I think this is my first ever meme! And I'm doing it wrong.
Thanks for all your kind words on my last post. The Dart's mum is in a lot less pain now that she's had radiation therapy, but she has pretty much lost the use of her legs. This is not at all uncommon for people who have secondary cancer in their bones, but it is pretty devastating to see nonetheless. There is such a marked decrease in independence and quality of life.* Her spirits are still high, though! I am generally the one left sobbing on the couch after waving them off at the ferry terminal.
To make up for being a hermit for several months, I'm going to do that listy meme thing that was so popular a while back. I'm doing it all in one post, though. This totally breaks the daily post rule of the meme, but like Ashlee Simpson-Wentz says, I'm a rule breaker. Who can't even post once a month let alone once a day.
day 01 | a song
I am currently listening to the album Honeysuckle Weeks by The Submarines. My friend A played You, Me, & the Bourgeoisie at one of her many housewarming parties last year (she moved a lot), and I though it was ace. So I asked her the name of the band and then kept it tucked up in my brain until this month, like a long-delayed gift to myself.
day 02 | a picture
I have made a gallery of pictures! It's like a What I Did on my Summer Vacation photo essay. Yeah, pretty much exactly as boring as that title implies. Maybe more so, because what I did was drywall. Sorry.
day 03 | a book
I haven't read it yet, but my mum is currently reading Catching Fire, the sequel to Hunger Games, and she has promised to lend it to me before giving it back to her school's librarian. CANNOT WAIT. READ FASTER, MUM.
day 04 | a site
http://www.babynamewizard.com
Baby name trends fascinate me. The Dart's parents gave me a baby name book last Christmas; they enjoy being the mostly-just-kidding-but-sort-of-serious grandchild-hungry set of parents. (Like a lot of things, this has taken on a dark edge recently, since it seems likely that the Dart's mother won't live to see any kids we may have.) The gift totally backfired on them because I LOVE those kinds of books, independently of my desire or lack thereof to procreate, and I spent the next week interrupting everyone's conversations to read passages aloud and chortle madly.
Recent posts on the site discussed the racial underpinnings of name-related urban legends, which dovetails nicely with my anti-racist reading. I haven't seen much that addresses queer/trans issues, but then I haven't read even half the posts there (I just pop by every so often and backread a few weeks). Baby naming is heavily gendered, though, so caveat lector.
day 05 | a youtube clip
I spent a few evenings in August laughing over The Guild.
day 06 | a quote
"Hey, hey, do you know what I need? I need a BeDazzler." -- The Dart
It is many months later, and this is still such a true statement. Please, sparkle us up, life. Don't be afraid to DAZZLE ME.
day 07 | whatever tickles your fancy
Things that tickle my fancy are, unsurprisingly, (a) stories and (b) Delicious.
Men With Brooms, Amy gen
(Why Can't I) Stop Where I Want To Stay by![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
atrata [~10,000 words] - Author's Summary: Set [mostly] pre-movie. Amy spends four summers looking for the curling rocks, and finds something else entirely.
I put this beta off for a long, long time. We were both worried about where this story was headed (as in, we had no idea). In the end, I sent all my beta notes via text message while I was at a wedding reception. If that's not a ringing endorsement, I don't know what is!
Bandom, Brendon/Spencer
Brendon in Real Life by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
scoradh [6,554 words] - Author's Summary: Brendon deals with his feelings for Spencer in a very adult manner. | "I'm in jail," said Brendon. "You have to come bail me out, Spence, please?"
scoradh gave me a beta credit on this, but in reality I was a shitty friend this summer who scrawled down some first-pass thoughts and then disappeared into a pit of despair for a month or two. I refuse to feel guilty for my hermit-like existence, but I am still sorry for it. Sorry, Rachel!
Delicious
While hiding from my email inbox, I updated all my scripts to work after Delicious did a code push in August, and then a couple days ago, prompted by an enquiry byshaggirl on ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
deliciouslymad, I added a brand new script that untruncates long tag & bundle names in the sidebar. Get them all here: http://userscripts.org/users/70246/scripts
*[ETA: Ugh, I have just realized how ableist I sound. God, sorry. Um. In this particular case, because the loss of mobility is directly linked to incurable cancer, it is very frightening to witness and forces us all to confront what we try very hard to avoid thinking about -- that is, of course, her mortality. I would not ordinarily assume a complete loss of independence was implied by anyone's inability to walk or that they had a lowered quality of life. Our house is an accessibility nightmare that hindered her every move, and her lower quality of life is more related to the pain she still feels, overall weakness and fatigue, and her loss of confidence in her ability to do the things she loves, like gardening. Am I just digging myself deeper? If so, I am sorry. Shutting up now.]
To make up for being a hermit for several months, I'm going to do that listy meme thing that was so popular a while back. I'm doing it all in one post, though. This totally breaks the daily post rule of the meme, but like Ashlee Simpson-Wentz says, I'm a rule breaker. Who can't even post once a month let alone once a day.
day 01 | a song
I am currently listening to the album Honeysuckle Weeks by The Submarines. My friend A played You, Me, & the Bourgeoisie at one of her many housewarming parties last year (she moved a lot), and I though it was ace. So I asked her the name of the band and then kept it tucked up in my brain until this month, like a long-delayed gift to myself.
day 02 | a picture
I have made a gallery of pictures! It's like a What I Did on my Summer Vacation photo essay. Yeah, pretty much exactly as boring as that title implies. Maybe more so, because what I did was drywall. Sorry.
day 03 | a book
I haven't read it yet, but my mum is currently reading Catching Fire, the sequel to Hunger Games, and she has promised to lend it to me before giving it back to her school's librarian. CANNOT WAIT. READ FASTER, MUM.
day 04 | a site
http://www.babynamewizard.com
Baby name trends fascinate me. The Dart's parents gave me a baby name book last Christmas; they enjoy being the mostly-just-kidding-but-sort-of-serious grandchild-hungry set of parents. (Like a lot of things, this has taken on a dark edge recently, since it seems likely that the Dart's mother won't live to see any kids we may have.) The gift totally backfired on them because I LOVE those kinds of books, independently of my desire or lack thereof to procreate, and I spent the next week interrupting everyone's conversations to read passages aloud and chortle madly.
Recent posts on the site discussed the racial underpinnings of name-related urban legends, which dovetails nicely with my anti-racist reading. I haven't seen much that addresses queer/trans issues, but then I haven't read even half the posts there (I just pop by every so often and backread a few weeks). Baby naming is heavily gendered, though, so caveat lector.
day 05 | a youtube clip
I spent a few evenings in August laughing over The Guild.
day 06 | a quote
"Hey, hey, do you know what I need? I need a BeDazzler." -- The Dart
It is many months later, and this is still such a true statement. Please, sparkle us up, life. Don't be afraid to DAZZLE ME.
day 07 | whatever tickles your fancy
Things that tickle my fancy are, unsurprisingly, (a) stories and (b) Delicious.
Men With Brooms, Amy gen
(Why Can't I) Stop Where I Want To Stay by
atrata [~10,000 words] - Author's Summary: Set [mostly] pre-movie. Amy spends four summers looking for the curling rocks, and finds something else entirely.I put this beta off for a long, long time. We were both worried about where this story was headed (as in, we had no idea). In the end, I sent all my beta notes via text message while I was at a wedding reception. If that's not a ringing endorsement, I don't know what is!
Bandom, Brendon/Spencer
Brendon in Real Life by
scoradh [6,554 words] - Author's Summary: Brendon deals with his feelings for Spencer in a very adult manner. | "I'm in jail," said Brendon. "You have to come bail me out, Spence, please?"scoradh gave me a beta credit on this, but in reality I was a shitty friend this summer who scrawled down some first-pass thoughts and then disappeared into a pit of despair for a month or two. I refuse to feel guilty for my hermit-like existence, but I am still sorry for it. Sorry, Rachel!Delicious
While hiding from my email inbox, I updated all my scripts to work after Delicious did a code push in August, and then a couple days ago, prompted by an enquiry by
shaggirl on deliciouslymad, I added a brand new script that untruncates long tag & bundle names in the sidebar. Get them all here: http://userscripts.org/users/70246/scripts*[ETA: Ugh, I have just realized how ableist I sound. God, sorry. Um. In this particular case, because the loss of mobility is directly linked to incurable cancer, it is very frightening to witness and forces us all to confront what we try very hard to avoid thinking about -- that is, of course, her mortality. I would not ordinarily assume a complete loss of independence was implied by anyone's inability to walk or that they had a lowered quality of life. Our house is an accessibility nightmare that hindered her every move, and her lower quality of life is more related to the pain she still feels, overall weakness and fatigue, and her loss of confidence in her ability to do the things she loves, like gardening. Am I just digging myself deeper? If so, I am sorry. Shutting up now.]
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(a) you assumed I would read your mind, or
(b) you thought my feelings would be hurt or I would be offended in some way because I started to write it and then failed to finish.
BOTH OPTIONS ARE HILARIOUS TO ME.
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Also, 6 people have installed my script so I naturally assumed one of them had to be you. The OP + the commenter + jane + me (FF 3.0) + me (FF 3.5) = 5.
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first of all, thank you for the musics and links! i actually just spent a minute reading your photo essay about drywalling and it made me laugh and also have flashbacks to when we moved into our house! it's ~90 years old and has all the original plaster, which we patched and sanded and painted because to remove it would be a massive undertaking and so we tell ourselves the original walls have more character! they actually had even more character after we tried to mend cracks and things because we had no idea what we were doing or how time consuming/messy it is to sand walls, so in one room it looks like we buried a freaking python in the wall! in our defense, it was a really big crack :(
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Ahahaha, buried a python! I laugh, but god, I feel your pain. The sanding is awful, isn't it? I sealed myself up in a little plastic-sheeted area to cut off the work zone from the living room and kitchen. I called it The Perimeter and once I was in, I was in for THE DAY -- getting out required a trip through the basement, around the outside of the house, and through the front door. Then I hooked up the sanding tool to the shop-vac. It was a 30 degree bio-hazardous sauna, with the shop vac pumping both heat and, on occasion, MORE DUST into the air. And dust still escaped The Perimeter and got on the couch, I have no idea how. Looked like nuclear fallout in here.
I think you made the right choice about your plaster walls. Keep the character (and your sanity). I read a lot about plaster wall repair and nowhere did it ever say it was easy -- pretty much the opposite. On the kitchen side of my wall, I just left the jagged plaster holes the Dart made and installed the drywall right over them, creating a massively thick super wall. Otherwise I was deathly afraid that trying to remove the wire & plaster in the corners would cause me to lose chunks of the intact walls and ceiling and I would end up drywalling the entire kitchen (for eternity).
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That whole project was so epic, I may never get over it. I was in a restaurant today and felt compelled to comment on the wall composition and texture. Oh god. But now it is done! I stared down the abyss and only begged for a mercy killing once or twice.
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And I don't know if it is time-wise there yet, but, Happy Birthday! Have a lovely day!
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That's awesome! :D