I waaaaaanna see my hipbones too! OK, no I don't, but I would really prefer not to have them covered by so much fat that I can't zip up my pants. A little of it is from adding weights back into my training after completing my marathon a while back, but the pants test says that's not most of it. I doubt I have more than 10-15 lbs to lose, but I'd rather do it now than when it becomes 20-30 lb -and even 10 lbs of fat can look like a lot when you're short. I'm having a really hard time identifying the reason for my weight gain over the past couple of years; it's very common for expats here, but I don't actually eat all that differently from before, and I get as much exercise. I also don't feel like I'm eating more.

So clearly I'm deluding myself somewhere.

The most obvious possibility is that I do tend to snack all day at work, out of habit and boredom (I keep nuts and pretzels at my desk). I'm sure a lot of you have done this before; can you offer suggestions on ways to change this habit? "Just don't do it" is obvious, but half the time I don't realize I am. Or I just want the taste of something. It doesn't help that works been a bit slow lately, pending yet another reorganization. I've never been on a diet in my life and I'm hoping I can just sort of eat a bit more sensibly now instead of doing anything much more structured.

(Otherwise, I generally eat a granola bar and fruit or yogurt for breakfast, PB&J for lunch, and varied but not huge dinners.)


ETA: Sorry, I meant to post this to the gymrats comm (Hence the 'hipbone' comment, a reference to something that happened there. I won't delete this here, though, since it's already got comments - and thanks for those, they're good advice.

Check out today's Google logo - Nikola Tesla's birthday, and one of the coolest Googlogos I've seen.

Things I read: a couple of them the other day, that I thought were important. mincot, speaking of the hoopla surrounding Michael Jackson’s funeral and memorial, said, ” It’s like watching the medieval popular veneration of a saint.”

I’m reading Melissa Anelli’s history of Harry Potter as phenomenon, and she mentions that after J.K. Rowling said, in response to an audience question, that she’d always thought of Dumbledore as day, one man came out that very night, right there in Carnegie Hall.

The message I take from these two things together, is tht humans are desperate to find someone to identify with and look up to. (Even if you’re a fictional character, which I suspect is as true of the public persona Jackson’s fans idolize as it is of Albus Dumbledore.) So be brave and speak your truth because you don’t know when that might be you. And you might really change someone’s life.

Things I saw: one yesterday, on my commute home, that I thought was awful. A woman was riding a scooter with two kinds, twin boys maybe 6 or younger, one in front of her and one behind. That’s not the horrible thing. Seeing kids on scooters isn’t that rare here, and while it may not be ideal, people transport their family as they can and I’m not going to presume to criticize. (Also, crazy as the driving seems here, I actually see *fewer* accidents here than on American roads.) The part I thought was horrible was that the woman was wearing a helmet and the kids weren’t. Nice priorities, lady.

Things I want to do: go home.

Mirrored from Dichroic Reflections.

I’m always amused when my subconscious picks the tunes… I just realized why I’ve been humming “I’m Gettin’ a Bit Tonight” this afternoon!

Mirrored from Dichroic Reflections.

Yay, Ted’s home in just a few hours!

I’m never sure if I love this situation or hate it: when your manager is a hardass about something you’ve already been a hardass about. On the one hand, at least you know you’re going in the right direction and now you have backing. On the other, usually at that point you’ve already been arguing and cutting waste in all the ways you can think of, and now you have to do more with no idea where to go. I guess that’s what they have managers for, to be second level hardasses.

In this latest iteration of that problem, it’s about Toastmasters rather than actual work so I’m not breaching any confidentiality if I describe the situation.

We have just started a new Toastmasters chapter – at least at the moment all members are employees and we meet after work in the building. I got pushed into being VP Education, which means I have to set up the schedule for the meetings – each meeting has prepared speeches, impromptu speeches, and speech evaluations. We have ’sponsors’, experienced Toastmasters from other clubs, to help us get started and to serve as evaluators until we’re ready to do that for ourselves. We had our first meeting last week and I thought it went really well. It was even fun.

Now I’m working on the agenda for the next meeting, two weeks from last Tuesday. All of our paperwork has now gone through, so at this meeting we’ll have our charter ceremony. One of the sponsors sent me an agenda for this – two hours of ceremonial stuff (installation of officers, appreciation awards to sponsors, VIP speeches), and no time left for any actual club members to speak!

I have problems with that on a lot of levels, the most fundamental being I don’t want to sit through two hours of that! Also, the goal is for each member to become a Competent Communicator – they like you to do that within a year. You have to give 10 prepared speeches to qualify. But it’s already not physically possible for us: two meetings per month with 2-4 speeches per and an entire clubful of new members means no way everyone can speak 10 times. Three or four, max. I do not want to further cut into that with empty ceremony!

So I made sure all my fellow officers agreed, cut the ceremony back to one hour, added in two speakers and their evaluators, and sent the revised schedule back to the sponsor. He said “No, please stick to the original agenda, this is important.” So I explained our reasoning. He used words like “great honor” and “a glorious moment” and told me I worried too much (I don’t think he meant to sound that patronizing, but he’s also working in a second language) but allowed as how it was highly unusual but yeah, it might be nice to include a couple of “high quality” speakers from our group.

Then I asked our general manager if he’d say a few words as part of the VIP speeches, and he pretty much blew the same gasket I’d blown when I saw the original ceremony. I told him we’d already been working on that and he said, “Great. You can use me as the bad guy – tell them I insist on not more than a half hour ceremony. This is set up for our people to learn, so lets get them speaking.”

That wasn’t easy, since I’d already cut all the fat I thought I could. Finally I combined a few things, and cut out the officer installation. I’m pretty impervious to the honor and glory part, the other officers seem to be in agreement, and since we all work for the same company everyone knows us anyway. But I did get in one more prepared speaking and a session of impromptu speeches! All while juggling a couple work issues that came up at the same time – I don’t feel bad doing this at work, given the circumstances and the way I got prodded into it. After all, I’m not trying to improve my English – though I certainly can improve my speaking skills, especially in speaking to non-native speakers of English. (Speaking to someone who doesn’t know your language very well is really a tricky skill.) But I can’t let anything else lapse, either.

Mirrored from Dichroic Reflections.

Yay! I finally feel better today. No idea what that was all about, but I started feeling better late yesterday afternoon and was able to eat a decent dinner (one chicken filet and a baked potato0, which helped. The leftover wine sauce (butter, flour, white wine, lemon juice, herbs) did not reheat well, but even if it was semisolid it still tasted good on the potato. Also, beer – for some strange reason if my gut is just a little confused, beer sometimes helps.

I did do my erg workout this morning, maybe not quite at the intensity I should but nearly. (warmup, 3×1500m pieces, 5 minutes rest between.)

And I have a new poem, which will be done sometime after I find a balance between non-vague images and simplicity. It’s been a few weeks since I’d written much, so that feels good. (Its secret title in my head is “IBS, the Moon and Me”, and it’s about deluding myself into feeling better, which is a whole post I want to write here sometime. The short version is, deliberate self-delusion can be very useful when stress is part of what’s making you feel bad.)

Also among today’s good things: someone just came over and asked for help in using a Six Sigma tool in making a work decision, which is delighting my little Black Belt heart. It’s a minor nontechnical decision but I think the Cause and Effect Matrix not only helped him decide but will also help explain the decision to management.

The request part:
I’ve promised to make my mom a cardigan for her birthday – I haven’t promised to finish it for her birthday, but since that’s early December, it would be good timing for sweater season. She uses the internet some and I’ve shown her a few pattern sites (Knitty, Twist Collective) asked asked her to try to avoid anything horrendously complicated (”extraspicy”, in Knitty terms). But I think since she doesn’t know much about knitting and is likely to be bowled over by all the possibilities, it will be better if I just present a few specific options and tell her what things I can easily customize. She says her office is warm and doesn’t want anything too heavy, so cotton or silk or bamboo or just lighter-weight wool are possibilities (I’m not eager to do a whole sweater in much less than a 22sts / 10 cm gauge, though.)

I think she’d love Kate Gilbert’s Sunrise Circle jacket, but that looks like it needs to be in a heavy gauge and worn closed for best effect. (I might present it anyway, since I really do think she’d liked it.) Other possibilities include Gilbert’s Pearl Buck jacket, Sonnet from Knitty, Cosmicpluto’s basic top-down raglan (link is to my version in Manos del Uruguay wool – Mom likes varigated yarn and I’m thinking something like Manos silk blend might give a similar effect and not be too heavy). Suggestions are welcome: parameters are that it should be fun to knit (mindless is OK), not insanely complicated, suitable for her to wear to the office and not too warm. Also, Mom really likes unique styles; it took us years to convince her “different” and “good” were not synonymous. Suggestions that don’t involve specific patterns are welcome too. (Anything like “I find 3/4 length sleeves difficult to wear” or “Silk is great for being a little warm but not too much”) or “I think variegated yarn looks better in sweaters when the color segments are more than 10.32″ but less than 36.57 cm” or whatever.)

Mirrored from Dichroic Reflections.

I’ve been reading a bunch of posts lately on resolutions to avoid ableist language (e.g deaf, dumb, retarded, lame, schizo when used as insults.) I sympathize with the idea, but am still torn on the use of “blind” (and “deaf”, to a lesser extent). We use so very much visual language – do you see what I mean? is that a black and white choice? we’re going through dark times now. It seems to me the use of “blind” to describe someone who cannot “see” in the metaphorical sense is too logical an extension of that to be easily cast aside, yet that’s not enough of a defense if it really is insulting.

I think “Whaddya, blind? What’s wrong with you? He was out by a mile!” is pretty clearly disparaging, and I will try not to use the word in that way. But “none so blind as those who will not see”, for example, strikes me as more problematic. As a metaphor, it makes a lot of sense and doesn’t seem to me to imply that someone who is visually impaired is lesser in any other sense. On the other hand, if I had lost my vision, I bet I’d be thinking “Bullshit – I got yer blindness right here and don’t TELL me that someone who chooses to ignore one factor can see any less.” Maybe it’s worth avoiding that phrase purely for the annoyance value. The one that gives me most trouble is the simple declarative, as in “Darcy was blind to Elizabeth’s beauty, until he came to know her, ” or “He was deaf to her requests.” (In those cases, the second one is a little more easy to see as problematic, since it implies will not rather than cannot.)

I dunno. Maybe I’ll start with avoiding “lame”, “crazy”, and clearly disparaging uses of “blind”, and see if things become clearer to me. (And there’s that visual language again.)

Mirrored from Dichroic Reflections.

Apismellifera, you there?

Near the end of August, I will be staying for two nights in a hotel in downtown Philadelphia (north of Rittenhouse Square). In other words, within walking distance of Loop. I actually *don’t* really need any yarn at the moment. Is Loop really so cool that I should visit it anyway just to pet the yarn and see if anything jumps on me?

Though on second thought, there is the sweater I promised Mom for her birthday….

Mirrored from Dichroic Reflections.

On our upcoming trip to the US, we will be staying in 5 hotels in a little over a week (shudders). It would be six but we’re staying at one place two different times:

• Fly into DC, stay near the airport
• drive to NC to look at some waterfront property, 2 nights in a Mooresville hotel
• back to DC to pick up my uncle, one night in the beautiful Swann House
• two nights in downtown Philadelphia (free – it’s the same chain we stay at in the Netherlands and as you might expect we have a lot of frequent traveler points with them!)
• two nights in Allentown PA where the wedding will be
• back to DC, drop uncle off, stay again at the airport hotel, then fly home.

Yikes. (We could of course save money by staying with friends and relatives in several of those places, but I think this way will be a little easier on us.)

Mirrored from Dichroic Reflections.

To those of you who have access to product labels and/or commercials that are not in Chinese: Pert is a conditioning shampoo, isn’t it? [Pause. Here Dichroic remembers how much of the internet is in fact *not* in Chinese and checks for herself. It is in fact shampoo + conditioner.]

Not having any of that fancy wool wash stuff I usually use a few drops of shampoo in water to wash my finished knitting. I generally use Ted’s shampoo rather than mine, on the theory that it’s less likely to have additives, and I generally use the second bathroom sink rather than the master bath because it’s both closer to the living room where I knit and a bit less likely to contain any toothpaste residue. (I suppose minty fresh knitting might have its charms….) So I use the shampoo that Ted has for some reason left in the second bath. Since well-conditioned knitwear is not actually my goal, maybe I shouldn’t do that. On the other hand I suppose now these socks will be extra soft. On to my sweater now – it’s sleeveless and in a silk/bamboo yarn. perfect for wearing to work in summer so I hope to finish it quickly.

Yesterday I finished all but the toe-graft (did that this morning) and then celebrated the holiday by doing a section of a red-white-and-blue pillow I hadn’t worked on for a while. Then I went to bed. Then I fell asleep. Then my mother called. Then I tried to fall asleep again but heard some loud noises. Away to the window I flew like a flash, tore open the shutters and threw up the sash… when what to my wondering eyes should appear but some fireworks, set in the park by the river and going up high enough for me to see them over the buildings in the way. Fireworks are common here but they tend to be concentrated around Chinese New Years (they go on for weeks, afterward, though). Some American expats or local Americaphiles must have set them off, or maybe just some kids who like fireworks. Anyway, I got to see some for July 4, so yay!

Also, when talking about yesterday’s expedition, I neglected to mention that of course that morning I had done 15 km on the erg. So if it seems like I got tired out fast, that may also be a factor!

Mirrored from Dichroic Reflections.

I think I overdid it a bit today: walk to train station in a Taipei July, ride in a crowd about like a Philadelphia weekday rush-hour (this is the first day this line is open), stop for watermelon juice (why oh why do they not serve that in the US? It’s just watermelon in a blender and it’s yummy), visit a three-floor bookstore, walk several more blocks in the heat to the other good bookstore, stop for some caprese (tomato, mozzerella, olive oil, basil) which ivolved a fair bit of waiting time and noise and crowds and generall mall-ness, visit the other bookstore, cab home. I could feel my brain growing progressively fuzzier (and my gut wasn’t thrilled with me, either). However, now I have five new books and my apartment is air-conditioned and blissfully quiet, so all has ended well. And I may even finish a sock tonight.

Mirrored from Dichroic Reflections.

I do love work-at-home days, even when they involve a dentist visit. Also, feeling a bit smug because (it was a two-doctor day) the eye doctor says my right eye is down to 20/18. The left is always a bit weaker, but when ‘weaker’ is 20/20 I’l take it. On the down side they’ve felt a bit dry lately, but he gave me what he called “stickier” eyedrops that should help. Hopefully it’s temporary. Also, I don’t think my eyes are focusing well together , but I know it took a while for them to learn when I first got contact lenses so I’m not worried. (When I say the left eye is “weaker”, I mean not only in visual acuity; my eyes have never focused together well and when I was little the left one tended to turn in and I had to wear an eye patch for a year when I was about three. Beige plastic clipped to my glasses, not a cool pirate style. I can still cross one eye, which I think is not normal.)

Bad news and good news on the Kindle front – yes, I’ve been buying from Amazon again since they did fix the #Amazonfail problem promptly, though the lack of apology still leaves me a little skeptic. Anyway, the third Erec Rex book is out now but not yet available for Kindle. On the plus side, when looking up Andre Norton books for Shweta’s list of YA fantasy books about characters of color, I learned that all of her Magic Books are available on Kindle. I promptly bought two favorites and one I hadn’t read yet.

And neatly tying everything together, in Octagon Magic I came across a quote pertaining to a Kindle situation. I mentioned on a discussion group lately that someone had asked to borrow my Kindle for a couple of days. That was a little painful for me because I was in the middle of a (900+ page) book, but it’s not like I don’t have other reading material around, or like I mind having multiple books going. Anyway, someone on the list responded earnestly that I shouldn’t loan it, and if I did I should make sure it was insured, and anyway taking care of it was too heavy and risky a burden to put on a borrower. I was a bit shocked because I hadn’t even considered not lending it; the person requesting has been exceedingly nice to me. For instance she and her husband have invited me to dinner several times when they knew Ted was away and I was alone. (Her husband works with us.) Even more important, she’s another reader expat, also a frequent traveler, so the circumstances that have made the Kindle such a blessing to me apply equally to her. Her husband told me they brought 15 kg of books back from the Netherlands on their trip a few weeks ago. In Octagon Magic there is the line, “Nothing, child, is too precious to give or lend to one who has need of it.” I’m more cynical than that – living by that motto you could end up giving your rent money to a junkie – but it certainly applies in this case. And there *are* trustworthy people, and this is one of them or rather two. (In the event, she returned it via her husband the next day – I’d expected her to keep it for a couple of days.)

Despite the Norton purchases, tomorrow I will go treat myself to a visit to one or both of the good bookstores – they’re only a few blocks apart. I’m debating whether I dare to take the MRT (train) on its first day open in my neighborhood. I’m sure it will work fine, I’m just worried about huge crowds. It will also depend on whether it’s too hot for me, since the bookstores are a good walk from the train.

And finally, I can tell the partner in life and crime has been away too long when I start getting weepy over the daughter I don’t have because of an ABBA song. (Er, getting weepy because of a song. No ABBA song has anything to do with our decision not to reproduce.)

Mirrored from Dichroic Reflections.

Another thing I keep forgetting to write: Cut-My-Own-Throat Dibbler would be entirely at home at any public event here. Sausage onna stick! Fruit onna stick! Anonymous dried things onna stick! Corndogs onna stick! And most of all, Squid onna stick!

Five words from Alma, below. You know the drill – if you want words of your own, holler “Words!” in comments.

( Travel )

( Space )

( Musicals )

( Immigrants )

( Faith )

Mirrored from Dichroic Reflections.

I’ve been meaning to write that I spent much of last weekend indulging in an orgy of reality TV – I bought a season each of What Not to Wear and How to Look Good Naked. The latter has me avmbivalent; on the one hand I’m thinking that Carson, snarky as he can be, is a genuinely nice guy and concerned for the women he’s helping. And in one way it feels like progress that he can choose to prance around (what? I’m not sterotyping. Carson Kressley prances) and make comments about going off to look at hot guys in a mainstream TV show; on the other hand it feels like maybe gay guys still need to prance in order to appear nonthreatening, and how sad is it that we still have so much baggage between the sexes that a man has to be nearly a caricature before a vulnerable woman can feel safe around him. Plus, of course, there’s the obvious manipulation: clearly the women expect him and have previously arranged to take time off, and it seems unlikely that every woman is surprised by the “nude” (actually well-covered with a flatteringly draped piece of cloth) photo session. I suppose it’s possible, if what I’m watching is the first season and if they taped most episodes before the show aired – certainly in What Not to Wear there’s a more convincing mix of people who know how the show goes and people who don’t.

Finally, it seems unlikely that when they take a woman who hates her body mostly because it’s showing natural signs of age and common amounts of weight gain, and they show her in bra and panties on a billboard, every single person who walks by thinks she’s beautiful and sexy. I certainly don’t find some of them beautiful in that getup (I’m not thrilled about my own signs of aging and recent weight gain either). Granted they all look gorgeous in the nude photo session, but with professionally-done hair and makeup and artfully draped coverage, who wouldn’t? I appreciate the idea of the show and the whole concept of teaching a woman she can be beautiful, I think the new haircut and lessons on flattering clothing may even be helpful in the long-term, and I like the idea that beauty isn’t limited to size 0 and age 21. But the idea that we are all beautiful in all circumstances sounds to me too much like the idea that we should all have high self-esteem because we’re all above average. I’ve seen beautiful women of all ages (Hepburn in her 80s springs to mind) and in a wide range of sizes (Queen Latifah has beautiful face, skin, and shape) and almost every women has things to be proud of in both appearance and interior. But not every woman is beautiful, and that’s fine.

I still enjoy the show, though.
(Clarification: Carson Kressley is a large reason for the success of two well-known TV shows, a dedicated gay activist and apparently a world-level equestrian. I don’t think he’s a caricature, just his persona on the show.)

---

We had our first Toastmasters meeting here last night. I was more or less dragged kicking and screaming into it – the raison d’etre for this chapter is to improve people’s English so they wanted a native English speaker. I’m happy to help, just not thrilled about spending my whole evening on it (I got home last night just about in time to read email, poke around online a little, brush my teeth and go to bed).</p>

But it was more fun than I expected: our ’sponsors’, the experienced Toastmaster guys, did tend to drivel on a bit, but I thought our own people’s speeches were very good. Since I got pressured into being VP Education, I’m responsible for lining people up to speak and to do various other jobs. I felt bad a little, because the first speaker was so nervous he was visibly shaking, but he held it together and did well. The second speaker was stellar – apparently her past experience includes being a “demo lady” at computer shows. I think the nearest US equivalent would be the women who stand on platforms with the cars at car-shows. So she’s very used to speaking in front of an audience, though in the past she was repeating someone else’s words rather than her own.

I took the “Language Evaluator” role, and expect to be taking it at most meetings for a while. So I get to pick on people’s grammar, pronunciation and word choice. it’s rather harder to do that than to correct written English as I’m more used to doing, but I’m sure I’ll get better at it. It would have helped if the sponsors had told me to keep it general and not mention names *before* I started speaking. Oops. Fortunately I’d only mentioned a few people who are very experienced (in one case, has near-native fluency) before they told me that part. Most of the speakers are pretty fluent. I identified five common mistakes: not pronouncing plosives (generally ‘t’, often ‘d’, sometimes ‘k’) at the end of a word or syllable; ‘d’ for ‘th’ in some contexts; omitting word endings especially for adverbs or gerunds; mixing up ‘he’ and ’she’; confusing ‘l’ and ‘r’. Those last two are extremely common in Chinese speakers learning English, but I only heard them a couple of times last night – and when I did, they were from our guests the Toastmaster sponsors, not my colleagues.

It’s kind of an odd experience when you stand up to correct people and get an ovation that includes whoops and hollering. I guess it was because I was the only one of us in an evaluator role. I’ve gotten a couple nice emails today, too.

Mirrored from Dichroic Reflections.

Other than two trips to pick up the dress in previous photo (on Saturday we decided to take it in a little more under the bust, so I went back to get it Sunday), I spent a lot of the weekend knitting. I finished the sock I was working on, grafted the toe and wove in ends (actually, that might have been Thursday – not sure), cast on the second sock, and powered through the leg and heel. Now I’ve just got the gusset and foot to finish. That’s one reason I really prefer toe-up socks – it seems to take so long to get through the gusset decreases when you’re doing them after the heel, somehow.

I also swatched and cast on for a sleeveless Primrose Path sweater – after all that lace and sock knitting it will be nice to get back to fat yarn and needles. This sweater is entirely ribbed, which is a bit slower than knitting stockinette, but I think it will seem relatively quick because of the much bigger gauge and lack of sleeves. I’m doing it in a pale green – it actually feels a little strange to be knitting in the same color as the pattern! Not the same exact yarn – I had a bad experience with Optimum that left me dienchanted with the Southwest Trading Company – but Ella Rae Bamboo Silk, which is very similar.

Also, I’m finding this dress comfortable enough that I’m really tempted to get another one made, same fit but a little different. Definitely shorter. Maybe claret-colored? Damask pattern, or something like that if they have it. Or, since the shop makes traditional cheong-sams also, I suppose I could go wild with a Chinese figured satin – but I think I’d get a lot less wear out of that. I could also vary the design – one possibility would be a waist seam and some gathering in the top, or maybe a flared swingy skirt. Hmmmm…

Mirrored from Dichroic Reflections.

I took the following photo yesterday to show the dress I had made here (I am so emphatically *not* hour-glass-shaped that it’s normally hard for me, even in the US, to find a fit in this style, so this is a very nice change). But it has occurred to me that with my hair at this stage of growing out and my coloring, this is very close to how I usually picture Harriet Vane. I think the dress nearly works for her time (maybe it would have been a smidgen longer?) But what would she have worn over it?

(Note: I am wearing it to work today to verify that I like the fit – I can still take it back and have changes made if I want – same shoes and with the addition of a long blue beaded necklace worn as a belt. No comments at work so far, but I expect some because this is more dressed-up than I usually get.)

Mirrored from Dichroic Reflections.

Photos!

( Read the rest of this entry » )

Mirrored from Dichroic Reflections.

Not-so-bad news: a friend who can read Chinese (and is also a Reader) checked into it: the bookstore I love is not closing. I can’t call it good news, because they are closing another branch (that I’ve never visited) and bookstores closing are never good news. But I’m not bereft. I’m figuring on a jaunt there (and maybe to the second-best bookstore in town, a few blocks away) a week froom Saturday, for an anniversary treat to myself.

Oursin gave me the following five words to write about. Usual memeage rules apply: comment here if you want five words I associate with you.

Expatriate
Rowing
Knitting
Earrings
Marriage

Expatriate: Yup, that’s me. Wish I’d done it years ago, both for realizing how America-centric most Americans’ views are (I bet this is similar in Australia and China and Russia; people in smaller countries have world-awareness forced on them to a much greater extent) and because my relatives would have been younger and in better heath. On the other hand, I think it would have been much harder without the internet, and even by the mid-90s it wasn’t what it is now. To me it’s socialization with other people I can speak to, news, information source and place to order stuff I can’t get here. Of course it was all those things back home too, but I think I depend on it much more here.

Rowing: I’ve told this story before: in 1990, Ted talked me into trying it, saying ÿou can always quit if you don’t like it. And here I am, though I’m still not sure if I like it. That’s OK: I don’t “like” reading either – it’s just part of who I am. I get out on the water a lot less often these days which means I have a close and deep friendship with the erg. I miss the water. I mean, I literally miss water: I like being close to water, on it or beside it, plus there are aspects of rowing you don’t get to practice on the erg. What I like about it, though, is that it’s a lifelong sport. The oldest competitive rower I ever knew was rocing at 91. So anything I don’t do this year I can always do next year. (Plus, next year I get to move up an age category!)

Knitting: I knit because I read and row. When I did something like beadwork or embroidery, I had to stop doing whatever else I was doing, which is why I don’t embroider at all and only bead every couple of weeks these days. I learned to knit because it was something I could do while reading or while in the car on the way to regattas (these days, while on the way to work). So I don’t take on really complex projects, and the Icarus shawl I just finished took me three months, but I get to play with pretty yarn and make things I couldn’t buy. And have sweaters with armholes that fit!

Earrings: What I make most when I do beadwork, because they’re what I wear most. Also, they’re kind of like knitting socks: you can make something quite simple to show off a beautiful yarn / bead or something complex with plainer materials. And my nom online, Dichroic, was inspired by the earrings I was wearing when I began my first blog in March 2001.

Marriage: A week and a day short of 16 years, so far. Marriage, when it’s to the right person*, is a wonderful thing and I believe with all my heart that it should be available to any consenting adults who love each other and want to commit for a lifetime. (*The “right person” is not only one you love and who loves you, but also one who commits to the marriage and is willing to put effort into making it a good one. Also, I do not believe marriage is defined by weddings or that a couple who is not legally wedded is necessarily any less committed to each other – but it’s important for people who want them to be able to have legal weddings to give them all the rights they need to take care of each other, since legal marriage is the system on which we currently base those rights.)

Mirrored from Dichroic Reflections.

What I want right now is a good rowdy bar to hang out in. Or conversely, to go out in a desert night and watch the stars.

However, I suppose I will settle for finishing a sock toe and stir-frying some vegetables. Not quite the same. Maybe if I pop up a batch of popcorn, grab a beer and play some Bonnie Raitt it will help…

Mirrored from Dichroic Reflections.

This post is LJ-only, for obvious reasons. I'm currently mirroring almost all of my journal posts to three sites: my own website mostly for a feeling of ownership and permanence, and because that's where I store all my images; LJ, because the way comments and friendslists work here means I get more readership and can have actual conversations about what I've said, and Dreamwidth, which has the promise of the same features as LJ plus a few extra features, without the fears of unpredictable corporate evilness wrecking the whole thing - but it doesn't have the critical mass of LJ, not enough of a community (at least, not yet). These things all matter enough to me that I pay for hosting and registration of my own domain and I have paid accounts at both LJ and DW.

Clearly it is in my best interest for LJ to stick around and even get better. For that reason, I have just voted for kylecassidy for the LJ Advisory board. I've been reading Kyle for a long time; I began because he lives in the funky old Clark Park area in Philadelphia that I loved when I lived there and because he loves it too, and I kept on because of his awesome photos, his increasingly glamorous life and the unabashed glee he takes in it, and for a glimpse of an alternate life maybe I could have had. I left Philadelphia because I felt so confined (well, and because I got a job in Houston); Kyle lets me see all the possibilities for a big, exciting life in my hometown. More pertinently, he may be cooler than I could ever be but he's also a smart and creative guy, and his blog here is really a part of his business: he strikes me as trustworthy anyway, but he too has a deep vested interest in LJ sticking around and getting better. His candidate statement is here.

If LJ means a lot to you, I think voting for Kyle might be in your best interest, too. But you can go look and make up your own mind.