badgerbag

is to go watch all the times when the Ood were referenced, EVER

ALSO

(spoiler)
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A whole lot of awesome and some ARRRRGH

First of all... was really really exciting and good and scary and, MARS!

SPOILERS BELOW

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went out for coffee - then alternately laid in bed reading and helped A. make various craft projects from a book. The project today is mostly about terrarium-style gardens in flat cardboard boxes. I also rousted myself up to make romper-stompers out of plastic soup tubs, a bathrobe sash, and a tie.

Am going to now go thru current notebook and pull out the poem drafts. This week, I want to go through lots of past notebooks and just throw them away. LOTS of them.

Wow, I can't believe I've never read anything by Maria Edgeworth before! So good! I'm tearing through Belinda which I stole from yatima last night. It's fantastic!

By page 25 I was almost in tears and deeply involved with Lady Delacour's situation, and Belinda's. Lady Delacour explained her life and marriage to young Belinda. She's 36 years old, was originally in love with Mr. Percival, but in the process of provoking him to jealousy, ended up marrying Lord Delacour, amiable, a bit foolish, and thus (she thought) easy to boss around. They fought and spent all their money - Lady Delacour's best friend Harriet Freke, bold and dashing, doing things like going to Parliament in men's clothes etc, ended up betraying her - Lady Delacour fought a duel (also in men's clothes) with Lady What's-Her-Name, her arch-rival, and the gun exploded or recoiled and injured her breast (or she just happened to develop breast cancer soon afterwards, it's unclear). Meanwhile, she knows she's going to die soon from the breast problem, she's horribly unhappy, and wants to be admired and feel flirted with etc for the rest of her life. She begs Belinda to stay with her till her death. It's amazing!

I won't go on because it would be too spoilery. Things have gotten complicated!

And there are certainly lots of men involved - and romance - But so early on in the book, the drama centers around the relationships of women to each other. That's incredibly pleasing.

People in novels are always talking about reading Mrs. Edgeworth so I've been curious about her for years. I've found a good Christmas present for my mom, I think! She'd love this book!

Not enough sporks in the whole wide world...

You want to read it! You know you do!

flyer behind the cut, with complete transcript!

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I thought the "butter" in Butterfingers candy bars referred to butter. A minute after I inhaled that thing I was in trouble! I thought, Oh, i must be on the sensitive side and reacting to crappy chocolate processed on peanut-loving equipment. Then a few not-very-nice breaths later I read the wrapper. Oh shit!

I did albuterol, took benadryl, brushed my teeth, by that point was feeling super awful.I sat back down to do peak flow and got in touch with yatima and minnie over IM just to make sure I didn't panic alone in the house. At the low point was at 275 on peak flow then around 300-350 (normally 550 at least). 350 is uncomfortable and 250 is where I start thinking ER though I can go for a long time at 250. At that point I have a hard time making decisions and am kind of weepy and anxious. Under 350 I don't want to be lying down, it's better to sit up and bend over slightly - it hurts less and is easier to breathe in and be calm. Do other people do that too? I hunch over.

Sooo hunching over the IM, breathing slowly, shaky and anxious, but feeling reasonably on top of it. I have never gone into anaphylaxis though I have seen other people do it. So, confident I could deal. Rook got home and I asked him to bring me my epi-pens - there are two - and leave them with me just in case. Then he went to class. Moomin just read in bed and I didn't tell him anything was wrong b/c I didn't want to freak him out. The benadryl really kicked in... 40 minutes in? something like that.

It's been a while since that happened! Crappy!

I stared at my php code and wrote some notes but didn't get much of anywhere. I have a halfway-working version! It works, but if another person made a mistake, it would break, so I need to build in more bits to compensate.

Maybe an hour and a half later I felt okay and took Moomin to dance class.

Home & to bed.

I just got up and did some housecleaning but that was a mistake, I am wheezing again and concluding that it's not all the way better. More inhaler. More benadryl.

Must call to refill epi-pens tomorrow! The one in my car must be expired too!

That was scary, though.

Air burns going in, but is still very nice.

Entry level techie job! A quote from someone who knows... "nice people, genuinely casual work environment, no internet monitoring or corporate bs, snacks, beer Fridays, the company is doing really well and has not laid off a single person"

Salary is $30k-$40k depending on experience and qualifications, plus benefits, plus stock - at a well funded software start-up (www.3vr.com). This is a great opportunity for a smart, energetic, self-starting person who wants to break into a higher paying, technology oriented job but perhaps doesn't have the right degree or maybe has stopped-out in the middle of a degree program. Major requirements are intelligence, flexibility, initiative, commitment, responsibility, teamwork, and to be clear - intelligence. We are very interested in talking to you if you are bright and fit the profile we've drawn below - we will be asking what your SAT scores were, where you went to school, etc. Positions available to start immediately, initial hourly rate between $15-$20 an hour depending on experience and qualifications; benefits and stock options offered after 4-6 months of successful employment.

We are a software startup of about 50 people located in the SOMA/South Beach area of San Francisco, around the corner from AT&T Park and the CalTrain station. 3VR makes digital video surveillance products for the physical security industry - our product won the "Best New Product of the Year" award at the Security Industry's big trade show in Las Vegas three years in a row! We are a very fun group of bright, energetic technology people – we’re funded by Tier 1 VCs (including Kleiner Perkins and Menlo Ventures), our sales are healthy and increasing every year, and we will be growing substantially throughout 2010 and beyond, so this is a great opportunity to get in on the ground floor of a terrific company.

Responsibilities: A mixture of several of the following tasks (no one person needs experience in or would be asked to do all of these) - software testing and QA, technical support, technical writing, HTML and web development, scripts, software tools, etc. One person who held this position recently had a science degree and good math skills, but no substantial computer science background - he taught himself some programming and a bunch of other useful skills and has moved up quickly in the 3VR world to Software Engineer. Another person who started with this entry level position had a background in academic grant administration and office management - she started out doing technical writing and software testing, worked her way up in the technology organization, and was promoted to Technical Support Manager!

Profile: You are a software and/or hardware enthusiast - you like computers and computer applications - you care about your computer and what's on it. You are organized and thorough and detail oriented. You are a good communicator, you write clearly and quickly. You enjoy learning to use new software applications and tools. You like being around smart, high energy people. You've often wondered what it would be like to have a job where you are surrounded by people you respected and people you could learn a lot from and who were motivated to teach you things and help you move up in the world. You've dreamed of breaking into technology, especially at an awesome start-up, but have been rebuffed (or been afraid you would be) because you don't already have all of the necessary credentials. You are smart, ambitious, high energy, a voracious learner (especially via Googling anything and everything). You know this is the job for you if reading this has made you very excited to meet the people who wrote this wacky job description and to come and see the company and culture they've built together.

Send us a resume and a cover letter explaining why this is exactly the job for you and why you know you'll do great things for us.

job-yqwjz-1460343269@craigslist.org

Is Darfur the first Thuraya war

I don't know about the first... But anyway -

"Hierarchical command and control over a dispersed force becomes difficult. "

Yes indeed.

and brilliant comment by Abd al-Wahab Abdalla:

The process you describe is a corollary of commodification and globalization, one of the ways in which a global capitalist system systemically reproduces violence on its periphery. This is frontier capitalism at its extreme, a combination of the latest industrial technologies in the hands of predator capitalists set on accelerated primary accumulation, without the restraints provided by the institutions of state. Once again, Africa gets only the dark side of the dominant global production system.

Ponder & discuss.

Okay so first of all why take the wheelchair with you off the bridge? Hahaha! just sit on the edge and shove yourself off. I get the idea that visually he's going for the image of being a "guy in a wheelchair bungee jumping" which is I guess cool in a way but is certainly played for a cheap laugh. Anyway if it were me I'd get out of the chair and schloop myself off the edge. For once, "wheelchair bound" is true since they strap him tightly (imho not tightly enough since you can see him bouncing off it. )

I did laugh my ass off when he yelled "I can't feel my legs!"

Off the gimpgirl mailing list:

HEADCASE: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, And Queer (LGBTQ)
Writers and Artists on Mental Illness
Edited by Teresa Theophano, LMSW

Headcase will be an anthology comprised of 15-20 nonfiction pieces by
writers and artists both established and new, exploring the theme of
mental health, mental illness, and mental health care in the lesbian,
gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer or questioning (LGBTQ)
community. The book is currently being considered for publication by a
major queer press.

The anthology seeks essays, poetry, and comics by queer consumers of
mental health services or queer individuals who have been diagnosed,
but do not identify as patients, with mental illness. Works should
explore the intersection of queerness and mental health and can
include topics such as psychotropics; Gender Identity Disorder and its
acceptance or rejection as a legitimate mental disorder; conventional
v. holistic treatment; experiences in therapy, groups, and/or
institutions; how race and ethnicity, class, sex, gender identity,
age, and disability impact access to treatment; addiction,
self-medicating, and recovery.

Modest compensation provided upon publication to contributors whose
pieces are chosen.

Guidelines:

* Pieces should be between 750 and 1500 words (approximately 3 to
5 double-spaced pages).
* While the deadline for a 2010 publication date has not yet been
established, submitting your piece by December 1, 2009 is recommended.
* Descriptions of pieces in progress are also welcome.
* Submissions should be sent as a Microsoft Word document,
double-spaced, 12 pt. font, Times New Roman font.
* Please provide a brief (100 words or less) bio with your submission

Teresa Theophano is a licensed social worker, out queer mental health
consumer, and the author of Queer Quotes (Beacon Press, 2004).

Please send submissions/project descriptions to her at
headcase_anthology@yahoo.com

Recently the federal government subpoenaed news site Indymedia to try to get the IP addresses of everyone who ever visited the site. They claimed they had the authority for that, and to keep the subpoena secret, so that Indymedia couldn't talk about it. Neither were true.

Because Indymedia follows EFF’s Best Practices for Online Service Providers and does not keep historical IP logs, there was no information for Indymedia to hand over, and the government withdrew the subpoena. However, as the report describes, that wasn’t the end of the tale: Ms. Clair wanted EFF to be able to tell the story of the subpoena and shine a light on the government’s illegal demand, yet the subpoena ordered silence. Under pressure from EFF, the government admitted that the subpoena’s gag order had no legal basis, and ultimately chose not to go to court to try to force Ms. Clair’s silence despite earlier threats to do so.

i need some kind of iphone app meant for men that reminds them when their girlfriend is pms-ing. that would just about accurately deal with my own relationship with my body and how i forget when the hell i had my period last. the ones for women all seem to be about fertility, which i don't care about!

Finished researching & wrote giant post, decent but slobby. i had more complex thoughts about the ways that cuban journalism venerates dead writers (still thinking of roque dalton and "viejuemierda" poem which takes exactly that concept and eviscerates it, exposes it) i think my past self with more capacity to juggle and etc. might have written that extra bit... on another blog maybe... but my thoughts on dalton will have to wait.

worked on delicious api stuff and read my own php code and re-figured it out, mostly. now i want to rewrite that whole thing. i see how to make it better. the hard part is mostly process, and whether it will behave like the docs say it will. i can test it tomorrow. I need 2 days of tagging to be able to test it right.

met with my new boss to explain some of that.

didn't have to drive to Richmond after all to arrange things, it's going to happen all over the phone. i might go meet with them later in the week or next week. It can happen without my going there.

picked moomin up and took him to dance class. i hate rushing around. he had a good class. i ate dinner and read Liar instead of watching the class or trying to work.

made moomin a half assed dinner and watched some youtube music videos with him. he told me about the Dragonlance books (lol).

did the intro to cs readings, lecture, and homework. it seems perfect, i always feel like i lack the formal education and some kind of understanding or foundation that other people have. it felt sort of triumphal to be doing a class from MIT like a big fuck you to the world... here's hoping i can stick with it but if i can't i could re-join the group doing it in january.

finished reading Liar. a good book! I will give it to lucidyouth! She wants readers and commenters so give her some comments and answer her quizzes!

regretting not posting about the AXIS performance from my notes but i ran out of juice. still tempted to try. but i'm tired.

the poems i didn't type yet... the translation i haven't finished (mala piel, so good!) the poems i want to put together into a book...

i feel lately like i can't do enough but that i'm run ragged. i wish i didn't expect so much of myself. could i just chill, please? but no. i list the things i did in the day and they don't seem like enough. i feel a panicky feeling. i don't want to sleep yet! i'm not done! i want to keep going and do something else.. something magical that would really *count* .. then i realize how bad this train of thought is and am appalled at myself. isn't anything ever enough? i'm so stressed. which means driving myself more and harder to fill up the space and prove something to myself. i feel bad about myself right now and need distraction. and i want to do so many things. i can taste them.. i can see them... i think them out and want to make them real to get them out of my head! the stuff i haven't written over the last week or so is a torment.

other days i might just be like ... meh... i did this one thing. enough! or, that one thing might be doing 1 load of laundry. and i have to be okay with that and make myself deal with it. The memory of those days drives me extra hard.

Hey, does anyone want to go to this event tomorrow night, Sat. 8pm, in Oakland? It looks great and I have a friend dancing in it...





Tickets are available online for $10-22.

there's a review of the company and the show in the NY Times: A Dance Company Mixes Arms, Legs and Wheels.

The lap of a seated dancer is a body part, as exploitable as a shoulder. Or that? A chair on its side, a wheel spinning in the air with a dancer lying across it, rotating slowly and elegantly, a lovely movement impossible without the chair. Or that? As dancers pair off, the partners aren’t simply men or women. Two chaired dancers in a pas de deux, or one in a chair and one on her feet: as if a whole new gender had emerged, these are unfamiliar kinds of flirtation but flirtation absolutely.

If people thought I was being clique-y, would they just say so? I'd appreciate it if that's what anyone thinks, if they'd just out with it.

eta: (I'm saying this b/c on a mailing list people are all complaining about cliquey women being cliquey and yet it's clear they aren't saying anything to the women they feel are excluding them and I'm kind of bugged by this. b/c in this situation my impresison ismore that that "cliquey" women are close friends with each other and thus, interested in each other past interest in strangers and yet aren't unfriendly or mean. yet there is this easily invokable stereotype that women are "cliquey" or "mean girls".)

eta: (Also, I'd like women to be able to say "no, actually i just dont want to talk to you" or to NOT LIKE EVERYONE and that not be evidence of some deep pathology or of women's inherent flaws.)

Last night I had the Discardian impulse. While I waited for my bathwater to run I went through nearly everything in the bathroom cabinet and drawers. There is now a paper grocery bag full of old bottles of lotion & junk like that. To be thrown out.

Bins of junk in front of my file cabinet are now mostly trash (30 min this morning)

File cabinet, you're next.

I leave it to the reader to decide whether the bondage pom poms trump the conversation, earlier in the evening, in which [info - personal] epershand proposed Star Trek: the Italian City-States AU, featuring Vulcan Rome, Earth Florence, Klingon Milan, and Romulan Sicily. Also Sarek as the Pope -- and Amanda as his Florentine mistress -- and Jacobo Kirk the soldier of fortune, with his merry band of brigands, because there is no federation in the Italian City-States. [info - personal] epershand said, "So Spock isn't allowed to be in Rome because it would be awkward, so he's wandering around with Jacobus Kirk. Wait, that should be in the ablative to be in Italian, right?" "I love you," I said. "How do you translate McCoy into Italian?" said [info - personal] epershand.

Oh wait i forgot, women don't write alternate histories!

Jacobo Kirk and his merry band of brigands is so EXACTLY RIGHT!

Fra Marco the jolly, yet crusty and old fashioned, franciscan, i think!

At some point I feel this pull to construct narratives of my life or arcs and what things mean and then i just go, no, this is wrong, and doesn't have to be explained and everything is more complicated and only explainable by really enormous epic analysis which isn't going to be understandable anyway. And suspicious that such narratives are both blamey and falsely positioning one's self as innocent which actually only serves to undermine everyone's agency. Even if the construction of such stories is to forestall worse, more agency-destroying and less complicated narratives to explain events over time, it might be better to opt out of explaining it in general. I suspect myself highly of all those tendencies and that there is this core of dishonesty I would like to steer clear of.

Spent another afternoon talking with Timmi in the park. Fabulous. Gossip. Theorizing. speculation. confession. plotted. Intertextuality! Recommended Laxdaela saga. Explained and demonstrated Yuletide. Talked about value vs. status. Took her to the airport. SADNESS. WOE.

Then went to the Interfictions reading to hear Alaya and Tempest. The readings were short! But then a ton of people bought the books so, good. I bought Liar and, embarrassingly, book 6 from House of Night. Met another translator, Edward aka twinkiethekid who he goes to the translation conference that I love that's coming up. Maybe I can work up energy for a short road trip. If I can find someone to crash with in Pasadena or scam my way into someone's hotel room...I miss that conference, i mean I miss the people... and I could really soak up some bilingual poetry readings right about now. they are SO GOOD. I can't take any time off work but I could haul ass down there for Saturday...? thinking!

As I was babbling with naamenblog deep in discussions of vampire boarding schools with psychic cats and deconstructions of being a "skank" and bisexual astrophysicists with gills and women who are soul-bonded with magic gemstone swords and have accidental incest sex with maybe their brother or something, I discovered it is very fun to talk about that stuff in front of nojojojo to get her to give me dubious looks. I don't know why this is, but provoking a dubious look from her started to feel like an exciting sport!

From Zzyzack Breakthrough: The Beginning:

Steve frowned. “Bad dreams?” he asked. “That could be it.”

His friend shook his head. “No, no. Nothing like that. Just… a feeling. Like we’re stuck in the middle of some half-assed TV movie on the Sci-Fi channel."

Steve huffed at that as he pulled away from the curb. Maybe you’re not that wrong, he thought.

I lurked in the lobby for an afternoon at WFC.

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And on the support she's getting from her school and community.

Richmond High School is accepting cards and donations for the victim and her family. They can be mailed to the school at 1250 23rd St., Richmond, CA 94804-1011. Make checks out to the Richmond High Student Fund.

About 200 students, teachers and community leaders rallied outside the campus after school Wednesday to condemn the rape and to say they wanted people to know the crime was not representative of their campus, despite the negative reputation of the crime-plagued city.

"I am devastated," said senior Norma Bautista, her voice cracking with emotion. "I'm here because I want everybody in Arizona, in New York, everywhere they are, (to know) that we are not criminals. We are the future leaders. I see people call us animals. Why don't you look at those of us who are trying to make a change?"

Most speakers blamed the rape at least in part on degrading, dehumanizing societal attitudes toward women.

Biology teacher Lorna McClellan said the problem of rape is not just confined to low-income cities with high crime rates, such as Richmond, and that she hoped community revulsion over the weekend attack will help spark societal change in the way some men view women.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/10/29/MN621ABOF6.DTL#ixzz0VO4i3zUi

Triggery... warning...

3rd suspect arrested in Richmond High rape case

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Dreamwidth prices are going up Nov. 1... if you want an invite code I have plenty!

Girl with amnesia quotes Robin Hobb

The children's services agency said the girl recently wrote down the name "Amber" and has responded to it on one occasion, but she has no idea whether it is her true name.

On another occasion she is said to have recalled certain words, which turned out to be an excerpt from the fantasy novel "Fool's Fate" by Robin Hobb. The girl also is apparently writing a fantasy story of her own that features a heroine named Rian, "who's been raised by the commander of the guard post on the edge of a fantasy kingdom," the young woman said.

"Amber" would be out of Robin Hobb too.

I wonder what the certain words she quoted were, and how they figured that out?

Poor kid. I hope her situation improves.

Ate toast. Read Yiddish Policemen's Union and Thirteen and Flight. That's about it. NOw the house is clean thanks to two very nice women and $100.

I'm hormonal and freaking out or something. I got grocery delivery and washed the kitchen counter and sink (which i haven't done for weeks) and then just started crying because everything is covered in multiple layers of crud - just months of grime. like when i really looked around me despite me and rooks' efforts to keep up with things, which we do in a basic, eat food, do laundry, wash the dishes way... everything is filthy. not just like kind of cluttered and dirty but really gross. I changed my sheets and then collapsed into the bed dizzy and shaking. fuck it!

well, at least trying to push up against what i can do made me realize that yes, i am for sure ill in some way beyond vague malaise. if my hands are actually shaking, there's something wrong beyond the usual and beyond my neurotic hypochondriac and pms-y state of mind.

called house cleaners off craigs list till i hit one who will come today, offereing to pay cash for whatever they can do in a couple of hours. that will at least make a serious dent in it.

by the time i go to bed tnoight my house will be non-filthy and full of food and I'll feel a lot saner.

sleeping now.

I'm bored and depressed and still really nauseous. its manageable if i stay in bed. dizzy. when i walk around i feel like i'm going to barf and my head explode. is it all vertigo and not flu? no idea... plus I have cramps and am bleeding like crazy. I'm sort of lost in thoughts and memories of when i had the ectopic pregnancy. i guess physically it feels like that and so it keeps coming into my mind. which is depressing.

i could probably manage to work at slacker-capacity if i forced myself, but taking the day off anyway to sleep and read. new rule, if i can't eat and kind of making myself drink fluids i shouldn't be working, even if i could squeak by.

is this the flu people have been getting? or did zond7 bring it back from kazakhstan? I'm mildly feverish, queasy, dizzy enough that I was a little scared to drive (but did), ill, exhausted and slept about 14 hours. a little ominous in the sinuses but not like a full blown upper respiratory infection.

i took the day off from work completely and dozed and read all day.

can't really eat, have forced myself to drink a little but not doing too well their either. but also not actually barfing.

hoping to wake up better tomorrow...? ugh! But if not, i have a giant package of books - all the rest of the 2007 cbs award books, very juicy, and I could just read and sleep all day.

i tried to go to a web meetup last night, blew money on a cab for it since i was still on vicodin from horrible day of pain and exhaustion, doing that thing where i'm like Oh, i'm in pain and sort of terrified to do this thing alone, THEREFORE NOTHING WILL STOP ME FROM DOING IT. I wanted to support my friend who was running the event and who asked me to go. But it turned out I felt even sicker there, wasn't enjoying it, was trying to stick it out cheerfully, couldn't, kept getting photographed and didn't like it, decided i was a grown up, and then left abruptly without explaining to catch another taxi back, semi-delirious.

So, about the wheelchair villain in Mysterious Benedict.

Do you think they totally wrote in the one line per book about the nice wheelchair using arthritic kneed mom, afterwards, to counterbalance the villain?

To really talk about the villainy and virtue there might need to be spoilers...