Star Crossed Musing

So I'm at the point in my dissertation where it would be most convenient if my page count were rapidly increasing, but my most recent meeting with my advisor (combined with stupid health stuff that's mostly at the annoyance level but might be kicking into bronchitis (see you Tuesday, doc) has pulled that all to a grinding halt. Instead, I've had to step back and go into a bit of an organizational fury, making spreadsheets until I keel over. See, the thing about making a dissertation about objects and the role they play in fiction and how we interpret them means we have to talk about that very thing, and that means I'm making claims, and that means that I really ought to be making those claims consistently (assuming there is a consistent claim to be made) and that means that I need to organize the objects that are being used in my source texts into some sort of use-order, which means making groupings and deciding what those groupings mean (and along the way, what is ...

So, I forgot to mention. If you're interested in the games that my game company puts together, we're going to be at both Origins and Gen Con this year. We'll be at the Indie Game Developer Network booth at both cons, as well as running games. I'm running a one game of A Tragedy in Five Acts: All My Circuits edition at Origins (check the on-site book), and then I'm running two sessions of A Western Tragedy in Five Acts at Gen Con, Thursday at 10AM and then 6PM. There are still tickets open for the 10AM game . In addition, we've got games of Chill 3rd Edition going on, and even a couple of curse the darkness games that Matt's running. Also also, we've got the long-awaited SAVE: The Eternal Society book nearly out the door, coming to you this summer in print and PDF! Let me know if you have questions -- see you there!

Now THAT, my friends, is a title. But I digress. This is me. Taken last fall, over on campus. I have too many things to carry with straps, as you can see. I am also heavier than I would like, but I've largely made peace with that. Also, I have this weird camera smile. I blame the overbite. But whatever. I am cis, female-identified, heterosexual. I have glasses and I dye my hair purple in places. I also, although this picture does not show it, have boobs. My chest is not going to go down in history as one of the perfect chests of womankind. I am no Phryne. But breasts, I have them. And now that that's settled... I am also a game designer. A game designer, and I have boobs! Imagine! How did this happen, may you ask. Were they added later? [No.] Do I have a secret lab of subordinate male game designers whose work I claim as my own, in exchange for baked goods (as that's one of the things that breasts enable, right)? [Er, No. How weird. What a terrible supervillain that w...

Not that I don't have enough things to occupy my mind right now, but one of the things I really loathe about my brain is the lovely "trip into work" anxiety that happens on a regular basis. I'm really not sure what the exact trigger is, but as I start thinking about the day or the week or the whatever, even if it's stuff I'm looking forward to or that I've done before, I find that become a deep-breathing, heart fluttering mess. I have to manage my feelings and my blood pressure to keep from obsessing over... nothing in particular. It's really dumb. Anything I pick, as soon as I figure out how to handle it, the anxiety then moves to settle on something else. It's free-floating; it's just me, there's not really anything in particular to be anxious about.  I'm not the only one who has this, and I am on medication for it (it used to be much worse and constant, although I didn't realize it at the time). It's just such a pain. It...

So this is related to the kerfluffle regarding Emerald City Tabletop Coalition, OrcaCon & GeekGirlCon, and Chance Daniels. I'll start by saying I am connected to some of these people online via friends of friends, but don't know them personally. You can get caught up on the origin of the story here:  http://jessicalprice.tumblr.com/ FYI, I don't know Jessica personally, though I think we've met at a con once? I follow her on twitter and such because we're in the same community and I hear good things about her work. Reportedly, for the tl;dr version, ECTC removed mentions of OrcaCon from their feed because they viewed it as a "3-day political event that also had some gaming," and Chance stated that they/he viewed GeekGirlCon the same way. OrcaCon, fyi, is a new gaming con held in Everett, WA in January that has an inclusive focus; the theme for 2017, according to their website, isn't dragons or robots or superheroes, but rather "Race and Ac...

So sometime (it may have been at my surprise birthday party, sadly) I picked up the dreaded norovirus. It basically ate my life starting Sunday morning (I'm still not recovered, but I seem to be better). I threw up four times in twenty-four hours, and I will not discuss the other events. Seriously, it was not messing around. I haven't been that sick in that way since I was a little kid. I managed to keep drinking ginger ale, despite the fact that I knew it was all coming back up anyway. And this morning, I've managed to eat two saltine crackers! Whoo! I can also be enough myself to post this, whereas yesterday I slept something like 20 hours out of 24, and sitting up for fifteen minutes was cause for another nap. I couldn't even manage to watch Poirot , my go-to when I don't feel well, because a) they had scenes of people eating and b) I couldn't follow the plot for more than 10 minutes at a stretch. Si, loyal doggie that he is, apparently spent the whole day ...

... but I've gotten a lot of work done, so that's something. I've finished three knitting projects and started on two (2!) pairs of socks, one color work and one plain that a friend requested. I'm looking at starting on a star-stitch scarf, because obviously we all need another scarf in the world, and I can't let this yarn I bought that's the wrong size for what I want to do go to waste. It's really pretty, even if it is far too yellow for me to use in a lot of ways. (I look like death with yellow next to my face. Seriously. Not a good thing.) Sephi got out of the yard yesterday and went wandering, and I went this morning to pick her up from animal control (she's fine -- the lady there knows her and knows us, we just couldn't get back by 3:30 to pick her up, given that we finally got the call at 3:25). All is well, though we have to make sure her paperwork is caught up and get all the collar batteries for the invisible fence updated. My gothic ...