sundries

[rm]

Things are happening. We're getting read to go to the vintage picnic thing on Governors Island with Patty, her mom, Marci and more.

Things for you to look at soon from Bristol conference. Timing of this being really nice, since Patty got the ten minute "you know, I finally took a break from this for a few days and whether it was for this, this, this or this reason, I feel so much better for doing so and am ready to look at it again."

Maybe, maybe, I will have upcoming appearances info (mainly D*C schedule, possibly also something NYCC related, and possibly some other stuff) this coming week.

I may also have finally found some solidity to my thoughts for the chapter proposal thing I need to write by Sept. 1.

Yesterday afternoon was so bizarre on Twitter I'm besides myself. A bunch of us were nagging JOhn Barrowman to come to Gally and then bodlon showed up in the middle of it to be all "I'm drinking bacon vodka out of a shark." Twitter isn't normally that funny, but this was HILARIOUS.

Facebook grapples with death.

The nightmare in Apt. 9B.

Comments

[angstzeit.livejournal.com]

You and Patty appeared in a dream I had last night. I was telling Patty how schmoopy you are when she's away. Then I was driving us somewhere and road construction had the streets all screwed up.

[ladyofthelog.livejournal.com]

Okay, this isn't just me - that article about the apartment? Kinda creepy and transphobic?

[gement.livejournal.com]

I wasn't sure what to make of that. I also got an off vibe from it, but couldn't pin it down.

On the one hand, they were being really good about pronouns and identity (only using masculine in specific childhood instances), and didn't try to call in any 'expert' testimony or overt speculation about how this person's trans status made them unbalanced or emotionally something-or-other. I thought it seemed like it mentioned it jarringly early, but when I went back and looked just now, it didn't get a mention until paragraph 8, and emphasized that this is a private thing, only dragged out by the massive horrible soap opera.

On the other, the article was so unfocused and rambling that I kind of wondered if they'd have bothered telling the story if the potentially most unbalanced person in the situation hadn't had a lurid interest hook like also being trans. It read like a transcript of a high school social climber on the phone, stringing on every painful aspect of the latest interpersonal drama without any sense of shape or composition.

[bodlon.livejournal.com]

One thing that struck me is that everyone but the trans daughter was referred to by first name. She was consistently Ms. Wells. That may be a style thing -- everyone else is a Cheney -- but that kept sticking with me.

[rm.livejournal.com]

It's a New York Times style thing. People are to be referred to by titles and last names except where this prevents differentiation. Ms. Wells has to be addressed that way because of teh style guide; the others are referred to by first name due to lack of other non-confusing option.

[bodlon.livejournal.com]

Gotcha. I figured that might be it, but the context made me wonder.

[ladyofthelog.livejournal.com]

I just got a strange, sort of icky feeling about it that tied in with the latter portion of your response.

[1-mad-squirrel.livejournal.com]

The nightmare in Apt. 9B.

My God, that's positivley Gothic!

[brightlotusmoon.livejournal.com]

My friend Dirk was murdered in February, and his family kept his Facebook page active so that Dirk's thousands of friends could leave messages for him, say how they loved him, post how much they missed him.
A few months later, Facebook began sending out suggestions that we should get back in touch with Dirk. It made more than a few people twitchy.

That is a great article. Thank you for linking to it.

[penguineggs.livejournal.com]

Someone needs to exorcise that Apartment.

[zeldajean.livejournal.com]

In the early days of Facebook they deleted profiles when they discovered the person had passed. That sucked mightily when one much loved professor passed away unexpectedly and we converged on his wall to mourn together and post memories of him and suddenly he was erased as if he never existed.

(I haven't read the article yet, but will today or tomorrow.)

[fitfool.livejournal.com]

Thanks for linking to that article about Facebook and deceased users. As more and more people use Facebook, I had been thinking of creating a Facebook page for someone who had already died so that his old friends could find him that way. But I wasn't sure how well that would go over with people.