2/30: I made a thing

29/1/15 19:32
darkemeralds: DarkEm self portrait in magenta cowl, left profile, against a black wall (Silver Magenta)
The ice must breaking up or something, because I made a thing today, after months of making no things.

I got out my heavy old sewing machine, a magnet bristling with pins, my shears, my cookie tin of threads, and an extra task light, and put two pieces of fabric together.

( Just a big rectangle, but still. Making a thing. )
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1/30: Structure

28/1/15 15:43
darkemeralds: A round magical sigil of mysterious meaning, in bright colors with black outlines. A pen nib is suggested by the intersection of the cryptic forms. (Default)
The one-year mark in the don't-work-no-more phase of my career has come and gone, and I find that I want some structure back in my life. I feel ready to emerge from my cave a little and reconnect, too.

So maybe I can do a post a day for a month.

Boy, am I rusty. Whew. Let's see... [self-censor kicks into high gear: "No, that's unoriginal. No, that would be whiny. No, that sounds like a commercial..."]

( Screw you, self-censor. )
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09/30 Blogiversary

15/9/13 11:45
darkemeralds: A round magical sigil of mysterious meaning, in bright colors with black outlines. A pen nib is suggested by the intersection of the cryptic forms. (Default)
Happy LJ-versary to me. On this date in 2004 I made my first bewildered post on LiveJournal. The online world has changed a lot since then, hasn't it?

Like, in 2004, LiveJournal was still owned by Brad Fitzpatrick, and I think they still had an office in Portland (I remember seeing it; I'm sure that's not my imagination. It was down by the river near the Broadway Bridge. I cannot find corroboration of this memory online). MySpace and Facebook were just getting started, and Tumblr wasn't quite yet a gleam in the eye of whoever founded Tumblr.

FastCompany wrote about a LiveJournal "comeback" last year, and got some good comments from current (presumably US-based) users saying that LJ's comeback plans have nothing in common with what the core US user base wants--to wit, the journal world as it has always been, with threaded comments, screening, privacy, security, adult content allowed, no advertising. In other words, Dreamwidth.

I'm six days/posts behind in my big September 30/30 plan. Whoops.
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1/30 Hangouts

3/9/13 20:37
darkemeralds: Baby picture of DarkEm with title 'Interstellar Losers Club' and caption 'Proud Member' (Geekery)
Gosh, it's the third of September, which makes me three entries behind in my putative Post and Read Every Day In September plan, which I told no one about and only vaguely hinted at to [personal profile] ravurian. I guess it will be make thirty posts in September, a slightly different commitment.

So, thing the first: Google+ Hangouts. Really cool. My sisters and I have been using Hangouts for a few weeks now. We all live in the same town, but getting together in person is a big production number. We're working on manifesting improvements in our lives (me: remodeling), and we like to meet to share our progress. Hangouts work perfectly.

What I like:
  • The interface is reasonably intuitive
  • It's free
  • It easily accommodates several people and switches focus seamlessly to whoever's talking
  • The sound quality is good, and the system eliminates cross-talk and echoes amazingly well
  • You can start a Hangout on your phone, then switch to your tablet or computer, also seamlessly

What I don't like:
  • It's a wee bit glitchy and isn't 100% reliable on all devices and operating systems (yet).
  • It's a bit of a shock seeing myself as if on live TV. But I'm getting used to that. I'm figuring out makeup, lighting and angle.

It would be really cool if the geniuses of technology could figure out one thing: how to make it so that when I'm looking at you on the screen, I look like I'm looking at you. As it is, I have to gaze interestedly into the tiny pinhole front-facing camera on my device in order to look like I'm listening to you--and then I miss the nuances of your expression. Someone get on that, please.
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14/30: The Double Magic Highlighter Hoodie

16/6/13 13:03
darkemeralds: A round magical sigil of mysterious meaning, in bright colors with black outlines. A pen nib is suggested by the intersection of the cryptic forms. (Default)
It's probably a coincidence, but following Friday's migraine-aura-neurotransmitter-cascade-hangover-hormonally-induced-brainstorm*, my brain shifted gears.

Detail of bright yellow knitting


( This is only sort of a knitting post. I think it's about creativity. )
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11/30 They could've totally stopped the Midnight Ride

11/6/13 12:55
darkemeralds: A round magical sigil of mysterious meaning, in bright colors with black outlines. A pen nib is suggested by the intersection of the cryptic forms. (Default)
In his article Using Metadata to Find Paul Revere, Duke University sociologist Kieran Healy takes a time machine back to 1776 to show how powerful the collection of impersonal data can be.

( Listen, my children, and you shall hear... )
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2/30: Taking shape

1/6/13 22:43

Break's over

27/9/11 22:41
darkemeralds: Old black and white portrait of DarkEm at the age of three (Little Me)
My weight loss habits went on hiatus the day I left on my vacation (August 18), and have been slow to come back.

I've spent the twenty days since my return home experimenting with "natural eating"--which is to say, eating without tracking--and the best I can say for it is that the weight I've lost isn't coming back on very quickly. I feel like I'm on the edge of a cliff and about to fall. It's too scary.

The break did me good. It bled some of the pressure out of the system, and I'm no longer so fixated on achieving a certain goal weight by a certain date. I now have an idea of what maintenance will feel like, and I've come to the realization that my original goal weight was too low by at least twenty pounds.

So, though the break was worth taking, I feel better returning to counting calories and recording my weight every morning, and generally wrapping myself back up in the safe blanket of the plan I committed to almost a year ago.
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Some of the things

27/9/11 07:27
darkemeralds: Photo of espresso with caption "Straight Up" (Coffee)
DarkEm: My writing almost never reflects my true mind. Though lately I've become a bit more transparent. It's taken me 55 years to get there.
Ravurian: hmm. do you not say things because you don't think them, or because you think no one will care, or because you're afraid of upsetting people, or...?
DarkEm: I think all of those reasons apply, variously. It's almost impossible for me to tell how much of it is the first reason, and how much the others. That is, I'm trained to keep things out of my conscious thought that I fear will upset or bore people. All writing exercises designed to break that barrier seem to fail with me. Maybe that's changed. I should retry.
Ravurian: yeah. try a post a day for a month. just anything and everything that comes into your head. i should start that up again, too
DarkEm: I might have to lock them to a very limited circle.
Ravurian: that would defeat the object, surely?
DarkEm: Oh, let me describe to you the anxiety that's arising in my mind as I contemplate the prospect. (I won't--that's just a rhetorical device. Suffice it to say that the anxieties are many.)
Ravurian: but what are the consequences of doing it?
DarkEm: Death? I mean, isn't that at the back of all anxiety? Fear of death, or of some consequence that would be deadly? Excommunication, exile, shunning?
Ravurian: ...
. . .
DarkEm: LOL. Yeah.
Ravurian: really?
DarkEm: Well, in a kind of abstract way, yes.
Ravurian: death? for posting what you think? who says it has to be all of what you think? or all of what you think about everything? it's just a post a day about stuff
DarkEm: No! Death by being put outside the city walls. And being put outside the city walls for thinking wrong or saying wrong things. It's indirect. And irrational. I'm just sayin'. That's what comes into my gut when I think about writing a post a day in which my writing transparently expresses my mind.
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