Mourning for a favorite establishment

I haven't been to Lady Sprite's Cupboard in a while, time and money and transporation all being scarce, so when I did go today, I was surprised and disappointed to find that they weren't there anymore.

Dizzy, I rode the bus back home, failing to check out a potential immediate job lead.

On family isolation during childhood, especially for conservative families

Fortunately for me, my parents believed in free access to books and radio, and public schooling, after my one year of kindergarten home-school saw me refusing to repeat the experience. They did not believe in forcing me to submit to religion, instead choosing to teach me such moral laws as they felt appropriate ("Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," is especially applicable when it comes to behaviour with younger siblings) and left me to decide on my own when I was old enough.

Through general lack of neighbors and no television, I was raised without many of the things that my classmates considered important. The main damage was to my social skills, as I very rarely saw anyone other than my family outside of school hours, and was disinclined to join other children in talking about Transformers and Ninja Turtles and Care Bears at school. Meeting up with the "right crowd" in high school (the misfits: anime fans, programmers, witches, RPG'ers, and some creatively-inclined new Bujold converts[1]) quickly brought me up to speed.

Of course, the fact that my parents raised me to think for myself, with free access to books, and only gave me the basics on sex ed (this is how babies are made; don't do it until you're old enough to take care of a baby; babies are A LOT of work) and left the rest up to public school, led to my taking my favorite books as examples of proper behavior, reasoning that because my heroes had proper moral behavior as defined by my parents, then their sexual and religious behavior ought to fit for me as well. At some point during my adolescence, as I was calmly explaining to my mother one or the other of my life realizations, she said, "When we taught you two to think for yourselves, I didn't think you'd take it that seriously!" That phrase is going to remain as one of my all-time favorite parental lines.

My younger roommate was raised in similar isolation, but with religious indocterination and no public school until high school, at which point he hit college classes as well. He's now 21 and going through the hormone-rampant young stud phase he should have gone through at 17 or so, at once rebelling from his parents' standards and simultaneously latching onto anyone laying down the law and acting maternal towards him. This has great potential for difficulties...

I wouldn't trade my childhood in for something featuring more television and mass-market toys and sugary snack products with fewer books, but I would have liked to have had neighbor kids to ride bikes and play treehouses with...


[1] The new Bujold convert I made in high school would probably have blown up his chemistry class had I not kept him supplied with her books to read during it. I wasn't in favor of reading during class as opposed to paying attention to the teacher, but I was all for the concept of reading instead of sticking pencil "leads" (graphite is an excellent conductor of electricity) into electrical sockets, and other, similar, pursuits.

Current default picture

is now my current default picture.

This bird is a chicken, an Egyptian Fayoumis, to be more precise. These hardy, skinny, fast, scrappy birds were brought back from Egypt and are used in genetic research to try and add some of their more admirable traits to current US-standard chickens, while doing without some of the less happy ones for domestic chickens. The standard-issue Fayoumis chicken is willing to pick fights with anyone or anything, no matter difference in relative size. My father refers to them, somewhat fondly, as "Egyptian alley chickens".

Growing up, I have had six different fayoumi in the family. At nine, Calico and Aurora, the most beloved. Aurora lived about a year and a half; Calico, four years. Aurora was the dominant of the two sisters, and the more classically pretty, with a pure white hackle and better carriage. Calico was the more personable, and would happily eat from your hand, sit next to you with a book, put up with doll clothes, and even lay an egg in your hand. Aurora was fussier, and submitted better to dressing up, but was less fun to play with.

The four later fayoumi were wilder and not as well socialized. We got them too late to make a difference in them, and they didn't submit well to being petted. They would either freeze in fear or explode in a clatter of feathers, beak, and feet, whereas Calico and Aurora would sit and carry on intelligent (for a chicken) conversation.

Somehow, the phrase "Good Little Fayoumis" passed into household usage for kids as well as chickens, as did Bad Little Fayoumis, Strange Little Fayoumis, and so forth. Tonight, I caught myself calling Shamash, the bouncy tomcat, a Bad Fayoumis when he tried to share my dinner.

Votania, after hearing a description of the usual habits of the fayoumis, determined that she would henceforth call them Chaos Chickens.

The photo is of Amoral, a slightly scruffy hen entirely representative of the breed, owned by someone other than myself. I currently have no good photos of Calico in action at my disposal; I most likely will replace the picture with one of Calico one of these days.

TMI

Yes, there can be such a thing as too much information.

( Tonight on the phone with Darkside )

Accomplishments, novelties, anniversaries, and tears

Today I constructed a patch cable and a crossover cable. RJ45. Much fun had by all. The first end took an hour. The second one took twenty minutes. Third, five minutes, after much cussing at the alleged "stripper" function of the crimper. Fourth, two minutes. Testing took somewhat longer, given that the probes on the first meter consulted were not sharp enough to properly contact the teeny wires.

(I differentiate "cussing" and "cursing". "Cussing" involves foul language. "Cursing" is a formal malediction.)

Darkside has new glasses, small, almost round, silver. They add a quasi-hippie touch to his look, despite the Scooby-Doo shirt. The sunglass attachments that fit overtop just plain look damn cool (and make him look like he's hiding redeye, thanks to the hair and scruffy face).

Today I have had a livejournal for one full year. Go me!

It is unlikely that Darkside and I will see Episode II together. I was not entirely pleased with the concept, but managed to avoid making a childish scene. Instead, I turned my back on him and sulked for a few minutes before I was together enough to keep the conversation going. I swear I'm getting better at this.

...Given me and movies, I typically don't go alone. In fact, only if stood up and I don't have a ride do I go alone. Darkside doesn't usually go to the movies with anybody else. His allowing me to accompany him to LotR was, in retrospect, absolutely amazing.

Vocation

(copy/paste from comment to wiredferret)

My writing's a vocation, first and foremost. Livejournal has been somewhat of a dream come true for me.

I've always planned to have my journals, warts and all, published posthumously. Probably, given the honest way in which I write, posthumously to many of the people referred to in them as well, and fifty years after that. My high school friend Shawn claimed the task of editing afterwards; I think someone else will have taken that job by final publication date. Some of the journals are footnoted with yellow stickytabs, explaining, clarifying.

I knew at fourteen that life was a comedy, and my role was clown. I accepted the task cheerfully, and derive satisfaction when other people learn from my ups and downs, triumphs and blunders.

Livejournal makes me not have to wait for official publication to share some of these things. Perhaps, if I'm famous enough, someone will come out with a "best-of" hardcopy at some point. No need to include the silly surveys.

I'm called to my Art of Magic. Not everyone chooses to accept the Gift and Responsibility. Again, there I do what others cannot. An it harm none, do as ye will. I was ordained by the Universal Life Church this summer, to give credentials to my calling. Do what is right.

Mechanical systems fascinate me. I delight in taking apart a computer, or watching someone dismantle a toilet and standing by and helping. I'm working on the "putting back together" phase of things. Today I learned how to make networking cable, patch and crossover. I already knew how to install windows 2K. This is something that more people are learning, computer pieces and parts, but it's something I do, do well, and love. It's not my primary calling, but it's something to do and do well and adore while doing, so that'll do.