G.I.P. and Sundry (5 things)
Feb. 12th, 2012 03:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
capri0mniFirst: in the week just past, the zeitgeist within my circle / friends list seemed to be revolving around cake. Some folks were sad, and contemplating bringing cake into their lives for cheering-up purposes. Others discovered they'd had unexpected success, and were contemplating cake for celebration purposes. Still others found they were using cake as a social and political statement. So I decided it was time for a properly pleasing CAKE icon. So I worked on one this week, and just finished it a bit ago.
It's a word-based icon, because sad experience tells me that when a picture of a cake coexists with a motto about cake, words and pictures distract from each other in the cramped space of a 100-pixel square. So I hand-lettered the phrase "THIS calls for CAKE" as an 8 inch square image, with the words "for CAKE" centered on a plate, with a dessert fork beside it. Then, I shrunk it down to 13% its original size, and then fiddled in MSpaint to color and neaten it up.
If I had cake, I would eat some right now.
Second: Anne Rice was speaking through my radio, this morning, because she has a new novel out. This time, she's writing about a werewolf character. To be honest, I tried to read Interview with a Vampire, and while her writing struck me as skilled, her whole worldview of Good Vs. Evil, and how that works, put me off and I couldn't get drawn into her world because I was too busy protesting in my head (Um... yeah. Okay... except No). And based on the things she was saying today, it seems that those are still the driving philosophies of her writing. So, although I've long been intrigued by werewolves, I will probably not read this new book.
Still, I had to chuckle at the end of the radio interview she gave on today's Weekend Edition: Sunday. When the host asked how she gets ideas -- do they come one at a time, or in bunches? -- Ms. Rice said they're like a horde of zombies crowding onto her porch, trying to get in, and she has to open the door and only let in one at a time, and tell the others to go away and wait their turns.
Hee! Plot Zombies! I smell a new meme...
Third: Earlier this week, LiveJournal had a writer's block (in honor of V's Day) asking
If you had to give up one, which would you choose: Love, Friendship, or Family?
And my immediate thought was: "Giving up on a Family that gave you no Love would be a super easy choice. Same with a 'Friendship.' So the writer of this question probably didn't mean 'love,' at all, but rather sexual romance. And that's easy -- I gave up on finding romantic, sexual, love a long time ago."
And then, I got to ruminating / brooding on how much of a "choice" is there when (nearly) every man who replied to online personals I posted (Back before I decided to stop looking) ignored every boundary I set in my profile, and set red flags waving in my brain. Each one of them, it's true, offered me a mind-blowing sexual experience, and I could have probably taken that last step out of culturally-defined childhood into culturally-defined adulthood. I declined their offers, however.
I'm almost without any doubt (reasonable or otherwise) that the creeps responded to my ad the way they did because I was upfront about being physically disabled, and they thought, therefore, that I must be desperate, and willing to "put out." And meanwhile, the decent guys held back because they were afraid they'd be stuck in a "caretaker" role...
A couple of years ago, I came across the statement that everyone who's a virgin is a virgin by choice. But when your actual, physical safety is at stake, how much of a choice is it, really?
...It doesn't help that Valentines comes a month after my birthday, when the Happy has almost all worn away, and the Feeling Older is left behind.
*sigh*
Fourth: When I went shopping on Friday, I saw a display in my store's produce section -- "Jazz" Apples -- a cultivar I'd never heard of. So I bought three (they were pretty). I like new cultivars, bio-diversity and all that. They were also tasty (though two were tastier than one. I know I have apple geeks in my circles, so I thought I'd share. Here's a webpage about them: http://www.orangepippin.com/apples/jazz
Oh, and their scientific name is "Scifresh" -- Geek pride in the orchards?
Fifth:Last night, we got the first real winter cold of this season (It's been a weird winter, even by Virginia standards), and the National Weather Service, at around 4:45 pm yesterday, issued a storm warning for the area that included the word "Thundersnow."
How cool is that?!
It's a word-based icon, because sad experience tells me that when a picture of a cake coexists with a motto about cake, words and pictures distract from each other in the cramped space of a 100-pixel square. So I hand-lettered the phrase "THIS calls for CAKE" as an 8 inch square image, with the words "for CAKE" centered on a plate, with a dessert fork beside it. Then, I shrunk it down to 13% its original size, and then fiddled in MSpaint to color and neaten it up.
If I had cake, I would eat some right now.
Second: Anne Rice was speaking through my radio, this morning, because she has a new novel out. This time, she's writing about a werewolf character. To be honest, I tried to read Interview with a Vampire, and while her writing struck me as skilled, her whole worldview of Good Vs. Evil, and how that works, put me off and I couldn't get drawn into her world because I was too busy protesting in my head (Um... yeah. Okay... except No). And based on the things she was saying today, it seems that those are still the driving philosophies of her writing. So, although I've long been intrigued by werewolves, I will probably not read this new book.
Still, I had to chuckle at the end of the radio interview she gave on today's Weekend Edition: Sunday. When the host asked how she gets ideas -- do they come one at a time, or in bunches? -- Ms. Rice said they're like a horde of zombies crowding onto her porch, trying to get in, and she has to open the door and only let in one at a time, and tell the others to go away and wait their turns.
Hee! Plot Zombies! I smell a new meme...
Third: Earlier this week, LiveJournal had a writer's block (in honor of V's Day) asking
If you had to give up one, which would you choose: Love, Friendship, or Family?
And my immediate thought was: "Giving up on a Family that gave you no Love would be a super easy choice. Same with a 'Friendship.' So the writer of this question probably didn't mean 'love,' at all, but rather sexual romance. And that's easy -- I gave up on finding romantic, sexual, love a long time ago."
And then, I got to ruminating / brooding on how much of a "choice" is there when (nearly) every man who replied to online personals I posted (Back before I decided to stop looking) ignored every boundary I set in my profile, and set red flags waving in my brain. Each one of them, it's true, offered me a mind-blowing sexual experience, and I could have probably taken that last step out of culturally-defined childhood into culturally-defined adulthood. I declined their offers, however.
I'm almost without any doubt (reasonable or otherwise) that the creeps responded to my ad the way they did because I was upfront about being physically disabled, and they thought, therefore, that I must be desperate, and willing to "put out." And meanwhile, the decent guys held back because they were afraid they'd be stuck in a "caretaker" role...
A couple of years ago, I came across the statement that everyone who's a virgin is a virgin by choice. But when your actual, physical safety is at stake, how much of a choice is it, really?
...It doesn't help that Valentines comes a month after my birthday, when the Happy has almost all worn away, and the Feeling Older is left behind.
*sigh*
Fourth: When I went shopping on Friday, I saw a display in my store's produce section -- "Jazz" Apples -- a cultivar I'd never heard of. So I bought three (they were pretty). I like new cultivars, bio-diversity and all that. They were also tasty (though two were tastier than one. I know I have apple geeks in my circles, so I thought I'd share. Here's a webpage about them: http://www.orangepippin.com/apples/jazz
Oh, and their scientific name is "Scifresh" -- Geek pride in the orchards?
Fifth:Last night, we got the first real winter cold of this season (It's been a weird winter, even by Virginia standards), and the National Weather Service, at around 4:45 pm yesterday, issued a storm warning for the area that included the word "Thundersnow."
How cool is that?!
no subject
Date: 2012-02-13 02:36 am (UTC)I just finished a book by Hanne Blank called VIRGIN, which explained in very thorough detail that female virginity has no physical existence. Intriguing, and definitely could take one's mind off the gloomy and true thoughts re: finding true romance.
I'll search out this Scifresh/Jazz apple. I'm pretty blissed out by the arrival of Pink Ladies.
Best wishes!
(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2012-02-13 03:31 pm (UTC)2: Re: Anne Rice, I would agree about her skill craft-wise, but found Interview with a Vampire impossible to engage with. I'd like to claim my reasons were as intellectual as an objection to the morality, but really it came down to Lestat being incredibly whiny.
3: Virgin by choice? That's odd and not something I've heard before, and reflects a very narrow experience. My inability to interact normatively with my age-mates -- and thus potential romantic partners -- has me isolated sexually, but that's not a choice.
5: That is REALLY cool, oh man. It has been drizzling here, much to the horror of the locals, which has me windbagging on a regular basis about missing REAL storms, storms with snow and lashing rain and ice and wind.
(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2012-02-16 07:10 am (UTC)Now apple season is properly under way and I've bought a bag of lovely 99c/kg Braeburns. Apple crumble time!
I did quite a bit of apple geeking on the site you linked. Thanks!
(no subject)
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