While I am sitting here with a fat cat in my lap, I will show you this helpful link.

Sargon talks about how to handle bill collectors.

He does this sort of thing for a living, so he has some useful information that y'all might not have come across. Thought you might be interested, since this is a bill-heavy time for most of us.

I had planned to start getting the requests up but to my chagrin, I got to work only to find I left the folder with the requests at my computer at home.

...

sarah = fail of epic proportions

Luckily I did get something done. All the anime entries have been officially moved to thecrabshell. Episode 8 & 10 of the Jigoku Shoujo entry has been fixed. The K-On! entry and Shugo Chara entry have been updated.

I also have one last question to ask before getting to work on the older discographies. Poll time!

Poll #1430395 New Format?
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

Do you like Someday's new discography format?

Please note that they last option is more rhetorical but feel free to choose it if you have no idea what's going on with the formatting. :D
Comments would be helpful.

24 Chase
11 Xavin




(Fake Cut to Icons)

Thought I'd post this.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTCb7ef66G8
Here's an interview of Kathryn Immonen where she talks about both Hellcat and Runaways.

That was an interesting visit.

The doctor, henceforth called "Boots," spent about half an hour discussing options and likely treatments with me. In the end, I elected the way of pain to begin with the least invasive option and work up from there. So: the Mirena IUD. And it frankly shocked the hell out of me when he indicated he could try to put it in today if I was comfortable with that. Which, not wanting to fuck with multiple appointments, I was.

( Cut for anatomy. )

I am not in any real pain right now, but I am getting the occasional unpleasant sensation from down below, and if I move around my body tells me to go lay down right now. I think the latter may just be aftereffects from nerves, which were making me shake so badly in the waiting room that I couldn't read the book I was holding.

Anyway, the micro-doses the Mirena delivers directly to the uterine tissue will, in theory, lessen my periods significantly and hopefully eliminate them, without giving me any of the horrifying emotional effects of hormone pills. I know as many people this has worked for as people it has not worked for, so I am totally willing to give it some time to do its thing.

We did not discuss diagnostics in detail at this time. I will return to that issue with him the next time I see him, if we deem it necessary. It's probably either fucked hormones or fibroids, and neither condition will be worsened by this or kill me if left alone. Even with a diagnosis of either, we would be doing this same damn thing. If it stops this bleeding shit, I will happily leave it at that until menopause.

Overall, this guy was incredibly smart. He was on the team that studied the effectiveness of uterine ablation and discovered at the same time that the Mirena reduces excessive bleeding. Interesting story there. In short, he's the best damn GYN in the state, which I knew before I went to see him. For the sorts of things he does (ablation, sterilization, that sort of thing) he is one of the three most highly-trained guys in the country.

I have finally found a decent doctor, I think.

Doc Boots is very gentle and kind, he has soft hands, he's sweet, he listens and believes everything I say.

Extra-cool? The clinic attached to the Planned Parenthood he works at apparently provides extensive medical services for low-income women, including low-cost/free sterilization. I did not talk to him about this, didn't have time, but that information came from the website and from stuff in the waiting room. Next time I see him I will definitely be pestering him for more information about that. I don't need it, really, but there are lots of people who do.

But how cool is it that this guy is so passionate about health care -- good health care -- for poor women? The facility is also pretty Spanish-friendly. I really like this guy. He cares about women, and that is obvious.

I am still exhausted from the stress of the whole thing. It's not even a voluntary reaction, it's a stupid instinctive physical thing that I can't control, and it pisses me off. All I can do is go easy on myself and assume that next time, my lizard brain will remember that this wasn't so bad and will stop telling me to run away.

Thanks, everyone, for your support. Last night and this morning truly did suck, because anxiety is like that. Thanks, too, to the lovely friends who offered to go with me. If I had known there was going to be that kind of pain involved, I would have accepted, but I didn't know, and that turns out to have been okay anyway.

Thus I continue in my tradition of being stupidly proud of myself for doing shit that other adults do all the time.

But Verb Noire needs to raise some cash to defray the expenses of WorldCon. We thought we could bridge the gap out of pocket, but money is tight and my kid's face is expensive. So, we're hoping book sales, merch sales, and anything else you guys want to suggest can make up the difference. We're already putting together the second book (an anthology of short stories) and I was vaguely contemplating some sort of naming contest, but if that's not what gets you excited then please suggest something. We really want to be there, but finding the money for attendance and such is putting a hurt on ye olde pocketbook.

Free 45 Minute Pole Dancing Lesson this weekend from 3sixty. They're at 333 Catherine (at Lyon, in the same building as a Kung Fu studio), and the open house schedule can be found here.


Smut in the Capital -- This is the sex-possitive blog of Rawknee (of Rockalily Burlesque). Just thought I'd throw it out there.


The First Montreal Burlesque Festival! :-D Which I think says it all, really. It sounds like a hoot and holler! :-D


The Erotic Authors LJ comm., complete with calls for submissions. YAY! :-D


On a different (and significantly more pissed off) note, we have this:
Dora The Explorer Makeover.

Don't get me wrong. I totally get the issues about teaching little girls to pay attention to, worry about, and/or scrutinize their looks.
HOWEVER, what bugs the hell out of me about this whole hoopla - that the issue is all about Neo!Dora dressing in, well, a *dress* - is exemplified by comments like this one from Holli.


Why is it that as soon as a gal starts looking/presenting as/dressing *feminine* it's assumed that all she cares about is Attention from Boys, and that every intelligent, curious, adventurous thought flies out of her head as soon as she puts on a fucking dress?


As a woman with a philosophy-heavy degree, a heap of grad studies, a creative streak a mile wide, a tendency towards Deep Thoughts[1], and a closet full of cocktail dresses and stillettos, I find this deeply, deeply, offensive and, hm, personally insulting.

<*rages at stupid assumptions*>
<*stalks off to read Julia Serano on our cultures denegration and demonization of the feminine*>


- TTFN,
- Amazon.


[1] Not to mention a girlfriend. Heterosexist assumptions much?

Here are a few books I read recently which made me feel genuinely happy:

Para Que No Me Olvides by Marcela Serrano.

Starbook by Ben Okri, which is a book about Africa and art and humanity in the guise of a fable.

The Thing Around Your Neck by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

I'd recommend anything any of these authors have written before (esp. Okri's The Famished Road and I'm really looking forward to his new book, Tales of Freedom. His writing is lush. Adichie's Half of a Yellow Sun is wonderful -- listen to her discuss the book [here] on the BBC World Service programme World Book Club, which is <3.)

At the moment, I'm reading R. K. Narayan's autobiography, My Days, which is wonderful because a) he's one of my favourite short story writers of time and space (short stories are my absolute favourite, worship at the altar of Narayan and Carver and Calvino etc) and b) his writing (as well as his life) is hilarious.

Here's a k-drama that I've been watching which makes me reaaaaaally happy: ( The Man Who Can't Get Married/He Who Can't Get Married/결혼 못하는 남자. )

Sorry for spamming! Brain dead, cannot figure out polls.

ETA: Ah ha, brain so dead I forgot to explain. This is just for me to filter my reading lists when I subscribe to people who post both on DW and LJ! I'll still be posting to both and definitely following ppl on LJ.

Poll #1430307
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

I crosspost ALL my content on DW and LJ

Eating whole wheat eggplant stromboli and drinking cranberry apple juice and logging on. Stone fruit are here! Peaches plums apricots and also raspberries blueberries strawberries lettuce leaks squash basil cilantro parsley sage rosemary thyme dill peas string beans yellow onions red onions shallots potatoes honey goat cheese artisan cheese wine meat bread cider apples apples always apples.

This entry was originally posted at http://coffeeandink.dreamwidth.org/1022778.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

• Help send Verb Noire to WorldCon:
  

  Verb Noire needs to raise some cash to defray the expenses of WorldCon. We thought we could bridge the gap out of pocket, but money is tight and my kid's face is expensive. So, we're hoping book sales, merch sales, and anything else you guys want to suggest can make up the difference. We're already putting together the second book (an anthology of short stories) and I was vaguely contemplating some sort of naming contest, but if that's not what gets you excited then please suggest something. We really want to be there, but finding the money for attendance and such is putting a hurt on ye olde pocketbook.

  
  



• The volunteer theater program rachelmanija works at is in need of help:
  

  The organization I have volunteered with for fourteen years, The Virginia Avenue Project, is holding an auction. It's a mentoring group for kids in Los Angeles. They do amazing work, which I have personally witnessed.
  
  100% of the Project kids graduate from high school. 90% of them continue to college. 85% of them are the first in their family to do so.




• IBARW 4 is from July 27 through August 2 and we are looking for people to spread the word! Especially if you are or know a non-English blogger and/or a non-Western blogger.

Comment | Read Comments | Link

I think this book grew out of Anderson's thesis work about Native women, and in it, she explores the ways Native women's identities have been constructed pre-colonization, how colonization destroyed many of Native women's roles and enforced white patriarchy, and how Native women are reclaiming their identities.

In the introduction, Anderson introduces the idea of the subjective reader and writer. You would think this wouldn't be so revolutionary, but grad school classes on sociology seem to indicate otherwise! Going with this, Anderson introduces herself as a light-skinned Cree/Mé woman who grew up without much contact with Native communities and notes how this affects her as an author and as a researcher. She also asks readers of the book to examine their own motives for reading the book. Are they Native women looking for support or affirmation? Are they non-Native people looking to learn about "Native culture"? Are they white feminist? Etc.

My own personal reading context is as a Chinese woman who knows very little about Native cultures looking for more information on Native feminism (there is probably also a better term for this I do not know) after reading Andrea Smith's Conquest and reading blogs and posts from Native women online. I'm also looking for alternatives to "mainstream" feminism, not to adopt, but to have a better feel for where I'm ignorant.

As I had expected, there were times when it was hard for me to read this book because I had to stomp on the part of my brain that was like, "But! Excluding women from blahdiblah means blahdiblah! Clearly delineated male and female roles means blah!" It helped that Anderson herself was also working through her own understanding of past traditions and how to adopt them to today, on what things have changed and should stay changed and on what things have changed and should be reverted.

As an example: I saw her explanations of keeping women on their period outside of drum circles and sweat lodges as a veiled "I roll my eyes at the white women who keep wanting to join the sweat lodge or drum circle and protest their exclusion while having no idea what it actually means." Anderson's explanation is that women on their period already have a great deal of power, and not as a negative thing. But she also notes that in the present day, keeping menstruating women out of a specific activity can be done in a misogynist fashion not in the spirit of tradition and adds that the menstruating women should have their own area to retreat to, that they should not be ignored or ostracized. It looks like a fairly complicated situation trying to balance imported misogyny and return to tradition and how notions of tradition change over time, and I bet it is not a situation where it is helpful for white feminists to barge in and say, "This is what is feminist."

Anderson structures the book in three parts: examining the past, looking at the present, and envisioning the future. She goes through the general gender equity in many Native societies pre-colonization and talks about exceptions and norms, which was very helpful for me, because I have zero background in this. She also covers what happened once white colonization began and what that did to many Native societies, particularly the use of white patriarchy as a tool of colonization, which was more familiar to me. Although some of the book talks about Anderson's own journey, she has also talked to quite a few other Native women (mostly Canadian) about their own experiences.

I'm not doing the book justice; I found it thought-provoking and challenging. I value it for making me continue to rethink what I normally conceptualize as "feminist" and for offering a non-white feminism, especially one that emphasizes community child-raising, family, and the overall community.



I also posted a list of all the Native authors in the bibliography if people are interested.

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Basically the only people currently safe to come within several feet of my fanny are divers equipped with air tanks, and MOSES.

( Cut for menstrual humour and what wimps call TMI. )

[10] Kerry Ellis icons (1 with Idina Menzel & 1 with Dianne Pilkington)
[10] Eden Espinosa & Megan Hilty icons (1 with Tracie Thoms & 1 with Shoshana Bean)

teasers:
  

Here @ my icons

My silly cat decided to fall from the balcony two nights ago and I almost had a heart attack. I live on the 3rd floor so that's approximately an 8-metre fall. It was 11pm so I rushed down to the garden with an electric torch worried that she had injured herself AND run away. Thankfully neither happened, I found her under the first floor's balcony (which on that side of the building is basically ground floor and only about one foot from the ground). I had never seen her so scared, but she was otherwise fine. A visit to the vet the next day confirmed this.
She must have been walking on the balcony wall chasing some insect. Unfortunately there is no way I could put a net or something similar to prevent her from falling again, so this means she'll never be allowed on the balcony or the window sill again, unless I can keep an eye on her. *sigh*

And to make this post legal, here are some photos of the culprit.


( more )

This was in my last post on Readercon, but I'd like to call it out specifically; apparently, I buried it too far down, since people are mostly commenting around it rather than about it.

Readercon is 98% white. This is a problem. I am sure many people will tell me that this is endemic to con-going sf fandom, rather than particular to Readercon. I do not see how this is an excuse. Readercon seems to pride itself on being smarter and better than other cons. So instead of assuming you can't find a fix because the rest of fandom hasn't, put the smarts to use.

Your con is NINETY-EIGHT PERCENT WHITE. Eight to twelve attendees out of 600 were people of color. This is a problem. How are you going to fix it?

This entry was originally posted at http://coffeeandink.dreamwidth.org/1022346.html. Please comment there using OpenID.