My year, line by line.

I am not in the mood for questionnaires today, so you get posts instead. This exercise instructs me to take the first line of the first entry from each month for the last year. I shall obey. Mostly. I skipped the “week in tweets” posts because they annoy me.

January
A pile of hopes, socks just out of the dryer, top a new year.

February
Because you asked … here are my favorite gluten-free recipes.

March
This is a brilliant explanation of the Trolololololo meme.

April
This is our beautiful Torgi-cat.

May
If you don’t live in San Francisco or care about city infrastructure, skip this post.

June
From the site: “Your writing, notes, and to-do lists online.”

July
I am attempting to wrangle decades of clutter.

August
I walk down a deserted two-lane highway through a scrawny stretch of forest.

September
Thirty-eight days until the thing that I cannot stop thinking about or talking about happens!

October
I am at the hair salon, waiting for the magic tinfoil to do its thing and Pandora just served up Ratatat then Daft Punk and my eyebulbs emanated little hearts.

November
We’re home!

December
I don’t know what I thought being intentionally unemployed was going to be like.

No resolutions, just things I will do and words I will write, documented here as always. I hope you stick around. Next year is going to be my best yet.

Not an ink and pen test: Noodler’s Black Swan in Australian Roses and Pelikan M 205.

My husband surprised me this Christmas with the white Pelikan M 205 I had eyed in Flax, along with a stunning array of Noodler’s inks. I will save the others for their own posts, because this one belongs to Black Swan in Australian Roses.

Click through for a larger version of the image.

Materials used: Noodler’s Black Swan in Australian Roses ink, Leuchtturm 1917 dotted pocket notebook, Pelikan Souveran M 205 white fountain pen.

I have more recommendations on fountain pens and ink, including inexpensive starter pens.

The danger of posting links without comment.

So a few days ago I tweeted (and plurked, and facebooked, and whatever elsed) the link to Sady Doyle’s #MooreandMe protest because, in the ongoing Wikileaks coverage fiasco, I found it interesting. I posted it without comment. On Plurk, a friend of mine disagreed with some of the points contained in the post, and our ensuing discussion made me realize that I have more to say about this than 140 characters at a time will allow.

First of all, the trouble — okay, one of the troubles — with using Twitter, Tumblr, Plurk, Facebook, etc. instead of a long-form site like this one is that people like me have the tendency to make the mistake of posting links without comment. This is dangerous, because the assumption has become “I agree with everything contained in this post” as opposed to “huh, I found this interesting enough to think about and tell others about”. I am firmly in the latter camp unless I state otherwise, but I understand that this is not the norm. Now that I am clear on this, I will try very hard not to post links without comment on sensitive topics like the #MooreandMe protest. (I will still continue to post links without comment on topics like photos of my cats, because comments like “my cats are the best cats in the universe” get old even faster than photos of cats do.)

To be clear, I have not participated in the protest. I am still doing my own research, and so far I do not completely agree with any post written so far. I do agree with this quote, wholeheartedly and unapologetically:

We require — not ask, not prefer, absolutely require — progressive media and public figures to stand against rape in every case. Again, this is not negotiable. This is mandatory. This is a requirement: If you don’t stand against rape, and make that stand a crucial and central part of your platform, we do not accept you either as a real “progressive” or as someone who is in any way qualified for authority or a leadership position. We will not buy your merchandise; we will not support you; we will speak out against you. Because a progressive movement that doesn’t stand against rape isn’t a progressive movement. It’s just The Man, it’s just the oppressor, it’s just oppression, in a baseball hat, holding a camcorder. - Tiger Beatdown, 12/15/10

And now, some links with comments:

• Why I’m On Board With #mooreandme, by Kate Harding. Harding, as eloquent as ever, articulates the problem I have with Michael Moore’s dissemination of misinformation.
• Open Letter to Mr. Michael Moore, by Mårten Schultz. This is a response from a Swedish lawyer to Michael Moore’s “Dear Government of Sweden” post which included some rape statistics. Schultz states:

When you quote statistics on the ratio between reported rape and legal proceedings, you seem to be getting it quite wrong, I am afraid. A reported crime is not the same as a crime and it is something completely different from a provable crime. Many reports of rape has its background in events that have happened behind the closed doors of a home. In these cases it can often be difficult to prove what has happened. And when sufficient evidence cannot be produced we have this peculiar principle in Swedish law called the presumption of innocence. You might have heard of it. It means that if the prosecutor cannot prove her case the law will consider the accused person as innocent. The downside of this is that possibly guilty men and women will go free. Yes, we would even let ”thousands of Swedish rapists roam free” if needed to uphold a Rechtsstaat.

• WE HAVE SOME POINTS, by Silvana and Gayle. Although I think that some of their statements are unnecessarily hyperbolic, it is worth a read, if only for this: “We can protest, and question, the politically motivated treatment of Assange as a target for extradition without suggesting that the accusers are liars. Nuance, people. Come on.”
• If You’ll Pardon the Presumption, by Aaron Bady. By far the best post I have read so far on the subject, Bady writes these sentences I wish I had written: “Sady Doyle has not convinced me that Assange is actually a rapist, but she is absolutely right that Moore, Pilger, and Wolf are acting irresponsibly at best. We need better leftists than that.”

I understand that Doyle calling Moore a “rape apologist” is incredibly incendiary, as I believe it was meant to be. I went looking for the widely-held definition of rape apologism, and this is where I had to stop for the evening because it appears to be a rabbit-hole I do not have the mental resources to follow right now. In my mind, “rape apologism” parses out to “the ideology of apologizing for the idea of rape” which I am assuming means not taking claims of rape seriously. Moore appears to not take these allegations seriously because he states that it is all about a condom breaking during consensual sex, which to him (and to the law) isn’t considered rape. From Moore’s point of view, he is not a rape apologist. From the point of view of Doyle and others who believe the truth of the allegations against Assange — which include unlawful coercion — he is.

The Week in Tweets on 2011-01-03

• Not an ink test: Diamine Blue-Black. « cygnoir.net http://bit.ly/g0myxZ #

2010 gift guide.

As mentioned on my last post about nifty gifts, here is my 2010 gift guide. I am posting this later than I had hoped to, sidetracked by illness again. If I were feeling better, I would write a little something about each person and why I like them, but in the interest of time, I will leave you with visuals. Click each photo for more information.

both the prison and the open hand - Nareshe Photography

Dynamophone Digital Releases

Lady Lavender truffle - Vice Chocolates

Deep Grotto Pendant - juiceglass

Venice bridge - Fawn Fitter

black swallow goth necklace - chester and lola

Pripyat and the Halcyon Versions - Stripmall Architecture

Aggressive Squid - Cephaloplastica

Last but never least, don’t forget Gamescape North’s fantastic holiday gift guide for your last-minute game shopping.

What did I leave out? Tell me in the comments.

Revising the process.

It was a great shock to me that my to-do list, calendar, email, and notes all failed this week as the semester ended. I had a system in place involving Toodledo, Google Calendar, Gmail with ActiveInbox, and Evernote. The combination was so cluttered that although I turned in all my schoolwork by the end of the semester, I missed a crucial personal to-do, a social engagement, and I am horribly behind on a few other important projects.

Today I am starting all over, nearly from scratch. Here is my new system:

1. Stop using Toodledo. I love all of its bells and whistles, but bells and whistles just distract me from actually doing the tasks.
2. Organize my tasks in a simple system that can be accessed via web, computer, and iPhone and keeps all of them synced. I have exported a text file of my tasks from Toodledo and dropped the ones without solid due-dates into TaskPaper. The ones with solid due-dates are going straight to …
3. Hell. No, just Google Calendar. I must be more diligent about checking and managing my calendar. I still can’t believe I let some big things slide this week.
4. Stop using Evernote. Again with the bells and whistles when all I really want are text files. PlainText is a great note-taking app for iPad and iPhone, plus it syncs with Dropbox, which I love. I have been organizing my notes with text files for years, so this part is more of a return to basics than starting over from scratch.
5. Figure out what to do with ActiveInbox. It is an elegant solution for email-wrangling, but I don’t like having to check two to-do lists.

Writing it all out like that makes me long for the days with just a pen and a Moleskine, but I know I am romanticizing the analog once again.

Turn around.

When I first logged into Second Life in 2004, I decided to create an avatar that was loosely based on my real-life appearance with some important modifications. Namely, some gigantic black hair.

I also may have overdone the makeup a bit.

Over the years, my avatar has changed — mainly hairstyles — but the salient bits have remained the same for about a year now: short stature, black wings, amethyst eyes, and a gravity-defying mohawk.

I do not know why I consider this avatar to be so “me”. I don’t look at all like her in real life. But every time I try to change something up, it feels wrong and doesn’t last.

This is not the first time that I have encountered this strange identification with avatar appearance. When I still cared about my mudding character’s description, I had a tough time making modifications to it. So I didn’t, except for costume changes, and didn’t think much about it. She looked the way that she did because that was who she was, and I decided that she looked just like me. There: problem solved.

In Second Life, though, my avatar has never looked just like me. I initially took more liberties in graphics than I did in text. And as Second Life becomes more advanced, I have more options than ever. Then why has my avatar’s appearance frozen? Why can’t I even bring myself to get a virtual tattoo?

Needless to say, I have always been fascinated by the myriad ways we choose to represent ourselves when we have the choice, so when Rach Borkotron told me about Gracie Kendal’s Usual Suspects project on online identity and anonymity, it immediately piqued my interest. I was up to my eyeballs in homework, though, and couldn’t come inworld to participate. Then I read Lou Netizen’s post about it, and immediately promised myself I would celebrate finishing my first semester of grad school by participating.

Gracie’s studio contains over 500 portraits now. When I teleported in, I was at once overwhelmed and a bit disoriented; although I knew the portraits were taken of avatars facing away instead of forward, it was strange to experience them all at once. Like everyone else, I am so used to identifying people by their faces that the gallery’s effect was initially alienating. Then, when I recognized a portrait of someone I knew — Lou, of course — I immediately relaxed.

Gracie herself is utterly charming and earnest, so interacting with her put me further at ease. She is obviously enthralled with the project, and welcomes each new contributor warmly. I loved watching her work and enjoyed talking with her and some of the other participants about the project and her process.

Gracie is just over the halfway mark, so now is the time to participate. There is more information on the project on Gracie’s Usual Suspects blog, or I can send you a notecard and landmark inworld if you prefer. Just don’t ask me to get a new ‘do.

Not an ink test: Diamine Blue-Black.

Just a transcript this time, because I am too exhausted from schoolwork.

Something a little different today. My Sheaffer Prelude is one of my few medium-nib pens. It allows the ink to shine a bit more, & this ink deserves it. This is Diamine Blue-Black, a new favorite. I like how teal this appears on the page; it reminds me of Noodler’s Air-Corp Blue [sic], while not being so wet. All of the Diamine inks I use are faster-drying than Noodler’s, which make them great choices for journaling.

Click through for a larger version of the image.

Materials used: Diamine Blue-Black ink, Clairefontaine grid spiral notebook (14.8 x 21cm), Sheaffer Prelude fountain pen. The Noodler’s ink I mention is actually called Aircorp Blue-Black.

I have more recommendations on fountain pens and ink, including inexpensive starter pens.

Not an ink test: Noodler’s FPN Dumas Tulipe Noire.

I am digging these ink tests, and not only because they provide me with content on the days I don’t feel like writing about anything very personal. Sometimes the ink test research helps me discover other inks I must have! As I was looking for the proper title for this ink, I discovered Noodler’s Black Swan in Australian Roses, which appeals to me on so many levels.

Click through for a larger version of the image.

Materials used: Noodler’s FPN Dumas Tulipe Noire ink, Clairefontaine grid spiral notebook (14.8 x 21cm), Pelikan Souveran M 400 white tortoiseshell fountain pen.

I have more recommendations on fountain pens and ink, including inexpensive starter pens.

The Week in Tweets on 2010-12-12

• As an unabashed fan of portmanteaus, I love the word "slacktivism". #
• Tight Pants / Body Rolls http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1c2KzJbcGA&feature=autoshare #
• O, "Lie to Me". You provide me with much-appreciated Tim Roth during my lunchtime breaks, yet only in the same plot over and over. And over. #
• I needed that. @ P F Chang's China Bistro http://instagr.am/p/fbst/ #
• Procrastibaking: I take a break from studying to go the kitchen for a glass of milk and end up baking 2 dozen cookies. #
• WikiLeaks' Assange held while court decides on extradition – CNN.com – London (CNN) — WikiLeaks founder… http://tumblr.com/xo4zffsdc #
• The rush to smear Assange's rape accuser – War Room – Salon.com http://tumblr.com/xo4zlajfc #
• I didn't account for the nap in my travel time to SoMa. Overshot my stop a little! #
• Umloud! — at DNA Lounge http://gowal.la/c/369br #
• Ümloud! 2010 was so much fun. Also, I know some people and those people will Rock Band rock your face right off. #
• My phone autocorrected an item on my grocery list to "Cheddar Hesse". #
• President Obama's chili recipe was a success! I am going to stop there before I get sassy with the metaphors. Recipe: http://bit.ly/hKePdI #