House of Forgotten Thoughts

Honey Walnut Ice Cream

2016-08-11T02:21:55Z

Okay, it's been forever and I've had a life and stuff and barely posted the occasional thing to Twitter or reblobbed a culture thing on Tumblr, but I have to document this ice cream I just made and this is the most correct location.

Adapted from http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/fruity-oil-ice-cream-recipe.html

Ingredients
2 cups whole milk
2 cups heavy cream
6 large egg yolks
2/3 cup honey
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup walnut oil
3/4 cups walnut bits

Per the standard ice cream instructions, heat milk and cream in one pan and simmer. Whisk egg yolks, sugar, honey, and walnut oil together in a separate bowl; try for frothy. Drizzle hot milk into the whisk bowl, stirring constantly, to temper the egg yolks, then dump it all back into the pan. Bring up to 175F. Refrigerate for at least 4 hours.

The next day, chop up and toast the walnut bits in the oven. If I were doing it again, I'd probably do this half an hour earlier and refrigerate them? But honestly I don't think it would make a big difference to the final texture. Use your ice cream device to churn the refrigerated mixture for 25 minutes or until soft-serve, then mix the walnut bits in for 2 minutes. Freeze overnight.

Why I'm bothering to record this recipe: My homemade ice cream always sets up hard as a rock, especially if it didn't get really fluffy or firm in the mixing bowl. This was so runny after mixing that I was afraid it would be an iceberg but instead it scoops like commercial ice cream and also is utterly delicious. (I usually don't even like walnuts.) It melts very quickly.

I hypothesize that both the liquid oil and the honey keep it from freezing hard. I welcome input from food science geeks.

P.S. I'm making ice cream again and appreciate flavor suggestions. Avocado came out... intensely avocado. It needed salt.

Blue dabadee dabadah badabadee

2016-05-04T03:27:51Z

In entertaining side news, I have a rare medication side effect where my skin turns the toilet seat permanently blue. I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP.

gement @ 2016-05-03T20:25:00

2016-05-04T03:25:03Z

One week out from surgery, trying to say where I am in recovery is like trying to summarize a baby animal growing up. Three phases a day sometimes. The last two days have starrrrted to settle down to more of a steady state, but I'm sure in retrospect they'll seem like part of the steep curve as well.

As the above is rather muddled, I'll try again to sum up: I'm recovering faster than I can conveniently describe. This is good.

I've been off heavy painkillers for two full days now and I'm settling into a projected long three weeks of wondering why I have to spend so much time holding still and napping when nothing really hurts much. And I don't have a uterus! This is great.

Doc called with the path report and said they removed 413 cubic centimeters of material. For reference, 1cc = 1ml and a "standard" uterus is 70-80 ccs. That's right, I had the equivalent of FIVE UTERUSES, or an under-poured pint, taking up space in my abdomen without paying rent.

If you want to sign up to come visit me during a day sometime... All times flexible, or hit me up for an evening. https://mycancercircle.lotsahelpinghands.com/c/730923/calendar/

Robin vs The Thing From Beyond The Uterus

2016-04-24T19:13:54Z

My surgery is on Tuesday and my care calendar is active again! It is no longer vs Cancer Man. It is still for offering in-person support in Seattle.

https://mycancercircle.lotsahelpinghands.com/c/730923/calendar/

I have made time slots for friendly visits, and will keep using the calendar to request things like rides to appointments.

I have my mom here for the first week of surgery aftercare, so all visit shifts are *optional and flexible.* I'll send an email if something is critical or no one's picked up a more specific need. Last time, several people thanked me for the more structured opportunity to visit and help out, so here you go! I also welcome overtures to visit at other times.

If you were already signed up last summer, you should have just received an email letting you know this. (If you did not receive this email, you are not signed up!)

If not and you want to make yourself available for support tasks in Seattle, here is a handy link! You will need to make an account and sign up for my community.

If you know someone who doesn't check social media but knows me and would like to help, please feel free to circulate the link.

Again, thank you for your support, and I look forward to seeing some of you in the near future, possibly while groggy.

Post-surgery "I'm okay" notification will go out via Twitter and Facebook.

The Year Of Medical, part next

2016-04-20T04:05:00Z

Heyyy, so I've put this off and can no longer put this off: I'm having major but non-terrible abdominal surgery a week from today! After much travail, I'm getting a uterus-b-gone, and I am SO HAPPY ABOUT THAT.

As people have legit reasons for concern here: No, it is very unlikely to be more cancer. Yes, I probably got the condition which currently has me laid up (uterine fibroids) from dinking around with my hormones due to last summer's breast cancer. It's the gift that keeps finding new ways to keep on giving.

(This announcement wasn't so pressing until a few days ago when my surgeon called me personally on a Saturday afternoon to offer me a cancellation slot. So, suddenly I had 10 days instead of a month to nerve up on all kinds of things, including Alerting Social Media.)

I'll be posting a link again to the help site, probably tomorrow, so locals can volunteer to help with care or just show up and visit with me. This is just the "must give at least a week's notice to Everyone" announcement.

Postcards and doodad requests: Amsterdam and Reykjavik!

2015-08-29T06:26:08Z

I get on a plane in less than 24 hours to spend 2 weeks in the Netherlands, with a few punctuating days in Iceland.

Do you like postcards? Do you crave doodads? Is there a thing you ate that one time that I could bring back for you?

Leave me your mailing address and you will get a thing. I'll do my best to fulfill requests (including postcard themes) or just send you something according to whim if you express no preference.

Comments on this post will be visible only to me. [I may unscreen replies with no personal data.] Anonymous comments are allowed, since many of you will be wandering over from Facebook or something. Kids these days.

WHEEEEEEEEEEEEE

In other news...

2015-08-23T23:23:33Z

- I am packing for the Netherlands.
-- I did many loads of laundry today.
-- I have a 180 day unbroken streak of practicing Dutch on Duolingo.

- I have read so much fanfiction lately.
-- Also even some pro fiction which is much rarer for me but I had a lot of time and these ebooks that I bought but never read.
-- Overwhelmingly looking up rare Marvel pairings like Thundershield (Captain America/Thor) and Nick Fury/Anyone (I particularly like when people write him with M from MI6 or Kate Lethbridge-Stewart of UNIT).
-- I often seem to enjoy the process of having opinions about which ones are good more than I end up enjoying the individual stories. I find sorting and ranking things soothing.
-- I continue to find increasing evidence that my strongest and hottest fetish is for clear or clever negotiation. SO HOT.

- I stayed up too late last night watching the Hugos livestream.
-- and picking over the detailed voting statistics.
-- I sometimes have fun having opinions on the internet recreationally, again due to the sorting and ranking aspect.
-- Blocking annoying people on the Twitter #hugoawards hashtag was immensely satisfying from that perspective.

TOTALLY ALIVE (a health update)

2015-08-23T23:22:57Z

So, I've been not-posting long enough that people have started quietly asking me for updates instead of waiting for announcements, which I completely appreciate.

Updates!

Surgery went great, they took out the entire tumor with good margins and 10(!) sentinel lymph nodes. (Out of 50-ish on that side, usually they have to take 1-5.)* Good margins means no stray bits. Nodes also came back clean.

Tumor was completely mucinous, which means the cancer cells were surrounded by a snot blob, also fantastic news as those are much less likely to travel.

Healing up has been going well. I ended up taking three weeks completely off instead of the expected two (SO TIRED), but my energy is back up now and I'm no longer worried about dragging exhaustedly through the Netherlands with random temperature fluctuations.

Gender and body changes and stuff

I currently have no sensation on the skin or nipple on my left breast. They didn't touch the nerve, so they said it's just swelling and localized shock. It should come back in about 2 months after surgery.

Loss of sensation, even asymmetrically, isn't nearly as upsetting as I was afraid of, and I'm impressed by how much my "sensation" of that skin is actually mapped by my fingertips. It's a huge change in my data points about how I would feel about doing more radical chest surgery. For which I still have a giant blank check. I think people concerned about that as a factor should ask about getting a temporary nerve block (I'm sure there's a way to numb that nerve) and fooling around with it to see how they actually respond to the reality instead of the hypothetical.

I have two 1" long incision scars, one on my breast and the other in my armpit. I'm planning a Fury Road style smiley tattoo where Didi was. :)

Long term plan

6 weeks of daily radiation therapy (they shoot x-rays through Didi's former kennel and tattoo LASER SIGHTS onto my body there is so much science i am too excited for punctuation), which will be a royal pain scheduling-wise but shouldn't have many side effects.

I will get a radiation burn which will look like a bright pink sunburn for a few months! It will look a lot like a sunburn because all squares are rectangles.

10 years of Tamoxifen, a hormone blocker for estrogen and progesterone which has selective effects. Instead of just shutting down my ovaries, I can anticipate all the hot flashes, emotional lability, and skin change stuff from menopause, but not the bone density impact. I am very excited about keeping bone density. I am already living with two mood disorders, and don't expect a third to massively impact the way I live my life. Plus I will have an iron-clad doctor's note for this one.

My overall genetics have no markers for increased risk of later cancer. The tumor genetics have a very slight increased risk. I had the option of doing chemo, but the doctor refused to give a recommendation one way or the other. I will not be doing chemo.

About playing the odds

I could get a 2-3% ish reduction in long term distant recurrence (sneaky cancer shows up in another body part later) by doing 3 months of chemo. Once you figure in permanent side effect chances (0.5% chance of serious leukemia! No solid data on permanent neuropathy or brain fog!), this is about a 2% solid change for the good.

In big picture statistical terms, if there are 100 universes diverging from this point, and 100 of me do chemo, we will collectively spend 25 years doing chemo.

Or two of us could get a preventable later cancer and have to do some fighting again, and maybe one of those would even die and lose 25 years of life. But those two would get to do *next* decade's chemo. Dr. McCoy would still call it barbaric, but ten years is a long time in cancer tech. There is an embarrassment of research, and the curve is very, very fast.

* Another post about sentinel nodes as explained by Gotham City sewer architecture later. Remind me at least 24 hours from now.

Emotional labor and building support networks

2015-07-28T21:13:57Z

I ended up reading a lot of this thread about unpaid emotional labor (which has a wonderfully moderated comments section, this is a "do read the comments") and it's speaking to something I've been struggling with.

I'm bad at many kinds of emotional labor. (Good at other kinds, but bad at many kinds listed in this thread.) So are most of my friends. So are most of my family members.

We don't get together because almost no one organizes it. I'm having a horrific time managing support for my surgery aftercare because it means dealing with thinking about strategically contacting people, and actually knowing their contact information, and having some semblance of understanding of where our social currency stands so am I being a giant jerk.

Many people I know have trouble with this in phone or person, but do great with online social networking. For years I was one of those, but with the de-relevancing of LJ, I've been slipping from it. I'm just... disconnected.

Also relevant on that thread, my circuits on doing housework and opening mail and other personal unpaid labor tasks seem deeply, deeply broken.

This is an entire sphere of competency in which I feel deeply, deeply broken, and I can't tell how common it is to my friend group and how much it is that everyone I knew who did the good reciprocation thing has drifted away to other friends because I didn't.

ETA: I realized I didn't really give a discussion direction here, which is a piece of emotional work. I'd appreciate people sharing their perceptions of emotional labor in our mutual friend circles or their lives in general, and some kind of reality check on where I stand here.

It's okay if that assessment doesn't reflect too well on me, especially if it gives positive feedback on "here are some friends who are awesome at this," because I'm starting from a place where I'm pretty clueless about what's being done that I'm not aware of. I'm also curious about how this interacts with mental health issues.

Mostly uncooked, totally alive

2015-07-28T15:23:37Z

It turns out recovering from even minor outpatient surgery is really tiring! Also recovering from 5 hours of general anesthesia, because both of my two procedures ran long.

J's tweet that they needed a better flamethrower was an exaggeration but not a non sequitur; apparently the first tool they tried for setting my uterus on fire (endometrial ablation) didn't fit me right(???) and they had to switch from the electrical one to either hot or cold. I'll have to wait for my follow-up visit to find out which.

I don't know why taking Didi and relevant sentinel nodes walkies ran long. *shrug* Sometimes that is a thing.

Anyway, I closed out the recovery area and felt unnecessarily embarrassed about that, but all is now well. My armpit hurts and walking very far, even 6 days later, is dizzy-making, but I am reliably feeding myself and have plenty of groceries!

Thanks to everyone who kept me under constant 48 hour watch so I had enough food and water and Oxycodone. You were all great and very much appreciated. And I got a care package that included a Lisa Frank paint-by-water book and a little stuffed bear dressed like Robin (Bear Wonder)!

Goin' in!

2015-07-22T14:55:20Z

My check-in for surgery is 9:45. I expect to be checked out between 3 and 6pm. J will post to my twitter when I'm sent safely to recovery and when we actually are tucked in at home.

You can watch for updates at @gement. He will only be updating there.

Me just before my mammogram yesterday. Yes, I choose my shirts very deliberately.

Fashion update, surgery edition:
- "I'm hanging with Gordon Glenn" shirt issued to family, friends, and Math Team/Knowledge Bowl after my dad's successful cancer surgery a decade ago. (Reverse: Stick that in your calculator and derive it!)

- TMNT pajama pants

- Robin underoos, complete with cape

- Live Long and Prosper hoodie

- Rainbow Cloud socks

- Crocs covered in personal symbolism

- No bra because they're going to give me a special compression bra.

- Also carried: Kikker doll from J's Amsterdam trip, clicker that I've been using to reward myself for things hung on a Gallifrey One lanyard.

J will have my phone and will answer calls and read texts to the phone number. If it is not urgent or relevant to the next few days' care, please don't call. We'll post twitter updates when I'm out.

Support network link

2015-07-21T19:52:15Z

If you would like to offer direct, Seattle-area support, I have a tool for that now!

https://mycancercircle.lotsahelpinghands.com/c/730923/

It is not the world's smoothest tool. You sign up and request entry, and THEN I have to approve you and THEN you validate your email address. But it seems to be the best available for scheduling stuff like ferret-sitting me when I'm recovering from surgery.

I have later plans for a more role-based, less Seattle-specific "Who wants to watch movies with me via chat? Who's good for rides if I check with them first?", but that will be more important after I find out about chemo, and this tool really, really doesn't do it. For now, it's just "Who is keeping me fed the day after surgery?"

Thank you all for your kind words and support. I can't reply to everyone right now, but I deeply appreciate it.

So about emotional reactions to cancer...

2015-07-21T04:17:04Z

A quick emotional summary of my reactions, which are only mine and not a judgment on anyone else's:

I didn't have any particularly existential reaction. I found myself entirely unworried about probability curves that haven't collapsed into data yet. This is, again, not a judgment on people whose fear jumps to the deadly end of the curve. I was as surprised as anyone. Fear about that just... wasn't a thing. Not because I couldn't die, but because that was a non-calculable probability yet.

Instead, I had mostly blunt, short-term reactions like "I haven't opened my mail in six months or figured out how to use my HSA debit card, this is about to become a serious problem," and eventually, "Shit, I didn't actually want top surgery, what can I design that will leave me relatively happy with my chest shape?"

A guided tour of specific reactions:
I went in to get this lump checked, which I noticed when I had a cold, and said, "Eh, I figured it was just a lymph node freaking out at my immune system, but it hasn't gone away in a week..."

They said definitely ultrasound. I said, "Cool! Science!"

While prepping for the ultrasound, I cheerfully said out loud to the tech, "Hey, even if it turns out to be something real, free top surgery with no gatekeepers!" The tech blanched pretty badly.

After looking at the ultrasound as they did it, they said that due to x, y, and z, they wanted to biopsy this. I agreed, and let's go ahead and do that right now. Didn't even get up off the table.

They explained about putting a "clip" (a tiny titanium bb) in the mass where they biopsied it to mark the spot for later. I restrained the urge to cheer at becoming a cyborg. Barely.

Then I realized I was getting nervous. Why was I nervous? It was not because my mass was suspicious, no. It was because I hadn't gone in that morning expecting a procedure involving a needle, and I wasn't sure whether there would be local anaesthetic or they would just jab me. That was as far as the concern went. It was only later, talking with people, that I realized this was unusual.

When I got the "guess what, it's cancer," call, my actual first reaction, which I did not say out loud but thought in full sentences:

"Thank GOD, I'll finally manage to clean my room and open my mail!"

Some people treat cancer as a wake-up call that life is short, so maybe it's time to learn to play ukulele, dabble in foreign languages, shave your head for fun, go caving, or book an international trip. It turns out I have actually been doing well at that sort of list! (I did resolve to get laid more often, however.)

I've cried really violently three or four times in the last few weeks. One of those times was worrying about acquiring chest dysphoria. The rest were about coping with managing email communication, trying to make lists of people to actually talk to and talk to them.

Could be displacement. Really doesn't feel like it. This is not a metaphor. This is my deep, deep difficulties with mail logistics, social management, housecleaning, and paperwork. It's been the intractable bugbear of my therapy work for well over a decade, and if it takes cancer to kick its ass and let me get a new set of problems, hell yes, I'll take it.

Rather serious announcement, but punctuated by funny dog metaphors.

2015-07-21T03:54:14Z

Hi everyone! I have breast cancer.

My prognosis is great. I'm feeling quite chipper about it and dealing with it right away, as in, this week. If that's as much as you want to know, congratulations! You're done.

Edited to add: If this is a nasty surprise and we are friends, it is probably because I do not have your current email address! I tried to make private announcements last week. Please write to gement@hotmail.com or otherwise communicate current contact information to me. Connection is good.

Metaphorically:
Breast cancer, Stage 2A. If cancer stages were dog breeds, Stage 2A would be a well-mannered Basset hound. (2B would be a whippet. I do not have a whippet. I am glad. I will make another post with the full breed list later.) My Basset hound is named Didi.

Didi doesn't particularly shed or chew (clear margins on images) and isn't much of a runner (no obvious lymph involvement). She stays in her own yard by choice (cells still strongly resemble normal breast cells and wouldn't thrive elsewhere) and is very treat-focused so can be trained easily by waving food at her (we can probably shut this puppy down by blocking its access to estrogen and progesterone).

Didi gets to go walkies this Wednesday!

Treatment plan:
Wednesday: Lumpectomy, should be able to get it out in one try. They also remove a couple of "sentinel" lymph nodes that would be the first ports of call if Didi made a break for the street.

After that, everything gets tested and typed and we find out if I need any chemo. Odds are against it.

I will probably just go straight to radiation, which I will start eight weeks later, RIGHT AFTER I GET BACK FROM THE TRIP TO AMSTERDAM AND REYKJAVIK THAT I DON'T HAVE TO CANCEL AFTER ALL!!!!!

Ahem. After that we use one of a few chemical means to stop sending estrogen and progesterone to my breast tissue. Woo, hot flashes at 36! (Bleh.) But that's a ways out and I still have several options to consider there, dependent on what lump and sentinel node testing shows.

Technical version:
Lump, 2.5cm x 1.8cm x 1.8cm (ultrasound measurement)
Irregular shape, angular (but not irregular) edges (ultrasound measurement)
Lump, 2.4cm x 2.4cm x.1.9cm (MRI measurement, difference could just be angle)
No obvious lymph node involvement, calcification, or secondary masses, BIRADS Category 6 (MRI reading)

Biopsy details:
Invasive ductal carcinoma
Estrogen [SP1] 95% positive
Progesterone [PR88] 95% positive
HER2 negative
Ki-67 negative

Mammogram pending, but we don't expect ~~the Spanish Inquisition~~ any huge surprises.

Ape Cave: Never mine! (was: Wanna come?)

2015-07-18T17:22:30Z

Upd8: We have a car! All is well! If I have excited any of you about going to Ape Cave anyway, there is nothing stopping you from going the same day, and you could let me know so we could match up timing.

But we're good.

~~If you live in Seattle, have a car that seats four, and would like to go down to Ape Cave tomorrow (Sunday), shout out!~~

So there are three of us going to Ape Cave, and one of us was going to rent a car, but it turns out everyone else wanted to rent a car first, and we have no car.

We're happy to pay gas and your day pass. We have enough lights for everyone, but bring your own helmet and your own headlamp if you want those things.

We plan on trying the upper cave, though we're none of us in fantastic shape. I've seen it suggested that we do it from the top, so we're warmed up from hiking and then get to cool down going on a nice downhill in the cave.

This offer would also be open to more than one person, as long as the eventual result is that there are three more spaces in the vehicle.

Good things: Caving, cleaning, and coolness.

2015-07-15T17:08:23Z

I'm still going to APE CAVE on Sunday and have gotten much sage advice about lights.

Accomplishments and good things since last posting:
- Cleaning my room for three hours of focused energetic time on Saturday. (Thanks, Bretts!)
- Sorting my paperwork for an hour of focused energetic time on Sunday. (Thanks, Pepper*!)
- Literally innumerable phone calls and emails (I have no idea how many).

- Ordering $100 worth of flashlights for APE CAVE.
- Receiving a new and beautiful Rainbow-Dash-blue ukulele. SO COOL.

- COMING OUT TO 50,000 Stark Industries** employees yesterday as genderqueer and preferring "they" pronouns via company newsletter. That was a hell of a shot of adrenaline this morning. I came in to a dozen congratulatory emails from coworkers on being featured. (None commented on the gender or pronoun content, which was actually the main possibility I was stressing about***, so this is ideal.)

* I'll keep calling my personal assistant Pepper here, especially since the company owner who is the best at paperwork took my assignment because I need the logistical heavy hitter.

** I've decided to start pseudonymizing my company as Stark Industries because that would be cooler than the truth, and because it's canonical that they are in the same industry space.

*** I have a few layers of pronoun personal space. Coworkers are in the "I could tell you, but then I'd have to resent it when you get it wrong and everything would feel awkward, so let's just not" zone. Before I agreed to the article, I had to make a personal decision about how I would handle it if people in my working group asked about using my pronouns.

Thought for the day

2015-07-13T19:18:30Z

Occasionally, I see huge, masked figures, warlike, towering, but also distant and listless. They haven’t seen me. Or, if they’ve seen me, they haven’t cared. Or, if they’ve cared, they haven’t done anything with that feeling.

I’m not scared of them. There are so many things in this world to be scared of. Why add to that number when the only cause is you know nothing about them and they are huge? It would make no sense.

Intern Dana, Welcome to Night Vale

Lava tube! Laaavaaa tuuuuuuuube

2015-07-09T20:24:35Z

Washington State has one of the best publicly accessible lava tubes, Ape Cave.

I'm going! Along with J and corivax, who is kind enough to drive.

If you peruse the official site, you will note it suggests two light sources per person.

... I own one tiny flashlight.

While I should own more flashlights, I don't own flashlights and headlamps for everyone, and headlamps seem to run $20 each, which is a lot for something I won't use a lot.

Anyone Seattle-ish care to loan me some light sources?

Good things Seven Seven

2015-07-07T18:05:58Z

1. Hot date with Bretts last night, for values of hot that ended up talking about self-care and social perceptions of gender and bodies and what we like about them until two in the morning instead of actually doing anything with them, with gourmet dinner and a two hour break for playing ukulele together.

If we weren't both birdplanes, I might suspect we were lesbians.

2. My reproductive system is behaving on schedule, which means all the appointments I already scheduled get to stay where they are! (Seriously, it's like planning a rocket launch in here.)

3. I hired Pepper's Personal Assistants (someone knows how to market to rich tech geeks) and have my first meeting with my Pepper on Thursday. No, I will not be asking to be called Mr. Stark. I will just be thinking it in my head.

The first email reply I got was so reassuring I almost cried. I'm really looking forward to this.

4. Getting masses of things done, including starting to consistently use an online calendar (no more triple scheduling dates, plz), raising my credit card limit in light of my now making wowmoney, and writing down all the stray "I need to" thoughts in a nice black book.

5. For being so (internally generated) busy, my life is feeling increasingly rich. That's pretty great.

Good things, Fifth of July

2015-07-06T03:26:38Z

1. I had two good dates in two nights, did Science! on both, finally got to show Meowse my beautiful ukulele, and discovered D. Wendell has the world's cuddliest goat. Seriously, that goat is secretly a dog.

2. I am hiring a personal assistant for two hours a week to get my paperwork life under control. This will force me to get things in good enough order for the assistant to do the less personal bits. Fingers crossed for changing bad patterns of several decades.

3. In pursuit of this, this morning I started a load of laundry and did about 20 minutes of room cleaning with no panicking at all. I hope this keeps up at least long enough to excavate.

4. I took the cat for a walk yesterday evening and we only heard a few distant pops so she didn't freak out. It was a lovely walk. (I take the cat out to our back yard on a harness and a long lead, so she can smell everything and fantasize about being allowed to murder birds again.)

5. Ukulele satisfaction!

On advice from several people I went ahead and ordered a second uke, a Rainbow Dash colored Makala Dolphin. General received wisdom is, "If you're only going to spend <$50 on an ukulele, get this one. Really." So now I have a recruiter uke which I can take on my trip to Amsterdam without worrying about it, annnnnnnnd

that means I can tune my more expensive one to Low-G!* J and I walked down to our friendly local instrument store today and picked up a new ukulele string for me, and we did not die of heat.

* Standard ukulele tuning is "reentrant," which means that what would usually be the lowest note is tuned an octave higher. Search "my dog has fleas" and you'll hear how the notes are arranged.

Low-G tuning means taking that octave-high slot and tuning it low instead, so the notes are lined up in order like on a guitar. There are advantages to both, so a common source of Ukulele Acquisition Syndrom (UAS) is "but I need a second one for Low-G!"

Upd8

2015-07-02T17:27:06Z

I'm going to try to update more regularly and not worry about capturing everything.

Since, um, I haven't posted since last October to say I was happy about my job. Which is still true.

No major relationship changes except that I've been seeing people less due to general seclusion and shepherding my resources by staying in. I'd like to change that. This is ubiquitous. However, in the last year I've been respecting it more.

I've been reading a lot of fanfic.

I've been learning ukulele.

I've been learning Dutch.

I volunteered to be the webmaster for my work's LGBT group around the turn of the year. (Draaaaaama, I've been avoiding it for two months now.) That's actually pretty interesting!

I got prison penpals! I've frozen up on writing to them. I need to at least send them a "sorry I've frozen up and can't do this" because not doing so is a jerk-ass move.

I'm getting de-babified, in fact I've gotten officially de-babified already, the remaining step was my initial motivating factor of not wanting periods anymore. Turns out there's a procedure for that, as long as you get fixed first.

I loved Fury Road.

I'm gonna try to actually post more here. Setting an alarm now.

Gender play in Shakespeare and fanfiction

2014-09-18T16:05:31Z

ALFRED: You’ll both go either way in the end. We all do.
- me, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Magic, Act II, Scene ii

I identify as genderqueer and pansexual. Trying to capture the sense of permutation available in sexual and gender expression, in the voice of a character who isn’t long on rhetoric or academic gender vocabulary, is an exercise in frustration, and I will have excluded people. Starting with myself.

Here is about 1000 words of me chewing on that problem if you’re into that sort of thing. Discussion welcome.

Here is a list of ways gender and sexual orientation have commonly been manipulated in Shakespeare and English language stage/screen:

Elizabethan-era male actors playing women (“Skirt roles”)

Restoration-era female actors playing men (“Trouser roles”)

Skirt or trouser roles in which the character then cross-dressed as the actor’s gender
-- frequently resulting in romantic complications for the (presumed) heterosexual characters, but always given a cis-het resolution

Modern reinterpretations where pronouns and small details are changed to match the actor’s gender (e.g., the 2010 Tempest with Helen Mirren as Prospera)
-- sometimes resulting in a same-gender romantic relationship

Modern stagings where pronouns are not changed and no comment is made on it (effectively skirt and trouser roles again, but with different cultural assumptions)

The original impetus for skirt roles was that women were not allowed to be actors. In modern stage and screen, it is similarly remarkable to see an openly trans actor in any role; canon trans characters in stories about trans lives are usually played by cis actors.

I have seen R&G Are Dead in two live productions. In one, R&G were played by women. In the other, the Player was played by a woman. The characters are rarely if ever referred to by pronouns in the play. Whether they intended the roles to be read as men, women, or ambiguous is an exercise for the reader. The presumption that the actors I read as women actually identify as women is also an exercise for the reader.

I’m pretty sure the Player meant for the character to be read as a woman. R&G? Completely up in the air. They wore modern men’s vests and had their hair pulled back, but weren’t hiding their chest shape or hair length. The roles don’t call for a lot of sexualized social behavior, unlike the Player, and their mannerisms seemed relatively neutral.

Anyway.

Here is a list of ways gender, genitals, sexual orientation, and social roles have commonly been manipulated in fanfiction:

GENDER IDENTITY AND GENITALS

A (presumed) cis man re-envisioned as a (presumed) cis woman, or vice versa

A cis character hit by a Body Swap plot and given unexpected genitals
-- which may or may not lead to gender identity/presentation questions

A cis character re-envisioned as a trans character of same/similar gender: a canon male character is written as a trans man.
-- Usually a character history story.

A cis character re-envisioned as a trans character of different gender: a canon male character is written as a trans woman or (rarely) non-binary/agender/another culturally defined gender.
-- Usually a coming out story.

A trans character re-envisioned as cis ahahahah oh wait we’d need some canon trans characters first ahem where was I
-- Except we do have a few trans characters (Orange Is the New Black, Wandering Son, Gatchaman Crowds) and some fans do rewrite them as cis or minimize their trans-ness.

ORIENTATION AND RELATIONSHIP DYNAMICS

A (presumed) het character re-envisioned as identifying as gay/bisexual/queer/etc., or (rarely) asexual/aromantic/etc.
-- or queer to het, which again, due to scarcity, is rare, but it happens

A het character forming a same-gender romantic or sexual relationship
-- and consciously changing identification to gay/bisexual/queer/etc.
-- or identifying as het (“It’s not men. It’s just him.” — canon Ianto Jones)
-- A canon queer character forming a man/woman relationship can be the vice versa here, or not, depending on the framing and their flavor of queerness

Queering or straightening an existing romantic relationship by changing the gender of a character
-- Changing a character’s genitals may or may not queer a relationship, depending on the perspectives of the characters and the audience.

Queering the sex lives of characters through gender-based roleplay or clothing.

Making a same-gender relationship more heteronormative by adding traits socially coded as contrasting-gender
-- look I’ll be blunt, one of the guys gets a frilly apron and starts crying a lot
-- and usually prefers submissive receptive sex
-- and that’s the one that somehow gets pregnant without the aid of body swap
-- See also “omegaverse” dynamics
-- [To be very clear: there are many reasons people write this dynamic and Your Kink Is OK if you are one of them. Just please be aware that one of the effects is that it has a loud heteronormative echo.]

Here’s what I’m wrestling with. When I wrote this line and hadn’t found a scene or speaker for it yet:

"You’ve the prettier face, but you’ve the longer hair. Could go either way. Not that it matters. You’ll both go either way in the end. We all do."

My presumed primary context was that last point, the deliberate feminization and implied heteronormativity, in which the prettier of a pair of male characters will be consistently feminized in fanfiction. To “go either way” is classic slang for bisexuality, for both giving and receiving penetrative sex, and for BDSM switching, which is all fitting here.

The line is currently framed in a discussion of shifting gender identities, when they’ve been discussing Alfred’s simultaneous stories as a trans woman and a cis man. “You’ve done it yourselves … didn’t even notice” was meant as a reference to stage productions and fanworks where they’ve been played by/portrayed as women, without comment or surprise.

Unfortunately, these cis male iterations of R&G, who are not gender theory veterans, inevitably presume a risk of body swap and check for their own cis male genitals, even though the only example they’ve actually seen was Alfred as a trans girl.

Suddenly the framing is binary Rule 63 and I’ve lost the point about heteronormativity. It is all there. It is all what is happening, and all what Alfred is experiencing and trying to explain. I want the line to be about all of it, and I do not know how to get there.

I’m open to suggestions on how to improve the nuance in this scene, add more dimensions later in the work, or do better next time.

gement @ 2014-09-18T09:03:00

2014-09-18T16:03:30Z

I got an infected finger (it was incredibly painful), but then got antibiotics and degunked it and now it is much better.

I went to Vancouver BC with friends and happily walked several kilometers. I saw the public library and a beautiful sunset on a beach and a very impressive used bookshop, and failed to see a Fringe show about mashed up self-aware female characters from Shakespeare because it was sold out. But I'm glad to know it was there.

I start work on Monday. eeeeee

I finished Act II of the fanfic of dooooom, which is a relief because I'd been working on that last benighted chapter for 8 weeks and eaten half of my buffer. The completed chapter is 6k long and very, very structured.

New chapter up today! Now with more Muppets, adventure cartoon shows, and sexual tension.

gement @ 2014-09-09T19:51:00

2014-09-10T02:51:41Z

Hey! I got a new job. They will give me all the moneys, and the job title is Taxonomist and I will actually get to taxonomize. This is awesome.

J had to take a few days off because he's at max vacation so we spent 7 hours at the zoo yesterday and our feet are bruised. This is also awesome.

I am so close to finishing the chapter I've been working on for 7 weeks, I can almost taste it. I just don't know how to get OUT. Which sadly puts me on level with my protagonists. This is frustrating.

But I'm almost done with that chapter and I have four chapters up already! Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Magic has so far had about 150 readers with a 10% Like rate, which is damn respectable. This is awesome.

I met a couple of Canadians from Tumblr the other night and took them to dinner and showed them around the Gayborhood, and this was awesome.

I visited corivax and caladri and stayed overnight and petted their technically-feral Grey Lump That Goes Meow and watched the Capaldi Who premiere. This was awesome, except for the Moffatt parts. :P

I am signed up to attend my sister's sexy high protocol play party next month, and some kind of kink-related nonference apparently, and I am Making An Effort and Going Outside With Other People.

I am keeping up with my two pen pals and feeling very accomplished about that. It's a real boost to be able to materially support someone in a way that's substantial to them. This is awesome.

I think that is momentarily all the things. Look, things!

Prison pen pals

2014-08-11T19:22:55Z

A post going around Tumblr alerted me to the Black and Pink pen pal program in support of QUILTBAG prisoners. I signed up for one pen pal, then another when I hadn’t heard back in two weeks. I have now heard back from both.

If you want to get really resolute about prison abolition, pen pals are very effective.

It’s one thing to know the system is racist, profiteering, inhumane, not actually improving public safety, etc.

It’s another to get a single page from a new pen pal, apologizing for her sixth grade education and asking for you to please write to the warden asking why she hasn’t been transferred out of the hole to a women’s prison yet.

Oof.

I heartily recommend Black and Pink, either to make a donation or connect with a person in prison.
-- They welcome free-world pen pals of all genders and orientations (you don’t have to be QUILTBAG to sign up).
-- They let you do detailed searches if you want to support someone with a particular identity (*cough*transwomenofcolor*cough*).
-- They have great resources for thinking through your boundaries as a pen pal and navigating the system if you want to do more.

Even sending one person a postcard once a month can make a huge difference.

The only requirement is that you think honestly about why you’re doing this, and let your pen pal know what to expect from you, even if that’s “I’m just testing this out, I don’t know if I can keep doing it.”

(Thanks to B&P, I had already said I was willing to commit to keep writing once a month for at least a year, to sending a few photos and books, and to do some letter writing or research if she needed help navigating the system. I’m so glad I decided that in advance.)

It's not all grim! My other penpal is really sweet, sent a long letter and is sharing her high fantasy Wiccan elves short stories with me! It's a very mixed bag, and a huge exercise in self-awareness, and it is honestly so fun to write letters and know that something as simple as sending a hello and a sheet of stamps can make a difference to another person.

If you’re interested, but worried about getting overwhelmed or need help with figuring out how to help, I’m happy to answer questions, publicly or privately. I’m no expert, but I’m a librarian and I’ve now spent a good 20 hours reading prison regs and activism resources from both California and Colorado. If talking to another pen pal first is what it takes to get you started, I am open.