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It seems that being cold is as much a psychological thing as it is physical. Tonight the outside temperature is 27°F which is warm enough that our geothermal alone can maintain a 69°F temperature in the house. I still broke down and restarted the stove, which somehow makes it seem far more comfortable in here.
Should be weaving, but doubting my ability to focus and maintain that complex pattern, so I've chosen to spend an hour or so on some simple knitting to use up leftover yarns. It will be a warm hat, and I'm keeping it for myself, so there.
I'll try to make weaving progress in the morning, since I don't go into work until noon.
Spent the afternoon at work doing updates on two OPAC workstations. I've postponed these updates for almost two years because of an odd glitch in the software. I refused to update all five stations until I was satisfied that the bug had been fixed, while the vendor kept saying they would withhold support unless we updated. Since the bug manifested only in the new version of the software, though, I won in the end. They claim it's fixed, and I'm not convinced, but at least it has become far less frequent.
About half way through MCA Hogarth's The Worth of a Shell, which I had set aside in the holiday rush and only picked up again yesterday. It's a fascinating look at the social implications of gender roles as self-perpetuating socialization, in a culture where some individuals may change sex involuntarily as many as two times during their lives. Add the complexity of three possible genders, each with a rigidly defined social rank and role, and there's an amazing amount of thought provoking ideas and images involved.
I am neither asexual nor trans-gendered, but I have been defying conventional gender role behavior all my life, as far back as I can remember. This has, of course, caused me a lot of grief and brought down the worst sort of bullies upon me at times, but I've also drawn a great deal of satisfaction from being able to do what interested me without respect to cultural expectations. It's no surprise that I should find a story that involves violation of prescribed gender roles to be both satisfying and fascinating.
On reflection, I realize that I've done this frequently (though not always) with my own characters when I write, though I'm not usually as explicit as Hogarth. For example, Argos is a wolf, but he's a vegetarian. He's male, and apparently gay, but celibate and unbothered by the fact. I've been doing these things because they please me, but without realizing that I'm deliberately rejecting normal expectations. I don't expect to change that either.
Should be weaving, but doubting my ability to focus and maintain that complex pattern, so I've chosen to spend an hour or so on some simple knitting to use up leftover yarns. It will be a warm hat, and I'm keeping it for myself, so there.
I'll try to make weaving progress in the morning, since I don't go into work until noon.
Spent the afternoon at work doing updates on two OPAC workstations. I've postponed these updates for almost two years because of an odd glitch in the software. I refused to update all five stations until I was satisfied that the bug had been fixed, while the vendor kept saying they would withhold support unless we updated. Since the bug manifested only in the new version of the software, though, I won in the end. They claim it's fixed, and I'm not convinced, but at least it has become far less frequent.
About half way through MCA Hogarth's The Worth of a Shell, which I had set aside in the holiday rush and only picked up again yesterday. It's a fascinating look at the social implications of gender roles as self-perpetuating socialization, in a culture where some individuals may change sex involuntarily as many as two times during their lives. Add the complexity of three possible genders, each with a rigidly defined social rank and role, and there's an amazing amount of thought provoking ideas and images involved.
I am neither asexual nor trans-gendered, but I have been defying conventional gender role behavior all my life, as far back as I can remember. This has, of course, caused me a lot of grief and brought down the worst sort of bullies upon me at times, but I've also drawn a great deal of satisfaction from being able to do what interested me without respect to cultural expectations. It's no surprise that I should find a story that involves violation of prescribed gender roles to be both satisfying and fascinating.
On reflection, I realize that I've done this frequently (though not always) with my own characters when I write, though I'm not usually as explicit as Hogarth. For example, Argos is a wolf, but he's a vegetarian. He's male, and apparently gay, but celibate and unbothered by the fact. I've been doing these things because they please me, but without realizing that I'm deliberately rejecting normal expectations. I don't expect to change that either.
