These Days, Even the Cookie Monster Has an Eating Disorder

Oh dear.

You know, advocating healthy eating is great and all, and you better bet it's something I'm on top of all the time, but shit you guys...

We're breeding a culture of food paranoia. And I think there's a big risk that instead of making things better, it's going to make things worse. It may, in fact, have been making things worse for a while now.

via bfb

What's this a Symbol of, Again?

These are men who think a great deal about their penises; like Mike, they are submerged. But what concerns Dr. Sharlip is why men feel the need to raise the bar in the first place. Of those who come to him for advice, he says, "the very great majority -- 99 percent -- have normal penile size. It's a psychological problem more than a physical one."

Mike denies that his obsessions with enlarging his penis stem from some primordial trauma. "It wasn't a huge emotional drama I was trying to settle," Mike says. "What guy's not going to want to go out and make his dick bigger?"

Wow. The amount of amazing things we could all do with this time and energy...

Wikipedia – first with the news

Cool note on how Wikipedia and feminist blog rings were the first to report on Andrea Dworkin's death. Those pesky internets: moving far faster than the media at large.

It's like a giant game of telephone.

Amp's Thoughts on a Fat Female Cartoon Heroine...

So why couldn’t we have a female character who was a creature of pure Id, whose unruly mounds of fat, like Homer’s, is always threatening to crush the furnature, leak over the sides of all restraints, and just generally refuse to fit in?

Well, I think there could be such a character. If she was well-written, I’d find her funny. But to have a woman be that character… well, it somehow wouldn’t be very status quo, would it? I think a lot of America might find a female version of Homer Simpson or Peter Griffen - that is, an unashamed fat woman whose fat gets everywhere and who unabashedly goes after every passing want - more than a bit threatening. Not exactly the comforting material that successful sit-coms are made of.

Religion in the Workplace

To the Editor:

"Moralists at the Workplace" (editorial, April 3) addressed "scattered reports" of employees refusing to perform certain job requirements that conflict with their personal moral or religious beliefs and customers seeking to have these requirements filled. We believe that there is a solution that accommodates the needs of both parties.

Recently, we introduced the Workplace Religious Freedom Act, which clarifies current law to say a person's religious beliefs should be recognized and accommodated in the workplace as long as this does not adversely affect the employer's business or customers.

The bill is supported by a diverse coalition of more than 45 religious and civil rights groups as well as a bipartisan group of senators and representatives.

If the bill becomes law, an employee who does not wish to do their job would not have to do so long as another employee is on duty and would do their job for them.

The Workplace Religious Freedom Act provides a sensible solution to the potential conflict between an employee's religious conviction and the needs of their employer and employer’s customers.

I, for instance, am part of a strict no-technology-using religion similiar to that practiced by the Amish. I work for a telecommunications firm where my job requirements include using computers, telephones, and managing projects that aid in the spread of telecommunications technology, which I do not believe in.

Luckily, thanks to this law, I can come into work everyday and have my coworkers do all of this work for me while I write novels longhand.

I believe this solution accomodates the needs of all parties involved.

Kameron Hurley; AA, BA, MA
http://brutalwomen.blogspot.com

Yellow Says Hello

"Don't worry, Kameron, in the next edition of Webster's, wussify will be a word."

"Is that right?"

"Better yet, you can have someone say it in one of your books. Hey, you can have my character say the word, `wussify,' and then you'll have made up a new word, and you can attribute it to my character. Ha ha."

It's great being back in Chicago.

I Am Eating An Orange

.. it is quite tasty.

I have uploaded something like 300 .jpgs onto the client's server.

Only 900 to go.

It's one of those days.

Another Reason Not to Get a Cell Phone

According to a new global survey, fourteen percent of cell phone users have interrupted screwing to answer their cell phones. Just like Paris Hilton. From Consumer Affairs.com report on a subscription-only Ad Age article:

The highest incidence of cellular interruptus was found in Germany and Spain, where 22 percent of users interrupted sex to answer their cell phones; the lowest was in Italy, where only 7 percent reported doing so. In the U.S., the figure was 15 percent, the magazine said, citing a study conducted by BBDO Worldwide and Proximity Worldwide.

via boingboing

Unitarian Jihad Name Generator

My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Sister Nunchuku of Enlightened Compassion.

Get yours.

Snapshots From My Worklife

Blaine came in this morning and asked me how to print out his contact list from Outlook. I had no idea, but looked it up on Outlook Help and walked him through it.

Yellow came in a while later:

"Kameron, you're a writer. You know all about this spelling stuff. How do you spell wussify?"

"Huh? Like, somebody who's a wuss?"

"Yea, yea. They're a wuss, and by doing something crappy, you're wussified."

"Wussify isn't a real word, Yellow."

"Yea, yea, but if it was, how would you spell it?

"It's not... oh, nevermind. W-U-S-S-I-F-Y."

"Oh, great thanks. See, I knew you'd know how to spell it."

::Yellow bumbles off::

I call after him, "Wussify is NOT A REAL WORD!"

"It's OK. All the guys'll know what I'm talking about!"

This is what I do for a living.

Friday Beer Blogging

You better bet it's that time of the week again...

Spring is in the Air

Yellow rode his motorcyle to work today, which was very hot to see.

I really must get myself one of those.

And Friday bagels are EVIL, EVIL, EVIL.

Drowing in work. Behind on e-mail. More later.

Women & Children First

My most excellent local independent bookstore, Women & Children First, has a cool blog.

Thoughts on books and feminism. Cooool.

Too Much Coffeeeeeee

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Redesign

Cory Doctorow's redesigned his own "updates" page as a Movable Type blog. Cool. Check it out.

Bits N Pieces

LSATS are Monday, June 6th at 12:30pm (what, nobody works anymore?), and they'll cost me a pretty penny. Fucktards.

Need to register next payday. There goes my paycheck again.

It's bloody humid in Chicago today. Also, these contact lenses really need to be thrown away.

Ready for the weekend.

What was that? You say it's only Weds?

Fucktards.

Wiscon Set

For all those interested, I've confirmed my Wiscon status, and will be running around Friday-Sunday (May 27-29), heading out Sunday mid-afternoon.

Looking forward to seeing some of you there!

Randomosity

That's "SF" - "Not only does the University of Liverpool boast a library with the largest collection of science fiction literature in Europe, but from next week it will launch the world's first website dedicated to science fiction research."

Who's Amber Reeves?

"Why So Few Scientists Are Republicans These Days."

"Doctors crack down on videotaping births" - you know, if they're doing their job correctly in the first place, they wouldn't have to worry about videotapes, would they? That's like saying you should take videotapes out of police cruisers so you'll stop catching police officers who use excessive force. Bah. Just one more notch in that whole, "Too many good docs are getting out of the business. Too many OB-GYNs aren't able to practice their love with women all across this country" Bushism. What's up with that?

Yea, keep talking. Spread the gloom and doom. Keep that diet industry moving, keep us bulimic, anorexic, and binge-eating until the end of time. Make it a moral disease to be overweight. Spread the self-hate. That sounds real healthy.

There's another way to talk about this. And shit like that ain't it.

One of Those Days

I'd rather be here:



Or here. Or... here.

I think I need a vacation. I missed my beach trip at Christmas. I need one...

State of the Union

To sum up: it's been a bitch.

Want to know the last time I actually wrote something substantial and actually finished it? Oh, I don't know... about 4 months ago? Three, if you count a chapter of something as "finishing." I think I've only got two or three stories in the mail. Utterly pathetic.

And no sooner had my traveling schedule settled down than I came down with a sinus infection, leading to this, which led to that oh-so-female malaise (antibiotics + sex = much, much discomfort) that required me to eat a lot of yogurt and sent me scuddling to bed early and avoiding MA classes and exercise of any kind for the last two weeks. Now that that's over (a week of "what the fuck is this?" followed by most of a week of yogurt-eating and cranberry juice-swilling while symptoms eased off), my sinuses are acting up again, and I feel like a walking vector of disease.

About the only good news I've got is that things at work appear to be settling down, which means I'm back to working with Yellow and Dee on manageable projects (300 sites instead of, say, 1200) where I have a clearly defined role and a clearly defined "boss". It makes doing actual work a fuck of a lot easier.

I also managed to lose my internet card Somewhere in New Jersey, so I don't have net access from my computer at home (I called NJ today and had them go back to the walk-up computers and look for the computer slipcase and card, but they couldn't find it, and nobody'd turned it in), so I've been getting a lot of reading and sleeping done at home. I really need to call RCN tonight and get them to help me configure my internal wireless card - for some reason, it's been having trouble picking up on our network, and I tried to print something out on Jenn's computer yesterday and fucked up her printer somehow. There's nothing better for roommate relations that fucking up something that belongs to your roommate while she's in high stress mode, especially when if I'd have called RCN in the first place, I wouldn't have needed to use her printer.

Fuck-ups galore.

In fact, I've been doing altogether too much reading and sleeping lately, though I'm hoping that being ailment-and-immediate-stress-free will help get me out of my funk. Though workouts have gone out the window the last 6 weeks or so (it got to the point where I couldn't even manage to get down to the hotel gym, I was feeling so low), I've been back into my morning weights routine the last couple of weeks, and it looks like this'll be the week I get back to my workouts.

I've been trying to decide what I want to do about my MA school, and whether or not I want to switch to a gym that's got more bang for less buck. I can get pilates classes with more flexible times, kickboxing classes, and access to a full range of gym equipment, which'll make 5-6 days a week of workouts that much easier (6th day being merely a pilates day). As it is, I physically can't double up on MA classes on Mon/Weds because of how late I get home from downtown, and I hate going in more than 3 times a week because 1) I start getting sick of the place and feeling obsessive 2) I need those Tues/Thurs/Fri days to be a little different so I can shake up the routine. Keeping Tues/Thurs as jogging days'll be great - until winter hits again. I'd like to have a gym much, much closer to my place that gives me greater flexibility for less money.

So after much thought, it looks like I'll be switching over to a new gym come May/June, at least for the summer. If I miss my MA classes too much, I can always switch back. We'll see what I think of the set-up. As it stands, the ease with which I'd get there is just staggering, and it's just a few blocks from home. If I want to be at the place I want to be with my weight/fitness by year's end, I've gotta ramp up these workouts, and having a place downtown where I'm locked into a 45 min class + transit time just isn't cutting it. And yea, the gym cost will be half what I'm paying for MA classes, and honestly, money's really hurting right now. Too many health care expenses the last couple of months, bought a new bed, need to get to Wiscon (doesn't look like Glasgow is even feasible). Shit to do, and the bills aren't going away, either.

LSATs are also in June, and I need to call and see where the local test is being administered. I've also got to seriously ramp up my study, if I don't want to bomb the damn thing.

Taxes are also due, and have to get done this weeked, as B is in town the next weekend, and well, next Friday *is* the 15th. Fuck, I better not fucking owe anything. I don't have any damn money. Fucktards.

On the other good news front, the weather's finally clearing up to sunny 70s Chicago spring weather, and though my workouts have sucked, I've actually got my diet pretty well figured out. I added in 2-3 extra servings of fruit/veg every day and started taking a multi-vitamin, and I have a feeling the last of my binge-twinges are ready to go by the wayside. Overall, I feel pretty good on that front.

It also turns out that I didn't overspend myself as badly as I thought I did this weekend, so I'll just be able to afford the paintball outting with Jenn and the rest of her grad department on Saturday - and still manage to pick up a couple of groceries, too.

Having money with which to actually do things is always nice. Someday, I'll figure out this money thing. Until then, it's paycheck to paycheck.

And everything else is day-by-day.

Here's to hoping shit starts moving, and things get better.