Take Back Halloween!

Take Back Halloween: a costume guide for women with imagination!

Not a store, but a page of fun costume ideas and suggestions for people who are bored with pre-packaged spandex "sexy" costumes. Or those who miss the days of building a fun costume out of flannel bedsheets ;-)


OK, I'm actually wearing spandex for my Shadowcat costume this year, but it is normal everyday durable dancer spandex + some Salvation Army finds. And it goes with my boots!

A Monstrous Manifesto

Latest magic just in from Strowlercon (et al), which I hope to attend next year. Sorry guys, my best friend called 10/10/10 for his wedding day long before this came up ;-)

If you are in the Strowlers path, I implore you to attend! Great music, literature, performance, art, and company await you there!



A Monstrous Manifesto
by Catherynne Valente

If you are a monster, stand up.
If you are a monster, a trickster, a fiend,
If you’ve built a steam-powered wishing machine
If you have a secret, a dark past, a scheme,
If you kidnap maidens or dabble in dreams
Come stand by me.

If you have been broken, stand up.
If you have been broken, abandoned, alone
If you have been starving, a creature of bone
If you live in a tower, a dungeon, a throne
If you weep for wanting, to be held, to be known,
Come stand by me.

If you are a savage, stand up.
If you are a witch, a dark queen, a black knight,
If you are a mummer, a pixie, a sprite,
If you are a pirate, a tomcat, a wright,
If you swear by the moon and you fight the hard fight,
Come stand by me.

If you are a devil, stand up.
If you are a villain, a madman, a beast,
If you are a strowler, a prowler, a priest,
If you are a dragon come sit at our feast,
For we all have stripes, and we all have horns,
We all have scales, tails, manes, claws and thorns
And here in the dark is where new worlds are born.
Come stand by me.

HAN SHOT FIRST!

EMBED-Geek and Gamer Girls Song - Watch more free videos

Luv the video! However, not all of us geek and gamer girls look/dress like this. And yet we are all still awesome. The More You Know...

Spinster Links!

On Interpersonal Badness - You Are Worthless, Lets Be Friends. Reminds me of a crazy social group I got out of a few years ago. But I wonder how often we all act like this without realizing?


Panic, Meditation, and the Dilettante. I also don't get around to meditating every day, but that is mostly due to bad time management skills. Maybe I need a Pagan life coach.


Best Friend Rape Prevention. Trigger warnings. I agree with the author, "Random goons on the street and invading homes have nothing statistically on friends, dates, and partners." So how does a person apply stranger-rape prevention advice in a familiar environment?


Why 'Female' Science Professor? "Why the extra adjective? Does it matter in my work as a scientist and a professor that I am female? Many times it does."


Of girls and geeks: Environment may be why women don't like computer science. But ... I like Star Trek posters? Still an interesting experiment.


Sign of the Times: Barbie's a Tech Geek. I'm still not sure how to respond to this. Tho I'm surprised she's not a Mac user.


How My Little Pony Turned a Little Girl Into a Computer Scientist. So Matel was off by one franchise ;-)


Fashion and the Female Geek, First Steps. "...I can address not only how to be taken seriously as a ‘front-line geek feminist’ – but also how to maintain a standard of comfort that is (quite frankly) essential to a woman who has plenty of ‘geeky’ passions that occupy her time and keep her on her biologically-accurate toes."

DRAGONCON HOOOOOO!

Yaaaaaay! Less than 100 days away! DragonCon!!!

Fandom! Science! Cosplay! Ice cream made with liquid nitrogen! Music! Singing tesla coils! Celebrities!

The greatest Geek Bacchanalia of North America!

The Snuggie Cult, with Griff McGerbil.

To Do Before:

• Figure out who is staying in my room. Its coming together.
• Room is booked at the Hilton, back in October. Yeah, it's like that.
• Change my room reservation, can't stay the extra night in Atlanta as planned this year.
• Costumes? I may be lazy this year.
• Dusk's first DragonCon :-D She's a fuzzygoth, the Cruxshadows booth will be thrilled.
• Budget. No dealers room this year. Maybe no art room or music either, those always get me.
• Get my plane tickets!
• Don't break my camera two days before the event.
• Set up the txt list for "I'm here! Where are you?" messages.
• Closely deconstruct and highlight the programming once they put it online.
• Pack!
  

Mad Scientists League Bake Sale, with Griff again!

Why Spinsters have an awesome time:

• Flirting with all the Earth Force and Narn cosplayers.
• 24 hour parties, maybe this year I'll find the orgies too?
• Can wear whatever I want, as little or as much.
• Not keeping track of someone else's purse/badge/program.
• Don't have to bring back anybody a present.
• Not getting called long distance in the middle of panels.
• No weird conversations about who's staying in the room.
• Staying out as late as I want without having to check in.
• Smaller ratio of persons stuck in the Cult of Pairs.
  

Everybody's got somethin' to hide, 'cept for me and my gerbil!

Pictures of DragonCon 2007

Pictures of DragonCon 2009

I Like Big Boots and I Cannot Lie

I'm not much of a shoe girl, nor am I much concerned with fashion. I've been on a lifelong quest to find one set of footwear that can be worn with anything, so I never have to go shoe shopping ever again. These are the best I've ever had!


Last June I finally ordered the pair of Doc Martens I've wanted for years, with an online discount code from a friend. Both friend and boots are awesome.

I skirt the edges of the Goth and other alt scenes, so these boots go with almost everything I own. And I wear them with everything I can. Skirts, dresses, ballgowns, jeans, slacks, business and casual. They zip up the side so I don't spend hours lacing them. And as my friend with the discount recommended, they are great to wear under boot cut jeans when it's rainy out. My ankles are warm and dry, winter and summer.

Friends thought I was crazy to break them in during the peak of NYC summer, but they were ready to go by the time fall and winter kicked in. I wear them all year round anyway ;-)

Early this year one of the zippers wore out and cost $30 to repair. But I love these boots and that is a lot less than buying a new pair. Worth it! And a general rule of thumb for clothing repair - why buy something new when you can fix what something you already love?


As the last girl in my social networks to get a pair of awesome Docs I had plenty of advice to go on:

-Pre-buying of boots, if you are buying them online with a discount code, first go to a shoe store and try on the same style in your size.

-Upon obtaining your boots, stock up on sturdy band-aids in a wide variety of sizes. Breakin' in is hard to do.

-Second, put the squishy insoles inside. Worth the extra $$!

-Third, wear them every day with socks for a week or so. Boot socks are good if it's not too hot outside, but even plain white crew socks work fine. They will give you extra protection from getting your feet and ankles roughed up. (Actually, I still usually wear ankle high socks with my Docs, its not like anybody can see. Best tip ever, wear socks *under* fishnets with your boots!)

-Fourth, pick up some sticky-backed moleskin pads from the drug store and cover any sharp/rough bits inside the shoe. It may take a couple of days to pinpoint where they all are.

-Fifth, don't take any s#$% from anybody, because you could kick their faces in with your awesome boots.


Happy anniversary, boots!

Friday Linkages!

Alt Text: The Nice Guy's Guide to Realizing You're Not That Nice. From Wired: Guys, you’re not “too nice.” That’s like saying you can’t get seated at an L.A. restaurant because you’re too famous.

Also true of "Nice Girls" ;-) Don't feel bad, I'm a recovered Nice Girl myself!


2010 College Grad Financial Survival Guide, from Budgets are Sexy. Filed under "Things I wish I'd thought about at the time."



After a Breakup: Handling Sentimental Clutter, from Unclutterer. I didn't have such a hard time with sentimentalizing the jewelry after my last breakup. I'm not sure if this is ironic or not, because I am a jewelry designer.



How to Enjoy Solitude, from Think Simple Now: I’m not suggesting solitude is better than being with people. Simply that it’s impossible to completely avoid aloneness in life, so it’s worth having a strategy to find joy in those moments. Enjoying solitude can also give you an independence that makes you less desperate with friends and less likely to cling onto lousy relationships.

Yay! Tho to be honest, it's a lot harder to feel lonely if you've ever studied puppetry. I'll let you ponder that for a bit...


Cats Can Tweet With New Liveblogging Device, from Mashable. So if I ever do achieve my goal of becoming a crazy cat lady, I can still work outside of my home. Awesomesauce.


Health Care Law's Massive Hidden Tax Change, from CNN. Yikes. That's a lot of paperwork.


"Vanity" Press Goes Digital, from The Wall Street Journal. WSJ is a bit behind the knowledge of fandom communities on this, but it is having interesting effects on the publishing industry. Maybe blogs, too?


Courting Song for Selkies, a poem by Amal El-Mohtar & Jessica P. Wick on Ideomancer. This is one sense of what I mean when I say "Mythpunk" ;-)


Suit Up, by Catherynne Valente. A reflection on how suits are hawt. I am also a sucker for a man in a suit, but I don't think any man since my last bf has ever tried to take advantage of that.


Diana Comet Presents...75 Years of Fabulous Writers. A periodic table of 117 writers in 3 minutes.

The Latest Links

Despite my extended break from blogging, I have found things both awe and ire inspiring all over the interwebs :-)

Imaginary Bitches on Youtube! A woman who is the last single girl in her group of friends suddenly develops a pair of imaginary friends. Friends who are total bitches. Awesome hijinks ensue. Totally free to watch this online tv show, but I wish they'd get on with season 2.

The Technique of the Love Affair. A romance self-help book penned in the 1920s, reprinted with commentary. It's a super interesting read if you are a student of history and feminism, or have a Machiavellian view on relationships. And the more things change, the more they seem to stay the same...

Rape Culture and Road Rage, on Livejournal. A conversation about rape culture, and how baby steps can go a long way towards dismantling it.

Contrary to the Myth, Abortion is NOT the Most Controversial "Choice" Issue: Words of Caution for Elena Kagan Yet another double standard. Western culture still doesn't know how to deal with women (single or otherwise) who don't want to have children.

No More Sex in the City: NYC women are going celibate - and they feel happier than ever. Um... This article has some interesting points, but is annoying overall. I don't like the NY Post's point of view that all women in their 20s will eagerly hook up with someone they met on the subway. And how two weeks without sex is some enormous personal achievement. And the last line, “But I think it’s harder to not have sex than to have sex.” Speak for yourself.

For the record, I'm not celibate, I just have standards. And so do most women in NYC. Like a friend of mine replied on Facebook, "Not having sex or a relationship is not some horrible fate that bad sex and bad relationships will somehow improve upon." Srsly.


And because 'tis the season, Doctor Who - Tenth Doctor: The Musical. No time for boys right now, it's Doctor Who season!! I'm loving Doc 11, but I am still not impressed with Moffat's ability to write female characters.

Spinning Back Out

Wow, been a while! Sorry about that... I guess? Meh, its cyber-space, things happen.

My absence was caused by a combination of things to do outside of the blogosphere, and a lack of people really getting me here. I also found the wonderful website Quirkyalone.net, which says everything I want to say but without all of the patronizing but well(?)meaning readers commenting "Tut tut, I'm sure you'll find someone someday..." *headdesk* Very discouraged, I lost interest in the uphill battle of making myself understood.

But I'm back now, possibly to take this blog in a slightly different direction.


When last we saw our Sassy Spinster, she was bemoaning the lack of not-busy friends to hang out and game with. This situation has more than reversed itself. I became addicted to improvised comedy shows, and then got sucked into the Cult of Improv itself. Now I'm taking improv classes at The Magnet Theater in NYC, and going to lots of shows and mixers. When I have class shows, my friends-of-old come out to see me perform, and take a break from school, work, and weddings. I take a metric ton of show photos. Good times!!

At least, I was doing all of these things, until I started getting sick once or twice a month without any clear reason. All respiratory stuff. My allergist just confirmed that I'm allergic to everything she has a standard test for, so that's a start.

Now that I am too sick to go out a lot of the time (I used to love Springtime D-:) I have time to blog again. I have also been losing/finding my feet in other personal matters, like finance, health, and nutrition, and am looking for a place to put all of those thoughts. I still have my Livejournal friends, but I'm hoping it will be easier to keep up with my own improvement plans if they are in a public forum.

So I'm back. Yay!

<3 Chrysilla, the Sassy Spinster

My D0rk Mistress

After months and months of real estate woe, my social life finally opened up again. I didn't have any classes or fand0m activities to take up my time either. For the first time in years I could just go out and have fun with my friends.

Except now my friends are all busy.

And now the Forbidden Shelf of my bookcase keeps leering at me:



Stacks of rpg manuals. They look so lonely.


On one hand, I miss being an active nerd. I have no fanclubs or larps to run anymore, no stage-combat performances to work on, no costumes to sew. And I don't really miss those past times very much.

On the other hand I've been off the RPG scene for so long I wouldn't know a d20 from a d12. Most of my game-running skills are larp based, so I would need to play for a while to get my role playing legs back in shape.

Oh, wait, my friends are all too busy to run campaigns. *headdesk*


I don't believe that all people need romantic relationships in their lives, but even the most antisocial subjects need some sense of community. And much as I like keeping up with friends online, I miss the old gaming sessions of my college years. Also, I think the Deleria book is whispering to me in my sleep. Damn you Phil Brucato, and your pretty games.


On the up-side, my plans for Dragon Con are coming together :-D Maybe I can put some new costumes together, and the drone of my new sewing machine will drown out the siren song of the Forbidden Shelf.

Apocalypse Me.

When I was in high school, I had tons of dreams about apocalypses (apocalypsi?). It was a different scenario every time, so I wasn't worried about it being prophetic. I always survived with the people in the dream that I liked to build a new world. Metaphorically speaking, my subconscious totally backed me up on getting out of suburban NJ. When I went to NYU the world stopped ending in my dreams, probably because I was rebuilding my life within a place and a people I liked.

Years later I'm still very affected by apocalypse fiction. There was an NYC Radio Theater production of War of the Worlds that moved me to tears. Promethea* was made of awesome and reflects how I think of "apocalypse," after studying mysticism at NYU. It's not a disaster, but a great revelation at the end of an era:

Rejoice. Your world is ended. The beliefs whereupon it was founded turn to air before the quantum scrutiny of your new science; were never truly there. Time's jail-yards are unlocked, the prison of material ambition that reduced you now demolished. Rejoice. Return now to your separate moments, selves, and rooms, and know that separation for ILLUSION. Know that you were one, were here, and in eternity are here forever. Here, where sudden firelight in your soul startled you from your worldly slumber. Stay awake.

Promethea, book 5.


And then there was last week.


Monday a blogger I read started a new short fiction blog called Apocalypse Daily, within the obvious theme.

Tuesday held another episode of The End of the World at UCB theater. It's a limited engagement improv show for the month of June, very fun so far.

Wednesday I went to an awesome Fantastic Fiction nite at KGB, where Brian Francis Slattery read/sang excerpts of his book Liberation: Being the Adventures of the Slick Six After the Collapse of the United States of America backed up by his own bluegrass band. This is the only recording of it so far, and I'm sad I didn't bring my own sneaky recording device. (And this is what the band looked like with better lighting, for reference) It was absolutely magical.

Friday, XKCD puts in a witty two cents, tho the punchline only really makes sense if you work in mathematics and/or academia (like me).


I wouldn't say I believe in Synchronicity per se. I look at the other way around: what you put out into the universe, it sometimes returns in kind or in synch. Reminding you of your own choices and plans, and things that need to be changed or finished.

So what exactly am I doing or creating to attract apocalypsi NOW?



*If anyone ever tries to make Promethea into a movie, I will handcuff myself to relevant office furniture in Hollywood until they stop. Unfortunately, I don't think Moore has control over that book anymore.

Save Our Cat!

So remember that book I raved about a few days ago? The author is in some financial trouble, like so many indie artists and writers right now.

But her cult of loyal fans have banded together to help, and it's super heart warming:


Help Catherynne M. Valente


There are instructions on where to buy her awesome e-books, information on a serialized novel (that cameos in Palimpsest, yay), more of her projects, and a smorgasbord of goods and services for auction from her cult/army of artists. Jewelry, crafts, offerings from other indie writers, all full of awesome.

What's the best way to help any writer or artist? BUY THEIR STUFF.

If you are a professional artisan, see my appeal to professionals here on my jewelry blog. I don't cross-post these blogs often. This is a special case.

Go forth, feel the love, spread the word. Save our Cat!

Breaking all the right laws ;-)

I have the Soul Flu today :-/ To combat it, I'm trying to focus on happy stuff.

This is just about the happiest thing I see happening in my circles of friends right now. Ironically for this blog, it's a wedding. But it's a really fantastically awesome wedding.

ZeroGravityWedding.com

From their blog, because of course they are blogging this:

In a few short months, my fiancée and I hope to be the first couple married in zero gravity.

When we started talking about marriage, Noah joked that we should have our wedding “in space”. Although most girls would take this to mean Noah didn’t want to get married, Erin knew he was sincere, and that this was a serious request. We decided marrying on the zero gravity plane would be a good compromise.

As kids, we both wanted to be astronauts - at least until we discovered the extensive higher-level mathematics skills involved. Erin attended space camp at the Michigan Space Center, and Noah volunteered at his local planetarium.

We hope that by having the first zero gravity wedding, we can promote the new wave of private space travel and space tourism. We hope that we can one day experience space flight and perhaps make a small contribution towards space exploration.

I know Erin from the NYU Sci Fi Club (we were both Doctor Who fans before it was cool), and I think this may qualify her as one of our most awesome alumni ;-) This is also the first zero-g wedding of all time, so there are lots more articles about it linked from the blog. Also pics of the wedding dress. *giggles*


This is why I don't want to settle for less than awesome in relationships, romantic or otherwise. Because my friends have set the bar pretty damn high :-D

An oddity locked away somewhere safe ...

Awesome new song from S.J. Tucker!



It probably makes a lot more sense if you've read the novel Palimpsest by Catherynne M. Valente (and why haven't you yet?), but I think it stands well on its own :-) I can definitely relate.


Palimpsest is a sexually transmitted dream city full of wonder and ritual. If you've been there you develop a mark on your skin like a tattoo- a small neighborhood map from the city. If you want to get back, you sleep with someone else who has the tattoo. And the city aims to please the souls that love it. A small community of people scattered all over the world spend their nights there as often as possible, most trying to figure out how to emigrate permanently. Persons on both sides of the divide have their own ideas about that...

The myth-punk and surrealism is close to the authors' earlier books (The Labyrinth, The Grass Cutting Sword, and others). She weaves the stories of four different "immigrants" and the city together, similar to her previous book The Orphans Tales, but not in such a septuple-helix-oh-god-get-me-cards-and-string way. I loved both, btw ;-)

Also, sex on the wholesale. With flavours of polyamory and BDSM for good measure. Not a kid friendly book.

Probably not the most eloquent review it's had so far, but it's mine :-)


As for Spinster-ism, there is at least one in the book until she falls in love with the city, it's Matriarch, and it's bees. The book doesn't support singleness as the perfect state, but it is in no way a limited view of love and relationships. Another girl falls in love with a train. Yay for the surreal :-)

In a nutshell

To offset the moodiness of my last post. Today I stumbled across a way to explain paganism quickly and concisely, as compared to mainstream religion.

Mainstream religion - guilt + dragons = Neo Paganism

Enjoy! :-D

Trying hard to understand

Forgive the moodiness. Life is OK overall, but NYC is unseasonably cold and wet this week. Also, the new Our Lady Peace single sounds terrible. *fan girl angst*


Lately I've had some run-ins with people who don't seem happy that I exist. Looking at other social connections with them and working backwards, I can pinpoint a mutual acquaintance that hates my guts. That person spits venom behind my back whenever we end up at the same social events though I make no noise about it. I'm just keeping to myself, why should they care?

To add an extra layer of lame, this person despises me for something stupid I did in a LARP three years ago :-P

(Note to other nerd girls- NEVER date within your gaming group. 9 times out of 10, it ends in disaster. Especially if you are rebounding.)

Since that embarrassing era I've made new friends IRL, continued my career and education, established a side business, bought a home, traveled, tons of awesome ensued. I am respected and cherished by my chosen peers and tribe. And long ago I cut off most of the old gaming group. I don't bother them, why should they bother about me?

So it's seriously disheartening to see that no matter how hard I work to improve myself and my life, gamer drama will return to haunt me years later.

And what happens if this stuff segues into real life? Job, career, relationships? Is this worry just another character flaw I need to work on?


But back to the news that's really bothering me: here's a sample of Our Lady Peace from back when they were GOOD.



Why must you break my heart so, OLP? You were the cornerstone of my angsty adolescence, and now you're all ... bouncy :-P

I.Q. Must Be This High to Ride

I've been thinking on it for quite some time, but kept forgetting I have a blog for this! Duh!

I've heard a lot of people say over the years, men and women, that they want a partner who is "smart." Then I look at how they treat smart people, and/or who they actually go out with, and am confused.

Perhaps more accurate would be, "I'm looking for someone pretty, who is as smart as I am."

Personally, I've been turned on by the brainpower in not-classically-attractive guys, and turned off by the dumb in pretty guys. It may stem from my need to be amused more or less constantly, so I also gravitate towards people who are smarter or wittier than myself. At least I perceive them to be.


Add a dash of geekiness and this leads to amusing moments. Was hanging out at a friend's party, generally chatting with an increasing circle of nerd boys. And not bad ones, either. Suddenly, during a discussion of Lovecraft, one exclaimed:

"I'm, like, an expert on all things Cthulu!"

*Sassy blinks* "Which in total constitutes one short story, where a guy has a dream, carves a sculpture, and then gets shived?"

NERD PENALTY!

Though seriously, Cthulu gets a lot of play for an Elder God only indirectly referenced in 16 pages. How does that qualify him for his own RPG system? I like "The Dreams in the Witch House" better so far ;-)

Whups, my geek is showing. And I'm probably still high on cold meds. This train of thought will probably make a lot less sense tomorrow.


Do you like your "marks" to have teh smart, or teh dumb?