Still Here

tawnykit — Mon, 14 Jan 2019 16:09:04 GMT

all i want to do is read. and maybe play some games. but mostly read

emphasis mine

tawnykit — Tue, 23 Oct 2018 03:08:17 GMT

September 1, 1939

W.H. Auden (1907-1973)

I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night.

Accurate scholarship can
Unearth the whole offence
From Luther until now
That has driven a culture mad,
Find what occurred at Linz,
What huge imago made
A psychopathic god:
I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.

Exiled Thucydides knew
All that a speech can say
About Democracy,
And what dictators do,
The elderly rubbish they talk
To an apathetic grave;
Analysed all in his book,
The enlightenment driven away,
The habit-forming pain,
Mismanagement and grief:
We must suffer them all again.

Into this neutral air
Where blind skyscrapers use
Their full height to proclaim
The strength of Collective Man,
Each language pours its vain
Competitive excuse:
But who can live for long
In an euphoric dream;
Out of the mirror they stare,
Imperialism's face
And the international wrong.

Faces along the bar
Cling to their average day:
The lights must never go out,
The music must always play,
All the conventions conspire
To make this fort assume
The furniture of home;
Lest we should see where we are,
Lost in a haunted wood,
Children afraid of the night
Who have never been happy or good.

The windiest militant trash
Important Persons shout
Is not so crude as our wish:
What mad Nijinsky wrote
About Diaghilev
Is true of the normal heart;
For the error bred in the bone
Of each woman and each man
Craves what it cannot have,
Not universal love
But to be loved alone.

From the conservative dark
Into the ethical life
The dense commuters come,
Repeating their morning vow;
"I will be true to the wife,
I'll concentrate more on my work,"
And helpless governors wake
To resume their compulsory game:
Who can release them now,
Who can reach the deaf,
Who can speak for the dumb?

All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky:
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.

Defenceless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.

Ouchy Teeth and Holes in My Mouth

tawnykit — Tue, 16 Oct 2018 03:00:40 GMT

Right now, all I want, in the whole wide world, is:
- toothpaste
- with fluoride!!
- without SLS
- with remineralization for sensitive teeth
- that doesn't taste yucky*

*optional, I hate mint but would still weep weep with joy if I found one that checked the other boxes even if it tasted awful

I was literally considering importing an $80 toothpaste from Japan, but then I saw that it had SLS.

(I feel obliged to add, in case some wandering trickster wanders by, that "all I want in the whole wide world was hyperbole, and I will continue to have ouchy teeth and canker sores rather than risk certain other things...)

tawnykit — Sun, 30 Sep 2018 20:56:27 GMT

Almost to October. Almost there.

Sweet Emily

tawnykit — Tue, 07 Aug 2018 03:47:17 GMT

my heart hurts

tawnykit — Mon, 30 Jul 2018 02:45:36 GMT

It's been a hard weekend.

Emily cat is twenty-two years old, and she is failing. Until recently, while she was clearly in some discomfort, she also still clearly enjoyed certain things. Us sitting with her, or taking her outside to sit in the sun and nibble grass. Now she's lost so much weight, and she seems so tired, and when we brought her outside today she just wandered around and staggered and lay down flat with her head on the grass. I have known Emily since I was five years old. I cannot actually comprehend what life looks like without her in it.

Meanwhile, a leaking sewer line means that the front yard has been dug up to replace the entire pipe. All Ma's pretty flowers are gone, and there's a gaping dirt scar and construction equipment in the yard. Dad worked all weekend trying to take down the front porch so that we could salvage the materials and rebuild it to be the same, but it's not finished and we're worried the workers are going to take a saw to it. They have a job to do, but Mom cried at the thought of it. Dad worked so hard.

Oh, and I have hives. Chronic ideopathic uticaria. I've had them since early May. I take literal handfuls of antimistamines every day, two of them prescription strength, and they've got me on monthly injections now, too. It's mostly helping. No more hundreds of hives all over my body. Hopefully not ever again. But I still get a few every day, and that sucks. At least I'm not fantasizing about removing my skin with a vegetable peeler anymore.

Julie is upset, too. All the stress in the air, probably. She's usually such a sweetheart, but she's started a few fights with Jackie--actual fights, not play fights, which they do all the time--and she just doesn't seem happy. Maybe I'm projecting.

Jackie seems fine, at least. My one-eyed happy girl.

Depression

tawnykit — Wed, 25 Oct 2017 01:45:53 GMT

A misnomer. Apathy. Apathy and mood swings. And apathy, apathy, apathy.

Niche-a genetics survival game

tawnykit — Mon, 02 Oct 2017 00:56:59 GMT

I love the aesthetics of this game.

join meeee on goooodreeeeeaads

tawnykit — Sat, 23 Sep 2017 14:56:30 GMT

GoodReads posted a "how goodreads members fell in love with reading" thing, so I added mine:

Once upon a time, my parents read books to me. Even when I was a baby who just wanted to chew on the book, they still read to me. Bicycle Bear. The Lupin Lady. The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig. Owl Moon. Stellaluna. Aunt Isabella Tells a Good One. The Little Prince. Misty of Chincoteague. A Wrinkle in Time. Many more. And so I have always, always loved reading.

...Except, wait, flash forward a bit to the first grade, when I decided that I HATED reading. I am both autistic and have social anxiety, though I didn't have a diagnosis for either of those until I was much older. And in first grade, the way we "learned to read" was by sitting in a circle, going around the circle taking turns reading out loud. I do not remember any of the books we read, because I spent the entire time being absolutely terrified. I learned to associate reading with fear, and for about a year, I hated reading and wanted nothing to do with it.

I was saved in the second grade. Twice a year, my school had a book sale, once with the spaghetti supper and once with the ice cream social. I browsed the shelves listlessly, because I hated reading (because they taught me to be afraid of it) but I finally picked out a book called Julie's Wolf Pack. (I didn't know that it was the third in a series, and it didn't matter, because it's the only one from the wolves' pov, so it stands alone pretty well.)

I started reading it because we had silent reading time during class, and it BLEW MY MIND. I couldn't put it down. It made me laugh, and cry, and dream.

And from then on, books and I have been inseparable.

Goodreads

tawnykit — Tue, 12 Sep 2017 00:07:34 GMT

Hey, hey there, why don't you have a Goodreads account? Best way to keep track of what you've read and what you're going to read. I've finally made huge bounds into my To Read pile. I feel so productive.

Come to the dark side, we have books.

Darwin's Grandpa Was a Perv

tawnykit — Sun, 10 Sep 2017 03:55:25 GMT

What I wanted to do today: play a couple board games, finifh Maggie Stiefvater's excellent Scorpio Races perhaps binge the reft of Luke Cage on Netflix.

What I actually did today: read a poem by Charles Darwin's grandfather about plants having fex with themfelves. It's over 1700 lines, and that doefn't even count the profe introduction and interludes. Did I mention that no one can underftand his metaphors without reading his copious footnotes?

Oh, and if you haven't guefsed from this poft, the verfion my prof wanted us to read ufed the "long s," ie that annoying thing from ye olde ftyle writing where they put an "f" instead of an "s" half the time.

#gradschoolproblems
(or would that be #gradfchoolproblems?)

Kudos to anyone who read through this poft, I promife to never use a "long s" again.

Emily Dickinson Gets It

tawnykit — Sat, 19 Aug 2017 01:12:49 GMT

Exultation is the going
Of an inland soul to sea -
Past the Houses -
Past the Headlands -
Into deep Eternity

Bred as we, among the mountains,
Can the sailor understand
The divine intoxication
Of the first league out from Land?

Now Your Flist Has Cat Pics, You're Welcome

tawnykit — Sat, 05 Aug 2017 16:36:32 GMT

Belated Announcement

tawnykit — Fri, 04 Aug 2017 02:47:58 GMT

So like. Did I ever tell you guys that I'm autistic? Officially diagnosed and everything, and wasn't that a nightmare to have done.

I was going to write a whole big post and stuff, and that's why I kept putting it off, because long heartfelt posts take a lot of effort. So here is a short post instead. *jazz hands*

P.S. Autism Speaks is a hate group, don't give them money.

#ActuallyAutistic #RedInstead #ISpeakForMyself

tawnykit — Wed, 26 Apr 2017 00:58:25 GMT

Wow, I've had this LJ for twelve and a half years.

Raise a Glass to Freedom (Something They Can Never Take Away)

tawnykit — Wed, 05 Apr 2017 18:23:31 GMT

Welp. The Russian government is now legally able to monitor our LJs, due to the server move to Russia, so. *waves at Russian government dudes/ladies* 'Sup, y'all? Not that I actually think Russia cares about a nobody like me, but you never know.

I believe that I have up to date contact info on all my friends here, but drop me an email if you need to update, on the off chance that my liberalness gets my account deleted or something. *waves giant flag of liberalness around cheerfully*

Happy Birthday to Me

tawnykit — Wed, 08 Mar 2017 03:31:51 GMT

Twenty-six. Insert joke about getting old [here].

I took the day off from work, hung out with my cats, and started a solo Mice and Mystics campaign. And now I have more books and music, and cat- and book-themed clothing, and I ate pie. So a good day in all.

2016 In Review

tawnykit — Thu, 05 Jan 2017 03:47:15 GMT

Fandom 2016

1. Your main fandom of the year?
Hamilton, probably. (Saw it in October. Had chills through the whole show.)

2. Your favorite film watched this year?
Probably Moana, though the new Ghostbusters was also pretty rad.

3. Your favorite book read this year?
After much hemmingand hawing, I think I've narrowed it down to three favorites, espcially if I'm not counting rereads. The Fifth Seasonby N.K. Jemisin, Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan Mcguire,and A Fistful of Sky by Nina Kiriki Hoffman.

4. Your favorite album or song to listen to this year?
Hamilton soundtrack, I guess. I've been pretty big into musical soundtracks lately.

5. Your favorite TV show of the year?
Jessica Jones! Really messed up, but really really good!~

6. Your favorite online fandom community of the year?
Idk. I'm not really involved in a lot of fandoms right now. The American Revolution folks over on Tumblr are always churning out some interesting analyses, and I did Yuletide again this year.

7. Your best new fandom discovery of the year?
Spider Gwen! Young Wizards! The Vorkosigan books!

8. Your biggest fandom disappointment of the year?
Marvel has apparently decided to take Ganke and make him Peter Parker's best friend instead of Miles Morales'? Wtf Marvel? We see your half-assed attempts at diversity and we are NOT IMPRESSED. The world doesn't need another Peter Parker Spiderman movie, Marvel. You should've given us Miles, not taken his sidekick and smooshed him into the wrong spot.

9. Your TV boyfriend of the year?
This is a very odd question.

10. Your TV girlfriend of the year?
This is also a very odd question.

11. Your biggest squee moment of the year?
Seeing Hamilton!

12. The most missed of your old fandoms?
I miss when Peacewish posted Card Captor Sakura AUs. Those were the best.

13. The fandom you haven’t tried yet, but want to?
I have a massive stack of books to read, does that count?

14. Your biggest fan anticipations for the New Year?
Reading that stack of books.

***

General 2016

What did you do in 2016 that you’d never done before?
Voted for a woman for President. Saw a Broadway show actually on Broadway.

Did you keep your New Year’s resolutions,and will you make more for next year?
Nah, I always thought resolutions were dumb. New Years is pretty arbitrary, you know.

Did anyone close to you give birth?
aldecoary did! As did my cousin. Neither of these people are physically close, though, so I have no tiny humans to cuddle. :(

Did anyone close to you die?
No. Though I was pretty devastated when we lost Carrie Fisher.

What countries did you visit?
I didn't do any traveling this year, except for the annual trip to Belmar.

What would you like to have in 2017 that you lacked in 2016?
Free time.

What dates from 2016 will remain etched upon your memory,and why?
October 15th (Hamilton). November 9th (election).

What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Meh. Nothing special.

What was your biggest failure?
No, my personal life was pretty average, no major failures or accomplishments that I recall. My country fucked up big time, though.

Did you suffer illness or injury?
Well yeah, but so what else is new?

What was the best thing you bought?
Hamilton tickets. RENT tickets. BOOKS!

Whose behavior merited celebration?
A lot of excellent activists.

Whose behavior made you appalledand depressed?
The American people as a wholeand everything associated with our clusterfuck election outcome.

Where did most of your money go?
School.

What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Hamilton.

What song will always remind you of 2016?
This isn't a thing for me. Do people really have songs that they associate with certain years?

Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) happier or sadder? Sadder.
b) thinner or fatter? Thinner, actually. I guess that's an accomplishment.
c) richer or poorer? 'Bout the same.

What do you wish you’d done more of?
Reading. Writing. Sleeping. Hanging out with people.

What do you wish you’d done less of?
Procrastinating on stuff that is important. Like I'm doing right now. (I should be going to sleep, I have work in the morning,and a 10 hour shift at that.)
(At this point, I actually logged offand finished this thing later.)

Did you fall in love in 2016?
Nope.

What was your favorite TV program?
You already asked me this one lol.

Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
Anyone I hate now was also worth hating this time last year, so if I didn't, it's simply because I didn't know about them.

What was the best book you read?
These must originally have been three different things, since there's overlap in the questions.

What was your greatest musical discovery?
Nothing really new, tbh.

What did you want and get?
Hamilton and RENT tickets. Lotsa books.

What did you want and not get?
A female president. More sleep. Independent wealth.

What was your favorite film of this year?
Repeat question! I'll add Rogue Onein to what I said above, though as much as I liked it, I have a few issues. Not gonna bother getting into that now, but feel free to ask if you care.

What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I worked a half day at work (didn't have enough vacation time to take it fully off)and ate pie and opened presents. Mostly books. :D

What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
A different election outcome. Carrie Fisher, Leonard Cohen,and Ron Glass not dying.

How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2016?
Whatever-I-pulled-out-of-the-drawer-chic.

What kept you sane?
My psychiatrist.

Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
I do not fancy people.

What political issue stirred you the most?
Gee, I wonder.

Who did you miss?
Old friends.

Who was the best new person you met?
Nah, man, I'm a recluse, I don't meet new people.

Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2016:
Nazis suck. I mean I already knew that, but now they're trying to take over my country. So the lesson is, "Nazis suck and also stil exist, wtf."

Quote a song that sums up your year:
Should the quotation sum up my year, or the whole song? Uhh... "How do you stay on your feet when on every street it's trick-or-treat, and tonight it's trick!" It's just been a sucky year.

***

Writing 2016

Fanfiction:
Natsume's Book of Friends: " Bodyguard (carry me, carry you)" (1932 words)
Hamilton:"Another Round Again" (3864 words, wip)

Original Fiction:
"Fray" (3967 words)

School Essays etc
"Depictions of Mental Illness in Edgar Allan Poe’s Short Stories" (~5700 words)
"The Fly's Blue Buzzing: Sensesand Synesthesia in Emily Dickinson’s Lifeand Poetry" (~2700 words)
and a number of short responses that I'm not going to bother figuring out the word count for

Total:~18163 words
Could be worse.

***

And for a bonus, Books 2016, since Goodreads is kind of enough to assemble that for me: https://www.goodreads.com/user/year_in_books/2016/48754347

Scrivener

tawnykit — Sun, 11 Dec 2016 21:28:48 GMT

Scrivener's a blessing. I don't need to write 15+ pages about Edgar Allan Poe, I just need to write, like, three pages about "The Fall of the House of Usher." And then do that again x many times until I have the completed paper. Bite sized pieces om nom nom.

I got my Yuletide rough draft done, too.

#NotMyPresident

tawnykit — Sat, 19 Nov 2016 15:26:47 GMT

They're putting Nazis in the White House.

Look, I'm not going to claim the White House is some sort of sacred ground. It's had evil men in it before. It's had evil things done in it before.

But it's a symbol, and more importantly, it's not just the White House, it's my government. For the People, by the People.

And there will be Nazis there.

And I am so scared.

powerless

tawnykit — Wed, 09 Nov 2016 18:59:53 GMT

I can't seem to stop crying.

One part heartbreak. I really thought we were going to elect our first woman president. I really honestly thought that was going to happen.

One part fear. Not for me so much. I'm white and middle class. I'll be okay. But I'm terrified for every minority group in this country.

One part shame. My state went blue, we did all we could, but. But. I am so ashamed of my countrymen. Oh god, I'm so sorry.

And one part, to be honest, disgust. That man's voice hurts my ears. He's vulgar and crude. He's a criminal. He looks like a moldy dorito. And we have to spend the next four years pretending that he deserves to be in the same position as Washington and Roosevelt and Obama (all flawed men to be sure, but I'd take any one of them a thousand times over instead of this).

Today for grief. Tomorrow for strength. We've survived bad presidents before. Sometimes with devastating consequences. But we go on. And we never give up, never give in. And we'll get through it in the end.

One Year of Book Data

tawnykit — Mon, 07 Nov 2016 02:34:46 GMT

Books I've read in a year, publication date vs when I read it. Handy Goodreads feature.

That's Sei Shōnagon at the bottom there mucking up my curve.

tawnykit — Wed, 12 Oct 2016 03:06:59 GMT

I still can't keep track of the difference between an em-dash and an en-dash.

tawnykit — Thu, 25 Aug 2016 02:46:03 GMT

So, ah. Life, it's a thing that keeps on going. I need a break.

Currently most excited about booksand things. I:

Finally finished reading Fullmetal Alchemist! Yeah, late to the party as usual. I stopped buying them when they were still being released because cliffhangers upset me,and then I never got around to catching up until I was browsing the dealer's room at Connecticon. It's so good! I'd forgotten how much I loved Mustangand Hawkeye.

Am reading Rebeccaby Daphne du Maurier! Absolutely gorgeous imagery. I want to slap both the leads upside the head.

Am watching Serial Experiment Lain! It's an anime I've never heard of before today, made all the way back in 1998. It's weeeeeeeeird.

Am reading Last Song Before Nightby Ilana C. Myer! It's... good? I guess? Interesting plot, but I feel disconnected from it. The characters don't feel alive to me, y'know? But I'm almost done with it.

Am watching Daredevil! Matt Murdock is a dork.

Am reading A Wizard Abroadby Diane Duane! Holy shit, guys, how did I not read this series as a kid? Actually, I think most of its awesomeness might have gone over my head as a kid. But rest assured, it's awesome.

Am technically playing Dishonoredand The TALOS Principle, in that I haven't beaten either but intend to finish both. Only I have no time for video games right now. I'm never taking a summer class again.

Am reading Across the Wallby Garth Nix! Are you reading for the Goldenhandrelease? Because I am SO ready for Goldenhand.

Am petting Jackie the cat! She just jumped into my lap.

Am reading Alexander Hamiltonby Ron Chernow! *om noms delicious Revolutionary American history*

Also an Edgar Allen Poe anthologyand the Franklin collection of Emily Dickinson's poems.

Phew! *wipes forehead* I'm not usually juggling this much media at once. It's a huge list for me. But I cheered myself up just by writing it all downand saying some things about it.

Also hello, this is Jackie the cat, she loves me.

tawnykit — Tue, 28 Jun 2016 16:50:57 GMT

WHY DON'T THEY TEACH ABOUT DWARF PLANETS IN SCHOOL WTF??? WE LEARNED ALL ABOUT THE PLANETS AND THEIR MOONS BUT NOT THE ALMOST-PLANETS THAT ARE EVEN CLOSER THAN SOME PLANETS???? But I've never even heard of Ceres, Eris, or Makemake. I mean, I guess there's like, hundreds of them, so you can't expect fourth graders to memorize them all, but going over the important ones and mentioning how many there are right in our solar system is a thing that should happen.