capri0mni | Entries tagged with journaling about journaling

I've been busy kneading

storywrights into shape. So far, I'm the only member.

Check it out, maybe?

The community calendar for "Resolution to Write" has the colors of the Bi Pride flag (in the first Sticky Post). That was unplanned.

Still Dithering in my head about creating an alternative writing challenge to NaNoWriMo. I mentioned on Tumblr that I'm thinking of starting a Dreamwidth community for it, and this week, that post is one of the ones that has gotten the most attention. So I hope that will bring fresh people here.
One of the new media I've been following, sideways-like, is the anime/manga One Piece, which I stumbled into though an English-Translation cover of one of the series's main diagetic songs. I still haven't watched a whole episode, or read any of the manga, proper. But I'm loving watching reviews and character critiques on YouTube. It's like auditing an English (and Japanese) literature class from half-way through the semester.
I recently checked the status of my poetry chapbook, The Monsters' Rhapsody: Disability, Culture, & Identity (2016), over on Lulu.com, and discovered that the default list price was too low to cover printing and shipping costs for international markets, so for the Canadian Dollar, Australian Dollar, British Pound, and Euro, I've set the price at 0.03 above the minimum; for the U.S., version, I've set it at 0.55 above the minimum. Watch this space for when it's available. (if I succeed in writing what's in my head during my NaNoWriMo alternative, which is prose fiction, instead of poetry, I may publish it through Lulu again).
I've been thinking about disability and parasocial relationships. (1) How Normate people in "mainstream society" have an automatic parasocial relationship with disabled people (visibly disabled people at least) because of how we are used as tropes in popular culture (especially around Halloween and Christmas), so when they see a disabled person in real life, they assume a familiarity that doesn't exist. (2) The relationship with a hired personal care aide is very intimate and very real, and actually social on one hand, but on the other, the person who is your aide can be fired by the parent agency -- or quit -- without any say from you. So is the relationship really what it seems to be?
October 1 was the 28th anniversary of me living in this house, and I still feel out of sync with the changing seasons in Virginia, vs. the seasons in northern New Jersey & southern New York. Maybe it's like a duckling imprinting on the first creature it sees upon hatching? That it's my first experiences of the seasons, as an infant, and young child that remains throughout my life? One thing I have noticed is that I'm craving sweet desserts more after dinner, than I did in the summer. Maybe that's a response to shorter days, and less light?

Current Mood: thoughtful

My Biases:

Here are some aspects of my identity that have the most weight when it comes to which directions my thoughts tend to swerve in:

I was born with a physical disability that affects how I move through the world.

The relative importance of this fact varies from day to day and hour to hour, but it's the thing that I've been living with the longest, and it's the thing new people notice first.

Because I can't take moving through the world for granted, I am almost always looking at the spaces between things, both literally, and metaphorically; I believe this is where my love of the liminal spaces of fairy tales, and dreams comes from.

I am White. I am Cisgender. I am American. My first language is English. I was raised as a Christian. If I get careless with my privilege in any of these areas, please remind me.

I've reached the age where nearly everyone on the Internet strikes me as being young, tender babes. And I want to protect ~~them all~~ most of them.

I am asexual and aromantic, and there are several other "micro-labels" to describe my various orientations; I consider myself Queer.

I am a confirmed Atheist. I got there after being Neo-Pagan for many years. The reasons I left Christianity are different than the reasons I left Neo-Paganism.

In July 2021, with the help of several people from the Disability Community on Tumblr (some of whom wished to remain anonymous), I redesigned a Disability Pride Flag, and entered it into the Public Domain:

The "Straight Diagonal" version of the Disability Pride Flag, entered into the public domain 2021

I also spend a lot of time on Tumblr. My blog is here: capricorn-0mnikorn

What you'll find here:

This journal is random, overall. I generally post whatever's on my mind, especially contemplative and/or silly. Favorite topics include literature, discoveries in science and nature, writing that I'm working on (or should be working on), drawings I've doodled, etc.

Politics is relatively rare, but it does come up, especially in the context of history. Like my body, my politics leans heavily to the Left...

What counts as "Good Manners" around here:

Don't be mean. There's no need to be mean. Remember, wherever you go, there you are.
Praise what you enjoy before criticizing what you don't.
When you do give criticism, let it be reasoned ("It sucks!" doesn't cut it).
Don't belittle, or mock, people for the things they enjoy.
If you must post provocative things, aim for provoking laughter, and provoking thought.
Remember that anger can splash onto innocent bystanders, and people "reading over your shoulder." If you must have an argument with someone in particular--rather than an argument for or against an idea--take it to private message (click [inbox] in the header), please.
When in doubt, puns.

Last week, sometime, there was a poll on Tumblr asking if folks: "if you were put in charge of Doctor Who, would you make your [Original Character] canon?"

And at first, I thought of Eloise, the Pro-fun Troll, which I created for the Usenet Doctor Who Groups, and my answer to that poll, for her, was "No," because over the three years I was active in those fora, she'd grown an entire backstory and culture and worldbuilding that was only connected to Doctor Who by a thread thinner that a single strand of spider silk, and she* was, in actuality, always an Independent Character.

And That reminded me of the original novel(la) I'd started to write for her, some [*counts on fingers*] 18-something years ago (I'd gotten as far as Chapter Five out of many [unknown] more).

I'd lost the draft chapters of that work from the hard drive of my personal computer, but I remembered posting them to my LiveJournal, which I then imported over here to Dreamwidth. And I felt the need to hunt them down and retrieve them.

In so doing, I was reminded of conversations I've had here. And how much I wanted to get back to them.

In the meantime, I've given myself other prose fiction projects to work on, which I've been struggling with over the last year and three quarters:

An original fairy tale, with fairy tale logic and magic, whose protagonist has recognizably real-world Cerebral Palsy (though not named as such, in the story), and
Expanding/polishing/refining/tightening my short story retelling of The Frog King by the Brothers Grimm, and maybe self-publishing it in physical form, so I can have it on my bookshelf, and/or loan and give to others.

*Along with "Co-Hosts" I created to help her out during the parties.

I've been spending more time on Tumblr instead of here, mostly because there are more people there, and the things I have to say about disability and queer rights can reach a much bigger audience. Also, the structure of Tumblr encourages multiple short posts a day on a regular schedule... And once I got into such a schedule it's hard for me to break out of it.

But a recent post on Tumblr has got me feeling nostalgic for my days around here. So I'm making a concerted effort, starting now, to weave this Journal back into my schedule.

So this video, about a new typeface, designed by the Braille Institute of America, showed up in my YouTube recommendations this afternoon. And I was inspired enough to download it to my machine.

Watch on YouTube

I particularly like the Permissions and Conditions in their license:

PERMISSION & CONDITIONS

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of the Font Software,
to use, study, copy, merge, embed, modify, redistribute, and sell modified and unmodified copies of
the Font Software, subject to the following conditions:

1) Neither the Font Software nor any of its individual components, in Original Version or Modified
Version, may be sold by itself.

2) The Original Version or Modified Version of the Font Software may be bundled, redistributed and/or sold with any other software, provided that each copy contains the above copyright notice and this license. These can be included either as stand-alone text files, human-readable headers or in the appropriate machine-readable metadata fields within text or binary files as long as those fields can be easily viewed by the user

3) No Modified Version of the Font Software may use the Reserved Typeface Name unless explicit
written permission is granted by Copyright Holder. This restriction only applies to the primary font name as presented to the users.

4) The name of Copyright Holder or the Author(s) of the Font Software shall not be used to promote,
endorse or advertise any Modified Version or any related software or other product, except:
(a) to acknowledge the contribution(s) of Copyright Holder and the Author(s); or
(b) with the prior written permission of Copyright Holder.

5) The Font Software, modified or unmodified, in part or in whole, must be distributed entirely under this license, and must not be distributed under any other license.

Any license that says: You may not profit from something people need for free, has got my support.

It was easy to install. and is now the default font of my journal.

queerly_beloved is a new community on Dreamwidth dedicated to members of the LGBTQ+ community that are often excluded from mainstream discussions -- the marginalized sexual and gender identities, and intersectional identities including those wrapped up with disability and race.

It started because of exclusionary gatekeeping over on Tumblr. But, regardless of that, I still think Dreamwidth is the best place for such a community because it's an organization free of advertising and the pressure to appease said advertisers -- unlike YouTube, for example, which has been known to bury and demonetize content such as this.

Just thought I'd let you guys know...

(and yes, in other news: I've fallen off from my New Year's Resolution to write a drabble everyday; I hit a longish stretch of insomnia in February, and that broke what stride I had. But I'm thinking of ways I can make a more sustainable goal, in the long run, such as: allowing myself to repeat myself, and/or allowing myself to write nonfiction, or maybe cut down on the amount -- like, say, four drabbles a week instead of seven)

I'm thinking of moving all the posts from filters I don't use anymore to "private" and deleting them (So the posts would all still exist, but only I could see them -- that way, if things change, I could make them more visible again).

And I'm also thinking of creating new ones. Particularly, as of this moment, thinking of creating an access filter for my Drabble-a-Day project for my Birthday Resolution for 2019, where I publicly post the drabble(s) I've written each day.

If I did that, would you want in?

If so, let me know in a comment below, and I'll give you access to it.

"CapriUni" was (is) a portmanteau of "Capricorn" and "Unicorn" that I chose for my online "face" throughout the Internet over 20 years ago (And it had been my LiveJournal user name for 17 years)

I was inspired to pick that name because of an essay I'd read describing the symbol of Capricorn/fish-tailed goat as the mid-point in the evolution of the soul, with the Unicorn as the ultimate superior form (because the duality of the two horns become united in one perfection).

Only, over the past couple of decades, my beliefs have changed, and I no longer see unified harmony as superior to polyphony and complexity. And besides, the very idea that the fish form represents something base, and inferior, that must be evolved out of, now has too much of an uncomfortable taint of Lovecraft's racism.

So I've now changed it to "Capri0mni" (note well: spelled with a zero, because Dreamwidth code doesn't have room for capital letters), which is a portmanteau of Capricorn and Omnicorn (All the horns), instead.

I am still fond of the Capricorn goat, and the myth of how he came to be a constellation. And I still love unicorns. I just no longer see them as connected on a scale of spiritual evolution.

(Also note: I've decided not to release "CapriUni" for anyone else to use, because I'm not changing it anywhere else I'm using it, and it had been my identity for so long, the idea of anyone else taking it kind of creeps me out. So if you search for CapriUni, it will all lead back to me, just like it always has)

And you're all invited.

On Friday, I made a post on my Tumblr blog, announcing that there's a new Community on Dreamwidth for Tumblr refugees to find each other:

the_great_tumblr_purge, and it's been the most popular post on my blog there in months.

So I thought, since I invited people to join Dreamwidth, I should also do something with/for them, and give them a chance practicing actually using the platform. ... Especially since there's a specific discussion thread on Tumblr, about why Christmas is less popular than Halloween in that community (summary: Tumblr skews toward young and marginalized people, and enforced time with birth families over friends is fraught).

And so I further figured that refugees from Tumblr will want a place to escape to, even if it's a virtual place, and even if it's just for a few minutes. So:

From Noon, Eastern Standard Time, December 25, 2018 (9:00 AM Pacific Standard Time, 5:00 PM Greenwich Mean Time), to Noon (9 AM/5 PM) January 1, 2019, I'll be allowing anonymous comments, and posting here more than on Tumblr. And my topics will be "Favorite Things & Fun Things," because it's a Party, after all.

I will tag these posts "Year-Out Party 2018" in case you want to filter them out of your reading pages to avoid spam. ...I'm also inviting Dreamwidth old-timers to come in and help welcome the newbies, of course. ...But just in case.

(Oh, and yesterday, I finally made a sticky introduction to this journal, outlining the aspects of who I am that influences what I write here, the kinds of things you can expect from me, and what I consider "good manners" [What I expect from my readers and chatters]. I'd really appreciate it if people who know me fairly well would check it out, and tell me if I'm presenting myself accurately. Thanks!)

I started my Tumblr account on 1 March, 2016. It was mostly to create some sort of "Social media presence" to promote my book (The Monsters' Rhapsody: Disability, Culture, & Identity), because, as much as I love Dreamwidth, Tumblr was a taller soapbox.

And then, the 2016 American Presidential Election came up, and I ended up spending more and more time over on Tumblr, and all but ignored this journal, because, as much as I love Dreamwidth, Tumblr was a taller soapbox (I'd guess-timate that about 40% of my posts can be summed up as: "For the love off all things decent, VOTE!!").

And in the process, I met a lot of new friends over there.

And then, came their new TOS, which puts an all-out ban on Not-safe-for-work content. I wish NSFW meant harassing your fellow workers (whether sexually or otherwise), telling racist jokes around the water cooler, and calling your employees at home after they've clocked out for the day. But apparently, it just means "Female-presenting nipples." (and anything vaguely rounded and sorta flesh toned, including Kirby, the 2-d animated video game character, and shiitake mushrooms).

Nazis, apparently, are fine

And all the friends I've met there are scattering to the four ~~winds~~ platforms. One of those platforms is Dreamwidth, and a few people have followed me over from Tumblr. I'd like to take this opportunity to welcome and introduce

punklucky,

ink_in_hand and

elliefint.

And today, there's a Tumblr boycott, where people are logging out of their accounts for 24 hours. Frankly, I think Tumblr's soapbox will shrink down to the size of a shoe box.

I don't know how much I'll be back there, after tomorrow.

Today, I've got Doctor Who to catch up on, a post on Hamlet's Ophelia I want to finish, and maybe I'll start tackling that Christmas story I wrote about, here

The (psychological) disadvantage of voting absentee is that they don't include an "I Voted!" sticker in the package... So I made my own.

I'll probably keep this as my default until the day after the election (November 6).

For some reason, my most recent entry on this journal fell victim to a spam replies from a Japanese spammer.

I woke up to find 100 notes in my inbox, all replies to my post about Epicurus... All anonymous, all in Japanese (except for a smattering of English loan words), all from the same IP address.

Deleted those, marked as spam. Came back a little while later, found three more. Deleted those, marked as spam. Came back a little while later, found nine more.

Decided to change my privacy settings.

*sigh*

Weird.

I made a new default icon, as you can see.

It matches the icon I use on my Tumblr, now.

I wanted to see if the design parameters for my Disability Pride Flag worked in different proportions than the ones I used originally, because I want this to be a design that's relatively fast & easy to produce, say, a protest picket sign, that can be drawn out on whatever size cardboard (or tee-shirt front) you happen to have, without too many mathematical calculations.

Also, I've been alternating between feeling glum and Grawrl!, and frankly, the pale grey and pastel rainbow colors just weren't cutting it, any more.... You know?

So.

So I am signal boosting.

Here’s the homepage where B.A.D.D. is explained, and links the the eleven previous blog festivals are are archived: Diary of a Goldfish -- BADD 2017

I’ll be posting my entry on my Tumblr blog, and also here, on Dreamwidth (for those who find Tumblr inaccessible). And in the meantime, I’m signal boosting.

Have a gander at what I wrote last year, just for a taste (on Tumblr): What the “Social Model of Disability” Actually Means.

Thanks to the last of LiveJournal's servers being moved to Moscow, Russia, and to LiveJournal disabling its secure encryption (allowing Web Crawling bots to read all your private information), I am no longer cross-posting my entries from Dreamwidth. And, this blog as a whole will be deleted on Friday, January 6, 2017-- no later than 9:00 am Eastern Standard Time (2:00 PM, Greenwich Mean Time).

This blog is archived in its entirety at Dreamwidth, and you can still reach me there (And if you want a hand in setting up your own journal on that site, I can give some pointers). The link is here: http://capriuni.dreamwidth.org/

And I also have a Tumblr, here: https://aegipanomnicorn.tumblr.com/

I'll see you on the other side.

This is not goodbye.

1) My latest Tumblr entry: https://aegipanomnicorn.tumblr.com/post/140443131998/a-history-of-the-word-handicap-extendedkeith

I'll probably be doing a lot of reblogging-with-commentary here, rather than weighting it more toward original content,* because my ulterior motive is to connect with the existing Networked Disability Community, so when my book is finally finished, I'll have a wider audience (I hope) to announce it to.

2) Speaking of which --

a) It's more done than not done, but the time spent on each facet seems to work on a reversed logarithmic scale: the later, smaller steps take increasingly more time than the earlier big steps.

b) I made the decision (not yet firm) to get rid of my first chapter -- the vaguely chronological autobiographical one -- and reshuffle its poems into other chapters; I'm moving Ghost story: 1966, for example, to the chapter "Expert Opinions."

c) Meanwhile, I keep getting hit with more unfortunate inspiration. The February 24 episode of NOVA ("Rise of the Robots") was all about the latest DARPA challenge to invent a robot that could be used in search and rescue. And, regarding the question: "If walking on two legs and opening doors ends up being what causes all these robots' downfalls, why keep trying to make them look like humans?" a DARPA official answered (something to the effect of): "Well, these robots will being going into buildings built by and for humans, so the robot will have to do human things like climb stairs and turn doorknobs." ... No mention (or thought) of humans who can't climb stairs or turn doorknobs, and so get left behind to die in the stairwells, waiting for rescuers to come get them.

That will be another poem in the "Expert Opinion" chapter.

The printed transcript won't be online for another two weeks or so (probably -- info on the official Nova says the transcript is "typically" available online three weeks after an episode airs). When it is available, I'll make another, more detailed post about it, with a link that folks who can't watch the PBS episode can go to instead.

3) I think my next YouTube video (that I upload) will be of this poem, however.

4) 5 Brilliant Scientific Accidents -- A YouTube video from NPR

5) I may be slow in noticing important details, but I saw "my" first robin of the season, today, while eating lunch.

{ETA -- lost footnote: *That's what this place is for.}

Crossposts: http://capriuni.livejournal.com/804205.html

Because the number of individual friends whose individual Tumblrs I had bookmarked had finally reached a quorum.

And also, if I'm going to be serious about self publishing my book/Zazzle designs, it would behoove me to poke my head out beyond the "Social Networking" boondocks.

Anyway, it's here:

https://www.tumblr.com/blog/aegipanomnicorn

(So if you're reading this on LJ or DW, and you happen to have a tumblr, let me know, so I can follow you [like an overeager puppy!])

Crossposts: http://capriuni.livejournal.com/803610.html

...I figured it was due for a freshening-up. Here it is, as of now:

http://capriuni.dreamwidth.org/profile

Crossposts: http://capriuni.livejournal.com/802916.html

This one was inspired by a comment from

jesse_the_k, yesterday:

Sometimes concrete progress happens.
TEASPOON BY TEASPOON

Actually, to be honest, the very first thing I thought of, reading that, was the quote from the Fourth Doctor, explaining how he defeated the story's Villain: "Well, to be fair, I did have a couple of gadgets he didn't -- like a teaspoon and an open mind." (<-- paraphrased, maybe?)

But that's more evocative of a singular victory over a single foe, and not as fitting for something like dismantling the hegemony of bigotry (pick your ism, or pick all of them) in our culture. Besides, it's copyrighted by the Beeb. And I wanted something copyrighted by me (I'm contemplating making this a shirt and/or button (Badge) design for my Zazzle shop).

Snaggable with credit to CapriUni.

Crossposts: http://capriuni.livejournal.com/787698.html

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Ann

February 2025

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Page Summary

I know I seemed to drop off the face of Dreamwidth for a couple of weeks...
5 things make a post
Welcome! A ramble about me, and this space:
What prompted me to start posting to Dreamwidth again
I'm still alive; I've been on Tumblr (under the alias "capricorn-0mnikorn")
(As I've seen them say on Tumblr) Wake up, Babe. New typeface just dropped.
Signal boost: a new Dreamwidth Community: queerly_beloved
I'm giving fresh consideration to my Dreamwidth access filters
Welp, I've done it -- gone and changed my journaling name for the first time in 17 years
Executive Decision: I'm throwing a week-long party to kick 2018 out the door.
So... Tumblr
I filled out my absentee ballot, yesterday...
Blocking Anonymous comments on this journal, for now.
I changed my default icon
This coming Monday (May 1) will be the **Twelfth Annual** Blogging Against Disablism Day (BADD2017)
FYI -- My last LiveJournal Entry:
*Another* Five ~on~ a Friday? Huh!
So: I finally gave in and started a Tumblr.
I've updated my DreamWidth Profile page for the first time since 2010
Another G.I.P.

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Notes, Notings, and Common Refrains

The songs that are stuck in my head

Entries tagged with journaling about journaling

I know I seemed to drop off the face of Dreamwidth for a couple of weeks...

5 things make a post

Welcome! A ramble about me, and this space:

What prompted me to start posting to Dreamwidth again

I'm still alive; I've been on Tumblr (under the alias "capricorn-0mnikorn")

(As I've seen them say on Tumblr) Wake up, Babe. New typeface just dropped.

Signal boost: a new Dreamwidth Community: queerly_beloved

I'm giving fresh consideration to my Dreamwidth access filters

Welp, I've done it -- gone and changed my journaling name for the first time in 17 years

Executive Decision: I'm throwing a week-long party to kick 2018 out the door.

So... Tumblr

I filled out my absentee ballot, yesterday...

Blocking Anonymous comments on this journal, for now.

I changed my default icon

This coming Monday (May 1) will be the Twelfth Annual Blogging Against Disablism Day (BADD2017)

FYI -- My last LiveJournal Entry:

Another Five ~on~ a Friday? Huh!

So: I finally gave in and started a Tumblr.

I've updated my DreamWidth Profile page for the first time since 2010

Another G.I.P.