TDG CEM Day 2
Sep. 16th, 2011 01:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
greygirlbeastBoth my feet feel like blocks of wood this morning. Since I began taking Gabapentin, and the neurological problems in my feet began to improve, this doesn't happen so often. Only sometimes. Regardless, it's a very unpleasant sensation (or lack thereof), and can make walking tricky (which is why I used a stick for so long).
A great comment to Wednesday's entry, which was largely concerned with the decline of LJ, care of![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
opalblack : "It's (LJ's} drawing me back more and more because it isn't so instant, and many of the smaller minds have drifted away for shallower waters." Smaller minds and shallower waters, that's the bit I like.
---
Sort of chilly this morning. Storms passed through Providence yesterday, in advance of the cold front, and now it feels nothing at all like summer.
---
Yesterday, there were some last-minute adjustments to the flux capacitor, which was only managing a paltry 1.02 gigawatts, when 1.21 are required for optimal performance. But, as soon as that was dealt with, I finally opened the envelope containing the CEM of The Drowning Girl: A Memoir (which actually arrived here on September 8th), and we made it through Chapter One. We'll do Two and Three today. Which seems, at the moment, a lofty fucking goal. But I will say this. With The Red Tree, I got the best copy-editor I'd ever had, one who didn't try to rewrite, and who actually caught genuine errors I'd missed. I seem to have lucked out again, or – though it seems unlikely – NYC's standard for copy-editors has gone up. (And yes, I think "copy-editor" ought to be hyphenated).
Oh, and I answered far too much email yesterday.
---
Please have a look at Spooky's Dreaming Squid Dollworks and Sundries Etsy shop. The Halloween stuff is up, as it's that time of year again (well, sort of). And a couple of wonderful new necklaces.
---
Last night we played Rift, wandering about Gloamwood on our najmoks, working on achievements for the region. Then we watched the last couple of epsiodes of Season Five of Law and Order: Criminal Intent, which means we'll now have to "resort" to the mail for Season Six (perhaps the Athenaeum, if they have it), or go back to Law and Order: Special Victims Unit. When all is said and done, the latter is actually the better of the two, even without Vincent D'onofrio. But the "rape of the week" plot template gets old fast. Still, there's Richard Belzer. Anyway, then I read a couple more stories from The Book of Cthulhu, Michael Shea's "Fat Face" and Brian McNaughton's "The Doom that Came to Innsmouth."* Shea does a great job of capturing a particular and especially seedy side of LA. McNaughton's story is good, but would have been a lot better if he'd turned the volume down just a little near the end. A little goes a long way, a lesson it has taken me the better part of twenty years to learn.
Platypus, what's wrong with this picture? Where's my sugar-free Red Bull!
In the Gloaming,
Aunt Beast
* An interesting note. The antagonist of McNaughton's story is named Dr. Isaac Mordecai Saltonstall. And in The Drowning Girl, the painter who painted the titular painting is named Phillip George Saltonstall. For the record, before last night, I'd never even heard of "The Doom That Came to Innsmouth" (which originally appeared in Tales Out of Innsmouth, 1999, Chaosium Inc; oddly, I don't even own that anthology). I found the name in a Rhode Island or Massachusetts cemetery, where I often find names. I'm combing through my Moleskines, trying to figure out which cemetery it was. Anyway, only a curious coincidence.
A great comment to Wednesday's entry, which was largely concerned with the decline of LJ, care of
opalblack : "It's (LJ's} drawing me back more and more because it isn't so instant, and many of the smaller minds have drifted away for shallower waters." Smaller minds and shallower waters, that's the bit I like.---
Sort of chilly this morning. Storms passed through Providence yesterday, in advance of the cold front, and now it feels nothing at all like summer.
---
Yesterday, there were some last-minute adjustments to the flux capacitor, which was only managing a paltry 1.02 gigawatts, when 1.21 are required for optimal performance. But, as soon as that was dealt with, I finally opened the envelope containing the CEM of The Drowning Girl: A Memoir (which actually arrived here on September 8th), and we made it through Chapter One. We'll do Two and Three today. Which seems, at the moment, a lofty fucking goal. But I will say this. With The Red Tree, I got the best copy-editor I'd ever had, one who didn't try to rewrite, and who actually caught genuine errors I'd missed. I seem to have lucked out again, or – though it seems unlikely – NYC's standard for copy-editors has gone up. (And yes, I think "copy-editor" ought to be hyphenated).
Oh, and I answered far too much email yesterday.
---
Please have a look at Spooky's Dreaming Squid Dollworks and Sundries Etsy shop. The Halloween stuff is up, as it's that time of year again (well, sort of). And a couple of wonderful new necklaces.
---
Last night we played Rift, wandering about Gloamwood on our najmoks, working on achievements for the region. Then we watched the last couple of epsiodes of Season Five of Law and Order: Criminal Intent, which means we'll now have to "resort" to the mail for Season Six (perhaps the Athenaeum, if they have it), or go back to Law and Order: Special Victims Unit. When all is said and done, the latter is actually the better of the two, even without Vincent D'onofrio. But the "rape of the week" plot template gets old fast. Still, there's Richard Belzer. Anyway, then I read a couple more stories from The Book of Cthulhu, Michael Shea's "Fat Face" and Brian McNaughton's "The Doom that Came to Innsmouth."* Shea does a great job of capturing a particular and especially seedy side of LA. McNaughton's story is good, but would have been a lot better if he'd turned the volume down just a little near the end. A little goes a long way, a lesson it has taken me the better part of twenty years to learn.
Platypus, what's wrong with this picture? Where's my sugar-free Red Bull!
In the Gloaming,
Aunt Beast
* An interesting note. The antagonist of McNaughton's story is named Dr. Isaac Mordecai Saltonstall. And in The Drowning Girl, the painter who painted the titular painting is named Phillip George Saltonstall. For the record, before last night, I'd never even heard of "The Doom That Came to Innsmouth" (which originally appeared in Tales Out of Innsmouth, 1999, Chaosium Inc; oddly, I don't even own that anthology). I found the name in a Rhode Island or Massachusetts cemetery, where I often find names. I'm combing through my Moleskines, trying to figure out which cemetery it was. Anyway, only a curious coincidence.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2011-09-16 05:50 pm (UTC)Have you seen the Crazy Nastyass Honey Badger? I don't recall, if'n I ever knew. Anyway, in case you haven't, here;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4r7wHMg5Yjg
Every time you quote me it makes me want to make better words. I think that's a good thing.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-16 05:53 pm (UTC)Yes. I have seen the Crazy Nastyass Honey Badger video, though, I will note, I declared the honey badger my spirit animal BEFORE I saw said video.
Every time you quote me it makes me want to make better words. I think that's a good thing.
This is a good thing.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-16 06:13 pm (UTC)Of such moments is derp made.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-16 06:18 pm (UTC)What the dog is "derp"?
no subject
Date: 2011-09-16 06:42 pm (UTC)It's become a response to both flagrant and general stupidity, and really outstanding failures of otherwise clever things (and people) to function as expected. Such as, for example, misspelling wookiee in referencing your icon which has the correct spelling right there on it.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-16 05:51 pm (UTC)The Saltonstalls were a prominent Boston family; I remember discovering Leverett Saltonstall in 2007 and, seeing that he was succeeded as Governor of Massachusetts by Maurice J. Tobin of the Tobin Bridge, tried briefly to persuade
no subject
Date: 2011-09-16 05:56 pm (UTC)Wow. I never knew any of that. Spooky said, just now, "Check Wikipedia; it's all right here."
I chose it because a) it echoed the sea, and b) it references the Salton Sea, which fascinates me.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-16 06:22 pm (UTC)It works very well. The original place-name is supposed to have to do with willows.
(I did assume it had been chosen partly to interface with New England history. Now I'm curious who else will or will not get that idea.)
no subject
Date: 2011-09-16 06:01 pm (UTC)i don't like this, given it sounds incredibly arrogant.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-16 06:07 pm (UTC)i don't like this, given it sounds incredibly arrogant.
Arrogance is not a bad thing when it points us towards truth. And, then again, stating the truth often sounds like arrogance, though it may only be a stating of the truth.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-16 06:20 pm (UTC)that sounds arrogant to me. i, too, concour, that is not a bad thing per se because it has it's valid places, which definition includes your answer, aswell.
however i do not think that this should be a greater point. it's not about LJ or not LJ, it's about the arguments.
my point crumbles, i feel, i was not trying to start an argument. i simply wanted to add something.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-16 08:21 pm (UTC)Thing is, perhaps, I have no problem with being thought arrogant, as I am, and perhaps she also has no such problem (though I can speak for no one in this instance but myself).
no subject
Date: 2011-09-17 02:14 am (UTC)It can't be done. I am arrogant, here and there. I contain multitudes, and if I am thought one thing or the other it's scarcely worth my objecting, or destroying myself to appease.
So, no. No problem at all.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-17 02:54 am (UTC)IQ is a number, mind is habits of thought. There are plenty of clever people with small minds, and plenty of thickies with big, beautiful, deep minds.
Even if it's not world-changing Big Concepts, people still using LJ put effort into composing a post. Many people don't want to do that, nor read the results. Fine. Apples and oranges.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-17 07:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-17 07:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-16 06:30 pm (UTC)You can have one of my sugar-free Red Bulls.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-16 08:22 pm (UTC)I really love the Wookiee icon. I can easily picture you pulling the arms of a copy-editor's sockets.
I stole it from Elizabeth Bear.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-16 06:53 pm (UTC)Geppettos disease... (rapidly making this up mind you) where a real person is turned into a puppet. Which isnt as amusing as Hensons disease, where you get turned into a cute Muppet.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-16 07:11 pm (UTC)I like that... Very Ligotti.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-16 07:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-16 08:23 pm (UTC)I like that... Very Ligotti.
It does sound Ligottian!
no subject
Date: 2011-09-16 07:09 pm (UTC)That's the difference.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-16 07:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-16 08:19 pm (UTC)I pick and choose on Facebook. I always check certain relatives and old friends individually, so I haven't missed anything important that might not have been sent as an e-mail. I do this especially with the people who don't post often, and may get lost in the chatter.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-16 08:04 pm (UTC)Hang on. Are you building an interocitor?
no subject
Date: 2011-09-16 08:24 pm (UTC)interocitor
Nope.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-16 08:54 pm (UTC)Sorry about that, I might have broken into your lab and drained the generators somewhat by explosively overloading the enormous amplifier you were storing in there.
I'm not really sure why you have that thing in the lab anyway.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-16 10:16 pm (UTC)Sorry about that, I might have broken into your lab and drained the generators somewhat by explosively overloading the enormous amplifier you were storing in there.
Silly wabbit!
I'm not really sure why you have that thing in the lab anyway.
My business!
no subject
Date: 2011-09-16 09:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-16 10:17 pm (UTC)I spent 12 miserable weeks on the stuff.
What were the side-effects you were experiencing?
no subject
Date: 2011-09-17 12:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-17 12:44 am (UTC)Oh, that's really nasty... I was reading somewhere that gabapentin is actually used sometimes as a daily migraine preventative. Of course, it may have to do with what type of migraine you suffer from. Back when I was getting them regularly for 7 - 14 days at a time, there wasn't much I could take (both because there wasn't much to be had, and because a lot of what there was was the wrong medicine for my pesky, aura laden brain-sporking mayhem.)
no subject
Date: 2011-09-17 12:40 am (UTC)LJ is where I say what I feel. Not many places are safe for that anymore, not with the increasing freedom/sociability (neither one the word I want, but the best that are coming to mind) of social media. Some of us are more reticent.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-17 07:35 pm (UTC)