picked a handful of violets in my name

sad trombone

Wed, 17 Jul 2013 23:43:37 GMT

So, I frequently make stir-fry. Specifically, I make my favorite: Pepper Steak with Onion. While Mom was in town, she showed me how to make my own sauce (I was dependent on bottled stir-fry sauces and packets of sauce mix, and nothing was ever quite like what I get from Food Wall).

Her process includes marinating the meat in soy sauce and rice vinegar. So last night I dutifully cut up my beef, mixed equal parts soy sauce and rice vinegar in a bowl, covered it, and stuck it in the fridge. And then between housework and a sudden desire to go to the grocery store, I didn't actually cook it last night.

So tonight I drained my marinade, made my stir-fry, cooked some rice, sat down to eat...

IDK if it was the proportions, the sheer volume of marinade (I actualfax covered the meat in liquid), or the fact that I left it marinating for ~24 hours, but congratulations, self! I have just invented SOUR Pepper Steak with Onion. Which would have been great if I liked sour.

(The bell peppers turned out fine though. And the rice. I have never disastrously fucked up a pot of rice.)

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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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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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wtf

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 18:41:41 GMT

So today at work I am checking the contents of a very large number of 3.5" floppies. Some of them were used in Macs but can be read by the PC I'm using. I can tell because the Mac system files are visible: DESKTOP, RESOURCE.FRK, FINDER, etc.

The disk I'm currently evaluating? Two of the hidden Mac system files claim to be last modified on March 17th, 2034.

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This is a happy post.

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 23:22:28 GMT

Oh look! It's Ellie's phone!

(Context: my sister works for a company whose main thing is superbatteries of the future, or something. Charge faster, last longer, don't explode - that kind of thing. And she's in the market for a new phone since hers (which used to be mine, and is about 4 years old) no longer has any battery life to speak of. And it's a phone shaped much like the one in the photo.)

And now that I've killed the joke with explanation...

Mail! I received a card from harborshore on Thursday, a card and a wrapped gift-shaped object* from thelemic on Friday, cards from solarcat and insunshine on Saturday, and cards from turlough and chaosmanor yesterday. :D

* Which I haven't opened yet, because I'm not sure if I should wait. thelemic?

( My weekend: naked people and nearly-naked people. )

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Follow Friday. Spring registration.

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 04:24:35 GMT

( Follow Friday: all-communities edition )

As always, please share your Follow Friday posts at followfriday.

***

Today is Dad's birthday. (I am not actually sure if he still reads this. Mom does. I already said 'happy birthday' on the phone, but it doesn't hurt to mention it again.)

I've bugged my honors advisor again, about the junior/senior project this time. It's not a requirement for the honors program (one can earn a course distinction and/or project distinction, and I'm on track for the former), so unless the history department will let me count it as my capstone, I don't think I'll do it. The effort:tangible-benefit ratio just isn't good enough.

( blah blah spring blah )

Why yes, yes that is two days off and no class earlier than half past one in the afternoon. *smugface*

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Quick post before I leave for work.

Thu, 20 Aug 2009 11:51:43 GMT

I love this thread sooooo much.
Edit: The follow-up.

(Read geekfeminism_feed on DW or geekfeminism on LJ.)

Relatedly, I need to find some time to bring my laptop to the Apple store. The comma key isn't working properly (I have to bang really hard to get it to type the necessary character), which makes it hard to do anything requiring angle brackets, either. Or any wordcount-boosting writing.

I think prying off the key cover and cleaning under it would fix the problem, but I don't want to do it myself, since last time I tried that, I couldn't get the cover back on and had to bring it in anyway.

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Fri, 31 Jul 2009 21:37:31 GMT

sofiaviolet: *comes home*
tummy: *omfg starving*
sofiaviolet: Oh fine. Delicious baked goods.
outside: *is suddenly a lot darker than it was when I got home*
sofiaviolet: Uh. *headtilt*
sofiaviolet: *goes outside*
sky: *drizzles*
sofiaviolet: Meh. I'm only going to the stupidly convenient bakery on the next block.
sofiaviolet: *crosses the street*
sky: *rains harder*
sofiaviolet: *sigh* *walks faster*
sky: *rains even harder*
sofiaviolet: Fuck you dude.
under the overhang outside the bakery: *mommy with baby strapped to chest*
mommy: omgwtf rain dnw
baby: *is a baby*
mommy: *lol thinks there's going to be a break in the weather*
sofiaviolet: *stares at delicious food*
bakery employee: *fights with cash register*
other bakery employee: *tries to help*
previous customer: *noms banana bread and waits to pay*
mommy: *has come inside to wait*
bakery employee: \o/ Victory over cash register! That will be $$ plz.
previous customer: *pays, leaves*
bakery employee: Oh hai! What can I get you?
sofiaviolet: CAKE. And all your rolls are belong to me.
bakery employee: o_O Uh, we have four rolls left. :]?
sofiaviolet: omfg perfect :D
sky: *not raining quite so hard any more*
sofiaviolet: \o/
stoplight: *goes red*
sofiaviolet: /o\ Fuck you dude.
cars: *whizz by*
stoplight: *turns yellow*
sofiaviolet: Fuck it, walking now.

And now, cake.

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Next time I go snail-collecting, I'm bringing a bucket.

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 21:30:17 GMT

It's tempting to leave you with no context for that subject. But not that tempting.

I first noticed the lovely snails in Jamaica Plain when I moved into this apartment last August. They get very large, and their shells are all sorts of pretty shades of brown. But all I've done so far is try not to step on them.

I was coming home from work today and noticed a couple of empty shells on the sidewalk, just under the overhang of the front hedge. Hm, I thought, and picked them up. I could make something with these.

I went back outside to see if I could find more empty snail shells, and I did. The area where the hedge encroaches on the sidewalk seems to be some kind of snail graveyard. (The neighbors' kids had a lot of fun staring at me as I poked the accumulated leaf/dirt/snail debris with a stick).

Eventually I wound up with a little pile that was just a smidge more than a handful. I'll need to clean them somehow (and I suspect some will not survive that step) because they're covered in leaf bits and dirt, and some of them still have dried snail-snot in them.

( Today's haul. )

And how was your day?

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