Extruded blog product

Ever have one of those days where you feel like you'd like to blog but nothing much is coming? Let's throw stuff against the wall at the back of this screen and see what sticks.

I continue to come out to more friends, and to meet with more encouraging responses. That's very happy-making.

It's very hot for Seattle again, but our heat advisory is supposed to end tonight with lowering temperature and changing airflow to break up congestion. I am pleased that I came through today with many fewer heat trauma sorts of problems, thanks to better preparation. I'm really looking forward to some cooler days, though.

I get to do some retro-raiding with my beloved night elf death knight this week and next, and will get my first look at Mt. Hyjal (this week) and a second look at Black Temple (next week). Better late than never. :)

The Pet Shop Boys' new album, Yes, is a delight.

I did some paying writing this week I'm proud of. Those who know my birth name have seen me comment about it elsewhere. (And if you're a regular reader who doesn't but would like to know, drop me a line privately. I'll explain why I need to keep the public separation up and kick it around some. I'm aiming to hide no more than I have to for a couple key reasons.)

I'm continuing to assemble goals for the summer and the rest of the year for feminine presentation. At this point it's more or less the basics of cross-dressing, in practical terms, but then there is a lot of good advice available about that these days, and I'll be glad to have more progress to show and talk about. Voice practice continues productively.

I'm very pleased at the pace with which I'm getting (re-)established in communities that matter to me, like sf/f/h fandom and rolegaming, as Ceri. It's been a good opportunity to build new bridges and let some old less-than-satisfactory connections drop, and I'm intensely satisfied and honored at the quality of response I've been getting on my participation. This includes the times when people poke me with the clue stick, when I have it coming, because I'd rather know I need to improve than not.

And that's all for this roundup, I think.

This may not actually be THE geekiest thing said about transsexualism today, but..

...I found myself starting to explain some of my feelings to a friend by invoking Marshall Rogers' interpretation of Batman to Frank Miller's. So I think I did the tribe proud.

(For the record: Rogers approached Batman as being driven but sane and in control of himself, and Bruce Wayne as being a real, multi-faceted persona for whom the Batman is a mask and a tool. Back before he went just plain silly and nuts, Miller was of the view that Wayne is a shell of a persona that the Batman uses when he can't be in the cowl, where he is most truly himself and free. I am imprinted on the Rogers interpretation, and this could segue into a long ramble about the ways in which Ceri and birth name feel real or not to me, but it won't right now 'coz I'm tired and too warm.)

Finger painting

I had a few bucks' credit at the iTunes store and picked up Brushes. Back in college, I learned how de Kooning planned his abstracts, and I was hooked: he'd prepare his palette for a realistic landscape, or still life, or whatever, and then do something non-representational that still had the color balance of reality in it. I've always wanted to try some dabbling with that concept, and now I can. Two simple renderings based on colors in my bedroom as I flopped out for a while this afternoon:

From Brushes

From Brushes

Choosing my topic: the fail before the *fail

I've been continuing to ponder the sweep of issues around the sundry *fails, and thinking about what it is that I might usefully contribute. I've been keeping in mind what parts of my exposition draw cautions and objections about ignorant, insensitive baggage, among other things - where it's most clear I need to learn more about what's up with a thing, that's where I should keep quiet for a while as I get clues. The world keeps us richly endowed in ignorant expositors, after all. One subject that I know something about, though, is what it was like to be a white, middle-class, male-bodied and male-identifying part of sf fandom in the '80s, '90s, and '00s. So I can write about that, with an eye on this question in particular: How did I so totally miss the much greater diversity in "media fandom", and what was I thinking about the cultural reach of fandom as I participated?

I'll be wanting to do some research to check and supplement memory, and there are great resources for that online now. I rather expect to ramble up and down the years and take side trips and all like that. What greater value there may be in what I'd like to do, I can't say, and I'm trying not to make over-inflated claims here. I hope that it may be useful in illuminating shadowy background to the current discussion, though. I'm tagging this so that I can keep little chunks drawn together, and may do some compiling once I'm done with a topic.

Side note: I know some of my readers haven't been soaking in this stuff. As a starting point, check out linkspam  for links to topics of active interest, some with good historical roundups. The super, super short form is that on several occasions this year, people in and around the world of print sf have come off very badly in handling matters of race and in responding to fans of color raising concerns. For me as a lifelong white fan, it's been unsettling, sometimes appalling, and deeply challenging. Hence this reassessment, because I blew my initial responses about as much as most of my compatriots, and I'd like to be doing better.