yonmei

05:13 pm: Am HOME!
Priority Actions:
1. Hug Bob, because she's acting awfully unloved.
2. Open windows! 'cause the place smells awfully stuffy
3. Feed cats.
4. Pet Wolf's nose, because it's the longest I've ever been away in his LIFE and he had his 2nd birthday while I was gone and he's acting like he's not sure who I am any more
5. Change litter in litter trays, light incense and oilburner in bathroom
6. ...check e-mail! E-mail solo to tell her I'd love to go bungee jumping with her and another slash fan in a couple of weeks.
7. Also, need to e-mail catsitter to tell her I'm home and catsitter's employer to ask her to bill me.
8. While hoping it will stop raining before I walk over to Tattie Shaw's, get involved with the retweet game on #welovetheNHS.
9. Realise it is Scotland, after all, and the rain is not going to stop, so go out anyway to buy fresh fruit and milk

Tags: bob, everybody lies, evil american politics, evil americans advertising against nhs, health, lists, weather, wolf

08:05 am: Still too hot
If you wonder where I was yesterday, I was in Glasgow, having a prolonged meeting for work purposes, and then as it was already 1pm I stayed on till 4pm to see Before Stonewall at the Gallery of Modern Art. Which was quite fascinating - the weeks leading up to Stonewall, as told by a drag queen who was one of the habituees of the Stonewall Inn.

I had been in two minds whether to stay on for the panel discussion afterwards or head back to Edinburgh and perhaps score a two for one, if I got there in time to see Jesus of Montreal at the MCC Church, but the film had brought so many ideas to mind that I thought I'd stay.

Which meant I got to chat with a young Muslim who's just starting an organisation for LGBT Muslims in Scotland, and with a South African called Paul with whom I had a very funny exchange "My family's more screwed up than yours!" over the "refreshments" (white wine, cheap juice, packets of crisps, a couple of plates of grapes and cherries - it looks like they had either no budget for this event or about £10 worth of budget and used the leftover wine and juice from the exhibition launch last week) between 5:30 and 6 - and then headed into a boring non-discussion in which three panellists and a.n.other explained to us why they were there, and what they thought about the issue of LGBT identity, and allowed 20 minutes or so at the end for the audience to ask questions. There wasn't really much time for ideas.

I also got to exchange greetings with the curator, who remembered me as the visitor last week who'd pointed out that the Mapplethorpe isn't the only picture of a sex act in the exhibition: there is also the picture of two women's hands making love to each other in almost Escherish closeness. He was very nice about it and thanked me - "you were quite right, I'll remember that for future tours". But oh dear, the discussion was pants.

Reminded me though, of how things are changing: that more and more younger LGBT people do not give a damn about identifying themselves at such, any more than the straight kids do. We really are working ourselves out of a job. There are kids growing up in Edinburgh and Glasgow today who have no notion, not only that it used to be against the law for two men to have sex, but that it used to be perfectly legal to fire someone from their job for being lesbian or gay. Not now but in fifteen to twenty years, when these kids are teachers and nurses and lawyers and construction workers and secretaries and doctors and parents - maybe it really won't be a big deal. At all.

I got online briefly yesterday in a tapas bar where I drank sangria and nibbled bread and worked a bit, but I had other things to do on my limited connectivity than journal. Sorry.

It's still way too hot. It's already 16 degrees and it's only twenty past eight: yesterday it was 22 degrees. It's Scotland. We're not built for this.



Tags: being queer, glasgow, weather

10:55 am: Last night the mist came down
Really, with darkness: it was like a bad fantasy novel. The sun set and the haar rose, and from a sunny shiny day it was a misty blurry night.

Things I wish writers warned for:

- "The writer intends to trash the female lead in order to justify the two male leads getting together with each other even though both had shown interest in her in canon."

- "Out-of-character misogynist or homophobic abusive comments."

- "For plot reasons, the writer intends to make both central characters refrain from talking to each other about something very important: out of writerly incapacity, no good reason will be given for why they don't just say something."

- One of the worst things I ever read was when RayK from Due South decided to "punish" his ex-wife (I think it was Stella - I read it just once, years ago) for making mildly homophobic remarks about his relationship with Fraser, by slipping very explicit and very identifiable shots of her naked into a presentation she was giving to a conference of her professional peers: the story closes on RayK and RayV in satisfied giggles at what they'd done, which (in direct discussion with the writer) I found she considered was a happy ending, because Stella had been so mean to RayK about his finding love with Fraser. Writer apparently did not follow why this was "excessive", though she said other people had said that to her as well. There were no warnings for it, but though I can't now remember the pseud she was using, I didn't read anything she'd written in DS fanfic again. There was no warning. The writer really didn't see that there was anything wrong with that.

- The writer is an idiot.

Nobody warns for Regency romances:

BABY SARAH: Whaa... oh I get it. Stockholm Syndrome! What an interesting book, examining Stockholm Syndrome and rape from the inside out. I am enthralled.
RAVEN-HAIRED MARQUIS: It is possible that, given your brave tolerance of all the rape, your virtuous defence of peasants and bunnies, and your occasional indignant foot stamps and fiery lock tossing, you may in fact not be a ho. Whoops. Sorry 'bout that. I love you. Let us be wed!
BABY SARAH: Now's your chance! This is his moment of weakness. Bop him over the head with a chamber pot and make a break for it across the tennis lawn!
FLAME-HAIRED SPIRITED INGENUE: Yay! Marriage and babies.
BABY SARAH: And then he got away with rape and she never recovered from Stockholm Syndrome the end? Oh my God, the chill unbelievable horror of it all.

Then Baby Sarah stayed up all night, stock still and terrified that a marquis would come and brainwash her. That book stayed with me a long time. I entirely refused to read romance because of it.

Tags: meta, weather

03:34 pm: Coffee and toffee muffin
I just walked round to Rocksalt to enjoy the sun and to buy a very large coffee and a toffee muffin. It had actual toffee poured on top of it.

It's very, very sunny and I'm indoors and a bit frantic.




Tags: coffee, weather

03:38 pm: Monday afternoon, and rain
I'm drinking hot chocolate, and it's raining outside.

After work, I planned to go swimming.



Tags: chocolate, weather, work

12:50 pm: Saturday in June: sun and rain
At the farmer's market this morning I bought eggs, tomatoes, a fresh supply of Stoats bars, a couple of pretzels from the German baker (one baked with cheese, one with salt), resisted more Arran cheddar though I love it, resisted a bright yellow cheese made with Jersey milk though the sample tasted excellent (I already have a lot of yummy cheese at home), and then spotted that the puddledub pork stall was selling flour from the Tweedale mill (they used to have a stall at market, but I guess didn't do well enough on their own). So I bought 3 kilos of lovely strong wholemeal flour and a bag of rolled oats, and then sat down with a double-shot latte and the Guardian on a sunny bench to try out the cherry cake I had bought from the German baker. (It was fine, though I didn't realise till too late that the shine on top was probably achieved with gelatin. Oh well. I lose 3 vegetarian points. I love their bread, and sometimes I love their cakes, but for this one I felt only moderate affection.) Then Ajay and one of her lovely work colleagues stopped by and we sat with coffee and talked about this and that: so that was nice.

Caught the 16 bus back to Leith Walk to stop off at Tattie Shaws for fruit - they had Scottish strawberries and curious flat peaches from Spain and I got apples and a couple of pears, and a small bag of cherries, thinking it was going to be a sunny afternoon suitable for picnicking. Walked down Leith Walk to Barnardos for something to read, and got The Sixth Winter and The Other Boleyn Girl. Which latter I feel a little guilty about, since I'd meant to buy it new, but I also wanted to read it, so yay.

I came out of the charity shop and a lovely sunny day had turned into thick grey clouds and a very humid feeling in the air. There's a nice Internet cafe just a few doors down, so I turned in here and sat down to check e-mail and the Weather Pixie... and before I'd been here more than five minutes, it was pouring. It still is. I would have got soaked. Instead I am here, dry, writing this, and feeling an unholy sense of satisfaction. I could even have a fruit smoothie (I'm still feeling quite caffeinated from that double-shot latte from Torchwood).

Actually the worst of the downpour seems to be over, but it's still drizzling: well worth paying for half an hour's Internet time to avoid.



Tags: coffee, flour, just my life really, weather

09:18 am: Wolf and weather
We've had really lovely weather the past few days - beautifully warm and sunny. Even at night it never really got cold. Wolf's been going out (and staying out) all hours.

Last night it started to rain. It's grey and mizzly today.

Wolf ran to the front door. I opened it for him. He stood looking out. Then he turned round and ran back inside.

(A few minutes later, he got me to open the front door again, but the weather hadn't changed. Too bad, Wolfcat!)




Tags: weather, wolf

12:20 pm: I am too hot. I need summerweight jeans.
I have a pair of summerweight jeans bought in Arizona in 2004, but unfortunately they no longer fit me. They were extremely nice summerweight jeans, and I miss them.

Either that, or I should have the brassneck to wear shorts to the office.

...which I don't.

(I don't think I could quite cope with the reaction I'd get if I wore a skirt to the office. The last time I wore a skirt to the office because it was too hot to wear jeans, was when I worked at Compaq, and I got an overreacting omgyou'rewearingaskirt! there, too. (Actually, there, the reactions were probably from people thinking "Is she going to a job interview?" rather than "Is she turning fem?" but either way: shorts or summerweight jeans, not skirt.)

This is boring. I didn't mean to be this boring.

I uploaded about a thousand photos from my camera to my hard drive yesterday, in two goes - the six hundred plus that had been lurking on my camera for some time (well, over two-thirds of those photos only since Plockton) and the four hundred or so I took at South Queensferry on a Redbubble meetup. That was the first time ever I'd been out for a photographer's outing with a bunch of other camera nuts, and I really enjoyed it. (Though the friend who'd come with me for lunch and theoretically for a bit of a wander post lunch, found the sudden photo-nuttiness of it all a bit much and bailed about 2:30. I couldn't blame him.)

I am meant to be having a meeting today with one of my colleagues: so far he's an hour and a half late for it, and has not responded to the e-mail inquiring whether he would like to reschedule.

Tags: redbubble, weather

10:41 am: Weather
I keep planning to leave the house - even if only briefly to sprinkle coffee grounds in the garden - and then it is pelting down again.

Hail, heavy rain, hail. Also wind. Lots of wind.

I came home yesterday evening to find the sheets and such I had left on the line soaked through, and put them in the washing machine hoping that the rain would have rained itself out by tomorrow and I could hang them back on the line. No. (The most effective way of keeping my bedding clean of dust/dust mites: wash at 60+ temperatures (which kills the dust mites) and then hang them outside to dry. Hanging them from the pulley in the kitchen is fine, but not as effective.)

Hail. I want to go out.

I just discovered (yesterday) that I have a card that gives me a free cup of brewed coffee from Starbucks, one a day every day till 21st April, any time after 2pm. So I exercised it on the nearest Starbucks, and ... well, confirmed yet again that I don't really like Starbucks brewed coffee. Still. It was caffeine, and I was nearly falling asleep.

I had an awkward and painful discussion of RaceFail 09 with autopope and feorag, in which nobody's mind got changed, though I did manage to express my discomfort at various things that had got said by them. So, well.

Hey, it's snowing!

Okay, that's it, I'm going out.



Update: I sprinkled coffee grounds while it was still snowing a bit, and came back in to have a bowl of porridge with fresh raspberries, and now the sun is shining and I am going properly out.

Well, once I finish my coffee. I have an idea for two communities to start: one about Dragon Mountain, which is where all the dragons I am breeding live, and yours could too, if you like: and other about 50 books by writers who are people of colour (there's one on livejournal, and aside from anything else, it would encourage me to read more books for the first time as opposed to always re-reading...I think.)

Tags: racefail 09, weather

07:40 am: SNOW!
First thought: Woo, snow!
Second thought: Whoops, I have to go to Glasgow this morning, should I cancel?
Third thought: it's hell being a grown-up, isn't it?

Tags: bloody job, weather

11:47 pm: Yes, it's COLD
When I went out tonight to put the empty boxes in the cupboard under the stairs for the organic veg delivery tomorrow, the stone I keep as a doorstop was frozen to the ground.

Tags: weather

10:58 pm: Yesterday, and today
I get depressed, over nothing very important, and it becomes difficult to write about stuff.

It was my dad's 82nd birthday yesterday. I gave him cake, and a jar of "pumpkin marmalade", which is quite tasty, and a book; Jane Austen's England, which I knew he would like, and he did.

Also, I heard the spectacularly good news that his book is to be published: the magnum opus he spent 10 years writing and then discovered no publishing house wanted to do a book by an unknown writer (unknown except to academic fans of Robert Southey) about an unknown hero (unknown except to Quakers who recall pre-WWII). But, my dad's wealthiest former PhD student had one of her books made into a movie, and - clearly being a person of taste, discerment, and good judgement - is offering the university press a private subvention to produce the book. So, yay.

My brother rang to wish him a happy birthday and to tell us he was having his wisdom teeth out tomorrow.

I left just before 10pm and just missed the 11 bus, so walked downhill for 40 minutes and caught the next 11 bus on Princes Street. My ankle hurt. I probably overdid it.

Today I slept in. And it snowed. I have awesome amounts of cake leftover from Saturday night, but I shall consider it a trial run for cake-making for Redemption.

It didn't snow much where I live or where I work (I got caught in a couple of flurries, but it never lay down on the pavement and looked pretty). And according to Weather Pixie, right now it's 3 degrees above freezing and raining lightly. I took some cake to work: I think my favourite is the banana-walnut cakes.

My mum gave me a tray for 12 mini-muffins (even smaller than most fairy cakes) and a big six-muffin tray. Also a muffin recipe book.





The Mess From All Hell still seems to be merrily going on on livejournal, but I really don't want to know about it any more...

Tags: baking, dragons, family stuff, weather

11:21 am: I need a dragon icon...
These little dragons have a day to live:


These little dragons were hatched two days ago:


And I has an egg:


I slept in. It snowed.

Tags: dragons, weather

12:32 pm: Things Of Misery
There's the thing. You know.

Also, ranging from the argh to the argharghargh:

I got hardly any sleep last night.
I am about to treat myself to a double-shot espresso and an almond croissant. (WOE and FAIL: all the nearby places that sell almond croissant had sold out. I went to three places and finally made do with what I thought was a pain au raisin and turned out to be a pain au chocolat cunningly disguised.) (Talking to a colleague in another organisation about the thing: she said "You need a cake.")
I made myself ten minutes later this morning hanging washing out on the line because it looked like it was going to be a lovely day, and it is now pouring with rain so the washing will be soaked and will probably (at least) need to be spun and hung up on the pulley in the kitchen. Argh.
I left windows open.
I think Wolf is out. (Though he will probably just find a dry spot to shelter in and complain at me when I get home.)
My roof still leaks a bit.
I have some stuff I have to get done at work before I can get home and I feel like I just want to curl up into a ball and pull the covers over my head.
I got hardly any sleep last night.

Tell me good stuff. I don't care what. Or share your misery. Or tell me something interesting or useful.

Something.

Argharghargh.

Tags: just my life really, weather, wolf

10:18 am: On the list of things I didn't need
At about 8am, I'm sitting upstairs checking e-mails. I noticed that Wolf has managed to rip paper off the wall, when he stood up to stretch and scratch, and I wonder how he did that - none of my other cats managed to do it, though that corner's been a favoured stretch-and-scratch site for all of them.

I touch the wall, and it's wet. I look up, and see that the corner of the ceiling above is wet. We've had a lot of heavy rain recently.

After a tedious interval of firmly-suppressed panic, worry, more panic, worry, and searching the attic space with a nightlight that kept blowing out, I discover where the leak is: it's under a pipe through the ceiling, and the wood is wet and the pipe is wet and while it's not disastrous, it's clearly Not Good.

I put a plastic washing-up bowl under the roof (it's not perfect, because the leak is too far under the slope of the eaves, but it may do something) and another container under the leak upstairs. I e-mail work to say I will be late in (it turns out my manager will be working from home today because of flooding on the lines between Edinburgh and Glasgow, so I add the tag "Water, water, everywhere".

I open the bathroom window and lean out and realise that there is a pipe - above the tiles it looks like a plastic pipe - just about where it looks like the metal pipe is. And yes, around the pipe, the tiles look fairly disturbed and askew. (This annoys me, because we had the roof seen to last year, and they were supposed to fix it all.)

Fortunately all roof costs are always split four ways, and hopefully my neighbour will have note of the builders he used last time, because I plan to call them and point out that I'm not happy we had to call them in again.

Tags: home repairs, weather

10:23 pm: Tired tired tired tired
I keep meaning to write a lengthy post about the stuff that is happening that is making me so tired. Then I feel too tired and sick of it to write about it. I think I'd rather make stuff up.

Let's do that ask me a question and I'll lie meme.

I did write that long post about Orson Scott Card's latest blurt of homophobia, and it took two hours and I giggled a lot as I did it and it made me feel happy and fluffy, like a kind of vampire attack bunny.

I got drenched yesterday in a rainstorm. Fortunately I was heading for home at the time. I got so wet it was funny - literally soaked to the skin, just in 10 minutes. There was a lot of rain.

I have been reading journals on my f-list and they have been wonderful and cute and funny and appealling and your lives have been windows of joy and sometimes sadness and interest and light and life into mine, and I've been wanting to comment and I've been tired.


The lengthy post I have to write would not even be very interesting. Ask me a question. Let me lie to you. I think I can do that.

Tags: silly memes, weather

02:34 pm: It's STOPPED RAINING
I was going to write something more exciting, but instead, I think I'll just go OUT. Sunny! Whee!

Tags: just my life really, weather

01:16 pm: Insane Picnic
The sun is shining, on 1st July I'll be promoted (no more money, lots more work, honour, and significant amounts of What Fresh Hell Is This, WFHIT, I need an icon that says that...) and I want to have a picnic.

I invite you all! (This may have to be an imaginary picnic. Or a virtual one.) We will meet on Whinney Hill on Sunday 6th July, at noon, and stay there till we run out of (a) food (b) drink (c) the glorious view. (I have decided not to worry about the sun not shining or it raining.)

I have a clever container which is luggable in which I can bring ice-cubes and cold drinks. (I do not do fizzy sweet stuff with chemicals, so if you like Fanta or Coke or champagne, you need to bring your own supplies.)

Besides large quantities of orange juice, and lots of ice-cubes, and a litre of water, I shall bring:

A couple of bottles of wine. Red and white.
A large supply of home-baked rolls.
Butter and cheese and whole-grain mustard and chutneys.
Apples.

Also, if I figure out a way of transporting both, a flask of espresso and a carton of ice-cream so that we can have iced coffee, because there is Nothing Nicer.

What will you bring to my picnic? (While I don't myself eat meat or fish, I'm not actively opposed to other people doing it in front of me. I'm not a vegetarian because I love animals: I'm a vegetarian because I hate plants.)

PS: I have reasons to be depressed, but we'll talk about those later. Right now: picnic!

Tags: coffee, eating some delicious food, green in the city, imaginary friend meetup, weather

08:26 am: Whan that Aprille
Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote
The droghte of Marche hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours y-ronne,
And smale fowles maken melodye,
That slepen al the night with open ye,
(So priketh hem nature in hir corages:
Than longen folk to goon on pilgrimages...

Except that's snowing. Large white flakes spiralling down and covering the ground. It's snowing. Whan Zephirus, come here and eek with your swete breet!

Tags: weather

12:28 pm: It's SNOWING
Quite a lot. It is pretty.

But it's still so warm that the snow just turns to slush as it hits the pavement.

Tags: happy new year, weather