Category: Weekly Updates

Links

Our Gothic Future. In which Madeleine Ashby talks about Crimson Peak and why it’s so relevant today in ways that make me sad I don’t have an English degree.

(As a reminder, I wrote my own analysis of Crimson Peak — in particular the costume design, and how it conveys a sense of the Sharpes being stuck in the past).

Nerd Role Models: Captain America and Non-Toxic Masculinity. I’m actually not much of a fan of superheroes, in general, but this article was brilliantly written, and kind of made me regret not having seen any of these movies.

The first scene of Mary Robinette Kowal’s next novel, Ghost Talkers. Even loving SFF as I do, it’s rare that I read a first scene that makes me want to rush out and buy the book quite so much as this one did. Regrettably, I have to wait until July to read the whole book.

Accomplishments

Writing
– Wrote 3,801 words on Lioness
– Attended writing group
– Attended a Saturday afternoon write-in
– Submitted “Remember to Die” to Fantastic Stories
– Submitted “Powder of Sympathy” to Apex
– Wrote some blog posts:

• You can’t Intercon P enough (con report)
• Observations on the The Three Musketeers (1948)

Reading
– Read The Girl in the Garden by Kamala Nair
– Read Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie
– Read Karen Memory by Elizabeth Bear
– Read/listened to Tremontaine episode 7 (aaaand I seem to have skipped #5 and #6 without realizing it. It’s kind of amazing how coherent it still was).

Other Media
– Played Creative Clash with coworkers
– Played Codenames with a whole bunch of cool people
– Listened to Writing Excuses 10.44 – 10.52, 11.01 – 11.08
– Listened to Happier with Gretchen Rubin, episode 46-48
– Finished Coursera course “Learning How to Learn”
– Finished the Assassin (timed) achievements for vet Crypt of Hearts and vet Banished Cells in ESO (with Falanu)
– Watched the Film Crew of The Giant of Marathon
– Watched the Film Crew of The Wild Women of Wongo
– Watched the Film Crew of Hollywood After Dark

(This was “Film Crew February” at RiffTrax, where they re-released a bunch of riffs they’d done as part of The Film Crew, a similar project circa 2006).

LARP
– Attended Intercon P
– Went to several panels/workshops at Intercon P — Costuming Tricks for Lazy People, Renaissance Dancing, Interactive Props, Social Contract of Larp
– Played in Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea
– Played in 1493
– Played in Congress of Vienna

Social
– Had dinner with Django and Casey at Boskone
– Had dinner/book club with Jess at Minerva
– Had lunch with Alison at Minado
– Visited with my mom at the Dance Flurry in Saratoga Springs, NY
– Visited EB

Crafts
– Put together costume for Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea
– Put together costume for 1493
– Put together costume for Congress of Vienna

Health
– Did 11am/3pm office exercises x 1
– Did three sets of contradance
– Did Hacker’s Diet Introductory Fitness Ladder rung 1 x 1
– Took three lunchtime (30-40m) walks
– Had two chiropractor appointments
– Had a massage

Links

Rejected Princesses — shared by my pal Chrisco, this features stories of “women too awesome, awful, or offbeat for kids’ movies.” I was especially moved by the story of Isabel Godin des Odonais.

The “Star Wars” kids aren’t alright: meditations on how episode VII represents the eternal nature of struggle, and how we eventually oppose our peers, not the previous generation.

23 Ways to Treat Yo’ Self Without Buying or Eating Anything: shared originally by my pal Diana. I loved most of these suggestions.

Writing
– Wrote 1855 words on Lioness
– Wrote “A Study in Ebony,” an ESO fanfic
– Attended writing group
– Attended a Sunday afternoon write-in
– Wrote some blogs posts:

• “Sorry, the Dunmer were having a Moment.”
• D-d-doldrums
• A much belated 2016 resolutions post
• Crimson Peak — fashion and fantasy

Other Media
– Watched The Three Musketeers (1948)
– Watched the RiffTrax of Icebreaker (1993)
– Reached V16 (max level) with my first ESO character
– Played Convert
– Played Creative Clash
– Played Mysterium
– Played multiple games of Cards Against Humanity

LARP
– NPCed one day of Cottington Woods 4.0
– PCed the Fifth Gate crossover dinner event

Social
– Attended Becky’s New Year’s brunch
– Attended Mel’s birthday/board games party

Health
– Took a 20m walk
– Did 11am/3pm office exercises x 6
– Did Hacker’s Diet Introductory Fitness Ladder rung 1 x 5
– Did Hacker’s Diet Introductory Fitness Ladder rung 2 x 2
– Had a chiropractor appointment
– Had a cardiologist appointment
– Had two massages
– Purchased and started using a sun lamp

Much belated! So belated you don’t even get any links. Womp womp.

Accomplishments

Writing
– Wrote 351 words on Lioness
– Wrote 2 blogs posts: Meditations on ESO — Cyrodiil, Imperial City, and Pledges and Lise watches a star war, and talks about it

Reading
– Started and abandoned Peter V. Brett’s The Warded Man

Other Media
– Saw Spectre with coworkers
– Saw Star Wars: The Force Awakens
– Listened to Happier with Gretchen Rubin, episodes 37-43

LARP
– PCed Fifth Gate Crossroads game 1
– Wrote PEL for 5G Crossroads

Social
– Saw RiffTrax Live of Santa Claus and the Ice Cream Bunny with Adina and Brian
– Attended one of Chad and Amanda’s board game nights
– Get together/book club meeting with Jess
– Attended Becky’s cookie exchange party

Health
– Did 11am/3pm office exercises x 3
– 40m walk x 2

This is what I looked like for most of last week…

… I guess I’m doing these monthly now? As it turns out, traveling for a week and then being sick for the next really saps one’s will to write blog posts.

Links

The theme for this month’s links is ambience. When I work, I often listen to ambient sounds; they’re one of the few things I don’t find a distraction. Some options, depending on mood:

• Coffitivity. the sounds of coffeehouse chatter
• Rainy Mood. Rain, just rain.
• Jazz and Rain. For when sorrow like a ceaseless rain beats upon your heart (to paraphrase my beloved Edna)
• Relaxing Piano Music with Ocean Sounds. For the depths of New England winter.

Accomplishments

Writing
– Wrote 6,803 words on Lioness
– Wrote blog post: Return to the Sceptered Isles, part one: Dublin
– Attended writing group
– Submitted “Remember to Die” to Abyss & Apex
– Submitted “Powder of Sympathy” to Uncanny

Reading (one gets a lot of reading done on planes…)
– Read Valour and Vanity, Mary Robinette Kowal
– Read 21 Days To A Novel, Michael A. Stackpole
– Read Psmith in the City, P.G. Wodehouse
– Read Dickens’ Fur Coat and Charlotte’s Unanswered Letters: The Rows and Romances of England’s Great Victorian Novelists, Daniel Pool
– Read The Disaster Artist, Greg Sestero
– Read/listened to Tremontaine, episodes 2-4
– Alpha-read chapters five and six of SC4 for Django

Other Media
– Watched Tales of Terror (1962)
– Watched The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971)
– Listened to Happier with Gretchen Rubin, episode 36
– Played/playtested Trade Empires
– Played several games of 7 Wonders
– Played several games of Kingdom Builders
– Played two games of Mysterium
– Played Among Nobles
– Reached VR8 in TESO with Falanu
– Reached 40 in TESO with Br’ihnassi
– Won a game of Beyond Earth on Mercury difficulty (Brasilia, Transcendence victory)
– Watched the RiffTrax of The Wizard
– Watched Rifftrax: Total Riff-off episode 6: Brazilian Bigfoot

LARP
– Wrote NPC PEL for Cottington Woods 3.4
– Attended Imaginary Consequences in the UK, where I…
– Played in Dying of the Light
– Played in Musþeof
– Played in Burning Orchid

Social/Travel
– Went to see Crimson Peak with Nat and Vik
– Visited Mel and Will for board games
– Had dinner with Alon
– Did a bus tour of Dublin
– Visited Kilmainham Gaol
– Visited Trinity College’s Old Library for the Book of Kells and the Long Room

Health
– Did 11am/3pm office exercises x 3
– Did Hacker’s Diet Introductory Fitness Ladder workout (rung 2) x 2
– 40m walk x 3
– Had a massage

Rejection Log

– “Remember to Die,” 24-day form, Abyss & Apex (thank god it didn’t take half a year, like I feared)
– “Powder of Sympathy,” 12-day form, Uncanny

Witness my sad crying glitter pumpkin…

Links

I love the Victorian era. So I decided to live in it. Apparently this article caused a kerfuffle when it first came out? I dunno, I unironically loved it. Yes, the tone comes off a bit condescending at times. Yes, I’m sure there are many, many ways they are still benefiting from the advantages of the 21st century — how did the author write this blog piece, after all, without a computer? But I would love to be able to do this for a few days, a week, a month — just to get a taste of an era I find fascinating.

Friendship’s Frequency. This rang very true for me. I have been Busy Betty in many friendships, and I’m still learning how to manage the thinly-cut slices of my social pie.

Accomplishments

Writing
– Edited Lioness chapters 8, 9, and 10 to send to writing group
– Wrote 767 new words on Lioness (which turned into 340 due to the edits I did)
– Submitted “Remember to Die” to Shimmer (yeah, I know, flash is a hard sell with them — see below for my inevitable rejection. I tried because I read Rachael K. Jones recent flash story and was like, hmm, okay, that’s sorta the same thing I’m trying to do. It was not).
– Wrote blog post “A Tale of Two Janes (or, September Book Mini-Reviews)”
– Wrote two new poems

Reading
– Read “Anna Saves them All,” by Seth Dickinson, Shimmer #21
– Read “The Law of the Conservation of Hair,” Rachael K. Jones, Shimmer #27
– Finished reading The Traitor Baru Cormorant, by Seth Dickinson
– Read/listened to Tremontaine episode one, by Ellen Kushner and a bunch of other cool people

Other Media
– Watched the RiffTrax of No Retreat No Surrender
– Watched the RiffTrax of The Night That Dracula Saved The World
– Watched a bunch of new-to-me Vincent Price movies: Master of the World, War Gods of the Deep, Last Man on Earth, Comedy of Terrors, Scream and Scream Again
– Listened to Happier with Gretchen Rubin, episode 34 and 35
– Listened to Writing Excuses episode 10.42 and 10.43

LARP
– NPCed for Cottington Woods 3.4
– Wrote NPC PEL for Shadows of Amun game 10

Crafts
– Painted a checkered pumpkin à la this tutorial, which turned out… well, judge for yourself.

Health
– Did 11am/3pm office exercises x 2
– Did Hacker’s Diet Introductory Fitness Ladder workout (rung 2) x 1
– Had a massage

Rejection Log

– “Remember to Die,” Shimmer

So pretty, and yet so invasive…

I’ve decided to do these only every two weeks — writing this up takes time I’d rather spend doing something else, and preparing two weeks doesn’t take significantly longer than one. Also, I bore you less often 😉

Links

My coworker Val turned me on to the joy of Craft Fail and Pintester, two blogs which are comfort food for people whose craft projects never turn out like the pretty pictures. (Protip: I am that sort of person).

10 Underrated Perks of Working for Someone Else. I think I like the title spelled out by the URL better than the final title 🙂 I’m pretty happy working for the Man most of the time.

Chivalry Isn’t Dead; You Just Don’t Know What the Fuck It is. Brought to you by Better Myths, the folks who offer entertaining explanations of many different myths and legends. Wise points about horses as medieval WMDs 🙂

Green Stain Fungus Fruiting. These are a lot smaller than TES IV: Oblivion led me to believe.

How Doctors Take Women’s Pain Less Seriously. You might have seen me share this on Facebook, but it made me so angry (and sad, and terrified) that I want to share it again. I want every doctor, every nurse, every person who has ever worked in healthcare, to read this.

Accomplishments

Reading
– Alpha-read the first four chapters of SC4 for Django

Other Media
– Listened to Happier with Gretchen Rubin, episode 32 and 33
– Listened to Writing Excuses episode 10.40 and 10.41
– Reached VR5 with Falanu in ESO

LARP
– Wrote my NPC PEL for 5G Wrathborn 2
– NPCed for Shadows of Amun game 10

Social
– Went to the RiffTrax Live of Miami Connection with Adina and Brian
– Went apple-picking and to lunch at the Rail Trail with Becky K et al

Health
– Had a cardiac calcium scan
– Had a stress test
– Did 11am/3pm office exercises x 8
– Did Hacker’s Diet Introductory Fitness Ladder workout (rung 1) x 1
– Did Hacker’s Diet Introductory Fitness Ladder workout (rung 2) x 3
– 40min walk x 4
– Walked to the Stop & Shop and back, carrying groceries (1.4m walk)

There was a little too much of this in my life last week…

Links

A couple of codepens I did to try out Flexbox: Challenge #1 (row-based)| Challenge #2 (column-based). At some point I should probably add these to my portfolio and/or do a more comprehensive post with Things Wot I Learned About Flexbox.

I unironically love pumpkin spice-flavored stuff, but I still think these are delightfully bad ideas: 16 Pumpkin Spice Products That Don’t Exist And Should Never Exist

Accomplishments

Writing
– Wrote the blog post “Starting my Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn Re-Read”

Reading
– Read “Dying Young,” by Peter M. Ball, Clarkesworld, August 2015

LARP
– Wrote my NPC PEL for Shadows of Amun game 9
– NPCed for Friday night of 5G Wrathborn game 2
– Entered my info skill for 5G Silverfire

Other Media
– Watched the RiffTrax of Death Promise
– Listened to Writing Excuses episode 10.39, “Q&A on Plot Twists with Kevin J. Anderson”

Health
– Exercised 3-4 times? I was bad about keeping track last week, but I know I did a decent amount.

Crafts
– Made 70 packets

Rejection Log

Interfictions, 45-day form rejection for “Powder of Sympathy”

Links

A little bit short on the links this week… I haven’t been goofing off on the internet nearly enough.

New Neuroscience Reveals 4 Rituals That Will Make You Happy. The title is a bit clickbait-y, but the content is good.

Accomplishments

Writing — continues to get short shrift in my life right now. ‘Tis the season.
– Wrote 262 words on Lioness
– Wrote blog post “Your quarterly reminder that I still play ESO”

Reading
– Read “Hair,” Adam Roberts, Clarkesworld, July 2015
– Read “Security Check,” Han Song, Clarkesworld, August 2015
– Read “The Servant,” Emily Devenport, Clarkesworld, August 2015. Highly recommend this one, if you dig stories about generation ships, class struggles, and the cycle of violence.
– Finished reading The Price of Valor, by Django Wexler

LARP
– NPCed for Shadows of Amun game 9
– Wrote my NPC PEL for Cottington Woods 3.3

Other Media
– Listened to Happier with Gretchen Rubin, episode 30 and 31
– Listened to Writing Excuses episode 10.38, “How Does Context Shape Dialog?”
– Finished week 3 of the Coursera course Learning How to Learn
– Finished the Rift Angler — and with it, the Pact Fisherman — achievement in ESO with Falanu

Social
– Had lunch with Alison at Welcome India

Health
– Made appointment with cardiologist (routine stuff, basically just to say, “Hey, I have horrid family history of early heart disease and arrythmias, what do?”)
– Walked x 3
– Did Hacker’s Diet Introductory Fitness Ladder workout (rung 1) x 1

Links

“What the Living Do,” a poem by Marie Howe. I was turned onto this by a Captain Awkward post about suicide. It is the kind of poem I love, about the sublime mundanity of choosing to live, day after day.

Kameron Hurley writes brilliantly about The Traitor Baru Cormorant and why she loved it in What Will You Sacrifice? I’ve got my copy of Traitor, though I haven’t started reading yet (other than the three free chapters I read on tor.com)

Authoring Critical Above-the-Fold CSS. Inlining CSS is anathema to the separation of content and presentation layers — but apparently invaluable for page speed.

40 Free (or Extremely Low-Cost) Things I Genuinely Enjoy Doing – and You Might, Too. From The Simple Dollar, the only frugality blog I still follow.

Accomplishments

Writing
– Wrote 242 words on Lioness (yeah, sad, I know)

LARP
– NPCed for Cottington Woods 3.3
– Finished my 5G Silverfire 2 PEL

Reading
– Read “Bones at the Door,” John Wiswell (VP17!), Fireside Magazine September 2015
– Read Without a Summer, Mary Robinette Kowal

Other Media
– Played Mansions of Madness x 2
– Listened to Happier with Gretchen Rubin, episode 28 and 29
– Listened to Writing Excuses episodes 10.36 and 10.37
– Finished the Eastmarch Angler achievement in ESO with Falanu

Social
– Attended Mac’s writing night

Health
– Had an annual physical
– Did Hacker’s Diet Introductory Fitness Ladder workout (rung 1) x 2
– Did Hacker’s Diet Introductory Fitness Ladder workout (rung 2) x 1

Making up for two weeks here, since I was in the middle of the woods last Sunday, and this week has been crazy…

Links

No girl wins: three ways women unlearn their love of video games

Was going through old email and found this link someone I ran into at Readercon sent me about smut and libraries, and smut involving libraries: Checking Out

“I have never turned heads”: What it’s like when you’re not the object of desire. I relate to this in many ways. I leave it as an exercise to the reader precisely which ones.

No Excuses Craft Tutorials: “how you can make a perfectly good LARP costume for less than the price of a burger at the event.” Admittedly, my larp costume expenses can be measuring in teraburgers, but I still found this interesting.

Accomplishments

Writing
– Wrote three blog posts:

• Three Early Memories About Stories
• Crossover thoughts
• I Went To Math Hell And All I Got Was This Colorful Marble

– Wrote 2706 words on Lioness

LARP
– PCed Fifth Gate Silverfire game 2
– Wrote a (very tentative) character history for Crossover

Reading
– Read Vermeer’s Hat, by Timothy Brook
– Read “It Was Educational,” by J.B. Park (Clarkesworld August 2015)

Other Media
– Listened to Writing Excuses 10.35, “Breaking In, With Charlie N. Holmberg”
– Listened to Happier with Gretchen Rubin, episode 27
– Reached VR3 in ESO with Falanu
– Reached 35 in ESO with Br’ihnassi

Social
– Had dinner/went shoe shopping/book club with Jess

Health, a.k.a. Not Being Terrible About My Body
– Had blood work done ahead of my physical next week
– Sparred with Matt
– Walked x 2
– Did Hacker’s Diet fitness ladder workout x 3
– Went to the lake with Matt (not directly health-related, except maybe mental health)

Household
– Weeded by the side entrance
– Went shopping for supplies to finish the deck
– Put tar paper over the non-pressure treated bits of the deck (not by choice, mind… the crazy people who built this deck didn’t use pressure-treated lumber, and we can’t replace all of it without ripping the whole thing up. So we water-sealed and covered with tar paper what we could)

Crafts
– Finished chemise for Ianthe
– Hemmed Ianthe’s blue velveteen gown
– Finished cutting the pieces for a new Ianthe underdress mockup