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a small brown dog with black muzzle wearing a Chewbacca coat

Open Thread with Wookie Griffon

tigtog

My dog-nephew wearing his winter walking coat features for this week’s Open Thread. Please natter/chatter/vent/rant on anything* you like over this weekend and throughout the week.

a small brown dog with black muzzle wearing a Chewbacca coat

So, what have you been up to? What would you rather be up to? What’s been awesome/awful?
Reading? Watching? Making? Meeting?
What has [insert awesome inspiration/fave fansquee/guilty pleasure/dastardly ne’er-do-well/threat to all civilised life on the planet du jour] been up to?

* Netiquette footnotes:
* There is no off-topic on the Weekly Open Thread, but consider whether your comment would be on-topic on any recent thread and thus better belongs there.
* If your comment touches on topics known to generally result in thread-jacking, you will be expected to take the discussion to #spillover instead of overshadowing the social/circuit-breaking aspects of this thread.

67 thoughts on Open Thread with Wookie Griffon

  2. If I wrote in any detail about what’s going on in my life — essentially, nothing — it would be very boring. All I really do lately is sleep (a lot), read, and sit in front of my computer. Until I went to the supermarket tonight (out of necessity), I hadn’t left my apartment in more than three days. I need to push myself more — I’m always happier when I’m out, especially in nice weather, but it’s hard to work up the energy. I had lots of ideas for things I could get done in my free time while looking for another job — straighten out my apartment! organize all my old family photos and documents and put them on my computer! and so on! — but I’ve accomplished almost none of them. So: not much to say.

      1. OK, my answer to your question was so long that it went into moderation. I’ll see if splitting it in two works.

        1: Well, let’s see; this is what I remember reading in the last 2 1/2 months or so.

        I’m currently reading a completely fascinating book called Animal Wise, by Virginia Morell, about animal cognition studies — with chapters on ants, fish (specifically archerfish), birds (parrots and corvids), rats (the studies proving that rats laugh when they play with each other and when they’re tickled), elephants (probably my favorite undomesticated animal!), dolphins, chimpanzees, dogs, and wolves. Not cats — they’re too difficult to study; it took one researcher many years to prove that cats can count to four, because cats participate in experiments only when they feel like it! I love this kind of thing, and love it that all the people who used to claim that animals were basically robots that had no emotions, and weren’t capable of thought or learning, have been proven to be so wrong.

        I also have been re-reading some Steven King short stories, and just started on the 1950’s science fiction novel The Stars My Destination, by Alfred Bester.

        Before that, I read the new Tana French book, The Secret Place. (Good, but didn’t like it as much as some of her other books.) Before that, I spent some time reading about half of the collected short stories of Vladimir Nabokov, and before that, I read Nathaniel Philbrick’s The Heart of the Sea, about the wreck of the whaleship Essex (Melville’s real-life inspiration for Moby Dick). In the last couple of months, I’ve also passed the time by reading the latest books by Steven Saylor and Alan Furst and David Downing and Jo Nesbø. (I’ve now read every book by each of them, except that I haven’t read Saylor’s two mega-novels about Rome, which are sort of like the books Edward Rutherford writes and James Michener used to write.)

        1. 2. I also read some other Scandinavian noir, including books by Camilla Lackberg and Arnarldur Indridason; a couple of novels by Nevil Shute I hadn’t read before (including A Town Like Alice, which I really liked); and the half-dozen Elizabethan mysteries about Sir Robert Carey by P.F. Chisholm.

          I also re-read, all in a row, about 20 books by Andrew Garve that I hadn’t read since the 1980’s. (He was a British crime and suspense novelist from the 50’s through the 70’s; under his real name, Paul Winterton, he was the Moscow correspondent for a London newspaper, and also reported for the BBC, during the Second World War, and I think his best books might have been those taking place in whole or in part in the Soviet Union, like Murder in Moscow [a/k/a Murder Through the Looking-Glass], The Ashes of Loda, and Two if by Sea.) Right after that, I re-read, again all in a row, a similar number of books by John D. MacDonald (a crime/suspense novelist primarily known for the Travis McGee series, but also the author of a great many “paperback originals” published in the 1950’s and 1960’s). I’ve discovered that if I wait 25-30 years after reading a book, I have forgotten it sufficiently that re-reading it is exactly like reading it the first time.

          I wasn’t kidding when I said that being unemployed has left me a lot of time for reading and sleeping, two of my favorite pastimes!

        2. I really like Camilla Lackberg. Unlike some of the other Scandinavian crime writers (I’m thinking Jo Nesbo in particular), she often includes LGBT characters.

          I also love the descriptions of the food! Cinnamon Buns – yes please!

    2. Oh my gosh, I have been a reading fool, as well. I’ve had a nasty cold, and also it gives me something to blog about.

      Over the last four weeks, I’ve read:

      * Telegraph Avenue by Michael Chabon
      * The General in His Labyrinth by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
      * The Great Glass Sea by Josh Weil
      * Season of the Witch by David Talbot
      * Everyday Zen: Love & Work by Charlotte Joko Beck
      * Men Explain Things To Me by Rebecca Solnit
      * Bodhissatva of Compassion: The Mystical Tradition of Kuan Yin by John Blofeld

      And now I’m reading
      * Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman by Haruki Murakami
      * The Poems of Dylan Thomas

      These are all mostly library books, and I keep checking out two books every time I take one back so there’s a huge stack. I need to finish some of them and get back to reading the books I owned, but have only half finished.

      I’m stealing your books and adding them to my Goodreads, though.

        1. It was alright. It’s really short, 120 pages or so. It made me want to read at least one of her full length books, like Wanderlust. A lot of it, though, was just another perspective on things I already knew about or had read about from different sources, with the exception of her piece on Virginia Woolf, which I enjoyed.

          If you see it in the library, you could pick it up and read it in a day or two.

  3. We found a house. I have to find a job that I can do that works around the debilitating migraines I get in order to afford it, but I think I have a line on one that’s mostly work from home. And the deadlines are such that if I’m down for 3days puking and wishing for death, it’s no biggie. We may just squeak by, but that’s better than living in a car. And, we have a credit repair place working on our credit. It was recommended by the mortgage company and the credit guy was surprised that we had only 4 negative accounts. He’s used to fixing credit for people with 40. My 2 are medical and thanks to HIPPA can easily be removed. So, in 6 months we should be in a position credit wise to qualify for a real home loan. In a year, we should be even better credit wise, after building up wisely.
    I want to thank everyone that helped. Without your help we could not have put down deposit plus first months rent. Or hired the credit repair company that actually gives us a real chance at buying a home. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. There aren’t words enough. You made a real difference in the lives and future for my family. Once we are in a position to, we WILL pay it forward. Thank you.

    5. all that news is awesome! I’m glad you have a light at the end of your tunnel.

      I’m sorry I wasn’t able to chip in this time around, when you re-signal-boosted your GoFundMe (car bills = no discretionary funds) but I’m so happy that things are looking to work out this time.

    6. Congratulations on finding a house, and someone to help you with your credit, and good luck with the job hunting. My fingers are continually crossed on your behalf.

  4. I’m so glad to hear your news, pheeno. Fingers crossed that it all works out exactly the way you want it to!

  5. We’ve been bankrupting ourselves buying a no-bedroom apartment that you could spit across, moving stuff into it, suffering from various neural fluctuations (the old “left is right and right is left” was back last week, followed shortly by Cortle becoming convinced that our torso shouldn’t be there, the internal chronometer got stuck on 07:45 for a day… we forget the others), putting in a lot of overtime at work to free up the weekends for moving stuff, getting called in at the weekends anyway because no matter how much overtime you do some incompetent always manages to screw it up when you’re not watching, and, where time allows, actually fitting in a spot of painting.

    Glad to hear that you also have found a house, Pheeno.

  6. I’ve decided to come back commenting under this name, because I’ve realized that the people who do have a problem with me probably don’t care enough about me to check out what I’m saying here, and besides, I’m not talking about anything they could potentially exploit. So, like, hi everyone. Again.

    In other news, my dad now has control over my insurance because he signed me up for his own family insurance while I was being covered by another insurance provider. So my insurance won’t work until it is the only one I am signed up for. And the only way I can cancel it is to ask my dad to do so. I can technically do it on my own but if I do it without explaining anything to my dad he’ll just try to sign me up again or at the very least get extremely upset at me.

    I hate him so much. I wish I could just send him an angry email asking him to stop covering me. I want to get back at him with his own words. He has a habit of saying “Do you want me to stop caring about you?” in order to manipulate him, and now I so desperately want to say “Yes, stop caring for me, stop caring about me, get the fuck out of my life.”

    1. To be specific, I’m talking about health insurance, and the reason it is extremely distressing for me to have him control it is that I use it to cover my HRT.

    2. Welcome back, Ally. I don’t think you need to worry too much about those people: the primary person you’re referring to hasn’t commented here in ages, and has given no indication that she even reads here anymore.

      About your father: do you have an idea in mind as to when you plan to cut off contact with him entirely?

    3. Glad you’re back, Ally.

      I am obviously not a lawyer, but I don’t understand how your father can legally sign you up for something without your consent when you are over 18? Giving a parent that kind of power over a person over the age of majority is disturbing, to say the least.

        1. I’m sure your father’s assertion that you are his dependent is the reason why his insurance company has agreed to offer you coverage. I don’t see why that offer should supersede your existing coverage that you’d arranged for yourself though? They can’t force you to terminate your current coverage, surely?

        2. Can he do that without your consent? What if you just answered “no” to “can anybody claim you on their taxes as a dependent” next year on your tax return?

    4. Hi Ally, Welcome back. I think that even if you use your father’s insurance to pay for your meds, the insurance company can’t tell him what the meds are, because you are an adult. I was in a similar situation when I was kicked out of home at 19, where the only thing my parents were providing me in the way of support was medical insurance, and they were never told what I was using it for, even when it was therapy and meds.

      What was most frustrating was that they insisted on still listing me as a dependent on their taxes, which meant that I had to pay higher taxes than I would as a non-dependent, and I needed the money more than they did. Nothing quite like taking out student loans to pay your taxes.

  7. Just took a peek at the stats and this post from 2008 by Holly is getting a lot of hits from people who find it while searching for these terms:

    * what are those scarves that terrorists wear?
    * white and black muslim scarf terrorists
    * what a terrorist scarf looks like

    I deduce that somebody is yet again stoking up FUD regarding the scarf that is common garb across the Middle East and worn by Jews, Christians, Muslims, Zorastrians etc alike, because they think Yasser Arafat or Gadafi invented the wearing of this practical headgear that protects against sunburn, dust and sand (have they never seen Lawrence of Arabia? Have they never seen their own or allied troops dressed for desert action?).

    It struck me back in 2008 and it still applies – here in Australia people tend to not freak about about anybody wearing a houndstooth-patterned anything, except to maybe make a joke about them maybe working for the major chain of department stores who have had black and white houndstooth as their branding all over their stores for the last century or so (OK, that chain’s been bought by their major competitor now and the stores have been rebranded, but the David Jones houndstooth check is still a recent omnipresence). When houndstooth has been all over the billboards you pass and the papers you read and the tv ads you watch since you were a kid, it’s hard to see that fabric pattern as somehow intrinsically Arab or Middle Eastern, let alone as “terrorist”.

    1. I personally think it’s the same special-USian willful cultural ignorance that causes uber-patriotic people to get very defensive over “improper” uses of American flag imagery while owning a crapload of American-flag covered consumer merchandise (which, strictly speaking, is also an improper use of the flag. I doubt Madison and Jefferson ever imagined a stars-n-stripes man-bikini would be an appropriate display of patriotism and reverence for the flag).

      I still have a kefiyeh that my old roommate brought back from Lebanon for me. It’s green. I get people asking if it means I support Hamas (when they’re not asking if I bought it at Urban Outfitters) all the time.

    2. That brings back a rather dark memory: post 9-11 I had to stop someone who was following a guy in a turban and cursing at him at the train station. The irony of it was the victim was a Sikh so this racist was targeting the wrong group, proving ignorance and racism are never far apart from one another.

  9. OK, turning off the computer now for voice warmup before my gig tonight! Getting back into music over the last few years has been a rather wonderful adventure just making music with other people, but it’s been a while since the last big gig so I’m getting nervous. I think it’s the good adrenaline buzz belly flutter nerves that end up helping a performance in the end though, so fingers crossed.

  10. CW: dysphoria, TMI body stuff

    (Formerly Ally S)

    I’m now going to comment as Aaliyah. Ally is a nickname, and while I don’t mind it when people use it, I prefer to be called by my real first name so as to avoid whitewashing. For anyone who’s curious, you can pronounce it as “Aleeya”.

    Anyway, despite the profound shittiness of this week, at least my hormones have been kicking in really strongly. I definitely have at least a softer face now. And my chest has grown a lot, to the point that I now have to be much more careful about the shirts I’m wearing outside. It’s also more sensitive than ever and I feel some pain whenever something bumps into them. I can only hope that these changes won’t be obvious to my dad yet….

    1. I’m very glad you’re back, Aaliyah. Between your return and pheeno’s finding a home, this is a thread of very welcome good news! Thank you for coming back. And, well, you know, if the commenter who attacked you comes back…point me at zir.

    2. Aaliyah, I can tell you from personal experience — and from talking to WAFABARAFs (women assigned female at birth and raised as female [my own invention; not really something people use!]) — that the sensitivity and pain are a standard aspect of this process, and mean that things are progressing the way they’re supposed to.

      I think I’ve mentioned before that I was on hormones for 4 1/2 years before I transitioned socially on a full-time basis (namely, at work) — I was in the midst of a difficult divorce process throughout that period, and was concerned, for good reasons, that if my ex found out that I was already transitioning medically before the divorce was final, she would attempt to get sole custody of our son, and deny me any right to see him. Which would have made my life not worth living, even though I’m well aware that it’s happened to other trans women.

      In any event, I managed without too much trouble to conceal the physical changes (not just to my chest but also the fat redistribution around my hips and rear end) by wearing shirts and pants that were very baggy and/or a couple of sizes too large (with t-shirts that basically squashed everything under my outer shirts), both at work and whenever I had to be around my ex. Fall and winter were good, because I could wear heavy sweaters and suit jackets most of the time. It wasn’t pretty, but it worked!

      1. Boobs are tender when they’re growing. That’s true no matter what age you start. For concealment, try a really good sports bra. Be warned though- no matter how comfortable they claim to be, mashing your boobs flat is never pleasant. Try to find one that also wicks away sweat. Under armour might work as well. Since yours are just starting out that should help. Mine at 36 dd would take drywalling over to obtain flatness, but you shouldn’t have that issue for awhile. To hide redistribution of fat, try wide shouldered, loose fitting tops. They need to be below the waist. That will elongate your torso and the width at the shoulders will give a more male triangular impression. When you don’t want to conceal, womens baby tees are fitted to give you a curvier look. Pencil skirts are always a win too.

        2. Oh and a versitile look- black skinny jeans with a v neck tshirt, converse for presenting male, paired with a hoodie. When you want to ditch the concealment, replace the converse with a pair of ballet flats and the hoodie with a fitted jacket. That way if you don’t have time to go home and change clothes but don’t want to conceal the whole day, you can just bring a change of shoes and jacket

        3. Pheeno, you could make some money giving clothing advice to transitioning trans women. Believe me, there’s a market.

        4. TW: sexual assault

          I do have sports bras, actually. They’re pretty comfy most of the time. I usually wear them for long outings or hikes.

          I want to wear them regularly, but lately I’ve been having flashbacks of abuse, so sometimes I’m afraid of wearing a bra due to my fear of the possibility of a white man finding out and then using that as an excuse to assault me, especially since I’m a WOC. I know it’s paranoia, but unfortunately just because I know what’s happening doesn’t mean I can dismiss it so easily. I can thank PTSD for that. Hopefully I can process my fears and then start to feel safer soon.

        5. I’d feel kinda bad taking money for that. Not that I don’t need the money of course but it would seem exploitation ish. Aaliyah- if you need a dressier look try a woman’s dress shirt ( white or dark solid color) under a bulky man’s sweater paired with khakis and men’s dress shoes. When you want to change, ditch the sweater and replace khakis with a black or black and white pencil skirt, and either flats or heels. Heels also make your butt stick out, so you get a more feminine shape if you’re going for that, but flats are more conservative and comfy IMO. You can also do a white dress shirt under a sweater, paired with relax fit jeans and guys boots, then ditch the boots and sweater and just put on ankle boots with a small heel.

      2. Aaliyah, I have one more thing to add to pheeno’s excellent advice: if you really need to be careful, then don’t wear a sports bra (or any other kind of bra) unless you’re absolutely sure that it can’t be seen through your shirt, which has been known to happen even when someone is wearing a T-shirt in between. Not ever to me, thank goodness, but I know of people to whom it happened, who were subjected to rather horrible ridicule afterwards — “ha ha ha, Bobby wears a bra” kind of thing.

  11. The new place doesn’t come with a washer and dryer, so I made a deal with my ” friend” to do the cleaning of the house we’re leaving and she’ll give us hers ( the ones we’ve been using) for free. I would have left it clean anyway so that worked out well. She’s become more cognizant of our situation and has tried to help, but her husband, in his zeal to punish her has made it impossible. She was going to let us stay while the house was shown, he refused. But I think it got through to her how her mistakes have affected us because she’s tried to suggest things they could pay us for ( hiring and supervision of painters etc) and he’s just flat refused. So once we’re out, he’s going to hear from me. He thinks he has the high moral ground but given the number of empty whiskey bottles I cleaned out of his computer desk, that high moral ground isn’t that high from where I’m sitting. And I didn’t cheat on him, so fucking me over doesn’t make him the victim.

    1. And I will be so glad when my life drama is back to ” should I dvr dr who and watch outlander or dvr outlander and watch dr who”. Because once upon a time the most drama I had in my life was oh no! Two shows I like come on at the same time! This past year though has been out to get me.

      1. Pheeno, I look forward, on your behalf, to the day that the drama llama is no longer part of your life. I will never understand the folks who invite that jerk in to their lives and feed it and pet it.

  12. Fasting today in preparation for my one-year follow-up scope. I find it funny that the timing works out that my follow up comes the day after the Terry Fox run and that I will be getting my results almost one year to the day after my initial diagnosis.

    Also I am hungry and bitchy as shit. Trying to stay away from everyone.

  13. Started on oestrogen today. Going back to endocrinologist in six weeks for another blood test, and unless there’s something major that comes up in that I’ll start on androgen blocker then.

    Turns out I have a lower than ‘normal’ testosterone amount, a head start of sorts. Less to bring down.

      2. You have a barrister’s background, Donna L. Have you and your coworkers never spoken of the witch hunt of Bakersfield? Regardless, Bakersfield is widely regarded as the most homophobic hellhole in the middle of California, complete with billboards calling for Obama’s impeachment.

        1. I’ve certainly heard of that case — I actually remember it, along with the one in New Jersey in which that poor woman got railroaded — but never associated it with Bakersfield, and know nothing about the place otherwise. My sense of California geography is vague, at best.

          1. An overgrown cow-town in the southern section of the central valley, just before the mountains that separate it from Los Angeles, full of Rednecks and Republicans.

            There’s a massive feed lot on the way down there that’s right by the freeway. I wouldn’t be surprised if you could see the cloud of pollution over it from space.

            I will try to remember any and all ridiculous billboards I see. My favorites are the ones that the farmers obviously put up in the middle of their crops.

        2. Thanks to both of you for explaining. I will not put Bakersfield on my bucket list of places I want to see before I died.

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