picked a handful of violets in my name

My sister is moving out by September 1, so there's a bedroom in my apartment in Jamaica Plain becoming available. Depending on Ellie's situation, your move-in date may be a bit flexible if you like. Due to my asthma/allergies, I require a non-smoking roommate.
( Apartment details )( Location info )
( About me, etc. )
sofiaviolet@sofiaviolet.com

Recently

Garage sales didn't happen because I was up too late last night to get out of bed this morning. Cleaned my room some (needs to be DONE by the time my parents come to visit, since I currently have the futon boxed in and they need to sleep on it).

I also went to Goodwill and Boomerangs to get myself out of the house. I got:

Lake Wobegon Days by Garrison Keillor, which I will probably give to Dad

a summer weight black skirt of sufficient length

a strawberry-print shirt

a very gay umbrella ($6 is about what I'm willing to pay for a folding umbrella, because of how quickly I ruin them, and we can use this as a parasol at Pride!)

a magnet-backed weekly schedule whiteboard

All Out Of Munchies notepad (because Ellie and I grocery-shop like stoners even though we're not)

a chips-and-dip plate

a purple and grey plaid skirt

21 Days of Dreamwidth

20. Yes, but what are your thoughts on yaoi?

I was pretty into yaoi for a while - there was a big comm on LJ where I could get scans. But then that comm tightened its age restrictions/enforcement quite a bit and I went back to getting my unrealistic guy-on-guy porn fix exclusively from fic.

Links

rivkat: Media piracy in emerging economies

An extremely interesting study of piracy, defined as large-scale unauthorized reproduction both for profit and via free downloads, around the world. The authors conclude that piracy is largely a problem of a globalized Euro-American entertainment/industrial complex that has successfully generated demand for its products but unsuccessfully served that demand at prices people in other countries can pay, largely from refusal to price copies so they’d take roughly the same amount of purchasing power in poor nations. One example: converting prices as a percentage of per capita income, a Dark Knight DVD sold in India would cost $663 in the US; A Beautiful Mind would cost $421.

Plans

MIT Flea, Mob meeting/demo, JP picnic munch.

Recently

Capture the flag didn't happen; no one from the Camberville side showed up, so the four JP residents (well, three plus Daly, who is probably on our side anyway, regardless of where he actually lives) got ice cream and hung out at Cid's house instead.

I got recruited into a BattleTech game. Daly taught me how to play on Saturday and my first session with the group was Monday. (Daly severely underestimated our ability to defend a base. And we discovered a loophole for artillery - if every spotter is -1 to hit a target and we have ten mechs peering over the wall... "hey Cid, the pilot's got brown eyes, are you aiming for the left one or the right one?") I fielded three mechs (all of mine, none from the communal pool) and actually managed to keep track of all of them! Although I think I'm going to have to get my own miniatures, because keeping track of which vaguely similar grey plastic mechs are mine (and which one goes with which sheet) is going to drive me nuts. And because I am me, they will be painted to suit my tastes and will therefore not look anything like they're supposed to.

Biggest news, though: I got into Simmons, after an eon of waiting for a decision. No info on financial aid yet, but I have wonderful parents who will put me through grad school regardless.

21 Days of Dreamwidth

( I missed a few. )

Links

( three links )

Recently

Hearing on sexual assault on college campuses at City Hall today. There was a rally beforehand that I missed because I couldn't find it (stupid circus taking over City Hall Plaza *pout*).

21 Days of Dreamwidth

( day 2 )

Plans

Write a little more of my music paper tonight (it's about half done) or write the last short paper for my other class. Work tomorrow morning, then finish the music paper (and write the other one, if I don't get to it tonight).

Subject refers to icon.

Day of Epic Personal Responsibility! Got shit done at work. More importantly, wrote emails I'd been putting off to history advisor and my closest contact in the honors department. Haven't sent them yet; I am going to read over them one more time after dinner.

Tomorrow's Epic Personal Responsibility! Print off paperwork and spend part of lunch break chasing down people in order to declare my minor in women's studies. Because I took all the courses, dammit. (This may be a multi-day project...)

Other things I need to do: senior clearance, apply to graduate, register for classes (while I'm in North Dakota, hence the urgency of the emails: if something goes wrong, I don't want to be trying to fix it over email with no advance warning to whoever has to deal with it/me).

Senior pictures are next week, apparently. I feel kind of meh about it, but then I am pretty meh about most things like that. I mean, I tried to skip my high school graduation (and while I don't have any strong feelings now that it's over, I still think it was a waste of an afternoon). It's kind of telling that the main thing encouraging me to bother with it is the fact that my hair will be super-purple (since this weekend is my last chance to do that before I need to have very bright hair for Halloween). I might even be willing to order prints, for the sheer awesome of being able to give them to my stodgier relatives.

• Things I Don’t Have to Think About Today

  Today I don’t have to think about still not being equal.
  Today I don’t have to think about what it takes to keep going.
  Today I don’t have to think about how much I still have to hide.
  Today I don’t have to think about how much prejudice keeps hold.
  Today I don’t have to think about how I’m meant to be grateful that people tolerate my kind.
  
  Today I don’t have to think about all the things I don’t have to think about.
  But today I will.

• The Slutcracker
  Boston/Camberville-area people! We should make plans for this. I quite enjoyed it last year.


• NaNoCraftMo
  I don't think I'll be officially participating, but I could certainly do with some effort in the craft arena. (I'm still undecided about NaNoWriMo, too.)

Recently

Work, mostly. solarcat and I are going to Garment District and maybe some other places this weekend, for Killjoys costuming purposes. (I also need to figure out a Ramona Flowers costume, since Cory has decided that's what we're doing for Halloween, since I'll be in Grand Forks and all.)

Ellie and I spent some time last night talking about our plans for revamping the apartment. The main thrust is to make our space better for our creative pursuits. So much of it depends on her having the time and spoons to build new furniture, so no idea when any of it will get done. I can post an outline of our plans, with crappy diagrams, if anyone is interested.

Links

• via saystheheart: Safeword, the s&m superhero


• Married to the Sea: new uniforms


• via cofax7: Gerald M. Weinberg: What’s Been the Effect of Banning My Stuff?

  Whatever it was intended to do, banning things increases interest. When one of the Pope’s Cardinals banned The DaVinci Code, lagging sales picked up and made a few more millions for Mr. Brown. Banning Harry Potter had a similar effect for Ms. J. K. Rowling, now richer than the Queen.

(Tangent: I once got to attend one of Jerry's workshops. He and my dad go pretty far back; we would usually pay him a visit when we took our road trips to New Mexico. Jerry knew I was working on a novel, he was running a writing workshop and it was going to be pretty fiction-oriented, and he hadn't seen Dad in a while. So Dad and I took a week off work/school and went. It was awesome.)

(And another tangent: Wow has my life been full of fantastic opportunities and experiences that resulted directly from grown-ups taking a chance on me. Including my current job.)

Plans

I am considering StrowlerCon, but would need roommates. I also need to run it past Ellie and see if she wants in.

... was on Saturday. Posting this on Tuesday. I have done worse.

Ellie and I left the house late and picked up shadesong late as a result, but traffic was very light and we still made it to Wyrding Studios a bit early.

The morning activity was spinning, first from combed top and then from a batt. I seem to spin faster from combed top (easier to manage the fiber) but more consistently from batts (I find drafting easier). Although, as you can probably tell, I'm not very good at it yet. But between how satisfying it was and how many of Kythryne's art batts I've purchased already, I will continue spinning and, I hope, improving.

After lunch, we went up to the studio and picked out things for either a pendant or a pair of earrings. I made these earrings. We also got to pick out things for a take-home project, although I wound up with some spare time and made this before and after the fused glass portion of the day.

Fused glass! No photos of that yet. But now I have learned how to cut glass, and that dichroic glass looks different before and after it's fused. I did wind up with a small scrap of silver dichroic glass that had gone through the kiln all by its lonesome, so I made this pendant for fun.

The last portion of the day was a demonstration of making jewelry from found objects. I brought a set of dice, a silk flower that fell off Cameryn's set for Phone Whore, a shower curtain clip, and some blobs of solder. The blobs turned out to be too fragile for wire-wrapping, but Kythryne got everything else in there. And the d20 pops out the back of the pendant.

Here's all the photos from the art retreat. And there is another one in October, for those of you who can make it to Concord, NH.

Recently

While I am still theoretically AFK, C. is playing video games so I'm online. Heh.

We've watched The Guild, Dr. Horrible (again), and Stranger Than Fiction. Yesterday, we saw Scott Pilgrim (and I suspect we might wind up seeing it again). Plus, you know, hanging out and stuff. :)

Scott Pilgrim

( So apparently I'm Ramona Flowers. (Not a review, may contain very basic spoilers.) )

Links

( 4 links )

Plans

C. and I are getting dinner with some more of his friends tonight. I still need to call my relatives and make plans with them.

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.

Notes

I have come up with this little posting template (okay, I looked at shadesong's journal and mostly borrowed her format) to help myself post more regularly. We'll see how it works...

Recently

Tired; I stayed up too late chatting with C. And then after work today, I went to the Dating While Feminist event for three hours, which was very social and, as a result, kind of exhausting.

Oh, and the hem fell out of the bottom of my right trouser leg this morning; I fixed it with safety pins. Anyone in Boston know a good tailor? Convenient to Orange Line a plus, convenient to Northeastern a doubleplus. Some of my pants need fixing; pretty much all of them need shortening. *is too short for regular women's inseams but too tall for petites*

Yay for contacts! Although the left one is not feeling very happy. I am kind of wondering if I have it in backwards - but I can still see just fine! IDK whether having the lens inside out would actually affect vision correction, or just comfort.

Furthermore, my contacts claim they can be worn continuously for a week or daily for two weeks (taking them out to sleep); I think I'm going to have to go for the continuous end of things, because augh plucking lenses out of my eyes! Much much harder than sticking them in.

( Dreamwidth )

Links!

• via rivenwanderer: Riot Nrrd Comics | riotnrrdcomics_feed
• damned_colonial: Stretching a metaphor til it breaks

  So I was just chatting on IM with epershand and I produced a whole theory about Perl and Python which I will now attempt to summarise for you.