arianhwyvar

I am bad at writing things on social media and especially here. Today several good things make me want to share a few (not at all related to each other) recommendations. (The first one should possibly deserve a blobcat icon.)

Food:

Today I had the best almond pastry I have ever had in my life, possibly the best pastry ever. It was at 'Bakey' on Tremont St in Boston. When I walked by they had someone offering tastes of a raspberry babka, and since it was outside and no one else was nearby I took off my mask and tried a bit. Then I said, 'ok, you've convinced me' and went inside to see what else they had.

I ended up getting a quite tasty bagel with lox, a truly extraordinary almond babka, and a very tasty hazelnut latte, because the cashier mentioned to me that they have a coffee+pastry deal where if you are getting a pastry you can add a coffee for $2/latte for $3.

Online fun:

From a science fiction blog I read, https://file770.com/:

Last month, psycholinguist Anne Cutler died, and renewed attention was given to her 1994 paper The perception of rhythm in language, which at two and a half pages long is the greatest scientific paper ever written.

Read it, and see how long it takes you to understand why it’s so great: "The perception of rhythm in language". https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/210768013.pdf

Dentist:

I am really happy with my dental practice, Dental Partners of Boston. Today I had a thorough but gentle cleaning and a fluoride treatment which should help harden my teeth and their crown bonds for four months. The suggestions they gave me years ago for dental hygiene are working great.

https://www.facebook.com/bardicwar/videos/?ref=page_internal

More concerts and classes and things, free: https://www.bardicwar.com/

I am delighted that more friends are either beginning to post here, or that I've finally discovered they were here already! Thus I figure I should post an update.

So. It's been almost exactly 11 months in lockdown. March 2, 2020, was the monday I went to work, went to a committee meeting, then came home starting to feel really lousy, fell over and had most of a week of a fever and dry cough before the fever finally broke and it turned into a respiratory thing. Since then I've taken a drive with A in a car a total of 5 times. Most afternoons, we take a 30-45 minute walk around the neighborhood. I realized last week that in 11 months, I had never left the house by myself. Not once. So I took a walk by myself just to be sure I still could. I am wondering how quickly, or not, I'll acclimate back. Though it's still going to be quite a while; older members of my communities are talking about the process for getting their vaccines, but I'll be in the last cohort. And I'm fine with that; I am ok in lockdown. I am a huge introvert, I have a partner I live with, I am not suffering a great deal compared to most folks.

Getting two hours back every day when I used to commute has actually been really nice. Being able to take a walk every day has been great. I obviously had to cancel my gym membership -- all the locations were in Boston, and I've been working at home for 11 months and also haven't set foot on the T -- so I started working (over zoom) with A's trainer, who is great, and I finally have some abs again, and am back up to doing some things with 15 lb dumbbells. I'm still working at the same company, which has been surprisingly good about the get-everyone-who-can-working-from-home thing.

I've been doing new crafting things, mostly with hammering or stamping copper. I've recorded some rounds in parts. I made a Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/silverowlcreations) and have been posting several times a month. A couple times a month I've been doing video-chat RP for the one larp I still play, and I'm going to play several virtual larps at Extracon -- I'm excited to see what those will be like. I've participated in a good handful of online SF conventions and have found many things to like about them -- being able to participate in things or with people halfway around the world, not having to pay for a hotel or travel to it, being able to chat and respond to other people during a panel (and in some cases, chat with the presenter if their presentation was pre-recorded, which is actually pretty great). One of my favorites was definitely online Wiscon, which is when I started occasionally posting here again. I'm also very much looking forward to online Boskone in a week and a half, which has a pretty stellar participants lineup.

I've also been able to attend a great many more services with my Havurah than I normally get to during a given year, since they're via Zoom, rather than in a place that can take me 4 hours of travel round trip. I do video-chat-based sessions with my therapist too, and that also works better than I had expected.

I have a joint video chat with my parents and my sister and brother-in-law's family weekly, which is nice, and occasionally have had virtual dinners or chats with a few friends, which is always great and I feel kind of bad that I'm so bad at reaching out and making such things happen. Left to my own devices, my basic inclination is just to curl up into a ball composed of work, reading, and occasionally making things. Though this year I also did some phone banking for the first time. I hate talking on the phone so very much, but it was really important, so I did some of it.

Oh, and we've worked our way through a number of tv shows I had never seen -- Counterpart, and Justified, and Breaking Bad, and we're now more than halfway through Better Call Saul. So all that is pretty much what makes up my life in pandemicland.

I recorded myself singing Jubilate Deo (with myself! computers are amazing) and put it on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/favorite-round-43311529

I'm finding I'm surprisingly bad at some of the harder rounds. Though it's been actual decades since I sang something like Cantate Domino with any other humans. (At Intercon last time I got to sing Non Nobis Domine with some lovely humans and it was *so great*.) One thing singing with myself can't get me is singing along with baritone/bass voices. I've been listening to a lot of a capella with great bass singers on Youtube lately. A. also got me a nice set of headphones for a recent present (my previous nice set of headphones are still in my desk at work, unreachable for 8 months), and wow, suddenly there's bass! I've been using crappy headphones for most of a year.

I am trying not to think about politics at this point because I stand very near a whirlpool of rage and despair and it will not actually help anything to brush it or fall in. Song, art, and work that doesn't suck help me. I don't feel I can do more phone banking this week because I am actively primary on call, and one thing I hate doing that involves listening carefully for my phone making noises at me, for days on end, is already almost too much. Went and gave some more money. Confirmed my ballot was accepted. All that.

Time 3 of doing 30 minutes of phone banking. For the second time, someone asked if I was a computer, and said I sounded like one. I think that is not a compliment? But at least I did it. I hate the phone, but I am managing to do this without going tharn.

A few links I want to come back to:

https://themadmommy.com/black-owned-etsy-shops/

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1H-Vxs6jEUByXylMS2BjGH1kQ7mEuZnHpPSs1Bpaqmw0/preview?pru=AAABcppzrA4%2A4t3hZ-QbYTcylqWYCXxJCg&fbclid=IwAR1hKN4CE9-KfofxAG6FUsgU9ShcI8itaDxx8gEjQC-l4_6fSPoZf_yTyVE

We're trying to buy a house! Therefore it seems like a really good time to sell a bunch of jewelry. :-) It's been hard to publicize the shop, though, especially with changes to Etsy's and Facebook's algorithms. So I would deeply appreciate any assistance in spreading word of this sale and giveaway around. Plus, cheaper or free jewelry!

Etsy shop sale and sweepstakes giveaway for Etsy shop credit
https://www.etsy.com/shop/silverowlcreations

Everything in my SilverOwlCreations Etsy shop is on sale from now until Friday August 12 at 11:59 EDT.
Use coupon code HOUSE2016 for 10% off any purchase!

In addition, I will be doing a giveaway for $75 off via a random drawing. Here's how it will work:

1) Please like, share, and comment on this Facebook post if you can: https://www.facebook.com/SilverOwlCreations/posts/1059444960776187
That gives you one entry for the giveaway.

2) Please share the sale and the giveaway on other social media! Put links to up to 3 of your other social media posts in a comment here, and you will get one additional entry for each one.

3) Any time someone makes a purchase from my Etsy shop through Aug 12, they can put in comments 'Credit to '. This can be your own name, or a credit to someone else. The person receiving the credit gets one additional entry.

I will do the random drawing on Saturday August 13.
Please share early and often. Thank you!

So, I know I don't post here much anymore! I'll try to post a little more often. Apologies for the cross-posting of this current message if people see it from me more than once. The New World Magischola kickstarter isn't just putting on live action roleplaying events where people can play characters in a magical school inspired by Harry Potter. They're also raising money to write a novel about a female protagonist of color in that world, a world where the house founders of the magical university include two women, a person of nonbinary gender, a black founder, and a native american founder. I appreciate that J.K. Rowling has been willing to say after the fact that Dumbledore was gay and that Hermione *could* be black based on the text -- but let's face it, the actual text as written is overwhelmingly populated with white, straight, cisgender characters. If you'd like to promote having more diverse characters in fantasy, and you have some money to contribute (or you want to read a book with magical school story that's a little more heterogeneous!), I highly recommend chipping in at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/nwmagischola/new-world-magischola-a-college-of-wizardry-larp. Only 4 days left -- the campaign ends Monday.

Since I was sharing a booth at Birka with Hairstory, I tried out making a whole pile of different types of wire-and-brass-decorated hairpins. They seemed to go over well -- I sold about half a dozen at Birka (and they looked great decorating actual people's hair) -- and I've added the currently available ones to a new hairstick/hairpin section on my website (which sadly is pretty out of date in the other sections at the moment), and will soon add them to my Etsy shop. Here's what the first batch looked like, though there are some additional new ones now (click to embiggen):

I actually took a vacation recently, over the holidays, and went to several museums: the ICA, including the fiber exhibit, and the Peabody-Essex, and a craft gallery or two. Whenever I look at museums or high-end craft shows I end up coming away enthused to try out some new things craft-wise.

Back in the day, I used to do a lot of wire wrapped glass gem pendants. I haven't used them much recently, but I've been using brass stampings all the time, at first mainly on key pendants and now branching out to pieces that are just stamping and sculpted wire. This new thing is a glass gem surrounding by ivy vines and crystals and lots and lots of wire. I'm pleased that I was able to make everything attach firmly. (As usual, there's no adhesive or heat applied here anywhere, just wire cold connections.)