real grownup job. But I'm not thrilled with the idea of meetings and managing other people, which my bosses at work have to do. I just want to work with the collections.

Placeholder

I want to write about "lazy femme," which is what I call my gender presentation. In short: I like things like skirts and makeup, but I don't generally bother with these more effortful bits of gendered plumage.

( 11 links )

Plans

More packing, go to bed, sleep, get up, go to work, come home, eat dinner, finish packing, go to bed, get up, get on airplane, arrive in Grand Forks, get laid.

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links links links

Wed, 30 Jun 2010 01:56:33 GMT

( links that are not about fandom )
( links that are about fandom )

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link catch-up

Fri, 25 Jun 2010 01:10:46 GMT

( 18 links )

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There is no way I will be able to keep this up indefinitely.

Tue, 18 May 2010 23:45:39 GMT

But hey, until I get lazy/short on time again, enjoy the linkspam (now with quotes!).

( long post is long )

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long-ass post is long

Sat, 24 Apr 2010 03:40:20 GMT

Took my final for Soviet Secret Police today. I think I did well - there was one "identify this document excerpt" that I swear I had never seen before, but it was a small part of the test.

I foresee using this icon a lot while I'm in New Orleans this summer, and I need to upload one of the "emphasizin ur POC" icons as well.

I have missed my one-year anniversary on Dreamwidth. But it was because I had papers to write, so I will just commemorate it now.

( links galore )

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LJ fails again! This time, on gender issues.

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 04:03:23 GMT

As of their next code push (and LJ's code pushes tend to happen on Thursdays), LiveJournal will require all users to specify "male" or "female" for their account's gender. No third option.

The change is almost certainly to target advertising in a more gender-stereotyped way.

EDIT: 2009-12-15 10:30 EST
Probably thanks to the many people contacting LJ, the code has been pulled. It will not be going live in the next code push.

Unfortunately, I don't trust LJ not to attempt to sneak something like this through again.

synecdochic has a summary. She suggests going to the Edit Profile page and changing your gender to Unspecified, contacting Feedback, and emailing the GM of US operations at anjelika@livejournalinc.com.

( complete list of posts on my Dreamroll re: lj's genderfail )

Geek Feminism also has a post.

If anyone reading this would like a Dreamwidth account (Dreamwidth's diversity statement specifically includes and "welcome[s] people of any gender identity or expression"), I have some invite codes, and if they run out, I'm willing to buy accounts for people who need them.

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Overwhelmed.

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 00:14:46 GMT

*hands*

I was going to go to a dinner-and-a-lecture by a history professor I had my freshman year, but I procrastinated on getting a ticket, and now it's the day of the event and Ellie is sick (and required a thermometer today. Yesterday it was cough suppressant and cough drops) and I needed to meet 1001cranes downtown to hand over my ticket for The Used, since I can't go to the show because Ellie and I are leaving for Vermont Friday afternoon, and I'm hanging out with solarcat tomorrow evening (LOTMS whee!), and hopefully taking Ellie shoe shopping tomorrow afternoon, and I still haven't packed for the weekend in Vermont.

Speaking of Vermont! Ellie and I and two carloads of her friends are going to the Translating Identity Conference. I will probably be offline, but I am taking my laptop in order to maybe do some writing when I run out of cope.

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Tue, 30 Jun 2009 02:11:48 GMT

( things I spotted on etsy, version I Can't Wear That To Work! )

hederahelix: Sizeism in fic and society

'Cis' is hostile? I remember being quite pleased the first time I became aware of 'cis' and related terms - it filled a lexical hole that I had not realized was there.

Weird passage of time at work today - doing really tedious stuff apparently makes the day fly by. Probably because I can devote a portion of my brain to pre-writing.

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Oh dear.

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 01:18:51 GMT

I bought 30 blank CDs to give my mom some new music, and I have used. Them. All. And I still have stuff I need to burn. *facepalm*

I'm doing well with my writing, at least. And we've been having some good family times, even though Dad has had a fair bit of work. I have a new pair of glasses, and I got new lenses in my old frames.

I think we're going to Rock n Bowl tonight. :D

Links built up over the past few days...

From my friends, friends of friends, and acquaintances:

• fleurdeliser knows we need to keep fighting. The post is also available on LJ.
• thelemic has a few things to say about who he is.
• Is your child someone you raise, or something you own?
• Gender and graduation.

From the wider web:

• A living testament to Dr. Tiller's legacy and the people who continue to provide abortion services.
• Domestic terrorism - hate speech and hate crimes.
• Pink sheep of the family. I'd like to thank my parents for accepting me and my sister - especially Ellie.
• One of the many reasons I'm grateful for my excellent experiences in my major-specific writing courses - I had to do this type of research for one such course, and chose to for the other.
• On rape, fear, and "helpful advice."

Fic recs:

• shoemaster: Rising With the Heat, Frank/Gerard superhero porn. Also available on LJ.
• tuesdaysgone: Purgatorio, Frank/Gerard, written for Bandom Big Bang. "While on leave from the police force, Detective Frank Iero occupies himself with three things: drinking, brawling, and being alone. But when a series of brutal murders calls him back to active duty, he must find a killer while confronting people from his past, including estranged best friend turned businessman Mikey Way, and deal with his unwilling attraction to Mikey's enigmatic older brother Gerard."
• jjtaylor: Gerard Way's (Vampire) Detective Agency, written for Bandom Big Bang. "Pete, in Decaydance Mansion, with a yarrow stake. Frank and Gerard, in the greenhouse, with a plant of questionable origin. Bob, everywhere you look, with a gang of assassins for justice. Vampires, valets, pamphlets, haunted furniture, dub-thrall, disembodied voices, zombie couriers, and sinister rituals."

Also, bandombigbang_feed to keep up with BBB posting if you're reading primarily on Dreamwidth.

Also also, does anyone have a good Trans 101 to recommend? Like, really entry-level stuff, defining terms, etc.

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Ugh you guys.

Thu, 04 Jun 2009 19:50:16 GMT

I find it hilarious that we're spending so much time debating self-checkouts because of Frank Iero's hatred for technology. For the record, I like the idea of self-checkouts, because sometimes I really don't want to deal with people. But the current technology is way too buggy to be very usable, and I have overcome my dislike of humanity to the extent that I can make nice with a cashier for a couple of minutes. I still use the self-checkout occasionally to see if it's improved. It usually hasn't.

More seriously, I appear to have broken Delicious Blog Posting/that php file that makes it work with LJ-based sites. Gah.

I had liked that because it made it easy for me to link things I found worthwhile. But it was lazy linkage - I didn't even do my own summarizing! I think I'm going to just have to suck it up and accept that there's effort involved.

• shadesong on why her work as a workshop leader for BARCC matters more, and more widely, than one might expect.
• Hate speech on the radio - we need more than apologies. vixalicious gives us contact info for the VP/general manager and the station manager.

And the two links that made it into my del but didn't get posted:
• The National Network of Abortion Funds has created a George Tiller Memorial Abortion Fund to help women with the costs of the late-term abortions which Dr. Tiller provided during his lifetime. I will be contributing when I get back to Boston and my checkbook.
• The failures of parental consent and notification laws and the judicial bypass system.

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picked a handful of violets in my name

9 links

link backlog

6 links

link backlog

links

Follow Friday

Links

just the link backlog for now

Recently

Links

Plans

*yawns*

Recently

Links

Plans

just links today

Links

Plans

Lazy Femme

Long post is really fucking long.

Notes

Recently

Grand Forks

Relationship Stuff

Memery

Links

Plans

long post is long

Notes

Recently

Memes

Placeholder

Plans

links links links

link catch-up

There is no way I will be able to keep this up indefinitely.

long-ass post is long

LJ fails again! This time, on gender issues.

Overwhelmed.

Oh dear.

Ugh you guys.

yawns