Wren and Raven are going to be joining me and my immediate family for thanksgiving.

So I feel like my whole family will be there.

*warmfuzzies*

Yesterday I finally told my mother about Wren and I. She's incredibly smart and she's been seeing us together for a while now and she's had her suspicions. Fortunately (and having seen some of my friend's parents response, I appreciate this a lot) she doesn't care that Wren is female.

It's now her opinion that neither of my relationships could be all that serious because you only care for one person at a time in "that way". Meaning intimacy, you'd give almost anything for each other, etc...

And, granted, she's right in a lot of ways - we don't share finances or live together. Which is the heavy stuff. (But then again, at this point it's almost a case of "what finances?")

But, still...

I spent this weekend with my fellow gamers having a crazy gamer party. All sorts of thingscome up, especially when some of the people haven't seen each other for a while.

One of my friends mentioned that there's a girl who comes to his work as a customer who has a (non-requited) crush on him. And that she uses a computer to talk and is in a chair.

One of the other people there decided to take the time to make fun of said girl. Fortunately, being a gamer party, I had my laptop handy and fired up TTSReader (Text to speech program).


"Hey asshole, Text to speech software is fun, I use it. Do you have a problem with that?"

So stay warm!

Hey, the weather's turning towards winter. If you're cold sensitive, this can be a difficult time.  Here's my list of tips.  Some of these may seem obvious, but I had to figure them out on my own.  Sometimes months or years after I could have really used them.  I wish that someone had told me.

Stand in the sun!  Being outside can feel good in and of itself.

Bundle up.  If someone says "you don't need that sweater/scarf/jacket, make your own appraisal of the situation, don't use theirs.  But layering won't work if you're "too far gone" and you're body is producing very little body heat.  A sweater doesn't make you warm, it traps the heat you're already making.

Tea is your friend!  Or any other hot beverage of your choice.  It can really help kick-start your body.  If you don't like the taste of tea, there are numerous other hot beverages available.  Try "herbal teas".  Many of them contain no tea leaves and so taste completely different.  If you like the taste of hot water, go with that!  Things like hot cocoa or coffee are good too, but they have caffeine and/or sugar.  I haven't slept well for a week,  for the last two days I drank a cup of tea before bed, and am finally making up the hours of sleep my body needed.  If you find yourself spacing or blanking out during the day or moving slowly, mentally check your temperature.  And then get some tea if needed.

Make a rice bag: Sew dry rice into a cloth bag.  You can heat it in the microwave  and use it to heat up around the house or in bed.

If you're feeling scattered or weepy, check to see how you're doing.  Being weepy can be caused by the cold, by feeling the possibility of your own death.  It's also very easily fixable. 

But if you're just slow, take a brain rest break.  Do whatever refreshes you, whether that's what you're supposed to be doing or not.

Take brain breaks anyway, if you're at all overloaded or even if you're not.

Being slow is not necessarily a bad thing,  sometimes it's good to exist in an altered state for a while.  I can think in different ways in the winter.  Sometimes a forest needs a forest fire.   I may be saying something controversial, but sometimes controlled and chosen meltdown has refreshed me.  But the important word here is chosen.

Yellowstone Wolf Pack Exterminated:

The adults of the Cottonwood Wolf Pack in Yellowstone were killed earlier this week as well as other adult wolves.  Pups were not killed, but they WILL NOT survive without adults.  Starvation is what they face now...

Thirteen years ago, wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone on a trial basis.

The elk population was booming and elk were eating everything and then starving.

Since then the Aspens and willows that were almost gone have come back.  Why?  Because the elk were eating saplings before they could grow up.  The wolves caused the elk to be always on the lookout, ready for flight, and so they spent less time in the copses munching on aspen and willow.

With willow came beaver.  Which were extinct.  So now we have beaver, beaver ponds, fishes, and songbirds singing in the willows that were not there before.

Also ravens, magpies and foxes are doing better because of wolves leaving elk carcasses around.

And there were minimal or no livestock deprededations.

WE WERE DOIN IT RIGHT goddamit.

More
Information

Information from Defenders of Wildlife

All of you from the US:  Please sign the petition.
Thank You.

Spent the evening with Wren (my girlfriend). Life is good.

He wrapped his fingers in my hair and held my wrist behind my back.  And whispered a few choice words in my ear.  I whispered a few words back.  The right ones apparently by the change in his breathing.

*shivers*

:)

Press Release:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

 Autistic Community Condemns Autism Speaks’ “I am Autism” Campaign

“We are the true voices of Autism,” say Autistic adults; Campaign spreads stigma, prejudice and inaccurate information; ASAN vows protest of upcoming Autism Speaks fundraisers

Washington, DC (September 23^rd, 2009) - The autism community reacted in horror today to Autism Speaks’ new “I am Autism” campaign, presenting Autistic people as kidnap victims and burdens on their family members and communities.

“I am autism. I have no interest in right or wrong. I will plot to rob you of your children and your dreams….And if you’re happily married, I will make sure that your marriage fails. Your money will fall into my hands, and I will bankrupt you for my own self-gain,” says the “I am Autism” video, released yesterday and created by Academy Award-nominated director Alfonso Cuarón and Grammy-nominated songwriter/producer Billy Mann. [Full text is available here.]

“This is the latest in a series of unethical fundraising strategies adopted by Autism Speaks,” said Ari Ne’eman, an adult on the autism spectrum and President of the Autistic Self Advocacy Network (ASAN), “This type of fear mongering hurts Autistic people, by raising fear and not contributing in the slightest to accurate understanding of the needs of Autistic adults and children.” ASAN’s Columbus, Ohio chapter has already made arrangements to protest Autism Speaks’ upcoming local fundraising walk and other ASAN chapters will be making similar arrangements shortly, said Ne’eman.

In addition to relying on fear and pity mongering to raise funds, the Autism Speaks video repeats frequently referenced claims of higher than average divorce rates amongst parents of autistic children. However, a 2008 study conducted by HarrisInteractive for Easter Seals in cooperation with the Autism Society of America found divorce rates for parents of Autistic children lower than those for families with no children with disabilities. The video also relies heavily on the idea of rapidly increasing autism rates. Another new study, released the same day as the video, by the British Government’s National Health Service found that autism rates among adults are the same as amongst children, indicating that the popular “epidemic” claim of rapidly increasing autism incidence is likely false.

  “This video doesn’t represent me or my child,” said Dana Commandatore, a parent of an Autistic child living in Los Angeles, California. “Whatever the challenges that autism may bring, my son deserves better than being presented as a burden on society. Autism Speaks’ misrepresentation makes my life and the life of my child more difficult.”

 “Autism Speaks seems to think that parents' embarrassment at their kids' meltdowns is more important than autistic kids' pain,” writes Sarah, an Autistic blogger at the blog Cat in a Dog’s World, “Autistic people deserve better than what Autism Speaks has to offer.”

 The new video is reminiscent of the December 2007 NYU Child Study Center “Ransom Notes” campaign, which consisted of faux ransom notes claiming to be from an anthropomorphized disability which had kidnapped a child. Those ads were withdrawn after two and a half weeks, due to widespread outcry from self-advocates, parents and professionals and the condemnation of twenty-two national disability rights organizations, led by the Autistic Self Advocacy Network. The Ransom Notes controversy was reported on by The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Good Morning America, The Washington Post and other major media outlets. ASAN announced plans to work with the cross-disability community on a similar response to Autism Speaks’ campaign.

 “The voices of real autistic people, and of families who do not subscribe to the presentation of their family members as something sinister and criminal, clearly do not matter to Autism Speaks,” said Paula Durbin-Westby, an adult on the autism spectrum in Virginia, who serves on the board of the Autistic Self Advocacy Network. “Our community is furious about Autism Speaks’ continued exploitation and will be taking action.”

A non-comprehensive list of responses

TrinityVA's response

In honor of the fact that tonight it will be 9/9/09 at 9:09:09

According to our extremely arbitrary Gregorian/Roman/Human calendar.

So a couple nights ago was an incredibly hard time for both Raven and I.  I because of grief and sorrow about impending loss combined with hanging out with a friend who annoys and overloads me. And Raven about the latest book on food and the future of food security he had read.
We're both grappling with this stuff still, but this Night took a lot of the stress away.

( Scene description here... ) 
Healing is good, whatever form it takes.

Warning: Rough draft.  Rough and incoherent.

Here's a post inspired by Elizabeth of  Screw Bronze! .    Both her wonderful style of posts involving beautiful pictures and her desire to go up to Mauna Kea observatory in Hawaii.




 

Here's my favorite star cluster.  It's called the Wild Duck Cluster.  It's a bunch of newly formed stars heading out into the world.  Soon they'll break up into ones and twos and threes - but most stars have at least one other star with them throughout their lives.  We used to think that bianary stars were the exception!  Now we know they aren't.  And they can even have planets orbiting around both of them.

 
I can tell you from experience, going to an observatory can be harrowing and fun - sleep deprivation can do wierd things, but it's worth it.

 
But it's more fun if you go with people you like to be with!

 
Stars are born in nebulae (clouds of gas and dust) like this one.  They collapse out, until they're dense enough to burn on their own.  Sometimes stars blowing up close to them help the process out.

 
What I DON'T want to happen to Beth.  This is the remenant of a dead star.  Our sun's going to look like this someday.

 
But even when you do die, you'll leave this kind of thing behind - because you spread that much beauty around.  I really admire you for it.  But it shouldn't be soon. When stars are big enough they don't go gently into the good night.  When they run out of fuel and collapse, they do it so fast that atoms run into eachother with enoug force to make it explode outward. This is a Supernova remenant - a star that EXPLODED.

 
A Galaxy, plus some stars from ours. Rule of thumb: everything you can see it with your naked eye is in our galaxy.  Except on a really dark night, you can see a faint smudge which is our neighboring galaxy, the Andromeda Galaxy.

 
Eventually old blown-up star nebulas turn into collapsing back into new stars nebulas.  It's more complicated than that - they need to drift together into a bigger nebula. This only happens sometimes.
 

Any and all UK kinksters-

Snowdrop Explodes has brought to my attention this survey:
afemanistview.blogspot.com/2009/08/survey-into-discrimination-on.html

So if you've ever been discriminated against or afraid to reveal what you do, go over there and talk to the surveyers.

So, the girl I met on the bus a while back... (damn, she needs a moniker on this blog)...  and I spent this sunday together.  Anyway she met my liege lord, boyfriend, whatever you want to call him and they like eachother.  None of us have any problems with sharing.  So things will eventually work out how they're going to work out, and so far that's looking pretty good :).

We went over to the desert museum and walked until it closed, and then we still were talking, so we ended up, the three of us, sacked out on my bedroom floor for a few more hours.  Then I took her home.  I don't know why, but the whole chivalric butch dance is actually really hot even though it has nothing to do with actual physical contact.   (I need to think)  She also agreed although from the opposite side.    It helped that saying goodbye on her doorstep ended up turning into a long kiss.

A powerful list  coutesy of Asperger Square 8:
aspergersquare8.blogspot.com/2009/07/ever-expanding-list-of-neurotypical.html

And Shiva of Biodiverse Resistance has written a wonderful post about it with more background.

biodiverseresistance.blogspot.com/2009/07/neurotypical-privilege-checklist.html

Go and read!

Note:  This does not apply just to Autistics, although most of the list is written by Autistics so if you have anything to add, feel free.
Or if you want to have a discussion without encumbering an already cumbersome document, feel free to post here.

EDIT:There's a new final-ish draft that I think looks pretty spiffy: aspergersquare8.blogspot.com/2009/08/checklist-of-neurotypical-privilege-new.html

NSFW (sort of)
( Read more... )

Project runway can be fun to watch, just for the colors and fabric and 1337 sewing skillz , but for a show full of self-professed gay guys it's so normative it's full of fail.
There are only two options, or roles to design for - Manly Men and Womanly Women.
And their idea of manly and womanly is so narrow it's like walking on a razor. :(
A dress that no one could walk in won over a elegant origami looking one because it didn't make the model look like she had a narrow waist and Huge BOOBZ.
I knew a femmey guy who wore a lot of skirts and came in one day with a black jean skit and caution tape for a tie.
He's worth more than all the judges put together >: (
<end rant>
NOTE: No spoilers were divulged in this rant - this is from seasons past.

I’ve been seeing so much recently on the ‘webs and in society in general about “usual” people “most people” the idea that there’s one standard that people should live up to or that there’s some cosmic totem pole we’re all arranged on from best to worst. That the “Norm” is inherently better, that the “outliers” are inherently better.

 

All of these rely on the idea of the holy “norm”.  The “norm” is defined as the people or things that are one standard deviation away from the average.  On a graph that’s generally a bell curve. The outliers are the ones that are out on the edges of said bell curve.  Now the mathematics that go along with this are complicated and hella fun (if you like complex math :P).  But what’s in the norm is directly dependent on what you’re comparing it TO.  It’s not inherent.


 

 

Now I’m a staunch advocate of diversity, but to be diverse you need DIFFERENCE!  No one person or type of people is inherently diverse within themselves.  The norm needs the outliers, not only to continue to exist, but to be the norm in comparison.  Same with the outliers.  In ecosystems you need the norm to go about the vital everyday tasks of capturing energy, photosynthesizing, symbiosis, eating and being eaten.  The Norm needs the outliers, the extremophiles, to break new ground, inhabit “hostile” environments, fill fringe niches, capture and make available to others rare minerals, etc.  Same with humans, we need people who are good at working with people, but we also need, farmers, mathematicians, architects, people who see the world in the same way we do, people who see the world opposite of how we do.  And we all need all of them.

 

Diversity is necessary for sustainability.  We are all interconnected and we all need each other.

 

The “Norm” in our society wears a halo, and I want to do nothing more than to rip off that halo and let the norm be what it is – a useful piece of statistics. (In my angrier moments I want to rip it off and trample it in the mud, hard.)  This idea that simply because someone else is doing something you should be doing it is not useful. You don’t like to have sex the way that the person next to you does. Fine. Whether you like it more kinky or more vanilla than they do, with guys or girls or someone in between. That’s cool.  If you learn differently from the person next to you, or are good at different things. Once again – fine! We NEED you.

 

The halo should belong on all of us.

 

POSTSCRIPT:  Another Idea I’ve been thinking about is: everybody has a “center” and the farther away from you your center is, the more energy and resources you lose. (I’m not talking here about being self – centered.) For instance if you’re a woman and the center of your world is a theoretical man, then you get less resources, and not only that, but you waste more energy because everything is taught in a way to be easy for a man to do it, but with a different body construction, center of gravity etc. it’s not so efficient for you.  One of the reasons that southwestern cities are using so much water, is that eastern cities are taken to be the model. So everything is done to get rid of water.  Sidewalks that slope INTO the street for better drainage, non-native plants, swathes of grass.  All these things were thought until recently to be beautiful and the way a city SHOULD be.

Ok, I'm back from low-spoons week.

Something Raven said recently:  "It seems like I'm freer than ever"  Sometimes two-person (scratch that any intimate relationship) can be a place of freedom, to try stuff out, to say things you've never said before.

On the other hand, I've been having a good rope-filled night. :)

OK maybe I'm not quite back. but getting there.

The Minutemen are an extremist "militia" group that has taken upon itself to patrol the border and apprehend illegal aliens.
Three Minutemen entered a family home and fatally shot a girl.
www.nytimes.com/2009/06/27/us/27arizona.html

Sadly, this doesn't entirely suprise me, considering the reports of abuse of illegals by their hands.
It's mixed out here, most people are at the LEAST extremely ambivalent about this kid of "protection".

It seems when we concentrate evil into one place - and then pin all that evil onto one group of Humans or living creatures.  It gives licence to crush those people.  This seems to unleash and nurture the worst parts of human nature.

Many, Many Iranians are engaged in nonviolent protest.

This is important world news, but I'm going to let someone do the talking who's actually been there:

andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/

I wish I had more energy to post more on this, but it's been one of those days.