staxxy | Reading

Good: I got a decent night's sleep last night, over seven hours.
Bad: It ended before 0315.

Those of you who can do arithmetic have realized that I turned out the light around 2000 last night. That's not ideal, but it's still better than the night before. Is it now taking me two nights, at least, to recover from a late Saturday night? Or do I need more time every day with the happy lamp, currently glowing away right under my laptop?

It's not that cold yet, thank Goddess. It's not unusually rainy for this time of year. I can't explain the strong urge to hibernate that's hit me this month. Whiskey tango foxtrot, over? If this is just How It's Going To Be every fall from now on, I'm not ready for that.

Time for yoga. With the happy lamp aimed at me.

Current Mood: disappointed
Current Location: the living room of the Devil Girl House
Current Music: Enya, "Marble Halls". Christ on a pogo stick.

cupcake_goth

Have I mentioned how much I'm looking forward to the new Florence + the Machine album? SO MUCH I NEED IT NOW NOW NOW okay fine I'll wait for Halloween.

This weekend I did a bit of spellwork that I learned about online: wring writing. You think of a phrase that sums up something that's been troubling you or something that you want to let go, then write it over and over on a piece of paper until the paper is completely blocked out. Write the phrase on top of the phrase until individual words can't be seen. Then burn the paper, take the ashes, and put them in a jar with whatever things say "protection" to you. I used salt, cinnamon, and roses.

Let me tell you, this spell takes ENERGY. I haven't been that wiped out from a magical working in a very long time; once I was done with everything, I was hit with the shakes and had to flop for a bit. BUT, I certainly felt lighter after it. I'm going to do this with the particular phrase I settled on ("I can't ask for help") for the next few weekends.

When I told my therapist about this bit of spellwork, she was fascinated. She said she was probably going to adopt it herself, and also told me that doing it was my "therapy homework" for the week. More proof my therapist is the correct one for me.

alierak posting in

dw_maintenance

DW is seeing some issues due to today's Amazon outage. For right now it looks like the site is loading, but it may be slow. Some of our processes like notifications and journal search don't appear to be running and can't be started due to rate limiting or capacity issues. DW could go down later if Amazon isn't able to improve things soon, but our services should return to normal when Amazon has cleared up the outage.

Edit: all services are running as of 16:12 CDT, but there is definitely still a backlog of notifications to get through.

Edit 2: and at 18:20 CDT everything's been running normally for about the last hour.

sistawendy

But first: I think my happy lamp has passed the test that I set for it. It's become a breakfast time fixture here at the Devil Girl house.

On to the booty-shaking! Roy Davis Jr., one of the (many) artists listed in Daft Punk's song "Teachers", played the Monkey Loft last night. I checked him out ahead of time and he sounded promising, so off I went.

Worthy of note: the local support that I saw was two women, namely Shannon Johnson and Emily Song. Go us! Maybe someday women DJs won't be remarkable, but that day hasn't arrived.

And what of the man himself? I wish he'd taken the stage at midnight and not 0100, but he did deliver the groove in big mirror shades. Not for him the gospel feel of Derrick Carter; I wasn't the only one singing along to the remix of "Enjoy the Silence" that he slipped in. But otherwise yes, it was among the best of Chicago-style house.

Also worthy of note: the ordinarily chill area downstairs had a second DJ, since they weren't using the mighty Funktion One in the adjacent room. (Why not?) Good grief, I hadn't heard "Din Daa Daa" in decades and had to stick around for that.

Current Location: the living room of the Devil Girl House
Current Music: Gearge Kranz, "Din Daa Daa"

sistawendy

But first: leatherdyke munch last night. Small turnout, but not a bad time at all. The organizers never appeared, mysteriously enough.

So, do you remember that I recently bought a synthesizer? Well, I have indeed been messing with it. Fairly often, when I turn it on and switch to one of the "scenes", i.e. instrument-definition-to-MIDI-channel mappings, some of those instrument definitions ("tones") are labeled "not available" and are indeed not playable. If I power cycle the synth, though, it resolves the problem.

I've learned, however, that if I power cycle or even disconnect the synth while my digital audio workstation, Apple LogicPro, is running, the DAW will send a very loud sound out the external speakers. This sound is loud enough and at the perfect frequency to make one of my speakers vibrate its way off the kitchen counter and crash to the floor, thereby disconnecting itself and, as I just discovered, marking and denting a wall.

The good news is that the speaker still works fine. The bad news is that I now have to spackle and paint the wall.

Moral: make sure the synth is okey dokey artichokey before firing up the DAW.

How's the actual music making going? Slowly. I suck at piano and as you read above, I have a lot to figure out. I'm making progress, though.

Current Mood: annoyed
Current Location: the living room of the Devil Girl House
Current Music: "Mal de Mer", The La Bora Tree

sistawendy

Over Thai food with the latex gang last night, someone brought up eternal internet questions: what, if anything, is the difference between a taco and a sandwich? What's the difference between a cupcake and a muffin?

I said that somebody needs to make muffcakes, or maybe cuppins. The cis women didn't find that funny.

I told them about gingersnatch cookies, the ones with an agenda* that traumatize gay boys. It's probably for the best that I don't know how to bake and I'm not inclined to learn. Otherwise I'd bake a lot of gingersnatch cookies.

Bonus: years after buying a couple of my latex dresses, I can fill them out in the bust.

*They were all different "skin" tones, shapes, and degrees of icing, no two alike. The baker definitely made a point with them. And of course, they were delicious.

Current Mood: silly
Current Location: the living room of the Devil Girl House

sistawendy

Against my better judgment I went to the Blue Moon last night. Good beer, the cute bartender with the queer hair, and a mix of good house music and train wrecks. So far so normal, you say, but I ended up chatting with a lady with grey hair. It turns out that she and I have similar... tastes, and I don't just mean house music.

Didn't turn out my nightstand light until 2315. I only regret that slightly. I've already asked if she's going to the Monkey Loft on Saturday.

Gaydar is when you can tell who's queer. What is it called when you instinctively find the kinky folk in a vanilla space? Flaydar?

Current Mood: amused
Current Location: the living room of the Devil Girl House

cupcake_goth

So many random things happening. Don't expect this to be linear.

- The teaser trailer for season three of Interview with the Vampire/The Vampire Lestat has arrived! I am in a state of giddy fangirl screaming and I want the season RIGHT NOW, DAMMIT. I also want a CD and tour shirt. Anyway, remember how when the casting for the show was announced that I was super-skeptical of Sam Reid, and then I watched episode 1 and said "Yep, that's Lestat"? My god, the man has obviously been possessed by the spirit of my egotistical rock star vampire boyfriend, yesssssssss.

- I'm trying to decide if I want to watch The Talamasca, which is based on Anne Rice's books. On the one hand, I've always been interested? Charmed? Something? by the idea of a supernatural observer group and have always wanted more details. On the other hand, I'm concerned that the show will be more like The Mayfair Witches than Interview with the Vampire, and I'm not up for hate-watching another show.

- I bought another Beetlejuce corset-back blazer from La Femme en Noir, with the intent of dying it pink. I'm not worried about how the fabric will take the color, I'm just not sure how to dye it. There's no way it'll fit in my dye pot, which means I either need to get a Rubbermaid tub and fill it with near-boiling water and dye, or bribe a friend with a top loading washing machine.

- Not only am I going to see MCR in L.A. next year, but I'm now going to a Ghost concert in Seattle in Feb. I don't listen to them a lot, but I think they're entertaining and put on a wonderfully theatrical and over-the-top show.

- The Powers That Be are having fun dropping anvils on me via cartomancy: every card for the past few weeks has been about focusing on my magical practices and putting energy into what makes me happy and grounded, because, as the 10 of Wands hit me with yesterday, OH HEY I'M OVER-EXTENDED AND COURTING BURNOUT. (Thank god I'm not using one of the bitchier decks right now.)

- Bloodmilk Jewels has released limited edition pendants of comedy and tragedy jack o' lanterns. Peev got me the comedy one, with the caveat that it'll be my Christmas present. I'm dithering on if I want to buy the tragedy one so I have the set to wear as part of my 24/7 neck mess. I think I do, because I need to be better at acknowledging difficult and upsetting things/emotions/situations happen but I don't need to keep my brain in them. But still, $260. Ooof.

sistawendy

You may recall my griping about fall and reduction in daylight hours per day. Well, as I mooted in that entry, I did indeed get a small happy lamp. So far so good, as evidenced by:

I seem to be capable of doing things in the early evening besides sleep.
I can do the yoga tree pose right after lamp exposure, which is my usual time, without having difficulty with my balance. That's right: I have trouble with that pose in the fall and winter because my brain is using my eyeballs (overmuch?) to tell it which way is up.

Caveats: It's been really sunny the last couple of days, and I spent Sunday recovering from Saturday night. The real test will be later this week when the rain returns.

Current Mood: hopeful
Current Location: the living room of the Devil Girl House

sistawendy

Taller Woman had surgery for cancer. Again. Last week. I'd promised to visit her in the hospital. She told me when it was happening, but I didn't put it in my calendar, so I missed the window. I was in New York when she told me, and thoroughly distracted, but I still feel terrible about it.

And last night, I thought I was going to Seacompression, but neau. I found out at almost the last minute that it's next month. At least this had a happy ending: I found out before I got on transit, so I went to the Merc and said hi to the gang.

Current Mood: embarrassed
Current Location: the living room of the Devil Girl House
Current Music: The Cars, "Let's Go"

sistawendy

Mayunn, several times in the last couple of weeks I haven't wanted to do squat after sunset. Not circumflatulation, not reading, not house cleaning. I go to bed early and sleep the sleep of the just: eight hours last night, no less than ten one night last week, and no less than seven per night since Sunday.

How do I explain this? The rain is starting to return — no need to water my outdoor plants for a few months, yay — but most of all, Seattle will be Down The Hole in under a month because it's up above 47°N.

Is it time to get a happy lamp? I dunno. Mornings aren't a problem for me. I just want my evenings back. Drink more tea? Maybe.

Current Mood: annoyed
Current Location: the living room of the Devil Girl House
Current Music: something from the 1982 Windam Hill Sampler

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staxxy

June 2021

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Carfax Estate Nanny

Enobled Enabler

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in the wrong time zone

The witchcraft, the medicine, the spells, and the injections

AWS outage

Nun takes recommendation from French robots.

software gremlins vs. Devil Girl house

fun in rubber

This is why you should probably leave the house.

(no subject)

Nun hacks own brain?

Nun forgets how to use calendar.

Come back, Mighty Orb!

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June 2021

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