Scarlett Letters

Ten years. September 9, 2013 was my 10th anniversary on LiveJournal. I'm here because herself_nyc admonished me that I hadn't been keeping in touch as I ought since I moved to the Pacific Northwest. LiveJournal was our solution. I don't know that it was the best solution we could have come up with--I suspect we've talked less over the years as a result of simply being able to read each other's LJs--but it changed my life. Here I am, ten years later, a veteran contributor. Some statistics for the numbers-minded. In 10 years I have accumulated:

• 4,055 (now 4,056) entries (that's 405 posts a year on average, though I'm certain that things have slowed down the last couple of years)


• 19,500 comments posted


• 28,619 comments received

Pretty amazing achievement. Lots of words (how many novels' worth, I wonder?). And a lot has happened. I thought about the things I wanted to highlight. I thought I might do what my friend ATC calls a listicle (great word!)--a top-ten list of posts from over the years. I suspect this is more than 10 things, but it covers the ground pretty thoroughly.

So, without further ado, here are highlights: Ten Years of LiveJournal:

Favorite tags

• Posts about writing: As you might expect


• Posts about my work being published: Again, as you might expect


• 121 books entries: Mostly reviews, and I'm glad to have them.


• 197 movies entries: Again, mostly reviews, and I'm glad to have them.


• 192 current events entries: Commentary on everything from fannish kerfuffles to major political events


• Posts about the kitties


• Imaginary world fantasy convention: In 2009, I couldn't attend the World Fantasy Convention, so I took to Twitter, Facebook and LiveJournal and created a series of posts about a fantastic convention with dream Guests of Honor, and about Glinda the Good Witch, who . . . got around. Other people chimed in and contributed, which was awesome. I still have the posts all aggregated in a file on my computer. I collected them with the thought of publishing them as a zine/souvenir for anyone who was interested though I never did put it together. I also created official mugs, tee shirts, totebags and magnets. People still ask me if I'm going to do this again. I have always thought I'd like to, but with planning and plotlines--but I never get started early enough and I'm rarely as focused as I was in 2009 when I did it the first time.


• The penguin project: 2009 was a big year. The summer before Imaginary WFC, EB, markbourne, ladyjestocost, chaoselemental and I participated in an art project sponsored by Woodland Park Zoo, in which we all created penguin sculptures to celebrate the opening of the new penguin exhibit. These penguins were distributed around the city on exhibit and then auctioned off to benefit the zoo. I loved working on that project and love that I could share it with friends. This series of posts also includes pictures. So much fun.


• Year in review: On the last day of every year, I post a year in review, a series of questions that I answer. It's an interesting retrospective, especially when the posts are read in aggregate this way


• Europe 2012: This time last year, I was in Europe--Paris with EB, Lithuania with skidspoppe and Amsterdam by myself. I blogged the trip pretty thoroughly. You can read the whole trip at this link.


• Tsavo, Kenya, 2007: In 2007, I volunteered with a scientific expedition to observe the maneless lions of Tsavo, Kenya. I transcribed much--but not all--of the trip journal. In this series of posts (which includes an index to all the entries I did post as well as some pictures), you can at least get a taste of what the trip was like.

Posts of note
This is a list of some posts that feel like they ought to be memorialized here. I can't exactly articulate why:

• The wonder of the possible: Thoughts about Passover


• The chorus, gender and (my) identity: Thoughts about straight privilege and my history with gay friends


• Thoughts on the Seattle-area White Collar Contracting Culture


• On learning to shoot a gun


• Thoughts on watching Pope John Paul II's funerary procession: Observing history


• The public life, the public death: More on observing history, this time about watching President Gerald Ford's funeral


• Remember 9/11 twelve years later and My TEC News 9/11 editorial

My two other LiveJournal accounts
I should also note the two other LiveJournal accounts that I've kept here. One was an exercise in writing a story a day based on a dictionary word. The idea was a noble one but it didn't last very long. The other is my fanfic account, Somewhere in Time, where I keep what little fanfic I've written recently. It's all Doctor Who, with one Who/Frasier cross-over that I'm pretty proud of.

Passages
And last but not least, posts about family, friends, and pets I've lost along the way, from most recent to least:

• Matthew Shear (and, incidentally, Fred Pohl and Ann Crispin)


• Phil Gellis


• Josepha Sherman


• Mark Bourne


• Wolfie


• Spanky


• Merlin


• Uncle Eli


• David Honigsberg


• Angus Wells


• Aunt Shirley


• Katherine Lawrence

So, happy anniversary to me and LiveJournal! It's been a long and fruitful association despite technical glitches, apartment moves, job changes, and travels. I'm so glad that I'm here.

There's been a delay on some of the project work scheduled for today, so I took the time to hit one of my deadlines. Now, it's time for lunch and then off to the next....

My deadlines in no particular order:
* Finish reading Finch and write a review (Saturday)
* Finish reading Black Blade Blues and write a review (Saturday)
* Download pictures from yesterday's excursion to the butterfly room at Pacific Science Center (1 hour from now)
* Finish up costing out proposed advertisement budget for Foolscap (Friday)
* Write article for TEC News (February 15)
* Create TEC Facebook page (Friday)

Subjects about which I want to write:
* Upcoming travel
* Missing the ghosts of early American history
* Demons, a new supernatural series on BBCA
* The new season of Big Love
* The new season of Project Runway
* Conventions plans (or not) for 2010

I have a number of things I want to write about today.

* Doctor Who: The End of Time Part II
* Demons, a new supernatural series on BBCA
* My Portland visit so far See below.
* More thoughts on the job search
* Book review/report on Ken Scholes' novel Lamentation

I don't know when or if I'll get to all of these things, but those are my LJ goals. I have other goals for today, too.

* Get through a phone interview this afternoon.
* Start writing that story I'm supposed to have mostly finished by now.
* Take care of some stuff around the house here.
* Take a walk.
* Work out plans for this weekend.
* Work out some plans for my friend MW's visit this coming week.
* Finalize the menu for dinner tonight and go shopping.

I'm ambitious. What can I say? How about I write about the visit first, since that's what the subject line says?

( Portland visit so far )

Today's been quiet. I've spent the morning alternately online, cleaning house here and there as needed, and compiling a mental list of ways to help Jay keep track of things like when the fridge needs to be cleaned out, how to ensure he eats regularly, and so on. We'll be putting together a list of emergency phone numbers to put on the fridge, along with other helps and reminders. I'm concerned about how some things will be taken care of when he's by himself--not just stuff that can be handled with posted reminders, but regular stuff that requires more energy than he may have during any given day or week. I need to think about how some of that can be addressed. Mostly, he and I have talked about putting processes in place which, once they get rolling, can be maintained by himself or anyone near and dear to him who is present and willing to help out.

And now, I must go work on interview prep.

I have to thank dianora2 for her delightful post tonight, which was filled with linky goodness and much pop culture squeeage. If you don't feel like clicking over there, here are a couple of the bits she shared most pleasing to me:

Milky Way galaxy 'tastes of raspberries': Raspberries and rum, apparently. See? If the religious right wanted to prove there's a God, they'd totally tell everyone that the universe tastes sweet and will make you a little tipsy. That's my kinda God right there. ::grin::

Can I ever love The X Files again?: A fan ponders whether or not the disastrous series finale and the most recent movie have forever poisoned the waters. I know exactly how he feels. Every now and then I pop an early-series X Files DVD into the player and feel that warm, lovely paranoia that Chris Carter created so well. It hurts to think about what came later.

The season finale of "Chuck" tonight made me happy as a clam. I recognized what was going on in the final sequence so that when Chuck uttered his last lines, I scared the cat with my outburst of laughter. I hope the series is renewed for next season. It's just terrific.

In other news, it appears that Seattle is about to be invaded by penguins. I have already written for an application and notified a number of artists of my acquaintance. Yes, I wish to be a penguin...or at least create a penguin to represent me.

On the subject of my little revolution of one, I wrote to the Fremont Universe blog, to Joel Connelly, and have mentioned it to several folks. A number of people have linked to the idea, mentioning it in their LJs. I also mentioned it on Facebook. With few exceptions, people seem to dig the idea. The question is: How to get businesses to buy into the idea. It has already been suggested that local business won't be willing to cut into its already razor-thin profit margin. Honestly, I'm not all that concerned about the short term. Local businesses who remember that my money--what little I have--is still legal tender even if I have less than usual will continue to get my enthusiastic business at full price when I return to work. Those who don't are likely to see less of me.

Spent the afternoon with brumbjorn and selinker enjoying the Pacific Science Center's exhibit on GPS technology and geocaching (using Entertainment Book coupons to help keep it affordable). It actually mimics the experience of geocaching very well and is a great deal of fun. It's a little text-heavy for this sort of interactive thing, but it's still entertaining. We spent some truly quality time in the butterfly house. (As brumbjorn said, if you go in there in a bad mood, there's no way you can leave without feeling better.) I smashed some coins (and am ready for trading!). We had lunch at T.S. McHugh's and then headed out.

Lots of walking, talking and catching up. I must sleep now, for I am beat.

...and I know this because my dreams tell me so. Let me explain.

This week's chapter of the room switcheroo is to reorganize the closets now that two of the major rooms are done. The closet in what's now my bedroom contains a nearly-ten-year-old Apple LCII plus printer, plus two external hard drives all packaged up in large, unwieldy storage boxes. Once those boxes are removed and their contents recycled, the closet will have room to be a closet again rather than merely hardware storage. I knew there was stuff on those drives I wanted, though, including among other things, correspondence with dochyel, short stories long since abandoned, etc. Well, long story short, I enlisted snarke's help to extract said stuff. I spent most of last night at his place while he did his voodoo. It felt like going back in time, seeing that old Apple system 7 interface again, and seeing the names of all those old files plus other files I'd forgotten about. The nostalgia was overwhelming, the sense of leaving things behind, the sense of closure.

At the same time, I learned that snarke's senior kitty Dominic, the only cat I've ever known snarke to own, has developed an enormous growth in his belly that will take him from us, probably later this week. The visit was my chance to give him final pets and scritches and to say goodbye to him. My boys got lots of loving last night and tonight.

Yesterday afternoon, I heard a piece on NPR about inherited homes in New Orleans, the informality of such inheritance in poorer communities, and the troubles that victims of Hurricane Katrina were having trying to prove ownership of destroyed properties.

What with other things ending this week, it's obviously a time of transition. At such times, I often have dreams about houses and last night was no exception. I dreamed that I was living in a big house that I'd inherited from my parents. A storm was brewing and rain was beginning to leak in just as my brother and I discovered an entire wing we'd forgotten existed: two stories tall, busted-out windows with torn curtains flapping in the rain-whipped breeze. (How we could have forgotten a whole wing is beyond me, because we discovered it by looking out a window...but this is dream logic, right?) All I could think of was all the furniture in the wing that I wanted to save. At the same time, I found myself thinking that I'd lived all this time without that furniture; would saving it really make a difference? I was terribly torn, and something was pulling me away from the window, something that wouldn't let me go.

I can still feel that weird push-me-pull-you sense of conflict, the nostalgia of looking at all this beautiful old furniture, and the need to move on away from it. It's still immediate, all these hours later. And it's evident to me that this one dream wrapped up all this other stuff, plus a couple of things I haven't mentioned here. Beginnings and endings, it's all related.

And it's nice to be a cognitive dreamer. Makes dream interpretation much easier and helps me do my therapist's work for her.

Busy schedule this weekend, what with a vet appointment for Spanky, an appointment with my personal researcher (a.k.a. oldmangrumpus), a scotch tasting and a play, plus much reading to be done for the workshop.

The weekend started with dinner at bhagwanx's place with a small group of people. We watched (and pointed and laughed at) "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" which is absolutely sumptuous to look at but, well, just kind of awful in almost every other way. But it sure is pretty.

I hope to prep and post my RadCon pictures at some point this weekend. There's some great stuff in there, and I want to share.

Looks like it's going to be a beautiful day today in the Great Northwest. Guess I ought to get to it.

A quick review of the weekend: Saw "Sweeney Todd," about which I hope to write more within the next couple of days (short version: enjoyed it). Saw "Charlie Wilson's War," which was excellent and I highly recommend it. Poked about at Far Fetched Imports and David Smith & Co. for interesting bookcases and cabinets. The only thing I saw that I truly loved was a step tansu (something like this) that I can't quite afford but want desperately. Spent an evening with the usual suspects (ironymaiden and her C, markbourne, and e_bourne) watching "Doctor Who: Voyage of the Damned," about which I hope to post soon as well.

Despite having invitations for two soirees last night, I decided to stay home and have a quiet New Year's Eve in. It was partly that my throat was bothering me, partly fatigue, and partly that I seem to have a bad headlight on the car. I didn't want to be driving at night with only one light. I'll have to do it more this week anyway, but New Year's Eve didn't seem to be a night to be pressing my luck that way. I'll have it fixed within the next week or so. So I stayed in, watched "Stardust," which is as delightful as I remembered, received calls from oldmangrumpus, mabfan and gnomi and hit the sack around 11:30 PM.

Spent the first day of the new year trying to tidy up around here a bit, sorting bills that need to be paid, watching a little of the "Twilight Zone" marathon on the Sci-Fi Channel, and preparing myself for the week ahead. Things will be heating up at the office over the next two weeks because we'll be covering CES, and I'll be the producer on the ground, building the site pretty much on the fly. It's the lull before the storm.

Tonight, I went to C&D's place for a New Year's Day get-together, a quiet affair. MF and his new wife are in town; haven't seen him in forever, and it was a very nice visit over tea, cake, and the most delicious blondies I can ever remember enjoying.

The only reason I'm awake right now is that I had two cups of tea at C&D's place, plus two cups of iced tea here before I left. I'm surprised I'm not twitching with all the caffeine. Still, I should go get into bed and at least pretend to sleep. That way, I'll be justified in pretending to be awake tomorrow.

And thus beginneth 2008.

So productive this weekend: got the first coat of paint on the small room, wrote 1100+ words on the novel, finished my first full editorial pass on the freelance job, and saw an absolutely terrific production of "Hair" at ArtsWest with markbourne, his E and a friend of theirs.

With regard to "Hair," the biggest surprise for me was that the choreographer was someone I used to work with back at the place that webcowgirl refers to as Tripadelic. He's at ArtsWest full time apparently, and according to markbourne, possibly the best thing about the place. He's doing a one-man show a little later this year, and I'm bound and determined to see it.

And now I'm facing something I haven't faced since November: a full work week. Wow.

Feeling much better this morning, and thank god. I didn't want to lose another day to the nastiness. I'm fairly sure that the turn in the weather has something to do with it, and for once I'm actually happy to see gray skies and feel the cool breezes. The kitties seem pleased as well.

On the docket for today:
* Washing dishes
* Balancing checkbook
* Paying bills
* Dropping health travel form off at doctor's office
* Calling the travel clinic about the necessary shots for Africa
* Job hunting
* Writing
* Seeing another SIFF film
* Final tasks for chorus work
* Posting about the SIFF films I've seen that I haven't posted about yet

Let's see how far I get.

Beautiful day: sunny with a crisp blue sky, mild and pleasant.

Still behind on the manuscript critting, but it's coming along.

No writing today: see above re: critting. Scribbling tomorrow, for sure.

Discovered the reason for the fireworks or rather, I was informed. It had something to do with both Microsoft's Vista launch and a world-wide puzzle game called Vanishing Point that the company is running for outrageous prizes.

Walked to Fremont this morning with ironymaiden and C in the sunshine to meet holyoutlaw and hank at the Sunday Market for breakfast and strolling. My second day of trying to ensure myself some sort of exercise: 'twas a success. Let's see how we do tomorrow. Oh, and found me some Disney smashies.

Can the HBO series "Rome" be any better? Really, it has some of the best writing, best acting on television. I am officially hooked.