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Dec. 7th, 2013 10:16 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gwydion* "A Prosthetic Hand That Sends Feelings to Its Wearer:" http://www.technologyreview.com/news/522086/an-artificial-hand-with-real-feelings/
* "Johnny Weir Puts Skates In Mouth:" http://transgriot.blogspot.com/2013/12/johnny-weir-puts-skates-in-mouth.html
* Health and housing update. I managed to get an hour's sleep complete with a too intense fever dream before I had to get up and slog upstairs into the cold to wait around for the floor guy, each breath like a knife in my lungs. *Cough, cough, cough, inhale! Cough, cough, cough, inhale!* Picture me gimping along in a particularly decrepit way with most of my weight on the crutch as one of my legs was barely functional in my Captain Jack Harkness coat and a mask. I kept thinking of WWI wounded who'd gotten a bit of gas in the lung. People were gendering me consistently male today instead of the usual half and half, which makes me wonder if the vaguely military coat and single crutch with an obviously damaged body was subliminally signally that to people around me. I could not take my cough medicine as I had to drive.
I waited in the cold. And waited. And waited. Occasionally coughing until I vomited. After an hour I drove home and braved the cursed stairs again to call the floor guys for WTF. I try not to be cranky with people who are waiting on me, but I let a little show by mentioning how late they were and that it was very cold and I was very sick. I did not mention that they'd stolen an hour I could have spent sleeping warm in my bed instead of cough vomiting outside at too damned early in the morning. They said the guy was on his way, so I had to go back up the hellish stairs and drive over there. Luckily, he was parked in the slot next to handicapped so I could let him right in. This was a different guy, about a foot taller than me, a thirty something Ukrainian, with a thick but easily understandable accent and very good conversational English. He was very impressed with the excellent job the other guys had done on the foundation, as was I honestly. Seriously, it was almost pretty enough to be someone's floor on purpose. It turns out he was just there to do more prepping and the real installation is Monday. At this point, the delay doesn't matter as my lungs are in no condition for me to do any packing at all.
There was no point in going home and dealing with the hated stairs again, so I went through a drive through to get something to drink in the hopes of getting the taste out of my mouth and that if my throat was less dry, the cough would be less likely to make me pull over while driving to the clinic. I checked in there half an hour early and told them I was going to wait in the lobby so I could sip my juice without seriously endangering the folks in the waiting room. Even though this meant a near constant parade of gawkers it really was the kind thing to do. No one needed to be watching me cough until I vomited or needed to listen to my constant often terrifying escalating cough, and I could suck lozenges and sip my drink as needed. (Don't worry, I told the desk folks about the trash can needing disinfecting). It was unpleasant enough to live through without subjecting a room full of people to it. The Harkness coat is a lot warmer than it looks an I was out of the wind. Of course I had to explain to each nurse in the building why I was out there as they went through to other parts of the clinic. Apparently incoming patients were really scared I was going to croak as they kept telling the desk how sick I was. (It's a big super busy poverty clinic). After I had to go in for the replacement mask, they stopped trying to talk me into the waiting area. They were more than half an hour behind. Of course. It's Friday at a poverty clinic and I'm pretty sure my appointment was eating someone's lunch break.
There was general agreement it was best that they had not made me wait until the 13th for an appointment as originally planned as I was visibly deteriorating in front of them. They decided not to fuck around on the antibiotic like they did last time and went right for the zithromax. Likely last year's six months of infection with three different courses of antibiotics, two trips to the hospital, and perforated ear drum convinced them to just go for it. I even got an optional refill in case I wasn't completely better at the end of the course. My oxygen level was alarming them so we did a nebulizer treatment which perked me up enough to brave two pharmacies and make it home.
They have sent me a home nebulizer. The man they sent was one of those really big guys who is extremely gentle and nurturing. Hector immediately decided that he would like him to be his human and kept demanding pets and trying to sit on his lap. The gentleman did not want a birmin on his lap so I kept having to lift him off. He was really nice about it, which I appreciated. Hector, frustrated in his attempts to get the man to adopt him, decided to show off by standing on my back and prancing about, then chose a good perch to strike poses on. The man kept calling me "Baby Girl," like Morgan does Garcia, which amused me. (I have trouble imagining anyone looking at me and thinking "Baby Girl," but he pretty clearly was reading me as a frail old woman from various references in conversation. Given that everyone was reading me male all day yesterday up until him, I'm adding all sorts of interesting new data points on my theory as to why people gender me one way or another).
My mother had a nebulizer and it's the normal next step in treating my disease progression, so it worth getting now when I've maxed out my Medicare B deductible for the year. It is a huge relief, really. I can't really use rescue inhalers properly any more and the medicine mix is much more effective. The antibiotics are working beautifully and I actually got some real sleep. I coughed my throat bloody yeserday and talking and coughing are unpleasant, but manageable.
* Glee 5.8: Previously Unaired Christmas:
Time is out of joint. I know the real world reasons they are doing this episode like this, but add it's out of linear time placement to the weird season 4-5 time distortions and they amplify each other. Time is out of joint.
Even though the characters are where they were last year, thematically it feels more in line with this season, especially with Tina, Sue, and Becky's arcs.
I do like them mocking themselves across the missing forth wall.
My sister totally had that serial killer Barbie head thing. She kept cutting the hair until it was bald. So many Xer references: Joice DeWitt, Silkwood,70's variety show Mary audition, Hermie the elf, etc..
It was extremely obvious that that Santa was a burgler. I suspected from the too good to be true opener. I knew from his comments on entering the house. I'm sure there's a clever thinky thought comparing this to the Sue and Becky Grinch thing, but I'm too feverish to marshal it.
Drunk Kurt! So much touching for him, which makes sense. For me the only time I can handle lots of casual touch/cuddling with people I'm not sleeping with is when I drink. (It dulls down my sensorium enough that it's not too intense). This fits with the Kurt no neurotypical theory.
Rough Trade Santa! Bondage reindeer Hummel!
More seriously, I think it's interesting that they included both the inappropriately sexually aggressive Becky Mistletoe incident and Kurt getting tied up non-conceptually in an episode touching on Kitty's self worth. I like that they let us read Kitty in the light these other situation instead of being explicit about Kitty's backstory in this episode. "Magdalene." Ouch. Wait, Santana was roofied at Lilith faire? We should probably add that in too.
So much reverse psychology in this one.
I think it's interesting the Artie calls out the same people who called out Sue on their ableism re: Becky. It also really fits with Artie trying to get Sue to let Becky go yo college.
OMG! "Love Child." Words! Words!
* The analysis on the Supernatural mid-season finale at the bottom of this captures where I am on Supernatural and inclusion and why my patience is close to exhausted no matter how much I love Castiel. I am less generous about season 6 onwards. "Supernatural, Season 9, Episode 9: Holy Terror:" http://www.fangsforthefantasy.com/2013/12/supernatural-season-9-episode-9-holy.html#more
* I'm still catching up with things I taped as far back as October. (I caught up the weekly shows first. Now I'm trying to pick up movies, comedy specials, and reruns). Turner ran a ton of old Hammers Halloween week and I caught what I could when I wasn't taping other things. I know, I know, it's silly to complain about historical inaccuracy in Hammer films. They are camp, childhood cheese, something I shared with my father throughout my childhood, the movie equivalent of comfort food. I ended up catching a whole bunch of less popular ones. (I can get the Lee/Cushing Vampires at the library, but less famous offerings not so much) Sure, I've seen them, but we are talking back in the '70's and '80's when they would turn up on Creature Double Feature or Doctor Shock. The result is a weird mix of the remembered, half remembered, and adult wtf response. I'm slowly making my way through.
The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) is kind of rapey. I have no idea how the original audience saw the film. To my modern eyes, they seem to be depicting mental illness on one side and a whole bunch of enabling with a side order of vaguely inappropriate on the other. Strangling is generally considered somewhat sexual in nature. I'm guessing the tutor is meant to be the romantic lead, but imagine yourself in bed and an acquaintance bursts into your room and starts babbling about how you shouldn't marry his best friend. Now imagine you are a regency period woman and he has just ruined all your prospects on top of the creepy bursting into your room in the middle of the night don't marry my friend thing. Terrifying, right? Only she chats cheerfully away at him. Victor Frankenstein is a mysogynist who lies to women to get them in bed and is very likely in the midst of a protracted manic episode. There is a man wandering around strangling people. Yes, I get that the tutor is the least dangerous of these options, but he enabled all this and he's a pretty dubious choice. My question is, is this an intentional indictment ofthe choices women are faced with in a toxic patriarchy, or did the folks who made this think the tutor was a genuine romantic lead?
The Mummy (1959), I remembered better, but decades of historical study had me yelling at the screen. So much was wrong, so much, even if you leave out the obvious things involving othering of and painful misrepresentation of modern Egyptians, the effect of bog water on desert mummies (bog mummies and dry mummies are very different), the whole historical and supernatural stuff that one has to suspend disbelief on, etc.. Examples: Me, shaking fist at TV, "What sort of Archeologists use dynamite to 'close the tomb!'" "That's a city, not a God! Why are you praying to a city? What sort of shit cultist are you that you can't even get the name of one of your gods right!" Squirrel eventually came out of his cave to see what the fuss was about. Clearly, I am too old for this film. I'm pretty sure I thought it was amusing when my age was in single digits. I ended up left with all these questions about the motivations of the Scotland yard man. Was this poor script and character design or incredibly clever acting, or the opposite of those things? Is this intentionally enigmatic or accidentally so?
The Castle of the Living Dead (1964) had me wondering if I was watching an art movie riffing on the Seventh Seal or an incredibly clumsy rip off of several things including that and some horror movies. Was Donald Sutherland deliberately bad or intentionally over acting Sgt. Paul? He does manage eery in his role as the Old Lady, but is that intentional given how bad he is as Paul? Was the make up meant to be that terrible on Christopher Lee's character in particular for some symbolic reason or did the person doing make up know less about horror makeup than I did at ten? Making up Sutherland as the old lady had to have been harder, and while it looked artificial, the effect there was eerie rather than irritating. This has been by far the most interesting of the Hammer Films so far.
* Seanan McGuire put out a helpful list of books you can buy with her work in them: http://seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com/544716.html#
* I was talking to someone bout the right wing fish in Two lumps recently, but I'm not entirely sure who. This is what I meant: http://twolumps.net/d/20131206.html
* "Johnny Weir Puts Skates In Mouth:" http://transgriot.blogspot.com/2013/12/johnny-weir-puts-skates-in-mouth.html
* Health and housing update. I managed to get an hour's sleep complete with a too intense fever dream before I had to get up and slog upstairs into the cold to wait around for the floor guy, each breath like a knife in my lungs. *Cough, cough, cough, inhale! Cough, cough, cough, inhale!* Picture me gimping along in a particularly decrepit way with most of my weight on the crutch as one of my legs was barely functional in my Captain Jack Harkness coat and a mask. I kept thinking of WWI wounded who'd gotten a bit of gas in the lung. People were gendering me consistently male today instead of the usual half and half, which makes me wonder if the vaguely military coat and single crutch with an obviously damaged body was subliminally signally that to people around me. I could not take my cough medicine as I had to drive.
I waited in the cold. And waited. And waited. Occasionally coughing until I vomited. After an hour I drove home and braved the cursed stairs again to call the floor guys for WTF. I try not to be cranky with people who are waiting on me, but I let a little show by mentioning how late they were and that it was very cold and I was very sick. I did not mention that they'd stolen an hour I could have spent sleeping warm in my bed instead of cough vomiting outside at too damned early in the morning. They said the guy was on his way, so I had to go back up the hellish stairs and drive over there. Luckily, he was parked in the slot next to handicapped so I could let him right in. This was a different guy, about a foot taller than me, a thirty something Ukrainian, with a thick but easily understandable accent and very good conversational English. He was very impressed with the excellent job the other guys had done on the foundation, as was I honestly. Seriously, it was almost pretty enough to be someone's floor on purpose. It turns out he was just there to do more prepping and the real installation is Monday. At this point, the delay doesn't matter as my lungs are in no condition for me to do any packing at all.
There was no point in going home and dealing with the hated stairs again, so I went through a drive through to get something to drink in the hopes of getting the taste out of my mouth and that if my throat was less dry, the cough would be less likely to make me pull over while driving to the clinic. I checked in there half an hour early and told them I was going to wait in the lobby so I could sip my juice without seriously endangering the folks in the waiting room. Even though this meant a near constant parade of gawkers it really was the kind thing to do. No one needed to be watching me cough until I vomited or needed to listen to my constant often terrifying escalating cough, and I could suck lozenges and sip my drink as needed. (Don't worry, I told the desk folks about the trash can needing disinfecting). It was unpleasant enough to live through without subjecting a room full of people to it. The Harkness coat is a lot warmer than it looks an I was out of the wind. Of course I had to explain to each nurse in the building why I was out there as they went through to other parts of the clinic. Apparently incoming patients were really scared I was going to croak as they kept telling the desk how sick I was. (It's a big super busy poverty clinic). After I had to go in for the replacement mask, they stopped trying to talk me into the waiting area. They were more than half an hour behind. Of course. It's Friday at a poverty clinic and I'm pretty sure my appointment was eating someone's lunch break.
There was general agreement it was best that they had not made me wait until the 13th for an appointment as originally planned as I was visibly deteriorating in front of them. They decided not to fuck around on the antibiotic like they did last time and went right for the zithromax. Likely last year's six months of infection with three different courses of antibiotics, two trips to the hospital, and perforated ear drum convinced them to just go for it. I even got an optional refill in case I wasn't completely better at the end of the course. My oxygen level was alarming them so we did a nebulizer treatment which perked me up enough to brave two pharmacies and make it home.
They have sent me a home nebulizer. The man they sent was one of those really big guys who is extremely gentle and nurturing. Hector immediately decided that he would like him to be his human and kept demanding pets and trying to sit on his lap. The gentleman did not want a birmin on his lap so I kept having to lift him off. He was really nice about it, which I appreciated. Hector, frustrated in his attempts to get the man to adopt him, decided to show off by standing on my back and prancing about, then chose a good perch to strike poses on. The man kept calling me "Baby Girl," like Morgan does Garcia, which amused me. (I have trouble imagining anyone looking at me and thinking "Baby Girl," but he pretty clearly was reading me as a frail old woman from various references in conversation. Given that everyone was reading me male all day yesterday up until him, I'm adding all sorts of interesting new data points on my theory as to why people gender me one way or another).
My mother had a nebulizer and it's the normal next step in treating my disease progression, so it worth getting now when I've maxed out my Medicare B deductible for the year. It is a huge relief, really. I can't really use rescue inhalers properly any more and the medicine mix is much more effective. The antibiotics are working beautifully and I actually got some real sleep. I coughed my throat bloody yeserday and talking and coughing are unpleasant, but manageable.
* Glee 5.8: Previously Unaired Christmas:
Time is out of joint. I know the real world reasons they are doing this episode like this, but add it's out of linear time placement to the weird season 4-5 time distortions and they amplify each other. Time is out of joint.
Even though the characters are where they were last year, thematically it feels more in line with this season, especially with Tina, Sue, and Becky's arcs.
I do like them mocking themselves across the missing forth wall.
My sister totally had that serial killer Barbie head thing. She kept cutting the hair until it was bald. So many Xer references: Joice DeWitt, Silkwood,70's variety show Mary audition, Hermie the elf, etc..
It was extremely obvious that that Santa was a burgler. I suspected from the too good to be true opener. I knew from his comments on entering the house. I'm sure there's a clever thinky thought comparing this to the Sue and Becky Grinch thing, but I'm too feverish to marshal it.
Drunk Kurt! So much touching for him, which makes sense. For me the only time I can handle lots of casual touch/cuddling with people I'm not sleeping with is when I drink. (It dulls down my sensorium enough that it's not too intense). This fits with the Kurt no neurotypical theory.
Rough Trade Santa! Bondage reindeer Hummel!
More seriously, I think it's interesting that they included both the inappropriately sexually aggressive Becky Mistletoe incident and Kurt getting tied up non-conceptually in an episode touching on Kitty's self worth. I like that they let us read Kitty in the light these other situation instead of being explicit about Kitty's backstory in this episode. "Magdalene." Ouch. Wait, Santana was roofied at Lilith faire? We should probably add that in too.
So much reverse psychology in this one.
I think it's interesting the Artie calls out the same people who called out Sue on their ableism re: Becky. It also really fits with Artie trying to get Sue to let Becky go yo college.
OMG! "Love Child." Words! Words!
* The analysis on the Supernatural mid-season finale at the bottom of this captures where I am on Supernatural and inclusion and why my patience is close to exhausted no matter how much I love Castiel. I am less generous about season 6 onwards. "Supernatural, Season 9, Episode 9: Holy Terror:" http://www.fangsforthefantasy.com/2013/12/supernatural-season-9-episode-9-holy.html#more
* I'm still catching up with things I taped as far back as October. (I caught up the weekly shows first. Now I'm trying to pick up movies, comedy specials, and reruns). Turner ran a ton of old Hammers Halloween week and I caught what I could when I wasn't taping other things. I know, I know, it's silly to complain about historical inaccuracy in Hammer films. They are camp, childhood cheese, something I shared with my father throughout my childhood, the movie equivalent of comfort food. I ended up catching a whole bunch of less popular ones. (I can get the Lee/Cushing Vampires at the library, but less famous offerings not so much) Sure, I've seen them, but we are talking back in the '70's and '80's when they would turn up on Creature Double Feature or Doctor Shock. The result is a weird mix of the remembered, half remembered, and adult wtf response. I'm slowly making my way through.
The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) is kind of rapey. I have no idea how the original audience saw the film. To my modern eyes, they seem to be depicting mental illness on one side and a whole bunch of enabling with a side order of vaguely inappropriate on the other. Strangling is generally considered somewhat sexual in nature. I'm guessing the tutor is meant to be the romantic lead, but imagine yourself in bed and an acquaintance bursts into your room and starts babbling about how you shouldn't marry his best friend. Now imagine you are a regency period woman and he has just ruined all your prospects on top of the creepy bursting into your room in the middle of the night don't marry my friend thing. Terrifying, right? Only she chats cheerfully away at him. Victor Frankenstein is a mysogynist who lies to women to get them in bed and is very likely in the midst of a protracted manic episode. There is a man wandering around strangling people. Yes, I get that the tutor is the least dangerous of these options, but he enabled all this and he's a pretty dubious choice. My question is, is this an intentional indictment ofthe choices women are faced with in a toxic patriarchy, or did the folks who made this think the tutor was a genuine romantic lead?
The Mummy (1959), I remembered better, but decades of historical study had me yelling at the screen. So much was wrong, so much, even if you leave out the obvious things involving othering of and painful misrepresentation of modern Egyptians, the effect of bog water on desert mummies (bog mummies and dry mummies are very different), the whole historical and supernatural stuff that one has to suspend disbelief on, etc.. Examples: Me, shaking fist at TV, "What sort of Archeologists use dynamite to 'close the tomb!'" "That's a city, not a God! Why are you praying to a city? What sort of shit cultist are you that you can't even get the name of one of your gods right!" Squirrel eventually came out of his cave to see what the fuss was about. Clearly, I am too old for this film. I'm pretty sure I thought it was amusing when my age was in single digits. I ended up left with all these questions about the motivations of the Scotland yard man. Was this poor script and character design or incredibly clever acting, or the opposite of those things? Is this intentionally enigmatic or accidentally so?
The Castle of the Living Dead (1964) had me wondering if I was watching an art movie riffing on the Seventh Seal or an incredibly clumsy rip off of several things including that and some horror movies. Was Donald Sutherland deliberately bad or intentionally over acting Sgt. Paul? He does manage eery in his role as the Old Lady, but is that intentional given how bad he is as Paul? Was the make up meant to be that terrible on Christopher Lee's character in particular for some symbolic reason or did the person doing make up know less about horror makeup than I did at ten? Making up Sutherland as the old lady had to have been harder, and while it looked artificial, the effect there was eerie rather than irritating. This has been by far the most interesting of the Hammer Films so far.
* Seanan McGuire put out a helpful list of books you can buy with her work in them: http://seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com/544716.html#
* I was talking to someone bout the right wing fish in Two lumps recently, but I'm not entirely sure who. This is what I meant: http://twolumps.net/d/20131206.html
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Date: 2013-12-08 03:52 am (UTC)