Seeking recs for queer media
Jan. 24th, 2012 03:09 pmNovels. How-tos. Autobiographies. Histories. Films. Poetry. Plays. Any and all of the above! Anything else you can think of! If you were stocking an LGBT+ lending library from scratch, what would you include? (Let's say top ten - or maybe top three - items. I am working with a limited budget here.)
Already on my list is Whipping Girl and most things by Kate Bornstein (for all I have an uneasy relationship with her work).
Thank you for crowdsource - this is a project I am trying to get off the ground & am currently a bit low on brain to do the research myself!
Already on my list is Whipping Girl and most things by Kate Bornstein (for all I have an uneasy relationship with her work).
Thank you for crowdsource - this is a project I am trying to get off the ground & am currently a bit low on brain to do the research myself!
To my dismay, this afternoon I noticed that someone had dumped 6 bananas (still in their plastic bag, even!) in the bin in the college kitchen, because they were just beginning to turn brown. Further, we had most of a pot of extra-thick double cream we'd bought in order to eat with plum pie.
So I hoiked them out, and L. and t. and roommates and I promptly made GLORIOUS DISASTER FOOD.
First off, we made banana bread.
This left me with most of a pot of buttermilk, which I'd had hanging around... so while the banana bread was cooking I used the rest up in buttermilk scones.
... and then L. mashed up the two remaining bananas with the double cream and our last three eggs and ALL THE SUGAR.
Once the banana bread had been turned out and cooled, we sliced it up, layered it in an oven-proof dish with slips of salted butter between each slice, poured the custard over it, and sprinkled the top with demerara sugar and mixed candied peel, then baked at 180degC/GM4 until the top had gone crunchy.
... it was amazing okay.
So I hoiked them out, and L. and t. and roommates and I promptly made GLORIOUS DISASTER FOOD.
First off, we made banana bread.
This left me with most of a pot of buttermilk, which I'd had hanging around... so while the banana bread was cooking I used the rest up in buttermilk scones.
... and then L. mashed up the two remaining bananas with the double cream and our last three eggs and ALL THE SUGAR.
Once the banana bread had been turned out and cooled, we sliced it up, layered it in an oven-proof dish with slips of salted butter between each slice, poured the custard over it, and sprinkled the top with demerara sugar and mixed candied peel, then baked at 180degC/GM4 until the top had gone crunchy.
... it was amazing okay.
Side-effects log: two weeks on citalopram
Jan. 15th, 2012 08:07 pmI was started on (and am continuing on) a dose of 10mg/day, taken when I wake up (still wildly variable). I seem to be sleeping a lot and I seem to have a very short attention span; it's hard to tell if it's having any effect other than that, yet, because hormones blah blah cyclical blah blah degraded blah blah - basically, I am currently in a patch where I would be pretty stable anyway, and my mood is at what I consider to be my baseline normal, so. The real test will occur over the next fortnight or thereabouts. (And who knows? Maybe if this works I won't be out of endo management options after all - I might be able to try a progesterone-only method again...)
Vegetarian shepherd's pie
Jan. 7th, 2012 12:54 amFor those as don't know: shepherd's pie is a dish common in the British Isles, of minced-lamb-veg-and-gravy topped with mashed potatoes. This is a veggie variant, which ends up being stodgy brown carbs with carbs and is FANTASTIC, okay. It is trivial easy to veganify also.
Quantities depend on size of dish. I use bay leaves because I get them in vast quantities from my mum's garden; veg stock is also great.
Topping
Floury potatoes
Butter or equivalent
Optional cheese (or equivalent)
Filling
Oil for frying
Garlic
Onion
Celery
Leek
Carrot
Aubergine
Mushrooms (plus optional dried mushrooms)
Red lentils
Bay leaves
Salt
Pepper
Method
Preheat oven to approx 200degC.
Peel potatoes, cut into chunks and put them on to boil. Prod occasionally with a sharp implement; when tender (30-40 minutes) remove from heat, drain, and mash with butter or equivalent.
Meanwhile, if using dried mushrooms, now is a good time to pour hot water over them (stick the bay leaves into the container too, for good measure). Finely chop onion, celery and garlic. Chop leek, carrot, aubergine and mushroom with size according to preference. Saute the lot in a saucepan, adding in approximately the order they're listed, until everything's softened up. Add lentils and stir: there's enough of them when all the bits of veg have a sparse coating. (Add the dried mushrooms & liquid if using.) Add bay leaves enough water to just cover the veg; simmer until lentils have disintegrated, topping up the liquid as needed, then season.
Remove the bay leaves from the vegetable mixture, then slosh it into a deep oven-proof dish. Spread mashed potato over the top of the veg, sprinkle with cheese or equivalent if using, and bake in the oven until it starts to brown.
Quantities depend on size of dish. I use bay leaves because I get them in vast quantities from my mum's garden; veg stock is also great.
Topping
Floury potatoes
Butter or equivalent
Optional cheese (or equivalent)
Filling
Oil for frying
Garlic
Onion
Celery
Leek
Carrot
Aubergine
Mushrooms (plus optional dried mushrooms)
Red lentils
Bay leaves
Salt
Pepper
Method
Preheat oven to approx 200degC.
Peel potatoes, cut into chunks and put them on to boil. Prod occasionally with a sharp implement; when tender (30-40 minutes) remove from heat, drain, and mash with butter or equivalent.
Meanwhile, if using dried mushrooms, now is a good time to pour hot water over them (stick the bay leaves into the container too, for good measure). Finely chop onion, celery and garlic. Chop leek, carrot, aubergine and mushroom with size according to preference. Saute the lot in a saucepan, adding in approximately the order they're listed, until everything's softened up. Add lentils and stir: there's enough of them when all the bits of veg have a sparse coating. (Add the dried mushrooms & liquid if using.) Add bay leaves enough water to just cover the veg; simmer until lentils have disintegrated, topping up the liquid as needed, then season.
Remove the bay leaves from the vegetable mixture, then slosh it into a deep oven-proof dish. Spread mashed potato over the top of the veg, sprinkle with cheese or equivalent if using, and bake in the oven until it starts to brown.
So much fail
Jan. 2nd, 2012 02:47 amUgh. Things I am kicking myself for not having been aware of, and passing on for those of you as are also likely to care. :-(
Number-crunching: books
Jan. 1st, 2012 12:24 pm1. NPR's top 100 SF/Fantasy books. Bold if you've read, italicise ones you fully intend to read, underline if it's a book/series you've read part but not all of.
( Read more... )
Of the authors mentioned in that meme, fourteen (23%) are women and sixty (77%) are men (none, to my knowledge, are non-binary). Of the women, one (7%) gets multiple mentions; 13 (21%) of men are mentioned more than once. Four (29%) of women get mentioned for series; twenty-one (35%) of men get mentioned for series. Also, everyone on that list is white, as far as I can tell. (Spreadsheet available on request.)
2. My books
By way of comparison, I tracked the books I read this year. I read somewhere in the region of 90-100 books, by 24 authors. 9 (38%) of the authors are male. One (4%) of the authors is trans.[1] One (4%) of the authors is non-white. Most of the books were series written by women.
My goal for the year was to actually read some books written by women, and I'm really glad of that: I read a bunch of stuff I really enjoyed but might not have got around to if I hadn't been ~being political~. This year: attempt to read (a) ANYTHING AT ALL IN GERMAN, and (b) books by people who aren't white.
[1] This would have been 2/25 - 8% - but circumstances intervened and I couldn't face it
( Read more... )
Of the authors mentioned in that meme, fourteen (23%) are women and sixty (77%) are men (none, to my knowledge, are non-binary). Of the women, one (7%) gets multiple mentions; 13 (21%) of men are mentioned more than once. Four (29%) of women get mentioned for series; twenty-one (35%) of men get mentioned for series. Also, everyone on that list is white, as far as I can tell. (Spreadsheet available on request.)
2. My books
By way of comparison, I tracked the books I read this year. I read somewhere in the region of 90-100 books, by 24 authors. 9 (38%) of the authors are male. One (4%) of the authors is trans.[1] One (4%) of the authors is non-white. Most of the books were series written by women.
My goal for the year was to actually read some books written by women, and I'm really glad of that: I read a bunch of stuff I really enjoyed but might not have got around to if I hadn't been ~being political~. This year: attempt to read (a) ANYTHING AT ALL IN GERMAN, and (b) books by people who aren't white.
[1] This would have been 2/25 - 8% - but circumstances intervened and I couldn't face it
Books this year.
Dec. 28th, 2011 05:47 amFeel free to ask me more about my thoughts on any of them. Not all of the notes stand, on reflection. Approx 90ish, depending on how you count multi-novel fanfic series, & apologies for the layout but it's OpenOffice generated HTML because I wasn't hand-coding that, okay. (As for why I was storing it in OOo rather than a .csv... well, that's another matter.)
( Read more... )
( Read more... )
(no subject)
Dec. 27th, 2011 03:50 pmSh! [NSFW], the "UK’s first ever sex shop for women, trading since 1992", has recently made its policy on trans* customers explicit [content warning: cissexist language, mention of rape]. There's some good stuff in there, but there's also a lot that's really, really bad.
I composed & left a comment, pointing out aspects I considered problematic. Turns out they have comment moderation on, so I reproduce it below.
( Read more... )
I composed & left a comment, pointing out aspects I considered problematic. Turns out they have comment moderation on, so I reproduce it below.
( Read more... )
Stuff I Didn't Know About Mongeese
Dec. 23rd, 2011 06:07 amTHEY ARE REALLY COOL, OKAY
why yes my sleep schedule and ability to work are still a disaster why do you ask
- egalitarian society (natural habitat: A PILE)
- mammal-mammal symbiotic relationship with warthogs
- can time birth of pups to the same day
why yes my sleep schedule and ability to work are still a disaster why do you ask
Happy music
Dec. 18th, 2011 08:41 pmIt's recently been brought to my attention that most of the music I listen to is... well, put it this way: I ended up trying to defend the lyrics "None of this is going anywhere/and pretty soon no-one left alive will really care/.../We're definitely going to hell" as cheerful.
So. Suggestions, please, bearing in mind that I'm crap at getting involved with music without lyrics?
( For context, stuff I listen to regularly... )
I am not terribly broadly listened, okay. (Optional items on the wishlist: minority-male groups, cellos, feminism.)
So. Suggestions, please, bearing in mind that I'm crap at getting involved with music without lyrics?
( For context, stuff I listen to regularly... )
I am not terribly broadly listened, okay. (Optional items on the wishlist: minority-male groups, cellos, feminism.)
And today's winner is...
Dec. 17th, 2011 09:37 pmContent warning: street harrassment.
If you search the web, you'll find it's full of tales illustrating exactly why it is a bad idea to shout "give us a smile, darling" at (someone you perceive to be) a woman walking past.
It is an especially bad plan if the ambient temperature is 1°C and you are blocking the pavement smoking...
... and the person you instruct to smile is me. Because what you will get is a smile, all right, but it will be tight and angry and accompanied by the explanation that I have pneumonia and an allergy to cigarette smoke.
Just sayin'.
If you search the web, you'll find it's full of tales illustrating exactly why it is a bad idea to shout "give us a smile, darling" at (someone you perceive to be) a woman walking past.
It is an especially bad plan if the ambient temperature is 1°C and you are blocking the pavement smoking...
... and the person you instruct to smile is me. Because what you will get is a smile, all right, but it will be tight and angry and accompanied by the explanation that I have pneumonia and an allergy to cigarette smoke.
Just sayin'.
Recipe: small crumbles
Dec. 16th, 2011 05:06 amThis posting would have had photographs, but my camera is attached to my phone, which in its turn is recalcitrant and did not save anything. I am most unimpressed.
Anyway.
The first thing to note is that this country apparently does not believe in vanilla sugar, by which I mean "you can buy very small pots for very large amounts of money and then you use it and it's finished."
This is not the correct way to do anything.
The correct way to do it is to rinse out an empty jam jar or other suitable receptacle, let it dry thoroughly, and put a vanilla pod into it (or half a vanilla pod, if you are like me and your jam jar is small and your vanilla pod is large and anyway you'd already used half of it), and then you fill it up with caster sugar, which you replace as you use it. Ta-da.
(This is, in fact, the Correct Way To Store Vanilla Pods also. No point letting all the lovely aromatics swill about in the jar they were sold you in when you could be generating delicious vanilla-flavoured sugar.)
There are many ways to use vanilla sugar. One of my favourites is on top of Ribiselkuchen. Or in Vanillekipferl. Or dusted over Kaiserschmarrn.
Today, however, I used it in tiny peach-raspberry crumbles.
I took:
The wet ingredients I placed in the gu pots. The dry ingredients I turned into crumble topping by the expedient of rubbing fat into... dry stuff, okay. They were baked at approx. 200degC until they were done, and I thought they were delish but my whiny neighbour (gave me pneumonia, complained about fesenjan) asserted that they "taste[d] like pizza", but what does he know.
Maybe next time I will get around to making the basil-condensed milk-yoghurt concoction I was vaguely planning, instead of just having the yoghurt neat.
Anyway.
The first thing to note is that this country apparently does not believe in vanilla sugar, by which I mean "you can buy very small pots for very large amounts of money and then you use it and it's finished."
This is not the correct way to do anything.
The correct way to do it is to rinse out an empty jam jar or other suitable receptacle, let it dry thoroughly, and put a vanilla pod into it (or half a vanilla pod, if you are like me and your jam jar is small and your vanilla pod is large and anyway you'd already used half of it), and then you fill it up with caster sugar, which you replace as you use it. Ta-da.
(This is, in fact, the Correct Way To Store Vanilla Pods also. No point letting all the lovely aromatics swill about in the jar they were sold you in when you could be generating delicious vanilla-flavoured sugar.)
There are many ways to use vanilla sugar. One of my favourites is on top of Ribiselkuchen. Or in Vanillekipferl. Or dusted over Kaiserschmarrn.
Today, however, I used it in tiny peach-raspberry crumbles.
I took:
- two gu pots
- half a tin of peaches
- a handful of frozen raspberries
- a sprig of fresh basil, chopped
- buckwheat & plain flours, brown sugar, 1tsp vanilla sugar, butter
The wet ingredients I placed in the gu pots. The dry ingredients I turned into crumble topping by the expedient of rubbing fat into... dry stuff, okay. They were baked at approx. 200degC until they were done, and I thought they were delish but my whiny neighbour (gave me pneumonia, complained about fesenjan) asserted that they "taste[d] like pizza", but what does he know.
Maybe next time I will get around to making the basil-condensed milk-yoghurt concoction I was vaguely planning, instead of just having the yoghurt neat.
Following advice recieved on FB & from NHS Direct, went back to GP. Dose of antibiotics was doubled from "preventative" to "kill it dead". Unofficial diagnosis appears to be "incipient pneumonia" (lung crackly, breathing slightly difficult) & am under strict instructions to go back on Monday if am not obviously improved.
As thanks for reading: smallest sloth has tiny person (passed on to me by![[personal profile]](http://s.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
azuire and noldo, fantastic beasts that they are).
As thanks for reading: smallest sloth has tiny person (passed on to me by
azuire and noldo, fantastic beasts that they are).Update on the health sitch
Dec. 14th, 2011 02:32 amAs you've probably picked up, I have all the angst about visiting doctors. It's pretty standard stuff: a mixture of "I don't like to take up space" and "doctors don't take me seriously anyway" and "but you're supposed to have a cough for four weeks before you waste NHS time with it". But hey, I needed to follow up on some ultrasound results anyway (I don't have gall stones! ... pity I still don't know what's going on there, though), so in I went.
So there I was sat in the waiting room hacking my lungs up, when the (lovely!) asthma nurse walked through, did a double-take, and asked if I was okay. Followed shortly afterwards by the GP writing me out a prescription for antibiotics and telling me to up my salbutamol intake to "lots".
I'm feeling pretty vindicated.
This won't hang around, of course: the imposter syndrome will be back and I'll need talking into wrangling doctors again next time, but hey, maybe eventually etc.
(Entertainingly, in the several-hour gap between the appointment and the prescription being filled, my symptoms got noticeably worse, in that, er, I am pretty sure my lung is not supposed to sound like that, I am just saying. However! Armed with drugs, I face this with equanimity, and if I continue downhill I will go and hassle doctors harder.)
So there I was sat in the waiting room hacking my lungs up, when the (lovely!) asthma nurse walked through, did a double-take, and asked if I was okay. Followed shortly afterwards by the GP writing me out a prescription for antibiotics and telling me to up my salbutamol intake to "lots".
I'm feeling pretty vindicated.
This won't hang around, of course: the imposter syndrome will be back and I'll need talking into wrangling doctors again next time, but hey, maybe eventually etc.
(Entertainingly, in the several-hour gap between the appointment and the prescription being filled, my symptoms got noticeably worse, in that, er, I am pretty sure my lung is not supposed to sound like that, I am just saying. However! Armed with drugs, I face this with equanimity, and if I continue downhill I will go and hassle doctors harder.)
(no subject)
Dec. 13th, 2011 02:54 amO dear, eheu, oi moi, etc. A wailing and a gnashing of teeth!1
I am awake. It is three in the morning. This is sub-optimal. It is especially sub-optimal because my sleep cycle has been kind of shot recently2, and tonight I actually got to bed by about 10.30.
Why, then, am I not asleep?
Because I have been coughing so hard that my eyes are getting bloodshot, my sternum hurts when I breathe, and surgery scars are acting up. It is not fun okay.
Therefore I shall offer you evidence of my doings in times recent. The journal of the thrice-esteemednoldo contains one conversation and one perplexed clementine. Below the cut you will find an (unbeta'd, concrit welcome) A:tLA fic. And, do you know, between that and coughing and watching this Dr Who fanvid on loop, that's about all I've been up to.
1 Teeth? Will be provided.
2 Winning combination of grief and stress and depression. See also: reasons I have not been terribly social.
( A fic! )
I am awake. It is three in the morning. This is sub-optimal. It is especially sub-optimal because my sleep cycle has been kind of shot recently2, and tonight I actually got to bed by about 10.30.
Why, then, am I not asleep?
Because I have been coughing so hard that my eyes are getting bloodshot, my sternum hurts when I breathe, and surgery scars are acting up. It is not fun okay.
Therefore I shall offer you evidence of my doings in times recent. The journal of the thrice-esteemed
noldo contains one conversation and one perplexed clementine. Below the cut you will find an (unbeta'd, concrit welcome) A:tLA fic. And, do you know, between that and coughing and watching this Dr Who fanvid on loop, that's about all I've been up to.1 Teeth? Will be provided.
2 Winning combination of grief and stress and depression. See also: reasons I have not been terribly social.
( A fic! )
Love meme! plus misc
Dec. 9th, 2011 05:53 pmHosted by littlebutfierce; my thread in said love meme.
littlebutfierce; my thread in said love meme.- I made mincemeat! Four jars thereof! One jar made two dozen mince pies! I have three jars left! I also made cheese straws and jam tarts because oh dear my pastry quantity estimation skills! If, therefore, you are local to me and would like a c. 400g jar of (vegetarian, other ingredients upon request) home-made mincemeat, holler. First two as does gets 'em (am keeping one for self because I harbour the fond but probably misguided notion that there will come a point when I feel like making another ginormous batch of pastry).
- I have fairylights! They are blutacked to my curtain rails, because I am a student! They are fantastic ~mood lighting~ and very much help to make room feel slightly brighter when I have decided I do not want daylight bulb on.
- If you are in any way involved in the Avatar: the Last Airbender fandom, read Drink Some Fucking Tea.
- I am currently consuming vast, vast quantities of raspberry-mango boba.
