Every stone a story, like a rosary

As Nanny Ogg Would Say, Tempers Fuggit

Wed, 21 May 2008 11:56:10 GMT

I went to Office Depot today, looking for a replacement stylus for my Palm. It's not new -- I replaced my old M100 a year or so ago, choosing a low-end, monochrome model fine for my basic PDA uses -- ebooks and backgammon, with occasional calendaring.

I wandered through the aisles, wondering where the PDA displays were. Not with computers, not with calendars, not with software or cameras or cables. The clerk had never heard of a Palm, a handheld, or a PDA, much less a stylus.

After some fruitless paging, I eventually found an older employee who told me they no longer carried any PDAs or accessories.

They're outdated.

ETA Found my little packet with two spare styluses -- in an otherwise fruitless attempt to find a short (less than six foot) USB cable with six-pin connectors at both ends. This is so I can scan family pictures, so I can burn photo CDs for my sisters. It has taken me a couple of weeks of rummaging and unpacking to locate the box with those photos. If I can't scan today, I can't scan them at all. I will triumph over all these *objects*.

May We Have the Envelope, Please?

Tue, 20 May 2008 06:54:41 GMT

The National Trust’s 2008 list of Most Endangered Places is out. This annual rite gathers historians, naturalists, and architects in nail-biting suspense. What monuments to our heritage are closest to being razed, paved, or mutilated? Which historical sites, architectural treasures, cultural resources, and natural landscapes should we visit now, before they vanish forever?

Among this year's lucky winners I found the spectacularly elegant Boyd's Theater in Center City Philadelphia. It's an eighty-year old movie queen, the architectural equivalent of Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard. It was the first of the great Art Deco theaters, and it is the last movie palace in Philadelphia.

The Boyd used to be the SamEric, which closed in 2002, and I have very fond memories of its spacious auditorium and fine acoustics. The Boyd was convenient--a block from Rittenhouse Square, close to bookstores, restaurants, and transit. Nearby was a small State Store where, one sultry night, my date and I picked up a flask of Old Granddad to smuggle into the theater. The film was noir, the stars were Nicholson and Lange, and between the bourbon-fortified fountain Cokes and the Art Deco ambiance, the movie looked wonderful. No big-screen TV can do what the Boyd did so well.

Another old friend made the list. The entire California state park system.

The state park system is falling apart. There's no money for maintenance, and hasn't been for years. I was appalled when I first went to a California park and was charged an admission fee, but taxes won't cover operating costs. And this is a tragedy.

California is one of the richest states by any measure and one of the top economies in the world. It hosts the insanely lucrative high tech and entertainment industries as well as its vast and productive agricultural sector. From wine to lettuce, carrots to cotton, California produces more. Think Wisconsin is the dairy state? Think again. We're number one. And there are plenty of other industries -- fishing, manufacturing, lumber, tourism. The real estate is some of the most expensive in the world. And, at least in Silicon Valley, you can meet millionaires and billionaires any time you go to Fry's computer store.

The parks preserve wild lands, protect redwoods, open history to visitors. They save the smaller patches of the great historic redwoods and joshua trees and offer sanctuary to birds from egrets to condors. Once you've seen the bleakly indifferent peaks of the Sierras, the passes deep in snow, the brutally sheer mountainsides, you gain a new comprehension of the courage and fortitude of the people who crossed them in wooden wagons -- or who died on the frozen heights above the lushly blooming valleys.

The parks provide recreation and education and green space. In the state that boasts Big Sur, Death Valley, Yosemite, and the Avenue of the Giants, the state parks shelter the smaller local spaces where people can picnic, camp, hike, watch birds and wildlife, or frolic with their dogs. One of the things that makes the crowding of the East Bay endurable to me is the presence of parks, acres of countryside I can visit easily and always see on the horizon. They keep our spirits going.

This state can afford to preserve and share its magnificent natural resources and historic heritage. If California is punished by God with a disaster, it won't be for recognizing love and commitment between same-sex partners. It will be for allowing greed to destroy our endowment of history, landscape, and human potential.

Link to list from Still a Ways Away.

Monday Quotations

Mon, 19 May 2008 19:58:30 GMT

From halfmoon_mollie:

Go here, and read until you find five quotes that speak your truth.

You are built not to shrink down to less but to blossom into more.
Oprah Winfrey (1954 - ), O Magazine, February 2003

Great wisdom is generous; petty wisdom is contentious. Great speech is impassioned, small speech cantankerous.
Chuang-tzu (369 BC - 286 BC), On Leveling All Things

We are more ready to try the untried when what we do is inconsequential. Hence the fact that many inventions had their birth as toys.
Eric Hoffer (1902 - 1983)

Silent gratitude isn't very much use to anyone.
Gertrude Stein (1874 - 1946)

The worst sin - perhaps the only sin - passion can commit, is to be joyless.
Dorothy L. Sayers (1893 - 1957), Gaudy Night

If you do a good job for others,
you heal yourself at the same time,
because a dose of joy is a spiritual cure.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906 - 1945)

All your life you live so close to truth it becomes a permanent blur in the corner of your eye. And when something nudges it into outline, it's like being ambushed by a grotesque.
Tom Stoppard (1937 - ), Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead

They were going to die. They knew it, and their last words were I love you. Even in great pain, their last words were of love... People could have saved themselves and they ran back in to save others instead. If humanity is capable of that, how can I lose hope in humanity?
Elie Wiesel (1928 - ), Chicago Sun-Times, November 5, 2001

The art of losing isn't hard to master.
Elizabeth Bishop

Random Sunday

Mon, 19 May 2008 01:16:25 GMT

Favorite typo of the week: Sane-sex marriage.

Research trivia: Claude Lévi-Strauss will turn 100 this year, if he lives until November 28. Also, Franz Boas died in his arms.

elisem ponders class and vanity publishing.

In memoriam: 23 years ago today I got married. We were together a long time -- call it sixteen years -- and for most of that time, the compromises were worth the love and companionship. Then, of course, things changed. Billy, I remember you with tenderness as well as frustration, and I hope you're happy in your second marriage.

The full text of Tolkien's short story Leaf by Niggle is viewable on Google Books. Link from marnanel.

Read a little Rumi every day with dailyrumi. Link from phinnia.

Adorable pet anteaters. One of whom bears an uncanny resemblance to John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever.

I'm making lists and getting ready for WisCon and the visit to my family. This process includes a lot of strategizing: how do we talk about marriage equality? or the elections? or even Wiscon? (One sister's reaction on hearing that I was going to a feminist SF convention was prolonged laughter, followed by "Why would anyone want to do that?", followed by "I bet they all hate Xena." Because she's, you know, wearing a low-cut costume. I said no, everybody loves Xena, but did not explain why. If she can't figure it out, that's one less thing to fight over.)

What do you do when visiting kin to keep them from pushing your buttons?

Weekend Update: Omnium Gatherum

Sat, 17 May 2008 11:03:18 GMT

The heat is screwing up my connectivity. I can't use the desktop at all, and the laptop only during the late night and early morning. So email is unwontedly slow, and I am waaaaay behind on comments and answering things.

I leave for Wiscon soon -- and then a visit home. So my online presence will be spotty for a while.

====

Tonight I played Cat with gramina, abostick59, and fightingtiger, with imnotandrei as game master. Great fun -- he's a superb GM, and the game itself was lovely. Although the genuine resident feline seemed a bit perturbed when we all started caterwauling to distract the evil pigeons.

====

Languagelog on the same-sex marriage decision. A look at grammar and heteronormativity.

Full frontal . . . thumb. Probably not worksafe.

A cat personality test -- sounds both useful and great fun.

=====

Fascinating psychological study: When people are powerless, they make more mistakes. Give them power, and they become more successful.

I shared this link with gramina on IM:
gramina: Wow. So it also means that recognizing the power one does have -- yields power.

Me: yes, and that someone widely known as the most powerful man in the world must be even dumber than we all think to screw things up so royally -- or else he is being successful at his true aims

gramina: um, yeah. Scary either way.

====

And speaking of scary. Let's use powerful anti-psychotics on deportees! This story is being covered from many useful perspectives, but Body Impolitic looks at it as both a medical outrage and a violation of bodily sovereignty We need only look at our prisons to remind ourselves that we don’t live in a world that offers any respect whatsoever to the bodies (or minds) of the people we incarcerate.

Four Years and Several Months Ago . . .

Thu, 15 May 2008 23:06:53 GMT

Gavin Newsom celebrated Valentine's Day by opening marriage to same-sex couples. rmjwell and I joined dozens of other volunteers to help celebrate marriages in San Francisco City Hall. People were coming in from all over. I get teary-eyed just at the memory -- the joy was palpable, and shared among so many people.

Now what we did then has been upheld by the California Supreme Court. We now have marriage equality -- if we can fight off the various attacks on it.

A deep, deep joy.

The Housework Poll

Thu, 15 May 2008 10:21:47 GMT

Please feel free to expand your answers in comments.

View Poll: Housework!

Help Yourself, Help Others

Wed, 14 May 2008 05:24:40 GMT

Bone Marrow Donor Registration is FREE until the 19th of May. And the registration doesn't hurt at all.
Would you want a chance to save someone from death?

Donating bone marrow if you are a compatible donor for a person with lynphoma or other cancers can give them their best chance at survival.

The national bone marrow registry usually charges $50 to cover the typing of your tissue. You can register on line and they will send you a tissue typing sample kit to use at home. No blood draw or lab visit required. You just swab some of your cheek cells onto a special container and send it in. Then they test your DNA to see what your HLA profile is. That's biochemical information that is used to work out transplant compatibility. It's like blood type but a bit more complicated and involved.

You can go here to register: http://www.marrow.org/

It's free until the 19th. Free. Free. FREE.

This is very important, especially if you are non white or are of mixed ancestry. Those people and their HLA types are not currently well represented in the registry. Some people with cancer are dying for lack of a compatible donor.[1]

[1] Note from wordweaverlynn: There are limitations on who can register, depending on health status and even BMI. I'm too fat to register, but the severity of my allergies would also probably make me ineligible,

Swiped, text and all, from inflectionpoint

How to find a therapist from elusis. Very useful advice on finding and screening a therapist.

I'll also add these resources:
Kink-Aware Professionals
Poly-Friendly Professionals
Bisexuality-Aware Professionals
Fat Friendly Health Professionals

L&M: Monday Miscellany

Mon, 12 May 2008 20:55:57 GMT

I'll never catch up on LJ. Let me know if I missed anything.

The Science of Scotch. Link from sclerotic_rings. Anyone who wishes to promote research into this sadly neglected area of science is encouraged to bring me bottles of single-malt so I can conduct my own experiments.

The Bible translation poll.

My daughter deserved to die for falling in love. Very, very upsetting. Link from razzle.

a survey by any other name

from razzle

1. Name something a claustrophobic person should not get into:
the trunk of my car

2. What one thing does a woman spend the most time on when getting ready to go on a date?
becoming a unique individual instead of a stereotype of her entire gender

3. What is a Spanish word that everyone knows the meaning of?
Antonio Banderas.

4. Name something in your bathroom that you leave plugged in all the time?
a nightlight

5. Besides golfers, what is something you see on a golf course?
One-upmanship.

6. Name a household chore you actually enjoy:
Making lists.

7. Name something you walk out on:
The back porch.

8. Name a place where you see nervous people:
The defense table in a courtroom.

9. Name something that can be cherry flavored.
Cough drops.

10. Complete this phrase: "I’ll never forget my first _____":
Divorce.

11. Name another word for "Dad":
Motherfucker.

12. Name another word for "Mom":
Martyr.

13. Name something a married couple might want to have 2 of:
Cell phones.

14. What is the first part of a person’s body to lose the war with gravity?
Balance -- haven't you ever seen a baby learning to walk?

15. Name something that is sold by the bunch:
Bradys.

16. What age would you retire if you had enough money?
Never -- writers don't retire, they just get blocked.

17. Name something you find on a kitchen table:
Sunlight.

18. Name something that rhymes with “dizzy”:
Fizzy.

19. Tell me how many people you kissed last New Year’s Eve:
Zero. I worked late and had supper at In and Out.

20. Name something you see in a jail cell:
Misery.

21. Name a month with 31 days:
August.

22. Name an occupation where you might work all night:
Writer.

from kahnegabs

What's your inner dragon?
and your inner dragon is a ....
Mithril Dragon
In the war between good and evil, types take the side of the noble and good.
When it comes to the powers of Chaos vs. those of Law and Order, your inner dragon walks a fine line between Law and Chaos.
As far as magical tendancies, Magical spells come as natural to the Mithril Dragon as breathe from it's body.
During combat situations, a true Mithril Dragon prefers to defeat opponents by the use of spells and other tactics.
Dragon Description:

Mithril Dragons are armored with highly reflective scales. To see one in bright sunshine has the effect of looking at a multi-ton, 150 ft. long disco ball.

They tend to smile frequently but rarely laugh aloud. Mithril's dislike violence. A Mithril Dragon is very selective when choosing close friends, but is generally admired by all. A Mithril Dragon leads a very quiet and unobtrusive life.Never judgmental, the great Mithril Dragon's feelings run deep and true. Mithril Dragons mate for life.

from lizziebelle

from amywithani

Your Score: Hamlet

You scored 65% = Tragic, 23% = Comic, 17% = Romantic, 28% = Historic

You are The Tragedy of Hamlet. Highly regarded as the best play ever written by anyone ever, Hamlet tells the story of Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark, and his desire to enact revenge on his Uncle for the murder of his father. When performed in its entirety, Hamlet is just under 4 hours long and contains many of the most recognizable phrases in the English language. But enough of that - let's get back to you. Your results tell us that you are no doubt of high intelligence and cultural grace. While sometimes a bit dark and moody, you still have the poise and respect of a royal noble. Your tragic flaw, however may be that you tend to over-analyze situations and think too much when you should act. You also may be a bit long-winded, but we like you anyway!

Link: The Which Shakespeare Play Are You? Test written by macbee on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test
View My Profile(macbee)

Gmail

Mon, 12 May 2008 18:36:47 GMT

I'm having serious issues with Gmail. For the time being, try sending anything to [LJ username] at sbcglobal dot net.

ETA Never mind.

My Cat Macro, Let Me Show You It

Sun, 11 May 2008 19:02:30 GMT

Blank from http://community.livejournal.com/cat_macros/4214925.html

Tiptree Winner Reviewed by the New Yorker!

Sat, 10 May 2008 00:49:51 GMT

Sarah Hall got a good, if brief, review in the New Yorker.

This is by way of being a miracle. I can't remember the last time the New Yorker reviewed a book of fantasy or SF. It might have been The Children of Men, by P.D. James.

Links: Mind and Body

Wed, 07 May 2008 17:39:39 GMT

The most touching and hopeful story you'll read today.

Save the planet and your marriage! phinnia and friends ponder the TwoDaLoo. You have to read the comments.

Why I Don't Use the Word Retarded -- link from ankaret.

Review of what sounds like an excellent book for parents: Wear Clean Underwear: A Fast, Fun, Friendly and Essential Guide to Legal Planning For Busy Parents .

The eczema/allergy connection -- do we have it backwards?

Child abuse may ‘mark’ genes in the brains of suicide victims. And presumably also in those who don't necessarily kill themselves. Once again, nature and nurture are intertwined.

From zpdiduda, an actual letter from an Austin woman sent to Proctor and Gamble regarding their feminine products. It's PC Magazine's 2007 Editors' Choice for best webmail-award-winning letter.

Wiscon Planning: My panels, let me show you them

Wed, 07 May 2008 00:32:13 GMT

Title: 'Out And Proud' Or 'Not In Front Of The Children?'

"At one of the BDSM-inclined panels last year, a side avenue emerged: at what point do public displays of interactions related to your relationships leave the realm of being 'out and proud' or 'true to yourself' and become nonconsensually including other people in your sex life? is leading your submissive around on a leash the same kind of act as kissing your same-sex partner when you pick them up at the airport? Why or why not? Are we frightening the horses--and is that a problem?"
Saturday, 4:00-5:15 P.M.
Conference 5

M: Lisa Cohen
Lynn Kendall
Duane Corn
Stephen Eley

Title: Women of The Twilight Zone

"In this panel, we will discuss Rod Serling's groundbreaking series, The Twilight Zone, and ways in which he portrays women. Are his women the typical females of the late 1950's and early 1960's, or progressive characters foreshadowing the feminist movement of the next decade? This program will be a discussion in which we examine some of Serling's most famous episodes starring women, including 'The After Hours' and 'The Eye of the Beholder.' "
Sunday, 1:00-2:15 P.M.
634

M: Eric M. Heideman
Lynn Kendall
Duane Corn

I know I've asked who's going to be there and who wants to meet up. I haven't been able to make firm plans, though, not having the schedule.

What it looks like I'm available for:

Saturday breakfast, lunch, dinner (I doubt I'll make plans for all three -- but these are times still open)
Sunday breakfast, dinner, dessert salon
Monday breakfast, lunch, afternoon hanging out in the bar

You can email me at my LJ address to make plans, or respond here. Do you want to get together alone or in groups?

What I need, dammit, is a custom. Like, Saturday night I always hang out with LJ friends, or something of the sort. But I had to check the website to remember what day the GoH speeches were.

Also, please do not be afraid to ask me to get together with you. Having one of us crippled by shyness and fear is bad enough. Seriously, last year I ate alone at the dessert salon because I couldn't get up the gumption to ask anyone if I could sit with them. This year I have the added fear that I made a complete fool of myself last year, so I'll be a pariah this year.

I know it's irrational. (Mostly. Mostly know, mostly irrational.) None of this shows when I am in the midst. Before, yes, when I am too terrified to go out the door. Afterwards, when I am positive that nobody will ever want to see me again because I was so horrible. In between I can enjoy myself.

I want to see you folks. I'm just afraid of what will happen when you see me. But fuck that fear. I will have lunch with you anyway.

Link Salad with a Side of Bacon

Tue, 06 May 2008 04:00:09 GMT

Bruce Springsteen on the New Jersey Hall of Fame: "Rise up, my fellow New Jerseyans. We are all members of a confused but noble race."

Cthulhu cake.

French-fry-coated bacon onna stick. Next up, bacon-coated french fries. Or a heart attack.

Don't have the time to build your own Batcave? These contractors are expert at constructing secret staircases, bookcase doors, revolving fireplaces, and other superhero-style home improvement projects. Link from jrittenhouse.

Another fine home improvement: Build your own bookcase fort! There's a bed inside, too. I wonder if it's earthquake-proof. Of course, some of us have entire apartments that are pretty much indistinguishable from a bookcase fort.

Why I love user tagging.

History in comics. Now with Lord Byron! Link from seserakh

Small Rewards

Sun, 04 May 2008 12:49:42 GMT

I always want to know where the roads go. Today I found one of surpassing beauty -- a winding country road, flawlessly cambered and almost empty, snaking over hills. It ran through chaparral, grassland, oak hills, even a redwood forest damp and sheltered enough for ferns -- a rare sight here. Every turn brought a new prospect: hills, valleys, woods, the Bay glittering in the sun, a reservoir mirroring the sky.

Except for bicyclers, the road was almost deserted on a Saturday afternoon. I bet it's even better on a weekday afternoon, when the bike-riders are off at work. A place to stretch my reflexes and my eyes, to dawdle or zip as the mood dictates.

Best of all, this road is not forty miles away, across the bay and up in the Santa Cruz Mountains. It runs from Hayward to Oakland. You might know it as A Street or Redwood Road. I've driven sections of it a thousand times but never, before, beyond the high school, where one turns off to go to the Episcopal church.

That road felt like an extraordinary gift from the universe. Or maybe part of God's Frequent Seeker Rewards Program.

For most of the time I've lived in the East Bay, I haven't had time or energy to go exploring. Particularly when I was making the vicious commute to Palo Alto, the last thing I wanted to do on weekends was drive anywhere.

The life I was living prevented me from doing the things I loved and wanted -- the big things, like writing fiction, and the little things, like exploring country roads. And the things I substituted for what I really needed were both insufficient and expensive.

And it's not a question of leisure versus work. I am working now -- working damned hard, in fact -- but under conditions that are much more conducive to my being able to function day to day. I'm cooking and eating a variety of foods, I'm able to give more energy and love to my partners, I'm doing better with life maintenance chores, and I am even unpacking boxes and sorting possessions. Someday I may no longer be living in an apartment that looks like I moved in an hour ago.

Clearly this is something I need to consider when I look for the next job. It's almost a tautology -- when you're living the right life, you'll get the things you need, because by definition the right life is the one that feeds and nurtures you. But why is it so damned hard to remember that?

By "getting the things you need" I don't mean that you'll become a lottery winner or be protected from all loss and grief. I am not one of those prosperity Christians who thinks that prayer exists to beef up your bank account. Mine will undoubtedly shrink, in fact, and that's OK.

Maybe it's easier to see it the other way around: a job that twists your soul, a marriage that gradually erodes your sense of selfhood, a life where you have to deny who you are and who you love are bound to make you miserable. They will have compensations, of course, otherwise you wouldn't stay long enough for it to become a problem. But they have high costs, and they swallow the energy you could be using for something more productive.

The rewards of the right life (or miseries of the wrong kind) are not in the nature of arbitrary reinforcement from a Skinnerian deity with a sadistic sense of humor. They're much closer to the laws of physics. Defy gravity at your peril, and don't blame the mirror when the angle of incidence equals the angle of reflection.

I was talking about this with gramina when I was struck with a another aspect of the issue. The work to build the right life may hurt like hell. It may even seem worse than the familiar wretchedness of the wrong one. But it pays off -- and that positive payoff is something I consistently forget to include in my cost-benefit analysis.

There are excellent reasons for that quirk of psychology. But it's useful to remember that it isn't usually true any more. Asking for what I want, trying to get what I need, making changes -- these do involve some frustration and pain, but these days when I do them, I also actually get what I want without having to pay a cost too high to endure. This is what I have to convince my protective back-brain, which doesn't want me to throw away whatever I have now in hopes of a better future. It learned too early, too thoroughly, that asking for change brought things much worse than whatever I was enduring.

I have a huge chunk of work to do in therapy about reconnecting with my body, and I have been seriously considering not doing it. What's the point? It's going to take years of work and a lot of misery, and I'm 48. Why bother? By the time it's done I'll be old and close to death. The alternative to doing it will probably be shortening my life by some unknowable number of years. And I was very close to saying that an earlier death was preferable to fighting this war.

But maybe, if I do it, I'll get rewards I never even thought of. I didn't quit my job to write so that I could find beautiful back roads or eat a better diet. Those were bonuses. I bet there will be bonuses to the bodywork, too -- things I cannot imagine now.

Worth trying.

Another Frequent Seeker Reward: free MP3 of Dirty Town, the new Steve Winwood single. I've been waiting for a good new Steve Winwood album. This looks like I've got my wish. The verses may not be not great songwriting, but the choruses and riffs are catchy, urgent, compelling.

Winwood's voice is deeper, maybe a little hoarser, than his voice when he was the fourteen-year-old lead singer of the Spencer Davis Group. His keyboard line starts like a lonely blues song but breaks into a rock anthem -- and nobody writes better rock anthem than Winwood at his best.

Eric Clapton's godlike guitar sounds more like the passionate, protesting wail of the Cream years than the magisterial resignation of some of his recent work. Which is not to say all of his recent work has been rockless -- have you heard the Cream reunion album? Blew me away. They are still damned good -- better than anybody else -- even if Ginger Baker looks as kippered as Keith Richards.

Definitely worth the download. Amazon has an MP3 downloader, but it only works with Mac OS 10.4 and up, and I'm still running 10.3.9 on the laptop. Nevertheless, I had no trouble downloading the song.

Please Please Please Let It Continue

Sat, 03 May 2008 21:49:39 GMT

They had a winning record in April.

Now, they're 17 and 13 and at the top of the National League East.

These are the Phillies!

Long-Delayed Update

Fri, 02 May 2008 21:48:58 GMT

Currently existing words: 14,253!
Research trivia: Bitterroot daisy is not native east of the Mississippi.
Music: Lots of Indigo Girls, Django Reinhardt
Sustenance: I've been cooking and eating a lot of different things. Breakfast is sometimes toast, sometimes a smoothie with soy milk, frozen fruit, and a bit of frozen yogurt, plus a dash of Torani orgeat syrup. Orgeat, as Regency readers know, is an almond-flavored drink, and the almond flavoring goes well with the frozen berries or cherries
Other writing-related work: Much unpacking and hauling around of boxes in the office, looking for old backups. I haven't yet found the backups, but I did unearth my Office X disk and immediately installed it on the desktop. Now I can open the hundreds of research files I've created in Word over the years.
Serendipitous finds: Certain lares and penates: a horseshoe, a double geode, certain other important small possessions; also a whale of a lot of things I want to get rid of.
Reading for pleasure: a biography of Daphne du Maurier
Exercise: just from housework
Life support work done: More than I can recall, but the oak bookcase is out of the kitchen and being filled with books, the storage shelves are set up in the kitchen and being filled with food for the coming months, and there are stacks of books all over the living room, since I am unpacking and sorting them. Also, I have reserved a rental car in Madison and one in Philadelphia.
Animal assistance: Gabriel is thrilled to have me home. Often while I'm working she alternates between sleeping curled on my desk, her head pressed against my arm, and strolling over the keyboard, purring loudly and demanding admiration and petting. Then she disappears, or goes outside, or just wants to check to see that the outside world still exists outside the front door and the back door.

Have You Published a Book?

Fri, 02 May 2008 15:32:34 GMT

You might want to search scribd.com to see if there's a pirated version up.

If there is, here are the instructions for getting it pulled.

I am all in favor of being a pixel-stained technopeasant wretch. I prefer, however, to do so consensually.

Whoops, It Almost Slid By Me

Fri, 02 May 2008 10:03:06 GMT

In honor of Pterry's sixtieth birthday, which was April 28:

A free Terry Pratchett [1] story, Death and What Comes Next. It's quantum! [2]

(Do poke around the site. There's another free story there, plus quotations and lots of other interesting things.)

[1] Match It for Pratchett was mentioned in his Wikipedia bio. This is cool.

[2] Not that the site posted the story in honor of his birthday. I'm just posting the link in honor, etc. And late, too.

Blankety-Blank

Thu, 01 May 2008 16:58:21 GMT

Questions from hillarygayle.

1. What do you think of the Miley Cyrus pictures?
I found the ones with Dad kind of creepy.

2. When did you last sleep in a bed that isn't your own?
I think I've slept at alanbostick's more recently than at gramina's. Sometime in the past few months. People tend to come to my house, because I have to lug the damned CPAP everywhere.

3. Sunlight or shade and why?
Shade for sure. I'm fair-skinned and burn easily. And I would much rather be cool than hot.

4. What did you wear to the last wedding you attended?
A gorgeous dress from Igigi. Black mesh over brilliant turquoise, so it became a gorgeous Tahoe blue -- totally appropriate, since the wedding was at Lake Tahoe.

5. What's your favorite television theme song?
You got me. I am without broadcast TV. Maybe the MASH theme song?

6. How would you decorate your house if money were no object?
Money or no money, I can't really decorate until I get all these boxes out of the way. But I like original art of all kinds. Some watercolors, some Cezanne paintings, maybe a Tiffany window. More realistically, I have some joedecker photographs, and I'd like more. And walls of books in oak cases -- I have that but could use more cases and more walls. And some woven tapestries and nice pottery. Comfortable old furniture.

7. Who would you most like to go on a week long vacation with?
Well, since I am planning in the next couple of months to spend some time back home with my family, some time at WisCon with 999 other SF fans, and some time in Las Vegas with alanbostick, I'd really like to spend a week away with gramina. Just her, me, some books, and something to eat.

Also, the seven questions survey from jehannamama.

Ask me seven questions. Not just any seven questions though. No, to keep it interesting, use the seven questions as per below - just copy and paste the following, replace the blanks with something you want to know/ask (e.g. 4. Donkeys or sandcastles and why?), anything you want, personal, silly, surreal or deep, comment away and I'll answer honestly as I can. Then post this in your own LJ and see what kind of things people want to ask you!
1. What do you think of _____________ ?

2. When did you last ____________?

3. __________ or ___________ and why?

4. What did you ______________?

5. What's your favorite ______________?

6. How would you ______________?

7. Who would you most like to ________ ?

Fatherhood in the News

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 16:28:51 GMT

US Version: Pimp out your 18-year-old! Put her in movies and in a whorehouse! Summer, a pretty 18-year-old who is an "up and coming" adult film actress about to start working at the infamous Moonlight Bunny Ranch. Summer's father is also her manager, and he not only talked her into working at the brothel, but gives her Brazilian bikini waxes. And tells her in the video that "you have to be every man's sex fantasy," and that (while she's crying, on her way to the brothel, "Look cheerful. This is what was agreed on."

The site is NSFW, because it's a sex-positive site. Even the most liberal, though, are appalled. There are limits.

Austrian Version: Drug your daughter and imprison her in your basement, where you can continue raping her and making her bear your babies. Seven of them, six of whom survived. The Austrian government is worried about the country's image. The father's lawyer admits that incest has been proved -- the DNA tests show that -- but that rape hasn't been.

This one made me throw up.

I bet you can guess what a fun time I had in therapy yesterday. Grieving for Hans Reiser's poor abused kids (yes, I think showing violent movies to a 4-year-old is abuse -- and so is killing your children's mother, generally speaking). And these things. And my own scarred life.

Bears and Blank Spaces

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 12:14:30 GMT

The writing is hitting some deep and painful places. No, the novel is not autobiographical, but it's at least half a tragedy, and the other half is not exactly comedy, either.

So as light relief I bring you baby bears from phinnia. These are adorable beyond words. I'm thinking of macroing some of them. I'm also thinking of kidnapping one or two so I have some fuzzy cuddly little bear babies to hold.

Also, the seven questions survey from jehannamama.

Ask me seven questions. Not just any seven questions though. No, to keep it interesting, use the seven questions as per below - just copy and paste the following, replace the blanks with something you want to know/ask (e.g. 4. Donkeys or sandcastles and why?), anything you want, personal, silly, surreal or deep, comment away and I'll answer honestly as I can. Then post this in your own LJ and see what kind of things people want to ask you!

1. What do you think of _____________ ?

2. When did you last ____________?

3. __________ or ___________ and why?

4. What did you ______________?

5. What's your favorite ______________?

6. How would you ______________?

7. Who would you most like to ________ ?

While the Jury Is Out

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 17:18:14 GMT

The Hans Reiser murder trial has almost all the classic elements of a great criminal proceeding: a prominent defendant, the mysterious vanishing of a lovely young woman, a pair of orphans, bizarre friends and relatives, kinky sex, hints of espionage and international crime, a bitter divorce, charges of embezzlement, and an unusual mental health defense.

All that's missing is any trace of Nina Reiser, 31, beyond a few bloodstains.

But the Reiser trial is also peculiarly Silicon Valley, given its mix of money, high tech, Craigslist, BDSM, playful transvestism, Burning Man, the Berkeley Bowl, and Asperger's Syndrome. The trial is getting gavel-to-gavel coverage, not just in such local papers as the Chronicle, but also in Wired. Their case timeline is helpful in trying to follow the story.

A former Alameda County public defender, Jay Gaskill, is also blogging it, and his blog is absolutely invaluable for the clarity and special knowledge he exhibits.

On September 3, 2005, Nina Reiser took her kids grocery shopping at the Berkeley Bowl. Then she dropped the kids with her estranged husband, who was living at his mother's house at the time. (His mother, a 64-year-old artist, was away at Burning Man.) They were in the midst of a genuinely nasty divorce.

Nina Reiser hasn't been seen since. That night she missed a date with her boyfriend, whom she had met on Craigslist; they had been thinking of moving in together, or even getting married.

On September 5, Hans Reiser went to pick up his kids at school, although it wasn't his day to do so, hours before he supposedly became aware that Nina was missing. Oh, and his small car disappeared for weeks; when it reappeared, the passenger seat was missing and the floor was awash in water. He had hosed it out -- just as he had hosed down his mother's driveway just after the disappearance. He claims he was living in the car, although his mother had to rent another one for him to drive.

September 9 her minivan was found a few miles away, still full of groceries. Billboards appeared in Oakland, then all over the East Bay, including my neighborhood.

Within weeks Hans Reiser was fighting for custody of his children. The Oakland police were watching him -- hell, I'd watch anybody whose spouse had disappeared and who had reacted by living full-time in a sports car, especially if they were taking professional-level evasion measures against surveillance. (The 1988 Honda CRX Si was a two-seat hatchback sports car. Not exactly like moving into a Land Rover.)

His father offered a reason for the anti-surveillance measures: he testified that, a week after Nina disappeared, he told his son to be careful of the Russian mafia and the "techno-geek S&M crowd."

On October 10, 2006, Hans Reiser was arrested for murder. He claims Nina Reiser framed him for her murder: that she simply went home to Russia (where their children are now living with their mother's family), leaving him high and dry. Along with $4500 in her bank account, $2000 in her apartment, and a mini-van full of groceries she never unloaded. Not to mention that Nina had just accepted a job offer to help Russian immigrants with their health concerns.

Hans Reiser, a prominent Linux guru, developed the ReiserFS filesystem. He has explained all his strange behavior after his wife's disappearance as the result of Asperger's Syndrome. In Silicon Valley, Aspies rule. Many of the stars of the high-tech industry are far from neurotypical.

(Speaking as a member of the techno-geek S&M crowd, I suspect this area may be one of the few where Hans Reiser could get a fair trial. His repeated courtroom outbursts, rambling monotone delivery, and paranoid behavior after the disappearance don't look good, but people here do understand that computer geeks are often a little strange in their behavior. Very few of them commit murder.)

Nina Reiser, trained as an OB/GYN in her native Russia, is often referred to as a mail-order bride. She did apparently have her name in a Russian dating catalog. However, according to one source, she was the translator accompanying another Russian woman to an arranged date with Hans Reiser.

They married in 1999; she was five months pregnant. Even in Silicon Valley, the Reisers' wedding was unconventional. It featured a belly dancer and a Minotaur leading the pair through a stone labyrinth -- not exactly auspicious symbolism, since the Minotaur fed on human sacrifices.

The maid of honor was a male truck driver in drag: Sean Sturgeon, founder of the Lake Merritt Socrates Cafe, and Hans Reiser's close friend and financial adviser. Later, Sturgeon became Nina's lover. Nina broke up with him because she didn't enjoy BDSM.

In addition to his sidelines in amateur philosophy, truck driving, wedding attendance, BDSM, adultery, and financial advice, Sean Sturgeon claims to be a serial killer with 8 or 9 notches on his belt, although he says he didn't kill Nina. Nobody seems to have arrested him.

The marriage produced two children, whose rearing and education were the focus of enormous conflict between the Reisers. The emails Nina sent seem reasonable; they were produced in court.

Reiser continued traveling to Russia on business, being gone months at a time. When he was home, he wanted to teach his children -- especially his 5-year-old son -- how to survive. His idea was to play violent videogames like Battlefield Vietnam with young Rory. In that game, napalm explosions envelop villages in fire, bodies are hurled through the air, and, when shot, characters collapse to the ground and choke on their own blood, realistic sound effects included.

Rory started drawing violent pictures that worried his mother and teacher. According to the teacher, Rory had become hostile; he said to her, "I don't need to listen to you, you’re a woman. Women shouldn't have rights in this country." And Nina became afraid that her son was getting PTSD from the violent films and videogames.

During the vicious divorce and the murder trial, the prosecution characterized Nina Reiser as a loving mother who would never abandon her children. The defense has accused her of being a terrible mother, of having connections with the Russian Mafia and the KGB, of making up diseases for her son to get attention for herself, and of embezzling funds from her husband's company. How much this is the usual blame-the-victim tactic and how much is true, God knows.

Could Hans Reiser be violent? At one point he pushed Nina violently enough that she got a restraining order. And an experienced Oakland cop, now retired, advised her to get a gun.

The money is an issue: Hans Reiser claims Nina was embezzling, but he also owes or owed her large sums in child support. The company Namesys was in some financial trouble, and Hans had publicly complained that Nina and the kids were a financial burden.

The high-tech angle continues into other evidence. Reiser pulled a couple of hard drives from his computer and entrusted them to his lawyer. Nothing of interest was found on them when the police tech expert examined them.

Much more to the point, when the minivan was located, Nina's cell phone was inside with its battery removed -- a way to make sure that it couldn't be tracked. Hans Reiser's cell phone was either turned off or had its battery removed for several days around the time of the murder.

The jury has been out for two days. At this point, the sketch artists are sketching each other.

This case is heartbreaking, because I do think Hans killed Nina, but I believe he did it in defense of his children -- or rather, in defense of the child he had once been.

Hans Reiser was a boy genius who dropped out of school after eighth grade because, as he said in an interview before the disappearance, I . . . couldn't handle junior high school and the insistence on sitting in neat rows. He was admitted to the University of California at Berkeley when he was just 15.

Like a lot of geeks, Reiser had a miserable time being teased and bullied in school. Reiser said, "All of my life people have been doing things like... in grade school, kids would pick on me, they would chase me. And I had a talk with my parents, it takes two to tango and you should use words like this, you should run away." As an adult, he became a Judo black belt.

Is it any wonder that he insisted that his boy watch bloody movies and play violent videogames? He wanted to prepare his son for life -- to protect him from bullies.

Hans Reiser's emails are full of concern for the children, but not in an day-to-day fashion of providing shoes or meals; he was worrying about their future. He scorned the local Montessori school, saying Ordinary people cannot educate genius children. It does not work. And he was obsessed with getting them into the highest status, wealthiest social circles.

When his attorney brought up the children, who are now in the custody of their grandmother in Russia,
Reiser broke down and began weeping, saying his children were "really important to me" and deploring that Nina had accused him of causing his son to have traumatic stress disorder because of violent computer games.

Nina seems to have been a warm, loving mother; a charming and beautiful woman; a person of intelligence and heart. Despite the smear campaign, she comes across as a decent human being. But to the eye of someone like Hans, her desire to protect her children from early exposure to violence must have seemed like the ultimate cruelty. In his mind, she was sentencing them to the kind of misery he had gone through. Only his toughening-up technique could help them.

I think he killed her in a sudden rage, strapped her to the car seat, and dumped it somewhere in the mountains or even in a reservoir. I think the sour-milk smell he was obsessed with washing out of his car was really the smell of her dead body. Sour milk stinks, yes, but it's also the ultimate symbol of bad mothering, and that in Hans's eyes was Nina's crime. Probably there was a smell only he could detect -- the stench of his own guilt.

ETA Convicted of first-degree murder. "I've always been a good father to my children," Reiser said as he was being led out.

Eviction Wars

Sun, 27 Apr 2008 05:53:10 GMT

In Pacific Heights a charming young couple buys a house in San Francisco and rents part of it to the tenant from hell. The opposite story seems to be happening South of Market, where a charming young couple bought an occupied building and tried to evict all the tenants. One, a disabled man, got a year's extension -- rental laws in SF generally favor the tenant. And according to the San Francisco prosecutor's office, the landlords did everything they could to get rid of the guy.

Now, over the years I've had some bad landlords -- ones who refused to do essential repairs, sexually harassed me, stole my possessions, and repeatedly walked in on me with no notice -- not even a knock. One sold the house from under me and gave me ten days' notice to move. On the day I moved in to a different place, I called to report that the ceiling was pouring water, which was three inches deep on the floor. She replied, "What do you expect me to do about it?"

None of my stories come close to the prosecution case against this couple. In addition to using the usual tactics (noise, utilities shutoffs, nasty notes), they are accused of falsely reporting to police that a homeless man was living in the building; the cops came in with guns drawn, but the landlady admitted she knew the tenant. They allegedly had a contractor cut a large hole in his floor and then remove walls from underneath his apartment, making it uninhabitable. The newspaper reported that some of these allegations are upheld by independent witnesses.

The landlords got a restraining order after they received threatening emails in the tenant's name. The prosecution alleges that the landlords forged the emails and even sent nasty emails to his lawyers in his name.

Now, either they are a monstrous pair, or the tenant is amazingly clever at framing them to look like monsters. ETA Or maybe this is how it happened.

I'll be watching for the results of this trial.