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  • Silvertree

    Mod post: No wishlist posts in blogs

    By Silvertree

    Please be aware that we do not permit swap-related content on profiles or in blogs. Please post this content only in the For Sale, Swaps, and Wanted forums, or in the Wishlists topic. ~from Swapping 101  Thanks!
    • 5 comments
    • 5,852 views
Birdsongs
 

Happiness & sunshine

Today the sun is shining & all is right with my world. Yay for two happy days in a row! We have a house, will sign the lease soon. Everybody will have their own bathroom, and my brother will be able to get out of our parent's house & get a bit of a new start. The dog will have a yard to sniff around in, and there will be high-speed internet! Goodbye, evil dial-up.   Yesterday I started reading Little, Big by John Crowley. I've seen lots of raves for it & had it recommended by a friend whose opinion I trust, but haven't read it before. I tried once in high school, but drifted away. Also I remember being slowed down by having to look up more words than I was used to. I wasn't aware my vocabulary had increased that much since high school, but apparently it has, because so far I haven't come across anything I can't figure out. Odd ...   A few months ago, one of our friends started a book club because she was frustrated with the one she had been in, and our last meeting on Sunday was a lot of fun. Excellent discussion, over both the book (The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana) and some tangential issues raised by the style it was written in. On the way home, Jason & I debated a couple of things that had gotten passed over in the general group discussion. My brain felt all exercised and happy, which got me all ambitious at work the next day - I picked out several exciting, thought-provoking looking books to read next (I work in a bookstore, so I can check out the new books). This book club has been a lot of fun - reminded me of the joys of reading a book with my thinking-hat on instead of just for relaxation or entertainment. Ah, brain-usingness - I forgot how much fun you can be!
spanishviolet

spanishviolet

2
Emain Macha
 

World Building: Language

Bard (whose presence I most definitely miss on the forums) and some other folks helped me out with a lot of my early concerns about invented language. Like the map-making, it's something I'm doing because it seems necessary — because the world just reads false if too much in it is easily identifiable as German or French or what-have-you.   And I've found language is often a quandry in fantasy literature. It is, by its very nature, a suspension of disbelief. So many words in the English language derrive from distinct cultural identity — the word "tawdry" could not exist without medieval Catholicism, and both "platinum" and "cannibal" would not exist without the Spanish conquest in the New World. It's an almost endless list. I've seen plenty of writers caution beginners not to use anachronistic words in their fantasy works. But...it's ALL a bit anachronistic, isn't it? Unless your fantasy world is set in 17th century England (which has happened of course) it's unlikely that they're speaking English. Any time we pick up a fantasy book set in some truly "fantasy" land, whether it be Middle-Earth, or Earthsea, etc., we have to accept that we are reading an approximation, and not the "native tongue." Sure, there are some missteps which should be obvious (we know not to use "freeway" or "airplane" unless there is a reason such things would exist) but most people wouldn't think not to use loan-words like "sabotage" or "juggernaut." Am I to avoid those words because they wouldn't be "correct?" They're such good words! Useful, sturdy words that do their job beautifully. I like them.   Steven Brust has a lot of fun with his languages, such as the tendency of every sentient race in his Dragaeran books to call themselves something that translates in English as "Human" or his place names. I remember one that, when broken down and translated, was revealed to mean "Ford Ford Ford Ford Ford" as each race who conquered the region kept the old ruler's name for the ford and then tacked on "ford" in their own language for clarity. The absurdity of it is brilliantly real.   So, after some thought on the matter, I decided that I would mess around with the language when 1)it would prove more poetic and unique than the English equivalent, such as for proper nouns, or 2)when using the English word would be jarring. For example, there is a race in my fantasy world that uses titanium as their metal of choice, using magic to reach the absurdly high temperatures required to work with it. But I can't call it titanium, can I? Not without my reader giving me a very strange look. And if I think titanium would be a bit too anachronistic in tone, what about aluminium? Oh boy. So clearly there was some need for an invented language, if only to give the reader a word that is unfamiliar rather than a word that seems wrong.   Many years ago, Jeffrey Henning (over at Langmaker.com) uploaded a very interesting little excel spreadsheet that allowed you to enter 400 root words and used that to derrive a vocabulary of 4,000 final words — more than enough for any language you might ever need. But I was never entirely happy with it. For one thing, it organized its vocabulary alphabetically by the sample language "Duplex" used in the spreadsheet, which meant that you were stuck using Excel's find feature if you wanted look up a specific word (and if you sorted by a different method to make the English words alphabetical you screwed up the spreadsheet.) Many of the vocabulary was clunky or unnecessary for a fantasy novel — a lot of the vocabulary attemped to come up with new words for technology or countries or advanced science terms. So I took the idea and recreated it. I ended up with 450 root words, but so far I'm very, very happy with the results.   Which is good...because now that I have my map done, I need to go back and name everything
Macha

Macha

7
Emain Macha
 

End of the Wank

Well, no one is ever going to see wank removed entirely, but I hear the anonymeme has been shut down by Live Journal because it overstepped the terms of the Live Journal service agreemeent: turns out that Life Journal WILL remove a site that seems to exist only as a means of harassment.   Good for them.
Macha

Macha

0
This Old Snark
 

Cat-Eye View

Xena knew something was up the way She was calling to her with that nearly-falsetto voice. She never called to Xena like that unless Something Bad was about to happen. Last time it had been twenty hours in that blasted carrier in the loud growling metal box, Junebug mewling plantively like the little whiny bitch she is. Xena had saved up her displeasure to generate one particularly foul poop that filled that metal box with the smell of her indignation.   Then they had been moved into a larger metal box that roared enough to shake the ground. By that point even Junebug was too terrified to make a noise. They were finally freed by Him into a small, carpeted room. Xena found all her new hiding places within the first few days.   After a while, it seemed perfectly normal to be two cats and two humans in a small carpeted room. There were three windows that opened out to trees and crazy talking people down below. The food stayed good, and the litter box was (mostly) fresh. Xena and Junebug got used to it and began to forget about their ordeal.   And then one day She came back from Outside, talking in that cracking, anxious voice that should have rumbled with impending doom. Xena recalls with horror how She resorted to using half of a wooden paddle to sweep her out from underneath the coffee table. A paddle!   Oh she hissed. She hissed and did that low, lingering growl bourne from sheer panic. She even released her bladder a bit, which only made Her voice go even higher.   Then He got home. He that was usually their saviour. And He stuffed her in the hamper. Traitor.   She was too frazzled to even muster a good protest poop as they rumbled in another metal box. Junebug still found the air to yowl a few good times, and Xena tried to answer back with her own timid "meh-reow?"s.   When the world stopped rumbling and lurching about, they found themselves in a small room that stank of laquer. The windows were too high to reach, and there was a lone lamp on the floor. The litter box was not where it was supposed to be, it was in the corner. There was food, but it tasted of ashes.   Xena nudged the litterbox out of the corner and created another slender hiding space. She stayed there for two days.   Junebug, and Xena is convinced that she might be a little damaged in the head for this, hid in her carrier every time they heard the clomp-squeak noises in the ceiling. Who hides in that place of impending anguish? Only cats who are Not Right in Their Heads, Bless Their Hearts.   Finally on the third day the door cracked open and He released them into... into what? There are too many places. There are windows to look out to trees, there are windows where they can see Them coming and going in their metal box. There are old familar smells behind the doors Xena has already figured out how to open, smells of His feet and Her perfume piled up and hung down like layers of comforting curtains in the dark. There are new smells and strange, smaller metal boxes. There don't seem to be other cats in these boxes, but They seem to spend a lot of time cooing at them anyway.   He has been gone for a few days. She seems to be quieter, less active because of it. She is giving lots of belly rubs, though, so Xena thinks it will all be OK. If not now, then soon.   She is still keeping an eye out for the carrier though, and a cautious ear for any change in register in Her voice.
darkitysnark

darkitysnark

5
Fishnets and Frankincense
 

Sensualism

If one wears BPAL scents, people who know you can't go into a department store, go to the fragrance counter, pick up the tester bottle of the fragrance you wear, spritz it on a card and walk around sniffing it, thinking about how it smells like you. There is a certain allure to this, assuming it's the right sort of person doing the sniffing. But let us not weep, for look at it this way -- because they can't go to the department store to sniff your fragrance, they have to come find you.   This thought crossed my mind because a guy I work with was patiently trodding around the mall with his wife over the weekend when she decided to sniff all the fragrances at the perfume counter. It gave him a headache and made him vaguely dizzy. He said he realized that they all smelled alike after a while, but nothing smelled anything like the perfumes that I wear.   I told him that his reaction was akin to people buying produce at a Farmer's Market and saying: "Wow, this tastes so much better!" Well yeah, the more natural the product, the more your senses are going to like it.   I have to wonder if the overconsumption of synthetic smells, tastes and textures starts to blunt the senses. And damn it, I am all about our senses! If we forget how to pay attention to them, we start to disassociate from our bodies and then what kind of fun are we having? Not as much.   I used to teach yoga every now and then, and the hardest thing for me was to try to get through to the people who are so disassociated from their physical selves. Sometimes the sense of dropping into their physical senses would cause them to feel anxious, nervous, frightened or terribly vulnerable. They either went into the feeling and worked with it, or they'd just shut down and stop coming to class.   So I think everyone who wears BPAL does a favor to society because we, at least for a few moments, make people drop back into their sense of smell when they get a whiff of something real.   The last statement is a great rationalization to more more oils from the Lab. Feel free to use it to pad your next order. Consider it your humanitarian work: "I must re-teach people how to smell." It's a tough job, but we're up to it.
valentina

valentina

0
Sourball Ho!
 

Avatar Love

As a by-product of the LJ drama, I wanted to post about people's avatars. I really like seeing everyone's avatars, especially ones who change them all the time (wink at valentina!). I should change mine more often too.   Avatars are so cool because they're teeny little pictures that represent whole people, and the more avatars seen the better. I don't care if you're changing them every day, or posting extras in your signature -- I love seeing them. Is it someone you're in love with, someone you want to be, or a cool picture of a flower that you think is rad?   Mine came from downtown Las Vegas (different from the Strip, where all the huge hotels are). Downtown is a lot of fun, because there are a bunch of older, smaller casinos within 3-4 blocks and you can walk from one to the next with ease. Someone had the idea of installing neon signs randomly from old bars & restaurants, so as you're walking down Fremont Street you'll look down a side street and there will be 3-4 signs with plaques in front so you can read about them. DH took a crapload of photos, both during the day and at night, and they're way cool -- unfortunately some are so large that they'd look like glowing blobs inside a teeny square. The "Restaurant-Bar-Jackpots" came out so clean and bright, I really like it.
dawndie

dawndie

3
Whiskers and Whispers
 

Eeek! Exams are almost upon me!

I stink of: Black Hellebore, and Heaven and Earth's Bunny at the Door   I'm really not looking forward to next Tuesday. I have my first exam-it's 'contemporary physics'-that's all 20th century physics including quantum, relativity and nuclear/atomic physics. It's going to be a three hour long one, and I'm already scared...however, past exam papers are so helpful. I used to prefer revising through reading, and whilst I still do this, I find doing questions, writing, calculating and practising is more effective. But it's also so monotonous...at least some concepts I was unsure of are sticking in my head. Now, for more studying...*snorts TAL Concentration*   At least I have a holiday in Crete to look forward to in the middle of June!
PurringPulsar

PurringPulsar

0
Fishnets and Frankincense
 

Weird sayings and The Prophet Raoul

There's a guy I know here at work who tends to use what I consider rather quaint and old-fashioned terms to express outrage, like "What in the Sam Hill?" and "Son of a buck!" I never hear anyone else use those terms, unless I would happened to head down to a senior center. Apparently "Sam Hill" somehow got started as a way to avoid saying "hell," but whenever I hear that term, I always picture the cartoon character Yosemite Sam.   I also used to know a guy from work who would say: "Well cheese and crackers!" when he was trying to not swear, which was on very rare occasions. I have never heard anyone else use that term in my life. I always found it really hilarious, because it was so odd and because this guy would normally use f**k like most people say "uh."   Then there was the guy who was seemingly the basis for Ignatius J. Reilly in the book "A Confederacy of Dunces." Seriously, he was a big, fat, extremely high-IQ person who lived in his own little la-la land most of the time. He made his living as a software tech support specialist. He used to go sit outside the building that he worked in and chain-smoke and hold court of the topic of the day. The bench that he sat on was made of some sort of industrial-strength recycled plastic and he warped the bench because he was probably 6'4" and around 400 pounds. His name was Jerry, but somehow I came to call him The Prophet Raoul, a term that amused him greatly. Two of his favorite terms were: "Well Christ on a bicycle!" and "I don't give a flying f**k at a rolling donut." The last comment always produced visions of this gargantuan man throwing himself at a huge rolling donut, trying to leap through the hole the way dogs jump through hoops.   Anyway, The Prophet Raoul shuffled off this mortal coil (another one of his favorite sayings, courtesy of Will Shakespeare) a few years ago. Anyone who has read "A Confederacy of Dunces" would probably agree that Ignatius was not a role model for health and long life. The Prophet was a huge football fan and he died laying around in bed while watching the Super Bowl on the day of the Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction. It is my hope that he said to himself: "I've just seen a tit during Super Bowl halftime, I can die a happy man," and did just that.
valentina

valentina

5
HennaFairy's Blog
 

Meet and Sniff hangover

oh my. how do i describe the amazing experience of the meet and sniff?   meet. hug. hug dog. sniff. eat. sniff. hug dog. eat dessert. sniff. buy. sniff. buy. sniff. sigh. rest a little. sniff. eat. hug dog. leave.   my nose is still recovering. some scent, possibly one i took, may bother me. i am not too sure which one.   i am taking it slow with testing. after sampling eviltemptress's scents friday night, sniffing all day saturday, then sniffing what each other bought saturday night... and enabling my friends on sunday. my nose is overwhelmed!   but my boxes are much more full now! my wishlist is longer (and better refined...) i still have to update some reviews on bpal that didn't get posted yet, and continue to test all this new stuff!   the meet and sniff was a lot of fun, and i look forward to doing it again. i loved sampling so many scents, because it's so hard to judge based on descriptions and reviews alone! and i met some really cool people. and a really cool dog. and a really cool kid. that cat was cool too, even though i barely saw her.   oh and did i mention beard papa???? that was ALMOST better than the sniffies.   photos coming soon.
HennaFairy

HennaFairy

2
Sourball Ho!
 

Creating Drama

I know, creative title after all that went on this weekend, right? But it's not just the LJ stuff, it's this latest episode of Intervention I watched. Y'all watch Intervention, right? It's on A&E -- every week is 2 new people addicted to heroin, meth, alcohol, etc. and they're followed around in their pathetic lives until the exciting intervention (sometimes with Jeff! Hi Jeff! He's like Dr. Phil with a spine ) where they're given a choice to either get their lives back or continue their patheticness. The show's addictive, har!   It got me thinking about the LJ drama this weekend. There are some people who can't exist without drama -- either as a willing victim or an active participant. The show seems to feature many people who individually can't seem to handle "life" and all it implies, including "earning a living" and "dealing pleasantly with others." So if the drama exists, they don't have to deal with their own issues. Part of becoming an adult, though, is dealing with these issues. So someone posting anonymously and flaming people they don't even know except by an avatar are in need of drama, and if they have to create it they will.   So if everyone's represented by an avatar, what does that make me? Either I'm a gambling-addicted lush who eats food, or an actual restaurant. OOH! Can I be the Brown Derby? Cool!
dawndie

dawndie

3
Fishnets and Frankincense
 

Muck

This morning I set the alarm for 7:45 (way, way early for me on a Sunday) and went out to my back yard and bailed out all the old water in my two small garden ponds. They're pre-shaped plastic liners and a once-a-year emptying and refilling is a nice idea. So I was bailing out all the stinky old water and sludge and slime and it made me thing of the LJ wank. Generally, I consider that sort of behavior to be stinky and slimy.   While we relish our freedom of speech, the institutions that help give us freedom of speech (unless the current administration gets its way), like legislative bodies and courts, have very structured rules of debate. The procedures are there for a reason -- if it's a free-for-all, discussions can drop to the lowest common denominator and nothing constructive occurs. I consider the anonymous wank to be a free-for-all and the resulting discussion is generally worthless. While there may be nuggets of a legitimate discussion here and there, the presentation does not lend itself to anything but discord.   And that's all I'm going to say about this topic, because I think the more we just ignore the behavior and refuse to give the wankers the attention that they want, the sooner they will pick up their toys and move to another playground or simply go home and pout.   But damn it, I do adore that asshattery word. And I did know who Ron Jeremy was, pervy old bag that I am!   Oh yeah, for those of you who are old enough, do you remember an INXS song where he's reciting words, like appreciate, dedicate, ect? They should have had satiate in that song!
valentina

valentina

4
wendymehndi's BPAL Blog
 

My Ever Hopeful Big Wish Wishlist...

A gal can dream, right...? And so, the ISO...   Empty, partial, or full bottles... just MORE of... Fae Silk Road Belle Epoque Masabakes Verchernyaya   Any amount of... Monster Bait: Underpants Monster Bait: Closet     I'm *certain* this list will enjoy hearty and healthy updating! LOL!!
wendymehndi

wendymehndi

0
Is Anybody Out There?
 

Asshats!

I need to stay out of that LJ thread. It's making me upset and snarky and I generally try to be nice to people. I just need to take a breath, a step back, and focus on the fact that I don't always have to attack when I feel threatened. This, to me, is a safe place, and I don't want it to be unsafe... but I'm not the authorities. Yeah, I'm being silly. It's just so... irritating that people can be so freaking mean!   Gah. I need to do homework. The boys went to church.
smallvoice

smallvoice

0
Denise's Cool Blog
 

YAY!

So, I attended a Meet & Sniff yesterday at RHM's house (in NJ). What fun! All the girls there were SO sweet, and had my cracking up. On top of that, everyone was very open to allowing me, the ditzy newbie, to stick my nose in all their BPAL! I'm sure I commited a zillion faux pas, but nobody seemed to even mind. Sorry to all the girls for anything stupid I may have said/did (including asking for a June Gloom imp and mispronoucing probably a million scent names! LMAO. i'm an ass).   HennaFairy and I were so exhausted when we got home, but still went through each other's new stuff... then ate dinner, watched a hilariously HORRIBLE movie (i forget the name, but i saw Heather Grahams breasts and one of the Fiennes' brother's ass quite a lot), and seriously passed out at 10:30! my arms are all stinky (in a good way!), too.   My favorite thing that I got at the M&S ends up being the Bunny Musk. Who knew? that wasn't even on my wishlist, and I thought I would HATE it (i'm very anti baby powder, and I thought that would be the smell... it isn't!). I love Sea of Glass and the Hesperides, too! And Bearded Lady... and, well, I picked up a ton of frimps... I put them all in my box, and sort of lost track of who I got them all from (sorry ladies! if you remember what you gave me, feel free to let me know and I'll update my swaps list a little better. *duh*).   Oh, and I'm obsessed with Snow White, too! it smells EXACTLY like Bath & Body Works' "Refreshing Garden Mint" that they discontinued a few years back, and I still am hoarding a small amount of lotion from. hehe. I cried when that disappeared!! Joseybird was kind enough to sell me a decant of hers... now I can take my time searching for a full bottle. YUM!   i'm all sniffed out!     ... for a few days, at least   d
eviltemptressdq

eviltemptressdq

0
*
 

1demondog turns a profit

That'll chap a guys hide, no? Buyer turning around and making $5 on a nice little LE purchase. I have always been disgusted by people who use the "just getting back what I paid for it" line. Because frankly you shouldn't always get back what you paid for it, not once you've USED it. Other people paying for your privilige to sample, does that sound sane?
KymbaKhan

KymbaKhan

1
Do you have a flag?
 

In which I pity myself and feel like an outsider.

After reading through the LJ Wank-Garbage thread, I noticed that some people have mentioned (again) that if people didn't buy high-priced decants/bottles, no one would have them on their sales lists. And I feel guilty because I buy those high-priced things. I guess I'm a big fat jerk for driving up the prices for everyone else. But I've only been around for a few months, and some really good stuff was discontinued before I'd ever even heard of BPAL. It's not like I could buy it from the Lab right now.   I feel like it's okay to be different in the BPAL community -- goth or not, bi or not, pagan or not, whatever -- but it's not okay to have money. If you spend a lot of money on an imp of Pumpkin King, people bash you all over the place for being stupid and/or insane. And evidently it's not cool to have a big BPAL stash because then you're an obsessed fangirl who has no life.   I will come clean: I've spent several thousand dollars on perfume oils in the past three months or so. I'm not stupid, insane, or obsessed -- just... well, wealthy. $20 is not a lot of money to me. At all. And I feel like I'm being a bitch just for saying the truth. It's not a flaw, and I don't know why I'm ebarrassed about it. In my groups of friends in real life, having a comfortable home and money in the bank is the mark of hard work and success. It seems like in the BPAL community it's just a reason for people not to like you.   I love my BPAL collection, I like to talk about BPAL, I like to swap with people, and there are some exceptional people in the BPAL community. But I don't feel like there's a whole lot of love for people like me. If anyone said anything negative about someone's religion 20 people would jump to her defense. But when people say someone's an idiot for spending $50 on an imp of Storyville, crickets chirp off in the distance. Followed by a post of "Yeah, that's ridiculous!"
filigree_shadow

filigree_shadow

4
Squash Soup
 

feelin' arty-farty

I've been a very bad girl today. I called in sick for work so that I could sleep all day. I guess we all need a break once in awhile but I still feel really guilty about it. I do think that it was necessary for my mental health. Now I'm just ignoring my phone and watching old episodes of X-Files. If it sounds like a slice of heaven, it is.   I know that everyone else is in the same boat, waiting for any sign that the lab is sending out orders regularly again but I may really be going insane with the excitement. I'm also concerned about it making it here before I leave on June 7 since then I'll be gone until August 8 and won't be able to sniff the goodies. I was also counting on having my 10 ml of Alice to take with me. I can't even soothe my restless urges by placing an order because I don't want it to get here while I'm gone! Oh the unbearable pain of it all! /melodrama   I have a few more signature icons that I made in a fit of photoshop-foo. Take them and enjoy with no credit needed but please don't hotlink.     Back to avoiding the world for awhile longer.
jessiesquash

jessiesquash

0
Is Anybody Out There?
 

Negative energy

I need to do something to get rid of my negative energy. I know part of it is depression, but part of it is my general attitude, and it sucks mightily.   Why is it that when I come to post something here, my mind goes blank? It's not like I don't have interesting thoughts in my head. I do! But once the page comes up, all I can see is that white canvas, and then I start thinking mundane thoughts, and it's all so irritating.   My wedding kimono FINALLY came today. It's... really crappy workmanship. I'm disappointed. Plus there are black smudges around the collar. Threads are loose from the fake obi, and the velcro is sewn all askew and through the wrong places... it's sort of freaking me out. Not that you can tell. Also, it doesn't fit me. That really sucks.   I wanted to get something else really nice for my swappee. I know for sure she has one of the things I have for her, so I went looking for other things. They all turned out to be things that I want for me, so that's a bad idea. I was all set to check out with some perfume oil samples from various and sundry other places, when I thought to myself: "Self, you ought to check your bank account." And I did. I'm so glad I did... but now what? I know, I'll get creative. But I wish I could do more.
smallvoice

smallvoice

2
Whiskers and Whispers
 

Of wank, bugs, and studies.

I stink of: Ozymandias (this is so beautiful second time round-there's an almost Antique Lace-like quality to it, like AL in a desert breeze, with Egyptian musk behind it)   I'm a little bit surprised I wasn't picked on in the wank thread...I'm not sure whether I should be glad or sad about that. If there was a comment like 'OMG that stupid little yeahbutnobut/miss isis uk should go mummify herself or something if she's so into Egypt yada yada yada' would have probably made my day but really and truly, that thread did sicken me to the core. My self-torturing, curious side of my brain makes me want to go and read it more and it does become more laughably immature the more I read it. But seriously, comments like name calling and bitching about people's weight or saying that their av sucks belongs in primary school, not what should be an adult community, and the few moronic comments about Beth remarketing the same blend under a different name/using premade blends/lying about natural blends...the words 'horse', 'flog' and 'dead' come to mind.   My campus is under invasion by these really weird bugs. Not the usual wasps and flies and occasional mozzies I see every summer, but daddy-long-legs. These aren't the gangly, clumsy, somewhat farcical bugs that come out during the autumn, but a new breed altogether-these things fly elegantly, land perfectly on windows as opposed to the usual flailing of legs before landing, have markings like a wasp, and have huuuuuge legspans. I mean, huge-like the width of a tennis ball. They freak me out. It also makes me wonder if that urban legend about daddy-long-legs being the most poisonous creatures on earth is true...thank goodness they aren't able to use that poison because of their lack of sting or fangs!   In a week or so, I have my first exam. It's about quantum physics, nuclear physics, and relativity. Nice brain-scrambling stuff. I need to get revising a bit more-it's a truly fascinating and mind boggling module, but the maths involved in quantum makes my head throb so much...must stop forum-ing. Must begin studying.
PurringPulsar

PurringPulsar

0
Emain Macha
 

Wank & Polite Society

So someone pointed me towards some LJ forum someone started up for the purpose of allowing people to anonymously vent their true feelings about the LJ Black Phoenix forum (and as it turned out, about bpal.org.) I read for a few entries before I had to stop, feeling absolutely sick to my stomach.   Who thought this was a good idea?   In my experience, anytime people can hide under a cloak of anonymity, the majority transform almost immediately into assholes. It's like passing notes in the back of the class in 7th grade or whispering to each other about how fat Susie is (and making sure Susie can hear them) — the desire to impress their peers with their capacity for cruel and malicious behavior manifests as the most horrifying vitriol. It all goes straight to "Lord of the Flies" island, because somehow, the people we meet on the internet aren't "real" people and so what we do to them smacks of the hypothetical. We don't have to be there and say these things to them face to face and deal with the chance that we might make them angry or make them cry — that we might actually have to face the consequences of our behavior first hand. It's all Unreal. We're all turned into sociopaths, because our audience comes pre-objectified for our convenience.   Are there people on these forums I don't like? Of course there are! There are even people I loathe, and people who are engaged in behaviors which I find self-destructive and/or unethical, and I want to throttle them. But you know what? That's okay. I know I'm not loved by everyone myself. I can be an insufferable know-it-all bitch (hey, even my Chinese horoscope says so) and I'm not always the easiest person to get along with. I know there are people on these forums who do not like me. I'm cool with that. They don't have to like me. And — and I LOVE this — we can continue to be civil with each other, because these forums are an atmosphere where its been made abundantly clear that civil manners and behavior are the rule of the day. As such, I try not call those people names or be nasty to them — one does not DO that in polite society. My reward is that sometimes these people I once disliked become friends I really love and enjoy — because I gave myself the chance to get to know them.   Of course, I suppose I could always log on somewhere anonymously and rant and rave and call people names, but honestly, what is to be gained from that?
Macha

Macha

10
Fishnets and Frankincense
 

Satiate

I think "satiate" is a great word to say out loud repeatedly. It's difficult to say it out loud a number of times without putting a bit of an inflection into it, but that's part of the fun. Let's head off to the dictionary:   Pronunciation: [v]'seyshee`eyt, 'seyshi`eyt   Etymology: satiate (v.) c.1440 (implied in pp. adj. satiate), from L. satiatus, pp. of satiare "fill full, satisfy," from satis "enough," from PIE base *sa- "to satisfy"   Satiate is the root of "insatiable" and while I also love that word, it takes on a harder edge when said out loud. However, if Beth ever made a LE called "Insatiable," it would rank right up there (at least in my own private universe) with Smut and Monster in the Panties. I would buy it even it had jasmine and gardenia and rose and leather and everything that amps up and doesn't smell good on me. I'd decant it into imps and keep the bottle.   My tendency to talk about words that I like to say out loud, repeatedly, comes from a character in a short story called "The Smoker" by David Schickler. That story ran in the new fiction edition of The New Yorker in 2000, and as legend has it, Schickler had a book deal by noon on the day the story was published. You can find the story as a chapter in his book "Kissing in Manhattan," but I prefer to read the story as it stands on its own. It's a funny, mysterious little fantasy about a young man who's an English teacher at an all-girls private school in Manhattan and his most extraordinary student. The student, whose name is Nicole, likes to point out that certain words are nice to say out loud, repeatedly. I think "rinse" is one of them. "Trauma" is another.   But I like satiate the best.
valentina

valentina

5
Birdsongs
 

Venting

So, we got approved on a house in the general area we wanted (yay), but then my roommate blew up over stuff she had been letting build up a while.   This moving thing is a disaster. Ridiculous levels of stress, exposing all sorts of problems that had been building up. I guess I'll have to get over being angry at how mean she was & talk to her about this stuff, or I'll have lost my best friend & have nowhere to live. Plus, my guy has been trying to help everyone get along, but he's upset over how all this stress has affected our sex life. Which, I'm trying, but ... crazy stress!!! All my anchors are missing ...   At least the dog still loves me. The cat seems pretty indifferent, but his food bowl's full, so that's only to be expected.   Time to stop feeling sorry for myself & go to work.
spanishviolet

spanishviolet

0
HennaFairy's Blog
 

Wishlist

Soaps! I bought a Shub soap from the TP, but would love any other ones, especially: Misk U, carnal, Bliss.   Bottle of O. i wear this almost every night when i go to bed, and it's time to restock soon!   Luna planetary amulet from TAL   Some scents that i like, that i don't have the money to order bottles from the lab just now. Looking for partial or full bottles (not imps):   none right now   and some LE's - looking for imps or bottles (any amount)   Marshmallow Poof Banshee
HennaFairy

HennaFairy

1
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