[clovember]

[kaberett]

Today I am mostly in lab, with 20-30 minute breaks between flurries of activity in the main room that is currently at 16degC WHICH IS AN IMPROVEMENT ON THE 13degC IT WAS WHEN I GOT IN AT 7.30. (By all means tell me it isn't that cold! Then you get to sit stationary on an uncomfortable wooden stool in significant wind chill. "But Alex," you are perhaps thinking, "your laboratory is indoors," and you'd be right - but it's a clean lab, with the entire air volume of the suite of rooms being replaced 50 times an hour, with additional positive pressure inside the flow hoods, so it is in fact non-trivial.) Hence: bad selfies.

Deep navy blue jumper with bizarre drawstrings at waist, probably from a charity shop, acquired when sorting through Mama's clothes after her death; checked too-large-for-me shirt largely invisible, definitely acquired from a charity shop by Mama for Papa (when it turned out not to fit she attempted to give it to Middle Brother, who disdained it, which is how I ended up with it); fringed dip-dyed scarf/shawl in dusky blues from a charity shop but this time acquired by me; disconcerting-shade-of-green corduroy trousers acquired from eBay this week; and, of course, the boots (courtesy as always of the boything ♥):

Comments

[kaberett]

(I continue deeply weirded out by the extent to which I am bang-on the current Western beauty standard. I still mostly think of myself as scruffy and the wrong shape - partly leftover mental illness, partly dysphoria - and it is disconcerting every time I re-realise that this, too, is a privilege I have.)

[highlyeccentric]

You also have pretty snazzy taste in clothes! And shoes!

If you feel like showing off your clothes and/or face to the wider internets, note , run by menysnowballes acos of this conversation. I happen to know the content is more consistently cis fem ladies than menysnowballes would like...

[kaberett]

ha I am gently perturbed by the extent to which I have developed a ~style~ and also honestly pretty perturbed by the extent to which I have slotted in to London -- these days I think I've dressed appropriately for a walk along the cliffs on a blustery day and I still, in comparison to everyone else I pass, look like I've been dropped straight out of the middle of a city. (It used to be very much the other way around, hence the impression that I'm scruffy, but that appears to... not be the case any more.)

Thank you! I will consider!

[feanelwa]

All the best selfies have safety equipment marks on the face!

[kaberett]

Decided I couldn't be bothered to wait for it to go away ;)

[thatyourefuse]

Oh, I covet and admire those trousers. Disconcerting green is the best color.

[kaberett]

:D I was sad to miss a pair in purple. My current trousers strategy is pretty much "periodically search eBay for stuff in my size in corduroy or linen and a weird colour"; I am doing remarkably well out of it.

[thatyourefuse]

That is a good strategy. (I have a genuine 1980s tweed blazer based around roughly that same shade of green, hand-me-down from my mother who must have been much less thin in the 80s than she is now for it to fit me; it's probably the most-complimented item of clothing I own right now, largely because I've decided by fiat that disconcerting green is a neutral color and goes with everything.)

[kaberett]

excellenttt

[silveradept]

That is a rather disconcerting shade of green. The boots, however, are fabulous. Are they also comfortable and well-padded for use in the cold, cold, lab?

[kaberett]

Hah, the boots are not permitted in lab! They get dumped in the shoe-rack (next to the cardboard, with my coat on top of it) before I walk in the door with the Signs On, and then I walk in the door with the Signs On, wipe off the bottom of my lab shoes (white entirely-closed Crocs), and then I don my lab shoes, and then I go into the lab proper. ;)

[silveradept]

Ah. Makes sense, weirdly, that plastic-type shoes would be used for the lab.

[kaberett]

(They are sort of that shade of slightly yellow very spongey moss, or, as awesome ex-housemate C points out, gherkins.)

[davidgillon]

I was thinking pea soup, myself ;)

[davidgillon]

That temperature's not great, but probably not quite as bad as the 6:30AM MRI I had a couple of years ago. I don't know whether the MRI suite is always that cold from superchilling the magnets, or if it was a symptom of the heating having been turned off overnight (while superchilling the magnets), but I'm convinced the temperature was sub-zero, which is not a good place to be when wearing only a paper hospital gown. It was so cold that when the techs needed to check my positioning they literally ran in and out of the room.

[birke]

That sounds thoroughly miserable. Was the MRI worth it?

[davidgillon]

Well, at least it was quick, and it did confirm the disk prolapse, but probably the nerve conduction testing was more useful, though that involved sticking needles in my arm and running electric currents through them, for an overall conclusion of 'well, something's clearly not right' and 'but not to the point it's worth doing anything about'.

So mixed feelings, really ;)

[catyak]

It's amusing round here because the locals are all wrapping up in coats to keep warm as the temperature drops, but I'm still mostly wearing short sleeves. Compared to November in the UK it's still quite mild.

[milkymoon]

I love that scarf and the corduroy trousers (... I tend to like trousers in Very Disconcerting Colours as well).

[quartzpebble]

13C is fucking cold, no question. Especially in lab.

Also, I like the selfies. :D

[birke]

I like your colour-coordination! It does indeed look City Spiffy. I seem to be alone in not finding that shade of green disconcerting...

[tim]

I like the trousers! (Now I'm tempted to search eBay for weird stuff in my size, which I haven't done in a long time since it exists only sporadically.)