where are your gloves and your helmet?

Went through the listings in my Pride category on Etsy and I think I got them all. Various items in that category will generate donations to:

the Bisexual Resource Center, biresource.org
Advocates for Trans Equality (formerly the two separate organizations, National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) and Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund (TLDEF)) - transequality.org
the National LGBTQ Task Force, thetaskforce.org
the National Women's Law Center, https://nwlc.org/

Wasn't really sure of who to back with the ace/aro ones so I just have them pointed at thetaskforce.org


Let me know if I have accidentally chosen anything horribly inappropriate



sorry about the tone of this post, I've been going without coffee for several days due to blood pressure, and while brewed cacao is nice stuff it is not coffee and I have been awake since 8:30

Linguistic stuff today:

I asked an ASL online community about overlap between dive signs and ASL, because I remembered my post from ages ago about how the ASL for 'under God' is a SCUBA dive sign for 'incoming shark'. There are a few overlaps, it turns out; there are, it seems, false friends in every form of communication. THANK YOU in ASL is a distress signal in dive sign meaning SHARE YOUR AIR WITH ME. The sign for the letter F is dive sign for ALL IS WELL, which makes sense because to non-diving non-Deaf folks the sign for the letter F is basically the English language gesture for OK. And the thumbs-up gesture that most English speakers and a lot of Deaf folks use for 'I'm good' is dive sign for I NEED TO GO UP NOW.

Separately, in Dutch, a number of their really bad swear words are disease names. Like, if you call someone kanker or kankerlijer, you're saying 'not only are you as bad as cancer, but you HAVE cancer, and you ACTIVELY INDUCE CANCER IN OTHER PEOPLE'. They have a couple of diseases that they use for swearing, kanker and pokken and klere/kolere being the ones I remember off the top of my head. Currently I am trying to find how one translates a possessive disease name into Dutch because there is a particularly nasty form of gangrene named after a specific doctor and it is exactly the kind of word I wand to be able to use when I talk about Ken Paxton and Greg Abbott.

Filled out 9/10 of the forms today to be a poll worker at my town's primary polling place on the 5th. I need to get my passport out of the safe and photocopy it or get a copy notarized or something, not sure which. Will do that tomorrow, the passport is at home and I don't have a scanner or copier and anyway town government will be closed by the time I get home.

I'm not sure why but for some reason I always thought poll workers were volunteer. I did not expect to have to fill out a W4 in addition to my Homeland Security forms.

Handed in my ballot at Town Hall yesterday.

Kinda pissed I don't have a sticker to show for it, but I'm not gonna bother the Voter Sticker Project guy on such short notice.

We made it. I can breathe again.






am I a terrible person for watching the Pledge of Allegiance delivered in spoken word and Ameslan and realizing that the sign for 'under God' looks like the scuba diver sign for 'look out, there's a shark'?

sorry, it's been a little overwhelming today

I have been having too many days lately that ended in utter exhaustion when I have not done anything physically outstanding. I'm reverting back to the tactic I found worked for me after the Disaster Mental Health guy talked to me and sent me home post-ten straight days of Red Cross work for 9/11: if I find that I am too wiped to complete a relatively simple familiar task, such as a Bejeweled game or a Duolingo lesson in Italian, without my brain going to pieces, then I stop seeking out news for the day. Deal with whatever comes in my email, because I am on way too many OUTRAGE!!!! mailing lists, but don't go to news web sites and don't read the paper other than local news and maybe the Tech or comics section. Resume news reading tomorrow.

That being said, on Saturday I was bird watching down by the harbor when a couple on their way home from the local $SOCIAL_ESTABLISHMENT asked if I had seen any bald eagles. Apparently one's been spotted recently in the vicinity of the part of town nearest to Logan. We have bald eagles in Mass., but I've never seen one south of the Lawrence area*. I've gone down that way twice now. No sign of an eagle, but so far I've seen a Cooper's hawk, another raptor that I'm almost sure was a Northern Harrier, and several goldeneyes. The duck, not the EMP weapon from the James Bond movie. So the detour's been worth it.



*Mostly I've seen them during flying lessons. Which is kind of awesome, realizing that you are literally looking down on an eagle in flight, but also leads to a level of extra special terror the first time your flight instructor says it's okay to fly through the small cloud ahead of you so long as he's prepared to grab the controls, because if your brain is at all like mine you are then beset with the mental image of having to inform the FAA, the NTSB, and the Wildlife Service that you flew through a cloud and hit a bald eagle.

I'm not normally one to talk about my workouts here (unless there are stairs involved). I'm not one to normally politicize my workouts beyond a generic use of "FOOLS! I'LL SHOW THEM ALL!" as a motivational slogan. That hardly counts. There's fools on every side of every issue who need to be shown.

But I'm doing the Hundred Pushups training program at https://hundredpushups.com, and today was my second attempt at week 5, day 2, column 3. This specific day's workout requires that I do sets of 19, 19, 22, 22, 18, 18, and 22 consecutive pushups each, separated by about 45 seconds of rest, and conclude with one much larger set. The number is not specified, but in order to go on to the next day of the program, one must do at least a certain number which varies based on which column of the program you're doing. I couldn't hit the goal number last time; my arms and will gave out around 31 or 32 pushups.

But yesterday the Electoral College met, and today Mitch McEvilTurtle acknowledged the result, so I managed to will myself all the way through to 46.

The goal for week 5, day 2, column 3, is to get past 45.

So someone pointed out that Ruth Bader Ginsburg died on Rosh Hashanah, the New York Times published the tax information on Yom Kippur, and that today at sunset Sukkot begins...

*glances at headlines*

Um.

I am a very bad person for thinking of the joke about Hitler and the fortuneteller.





doesn't mean I'm not still thinking it.

Well, I'm awake, that's something.

Got my early ballot in yesterday. It's the one I requested by mail. There's a dropbox at the town clerk's office; I left it there rather than interact with people or take chances on the postal service. I trust local postal workers but they're overwhelmed thanks to No Overtime, This Organization Will Be EFFICIENT!! rulings from on high, you know how it goes.

The town has opened a COVID-19 free testing facility. It's across the street from the town clerk's office. The line to get tested was huge. And properly spaced. But huge. And was still equally huge close to an hour later after a trip to the grocery store.

Didn't go for testing. Aside from brief store or bank visits I haven't interacted with people in meatspace at a distance closer than about ten feet since this began, and I've been masked up every time. Other people who've had a greater chance of exposure and who might be in high risk groups themselves need those tests more.

Spent some time yesterday texting to Michigan voters about getting their vote by mail ballots, as volunteer work for the National Resources Defense Council. Probably going to ask for more texting to do today, even though most of the responses I got were 'take me off the list' or 'this isn't so-and-so, but I already ordered my ballot'. It's something, at least.

Had to place a replacement order with Joann Fabrics today because I discovered yesterday that fusible interfacing and fusible web are two different things. One of them is a supplement to a fabric piece that allows it to be strengthened and stand up to more interaction and abuse, and is applied by placing it bumpy side down, covering the non-bumpy side with a thin piece of fabric, spraying the fabric with water and ironing at wool temperatures. The other is basically two-sided glue and will stick everything to everything else. You are free to guess which one I bought first but I have no excuse for my mis-purchase beyond 'it was in the interfacings category on joann.com and said fusible in the name'. So the cargo shorts are on hold because I got away with using the web on the bits of fabric I had to add to the pocket linings but am now at a stage that does not involve multiple layers.

on the bright side, I cut out my fabric pieces for those shorts based on the sizing on the outside of the pattern package, but the pattern measurements indicate the waistband is likely to be multiple inches larger than I really can wear, so it's not like I'm delayed on a project that will fit properly anyway. I'm just....going to consider this thing a substitute for making a muslin practice version. Also, at least I have so far learned how to overlock an edge and do bartack stitching, that's something.

Down to my last bag of coffee beans. Time to place a new order, I guess.

It's a long story. The short version is that I read the Boston Globe, the New York Daily News, Reuters Newswire, and BBC News Online pretty much daily, and my office- when we were working in it rather from home- has CNBC on the monitors in the trading room during the entire work day. I see things, read things, hear things, and I know other people do too, and ... well, it is helpful, sometimes, to be able to turn to places that won't hit me in the face with more of what I have been seeing everywhere. everywhere. everywhere. everywhere else I turn.

That being said, you may wish to pay a few visits to some websites I find have allowed me to be helpful in other ways, if you have the inclination and the wherewithal to do so.

http://lawyersforcivilrights.org/
https://www.communityjusticeexchange.org/nbfn-directory
https://www.massbailfund.org/
https://www.reclaimtheblock.org/

There are, of course, others. But racial, social, and economic justice need good lawyers, and the law can be expensive, and justice isn't justice unless it's safe on the ground instead of law being brought down on people's necks, so.... yeah.