K. Eason's Blog, page 13

spinning [a] yarn

Behold. Yarn 2.0. Two-ply, probably fingering weight. I have no idea what it will become, but I'm glad it's off my spindle.

photobomb

ENEMY launches tomorrow.

I am writing guest blog posts.

It's the last week of spring quarter.

We traveled 500 miles in 2 days this weekend, going to and from a wedding in NorCal.

An old (but far too young) friend of mine died on Monday of a sudden, massive heart attack.

And I have to cook dinner here in a few minutes.

Skugga is correctly expressing how I feel right now.

Therefore, you get pictures after the cut...




At the wedding... look. There are no bride/groom photos here. We watched the wedding, we did not record it for posterity; the photographers did that (and they sat at our table, too!) Anyway, it was lovely. Our friends are happy. And that is the point of weddings.

We did, however, take pictures of ourselves.







The Inky Women: me and Tira Palmquist, showin' off our tats.






And the fiber arts...




The endless blanket--I mean, seriously.  Like 9 months knitting this damn thing, mostly because it was boring and HOT. Here it is, folded in half on the bed. (I caught it in a rare moment of Neither Husband Nor Cat Upon It).




This will be an infinity scarf. I include it here because the yarn is a hand-dyed skein from Blarney Yarn, and because the colorway is named Idris. It's not coincidence. The shopowner is one of my yoga buddies.  She made me cry when she asked me if she could name a yarn in memoriam.

fantasy

I've been playing tabletop RPGs since I was 17, and except for a brief period when we were in different states, I've played with the Rat the whole time. She was my first GM, and we played AD&D 2nd ed, and my first character was a fighter. And although I have played mages and priests and rogues and multi-classed and scads of other games besides AD&D...the straight up fighter is still my favorite.

See, my fantasy-self isn't the mage, with crazy powers and All the Brains. Or the priest, for that matter. I am the  priest/mage/magic-user in real life. Those are my stats.

No, see, my fantasy is the tank. The physically powerful and capable and don't fuck with me character. Deals damage. Takes damage. Deals a little more. The monsters come at the tank first, but that's okay! Because the tank's gonna kick their butts.

It's totally a power fantasy, but it's the power fantasy of control. To be safe. To keep others safe.

Being a woman in gaming is a lot like a old-school dungeon crawl. You never know where the monsters are, but you know they're there and you're gonna see combat. It's just a matter of when. You even know who they are.

So this:  "Tabletop Gaming has a White Male Terrorism Problem" wasn't a surprise to me.

The Rat and I didn't do the gaming convention scene--in part because the one time we did go, to visit Nous and his then GF, we were Not Impressed with the crowd. (Nous  says he spent a lot of time at cons talking to "awkward" guys, trying to keep them away from the women at the gaming table.*) The other thing that prevented us from walking into that shitstorm was that we were, and are, wickedly introverted. The very idea of all those new people was exhausting and (for me) daunting as hell. Who the hell wants to play under those conditions? It's not fun! Let's go home and world-build.

The non/verbal shit, though.

The RPG club in college wouldn't even talk to us. I mean, we walked in to the first day meeting, the room of guys looked at us, the president wouldn't actually speak to us... it was amazing. Striking in its hostility. Like, put a sign on the door that says no gurlz and you'd have it.

There were two game stores in town. The one in the mall had a small RPG section and we went there most often for dice; the counter-help was blandly friendly. The guys lurking around the game section could be a little creeper-y. I learned not to make eye contact. Most of them wanted the Rat's attention (she was the more ideal physical type), but they'd make due with the short blonde sidekick. They'd get way too close and talk up in-game exploits like their characters were them. It was... awkward. And awful. I would have to physically leave to get the hell away from them.

The indie game store had a much bigger selection of books (and Magic cards), so we went there for those. Depending who was behind the counter... we could be ignored, or stink-eyed, or tolerated with barely-there courtesy. We didn't get as many no shit, there my 12th level necromancer half-elf was stories (I didn't); but the Rat got a lot more looks. I remember more than a couple oblique comments, too, about my unfuckability.**

Nothing to me. Certainly nothing to her. But we were meant to hear, and to understand where we fit. We certainly weren't gamers.

Which is not to say that it's all men who do this because duh. Lots of my gamer friends are, have been, men. White men, even. Not terrorists, but... well. Not exactly paladins, either.

So this: "For Good Men To See Nothing" didn't surprise me either. In fact, it rang even more true. Because I saw this a lot more. I saw my friends stfu rather than confront assholes, both in the game stores and not.

I once had a fight with an ex-boyfriend (and member of our gaming group) in which he tore apart the furniture while two other male friends (and members of our gaming group) sat in the back room, listening and doing nothing at all.

"We'd've come out if we heard anything, you know," one said later.

Any what? Screaming from me, instead of from him? Pain and fear instead of insensate rage? How exactly did they know the thumping was the chair's dismemberment and not me hitting the wall?  --I asked these questions.

"He wouldn't've hurt you," said the other, while not making eye contact. "He was upset."

This, this right here, is how men who don't act allow men who are trouble to get away with shit. This was all forgiven, by the way. When I expressed discomfort with being around this guy, well. You know. That was my problem. He apologized. He was sorry. I had to just, you know, let it go.

Right.***

So one official black belt and years of eclectic aikido and kendo and blade-training all around the edges ... I'd still run away from a physical fight if I could (because I'm not stupid) but I feel a little (little) safer in gaming environments where I'm getting the creeper-vibe.

Because I still do. Local-ish game store here, middle-aged dude wanted to talk to me, follow me around, gain my approval ("No shit, there my chaotic evil mage was, and..."). Other dude asked Nous how he could help him while pretending I wasn't actually the one picking through the bookshelf.  These were not teenagers. These were our contemporaries. And, as with most men, bigger than me. Heavier. Stronger. ****

So yeah, I still play tanks in D&D whatever-the-hell-edition we're on. Because, at least in my fantasy, I want to be the person in the room that no one will even think of fucking with.

The monsters are still out there.
---------
*He says awkward. I say poorly skilled predator.

**The Rat claims to remember none of this. She also can ignore people more completely than anyone I know, including my cats. I think it's her superpower.

***They weren't bad guys. But damn, did I learn a lesson.

****Thank all my various gods for online suppliers and the friendly comic book store across the street that has dice and understands why I need to try out every. Single. 20-sider to get the right one. 

two conversations

outside Whole Foods...

Colleague (whom I have not seen since January): You really cut your hair!

Me: Yep.

Colleague, to Nous: You have a fine looking girl there, Nous!

Me: ... ...

later, to the Rat:

Me: ...and the thing is, this is a guy who's, like, my age. And totally left-wing. I can't even.

The Rat: People get weird when navigating social niceties. Say shit they shouldn’t.
Me: This is a reason not to be social!
The Rat: Word.

eyeballs

What is up with all the eye trauma on TV/cable shows today? I expect horrible shit on GoT (the violence-porn of the end of S3, The Mountain vs Oberyn, was pretty epic. I damn near walked out of my own living room). But now it's kinda everywhere. I think SoA started it, but now Gotham is guilty, and Daredevil. When did this become a thing?

This probably part of a larger what the fuck is up with violence porn in general. I don't want to write that post. I just want to watch a show without going oh jeez, eyeballs...! and metaphorically (sometimes literally) diving behind the Sumo.

Begone, Winter Quarter. Welcome, ARC of Enemy

In a perfect convergence of awesome, my quarter ended (read: grades done) the same day these arrived:

Well done, Ides of March. WELL DONE.*
*Yes, I know it's St. Patrick's Day. I'm posting all delayed-like.

Chaucer was so full of it

April is innocent. It's freakin' February.

Okay, Chaucer was all up about the weather, droughts of March, rains, blah blah. I would like to see that rain. El Nino in SoCal right now is a big no-show. I am not complaining (oh, yes I am) about nice weather. I am complaining about summer heat in February. I am not ready to yield up my long sleeves yet! No! It sucks to be a knitter in a place where you can wear a sweater, like, 2 days out of a year. I don't even wear socks most of the time. Fortunately Nous does, so he benefits. And Zero in Toronto gets sweaters.

But weather is not the worse offense, O February. No. That, we reserve for the day job. February is Crazy Times in the quarter anyway. It is the month of All The Drafts of that second paper the necessity of which I acknowledge, while at the same time regretting its complexity.

This quarter, I got a plagiarist. I am not happy. They don't happen often, but when they do, they take a lot of time to handle--means getting my boss involved, gathering documentation, etc, taking time I would rather spend commenting on drafts (oh, be honest: writing non-work things). But really, it's the betrayal. Don't imagine I'm stupid, kid, or that I can't tell you didn't write something. But really don't imagine I won't notice if you stole work from my former students.  And then, for the love of all that is good, don't skip the fucking meeting with me because you're too scared to own what you did.

The worst part of this one: there might be complicity on the part of the plagiarized. Victims...or accomplices. We have no way to know. I can guess, and I can believe, but I can't know. I hate not knowing. I hate that I  now wonder if I must missed some degree of perfidy in those kids during endless conferences and talks about their work, or if their bleeding-on-the-paper honesty was just...bullshit. Bullshit that I believed.

I am angry. I don't like being angry. I don't like being the Green Knight's Axe. I don't like the waste of energy and time. I don't like being reminded that people are shitheads. I mean I know that, but I let myself believe it doesn't happen in my classroom, where we read freakin' Nicomachean Ethics in week one. Clearly the lessons don't stick. (But they do, for many. I see the lightbulbs go off.) There's an intimacy to teaching writing: they come in broken, convinced they can't do this, and you show them otherwise. You encourage and excoriate, you read confessions and heartbreaks and triumphs, you watch their eyes light up when they realize they care about what they're writing for the first time in their lives.

Right. Hold onto that feeling, not the betrayed-sick-I AM THE AXE feeling. Onwards to March.

this week...

...began with two dead watch batteries. Saved because third watch is a thirty-odd year old Snoopy wind-up with a little tennis ball counting off seconds. At least it's on studded black leather band.

8 inches into one panel of Dad's vest, I discover the row is 12 stitches short because I cannot count. Frog it all, begin again.

Broke the red glass flower part of the hummingbird feeder. Made do with a cut-down plastic pen body. Birds did not care.

I made chocolate chip cookies because COOKIES, and because I had a couple days of no student commenting (that ends... now) so I had time.

The Girl Scout cookie supplier was a no-show Wednesday. But we still have chocolate chip cookies, so we will not die.

There will be pub Friday tomorrow, goddammit.

Word-count! Sent to the Rat, because I am driven by deadlines and discipline and other words starting with D.

Insurrection planned in game! Much furious typing!

More word count! Followed by the realization that I don't like writing much. It's hard! Wah! ...and then more word count, weeping and snarling.

From an actual conversation with The Rat:

"Oh, see, I knew all your creepy-ass reading about space ship crashes would come in handy." 

"Indeed. I'm not saying you should compromise the outside, which would do a lot more damage. I'm just saying the bodies should probably be in pieces rather than puddles." 

"Pieces! Excellent."

And now begins the slow trickle of 57 first drafts for comments by Monday. Fuck and damn.

Oh, word-count. It was nice knowing you. At least there will be beer.

For now, coffee. Then yoga. Then Arrow tonight. And maybe, maybe more word-count.

making faces

I have avoided linking my photo to my name for as long as I've been on the internet. In the early days, that was a conceit, because the web was the 'Net from Gibson and we were all (in my corner of reality) half role-playing netrunners anyway. Then it became a matter of paranoia. Self-protection. I shot my electronic mouth off a lot more Back Then, was more willing to engage with asshats on the internet. But I sure didn't want them finding out who I was. Then avatars appeared (oh, livejournal) and one's picture was as much of a communication as one's words, and why the hell would I want to use my own face? When I shifted into Facebook, and for classroom websites, I made cartoon icons of myself, reckoning my students could see the real me every class, but the cartoon communicated something different--the viking-hero version for the Beowulf class, for instance--became a part of the teacher persona.

Now...I have this novel coming out, see, and there's author photos Out There attached to the name, and for the love of all that is good I am on Twitter (somewhere, a pig flies), so it seemed like it was time to make real faces. (Really, at the heart of it, is that I cut my hair and the style no longer matches the cartoon viking-me. I am that...whatever the word is. Particular? Obsessive? You pick.) So I broke out the camera on the laptop and sucked it up and took photos. There were filters! They were fun. And kind to fairly shitty lighting (leave my chair to take a better selfie? No way). And, vanity! Kind to the rest of everything, too. You don't stand in front of a classroom of 19 year olds if you're self-conscious or crippled by give-a-shit, but still, photos on the internet.

I updated my Facebook with one of the first crop (which lived very briefly here and on Twitter, too). And almost immediately, I got a couple of comments about how "very serious" I looked. And I thought wait now. What? The ONLY comment you can make about me is...I am not smiling? Why even comment at all about my expression? Like (or do not like; there is no ambivalence) and go on with your day. Why do I need to be face-policed?

When Nous posts some new version of himself, let me assure you that he is not smiling. He is the Anti-Smile. He is deliberately scowly. Does anyone ever comment on his expression? No. They comment on his hat, or his photo composition, or just say 'nice' or some version thereof. I did not expect nice, because the photos were crap (Nous is a good photographer. I am not. The end.)  Grant: I had no hat. I did have masks and paintings in the background because those are on the wall behind this chair, though I did not expect them to get comments, either. I thought I might get a where the hell did your hair go? or two, from the people who had seen it long, but that was about it.

But no. Where was my smile? Why was I not performing friendly for everyone?

Well, because.

We tell little girls to smile because it makes them pretty, which in turn sends the I am friendly/nonthreatening/approachable signal. I have made the fatal error of smiling at strangers before, only to get sucked into unwanted conversations or get followed around stores or hit on or harangued or whatever. So I learned, you know, not to do that.

Because I'm not that friendly, swear to the gods. I'm a cranky introvert who has no fucks to give about whether you think I'd be prettier if I smiled or whether my refusal to do so means I am a dyke and/or hate men. In my classroom, my office hours, my professional and personal interactions--I can and do smile, because I am happy to be there.

And that, ultimately, was the reason I took down the unsmiling me and replaced her with the sideways smirking me (and also because the light in my office was more conducive to photography).  I do want to be here (though I am still a little ambivalent about Twitter; but I'm ambivalent about Facebook, too). But damn, I kinda miss the days of icons and avatars.

spinnin'

Yarn 1.0, straight off the drop spindle. Because you can't knit all the time.


It is not very good yarn. It's uneven and unlovely. But it's also the first try. The second try, currently on the spindle, is a little less lumpy. I will ply them together at some point and make a delightfully ugly yarn, at which point I will have learned to spin and ply and I will have a ball of undyed bluefaced leicester wool of indeterminate yardage to be transformed into something.

And then I can get serious with the lovely fiber I got from Blarney Yarns and make something pretty.