Ouch.

They printed the first draft rather than the finished essay that I sent them. This means that they printed my placeholder footnotes instead of the actual footnotes and I look like an idiot and a shit.

teriel says it's too late to do anything about it but they'll (eventually, presumably) get around to doing a second edition with corrected footnotes.

The rest of it looks fine. Just don't read my essay, kthxbai.

ETA: The issue is being addressed, but there are no guarantees at the moment. I'm glad that an effort is being made.

To all my friends who celebrate the return of the light, in whatever way and by whatever name, may you be blessed.

I'm hanging about the house in my jammies today with the iPod set on random. Might watch a dvd of Cadfael later today when alfrecht rises like a particularly tall zombie from the depths. Last night we watched disc 25 of Jai Hanuman. They're building up to Ram's death, presumably on disc 26. And we have a bunch left to go. Obviously we won't make it through the lot of them before he leaves for Michigan, but oh well.

Mom sent me a bar of lavendar soap for yule, made by monks at a monastery in Missouri. Thank you Mom! It came all wrapped in a light lavendar bit of cloth, which I can't imagine actually doing anything with. Anybody want a cloth bit? It's somewhere in the neighborhood of 18" square.

Got email today from Bruce. He says that Vancouver is utterly drowned in evil winter olympics stuff and that Canada has assigned 4500 soldiers to Vancouver, which is more than Canada has serving in Afghanistan. These troops are empowered to enter anybody's home and confiscate any anti-olympics material if it's visible from the street. He advises avoiding Vancouver entirely until the end of February. I can't say as I blame him.

Recently I was talking about an interview I was doing with Aontacht, the online magazine of the Druidic Dawn website. They had projected publication on the 21st but when I popped by for a peek today, they had already posted it! The interview with me starts on page 9 of the PDF file. There's a formatting kerfuffle due to the two-column format towards the end, but I pinged the editor to see if it could be fixed.

Also in this issue, they printed a review of Ogam: Weaving Word Wisdom. The review was quite positive, but I'll admit I'm puzzled by its final paragraph:

Even if you are inclined to challenge the premise that the Ogam began in Ireland with the coming of the Celts, you will not be disappointed by what you find in this book.

I'm really puzzled about where this came from. I've never argued that ogam "began in Ireland with the coming of the Celts" -- on the contrary, it's well-accepted in the scholarly literature that ogam originated with Irish Christians some centuries after Celtic civilization and language were established in Ireland. I argued against the POV that 'the Druids did it.' If the reviewer means that she disagrees because she thinks ogam is preChristian and didn't begin in Ireland then I really think she ought to read more on the history of the system and the legitimate debates on the origin theories.

Anyway, drop by and check out the interview!

The parts are doing at least somewhat better today than yesterday. Left hip is still substandard, but the rest of me is back to what passes for normal in my world.

I'm utterly appalled by the "health care" bill in the Senate. From what I understand, it mandates that everyone must buy insurance, but doesn't make any real provision for people who can't afford it -- like, for instance, if they have no jobs? And if you don't buy insurance because you can't afford it, they'll fine you (which, if you can't afford insurance, you also won't be able to afford) and if you don't pay that, too bad. They'll toss you in jail. It's a win-win for the insurance companies. The rest of us? Not so much.

The climate summit at Copenhagen was yet another victory for the multinational corps, of course. Nothing good ever seems to come of this crap. People suffer and die. We're killing off species at a rate unseen since the last major extinction event. I'm glad I never had kids because I would never want to pass this mess on to them. To future generations (assuming we have any) -- mea culpa. We suck. Some of us are trying, at least.

I don't know what to do. It's pretty damned depressing. Small, personal-level stuff never seems to be enough, but asking governments to do anything is like putting tigers in a henhouse to guard it. We're all just snack food.

I need to try to write today. At least that might take my mind off some of it.

Driving in the rain at night sucks. Especially when either the traffic is bad or people are being dipshits. I got both tonight. Rain in the dark means the lane lines are hard to see and, if the side windows are being a problem, so is some of the traffic around me. Also, drunk pedestrians deciding to cross against the lights get my shorts in a bunch.

Worse than that, though, is when both of my hips and one of my knees decided they were going to go on strike. The combination of all this led to some anxiety problems on the way home from Seattle today, where our solstice mumming did not actually take place. We did, however, get to spend some time with wire_mother after picking him up at sepiachord's birthday party. We had dinner at Travelers shortly before they closed, then wandered by Edge and thence down to Half Price, where we talked for a while with circularruins, who was working tonight.

Until my left hip spasmed on me. At which point we took wire_mother back down to the ferry in crappy traffic. And my right hip and knee decided to get cute.

This is one of those days where I wish I wasn't allergic to everything but Tylenol. And now, it's time to curl up on the couch with a book because I'm not in the mood to deal with the world.

*grumblebitchmoan*

Nick and tryst_inn -- I accidentally deleted your messages in my inbox last night when I was tired and not paying enough attention. Could you resend?

Thanks.

Today was the solstice party and ritual over at aion131's place. It was the two of them, me and alfrecht, a couple of their friends I hadn't met before, and Robert Bartlett and one of his friends. There was more than ample foodage all around and aion131 had made a fabulous pesto salmon pasta for the main dish at the potluck that was just wonderful.

I stopped at Central Market on the way over and picked up a bottle of semi-sweet pomegranate wine that was really incredible stuff. I'm going to have go to get a bottle or two for my wine rack. I do like fruit wines as well as the usual stuff made from grapes and various honey wines and meads. yiaya, I think you'd really like this one. I'm betting it would go really well with Middle Eastern or North African food.

The ritual for the evening took place up in the yurt. It was a quiet, simple circle where we blessed and offered prayers for the new year and placed them into silver and gold candles in the central cauldron, where they were allowed to burn down. Rebecca had bought lovely little animal tokens and tucked them into small silk bags for each of us to have as a random gift. I got an elephant, which went into the Ganesh shrine when I got home. alfrecht got a bison.

We need to get over to aion131's house again soon, possibly with anthea7 if she's feeling physically up to it, so that we can deal with logistics for Arlen's return ritual, and set out some of the blocking. Having been on the receiving end of the ritual, I wasn't privy to the preparation parts of it, so they'll need to get things worked out before alfrecht leaves for Michigan on the 2nd.

Tomorrow (well, okay, this evening) we'll be doing our own solstice mumming up at Volunteer Park on the Hill. We'll be picking wire_mother up from sepiachord's place before the ritual and afterwards we'll be heading for food someplace warm.

I'd love to say that I worked on writing today, but I didn't. I had no real time for it, between dealing with the usual online stuff, prepping for going to the solstice ritual this evening, and dealing with the other minutia of daily life. I'll see what I can do after the weekend. I do have my spirituality group and my rescheduled shrinkage on Tuesday and Wednesday. But I at least need to put together an outline for the intro to constructing CR ritual workshop so that I'll know what I need for a Powerpoint presentation.

With any luck, I should be in bed soon. I've hardly been sleeping lately and am wondering if some of it was the medication change I've been working through. Of course, holiday season screws with everything, so it could just be stress and busyness. I'm not going to worry too much until after the new year when things start calming down. If I'm still dealing with the really severe insomnia then, I'll talk to my meds doc and see what she has to say.

So my total now stands at:

Ekklesía Antínoou ritual

CR Warrior Return Ritual panel
Megalithical Authors panel
Women's Voices in Magic panel

Constructing CR Ritual workshop

Speaking of the workshop, does anyone local have 1337 skilz0rz with Powerpoint? I'm wanting to use it to prep for the constructing ritual workshop. I've requested the tech support to project and I'll be bringing my PC netbook along so I won't have any potential "we're not familiar with Mac" problems with the tech team.

If someone can come by and instruct me in the sekrit arts, a foodpr0n dinner shall be your reward.

From the Veterans for Peace email list:

http://veteranssanctuary.blogspot.com/

Veterans' Sanctuary, Inc.....a non-profit organization which is creating a residential space for returning Iraq & Afghanistan war veterans. We look forward to providing an innovative model to address a myriad of veteran health and reintegration issues. Once we have the ideal property, veterans will have access to peer support networks, holistic wellness programs, & artistic tools of self-expression while gaining skills through working with health practitioners, farming experiences and community living.

Date: Saturday, December 19, 2009
Time: 5:00pm - 11:00pm
Location: Rachel's Peaceful and Beautiful Lakehouse on Rt. 89
Street: 829 Taughannock Blvd. Ithaca, NY

Great news!! The Veterans' Sanctuary finally found the ideal property where we can begin providing a healing space for veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan! You can see how beautiful and peaceful the property is with the creek and wilderness in the photo to the right! We're holding this writing workshop~benefit concert~ potluck as a fundraiser to help us raise money so we can purchase the property!
Come write, dance, and eat with us!

Suggested Donation of $5-15. No one will be turned away for lack of funds.

** Warrior Writers: 5-6pm **
Whether you're a veteran or civilian, come join our writing circle and express yourself. We'll spend time writing individually and folks will be able to share their thoughts with the group if they'd like to. If you're not sure what to write about you can use these topics as a starting place if they speak to you: how war has effected you, what you'd like to see changed, what you're carrying around with you, fears, inspirations, questions, anything at all!
Putting pen to paper is therapeutic and we want to provide a space to do this.

** Benefit Concert: 6:30-11pm **
Eddy Dyer, Veterans' Sanctuary's Board Member & Musician
and
Mutsu, a Folk Rock Blues band out of Newfield, NY.

INFO: Ab3levine@gmail.com or stop by the veterans’ Sanctuary Office at Autumn Leaves (TCWC 2nd Fl)

Check out Mutsu's music at
www.myspace.com/mutsumania

Well, I didn't get to the photocopying part of the day. This was all right, though, because instead alfrecht and I spent about an hour talking with Shiuwen down at Floating Leaves and trying out a very nice roasted Dong Ding oolong and talking about tea, Taiwan, and blogging. She's always so much fun to talk to, and I learn so much about tea from her. The new oolongs have started arriving and it's always exciting to give them a try.

After our time with tea and Shiuwen, we headed up to Travelers for a cuppa chai and to spend a little time there before we went to the queer Pagan meetup tonight at 7pm. We talked to the Usual Suspects, snacked a bit, and basked in the comfy space there next to the big Shiva altar.

On the way up to the cafe for the meetup, we stopped in briefly at Edge of the Circle, where Robert had a radio station with Christmas carols playing. There was a wee bit of snark about that, along with conversation and browsing. We spent about fifteen minutes there before continuing up Pike street to the cafe.

The queer Pagan meetup was in full swing when we got there. We saw a lot of the usual faces and a few new folks we hadn't met before. There were some good conversations tonight on all kinds of topics, and one young guy was giving free readings, so I had him do one for me. His style is abrupt and aggressive and he didn't actually tell me anything I didn't already know, but sometimes it doesn't hurt to hear something again.

Email today brought confirmation that the two sessions I proposed were accepted, as was brandywilliams's panel with the authors in Voices of Women in Magic, which means I'm doing two of my things, that panel, and the Ekklesía Antínoou ritual. That's four bits right there. I may also end up doing a book signing or two. I'm not sure what else will come up between now and then.

Before heading down to Seattle, we had a drive-by Bjoerning, when he stopped by to drop off some baked goods. Stuart was getting a couple of crowns on his teeth today and I guess they were sort of in the area. It was a lot of yummies including a big chunk of gingerbread, some pumpkin fudge, a big brownie, and some cookies of various types. Nice nummy stuff. He couldn't stay for more than just to drop things off, so we only said hi and wished them a happy holiday season.

I have found what appears to be a fairly recent site for tea-gasms, from what I can discover. http://steepster.com/ is a site for tea enthusiasts to share tea reviews and finds. It's also holding a holiday contest with a prize of almost $900 worth of tea and teaware that you can enter until, I think, the 18th of this month. Some of their prizes look pretty amazing.

Tea. It rocks my world.

This is the 44-clove garlic soup that yiaya and I made this weekend.

( This way to the FOODPORN! )

I called to cancel my VA appointment today and rescheduled for next Wednesday because I spent most of the night up with an upset tummy. It's the usual northwest overcast & rainy out and there's been a considerable amount of noise from repair work going on next door from the burst plumbing flood last month. My next door neighbor's place is having walls and ceiling replaced and she's pretty much living out of just her bedroom at the moment.

Today I've been kicking around the house in my jammies. I'll have to get dressed later to walk the dog, but I don't usually have to walk him very far to do his business if I'm not feeling well. He's pretty good about it really. Right now the DoDC+3 is curled up on the couch snoozing and looking, well, cute. It's what he does best, after all. (The looking cute, not the sleeping, though he's quite good at that, too.)

I'm still waiting for my glasses from the VA. If I don't hear anything from them soon, I'm going to have to call to check up on where they might be. I wasn't too impressed with the woman doing the pupil measurements. I don't think she was even holding the viewer straight, so how she could have got an accurate measurement is beyond me. The guy in front of me was in a wheelchair and I'm not sure she was even holding it all the way over his face. Very, very sloppy. The optician said the headaches from the previous pair were probably due to inaccurate centering in the lenses and if it happens again, I should bring the glasses back. If I do have problems with the (supposedly) coming pair, I'll definitely do that.

Brain's too foggy to really write today. I was hoping to get at least a little done but am not focusing really well due to physical ick. I have a fresh cup of tulasi tea, so perhaps that'll help a bit. I had the remains of the garlic soup earlier, but it didn't help my stomach at all. It just made my entire world smell like garlic. It was very tasty, though, I must say.

I really need to just get away from a keyboard for a while, so I'm going to read today. I've got a big stack of partly-read stuff to get through. I'm thinking easier on the brain stuff, though, as I'm not braining well at the moment. This means continuing "How to Kill a Dragon" or "The Anatomy of Melancholy" is out, but I might take a whack at Stephen Fry's book on poetry.

Brain and brain? What is brain?!?

This isn't something I could ever afford, but for anyone who is interested, Shiuwen's Taiwanese Tea Tour still has two open slots. The tour is in May of 2010. Details can be found here. Shiuwen owns Floating Leaves in Ballard and she goes to Taiwan every year to buy tea for her shop. She's just received the new winter oolongs.

*drool*

Check out her website for details on tea tastings of the new harvest!

AUSTRALIAN RELIGION STUDIES REVIEW - CALL FOR PAPERS:

Special Issue 24 (2) Religion and Celebrity

Traditional religions proposed models of the perfected life for their adherents; medieval Christians sought to emulate the saints and martyrs, tales of the compassionate bodhisattvas enthralled Mahayana Buddhists and the wandering holy teachers of the Hindu tradition exemplified renunciation and holiness for Hindus.

The prominence of celebrities in contemporary Western culture is undeniable and it may be argued that celebrities function in Western consumer society as icons to be worshipped, role models to be emulated, and, most importantly, as exemplars of the perfected life (through their wealth, beauty, larger than life profile, and the fact that their existence is

Submission deadline is September 2010. Early submissions are welcome. Please contact Carole Cusack (ccusack@mail.usyd.edu.au) for further details.


http://www.equinoxjournals.com/ojs/index.php/ARSR/announcement/view/20

ABOUT the Australian Religion Studies Review:
Australian Religion Studies Review is the leading peer-reviewed journal of the Pacific region dealing with all aspects of the academic study of religion. Now in its twentieth year, the journal is committed to presenting cutting edge research from the Pacific region and elsewhere from both established and new scholars. As well as articles it publishes book and film reviews, conference reports, and the annual lecture delivered to members of its partner organisation, the Australian Association for the Study of Religion. Every second issue is thematic and calls for papers for upcoming issues can be found below under “Announcements”.

Guidelines for Contributors
http://equinoxjournals.com/ojs/equinoxdownloads/authors/arsrguide.pdf

Submissions
http://www.equinoxjournals.com/ojs/index.php/ARSR/about/submissions

Today was a trip to the VA for the spirituality group. The room we meet in is kind of scruffy (being the VA this isn't at all unexpected) but was recently decorated for the holidays. With entirely Christmas stuff. For a multi-racial, multi-religious clientele. I didn't say anything about it last week, but I realized toward the end of group today that I was profoundly uncomfortable sitting in this Christian-normative space when at least three people in the group (one of whom is the chaplain, another is the psychiatrist) are non-Christians. Sure, some folks enjoy the holidays, yet it's also a well-known stressor for folks. I brought up the decorations and my discomfort and, not all that surprisingly, many of the other women in the group added their own reactions. Only two of the six women in group today said they actually liked it. ( More murbling below. )

From LJ:


Thank you for taking the time to contact us with your concerns. We understand that gender is not binary, and intend to respect that understanding for our users.

At this time, the code you reference is not live on the site, and will not become so in the future. We know that you, and many other users, have serious concerns about any requirement to specify gender, so we'd like to take a moment to explain events and our position further.

The intention of this code was to change the sign-up process to include a field for the selection of gender; that the code would completely disable the "Unspecified" option at the same time was deemed unacceptable. While the code in question had gone to our beta (testing) server, it had not gone to our production server, and will not do so due to this problem. Furthermore, we'd like to clarify that code posted to the changelog community is not always final, as such code must then go through the beta testing process and can often be changed before actual implementation.

Additionally, some erroneous information has been spread regarding the potential public display of the gender field. We would like to clarify that gender is not currently publicly displayed on the profile, nor anywhere else on the site, and there are no plans to change this behavior.

Regards,
LiveJournal Community Care Team

Apparently, LJ in its wisdom is going to start requiring at least new accounts to specify a gender (male/female binary only). There is no reason at all why they would require this information beyond potential statistical information, and I just don't see that as a "requirement".

Here's a link to further information, including code sources from LJ.

Registering your objection would be a good idea. I've had my gender "unspecified" in their database from the beginning. This is a ludicrously bad idea on their part. It's my hope that enough complaints will make them rethink the code change.

Remember that the folks reading the feedback are not the ones making the decisions, so don't bite them, please.

ETA: While we're at it, WTF FaceBook?

Twice today when I've posted things I got a FB pop-up telling me I had to log into FB to share something ON LIVEJOURNAL. I'm not even on FB. Granted, the post I did on the women veterans retreat I did a copy/paste from FB for, but the one from meri_sefket wasn't either a copy and paste or a reference to anything having anything to do with FB.

Has anyone else had a problem with that at all recently?

GO AWAY FACEBOOK. NO LOVE FOR YOU.

Are you a Woman Veteran of Operations Iraqi or Enduring Freedom?

If so, American Women Veterans in partnership with Outward Bound is sponsoring a free, all-expenses paid outdoor adventure!

Who: OIF and OEF Veterans - Women
What: Dogsledding & Skiing
Where: Boundary Waters, Northern Minnesota
When: January 24-31, 2010
Why: Because you've earned it!
How: Fully Funded ($500 Security Deposit)

Take some time to challenge, reflect, and renew yourself. If interested in this amazing experience, please email americanwomenveterans@gmail.com for more information.

Please provide the following information with your email:

Name:
Rank:
Branch of Service:
Deployed Dates/Location:
Why you would like to attend this trip.

***Spaces are limited, so please send us your contact info as soon as possible in order to complete the application process in time to participate.***

For more information on Outward Bound programs and this particular trip, please visit their web site at: http://www.outwardbound.org

For more information on American Women Veterans, stay linked into our website at: http://americanwomenveterans.org

I am feeling too crappy to leave the house today. Crap.

Thank you for your attention.