Front-end web developer and writer
Writing
– Wrote 2878 words on Lioness
– Finished first draft of Lioness!!!
Reading
– Read “Where I’m From, We Eat Our Parents” (by fellow VP17er John Wiswell!)
– Read The Magpie Lord, KJ Charles
Other Media
– Watched some Lovejoy episodes
– Listened to Happier with Gretchen Rubin, episodes 87-89
Health
– repeated Zombies Run Week 2, workout 1
As I write this, I have just finished A Lioness Embarked, the novel project I’ve been working on, in some form or another, for the past three years. It doesn’t go on this list, because today is Sunday, but for completeness’ sake, I mention it, because that’s where my head is. I’ll write more about that later this week, including asking for beta readers.
Staying Alive: Mary Oliver on How Books Saved Her Life and Why the Passion for Work Is the Greatest Antidote to Pain. I am a great fan of the poet Mary Oliver, even if she has a reputation these days for being too sentimental. In any case, I love this quote: “I did not think of language as the means to self-description. I thought of it as the door — a thousand opening doors! — past myself. I thought of it as the means to notice, to contemplate, to praise, and, thus, to come into power.”
Writing
– Wrote 4,609 words on Lioness
– Attended writing group
– Wrote two blog posts: Civil war in 1844 – Review of Dragonwyck (1946) and I Returned to Azeroth and All I Was This Soul-Reaping Scythe
Media
– Listened to Writing Excuses 11.39-11.40
– Got Silbuns to 110. Woohoo! (actually happened last week, but I forgot)
Social
– Was a bridesmaid in Mel and Will’s wedding (congrats!)
Health
– repeated Zombies Run Week 2, workout 1
– did Zombies Run Week 3, workout 2
– Took 1.4mi walk
Photographer captures stunning photos of maine coons like you’ve never seen them before. Ignore the breathless title; the photos are gorgeous. Thanks to Vik for bringing this to my attention. (I had some glamour shots of Bri! But believe it or not, she chewed them to pieces).
Writing
– Wrote 2700 words on Lioness
Media
– Listened to Stuff You Missed in History Class, “Vincent Price: A Talk With His Daughter Victoria Price”
– Listened to Stuff You Missed in History Class, “Interview: Anne Byrn’s ‘American Cake’
– Listened to Stuff You Missed in History Class, “Le Theatre du Grand Guignol”
– Listened to Happier, episode 86
– Watched The Bat (1959)
HealthSocial
– Attended RiffTrax Live: Carnival of Souls with Brian and Adina
LARP
– Submitted 5G Silverfire 4 info skill
– Signed up for Kingsword at Intercon Q
Recent study provides additional evidence for link between diet beverages and weight gain. This study compared weight loss in people — all of whom were on the same diet and exercise regimen — who drank diet beverages after a meal with those who drank only water. The folks in the diet beverage condition lost significantly less weight than those in the water-only condition. Notably, those in the diet beverage condition, while having the same calorie intake, ate more carbs. The researchers hypothesize “that artificial sweeteners may raise the hedonic desire for sweetened and more energy-dense foods.”
(Believe me, this makes me pretty unhappy, too — ask me about my extensive collection of sugar-free coffee syrups!)
Having read the study, I have to say their research methods seem pretty solid, although the sample size, especially after people dropped out of the study, was pretty small.
Writing
– Prepped next three chapters of Lioness for writing group
Reading
– Read Grunt, by Mary Roach
Media
– Watched Dragonwyck (1946)
– Watched Gordon the Pirate/Gordon il pirata nero (1961)
– Watched The Brain-washing of John Hayes, a 1955 episode of TV Reader’s Digest
– Listened to Larpcast episodes 69 and 74
Social
– Attended Mel’s D&D bachelorette party
Health
– Zombies Run Week 2, workout 1
– Zombies Run Week 2, workout 2
– 20m Wii Fit strength training
39-day form from Podcastle for “Powder of Sympathy”
The Seven Sins of Memory, on Psychology Today. An older article, but still interesting. I think I stumbled across this from a Snopes article discussing the so-called “Mandela effect.”
Writing
– Wrote blog post, “How to construct an orc shaman costume”
Reading
– Read The Sleep Revolution, by Arianna Huffington
Media
– Listened to Larpcast episodes 58-59, 64, 66, 73, 78
LARP
– Bid Cracks in the Orb for Intercon M
– Submitted 5G Silver game 4 PEL (this was last week, but I forgot to include it there)
Health
– (Tues) Zombies Run Week 1, workout 2
– (Weds) 1.4m walk
– (Thurs) 20 x jackknives
– (Fri) Zombies Run Week 1, workout 3
Me and some beautiful woodwork, on Saturday morning of Cafe Casablanca.
How It Feels to Learn JavaScript in 2016. My friend Pickle shared this with me, wanting my take on it as a front-end developer. It’s all absolutely, infuriatingly true — but also completely unnecessary to be successful as a front-end dev. I guarantee you I don’t have to deal with almost any of this stuff at work; I guarantee you half the people on my team have no idea what any of this stuff is about. Out here in the real, unsexy world, we still all use Ajax and JQuery and OOP models. These are things that have stood the test of time — in technology terms, at least, which means they’re still only about toddler-aged.
Writing
– Wrote a blog post, “Boss monster: anticipatory anxiety”
Media
– Listened to episode 85 of Happier with Gretchen Rubin
– Listened to back episodes of Larpcast: 68, 71, 72, 75-77
LARP
– Played in Cafe Casablanca in Rockford, IL
Health
– (Mon) 3k walk/run
– (Tues) 2.68k walk/run
– (Tues) Used my sun lamp
– (Thurs) Zombies Run Week 1, workout 1
– (Fri) 30m walk/run
Alduin the World-Eater cake – I told Alison I wanted this for my birthday, only 10 times bigger and wearing a dingo costume. For free, of course.
Media
– Watched S1E6 of Lovejoy, “To Sleep No More”
– listened to Hardcore History’s “King of Kings,” part 1
Social
– Apple-picking with Becky et al
Health
– (Mon, Tues) 2 x 20m Wii Fit strength training
– (Weds, Thurs) 2 x 1.4-mi walk
– (Tues, Thurs) Used my sun lamp x 2
LARP
– Made death mitigation tokens for Ianthe. And then promptly forgot them at home. *headdesk*
– Played in Fifth Gate Silverfire game 4
56-day personal from Flash Fiction Online for “Remember to Die.” I did make it to the final round, however!
I’m trying to get back to doing these, as a way to keep me accountable and sane through the shortest days of the year. No links for you now; maybe next week.
Writing
– Wrote ~200 words on Lioness
– Wrote one blog post: Madrigal is Magical
Reading
– Read The Gift of Fear, Gavin de Becker
– Read Ghost Talkers, Mary Robinette Kowal
Other Media
– Listened to episode 83 of Happier with Gretchen Rubin
– Listened to episode 11.38 of Writing Excuses
– Listened to episode 10 of Elder Lore
– Watched S1E5 of Lovejoy, “The Judas Pair”
Social
– Dinner and shopping with Jess
– Visited Mystic Aquarium with EB
Health
– (Sat) 5.3 mile walk with Matt
– (Thurs) 20 x jackknives
– (Tues) 1hr walk with Matt
– (Mon) 40m walk around mall
Front-end development/day job
– Figured out a gnarly JavaScript bug in Firefox/Windows involving the timing of custom events vs. default events
– Made a presentation about JS frameworks and Angular to the FED team
Credit: Joanna Paterson
Grouped together because April by itself was pretty sad. I have no links to share, but have the pretty picture, above, of a wild rose — they are currently blooming all along the walking trail near my work.
Writing
– Attended April writing group
– Prepped chapters 13-15 of Lioness for May writing group
– Attended May writing group
– Wrote 2069 words on Lioness
Reading
– Read Mary Robinette Kowal’s Of Noble Family
Other Media
– Played Tiny Epic Galaxies
– Played Mars Needs Mechanics
– Listened to Elder Scrolls Off the Record #129 and #174-#176
– Listed to Classic Elder Scrolls #24 and #26, #32-#34, #53
– Listened to Writing Excuses, episode 11.11
– Listened to Happier with Gretchen Rubin, episode 54-56
– Watched the RiffTrax of Cybertracker
– Watched the RiffTrax of Cat-Women From the Moon
– Watched the RiffTrax of Hillbillies in a Haunted House
– Watched the RiffTrax of Arachnia
– Watched Columbo season 2 episodes 4-8, season 3 episodes 1-4
ESO
– Completed a no-death run of vet Crypt of Hearts
– Reached V16 with Br’ihnassi (Just in time for vet-level removal…)
– Completed vet Imperial City Prison, hard-mode (Falanu)
– Completed vet White Gold Tower, hard-mode (Falanu)
There’s going to be a lot less ESO in my life going forward, as Matt has stopped playing entirely, which makes the game a lot less fun for me. It will probably be replaced in part by Stellaris and Prison Architect…
Social
– Went to see the RiffTrax Live of Time Chasers with Brian
– Visited the New England Aquarium with ESO guildies
– Attended Jenn and John’s wedding
– Had dinner with Kevin at Bluefin
– Had dinner with EB at the Melting Pot
– Went shopping for bridesmaid’s dress for Mel’s wedding
LARP
– Attended Shadows of Amun game 12
– Attended Shadows of Amun game 13
– Attended Fifth Gate SF3
Health
– Started phase 1 of the South Beach diet
– Took a 30-40 min walk almost every day (lost track of exactly how many)
– Had two massages
This has been a rough month for me, and I’ve been escaping into video games a lot. So apologies if all my accomplishments are kind of lame.
Tabletop Gaming Has a White Male Terrorism Problem. I shared this without comment on Facebook. Let me comment here. This resonated deeply with me. While I’ve never suffered anything so bad as described in the article, I have been harassed in gaming spaces. It happened in high school, in the way I was marginalized within my group of D&D-playing “friends.” It happened in 2009, when I chose to speak up about racist and sexist language in a WoW guild I was part of. It continues to happen when I talk about being a woman who likes video games.
I love games. I have always loved games. I will not leave the hobby. But it does mean that a lot of the time I just pretend to be a dude on the internet.
Writing
– Wrote 730 words on Lioness
– Wrote two blog posts:
Reading
– Read “The Fixer,” by Paul McAuley (Clarkesworld, February 2016)
– Read “The Shadow Collector,” by Shveta Thakrar (Uncanny, issue 9)
– Read Tremontaine 5
Other Media
– Watched The Lady Eve (1941) (I think I actually watched this in February, but forgot to log it there)
– Watched The Martian
– Watched Mad Max Fury Road
– Watched Jupiter Ascending
– Watched The Last Witchhunter
– Watched the RiffTrax of Samurai Cop
– Played Lagoon: Land of Druids
– Listed to Welcome to Night Vale, episodes 74-83
– Listened to Happier with Gretchen Rubin, episodes 49-53
– Listened to Writing Excuses, episodes 11.09 and 11.10
– Listened to Elder Scrolls Off the Record 172 and 173
– Listened to Classic Elder Scrolls 50-52; also went back and listened to a 19-23
– Started a new heavily-modded Skyrim playthrough with Hibernia Leonis, an Imperial focused on 1H/Heavy Armor/Block.
ESO gets its own section this time, because it’s primarily what I’ve been doing!
– Healed veteran Dragonstar Arena in ESO, and got the coveted Boethiah’s Scythe title for my daedra-worshipping Dunmer Falanu. I would just like to toot my own horn and note that I did this with TWO VAMPIRES (i.e. in a trial where the final round is FIRE FIRE ALL THE FIRE OMG). It’d be more impressive if it weren’t V14 content, I suppose!
– Completed normal mode Aetherian Archive with the UESP guild (with Falanu)
– Completed normal mode Hel Ra Citadel with the UESP guild (with Falanu)
– FINALLY managed to complete vet White Gold Tower (with Falanu; normal mode on Molag Kena, though, because fuck those bi-directional lightning walls)
Social
– Attended grandmother’s birthday party/visited with family in Walkill, NY
– Hosted a visit from my dad
– Had dinner/writing time with Phoebe
– Had dinner/book club with Jess
Crafts
– Started a new knitting project, teaching myself the figure-8 cast-on
Health
– Had a massage
– Took lunchtime walks a few days (don’t recall how many)
12-day rejection for “Remember to Die”, Fantastic Stories
16-day rejection for “Powder of Sympathy”, Apex