awfulhorrid

Reading the current (10 APR 2017 14:03 EST) LJ TOS I'm not actually seeing anything listed that's particularly alarming, or at least not anymore worrisome than any other social media's TOS. I know a lot of people are suddenly leaving, and as rarely as I post anymore, I'm considering just dumping the whole thing myself. I'm barely even reading my friends feed anymore.

That said, I'm very tempted to keep an LJ account just to have a place to post pictures of Putin and Trump as gay clowns.

bookwurm and I went to Capricon this year for the first time in several years (turns out to be about 5, although I could have sworn it was less!) It was interesting being back after so long, seeing people we haven't seen, getting acquainted, and spending quite a bit of time asking each other "Hey, was that ...?" - especially when it came to the kids, a lot of whom weren't exactly kids anymore.

Of course, since it was the first time most people there had seen me presenting as female, I'm sure I got my own collection of "Was that Fred?" It made me realize that while I haven't exactly been keeping it secret, I haven't really made a public post about it.

I've been reconsidering my gender identity for quite some time now, first realizing that I was identifying as male mostly out of default. The more I considered that, the more I realized that 'male' just wasn't quite right. Of course I didn't really feel like I was female, either, so what was left for me? I've made some genderfluid and genderqueer friends at UWP and as I spoke with them about their experiences, and did a lot of reading (duh!), I found more and more that what they were describing seemed to mirror a lot of what I was feeling internally. Mixed in with that, I had some great classes on LGBTQ studies which really gave me some addition insights into myself.

After a lot of consideration, I figured out I'm genderqueer. I prefer neutral pronouns ('they'), although to be perfectly honest, all the standard English pronouns apply at some point, especially if I'm presenting as masculine or feminine at the time, so I'm not going to get too upset if you go with how I'm presenting at the time. That said, masculine pronouns and honorifics do feel very wrong. I'm still thinking through how to address this with that people I interact with in public, but for the most part I just let it go.

Speaking of presentation ... I've spent so many years "presenting" as male, I'm now seeking a balance, so I'm presenting as female relatively often, including in public. I'm rarely presenting exclusively as male, so the remaining time, I'm tending towards more blended presentation. Mostly this is fairly low key, with nail polish and some other fairly subtle markers.

What does this mean for my friends and sweeties? Well, aside from my request to please use my preferred pronouns, it doesn't have to mean anything. I'm still the same person, I'm just not identifying myself the same way I once did. I'm still answering to "Fred," as I don't really accept the concept of gendered names. This also keeps friends from having to remember to use different names depending on how I'm presenting. I'm also open to answering questions, although I do reserve the right to cringe a bit! (Mostly joking, but I've had some questions from friends where I did have to remind myself that this was a fairly new situation for them as well.)

An answer to one common question: no, I'm not "transitioning," or at least not in the way that it's commonly understood. This is only a social transition for me.

Happy Bisexual Visiblity Day!

OK, I'm pansexual, but for these purposes, it's similar enough for me to step outside. If I see my shadow and go back in the house, that means there's six more weeks of getting to sleep late ... er ... no? Oh well, it was worth trying. Anyway, there's not an entry for "Pansexual Visibility Day" on Wikipedia, although there are two entries on the List of LGBT awareness days list. Obviously we need a better union!

Thanks to Jim and Tonic (aka Chaos Bunny) for reminding me about this!

Arr.

I think we all know the answer to that question - of course I can!

Dungeons & Dragons, the cartoon series, came out when I was 13. I had already been playing D&D / AD&D by that time, of course, so while it wasn't exactly an advertisement to me, it certainly was one more item in the collection of my childhood that helped me complete the set. I've occasionally made the mistake of going back and watching shows from my childhood. Sometimes I end up cringing a lot, other times I'm honestly surprised at how well a show holds up to my adult mature more recent examinations. This one? Well ... it's honestly somewhere in between, and at least some of what I view as idiotic behavior on the part of the characters comes with an explanation from the restrictions placed on the writers by CBS. The show's not available on Hulu or Netflix, but I did manage to find complete episodes on YouTube. (Just don't look at them too closely, least they get hit with a take-down notice from the copy-write holders who apparently aren't going to actually release them for viewing otherwise.)

The Wikipedia article (linked above) notes that "The level of violence was controversial for American children's television at the time ...," and perhaps it was. Certainly the Smurfs didn't go around with weapons or tossing fireballs, yet this is one of the points with which I have problems. For a D&D group, these characters are entirely too lightly armed. Seriously, between six characters, they only have two actual weapons: an "energy bow" and a club. One other character has a staff, which could be a weapon, but which she usually only uses as an aid to her acrobatics. The other three characters have potentially good magic items, but despite the show's dialog, they're not weapons. Hell, even the actual weapons aren't used as such anyway, so I'm not sure what the violence complaint was all about. OK, fine, the characters are teenagers (and one pre-teen) who probably aren't quite up to hitting human(oids), but these kids can't even manage to directly attack unliving animated statues. (Seriously, even when attacked by a huge iron golem, the kid with the club doesn't actually hit the damned thing, but instead waves his club around a lot and sometimes hits the ground. Yes, they eventually defeat it, but try aiming at the target next time and it'll go a lot faster.)

Then again, I guess if the characters acted like a real D&D group, they'd either spend the entire series standing around arguing about some obscure rule or go on a direct attack against Venger in the first five minutes. They'd either roll right over him or end up with everyone dead, either way ending the show before the first commercial break.

ETA: The video I linked in the previous paragraph contains some language usage of which I do not endorse and that I actively find offensive. I'll grant that within context it's probably realistic, but consider this a borderline trigger warning.

OK, looking back at the last several posts, I haven't exactly been keeping up with my posts lately, have I? I'll try to be better about that. Thank you to everyone who sent condolences in my last post. I swear I'll try to keep this journal from becoming a place I only post about when someone dies.

This is also a test of the bash script that I wrote so my LJ Client will actually pick up the currently playing music so I don't have to type it into the field with my own two hands like some sort of animal. Yeah, it's working. Yay! (grep for the win!)

Original post in a Boing Boing thread entited 'Fuck Today,' unfortunately for just these sorts of things ... (Also, hence the last line.)

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Over a year ago, the vet told us that one of our cats had late stage kidney disease. The numbers from the blood work at the time gave an average of less than 30 days to live. He told us to take her home, keep her comfortable, love her, and spoil her. I swear I think she hear that last part and decided to stick around as long as she possibly could: these humans are *mine!*

We just got back from having her euthanized. It wasn't even the kidney disease that got her, at least not directly. She'd developed dental problems quite a while back, but wasn't a good candidate for surviving the surgery needed to remove the bad tooth. It wasn't keeping her from eating and she didn't act like she was in pain, so we figured we'd just keep an eye on it and try not to worry about it too much.

Last Sunday, my partner and I noticed Keke had some swelling on one side of her face. By late evening, the swelling was to the point that she couldn't keep her eye open. I called our vet Monday morning, got an appointment for Tuesday morning, and then worried about Keke all day long as she'd demand food, then stare at the dish, before walking away without eating anything. The swelling diminished, but she still wasn't actually eating, nor drinking water. I knew about the tooth, of course, but she'd actually let me rub her jaw under the swelling and didn't seem to be uncomfortable about it.

On Tuesday, the vet confirmed the abscessed tooth was the problem, but Keke wouldn't really let her examine it too much. Since she bit a vet on her previously visit, we decided to play it safe, and give her fluids and antibiotics and hope for the best. Wednesday and Thursday, she was back to her demanding self, and ate quite a bit. We knew it was a matter of time, but then again, we'd known that for a year or more, hadn't we?

Last night I noticed a smear of matted fur around her jawline. I cleaned it with a wet paper towel, then noticed a few minutes later, that it was a large bit of skin, falling loose and exposing the tissue underneath. She wouldn't really let me examine it much more than that. My partner and I talked it over and arranged her day such that she could go to the vet with me today. I called first thing this morning and got an appointment for late afternoon.

Once she was on the exam table, with me sitting in a chair, was the first time I could really see the wound underneath the skin flap. It pretty much left an opening into her jaw and partially into her mouth. There was enough of it still attached, that trying to remove it would not be easy and there was enough of a hole left that ... well, she probably wouldn't ever heal and certainly wouldn't go back to eating or drinking.

We had to make that choice that every pet parent has to make sooner or later, and let her go before she started suffering just because we wanted to keep her around a while longer. I know it was the right thing to do ... Hell, ever fucking time we've ever had to do it, it was the right thing to do, but that doesn't make it hurt any less. I miss my Keke. (I also miss Bella, Pyrite, Dante, Pixel ... and all the other cats and dogs that have be in my life. Some of them have been gone more than 20 years, but still ...)

Yeah, fuck today.

Would you like to take a survey? My Sociology 101 group is asking people about their language use. We'd appreciate the responses: language use survey Thank you!

Mostly just testing an LJ client. I still periodically read LJ, but I haven’t posted anything in a very long time. If I have a client installed, I’m slightly more inclined to post, but there aren’t really very many good Linux LJ clients available. Then again, so few people seem to be using LJ these days ... *sigh*