How about a kind of update
Aug. 13th, 2018 05:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
drwexThings have been happening. Here's a bullet list of some of them.
- We just got back from a weekend-plus trip to Western MA, with relatives. Thing 2 is at camp and Thing 1 chose to stay home which meant not needing to board the dog. We were joined by my dad and stepmom and uncle. It was more rainy and thus plan-cancelling than I would have liked, but we saw some things, ate some things, Ingressed some things.
We stayed at an AirBnB which meant having a house to ourselves, but several downsides, not least of which were stairs WAY too steep for old people and a mattress best described as a trampoline with noisy pretensions. My back and hips are not happy. The town of Lee, MA is very tourist-oriented which means it's hard to get reservations most any place, but almost every place has much-better-than-you'd-expect food and lots more gluten-free and vegetarian options than you'd expect and isn't actually all that pricey so that's good. Tanglewood is the big draw in the area and there are lots of businesses that give the tourists other things to do while waiting for the concert. We only got to one real cidery, wanted more, punted on formal museums (would've liked to do Mass MOCA), and didn't get any real "us" time. Choosing "time with relatives who may not be around all that much longer" over "us time" is a choice. I'm not regretting it, as all the relatives are having health challenges that you see in people of their ages and some of it is worrisome.
- I'm kind of binge-watching the Marvel TV series on Netflix. Been through Daredevil S1, Jessica Jones S1, partway into DD S2 (do NOT like their take on Elektra, sorry), and Luke Cage S1. Of the three I think Luke Cage is the best. They're all ultra-violent and somewhat uncomfortable. Jessica Jones in particular gets bonus points for real lesbian characters whose problems are not "she's a lesbian" and challenge points for full-frontal depictions of functional alcoholism and rape/sexual assault. Actually, there's a lot to say about that but it'd be spoilery as hell, so maybe another time.
All of the series are recorded in ways that frustrate me: the fight/violence scenes done VERY VERY LOUD and much of the dialog in close near-whispers. Thank ghu for closed captioning or I'd miss a lot of it.
- I continue to bounce around the edges of political action. I just bought myself a shirt from T'Ruah (http://www.truah.org/) for their fundraiser that says "Resisting tyranny since Pharoah" - which is just so up my alley. Got onto their list around attending a protest at the local ICE office to mark the end of Tisha B'av, which is itself a whole other post that I'm having a hella time writing.
I also went to an Elizabeth Warren "town hall" which was a combination of pep-talk, reality talk, storytelling(*), and campaign stump speech. No hints of presidential ambition; I signed up to canvas for her, but my weekends are a mess so it's not clear when or how much I'll get to do.
- Packing to get Thing 1 to college grinds forward at glacial pace, mostly due to Pygment sitting on... err, with, Thing 1 and Making Her Do The Goddamn Work. She seems completely incapable of managing this on her own and I'm convinced that if we didn't sit on her she'd go to college with the clothes on her back and that's it. I am trying to let this play itself out - I have all the worse- and worst-case scenarios and plans mapped out in my head.
On the plus side, the College sent her an "orientation" video that was stunningly positive. It was, essentially, a Code of Conduct for incoming frosh. Respect, dignity, diversity (including gender recognition), how to be an active bystander in combating sexual assault. Really, all the "lit" things we'd want new frosh to know and embody. Such a good idea, so sad we didn't have this in my day (because dear lord did 18-year-old me need this and need it badly). Of course any Code is only as good as the people who enact it so we'll see whether they do this but it's a very positive start and makes me worry less about Thing 1 interacting with official school functions like health and housing services as a trans person.
That's a list, I guess - what's up with you these days?
(*) it's her childhood story of her dad becoming disabled and her mom, at 50+ never having worked outside the home, having to go get a job and how a minimum-wage job then was enough for them to pay the mortgage, keep the utilities on, and put food on the table. You can trace a direct line from the elements of this story to the issues Warren is passionate about and it comes across as very authentic.
- We just got back from a weekend-plus trip to Western MA, with relatives. Thing 2 is at camp and Thing 1 chose to stay home which meant not needing to board the dog. We were joined by my dad and stepmom and uncle. It was more rainy and thus plan-cancelling than I would have liked, but we saw some things, ate some things, Ingressed some things.
We stayed at an AirBnB which meant having a house to ourselves, but several downsides, not least of which were stairs WAY too steep for old people and a mattress best described as a trampoline with noisy pretensions. My back and hips are not happy. The town of Lee, MA is very tourist-oriented which means it's hard to get reservations most any place, but almost every place has much-better-than-you'd-expect food and lots more gluten-free and vegetarian options than you'd expect and isn't actually all that pricey so that's good. Tanglewood is the big draw in the area and there are lots of businesses that give the tourists other things to do while waiting for the concert. We only got to one real cidery, wanted more, punted on formal museums (would've liked to do Mass MOCA), and didn't get any real "us" time. Choosing "time with relatives who may not be around all that much longer" over "us time" is a choice. I'm not regretting it, as all the relatives are having health challenges that you see in people of their ages and some of it is worrisome.
- I'm kind of binge-watching the Marvel TV series on Netflix. Been through Daredevil S1, Jessica Jones S1, partway into DD S2 (do NOT like their take on Elektra, sorry), and Luke Cage S1. Of the three I think Luke Cage is the best. They're all ultra-violent and somewhat uncomfortable. Jessica Jones in particular gets bonus points for real lesbian characters whose problems are not "she's a lesbian" and challenge points for full-frontal depictions of functional alcoholism and rape/sexual assault. Actually, there's a lot to say about that but it'd be spoilery as hell, so maybe another time.
All of the series are recorded in ways that frustrate me: the fight/violence scenes done VERY VERY LOUD and much of the dialog in close near-whispers. Thank ghu for closed captioning or I'd miss a lot of it.
- I continue to bounce around the edges of political action. I just bought myself a shirt from T'Ruah (http://www.truah.org/) for their fundraiser that says "Resisting tyranny since Pharoah" - which is just so up my alley. Got onto their list around attending a protest at the local ICE office to mark the end of Tisha B'av, which is itself a whole other post that I'm having a hella time writing.
I also went to an Elizabeth Warren "town hall" which was a combination of pep-talk, reality talk, storytelling(*), and campaign stump speech. No hints of presidential ambition; I signed up to canvas for her, but my weekends are a mess so it's not clear when or how much I'll get to do.
- Packing to get Thing 1 to college grinds forward at glacial pace, mostly due to Pygment sitting on... err, with, Thing 1 and Making Her Do The Goddamn Work. She seems completely incapable of managing this on her own and I'm convinced that if we didn't sit on her she'd go to college with the clothes on her back and that's it. I am trying to let this play itself out - I have all the worse- and worst-case scenarios and plans mapped out in my head.
On the plus side, the College sent her an "orientation" video that was stunningly positive. It was, essentially, a Code of Conduct for incoming frosh. Respect, dignity, diversity (including gender recognition), how to be an active bystander in combating sexual assault. Really, all the "lit" things we'd want new frosh to know and embody. Such a good idea, so sad we didn't have this in my day (because dear lord did 18-year-old me need this and need it badly). Of course any Code is only as good as the people who enact it so we'll see whether they do this but it's a very positive start and makes me worry less about Thing 1 interacting with official school functions like health and housing services as a trans person.
That's a list, I guess - what's up with you these days?
(*) it's her childhood story of her dad becoming disabled and her mom, at 50+ never having worked outside the home, having to go get a job and how a minimum-wage job then was enough for them to pay the mortgage, keep the utilities on, and put food on the table. You can trace a direct line from the elements of this story to the issues Warren is passionate about and it comes across as very authentic.
no subject
Date: 2018-08-14 04:44 pm (UTC)Iron Fist was a show I kind of wanted to have watched but wasn't sure I actually wanted to bother watching. What I did was download episodes to my phone, hook the phone up to my car audio system, and start the episodes running with audio description audio track while I drove back and forth to the Cape. (Storing the phone face-down with things sitting on top of it so I wasn't even remotely capable nevermind tempted to look at the screen.) It was like listening to radio drama.
no subject
Date: 2018-08-14 07:13 pm (UTC)My entire motivation here is to find out what happened between Seasons 1 and 2 of Luke Cage so I can go back to watching that. Once that's done I'm not sure I'll continue. There's a limit to how much dark gritty violence I need in my life and I have other things on my to-watch list. I understand that they want these shows to be thematically similar and somewhat interlinked, but the amount of dark-and-depressing is a little overwhelming.
no subject
Date: 2018-08-14 05:39 pm (UTC)Sending Thing 1 off to college -- wow! I hope she has a great experience there. I grew up SO much during my first year away at school; it'll be interesting to hear what Thing 1 is like this time next year.
no subject
Date: 2018-08-14 07:15 pm (UTC)Yeah, I voted for her 5.5 years ago mostly on faith - she didn't have a record I could see back then. Now she's got one and dear lord we need more fighters these days.
As I said elsewhere I'm not voting for our Gov again because he's too goddamn wishy-washy. I mean, it's nice not to have another ass-kisser Republican kowtowing to Dear Leader but that's not enough for me in 2018.
I grew up SO much during my first year away at school
I have hopes, but also mostly trepidations.
no subject
Date: 2018-08-16 11:00 pm (UTC)Ack there is too much let me sum up:
- We're trying to buy a house in Waltham
- We're trying to sell our house
- I'm still settling into the new job, and have a work trip next week
- My mother-in-law just died yesterday, and I'm having to take time off from work for that
- The entire house (mod large furniture and epsilon day-to-day stuff) is packed up in the basement.
In short, ack!
no subject
Date: 2018-08-17 02:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-08-17 05:37 pm (UTC)I have a mild preference for Jessica Jones 1, but that's partly because I was a huge fan of the original comic that it was adapted from, which was radical for its time. I was really surprised to find that the TV show was willing to Go There in several ways that the comic had to side-step -- the result comes across both much more raw and real, if especially horrifying.
Suffice it to say, I like season 2 a lot as well: it deals with the fallout of season 1 very honestly, avoiding many of the usual cliches but addressing both the social and psychological effects.
(Mind, I think Cage is pretty brilliant also; I just don't have as much pre-existing affection for the source material.)
Iron Fist is the skippable one -- both the slightest and least important to the overall storyline. It's not actually *awful*, but the protagonist is one of the most annoying Entitled Whiny White Savior Man-Children I've encountered in a long time, far more irritating than the comic. And it is just plain too long -- four episodes' worth of story crammed into 13 episodes. The relevant info from Iron Fist 1 can probably summed up in a few paragraphs.
I hope this impression is correct. I very much like having her in the Senate -- she's a fine and necessary corrective to the ghastly average there -- and wouldn't mind her as governor, but I'd prefer presidential candidates who are younger and a bit more diverse. And frankly, she's far enough to the left of me that I would actually have some qualms about her as a candidate; my tastes in Presidential candidates run rather more centrist.
Work, work, work, mostly. Still getting used to the consulting gig I'm doing for the dayjob (having to actually track my focused work time for billing is stress-inducing in a way I'd forgotten about), and nights and weekends are as focused as possible on Querki enhancements. (I've fixed a bunch of the UX problems you pointed out, but there's lots more to do before Arisia.)
no subject
Date: 2018-08-17 09:19 pm (UTC)JJ1 had some decent acting, and I adore both of the Names who were prominent in it. But shee-it, man. That's some nasty material. And like I feel DD 2 is going for the gore unnecessarily, JJ 1 went into things that could've been done with more... taste?
I've fixed a bunch of the UX problems you pointed out, but there's lots more to do before Arisia.
I should ping you about that as we're kind of actually spinning up our local system, to my surprise. I'd kind of written it off but it seems to be happening anyway.
no subject
Date: 2018-08-17 10:15 pm (UTC)My usual definition of middle of the road is Clinton or Obama; Warren's certainly to the left of that. (Suffice it to say, this is top-of-mind -- I found out about the Corporate Accountability Act this morning, and am still digesting it.) But it's a tricky bit of semantics, and different parts of the Democratic Party define the scales differently, so it's not really worth arguing -- suffice it to say, she's a ways left of me personally.
Definitely agreed. I didn't actually care for DD 2, for a variety of reasons, the gore being one. (Another being that I just found it oddly a little boring.)
Probably. That said, I appreciated that they didn't whitewash it -- it's rare to see a true superpowered sociopath, and explore just *how* bad an idea that is.
Hmm. Okay, we should talk, probably ASAP...
no subject
Date: 2018-08-17 10:44 pm (UTC)Clinton was significantly right of center. People forget that Bush complained about Mr Clinton running to the right of _him_. She wasn't any better - never met a banker she couldn't kiss, or a war she couldn't love. She was more humane, particularly when it came to treatment of children, but then again Bush was good on children and immigration, too.
I didn't actually care for DD 2, for a variety of reasons, the gore being one. (Another being that I just found it oddly a little boring.)
I'm waiting to see what happens now that Elektra has stopped being the annoying spoiled rich kid.
Okay, we should talk, probably ASAP
Yeah, what works for you? I'm in town and sort of available until Monday night then gone for a week.
no subject
Date: 2018-08-20 04:49 pm (UTC)I have only been through Lee in passing, but I can see it being a decent place to spend a few days. My parents favor it when they pass through over the other options.