Climate Strike (Anticapitalist Remix) Days 0 and 1

Posted on September 20, 2019 by Ian
A picture from behind of the crowd at the Climate Strike in ballard.

What a rowdy bunch of protestors. (Pretty good by Ballard standards, honestly. And we were the last strike of the day on the West Coast!)

Hey everyone, it’s climate strike time! Or Earthstrike. Or whatever you want to call it.

Today was the big event in the United States, and lots of people walked out all over the country, from their jobs and their schools (it is a youth-led movement, after all) to protest the world’s inaction on climate change. Because fucking seriously, if we can go to the moon in under a decade we can probably get 80% of the way to fixing stuff as much as we’ll be able to in the next 5-10 years. If we have that long. FUN TIMES.

Anyway.

In addition to the marches today, a friend of mine, emsenn, also proposed an extension of the idea of a general strike. Since many people are striking for the whole week of the 20th to the 27th (when the rest of the world is doing their strike), this general strike would take place over the entire week. It’d be a strike from participating in capitalism. Not only walking out on jobs, but on the entire system. They outline their reasoning here.

Seemed like a good idea to me. So I figured I’ll give it a go and talk about how it ended up working out. I’m not going to be able to completely eliminate my participation in capitalism, but I’m planning on vastly minimizing it. It’ll be fun. Or interesting. Or I’ll fuck it up somehow. But it’s definitely worth trying. Continue reading →

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Awake

Posted on August 31, 2019 by Ian
A screenshot of the Animatrix short Beyond. The main character is laying on her side on the ground, smiling.

Not the shot from Beyond I was planning on using, but fitting! Also: everyone remembers the Animatrix, right???

Short update but an exciting one! I’ve had a very happy development over the past week or so. After talking with my doctor, I had the dosage of my anti-depressant upped (it’s now at the maximum). I wasn’t expecting a lot, and was also given a referral to a psychiatrist for trying other medications in the future.

But it turns out, this new dose seems to help me stay awake during the day. Less intrusive sleep, less falling asleep super-easily in the middle of things, and it’s easier to stay awake once I get up in the morning! Given that it used to be quite simple for me to fall asleep at my desk, on the couch, wherever, this is super super exciting for me. I sometimes still need caffeine still, but it’s more of a general boost now instead of a “it’s this or passing out at my desk.” Granted, there are a couple downsides. It’s harder to get to sleep at night, or get back to sleep. But both are still very manageable, and I’ll happily take not feeling exhausted all the time in exchange.

Hopefully this’ll last after my body gets a little more used to the new medication. But I’m very happy with this promising sign.

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Out the Window, Beyond the Wall

Posted on August 25, 2019 by Ian
A field of golden-brown grass with a single black oak tree standing in it.

Not the view from my room, but also very California in its feel. I miss the oak trees, too. Image is public domain.

I managed to come down with the cold that’s going around. Which is bullshit, I demand an immediate cure so I can get on with my life! More seriously, it seems to be passing pretty quickly, and hopefully I’ll be feeling better by mid-week.

Talking to a friend about fencing in digging animals (they’re building an enclosure for possibly-wild turtle that got left in their apartment complex) reminded me of something. Back when I was a kid, a friend of mine, M, had a tortoise. M’s tortoise was an escape artist, and liked to dig under the fence and go tromp around the neighbor’s yard. At a certain point, M’s dad would just throw up a ladder to climb over the fence and go get the tortoise.

That’s not actually the point of this post, though I’m sure there’s something to be said about technically trespassing to retrieve a reptile.

It made me realize just how tall the fences and walls of our backyards were, in my neighborhood. I’d put them at seven or eight feet high, for the side fences, and eight to ten for the back brick wall that separated us from the drainage ditch out back. Continue reading →

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Well Hello There

Posted on August 18, 2019 by Ian
A picture of Jerry the leopard gecko looking right at the camera, which is roughly at his eye level, as he stands on a bed covered in red sheets.

Jerrybean! Hello!

It’s been a minute, which is more and more common between posts lately, much to my frustration. Full time day jobs, depression, and exhaustion are a pain and a half. But a quick summary of what’s been going on! Continue reading →

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Pokemon Going Again

Posted on July 24, 2019 by Ian

A screenshot of a straw-hatted female pikachu's pokemon screen in Pokemon Go.

Ed Note: I was getting all ready to write this post, and then my laptop battery died. But I had my alphasmart in my bag! Yay! And, uh, fell asleep at home before I could post it, so just pretend this went up on the 23rd instead.

Of course, now I need to actually figure out what to write about…

I picked up playing Pokemon Go again. I wanted an extra reason to go outside on my breaks at work, and it’s been working really well at encouraging to get out and go take a walk around the block instead of just sitting at my depressing-ass desk and flopping around the ‘net on my laptop for fifteen minutes. Continue reading →

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Books and Being Offline

Posted on July 21, 2019 by Ian
Calvin in a Calvin and Hobbes strip splashing in puddles on the sidewalk, holding a raincoat in his hand and getting soaking wet.

(c) Bill Watterson

*another hot minute passes*

*the author wonders just where the hell that phrase originated, anyway*

I’ve managed to close a couple of the loops I was talking about in the last post. I finished up both The Birthday of the World and No Time to Spare. Both really grabbed me in the back third. Le Guin spins a beautiful tale in a novella about a generation ship at the end of World, and has some beautiful observations on nature, imagination, and creativity at the end of No Time. The selection for No Time to Spare felt a little uneven, but I think that’s been true of every “this book of blog posts I mean essays y’all” book I’ve read. By which I mean this, Neil Gaiman’s The View from the Cheap Seats, and John Scalzi’s Don’t Live For Your Obituary. Continue reading →

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Open Loops

Posted on July 7, 2019 by Ian

Whoops, it’s been a minute. Life happens, you know?

I’ve been doing some thinking and I think I’m bogged down recently by having too many open loops. I’m borrowing the term from Getting Things Done, which basically means “things I have to do that I haven’t finished, delegated, put into the process of getting done, gotten as far as I can on my own and am waiting for someone else’s input, etc.” It’s stressful, you know? A semi-cogent list of the ones I have right now includes:

  • Car is overdue for an oil change and general maintenance
  • Reading three books at once and wanting to be done with them so i can move onto other things. I’m enjoying all of them, but I’ve been wanting to study more computer stuff and don’t want to start a new book until I’m done with ’em.
    • Those books are No Time to Spare and Birthday of the World by Ursula K LeGuin, and Five Billion Years of Solitude by Lee Billings. All three of which I’ve been working on on and off for like two months now.
  • Whatever homework I have due in any given week
  • Finishing Python Crash Course
  • Getting my second space in the house set up to be cozy and productive
  • Some miscellaneous gardening stuff
  • Editing The Shivering Deeps (I have tons of great beta notes, but I need to implement them!)
  • Uploading the rest of the chapters of a furry story I’ve been putting up at ~*~ zee secret place ~*~
  • Doing some direct community action, like guerilla gardening, putting up benches, etc.

There’s probably other stuff, but you get the idea. Lots of stuff I’m halfway through and it’s fraying my brain to have it all sitting there half-done or undone.

So I think I want to focus this next week or two on getting as much of these done as possible. Hopefully without driving myself insane. Some of them are just going to take longer than that, but wrapping up one or two of the books should be doable, along with at least having a plan for the gardening stuff, getting rolling on Shivering Deeps, that sort of thing.

And then maybe I’ll have brainspace for other projects I’d like to be working on. Right now I mostly want to shift computer studying stuff to learning more networking and infosec again, so I’m more hireable in that department. And to free up enough cycles that doing some of the bigger stuff, like the novel editing, is more manageable, both from a brainspace and time perspective.

So yeah, that’s what’s going on in my head at the moment. Whee!

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Essential Reading: Protestors Stop Alt-Right at Hamilton Pride

Posted on June 20, 2019 by Ian
Alt-right protestors holding up signs. In front of them is a large black wall-like structure being held up by pink t-shirt mask wearing protestors.

The only image that does this justice is the images from the protest. (c) 2019 either Northshore Counter Info or It’s Going Down, not sure. Source.

CWs (incl. for linked article): violence, cops, acab, alt-right, blood, anti-LGBT slurs

Sometimes, people are fucking badass. We need more activism like this at Pride events, and also all the time. Anarchist activists took it upon themselves to block alt-right protestors from having their message heard at pride, and when things got violent, the community rallied around them even as the cops stood by and did nothing.

[…] the Pride Committee had no plan to deal with the haters. The Pride Committee was simply hoping the cops would take care of the situation, and when that didn’t happen, they were too cowardly to even acknowledge what had really gone on: that more than 70 empowered queers and allies put their bodies on the line to confront the haters and, after sustaining multiple serious injuries and running our voices ragged, had demoralized and beat them back to the point that they decided to leave – something they rarely do.

The story of Pride 2019 is not one of an orderly and colourful celebration with clever permitting by the organizers. It’s one of brutal homophobia and awe-inspiring community bravery.

Read the whole thing here: Report Back on Defending Hamilton Pride from Far-Right

(And here’s a PDF backup copy of the article in case IGD goes down at some point.)

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Fresh Disappointment in 30 Minutes or Less

Posted on June 17, 2019 by Ian

Guess who has two thumbs and got rejected with a form letter two days after applying to that job he really wanted?

This guy!

*sigh*

I mean, so it goes. But it’s frustrating. I did e-mail one of the people I work with at the library to see if they happen to have any idea of the why I got rejected. (Although the person handling the hiring process isn’t someone who works at the library itself, so who knows if the people I work with at the library have any insight into how they think.) It’d be nice to know if it’s something I can work on or just one of those “sorry, the experience timeframe was a hard requirement and we can’t change/bend it” sort of things.

Which puts me back onto the path I was already on on, despite some exciting veering into the weeds towards Adventure there. So I’ll keep training at my current job, try to do well at it, and keep working on finishing grad school and building my skills so I can move on up to something I’m more passionate about. No offense to records collection, it’s just where I want to be for the rest of my life, you know?

Bleh.

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Library Application Submitted!

Posted on June 11, 2019 by Ian
Agent Paper from the Read or DIe OVA controlling several sheets of paper as they fly through the air.

Sending in my application looked nowhere near this cool. Source.

Woof, and it’s in! I applied to a position that’s opened up at the Washington Talking Book and Braille Library. You know, that place I volunteer that I super ove? In a field I really care about? In a subfield of that overall field that I really really care about?

NOT NERVOUS AT ALL.

But I’m happy to have put my best foot forward. Hopefully it’ll work out! *crosses fingers*

Good vibes and thoughts and such sent my way for this job would be greatly appreciated. I’ll be sure to keep y’all updated!

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