LJ fan communities vs tumblr

The thing I really miss about LJ fan communities vs living on a tag is the ability to navigate posts. So many posts intro on tumblr with "not sure if this has been done yet", because there's no way to establish precedence and fannish history with a feed.

Did LJ have a feed-like queue of posts from various members of the community? Sure! But with a consciencious mod, we also had post tags for fanart, prompts, headcanons, aus. Apart from a stronger messaging system (and a way to identify unique people who change their usernames [though, if you want to establish yourself in a fandom, I don't know why would you change your name]), that's the thing I miss most.

I think having an open searchable method of navigating posts also eases tension on fanwork creators who are afraid their content will be forgotten or stolen, because it's pushed to the bottom of the tag stack and only sees the light of day if it's redistributed into people's feeds via reblogs.

I see a bunch of prompts and art ideas, fic ideas, meta, that is rehashed over and over because the people who have similar train of thought can't find each other's content, which is a real shame. I think we have to figure out a way to make fandom more collaborative instead of consumerist, which is really difficult with how the tumblr UI is structured. If I'm off tumblr for a while, I feel like I miss out on content that will be gone forever from my sight once I come back, because finding it requires going through every post on a tag.

Anyway, I dunno, I feel like we all have this reaction whenever a fandom communication platform changes, so maybe this is just me being like "ohh you young fandom platforms" or whatever. 

Week of Nov 29

I used to journal regularly, which was incredibly useful if I wanted to reference an event I attended or people I met. I figured returning to old habits might help me get over this recent emotional/mental slump. I had a similar chasm open up under me 7 years ago and came back mentally and creatively stronger for it, so there's some hope?

This was Thanksgiving week. Because the stock market is open on Black Friday, those of us in the financial sector don't get the day off. This means I haven't been able to spend Thanksgiving with my family in Virginia since 2012, because there's no point flying from Boston to Virginia just for one day. However, after a few years of working for this company, I caught on that you don't really get a pat on the back for showing up, because no one is in the office anyway. I still didn't get reasonable airfare to visit family, but at least I got 4 days off, (Thu, Fri, and then the weekend) which is the longest vacation I've had this year.

Usually my coworkers invite me to their house for Thanksgiving, and this year was no exception. This was an Indian family from my part of India, which was nice. Some of their food was "throw all the American spices at this and see what sticks", which was a bit hit or miss, but they were very fun and welcoming and taught me how to play poker. As always, I showed up with the 3 items I always bring when invited to Thanksgiving (I'll make a list of old recipes that I've made in the past in another post): a savoury dish, a sweet dish, and beer. This time I relied on smitten kitchen and made cauliflower gratin, mom's apple cake, and a local beer from Somerville. (Slumbrew)

When I went into the local liquor store to pick up beer (MA doesn't sell alcohol in their grocery stores), the nice retired biker who runs the place had apparently taken off his shirt to show off his multitude of tatoos to some women. I laughed for the first time in weeks.

Friday was incredibly warm, so I walked 3 miles out to the wetlands and then backtracked to do 6 miles on the Minuteman trail. Later, I was invited for an "open house" to another co-workers house, a nice elder gentleman whose husband unfortunately passed a way a few years ago, and he had a few casserole dishes and bottles of wine for friends and family who were invited to stop by anytime in the evening. I really love this idea! Might implement it on a weekend afternoon next month, in lieu of doing an evening event for my birthday. No one really wants to go out and come back during the cold dark of January.

I've been kind of useless this weekend, haven't done much apart from watching some Netflix and making this chocolate custard. (my modification: 1/4 cup sugar, bittersweet chocolate, 10mL dark rum, 1/8 tsp cinnamon. also, you should add the chocolate along with the cornstarch mixture, otherwise it will take forever to thicken, and when you eventually put it in the fridge, it will come out with the texture of ganache. If that's your thing, be my guest. I spent about 30 minutes stirring the cornstarch-sugar-milk mixture, hoping it would thicken, till I finally lost patience and added the chocolate. I would say cook it 10-15 minutes like the recipe says, but don't worry if it doesn't thicken to a saucelike consistency. Make sure you scrape the bottom when you stir, or you'll get congealed lumps.)

Monday will unfortunately be a return to form. *sigh* Part of me feels that I should have gone somewhere and done something over 2 days, but the other part knows that "doing things" is not equivalent to making progress, and keeping myself busy as a distraction is as detrimental as remaining idle. I suppose I'll find a way to convince myself that I needed the downtime to relax and catch up on sleep.

Dear house, I love you, but...

After years of deliberately refusing to attach myself emotionally to the various places I have lived, I really like my house. I feel ownership over it, and it still enchants me that I am lucky enough to live here. We have hardwood floors and a lot of open sunlit space. We have many features that renters in the city prioritise: offstreet parking, a yard, a porch, free in-house laundry, gas heating, a dishwasher, plenty of storage space, close walking distance to the train station. We live in a 2-family house and rent out the 2nd floor, so I'm finally living in a space that is so much more personable than an apartment complex.

However, our walls are incredibly thin, and I can hear conversations of people walking around on the sidewalk outside. That's fine, got used to it. But at the moment I keep ascending/descending thump-thump sound, like someone is walking up the stairs, so I keep mentally preparing to make smalltalk with my roommates, who are due back today, and no one is there. It's kind of annoying to have this surge of anxious expectation that suddenly dissipates over and over.
later solution: I'm listening to a new album on my laptop, which distracts me sufficiently.

Also, no one but me has been in this house since Wednesday night, and I haven't had the need to do laundry or run the dishwasher, and the shower continues to be lukewarm/cold. Not sure what I can do about it, since our landlord is responsible, but at least I know it's not to do with our usage. Sometimes the cool water poses a problem if I have to wash my hair and need to stay in the shower for a prolongued time, but usually I just take really fast showers. Haven't had a hot bath since the summer, might take soap and a towel up to the gym in the New Hampshire office, if I get really desperate, but it's generally tolerable. However, the mystery of why this is happening continues to irritate me.

(no subject)

you too can do adult things like capturing and releasing giant spiders in a Tupperware container by nervously singing the Spiderman theme song to yourself.