High livin’: I just walked four miles in flip-f

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High livin’: I just walked four miles in flip-flops for frozen custard.

I really wanted to do something outdoors today, but I can’t stand the sun like, at all; I was in a sunbeam on the couch for literally three minutes and started to hive up on my chest. Fuck that.

So we walked in the dark to get ice cream. 

I’m crepuscular.

Also I should really see a doctor, this started in April or May and I should really find out why it’s happening.

emilyenrose: imindhowwelayinjune: Dear @thelioninmybed,

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emilyenrose:

imindhowwelayinjune:

Dear @thelioninmybed, when I said ‘my Sauron ant meta’ what I really meant was ‘a joke I’ve been making for at least a year about what’s up Sauron’s butt’

I’m gonna meta it up for you, tho.

Let us start with the assertion that Maiar are spirit beings who can self-determine shape but do not appear to have a given shape of their own. Furthermore, one could posit that Maiar in their neutral form are naturally formless and insubstantial, things in essence but not in substance.

Sauron, née Mairon (lit. ‘Maiar Ronald’ [nb: this is fake]), is a Maia. Hence he and his brethren, like the Valar themselves, have the ability to take on shapes, and so he has. We observe that he tends to clothe himself in the standard meat suit: Two legs, two arms, single flaming eye two eyes, one butthole.

There has been much written - and excellently so - on the process of constructing a hröa for the hröa-less; the process of sculpting a being of essence into a creature with form; the accuracies and intricacies and implications thereof.

We have, as a community, more or less reached the conclusion that Maiar were pretty good at this. Good enough for things like speaking, and talking, and touch; maybe even breathing, eating and drinking, and sensation.

We have, as a community, largely decided you can fuck a Maia.

But being contrary of will and perverse of temperament, I wondered if such incarnations, these bodies inhabited by beings of light and spirit, were good, as it were, all the way down, or if the resemblance was only skin deep. Others have posited that yes, they were, and this could lead to excellent competitions amongst Maiar for most accurately replicated kidney, etc etc. I thoroughly approve of such speculation, and think that Eönwë’s liver totally took the gold at Alatar’s annual organ contest and kegstand competition.

But what if Sauron cut corners?

What if, having tied off the ear lobes and cinched up the butthole, he decided, welp, good enough?

What if, I said to my friends who were humoring me, what if he were just, like, okay,

hollow?

Okay, said my friends, so what happens when you fuck a hollow Maia? (As would happen, given the community-wide decision previously mentioned.) Would one’s dick just flap about in the void? This would be symbolic, and kind of amusing, I thought, but knowing Sauron, it might not be interesting enough.

So I filled him with ants.

June is both the Tolkien scholar we need and the Tolkien scholar we deserve.

librarychick94 replied to your post “High

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solar urticaria http://ift.tt/2c98lAV

I read that page too when it first started happening. Yeah, but not quite exactly, and also why? I discontinued any meds that’s a reaction to literally two years ago. it came from nowhere and has gotten worse as the season has progressed. Also I have textureless but colored patches all over the rest of my torso, including areas that never see sunlight, but only when I have hives; they disappear when the hives go. (For a while I had a pair of near-perfect slightly ovaloid circles in the middle of my back, not lined up with any anatomical features or places clothing would irritate, but those faded after a couple of months.) Except yesterday I took a long hot shower and you could see the shadows of the patches on my skin. (I couldn’t tell if the back circles had come up, they’re in a spot where I can’t really see them.)

WHO KNOWS. A doctor sure won’t, but they’ll tell me a bunch of stuff and give me some expensive prescriptions to try, and after a while it’ll go away because it’s winter, and either it’ll come back next year (probably) or not, and I’ll probably have to come back to the doctor, and maybe they’ll order some expensive tests my insurance won’t cover, prescribe me some other stuff that’s a huge pain in the ass to use, and in the end the problem will either go away on its own or not, possibly because of the use of medicine or not.

Can you tell I’ve had eczema, sometimes severe, my whole life? Same deal. It comes and goes according entirely to its whim, is aggravated by some unpreventable but understandable stuff, responds mostly not at all to some treatment I have to apply constantly if at all in really faintly icky ways, and basically does whatever it wants and doesn’t care at all if I’ve been to the doctor’s office or not. 

(The depression is precisely the same! the medicine is annoying and has noticeable side effects [hello gaining 30 pounds, you’re permanent aren’t you, yup! and then the doctor helpfully tells me to take up exercise, like i wasn’t working out intensely fifteen hours a week when the weight gain happened], the condition itself may or may not actually be responding, there’s an underlying problem that’s surely not being addressed but I’m damned if I know what it is.) (oh the asthma too! Plus the asthma meds cost 86% of my gross income per month so are unattainable. So I just deal.) 

But I should make sure I don’t have skin cancer or anything, since I do have some form of medical coverage. 

albymangroves replied to your post

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I have like a handful of pictures of when I was little but none at all of my folks or earlier. I’m very envious of how available your family history is! <3

Oh, that’s too bad. You changed countries, though, right? My father’s family history is extremely scanty; he knows the names of the four grandparents who emigrated, and that’s it, he doesn’t even know their parents’ names, let alone have any images. He has one tantalizing photo album that from the clothing and context is clearly someone’s trip back to Ireland to see their family after being established in the US, but there are zero captions, and we don’t know who one single solitary person is in the photos. No idea. All these wonderful snapshots, and no idea who they are or why. All we can figure out is the approximate date from the fashions the people are wearing. 

My mother’s family, though, I have almost an embarrassment of riches there. Grandma was super into history and genealogy, and was an award-winning researcher; Mom has continued that work and is writing books about everything she can think of. The added factor is that everyone knew Grandma was the Family Historian, so people from the entire extended family developed the habit of giving her anything old they found while cleaning out various old folks’ houses– so she wound up with a house full of antiques and all the stories to go with them, all the old family Bibles with the births and deaths recorded in them (not useful legally, but excellent sources to use to narrow down for example which census in which location to check for confirmation on people’s existence)– all of that kind of stuff. Some of that stuff, my uncle had and lost, because he was a hoarder and not necessarily careful with his possessions, but after his death Mom was the one left with the task of going through his house, and she found most of the important things she was looking for.

And it is a treasure to have– not just the photos, but the context. 

Mom’s current project is doing this with the (now-extinct) family who built the house my sister bought– the last Morrison died in the 90s, but the family farmed that land from 1774 through about 1939, and Mom has already tracked down every single person buried in the cemetery on the property. She’s now on the track of every person who lived in that house from its original construction date of 1789 until the last Morrison moved out and the new owners left the house vacant for 70 years. 

It’s too bad there are no current relatives surviving, but she might track some down, and even if nobody’s alive to be the descendant of these people, it is such a fascinating encapsulation of American history. The first Morrison actually took up arms for the British Loyalists in the Revolution, and must have been a fast talker because the Continentals didn’t seize his property after his capture at the Battle of Bennington! And although he was born in New York, he never fully mastered English; his native language was German, and he couldn’t write in either language, but all of his sons could. His wife probably couldn’t even speak English, because he had to conduct a lot of her business for her in her later years even though she was of sound mind– probably because increasing numbers of her customers didn’t speak German (she sold eggs and milk). We know this from the probate file when his will was contested, including the detail that he cut his own firewood until he was ninety.

Anyway. I’m going on about it too much. Later I’ll find that folder of daguerreotypes and the notes Mom made on who everyone probably was. The thing I like most in history is the stories; memorizing lines of dates and lists of Contributing Factors is really super boring but thinking about the fact that three big beautiful surviving houses on this street were built in 1825 because that was the year the patroon started selling estates to long-term tenants kind of drives it home a lot. 1825! and he was in effect ending serfdom! Chew on that.

i can’t do math

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I’ve said this before. Anyway. So. I can’t do math, I can’t nail it down enough to make it work.

I’m trying to make insulated coverings to go inside the canvas tarps that are my yurt’s outer skin. I looked up a few great explanations of insulated drapes, and most of them point out that your outermost layer should be a vapor barrier, which means, waterproof, so i’m doing that, so it’s ok if these things are touching the canvas tarp because they won’t wick water into themselves. Go me, smart. 

But I’m dying trying to figure out the geometry, and I’m really thinking of just making rectangles and overlapping them because it’s easier than math. HOWEVER, Dude is helping me by doing math from my descriptions. I had been trying to use online calculators but I don’t know how to describe what I’m looking at in searchable terms, so. Anyway. Trapezoids! Thanks bro.

The walls, I had spent a lot of time thinking about making panels for, but you barely see them with all the furniture and all, and also I have a 30-foot roll of 4′ Reflectix, so I’ll just do that. I need a good solid door, I think I’ll make a really mega quilt for that for now. 

But the roof. I have some old drapes that hung over my family’s glass sliding patio door for my whole childhood, and they’re 70″ by about 55″, and I’m starting with those, and assorted other childhood-home-salvage drapes, plus some old vinyl tablecloths, scraps of blackout cloth, an old shower curtain or two, and some of that spray-on Never Wet stuff. I can do this, surely I can.

I just need to know what shape to make my panels. They can overlap a bunch, that’s cool, but it’d help if they were approximately the right shape, you know??

Anyway. That’s what I’m up to, yurt-wise. 
I wasn’t going to think about it much this year, but there’ll be houseguests at the farm for the Thanksgiving slaughter day, and I’d rather still have my guestroom set up, but also not be miserably cold in there. I have a kerosene heater but I’d rather not rely on it entirely. If I can get the space to hold heat, it’s so little a couple of careful olive oil lamps might do the trick to keep the chill off so I can sleep, with maybe the kerosene heater right when I get in and when I get up so it’s warm enough to move around. I just don’t want to run that thing while I’m sleeping. It’s got safety shutoffs and all, but, nah. 

Transforming some vintage salvaged drapes and assorted hoarded...

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Transforming some vintage salvaged drapes and assorted hoarded textiles into insulated labels for the yurt roof so I can maybe stay in there thru turkey day. We’ll see– so far it’s mostly a way for me to clear all this hoarded salvaged fabric out of my basement and attic. Recognize that print? It was in the background of a lot of pictures when we were kids!

honeyfawns: a very lovely florist showed me where she dries her...

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honeyfawns:

a very lovely florist showed me where she dries her flowers for autumn arrangements, it was so pretty!

kayleigh-janes replied to your post “i

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You have pictures, right? So maybe you can sketch the shape you need according to them. I do think you need trapezoids that overlap slightly for the roof. (maybe use the shape of the roofbeams?) The sides you can use rectangles. The overlapping is important; heat rises and if there are gaps, it will escape.

Well, it’s a cone shape, so there are no sides. (I mean, the walls, but, I’m not even bothering to worry about that; all I need is 45 feet by 5 feet of quilt.) There are no roof beams really, but 29 rafters, evenly spaced all around. 

So what I did was figure that the center hole is 33″ across, meaning the circumference is about 103″; the outer edge is about 540″ around. Dude did a whole bunch of math but the end result is that the rafters are 70″ so my trapezoids should be 70″ long at the middle part. I have not yet been able to figure out what kind of arc the bottom of the trapezoid should have, so I’m just not worrying about that. If it sticks out it sticks out. I can fold it under or whatever.

So– if I divide that into six panels, each panel needs to be 18″ across at the top, and 90″ across at the bottom. 

I had three curtain panels that were 70″ wide and if folded and in one case pieced gave me alllmost 90″ on a side, so I cut those out– each is double-layered– and then I lay out assorted salvaged materials to use as batting. one panel will have old stolen hotel towels my sister’s ex-boyfriend used to hoard. One has an old double mattress pad that frayed in the wash. And one has an old twin blanket that’s frayed in several places. Then I cut three old sheets to be a backing. Four layers of material, including one fluffy layer, I figure is plenty.

I need to assemble those and then run some lines of quilting across them. I don’t know how well my sewing machine will do, but it’s technically supposed to be good for quilting, so we’ll see.

Then I’m going to spray-adhesive a vapor barrier to the back of each panel, or maybe attach it by binding along the edges; I have an old vinyl tablecloth for one, a salvaged waterproof mattress pad for another one, and an old shower curtain for the third. (I might renew the waterproofness of those with some of that spray-on NeverWet shit, since I have some. I’m debating doing Never Wet on the rearmost fabric layer once the panels are quilted, but I don’t know; I sort of want them to remain washable?)

That’s half of what i need, but even cutting that out was exhausting. I feel like some kind of goofball, but I’m absolutely dead beat from assembling three of the six panels I need. The other curtain panels i have are not as big, and I’ll have to piece them more, but I figure you know what, I’ll start off with three. It’s not going to be that cold in September. I’ll get those panels installed and check the fit before I start making the other three; if worst comes to worst, I can hang a couple of comforters from the rafters and close off the half of the yurt with the bed in it, and be cozy in there.

Ideally I want higher-loft batting, but I figure, this is going to be squished under the rafters. That’s just a basic insulation and vapor layer. I have some decorative hangings I was working on with high-loft quilt batting, and I’ll tie those to the rafters, and the rafter space will be dead air for insulation, I hope. Just– something’s better than nothing, and I’ll start off with something, and take it from there.

The other thing I want to make is a door, which will be easy, but I think I want to put dowels or sticks through it so it’s rigid side-to-side, and won’t flap around. Maybe I could install some kind of catch that way– an eye hook on the wood, a bungee on the door frame?– to keep it from blowing open, and to secure it when I’m not present. At the moment the door is a flap of canvas that’s too long and too narrow. 

I also should make a new oerkh, which is the proper name for the roof hole cover– the one I got with the yurt is nice but since I hemmed it, it’s now slightly too small; if I put an umbrella under it, it doesn’t cover the whole hole. And if I don’t, it’s right at the edges, and that hole is really prone to leaks. Any water on the roof goes right into the toono, which is the center ring, and the ring is hollow on the sides for the rafters to slot in, and water runs into that and then goes everywhere. 

I got a new clear umbrella to go in there– a big one, a golf-sized one with a hook, so I can hang something heavy from it and leave it there.

But covering the roof with insulation is going to make it very dark. Good thing I only use it as a bedroom!

I just found another random folder on the external hard drive...

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Pennsic
tattoo in progress; did u kno i did a gallery exhibition of photography of tattoos?
damned if i know when this was. neon at the roller rink. track lights. yikes.
for a while my best derby photos were when someone else's flash went off. rochester NY
this is the boy who is now 8
a maternity photo; farmbaby is two and a half, so. this is three years ago
another one from back in the day when roller derby boundaries lit up
a very early macro shot with a borrowed lens; probably shot on my canon rebel
mom's kitchen windowsill; my love of clutter is from early conditioning
i happen to remember this was a 4th of july party circa 2009
I just found another random folder on the external hard drive with an even older set of my favorite pictures. Some of these are from 2008 or 2009 I think, I’d have to find the originals. I gave a talk, a few years back, on using available light in photography, and it was ostensibly for mobile phone users I think? but I don’t remember? anyway these were not mobile phone pics. maybe i’m remembering wrong.

Does anyone else remember back when roller derby tracks were usually laid out with rope lights as the track boundaries? because that was a real thing that used to happen for real. it was a fucking nightmare and we did it for years. 

danceswchopstck replied to your post

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Suggestion for how to get the bottom of the trapezoid arc, if you choose: get a piece of string or cord or rope at least a foot longer than the distance from center of ger to edge. tie a chosen marking device to one end. put trapezoid on driveway or other large flat surface. hold the marker at the bottom center of tapezoid. have accomplice hold non-marker end of string stretched along the ground to a point same distance as from center of ger to edge. while accomplice holds still, move the marker…

oh, yeah, Dude suggested “let’s make a giant compass”, and we both kind of stared at the picture, and i said, “or, well, a lot of my fabric is not quite wide enough so I’m just gonna truncate the ends and figure there’ll be gaps if it doesn’t overlap, and if it’s too wide I’ll fold it in,” and he said, “that also could work”. 

We’ll see. As it is I think I did too much thinking today; sewing the panels together was something I contemplated and then freaked out about. Though, it’s cooled off; it was quite brutally hot today for a while, and sewing a quilt means holding most of it in your lap and that is terrible punishment on a hot day. Maybe I’ll sew it together tonight and then look at trimming that outer curve. 

Let’s be real, though, I probably won’t. 

(My current thought is to just sew everything together flat, quilt lines into it, and then add a front panel and the vapor barrier and then turn it inside-out to finish it, so no quilting shows through the front panel and no holes are punched in the middle of the vapor barrier, but I don’t have to attempt to glue it because I don’t think spray adhesive will really hold. So– long story short, I don’t have to worry too much about the fine details of the shape of the panels I’m quilting, as they’re just ‘filling’ in a sandwich I’ll be covering over with something else.)