Piercings are where it's at

I just looked at my stats, and the single most popular post in the last two years was one I did about piercing. Way back when I was looking at dermal anchors. Neat.

Nuclear blasts, propaganda and wondering

So over on io9, a discussion of Crystal Skulls* became a long comment thread about the pros and cons of the Indiana Jones movies**, and as of right now, this is the last post:

"Youtube old nuclear testing PSAs from the 50s. Yes, those weapons were destructive on a scale beyond conventional weapons but they were not unsurvivable. Those PSAs give some pretty detailed instructions on what to do to survive and what kinds of shelter would be adequate, and some of the suggestions are no less improvised than Indy's fridge dive. Hell, they even recommended, if nothing else was available, to lie flat in a ditch and let the blast wave pass over you. It wasn't guaranteed, and a hardened structure was much better, but it gave you a chance.

In the Japanese bombings, there were many survivors, some with no shelter at all. The radiation aftereffects were often worse than the initial blast, fallout's a bitch. Evacuation from the radiation zone and scrubbing like Indy got would have saved a lot of lives.

There was a reason they once preached "duck and cover" and sold basement bomb shelters. Against 50s era atomic weapons, they would work. Once modern megaton-range thermonuclear warheads were invented, that stopped. Because nothing would save you. Not even if your name was Indiana Jones. "

Because I live in a world where I might, it's possible, get nuked***, I'm sort of always collecting bits of info about what could happen in that event. I saw some of those videos once, and the drills they were offering were almost identical to the ones we were given in Okinawa for earthquakes and in Florida for tornadoes. I suppose that all big disasters have similar personnel issues--keeping everyone calm (and knowing what to do helps that), knowing where to look for survivors, etc--but I always have to wonder: how much of what they tell us to do is just so they can identify the bodies? How much is just giving us something to do so we're comforted, like on TV when they tell husbands to go boil water while their wives are delivering babies?


Maybe I'm just jaded or cynical****, but it seems like in even a small blast, or an earthquake, or whatever else, that if the thing is bad enough that you have to really worry about these things, it's probably bad enough to kill you anyway, even if you do duck and cover. This isn't to say I'm not going to duck and cover given the chance, but I have this skittery feeling that it's all just to keep me calm and put me somewhere where they can know who the red smear belongs to.


Cheerful, right?


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* They say it's better than Temple of Doom; commentary is pretty much evenly divided. I think the skulls themselves are neat, mostly hoaxes, and not related to the Mayan calendar that isn't telling us the world is ending anyway, but make great story-starters because they're weird. Also, I agree that the fridge thing was WAY overblown. Literally.
** I like 1 and 3. I'm scared to see what they'll do to 5.
*** And because I'm a writer. And because I reached social consciousness just at the end of the Eastern Bloc and all that proliferation and all that losing of nukes. And because I've seen Terminator 2's opening dream sequence too many times and periodically I'll have dreams where everything is fine, and then there's a flash and the sky goes the wrong color, then a mushroom cloud, then I die, and I don't like that.
**** I probably am jaded and cynical to some extent. I'm also a writer, as I said, and it sort of makes you think through all the options and possibilities, even when they squick you out.
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Thankfulness

This year, I'm thankful for:

• This lovely new house, even if it's accompanied by my longest-running lack of ordinary work.
• That same lack of ordinary work that has let me put so much effort into getting my writing career off the ground, and getting the legs under my freelance writing career.
• For Hayden, Alex, Ally, Leo, Nick, Sam, Lauren, Christine, and everyone else who makes life fun.
• That my dad is still here, even being sick.
• That my mom is still here, even when they keep having to take parts out and turn her into a cyborg.
• That Alex's family just sucked me up like another cousin, without a second thought.
• That the cats are starting to get along, even if they still fight sometimes.
• That I'm finally free of a tourist town, for the most part.
• The Troublemakers, in their entirity.
• The intermittent Fall weather; it's better than no Fall weather at all!
• That I still have candied sweet potatoes and butter down there in the fridge, to eat for breakfast once I'm done here.
• For technology and all the neat things it lets me do (this next year is going to be full of side-projects, I can tell).
• For our yard, and the fact that there's enough of it for me to plant things in the spring and have a lovely garden.
• For Binka, who keeps me warm when it's cold.
• For all our wallspace, to finally hang up all our pictures.
• For unusual design and storage solutions that make this house ours, and not anyone elses.
• For the Muppet Movie I get to go see tonight.
• For the leftovers, even if I didn't get to boil down the carcass for broth this year (we'll just have to roast a chicken later).
• For the greeness and tree-ness of this place we live in.

Thank you!

Rules to Live By: 1 to 4

One of the ways I'm trying to improve my life is to have a defined set of rules to live by. I used to have note cards covered in rules when I was in highschool and I thought I could change the world, but they've all gone missing in the 20 or so moves since then, and I find I miss them. So I'm starting over from scratch. I'm a different person than I was then anyway, and I should  have new rules.

Maybe one day I'll publish all my rules together, when there's enough to form a book out of them, but I really think that while some will be universal, a lot of them are going to be personal, geared to correcting and improving my own individual quirks and weaknesses, and I think that's how it should be. The reason while societies lose their strict rules is because they don't apply to everyone, and people start bending and shifting them. People need their own sets of guidelines, and they should make their own. It's an extension of the first rule:

1. Be Accountable.
Whatever choices you make in life, you've made them, and you're the one responsible for how they turn out. That also means that you're the one responsible for how your life goes, and if you want it to be a certain way, you're the one to make it that way.

2. Don't be a dick.
This one's borrowed from Wil Wheton, and it very concisely says how to treat others--if what you're doing seems like something that you'd call someone a dick for doing to you, don't do it.

3. You aren't entitled.
Nobody is entitled. The world doesn't owe you anything you haven't earned, so if you want something, go out and earn it. Even if you're born to millions of dollars, go out and be worthy of getting them.

4. Do it now.
Whatever you're doing, don't put it off. I'm terrible about this, I put off all sorts of things even when I don't realize that I am, and it makes a backlog that I never quite catch up with. It's a constant struggle to keep up-to-date, and I'm getting better (I miss very few deadlines anymore), but it's necessary to keep it visible.

More will come, and they'll likely get more specific as I go, but here's the first four. What are your first four rules to live by?

This is where I am

I'm looking for a job. I have to, I'm almost broke again. But there's a problem, and it's called OH MY GOD, THAT'S GOING TO KILL ME.

There's a good and solid psychological reason why I left my last job, and it's the same reason I took the job before it and the same reason I left the one before that. I get so bored. I get so frustrated. And then I just can't take it any more. All I really want to do is be myself, make my own living, and be left alone, and that's a huge problem when it comes to working for other people, but business owners will almost never give a new employee that sort of benefit of the doubt.

But I need the money. So I've been looking. Online, in news papers, in person. And more and more, I think I need to start my own business. And then I found Puttylike. It's like coming home--it's not that I'm indecisive, it's that my brain won't be limited for long and my attention is branching, not linear. I know this already from various tests I tool in elementary and middle school, but this is a new context: I don't have to limit. It's not a matter of learning to be linear, it's a matter of learning to let my strengths guide me.

So I'm recasting this blog a little. It's already my place for almost everything that used to have its own blog. And now it's going to be the place where I work on building myself the world I want. Not just losing weight, not just mental health maintenance, but all of it. This is going to be my new world, and I'm going to make it into something I can live off of. You just watch me. I've got the first draft of a Theme in mind for this blog, finally, and I'm going to make it work.

Collecting Acorns

One of the blogs I follow (Well, I say follow. More like get the email and sometimes remember to read it, but always appreciate it.) linked to an old post about how to spread out New Years Resolutions so that they have more chance of actually happening. And that linked to his various updates about how he was doing, one of which referenced Firefly (and automatically got my attention), and then went on to explain this idea of collecting acorns. Basically, it comes down to doing one small thing every day to lead you closer to your goals. This is one of those revelatory moments for me.

I mean, sure, people say to make lists and sublists, and I read a lot about organizing and have an organization scheme for myself and all, but I think I forget that I should also like what I'm doing. And I like acorns--both for their tiny cuteness and potential for greatness, and for their metaphorical uses for the same thing. This is acorn season; I bet I could come up with some reminder-trigger thing with actual acorns in it...

But the point is, I think I've hit a clarity point today. I have a lot of balls in the air right now, and they get overwhelming sometimes. But I can walk for twenty minutes in the morning, and that's an acorn for weightloss. I can apply for jobs I want to do, and that's an acorn for the future. I can write my four pages, and that's an acorn for publication. I can clean one thing, and that's an acorn for getting my damn life in order.

I can do it.

one of the ways I'm trying to slim down is with my hula hoop

I like doing it, and over on fatSecret.com (which has the worst name ever, really), there's a challenge going on for the next month where we're going to try to hoop for 20 minutes each day. I just did my first twenty minutes, and it wasn't that bad. Longer than I thought 20 would be, but not debilitating. I watched the tail end of Human Planet while I did so I wouldn't count it and make it longer.

This is the first exercise I've done since my back was hurt. Hooping is pretty low-impact, so my back is fine. Maybe even better, since the weight of the hoop sort of massages it. My knees, and the back of my thigh where that nerve is twinging all the time don't like it much, but they're doing fine, too.

Overall, a good go, I think.

I am once again trying to lose weight

Because I'm tired of being a fatty fat fat. I'm starting as soon as the videos are done downloading, and I'll keep you updated on my progress. Here's the starting stats:

Weight: 148
Waist: 34.5"
Bust: 40"
Arm: 11"
Hips: 44.25"
Neck: 13.25"
Thigh: 24.75"

All measurements up almost where they were before I started losing weight again, so I need to do something about it.

Todays tea: celestial seasonings goji berry green

I think mine is getting a little old and stale, but still a pretty good one, especially when you have an upset stomach like I do today.

The Developing Future of Publishing

Posted via email from pirategirljack's posterous