Due to the new terms of service (analysis), I've turned off crossposting from Dreamwidth.org to here. Same user name. New entries will mostly be over there.

Note, this is a SHARE! Originally posted by vsbooklady at Easter Pepys

Just a very mild prank. I like Pepys, and pastels, and I have remembered I have an unused egg dye kit up in my linen closet.

Today I am "on strike" (International Women's Day; US protest).  So I've been doing laundry, emptying the dishwasher, and will go out "gardening" (picking up sticks, pruning) later.  All very domestic, which amuses me.  :-)

Also some reading:

Bombastic and impetuous, he sometimes made tactless pronouncements on sensitive topics without consulting his ministers, culminating in a disastrous Daily Telegraph interview in 1908 that cost him most of his influence.  -- from Wikipedia on Kaiser Wilhelm (II).

• Some (?) of the text of the interview : You English, are mad, mad, mad as March hares.
• Analysis of the interview

I've been to a waltz and a couple of contras in 2017, and swing dancing in LA! 

I went to visit my aunt (my father's brother's widow), whom I hadn't seen for a year, and my sweetheart came with me.  We had a really nice time, and she seemed to really appreciate our spending so much time with her.  We stayed at a nearby hotel -- she had offered her bedroom but I was concerned about my allergies to her cats.  I enjoyed our "subversive" use of public transit and walking while we stayed in downtown LA (LA is so car-oriented, but the most driving around we did was take cabs when it was rainy).  We had dinner with her on the Friday night -- she had gotten a birthday cake for me!  (I hadn't had any cake for my birthday, just a quiet work day).  I was happy that they
hit it off (also, when she gave us a tour of her condo, he loved her library).

While we were there we only did a couple  of things each day, to not tire ourselves out.  We visited the LA downtown public library on Saturday at Marilyn's recommendation.  It was beautiful with exhibits and art and speakers on Saturday afternoon. That evening we had a very good Mexican dinner with my aunt.  Later that night we went swing dancing at Clifton's Cafeteria, a historic building with bars and a dance floor.  It was jam-packed with a nice well-dressed crowd (mostly younger folks).  We got there after 10pm (when the band started) and had to wait to get in.  It was a great band but we only stayed for one set b/c of the large crowd.

We went to the Museum of Contemporary Art on Sunday late morning. Then we had my aunt over for Sunday afternoon tea at the Biltmore.  Elegant decor, endless pots of tea, but only a few little sandwiches and scones.  That evening we saw the musical "Zoot Suit" (boogie-woogie
music and LA riots of the 40s) and it was great.

Next big trip is Penguicon.

I am a little concerned that my last post,

Movies

where I talked about *Arrival* and related media, and asked for links to folks' commentary which I'd skipped at the time (avoiding spoilers), and
*Hidden Figures*, did not show up on LiveJournal. Is something going wrong with cross-posting? I re-set my password in the cross-posting settings, though it hasn't changed for months (I should change my passwords) so I should probably have let it alone. We'll see if this gets through.

Anyway,
Games

I have played a few games the past couple of months, some new.

1. Ticket to Ride, an oldie but goodie.  Introduced a couple of friends to it who had never played it before.  One of them loved it to pieces (even though she lost), bought it, and has gotten her family to play it and they like it too.  *warm glow of accomplishment*  This was New Year's weekend at Asylum House in Philadelphia.
2. Dragon and Flagon:  bar brawl tabletop game with sort of Robo Rally mechanics.  I hear some people find this way too slow, waiting for one's turn to come around.  We prevented such sadness by a) only having 4 players b) each player doubled up with two characters c) those of us who caught on varied our characters' actions so that some played actions that took only one or two rounds to complete, and some played actions that took several rounds to complete.  I would happily play this again.  Learned it at Rev. Karl's Brunswick Games Day (he rents a community center and lots come to play).
3. Patchwork: quilting tabletop game for 2 players.  Each person tries to build a quilt by "buying" irregular shapes from a common pool of "fabric scraps" (think Blokus but each has their own quilt, not competing for space with each other).  Soothing, pretty, some strategy, but a little difficult to follow the "track" due to the prettyness.  I learned this at my church's Syrian Refugees fundraiser (games night run by the church teenagers).
4. Pairs.  I love this push-your-luck card game with beautiful decks -- 2-player that night, takes up to 7 pretty well.  The basic rules are fine for me, but some get into the variants.   This was at a friend's party.
5. Spaceteam:  repair your spaceship in a hurry cooperative card game.  I didn't have all the energy for shouting frantic help requests
   ​ and throwing cards​
   at each other, but it was interesting to watch.  Fun art, what I saw of it. 
6. Tenra:  RPG hosted at my house, GM'd by badmagic.  I enjoyed playing an anneledist who saw worms on that world as a source of wonder, not disgust.  Some combat, some intrigue.  We had a good time, but I ran out of steam by the 4th act. 

I stumbled across another piece of under-told British history that would make another fine historical novel/movie, though this one has more of a horror aspect. 

The Thomas Overbury affair was the greatest scandal of seventeenth century England featuring a heady mix of adultery, murder and necromancy, and has been described as "one of the most sensational crimes in English history".

As riveting as this read was, it seems to skim over a crucial aspect of the story: The woman behaving badly in it is only thirteen when she is betrothed, and sixteen when she is supposed to take up married life.  Her youthful marriage was not atypical for the times, but I'm thinking of the raging teenage hormones that drove a lot of the her actions (no excuse, just upping the drama in a way).  The corrupt power-maneuverings of others at court (including royal participation / looking the other way) could add some gloomy texture and modern relevance.  It could sweep the Oscars!

I've been posting mostly-little things elsenet but it's been a long time since I did a general update over here (DW transcribed to LJ). 

Work

• Finally got a new member of my little SCM team. He's pretty sharp technically, doesn't need exhaustive instructions, and likes documenting things.
• December was stressy because a major wait-wait-wait transmorphed into ISNTITDONEYET??!?!? but we got it done.
• Holiday parties, potlucks, caroling were fun.
• Meet the new boss, same as the old boss: reorg time!  Got back the boss I had a year-ish ago (not the bad one from 2 years ago).   My little team is being uplifted into "Linux Engineering" and we will all supposedly expand our horizons and do cross-training.  They've been talking about cross-training for years, of course, and I don't know how my boss will cope with 37 directs without making subteams / task leads, so we'll see how all this really shakes out.

Dance: not much -- one contra the last few months?  Sick now, so not soon.  Did a lot of walking and some hiking last week, though.

Elections: Friends and most family were a great comfort during debate watches and after the election.  Church also a comfort.  I'm hosting protestors for the big weekend coming up.

Family

• Enjoying having my nearest niece practice and sing with me in the second soprano section.
• Didn't lose my temper at Christmas.  Thanks to sweetheart and DHS for letting me rant at them long-distance instead.
• Was able to put aside aggravations for the most part for mostly-good family time with only occasional silent stews.
• Need to make a will.  Any Maryland estate lawyer recommendations?

Friends

• Enjoyed a museum day with some: http://americanart.si.edu/exhibitions/archive/2016/vanvechten/ and
  http://americanart.si.edu/exhibitions/archive/2016/brooks/
• Saw part of an opera with Stevendj (it wasn't quite all we wanted and we left at intermission)
• Saw Garden of Lights with some
• Celebrations with some
• It was kind of an old friend to take a few minutes at a very busy time and ask, no really, how are you, and listen, and care.

Loving

• Happy with my sweetheart.  Good New Year's weekend celebration in Philly (those who could make it).
• More remote relationships conversational only these days, but nice conversations with future visit possibilities.
• I would really like a local relationship. 
• Flirty party fun is fun but doesn't seem to lead to local relationships.
• Accepted a date in December from a guy who kisses well, but wants to play a very wide field and is aggressively pushy. X.

Singing

• Had a short solo during one of our church choir anthems which went went well.  Enjoyed the Christmas Eve service singing.
• Video game orchestra performances in November went well and attended by some friends, family, and sweetheart.  Adapting to my new role as tenor -- they seem constantly short on tenors.  Some of the notes I sing up and some I fade out on, as the chorus director wishes.  Next concert's April 8.

A signed and sung performance of Hamilton's Cabinet Battle # 1 is so cool. I love how how the speakers AND the signers are acting (lots of attitude!). I saw a signed-and-spoken play ("The Dybbuk"?) once and it was great. Also the speakers behind the signers reminds me a little of what I've seen of the staged *The Lion King* with the animal mask-extensions.

A lot of people are wearing Where's Waldo costumes to work today. Some anime hair. A cowboy, a couple of cat ladies, a shark, a Pikachu, Super Mario? a clown. A high Fed is "man cat" (the man pages for the cat command). I'm wearing black (down to my toe shoes) and a pretty coppery green checked mask. Best costume: my fave Fed is the Samsung phone on fire (he was a knight on a hoverboard last year).

I hope to make it to the Glen Echo contra dance tonight. They decorated the hall last night. It should be pretty cool.

"Pearl-clutching"  came up recently relevant to WorldCon (a panel moderator ran over his panel with a monologue supposedly about SJW pearl-clutchers), and reminded me that I've been meaning to write about it as a gendered slur for some time now.  Generally it's women who wear pearls, and women who are accused of getting "hysterical" (another gendered slur) over small unimportant things.  To categorize anyone with concerns over a social issue as "pearl-clutching" is pretty much saying they're brainless over-emotional women.  Applied to men, it's also a kind of gender policing.

Just this morning, I responded to someone (in a friends-locked post, feel free to identify yourself) looking for a less-gendered term than "wanking" for someone going on and on in a conversation (monologue).  I generally use "wanking" to describe self-indulgent musical solos that go on and on, myself, but I understand the desire for a less-gendered but still punchy phrase.  Others had some suggestions.  I came up with "broviating" which I realized afterwards is of course every bit as male-centered as wanking, but I still like it.

I remember when someone lectured me on my supposed sexism a few years ago for using the term mansplaining, in reference to a man who had been "explaining" something to me I knew more about than him (dance history).  I was unimpressed by her argument, since I don't intend to pretend that it's something women do as much as men, especially since I don't think it's helpful to insist that we blind ourselves to gendered patterns of behavior when we're trying to identify cultural weight that shapes our behavior.  Certainly women can 'splain on *other* axes to the supposedly-unenlighted (e.g., privsplaining), but I haven't seen them do it as insistently in the face of evidence the other person is already quite knowledgeable on the subject, thank you.  Still, now that I've come up with "broviating" I may start using that instead, since it has the connotation of a certain kind of man.  (#notallmen)

Similarly:  Years ago, I was happy to come across the term "manspreading" to describe people (generally men) who spread their legs to take up two or three seats on trains, since it seemed much more polite than the term I'd seen, "lava-balling" (their balls are so hot, they have to spread their legs or spontaneously combust!).  But someone posted on Facebook last week or so, an illustration from a Victorian newspaper which showed a man doing that thing, and it had an even more polite and gender-neutral term for it.  Alas, I can't remember it.  Possibly since I've never seen a women do such a thing.

I have strong opinions, but actually am open to discussion on all this.