#random asides

[eeee-lye]

Since writing that post, I have the chorus of Kamelot’s “Phantom Divine (Shadow Empire)” stuck in my head, only it keeps ending with the line “Fame and Gloria” from the Amberian Dawn song of the same name.

It’s driving me absolutely up the wall.

[eeee-lye]

My family are so used to thinking that I overreact that today they initially wouldn’t believe me when we had (and are still having) a complete black out.

It’s funny, except for the part where I had to list off all the things that weren’t working because we have no power.

[k-a-cook]

Sometimes I Google weird things because my brain has lost the ability to retrieve a word I know that I know: this week’s word was “curate” and the search I used was “name for a person who runs a museum”.

(It’s in my brain; I just can’t access it when I need to know it. I do, generally, know how to talk around it, though, or in this case, Google.)

Sometimes I just want to know if “spawning” is the appropriate word to use to describe abalone reproduction in a throwaway sentence.

[chicagosavant]

Undoubtedly every language, and its respective linguistic evolution, possesses unique quirks. But I'm a little boondoggled that between OldEnglish/AngloSaxon/Old Norse/etc, Ongentheow is the same as Icentheow is the same as Angengeot is the same as Angantyr is the same as...Egil. Really?? Egil..and Angantyr. Egil Vendlekraka, b/c he ‘kraka’d on Vendel...by Eofor Geatman’s blade...and Wolf Von Reding...

[eeee-lye]

I’m trying to proofread right now (and I’ll be turning off the internet after I’ve posted this, continuing to leave all messages until tomorrow because I really need to get this finished) but for spec fic fans, John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War and Mark Lawrence’s Red Sister are free in the iBooks store.

(They’re both published by Harper Collins/Voyager, recent wondrous purveyor of so much free digital literature. I’d be astounded if we had the same amount of free books as last time, and I couldn’t find anything else in my quick perusal of the sales lists, but I’ll check again tomorrow morning just in case.)

As last time: I’ve no idea if this is available for non-Aussies, and yes, it’s very likely that these books are also available via Google Books. (Some of these books I know are printed by other publishers outside of Australia.) Nor have I read either book (yet) but both authors are well regarded in their respective genres, so I think it’s worth checking out.

(Harper Collins, I have no idea why you’re throwing books at me, but thanks.)

[aroworlds]

Also, I am terribly behind on messages with a couple of folks and I will get onto this as soon as I can. Apologies for those people I am keeping waiting: I’m struggling to keep up with just about everything thanks to this cursed shoulder.

(It’s “I can’t sit or lie comfortably” pain with resulting stiffness and decreased movement. I’m pretty good at ignoring pain, but this is difficult even for me.)

[aroworlds]

Can folks recommend me some allo-aro specific aro community blogs to follow? Preferably blogs that keep conversation on asexuality to a minimum if at all?

I know there’s a couple of aro blogs with “allo” in the title that are run by aro-aces, so I really do want blogs run by allo-aros or allosexual-identifying fluid folks. I don’t want just general aro content, because I can get that from lots of fabulous aro bloggers. I really want allo-aro specific conversations, posts, media, etc, along with more general aro stuffs.

Obviously, there isn’t much in the #alloaro tag (I think me and @hella-aro together comprise half of it) and I’m not sure where else to look, but I’ve been really feeling the need for allo-aro specific content, especially conversations and discussion posts, of late.

(Still working on that long post, by the way. Does it help if I say that I got distracted by writing a story about an allo-aro character?)

[eeee-lye]

sevenraptors replied to your post: Four things I have learnt today: 1: No healthcare...

Re: plastic bags: I have some reusable bags that fold up small that I just always have in my bag. A lot of the time I don’t even fold them, I just squish them into whatever slot I want them in. Is that something that would be useful for you? (I think you generally always have a bag on you?) And yeah, I guess it might make the reusable bag greasy, but I don’t think that should be a big issue? Not sure though

I do often have a foldable bag inside my backpack, but it’s a nice one I don’t want to get greasy and I didn’t have it today to limit backpack weight.

(I need the lightest possible fabric bag to limit weight on my shoulders and this is the lightest one I’ve found, so I don’t think I can replace it if it gets gross. Which defeats the purpose of having it...)

The problem is that for a day like today (with folders and a notebook and my iPad in addition to all my usual stuff) even if I had the bag, there’s so much in my backpack that I struggle to pull things out of it, so having a bag inside my backpack isn’t always as useful to me as it sounds. (Often just getting my wallet out is difficult for me, honestly. There’s usually coins and notes stuffed in my pockets, or loose money in my backpack, because I can’t cope with finding the wallet to put these back in.) And I could put a bag in my jeans pocket where it’s easier to access, but that means remembering to do that and if I leave the house with tissues, keys, Myki and phone in my pockets, I’m doing well. Or I could put a bag in one of my shoes, but the reality of my remembering to replace the bag every time I take my shoes off is so close to zero it isn’t funny...

(Jeans with pockets large enough to hold a wallet would help so much, but I only fit into jeans sized for cis women/girls and they never have useful pockets. Especially not when I’m buying whatever fits me from Savers, which isn’t a lot, but that’s another story.)

It’s more that the combination of pain and executive functioning makes it so much harder to both remember the bag and easily pull the bag out, and I’m really struggling with the lack of a provided bag in the many complications of buying things. For me, at least, it’s not as simple as just remembering a bag. If writing things down on a list to check before I left the house actually worked, I’d do that, but it since it doesn’t...

(If I lived in my own house, I’d stick a bag of plastic bags on the front door handle. I’d still walk past it often enough, same as the lists, but it might help a little more.)

It’s one of those things where it isn’t going to be a real problem for many other people, but my hands and my brain have come together on this to make me realise how much I do rely on stores offering bags to simplify the shopping experience of grabbing things, holding things and carrying things. And next year is going to be difficult while I try to figure it out, but I suspect all of the above will work sometimes but not consistently--unlike the provision of bags from the stores, which always worked.