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July 12th, 2009
 | 01:38 am - Learnign Fire - Practicing
I've been practicing most of the various moves I learned in my first fire-dancing class. My precision remains wretched, but I have actually managed to repeatably swing one poi (or in the case of home practice - a sock filled with dried beans) forwards while swinging the other backwards (but I can literally only do so as long as I'm not looking at them), and to manage both forwards and backwards figure eights. One important aspect of fire is clearly directed energy. For me, the oddest part of this is that I can do the moves with my hands far better than with poi (or socks), which is I think why fire-dancing with poi is considered to be closely related to juggling. ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) teaotter excels as juggling, in large part because she can see the balls (or for fire-dancing, the poi) as extensions of her arms. I can control and direct my arms, and the poi are just along for the ride. I don't ever expect to be particularly good at this, but I'm hoping for adequate.
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/opiummmm/foxies/happy.gif) hopeful
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July 9th, 2009
| 01:49 pm - Literary oddities
I own two books on urban magic - City Magic by Christopher Penczak & The Urban Primitive by Raven Kaldera & Tannin Schwartzstein. I looked at them for the first time in more than four years yesterday (and again conclude that City Magic is by far the better of the two books). I first learned about them approximately 5 years ago when visiting a friend and exploring their books.
The odd thing about these books and me is that not only is Christopher Penczak the husband of Steve Kenson, a well known RPG author who I have worked with several times (and who quite unexpectedly mailed me a copy of the book for Yule 2004, when he saw it on my amazon wishlist), yesterday I noticed that one of the authors of The Urban Primitive is the ex of a friend of mine. Far enough out on the fringe, the world becomes very small indeed.
Current Mood: amused
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| 01:46 pm - Learning Fire – Fire Dancing
Yesterday, teaotter & I had the first of our 6 weekly fire-dancing classes. Becca had taken two fire-dancing classes 8 years ago, and I had never taken any. We were the only two students. Naturally, Becca did brilliantly (both due to previous experience, and a level of physical competence that often seems superhuman), while I was rather less impressive. We learned and practiced basic moves with poi. I suspect that I may never learn to twirl one forwards, while the one in the other hand goes backwards, but I think I will be able to master all of the other basic moves. However, I also suspect that the experience will be very different when the objects I'm swinging around are on fire. It was quite tiring and I'm now very thankful that I do 20 push-ups every day. It also had the frustrating quality of actions that look simple but turn out to be difficult manual tasks. Performing complex exercise seems to fit well with learning fire. I'll definitely need to practice a good bit before the next class. Regardless, having a class for only $60 that's a short walk from where I live is wonderful indeed.
Current Mood: pleased
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| 02:57 am - Learning Water - Oneonta Gorge
Because it's lovely and we wanted to show it to our dear friend shadowmorphic, we decided to go to Oneonta Gorge during her visit last week. This also seemed like an excellent opportunity for me to learn more about water, as part of my recent elemental workings. It was impressively lovely and also (as it has been the previous times I've been there) a challenge of an almost initiatory sort. The out area near the road is a shallow stream, but to go further you must climb over a very large log-jam that lacks anything remotely like a regular path. It was safer this time, since the 2-foot, but still terrifying jump/wide step over a 10-foot deep crevasse had been replaced by more logs to climb and walk across. However, for teaotter and I, it was still frightening (shadowmorphic and amberite had not such problems). Then, the steam becomes deeper, eventually becoming waist deep on me (I'm 6' tall) and significantly deeper on both shadowmorphic and amberite.
Just before the stream gets that deep, there is a choice, wade through this cold melt-water, or climb along the narrow ledge of rock. Previously, the path along the rocks was a bit tricky in places, but went entirely past the section of the stream that was more than knee deep on me. This was sadly no longer true. We haven't been to Oneonta Gorge for almost 5 years, and there must have been a rock fall or something similar, because the path ends over the deepest part of the water. So, Jade and I were both forced to jump/slip down into the water. After that, the water became more shallow, until it got deeper in the area around the waterfall. I went closer to the waterfall than I had before - actual swimming was required to get all the way to the waterfall, and despite the weather Friday being in the mid 90s, it was quite cool down in Oneonta Gorge, and the water was quite cold, especially right around the waterfall, and so I had no interest in that level of discomfort. However, I did wade back through the deepest part of the water. The floatation tank was warm, restful, and devoid of all sensation and all other life, Oneonta Gorge was cool, powerful, and filled with life, and both were powerful experiences of water as well as being generally wonderful experiences. The floatation tank was solitary, Oneonta Gorge was shared with the three people I care about most. ( Click here for photos of Oneonta Gorge )
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/opiummmm/foxies/working.gif) accomplished
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July 6th, 2009
 | 02:38 am - Today + an urban oddity
After going with shadowmorphic to the airport in the morning, I had a quiet day, Becca and I came back and slept for a while and did very little, while Alice studied for her chemistry mid-term tomorrow. Then, I went out with Aaron. We found a very nice bar-restaurant with excellent mexican food and a delicious and inexpensive happy hour menu (with the added benefit that, like many places in Portland, they were happy to bring around a printed list of ingredients for all of their dishes, which is a vast help for those of us with food sensitivities.
On the way from Aaron's place to the restaurant, we encountered an oddity. Portland abounds in strangeness, but this construct somewhat stranger than most. ( Here's an image )
Current Mood: amused
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June 28th, 2009
| 01:52 am - On Floating
On Friday, I spent $30.00 for around two and half hours in a floatation tank. I've read several of John Lilly's books and so have been familiar with the concept, but have never tried one before. The tank is filled with epson salts solution so dense that you float – it's also sufficiently dense that it feels a bit slick. I entered the tank with plans for performing various bits of ritual work, such as the Middle Pillar Ritual. I got partway through my series of ritual work, and gave it up, it was impossible to care enough to bother. The experience was one of peaceful relaxation that was profoundly meditative. I even managed to achieve the classic "no mind" meditative state for a short while, which is something that I have only managed to do for seconds previously. It seems rather easy to fall into in a floatation tank.
The oddest part of the experience my initial difficulty of getting comfortable, the initial temptation to lean my head up out of the water was uncomfortable, and even once I let it relax, discomfort remained, so I had to learn to stretch out my neck and adjust my posture for maximum comfort. After that, it was a restful and joyous experience. When I came out, I was filled with profound and lasting joy and for the next several hours took great pleasure in looking at pleasant everyday objects like flowers or reflections off of glass. I also noticed that my ability to notice the (primarily visual) details in the world around me was somewhat enhanced during that same time.
This was a perfect start for my series of elemental workings - I experienced water as peace relaxation, letting go of intention, and drifting (both mentally and physically). There are clearly other sides of water, but this was one that I was not all that familiar with. I will likely try this again, and will also try swimming (which will be my first attempt in more than 20 years). Also, the fire dancing class starts soon, so I should register for it.
Current Mood: pleased
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| 01:32 am - Pleased with Nokia
I mailed in my 6 month old Nokia n82 phone last Friday because of a dead-spot on the screen. I got it back yesterday, and not only was the screen fixed, but there was a note about them fixing the bluetooth. I had thought that my phone wouldn't link reliably with my Nokia n810 because of the odd and often troublesome n810 software. However, now it works. I'm very pleased with Nokia.
Current Mood: happy
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June 25th, 2009
 | 01:30 pm - Fantasy writer quiz
No real surprises beyond that fact that on average the single most skewed of the four categories (High-Brow, Violent, Experimental, & Cynical) was Cynical, with around 75% of people taking the quiz scoring in the Cynical (rather than romantic) range. Anyone who knows me remotely well knows that is not where I scored. As I've mentioned in several posts, I find the cynicism of the past 30 or so years to be both troublesome and puzzling. ( Click here for results )
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June 24th, 2009
 | 05:35 pm - Proof That Evolutionary Psychology is Nonsense
Here's an absolutely first-rate article about the problems with evolutionary psychology. It's 4 pages long, but exceptionally worth reading, in large part because it discusses various pieces of hard evidence that disprove a number of major claims prominent proponents of evo psych have made. Initially, the fact that so much of this discipline is made up of exceedingly bad science made it difficult to disprove, the article discusses why: From its inception, evolutionary psychology had warned that behaviors that were evolutionarily advantageous 100,000 years ago (a sweet tooth, say) might be bad for survival today (causing obesity and thence infertility), so there was no point in measuring whether that trait makes people more evolutionarily fit today. Even if it doesn't, evolutionary psychologists argue, the trait might have been adaptive long ago and therefore still be our genetic legacy. An unfortunate one, perhaps, but still our legacy. Short of a time machine, the hypothesis was impossible to disprove. Game, set and match to evo psych. However, careful (and more importantly) cross-cultural research has clearly shown that many of the claims made by evo psych proponents are not merely offensive they are also dead wrong. ( Here's one excellent example of utterly disproving one well known claim ) This Newsweek article is only the latest of a series of discussions of evolutionary psychology that I've seen. jhkim recently wrote a pair of posts about this issue that are also well worth reading. Here's his first post and here's an excellent follow-up post. These posts are an excellent examination of some of the many problems with evolutionary psychology, in response to the utterly ludicrous claim by a prominent game designer that evolutionary psychology (rather than sexism among both male gamers and male game designers) explains the reason why more women don't play RPGs.
It's long been clear that evolutionary psychology is often motivated by various personal or political prejudices, but the Newsweek article also clearly shows how much of it is also exceptionally bad science.
The article also discusses an emerging alternative to evolutionary psychology – behavioral ecology, a field which makes a great deal of sense based on my knowledge of anthropology, and the fact that learning is exceedingly important to many animals. ( Here are some quotes about behavioral ecology from the article: ) The links in this post provide more evidence that, at least among primates, learned behaviors are exceptionally important and in a very real sense, we should perhaps be talking about the cultures of various primate groups.
Current Mood: busy
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| 11:17 am - Rape, social class, & the worlds we all live in
I've read a number of posts about rape and sexual harassment recently, and I've talked about such issues with people for several decades. The responses I've heard have been quite diverse and often directly at odds with the experiences of others also writing and talking about this issue [[1]].
Leaving aside misogynists and the utterly clueless, and focusing only on the experiences of people who are reasonably self-aware and sensible, and what I have seen is that experiences vary widely, but in a significantly non-random manner. After thinking about this recently, it seems to me that it's effectively a case of people living in different worlds – worlds defined by race, privilege, wealth, social class, and possibly location.
About half of all rape victims are in the lowest third of income distribution; half are in the upper two-thirds. Also, while murder rate and the rate of sexual harassment and rape do not correlate perfectly, there is at least some correlation, and the murder rate in the US varies by a factor of more than 100 based solely on location. The statistics on this graph have special meaning for me – I grew up in the county that's on the lowest edge of the graph (Fairfax VA), which is located only a few miles from the 3rd worst city (Washington DC).
I now live on the West Coast, in a world of progressive geeks who are almost exclusively white, almost exclusively from middle class (or in a few cases wealthy) backgrounds, most of whom live in relatively safe neighborhoods, and most of whom grew up in situations that were at least as privileged, and in many cases far more so, than they are now. I talk to the women I know well, and in almost all cases, not only haven't they been raped, but they also haven't experienced any sort of harassment that ever felt truly threatening. Then, I talk to the few women I know who have lived (as either children or adults) in far less privileged circumstances, and I hear stories of all manner of nastiness. I haven't heard all that many such stories, but I also don't know many people who have lived in such environments.
I read arguments by women and men who have had experiences similar to mine, and I often see shock, disbelief, and in some cases even anger at the degree of fear and anger that many women living in other circumstances feel towards men. Like murder, rape and both creepy and exceedingly frightening forms of sexual harassment can happen to anyone, but they are considerably less likely to happen to women who grew up and live in privileged, economically well-off environments. I'm not in any way denying the experiences of women from highly privileged backgrounds who experienced such things, but it is definitely true that the odds are far more against women growing up and living in poverty and similarly wretched circumstances.
In many ways, this is yet another example of how both social class and race separate us all into worlds that rarely intersect in person and where reasonable assumptions can be very different indeed. teaotter and I were talking about this yesterday, and she mentioned that never in her life has she had any doubt that the police would come to her aid if she called them and that they would actively help her, and yet we have both known a few people whose experience of the police has been vastly more negative, and that's just one of many aspects of life. The US is a nation that is as a whole uncomfortable with notions of privilege or social class, but both are exceedingly real, and they make huge differences in peoples' lives.
[[1]]One recent example was reading this post, which is in response to this previous post.
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June 23rd, 2009
 | 05:45 pm - Modern (and future) communications and information technology in RPGs
One of the (now fading) truisms that I saw in RPGs is that designers and (to a lesser case) GMs in the late 90s and early 00s were worried that modern and (especially) near future information technology would make adventures less fun. In the late 90s, you had games like Trinity and Blue Planet which attempted to find good reasons why characters in high tech settings a century in the future would have limited access to cellphones and (more importantly) smart-phones/mobile internet access. I still hear GMs complain that easy access to communication and information makes adventures less interesting and more difficult to run. Even back in the 90s, well before I had a mobile, my answer was simply that it made them different.
I was interested in the idea of PCs being physically isolated, but communication with other and with information – perhaps the PCs were coming to rescue space travelers whose ship has seriously malfunctioned – the PCs can try to talk the people try are trying to help through doing what needs doing before the characters arrive – of the PCs could even teleoperate robots to help. Alternately, the PCs might be in need of rescue, but would need to do most of the work themselves, since things need doing immediately, and while they can talk to their rescuers, the rescuers won't arrive for several hours. Also, the ability for PCs to separate but remain in communication is IMHO a feature and not in any way a bug.
Actiony TV and movies clearly serve as a model for many RPG scenarios and campaigns, and it's been interesting watching how those have changed. In a recent discussion that expanded to include these issues in james_nicoll's lj that included some discussion of this very issue, mindstalk mentioned that in the late 90s, cellphones were uncommon but present in shows like Buffy. They have clearly gotten more common since then, and now characters in shows like Leverage use fancy smartphones regularly for all manner of purposes, and the wonderful action show Burn Notice is practically a lesson on how to use portable electronics in adventure scenarios.
I still hear some people I know complaining how modern and reasonable future personal electronics are problematic for most RPG scenarios, but in all cases that I know of these comments come from people who either don't have mobile phones or who use them very rarely. In vivid contrast, I read this RPG.net thread about introducing magical cellphones in fantasy campaigns, which I found to be both a wonderful idea and also an interesting sign of the times. An increasing number of people are growing used to near constant communication and data access – always having a phone and camera, and more recently gps and internet access, and they and others are also starting to see this same technology become ubiquitous in TV and movies.
Both of these facts are changing how people think of both adventure fiction and RPG scenarios. If find this to very quite exciting, and also think that this could greatly help people come up with interesting SF RPGs and SF RPG campaigns. It's been clear for at least the past 15 years that the future was going to increasingly involved constant access to a vast array of data and now that more people are growing use to constant data access, it's finally becoming possible to design adventures that both make use of this information and that are comfortable and fun for the player (or in the case of fiction, the readers), rather than being an experience of interacting with non-existent technologies whose implications and possibilities were both largely unknown and often exceedingly non-obvious. In many ways, I think that the gap between having an iphone and a wireless neural interface is less than between having a landline telephone and having an iphone.
I'm expecting that in 5 years (assuming that tabletop RPGs have not become solely an entertainment ghetto for the middle-aged, which thankfully doesn't seem to be happening), I'm guessing that we'll see a lot more communication devices and equivalents in all genres of roleplaying – I'm looking forward to it.
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/opiummmm/foxies/thoughtful.gif) thoughtful
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June 19th, 2009
| 03:52 pm - Personal Electronics & Me
I just mailed my lovely Nokia n82 phone to the service center – it's only 6 months old and has a lentil-sized dead spot on the display. I should have it back in under 2 weeks, but having to deal with an old and dinosaurianly dumb phone in the meantime has definitely caused me to consider how I use my portable electronics. These days, that consists of the n82, and my Nokia n810 internet tablet.
The phone is my constant companion and (in rough order) is a - Calender
- Phone
- Camera
- GPS
- Backup note-pad
The n810 is primarily a - Notepad
- Ebook reader
- Media player
- Full keyboard for SMS, via bluetooth to my phone
While the n810 is also a moderately good web-tablet, I find that I rarely use it for that purpose, the screen is small and the loading times are long.
This makes me consider what I want next. After reading about the improvements on the iphone 3GS and the new 3.0 software, I am definitely getting an ipod Touch when the 3rd generation units come out in September – at this point it's a better media player, a good ebook reader, as well as being an excellent notepad and calendar (with the new sync capability), and the new bluetooth capability may even allow me to use it as a SMS keyboard for my phone. It also has a faster processor which will likely greatly reduce waiting for web pages to load.
In any case, I'll have to see how good an ebook reader it is, the screen is slightly smaller and the resolution slightly less than the n810, but the actual ereader software looks to be considerably better. I have been thinking that a larger screen would be wonderful for a pocket web browser and ebook reader – an ipod touch with a 5-6" VGA screen would be utterly ideal for me.
Although it's somewhat clunky, I am tempted by the SmartQ 7 web tablet, which has a 7" screen and a faster processor than the n810. It's clearly clunky, but the firmware has been improving and so I'll see how well the new ipod Touch works and if I want a larger screen for semi-portability, then I'll likely get one, since they are fairly inexpensive.
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/opiummmm/foxies/nerdy.gif) geeky
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| 01:08 am - A Distrust of Self-Organizing Systems & Other Alleged Deities
As anyone who knows me remotely well understands, I firmly believe libertarianism is dangerous nonsense, and I also don't feel particularly comfortable with the "natural world", or in fact the entire concept of "nature". In general, I prefer human controlled and human altered settings in novels, and I also both love and am most comfortable in urban environments.
However, until I read this fascinating article on problems with trusting or idolizing self-organizing systems by English professor and cultural critic Steven Shaviro , I had not realized that my reaction stemmed from the same source. I ultimately trust the idea of government, and am most comfortable in human-controlled systems in like cities.
That said, I don't find Peter Ward's Media Hypothesis to be any more convincing than James Lovelock's Gaia_hypothesis. Ultimately, I don't believe self-organizing systems are either inherently hostile or inherently benevolent, instead, I believe that they simply are. Most of the time, the economy, the planetary ecology, or whatever other large and complex system is under discussion runs in some form of relatively calm equilibrium. However, this isn't always the case – sometimes any complex system can do the unexpected and the result need not be comfortable or perhaps even survivable for individuals in that system.
One of the most interesting aspects of how many people feel about and deal with complex systems. Many people effectively worship them – in the case of many neopagans, worship of "nature" or the natural world is overt and consciously acknowledged, and while I don't feel the same way, I can definitely understand that point of view and respect it. However, I have far less patience with the largely unexamined reverence that most libertarians have for the "free market". Much libertarianism, just like most pastoralism is based on the idea that self-organizing "natural" systems are inherently superior to systems that deliberately planned and consciously controlled, which is a belief that I strongly disagree with. I most definitely don't believe that there is any "invisible hand" keeping the economy running smoothly and to our benefit, just as I don't believe that any sort of metaphorical or actual Gaia-like entity won't randomly cause mass extinctions that are far worse than anything humanity could hope to do to the planet.
Thinking of self-organizing systems in this fashion helps me to bring into focus the fact that I don't trust or revere any outside forces – I trust the capacity for humans (and whatever other intelligent beings many exist) to learn to understand the world around them and to deliberately modify it to better fit with their desires. All life-forms modify their environment, but intelligent ones are (at least somewhat) conscious of this process and can make decisions about how to do so, enabling them to (for better or worse) both drastically transform a natural system and more importantly, to make decisions about how they wish to transform natural systems.
While it's obviously the case that human-controlled or even consciously controlled systems can be destructive and harmful (global warming is an example of the first, just as various totalitarian planned economies are obvious examples of the second), I'd vastly rather have a carefully and sensibly human controlled system than one left to its own random devices. Similarly, while I believe in gods, I don't worship any and am very unlikely to every change this. I'm willing to bargain with gods, but I have no interest in believing that any god or deified and reified system is inherently superior to humanity in terms of managing phenomena that affect humanity. Of course, at the heart of my transhumanist spirituality is the firm belief that playing god is the most worthy endeavor that humanity can aspire to.
Current Mood: thoughtful
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June 17th, 2009
 | 12:31 pm - Augmented Reality Arrives
I've been waiting for the introduction of augmented reality displays, and here's one of them, which should be in the US sometime this year. It's limited, a bit clunky, and clearly a first generation system, but I'm betting a great many people will be regularly using AR in 3 years, and within 5 years many of us will consider it to be indispensable.
Current Mood: impressed
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June 16th, 2009
| 01:00 pm - Thoughts about & hope for Iran
Like many of the people reading this, I'm keeping up with events in Iran. Sadly, it's very difficult to be hopeful, since I agree several of the grimmer analyses that I've seen - the protests are not yet threatening the actual power structure in Iran. Iran's presidency is an important post, but the president is also has far less power than Khamenei, who is Iran's theocrat and hold the position of "Leader of the Revolution", popularly known by the suitably ominous title of Supreme Leader (as an aside, I wonder if despots actually enjoy having titles that sound like they come from cheesy pulp movies). Regardless of what you call Khamenei, the only way that anything remotely like real change will occur in Iran is if he and the Guardian Council are deposed, since between them, then control the military, the mass media, and have authority over both the law and the politics of the nation.
There is currently a chance for real change in Iran, since Khamenei isn't handling the situation in a remotely popular manner. However, any change won't come easily. One article I read had a commentator who had lived in Iran for several years say that ultimately the possibility of change comes down to whether the government or the protesters have the highest tolerance for violence. I would dearly love for that statement to be proven wrong, but I fear that it won't be.
In any case, for now we can hope. My hope is that Iran actually becomes what it has claimed to be, a truly democratic Muslim nation. Like so much of the third world, the Muslim nation of the Middle East (using that term fairly broadly) are a rather horrid collection of theocrats like Iran and kleptocrats like the Saudi royal family and the two ruling clans of the United Arab Emirates. The reasons are a mixture of past colonial experience and the more recent nasty habit both the US and UK have of supporting thugs. In any case, for now there is a chance for something better, but that chance is not large and the absolute worst thing any first world nation could do is interfere.
Current Mood: contemplative
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June 9th, 2009
| 03:11 pm - 15 Most Important Books Meme
lyssabard tagged me with this on Facebook, and I decided to also post my responses here. Feel free to play along if you want.
Instructions: Don’t take too long to think about it. Fifteen books you’ve read that will always stick with you. First fifteen you can recall in no more than 15 minutes.
(in no order)- Godstalk by P.C. Hodgell
- Cirque by Terry Carr
- Starkhan of Rhada by Robert Cham Gilman
- Daughter of Hounds by Caitlin R. Kiernan
- Heritage of Hastur by Marion Zimmer Bradley
- The Forbidden Tower by Marion Zimmer Bradley
- The Zero Stone by Andre Norton
- Ordeal in Otherwhere by Andre Norton
- The Spiral Dance by Starhawk
- Angels On Fire by Nancy A. Collins
- The Door into Shadow by Diane Duane
- Darkchild by Sydney van Scyoc
- Dreamsnake by Vonda McIntyre
- Across the Sea of Suns by Gregory Benford
- Eon by Greg Bear
- Serpent's Reach by C.J. Cherryh
- Web of the Witch World by Andre Norton
Current Mood: busy
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June 7th, 2009
 | 11:21 pm - Feline cuteness
Our cats have been unusually cute lately, and I thought that I'd share. ( Click for an impressively cute picture of two of our cats )
Current Mood: pleased
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| 11:09 pm - A Whirlwind of Sweets
Friday was lovely – the heat finally broke entirely. It was in the mid 80s and a bit humid at 4:00 when I walked out to the afternoon farmers market 5 blocks from our lovely house. Change was in the air then, as were elm seeds. Elms are common trees in much of Portland, and especially around Ladd's Addition, and shortly after petal fall, the green-brown coin-sized elm seeds fall similarly carpet the ground.
However, on Friday, a wind had come up and the elm seeds were airborne in miniature whirlwinds that at times were literally blinding. The winds increased until I reached the farmers market, where some of the booths were being taken down and the remaining ones were securing for the storm clouds close at hand to the West. However, it was an excellent time to be at the farmer's market, since the first large harvest of Oregon strawberries had just come in. Oregon strawberries are far sweeter and more flavorful than any others and are a brief but wonderful joy for three or four weeks in June.
After buying four pints, I then saw a sign that I'd noticed before but never examined closely. It said chocolate, and my attention was caught because the woman running it announced that she was still open (as more booths were closing). So, I looked, and what it actually said was vegan chocolate truffles. They are made with coconut milk, and I tried some samples and they were delicious. I purchased a large and utterly delicious lemon & chocolate-filled truffle, and the woman gave me a blueberry one for free, likely knowing that anyone who was allergic to dairy was certain to come back, as I will. I walked home the gathering clouds and first hint of rain, and then put on my hat and coat and walked out to the comics store and grocery store in a lusciously cool and gloriously windy thunderstorm. Thunderstorms are sadly quite rare in Portland, but I love living here. Also, in addition to simply eating them, a pint of strawberries, a large bannana, some ice, 1/2 to 2/3 cup of light coconut milk, & one ( entirely optionally) TBS sugar makes an utterly delicious smoothie ( Picture of elm seeds )
Current Mood: happy
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June 4th, 2009
| 01:49 am - Thoughts on Walking the Thresholds
Five years ago I went to Walking the Thresholds, and found I community where I truly belong. As I have mentioned several times, the otherkin community is in a very deep sense and important sense my home, and I have been to Walking the Thresholds, and the September version, Crossing the Thresholds, a total of four times.
It's amusing to read a post made less than a year before I first went to WTT, where I discuss how I have never found a community where I truly belonged - then, I found the otherkin community. In any case, I'm not going to WTT this year, which makes me sad, but we are settling down after moving and parental visits, and traveling across the country is far from cheap. However, I look forward to going to Crossing the Thresholds with great anticipation. As any of you who know me at all well, the very idea that I would look forward to camping or that I would dance half-naked around a camp fire, and look forward to doing so again in September is quite surprising, but also exceptionally true. In any case, I wish everyone going there all of the best and will see them in a bit over three months, and once again I'll be priesting the main ritual at CTT.
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/opiummmm/foxies/sad.gif) sleepy
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