Eredien's Journal

2011 was kind of a wash for me. There were some good things--making new friends, seeing old ones, achieving the goal I'd had (and had been stymied in by doctors and moving for 2+ years) of actually getting on depression medication, helping my boyfriend figure out what he needs from himself in a relationship with me and his other SO, starting the process of recognizing the good decisions I made in 2010 and forgiving myself for the bad ones. There were some bad things--sharing an apartment with an alcoholic who "forgot" to pay the internet and fix the heat, moving into a second apartment where one roommate constantly promised to move but didn't and the landlord preferred evictions over conversations; having my phone die; having both laptops die; and generally running short of cash from too many moves with too little preparation in too little time.

I am proud that:
- I have started beta-testing as a vendor at an online marketplace which I can't talk about yet but is going to be awesome.
- I have gotten on medication and it has made my life better. I am not scared of medication anymore: it makes me be the person I am at my best, instead of the person I am when I'm at my worst. I am still waiting for medicaid to come through, which is a paperwork bear (as opposed to a paper tiger), but knowing that my doctors won't write off my depression as something I am making up, or tell me that if I changed my body drastically in terms of weight I wouldn't be depressed anymore, is pretty awesome. Also, getting a 90-day refill from my therapists in MA without having to pay $120 out of pocket every three months is amazing. I wish that option had been available to me in October, but now that I am on meds again I am less angry about the fact that it wasn't, and less angry about the fact that I lost another place that had become home because of the fact that the medical establishment limited my access to necessary medication because my insurance wasn't any good there and I couldn't pay out of pocket. Both of these things are good.
- I have become more informed, and more self-informed, about race and the history of racism, both worldwide and in America.
- I have started watching movies and anime that I want to watch and reading books I want to read and reviewing them online when I feel like it. This seems like a very small thing, but when you have held off on having the experiences you wanted to have because you wanted not just the experience of doing the thing, but also the meta-experience of experiencing that experience with other people who care about you and the experience, and the other people want to share those experiences with you but don't set aside time to do so, eventually you get tired of waiting for the other people. It's not as much fun as experiencing these things alone, and I don't enjoy it as much as I would if I had a group of friends and loved ones with me. But it's better than being told, "I want to have this experience and I want to experience it with you, but I won't set a time to tell you when and won't let you set a time for me," and getting confused, hurt, and resentful at constantly having to hold back experiences I wanted to have yesterday, so that I can have them on someone else's constantly-unspecified timeframe, and then hurting the people I love when I express my hurt and resentment to them but present it to them, wrongly, as a personal character failure on their part.
- I have determined that it is necessary for me to find a long-term relationship with another person (probably a woman-type person) who makes it clear to me that I am a pleasure in their life and won't doubt my love for them, while also continuing my relationship with [Bad username or site: ab3nd" @ livejournal.com] for the foreseeable future. I am not ready to go find that relationship yet. I still hurt too much. But I think determining that it was necessary was a good thing.
- I have determined that to get this relationship, I need to make it clear to the other person that they are a pleasure in my life and I want to live with them and enjoy their company and love them, and I will do this by not pointing out the goodness of the good things in my life, instead of complaining about the few bad points of the good things in my life, which is basically how I lose a lot of loved ones and friendships. I was better at this in the past, and I can get better at it again.
- I started going back to the gym (actually, it's what I'm going to do after I finish writing this journal entry). I am going to the gym not even to get in shape because my doctors won't medicate me for sleep issues without weight loss on my part (which was largely the case in 2009-10) or because I think losing weight will make my partners want me more or less than they ever did, because I'm beautiful whether people can see it or not: I am going because an hour or so of physical activity a day gives me a specified time alone to get in touch with my body via physical meditative activity, as well as an opportunity to listen to new music, podcasts, and audiobooks which I wouldn't have time for otherwise. An hour or so of physical activity a day is a great way to set aside positive time for me having my need for time to make and consume art be interrupted by other people's demands of me.
- I have accepted the fact that my family will never approve of my relationships, whether those are friendships or loved ones, because they have a hard time approving of many of the things I do, because they have a hard time approving of themselves because they are resentful of the things they tell themselves they cannot do. Their lack of approval of my relationships is not my problem or my partners' problem. I will keep doing what I am doing in my romantic and sexual life and remind myself to have compassion for others who think poorly of me when I make choices that make me happy, and who think poorly of my friends and loved ones when they make choices that make them happy, and limit my association with such people.
- Finally, I am most proud of getting rid of almost all of my stuff except what I was actually using. I had too much of it, and too much of it was around because I wanted to be a person who had specific experiences (skiing, reading, making jam) but did not actually have those experiences, and so the stuff just sat there reminding me of all the things I wanted to experience but hadn't. If I want to do that stuff, I can: I can borrow someone else's jam making set, or rent skis, or buy more books (though I got a Kindle for Christmas, which is awesome because I will no longer need to move with boxes and boxes of physical books but will still be able to read to my heart's wallet's content. It also makes moving a lot easier for me, both physically and psychologically).

Resolutions for 2012:
- Finish and publish at least two things.
- Continue 365 Days of Art (which took a hiatus for the holidays and will be back today).
- Continue to make my relationships with loved ones deeper by complimenting the people I love instead of complaining about my or their shortcomings within a relationship, which makes them think that I don't love them or respect their choices or respect myself despite my shortcomings, makes me feel that they don't care about what bothers me, and gets me the opposite of what I actually want when I complain (which is respect for the fact that I am bothered by something, manifesting in a mutual discussion about how and why to resolve the problem).
- Keep on meds without a break.
- Sell model horses on ebay.
- Transfer old cassette tape music to MP3s. Sync all MP3 collections across devices.
- Setup KeePass to manage passwords safely between devices. Setup gmail with 2-step authentication again and this time print out everything.
- Catch them all in Pokemon SoulSilver or Diamond.
- Pay off credit card debt, personal debt, cellphone debt, and personal loans racked up in 2010-2011 through unexpected moving and continued medical expenses.
- Continue paying off education loan on a regular basis.
- Make sure multiple address change(s) have percolated through USPS system. easy!
- Sell awesome things on online store.
- Make professional-looking website/twitter.
- Keep going to the gym 3x week. Do not allow my mother to manipulate me into going to the gym more than I need or want to.
- Get a job, preferably with benefits. Continue to explore career options with hands-on internships related to N. Bennett St School degree tracks.
- Apply to N. Bennett St School this year.
- Travel to weddings of various friends. Enjoy myself there. Mission accomplished!
- Get in touch with gender activists at other womens' colleges and continue to work for the rights of MTF transgender women as women in traditionally bio-female-only spaces.
- Transfer LJ to Dreamwidth and set up cross-posting there.
- Get hormone balance tested by a doctor, with new results instead of old ones. Life without PMS is really, truly amazing.
- Get sleep tested by a doctor.
- Get allergy tested by a doctor.
- Make a financial plan for the next 5 years.
- Plan 2013 travel, with suggested places including DC, Boston, Toronto, California, and Belgium.
- Make plans to move back to Boston, including budgeting for a space without roommates and medical emergencies.
- Bike commute in spring, summer, and fall whenever possible.
- Optional bonus resolution: compose music.

My scanner died last night so you get two today.


365 Days of Art 4: Happy Dragon by ~Eredien on deviantART


365 Days of Art 5: Vibrant Velociraptor by ~Eredien on deviantART

365 Days of Art 1: Nessie by ~Eredien on deviantART

I've started the 365 Days of Art project, where I post one sketch a day for a year. Today's sketch: "Nessie."

The second sample Apartment Therapy post.

Sisal rope is cheap, easy to find and work with, and gives a natural feel to any room. Here's a roundup of six different sisal DIY projects for your place that look great, don't break the bank, won't take long, and don't involve the words "cat scratcher."

Design*Sponge's DIY Sisal Rope Art project shows you how to make a wall hanging or table centerpiece mat with barely more than scissors, rope, and a glue gun.


This sisal basket tutorial from Under the Table and Dreaming is fantastic, since you can make the basket any size or shape you need; it'd look great holding soaps or washcloths in the bathroom, fruit in the kitchen, or anything practically anywhere!


Grandmother's Pattern Book has this tutorial for a Crocheted Sisal Rug. This might be more than a weekend project, depending on how large you want to make the rug, but a smaller one would be great for a doormat or bathmat, since Sisal will stand up to harsh treatment.


Sisal's toughness makes it ideal for work in the garden. At the UK-based site Gardener's World, sisal and branches combine to make a rustic trellis for the climbing plants in your garden. They also suggest hanging it vertically from a pergola to get shade and privacy, but for those of us without pergolas, I imagine hanging it from a balcony would do just as well. This project needs a drill and a saw is suggested to make the branch ends uniform, but otherwise all you really need is sisal and branches--it's practically free!


This sisal rope shelf project from the Nate Berkus Show could be dressed "down" to look weathered or "up" to look modern, depending on what boards you decide to use. It looks a little nautical and would be great in a bathroom.

ab3nd and I are making Dandelion wine this spring. This is an ongoing series of posts.

He and I spent about 3 hours picking dandelions at a park on Tuesday, and then spent another hour cutting off most of the bitter greens, and then another hour boiling them in a big pot on the stove. It was time-consuming; if we ever do anything like this again then we should definitely make it a weekend, rather than an overnight, project.

Then, according to the recipe, the pot of boiled dandelion heads sat for two days with a twice-daily stirring. On Thursday evening, I spent another hour peeling the rind off of two lemons and an orange, and juicing them by hand since we don't have a hand juicer here, and sterilizing the inside of the bucket with some bleach and water.

I was a little worried: unboiled, the pot of dandelions smelled like bitter greens; but when boiled again let out that lovely aroma of almost-honey. I added the rind, boiled for another hour, added the citrus juices and sugar, and let it cool. I'm glad I started to do that around 4, because it took until about 10 at night for the vat-o-sugar to cool off enough to put the yeast in, even with stirring periodically. Around 10 pm I dumped the whole thing in the big bucket, stirred the yeast in, put the lid and the vent on, and sat the whole thing in the pantry closet to sit until Sunday.

Then I spent an hour designing a wine label in gimp. I don't know if we will decide to use this, but I really like it.

I once had a dream about a school of pet floating jellyfish. They basically moved like this.

Other awesome things:
Flying Mylar Stingray
Silver Robot Penguins
Flying Mechanical Bird (It really flaps its "wings," it's pretty great!)

I am now living in a world that contains:
- Actualizations of my own dreams, or
- Real life Philip K. Dick analouges, or
- shatterstripes' secret installation art, or
- Capitan Nemo's hallucinations

They also had a solar-cell engineering contest where the prizes were things like "see the space shuttle take off," or "tour Berlin by solar-powered experimental watercraft," or "Take a hot air balloon ride." Sounds pretty cool.

I am slowly beginning to start reading my lj friends list again, for those of you who were wondering when/if I would start to do this again. It's more of an experiment as to "do I really want to spend time on this?" than anything else, but since it's also one of the main ways my friends and I keep up with each other, keeping up with that is important to me. I just need to get better at skimming, I think.

In other news, I'm sick. I woke up at 6 am today after getting 6 hours of sleep, and then slept until 4 pm with no break. This usually means I'm really sick. I've also been having absolutely horrible headaches, but have remembered to take ibuprofen and they mostly seem to be gone now, as does the ear infection I was working on on Saturday. I *hate* getting my period, which also explains why I cried randomly on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, and had trouble sleeping Wednesday evening, without knowing why.

( rant on reproductive health )

For my birthday, I treated myself to a movie Saturday afternoon, Rango [edit: Rango is rated PG], and realized two things:
- I didn't really like Rango. I thought the character design was interesting, and the commentary on water supply and control in urban desert areas was interesting (groundwater policy), and the end-credits had a fun design, but it had a lot of really problematic stereotypes (hicks, Native Americans) which it bought into because it was a movie in the mold of a traditional American Western, and that made the whole movie not really worth it.
- Lots of children's movies that are made with anthro animal characters now are the same movies that would have been made (or were made) with live human actors in the past, and if they were made with live human actors today, they would not get a G rating (I dunno if they'd get a PG rating, either, but in any case Rango was obviously aimed at children). Computer-generated animals can get hurt and have the bad guy fire at them and be trapped in a cell slowly filling with water and almost drown, and computer-generated animal women can be assaulted and threatened by the bad guys with sexual undertones, and computer-generated animals can be stereotypically wise Native Americans or stereotypically uneducated hicks, and it can be funny, and or/dramatic and full of action and shootouts, etc. Whereas if this same movie had been made with human live actors, people would have been more clearly able to see the problematic stereotypes and the violence for what they were, and this movie would have been rated PG-13 at the least. It's really interesting, actually--I found the movie to be a really compelling example of a genre that usually has to be marketed to adult viewers when human actors are used, but can be easily shown to children if all the problematic issues of having humans shoot and assault each other are glossed over by having geckos and snakes and rabbits replace human actors. I realized for the first time that the movie studios are able to market adult plots to children in the guise of anthromoporphic CGI, so they're able to tell stories that they couldn't with human actors in the same roles. (This realization was the reason I kept watching this movie after being disappointed in the stereotyping; indeed it was the stereotyping that led me to this realization). This is good, on one level--kids' movies can have humorous, complicated plots with a lot of drama and quick wit. But on the other hand, why is it so easy for adults and children alike to overlook stereotyping when the actors are groundhogs, as opposed to humans? Then I realized that almost *all* the children's movies I see are about anthro characters. Part of this is the CGI uncanny valley and the long tradition of anthro animals in childrens' fare and the expense of live actors vs CGI, of course, but I think the studios are telling stories with animals in place of humans partly because they can get away with doing things with animals they could never in a million years do with human characters, and still get that G rating and do a lot of merchandising besides.

ab3nd and I went to go see the Edward Gorey exhibit at the Boston Athenaeum this weekend. It's $5 suggested admission, which means if you're super-broke you can get in for free, but if not it's definitely worth the suggested admission.

It was a little smaller than I expected, but that was ok because there's so much *in* the drawings themselves to see--all those little Gorey-esque touches--that it felt rather larger. There were also some manuscripts, which I thought were really interesting in terms of the fact that he seemed to compose the words separately, for the most part, from the drawings in his sketchbooks. I'd wondered how he created, and that was really great to see. He also loved using placeholders--for instance, the original name of "The Osbick Bird" is "The Something Bird," in draft; a few different name-choices were considered and rejected and re-considered in marginal notes.

The detail in the original ink drawings, themselves, was stunning, even moreso than in any of the anthologies you may have seen. I don't understand how his eyes didn't go bad in his mid-20's. There was a miniature book there no larger than a postage-stamp, every page hand-lettered.

Some of the works profiled there I hadn't read yet, and some of them I'll likely not see again--the hand-colored envelopes, for instance, in which he posted his college letters to his mom.

The Athenaeum itself is really beautiful, and filled with books (only members are allowed to go beyond the first floor). It's ridiculously hard for me to walk around a place filled with books and not actually be able to pick them off the shelf. It's kind of like a sting operation for readers, scholars, and book-hounds--well, you *can* read this book about Gropius, but only if you become a member....

I kind of want to be a member--for one thing, it looks like a fantastic place to do research into American history--but after being herded out the door, I got a clearer head and reconsidered. Not only are memberships expensive, but that kind of exclusivity to knowledge doesn't sit well with me (though I do understand that it is partially to protect and conserve the architecture and the books themselves, many of which are one-offs and antiques worth thousands of dollars). And Boston is so well-stocked with a wealth of libraries anyway...

I suppose that colleges, and indeed any school, in their way, are also exclusive, but at least most colleges don't outright ban members of the public from using their libraries.

...really, I just wanted to read and was annoyed that I was thwarted. But I don't think it's a bad thing to be annoyed at being thwarted at being unable to read a book.

Definitely an exhibit worth seeing.

For those of you who care about old cool stuff and/or printing and/or run small presses:

The City of Boston is auctioning off all its old print house stuff on Feb. 24th.

There is a lot of stuff in this auction that is good for print geeks/small press folks/artist types. Some stuff that looked awesome:

Binding Machines
Stitching Machines
Huge, table-sized paper cutter
Various sizes of flat file (good for storing sheet music, large-format photos, artwork, blueprints)
Various types and sizes of metal file cabinet
Antique and modern letter-press printers
Light-up drafting tables in various sizes
Linotype machines
An old-school wooden telephone booth
Professional printers like the kind found in copy shops
A large-format camera of some kind
Air compressors
A shop vac
Various desks
IBM Model 25 Master electric clock (this thing is gorgeous, like some kind of industrial-age grandfather clock, all wood and square lines it looks like it's from the 20's or 30's)
Lead type (sadly, you can't buy just individual pieces of type; you have to take all of it, which looks like drawers and drawersfull)

So, I was thinking about 3D sterescopic viewmaster cameras earlier today (don't ask how I get into these things), and thought suddenly, "it should be easy to do this in Photoshop, right?"

Yay for online tutorials.

Yayer for Photoshop Actions.

Here you go, folks.