Whoops!
How did it become more than a week since I last posted? Well, for one thing the sun did indeed go away and so I've had less energy. And the weather app on my iPhone says rainy or cloudy for the foreseeable future. Sigh.
How did I fare on my goals? Fair to middling. The spare room isn't perfect, but I could put someone in there with an hour or two notice. Huge progress. The cleaners were able to get in there to dust and do the floors for the first time in months.
I've only just started the necklace I meant to make. I've sorted out all the beads I want to use and have made a handful of them into links, but that's all. And I have another project to add in. I started a piece of bead embroidery earlier this year and then lost track of where I put it. Found it while cleaning the spare room so now I have that to do as well. Which I'm actually excited about. It's a new technique for me and this is only my first piece, but I think it's going well.
Someone on one of the lists I'm on posted a notice about a reading some of the local writers are doing soon and linked to the venue, The Wayward Coffeehouse. I'd heard of it if course as a venue where a lot of fans hung out and even had meetings. I looked at their web page however, and they host lots of stuff. Including a mahjong group every Wednesday. I've only played a couple of times, but I really liked it. And the posting for the group says they'll teach you! Now all I have to do is overcome my social anxieties and actually go. I really want to, but I'm so very shy and introverted and stuff that that kind of thing, introducing myself into a group of completely unknown folks, is really hard for me.
There's currently a brouhaha going on on some blog about how the Hugos are broken because they don't represent the will of fandom at large, all die, oh the embarrassment. Many people are trying to explain to the writer of said screed just how things work about the Hugos and Worldcon business meetings and committees and all that. He doesn't seem interested, claiming we're hostile to newcomers etc. ad nauseam. I took issue with one thing he said. He was maintaining that probably only a massive demographic shift, like Baby Boomer die off could help. I posted telling him that wishing me dead so things could go more to his liking was really beyond the pale. And a couple of other things. I wanted him to understand that Baby Boomers were not some massive faceless coporate entity getting in his way, but individual human beings with their own thoughts and feelings. What I find completely fascinating is neither he nor anyone else has responded to my little note although the discussion is still going on. Not even the usual belittling things people say when you've pointed out someone has said something appalling. I mean, nobody even said I shouldn't be taking it personally!
I feel like I've been running into that kind of thing a lot lately. An attitude, either bluntly spoken or inherently assumed, that we old folks are In The Way. Suggestions, both blatant and subtle, that we need to stand down and let the younger folks take over. As you might imagine, frequent suggestions that one is unwanted and unneeded,and, in fact, in the way are not very pleasant to live with. Frankly, this particular jerk is not the first one I've heard talk about how much better X will be when the Boomere are gone, i.e., dead. That sort of shit is distinctly annoying. Based on family history, I've probably got another 20 years or so ahead. I'm not ready to disappear for the time I have left. Certainly not for the pleasure of self-important jerks who think my being alive and active is holding back progress!
I'm an atheist and an old person. Two groups who don't get no respect.
How did I fare on my goals? Fair to middling. The spare room isn't perfect, but I could put someone in there with an hour or two notice. Huge progress. The cleaners were able to get in there to dust and do the floors for the first time in months.
I've only just started the necklace I meant to make. I've sorted out all the beads I want to use and have made a handful of them into links, but that's all. And I have another project to add in. I started a piece of bead embroidery earlier this year and then lost track of where I put it. Found it while cleaning the spare room so now I have that to do as well. Which I'm actually excited about. It's a new technique for me and this is only my first piece, but I think it's going well.
Someone on one of the lists I'm on posted a notice about a reading some of the local writers are doing soon and linked to the venue, The Wayward Coffeehouse. I'd heard of it if course as a venue where a lot of fans hung out and even had meetings. I looked at their web page however, and they host lots of stuff. Including a mahjong group every Wednesday. I've only played a couple of times, but I really liked it. And the posting for the group says they'll teach you! Now all I have to do is overcome my social anxieties and actually go. I really want to, but I'm so very shy and introverted and stuff that that kind of thing, introducing myself into a group of completely unknown folks, is really hard for me.
There's currently a brouhaha going on on some blog about how the Hugos are broken because they don't represent the will of fandom at large, all die, oh the embarrassment. Many people are trying to explain to the writer of said screed just how things work about the Hugos and Worldcon business meetings and committees and all that. He doesn't seem interested, claiming we're hostile to newcomers etc. ad nauseam. I took issue with one thing he said. He was maintaining that probably only a massive demographic shift, like Baby Boomer die off could help. I posted telling him that wishing me dead so things could go more to his liking was really beyond the pale. And a couple of other things. I wanted him to understand that Baby Boomers were not some massive faceless coporate entity getting in his way, but individual human beings with their own thoughts and feelings. What I find completely fascinating is neither he nor anyone else has responded to my little note although the discussion is still going on. Not even the usual belittling things people say when you've pointed out someone has said something appalling. I mean, nobody even said I shouldn't be taking it personally!
I feel like I've been running into that kind of thing a lot lately. An attitude, either bluntly spoken or inherently assumed, that we old folks are In The Way. Suggestions, both blatant and subtle, that we need to stand down and let the younger folks take over. As you might imagine, frequent suggestions that one is unwanted and unneeded,and, in fact, in the way are not very pleasant to live with. Frankly, this particular jerk is not the first one I've heard talk about how much better X will be when the Boomere are gone, i.e., dead. That sort of shit is distinctly annoying. Based on family history, I've probably got another 20 years or so ahead. I'm not ready to disappear for the time I have left. Certainly not for the pleasure of self-important jerks who think my being alive and active is holding back progress!
I'm an atheist and an old person. Two groups who don't get no respect.