some good things
Nov. 8th, 2024 09:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jazzfishETA: forgot I'd seen this awhile ago. Fucking terrible moving company sues for nonpayment, is forced to pay instead. Reminder that 2 Burley Men Moving, based out of Victoria, are absolute shit: no communication, major delays, and broken stuff. Avoid at all costs.
In A Succession Of Bad Days there's a bit where the sorcery students work with a fire elemental to design and build a house. The elemental does most of the design work. Including the basement, with a hat-tip to Mr Penrose:
Naturally someone has actually done this, thirty years ago. It looks amazing and I want it. I also enjoy the circa-2000 webpage design. Sad that all the "here's some more examples" links are broken, though. All things come in time to die.
I went to renew my US passport online last night (it's not up until late '26 but may as well). There's a form you fill out that will pre-fill a PDF form for you, and then you just print out the PDF form and mail everything off. It's pretty great.
It also includes the option for an X gender marker, which was mildly startling. More startling was that you can just select that, or for that matter M or F: no need to provide additional documentation or anything. I poked around a bit more and found the announcement from Sec'y Blinken, from spring 2022. It's... it's exactly what I would want it to be. "We're doing this; we talked to a bunch of people about the best way to do it, and figured that making it as easy as possible was the right call." It made me sniffly, both for its existence as the obviously, simply, right thing, and for the certainty that it'll be torched within six months.
I'm getting one, partly because it feels right and partly because if I draw flak that would otherwise have gone at someone more vulnerable that's all to the good. I considered not: it's got a nonzero, if low, chance of making my life worse. But: fuck preemptive compliance. Also fuck gender data. (Also fuck gender, honestly.)
I went to see Steph, the day after Halloween. I saw a giant outdoor puppet show and talked a little about Abby. I made pancakes, which an extremely picky small child declared to be the best pancakes. I bought spices and washed a lot of dishes and was generally quietly domestic in loving company for a few days.
I came home Wednesday afternoon, so I did at least get to spend the initial Wednesday-morning shock with someone else.
Had a couple days to re-center now. I'm not angry and confused, like I was in 2004. I'm not hurt and incandescent, like I was in 2016. I'm just sad. Sic transit gloria mundi. Everything dies, and everything flies economy.
Though I did discover Mycopunk Principles (from Mastodon, I think via Charlie Stross), which I appreciate.
Onward, always onward.
In A Succession Of Bad Days there's a bit where the sorcery students work with a fire elemental to design and build a house. The elemental does most of the design work. Including the basement, with a hat-tip to Mr Penrose:
The walls are, floor to ceiling, tiled black and white, black shapes like a flat cruciform kite and white shapes like an extremely stylized swallow or falcon or something, nothing to it but pointy wings. ... Kynefrid sounds shockey. "I don't think the tiling pattern ever repeats."
Naturally someone has actually done this, thirty years ago. It looks amazing and I want it. I also enjoy the circa-2000 webpage design. Sad that all the "here's some more examples" links are broken, though. All things come in time to die.
I went to renew my US passport online last night (it's not up until late '26 but may as well). There's a form you fill out that will pre-fill a PDF form for you, and then you just print out the PDF form and mail everything off. It's pretty great.
It also includes the option for an X gender marker, which was mildly startling. More startling was that you can just select that, or for that matter M or F: no need to provide additional documentation or anything. I poked around a bit more and found the announcement from Sec'y Blinken, from spring 2022. It's... it's exactly what I would want it to be. "We're doing this; we talked to a bunch of people about the best way to do it, and figured that making it as easy as possible was the right call." It made me sniffly, both for its existence as the obviously, simply, right thing, and for the certainty that it'll be torched within six months.
I'm getting one, partly because it feels right and partly because if I draw flak that would otherwise have gone at someone more vulnerable that's all to the good. I considered not: it's got a nonzero, if low, chance of making my life worse. But: fuck preemptive compliance. Also fuck gender data. (Also fuck gender, honestly.)
I went to see Steph, the day after Halloween. I saw a giant outdoor puppet show and talked a little about Abby. I made pancakes, which an extremely picky small child declared to be the best pancakes. I bought spices and washed a lot of dishes and was generally quietly domestic in loving company for a few days.
I came home Wednesday afternoon, so I did at least get to spend the initial Wednesday-morning shock with someone else.
Had a couple days to re-center now. I'm not angry and confused, like I was in 2004. I'm not hurt and incandescent, like I was in 2016. I'm just sad. Sic transit gloria mundi. Everything dies, and everything flies economy.
Though I did discover Mycopunk Principles (from Mastodon, I think via Charlie Stross), which I appreciate.
Onward, always onward.
no subject
Date: 2024-11-08 09:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-11-09 07:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-11-09 03:19 pm (UTC)Have you considered renounciation?
no subject
Date: 2024-11-09 07:33 pm (UTC)Considered and rejected. It's a fuckton of money for no actual benefit, and I am not willing to spend a fuckton of money for a symbolic benefit.