eruthros

This is a post I started writing a while ago, and put off finishing for ages because describing bodies is hard. A lot of things have changed since I wrote this, but the basic premise hasn't.

The whole post is full of ableism (including internalized ableism). The fourth part also contains cultural appropriation + racist exoticizing.

1. ( My back aches )


2. ( The first thing my mom said to me when I mentioned vicodin )


3. ( It takes me thirty minutes to get into bed )


4. ( ... and I threw out all the narcotics )


5. ( I wake up the next morning and I feel a little bit better )


6. ( You need to tell me whenever you get a prescription for opiates! )


7. ( I'll take some tomorrow )


8. ( This clinic does not prescribe narcotics for any reason. )


9. ( I take vicodin. )

... *facepalm*:
People often accidentally give out my real name email address thinking it's theirs, so I get things like other people's bank statements and other people's medical records reminders and whatever. But recently someone used my email in a way that seriously topped that: someone with my initials is getting married.

And they must've put my email address on the invitations.

I know this because in the last two days I have received emails from five people rsvping to said wedding, often with effuse comments and details about their kids and whatever. So far I have politely emailed everyone back all "hi you have the wrong email address," but I foresee great naaarghs in the future.

... omg I no longer have the skills for this:
Yesterday I spilled a little bit of water on my touchpad and it somehow broke the touchpad buttons. Good: the computer is still under warranty, including warranty for "shit you accidentally break." Bad: I have to wait until at least tomorrow for the parts. And I'm really out of the keyboard-shortcuts habit.

... symptoms that make me cranky:
Why are my limbs so heavy and trembly why. I hate summer. (I thought this was some new symptom before I looked at my symptom diary, but as it turns out I had it two summers ago, and possibly last summer, so I have now decided to blame heat and/or humidity instead. Especially since so far it's been worst on the hottest days. Blargh.)

... our Voyager rewatch:
I find Admiral Paris very disconcerting every time he shows up on Voyager. And I just realized why: he played Admiral Noyce on Seaquest DSV, which is basically Star Trek underwater (and which has a theme song very similar to Voyager's). They are sort of the same character! On very similar shows! But with different uniforms. No wonder I find it distracting and weird.

... adorability:
I went to the dog park with t'wings and Rorschach today, where Rorschach decided to try to make friends with a frog. (I turned the video recorder in my phone on, so that links to t'wing's post with embedded video.) Sadly I didn't pull out my phone in time to get him doing his doggy play bow at the frog small very hoppy dog, or to get most of him doing his poke-poke-play-with-me thing, but let me just say it was completely adorable. And ridiculous. He totally did the same super-exaggerated play bow he does with cats small purring fluffy dogs, where he wants to make it really clear that he is asking to play, because for SOME REASON they sometimes don't realize that he's not planning on eating them. (Usually the cats then box his ears and he goes "oh gosh, they DO want to play! come on, eruthros, let's go wrestle with them!" And I go "um, no." The frog just sat there, mostly, and hopped desultorily every fifth or sixth time Rorschach poked it.)

For reasons that don't need exploring at this juncture, I spent most of today nominally working but in practice extremely bored in a place witihout the internet. I do crossword puzzles a lot anyway, but today I did the NYT puzzles from the last couple of weeks plus the reprinted NYT puzzle in my local paper.

And, well, every time I do that I feel like making a post about it. So here it is, all the things I have learned from the New York Times crossword:

1. In NYT Crosswordland, all cars are made by Audi (three vowels) unless they are made by BMW (all consonants). I think I saw one Nissan, once, a long time ago.

2. The only airline in the world is El Al.

3. 100% of skin care products are made of aloe.

4. All beer is ale.

5. If you top your bread with something, it is probably oleo.

6. And of course all cookies are oreos.

7. The only school is Eton.

8. In NYT Crosswordland, people sing arias, never songs.

9. And those arias are set to exclusively to the oboe.

10. There are nine muses, but you will only ever see Erato, or occasionally Clio. Erato is an appropriate muse for NYT Crosswordland, where clues frequently invoke poets to try to get you to "e'er" and "o'er" and "ne'er" and "ere."

11. Some countries have kings, and some have prime ministers, and some have presidents. NYT Crosswordland will only ever have a Tsar or a Czar.

12. If you ever find yourself asea in NYT Crosswordland, note that everyone says "alee," not "leeward."

13. The only mountain range is the Ural.

14. The only sea is the Aral.

15. The only lake is Erie.

16. The only river is the Arno.

17. Some trivia: Edison's middle name is Alva, the dog on the Thin Man is named Asta, Saarinen's first name is Eero, Charlie Chaplin married Oona, Seth's son is Enos, and Captain Hook's first mate is Smee.

That's all I've got offhand, but I've probably forgotten a bunch of really obviously ones.

1. A rec! Vorkosigan-verse, missing scene three months, philomytha's Aral Vorkosigan's Dog. It's set during the Barrayaran-Escobaran War, when Illyan's mission is basically to follow Vorkosigan around and watch everything he does, and it's all about how he stops being a neutral observer and how watching changes him. (Note: this story involves Ges Vorrutyer, so it includes rape and torture and the same predatory-kinky-bisexual-evil-dude thing as the book does.)

This is the kind of story where the two main characters don't sleep with each other, and I almost don't need it, because that moment when Illyan holds out his hands in silent fealty - and when he thinks of himself as Aral's loyal dog - oh geez, guys, it it amazing.

Though that doesn't mean that I would turn down an Aral/Cordelia Aral/Simon story in which Cordelia gives Simon her blessing and they all love each other fiercely. You know. If anybody has one on offer. There's dira's amazing Aral/Cordelia and Aral/Jole series - The World That You Need - which I love a lot and think is great and does a lot of nice poly/open relationship things. But it doesn't feature Simon.

And while I'm doing Vorkosigan recs, philomytha also wrote Dazzled, a snippet in which Duv Galeni imagines swearing a fealty oath to Aral Vorkosigan and is immensely drawn to the idea. Neo-feudalism and oaths of loyalty, guys, some fandoms just bring the gen kink and the fascinations with power dynamics. Fantasy and scifi novels that play with monarchy and patriarchy and feudalism and take them seriously, that want that system back and want to be on top of that pyramid, often make me uncomfortable. But make it a story about revolution, or a story about erotics - about the way someone can subvert that power pyramid and take power back by getting off on it in interesting ways - and I am so there.

2. While waiting nearly two hours for potatoes to bake:

eruthros: COOK, potatoes, I am hungry!
bitter_crimson: COOOOOOK
eruthros: life is hard
eruthros: so are these potatoes
eruthros: woe

3. anatsuno's tab-meme. Basically the rules are: tell the internet about the tabs you have open, without editing for guilty-pleasures reasons (though obv editing for RL info is fine). ( My list of open tabs )

4. I have been so fucking tired today. I don't know why. I slept plenty of hours! I went to bed at a more reasonable hour than I often do! But I just barely managed to claw my way out of bed this morning, and all day I was so tired I couldn't even focus on the laptop to watch tv. I tried sugar and protein and a walk out in the cold (to the coffee shop) and a soy latte (from the coffee shop) and nothing worked. But I was determined to send this story off for beta tonight, and I did, so there, exhaustion.

Some dudes have been doing construction outside our apartment, replacing the gas line -- it was supposed to last a week or so, and we're on week five now. (It was also supposed to never close off the sidewalk, which it's done, or block access to driveways, which it's done, or close more than a block at a time, which it's done. As you can probably guess, local sentiment has become quite resentful.) It has largely been a mysterious process involving machines that look like giant whartenberg wheels, and a large metal box installed half into the ground, and occasionally a dude standing in a hole while machines dump dirt on him.

But today was a particularly exciting day for the construction project, because they've been doing something all day that made a sound exactly like the Old Who Tomb of the Cybermen background noise. A sort of hum thing. I kept looking up and going "... okay, who's watching Doctor Who?"

AND then just now thingswithwings was standing in the other room, and I looked up and saw a sudden flashing light behind her, and I was like "geez, is that a headlight or what?" and then I realized that it was a giant gas flare fire. Yes. I opened the door to look out, and there were a bunch of construction workers standing around the gas fire looking unconcerned, so I guess it's no big deal. But. There's a pipe sticking out of the metal box and there's a ten foot flame coming out of the top end.

I guess it might be on purpose, to burn off the gas in the old pipe or something, but it's still very startling. And smelly. And right outside our front porch. And if they planned to set things on fire, they could've mentioned it.

T'wings suggests that we go outside and toast some marshmallows.