On Blog Comments

I stumbled across something that affected me today while puttering through blogs.

"I translated it into Arabic, please let me know if you would like a copy." - Tima888 commenting on the post I am your Mother on Axis of Fat.

This rings a bell in the very deep part of me that likes to share knowledge, to feel the click of understanding between two participants in a conversation, and cherish the idea that anyone can boost the signal, even me with my cobbled-together homebrew operation. This is why I love the internet.

On a completely different note, I love westerns. There's something comforting-fuzzy about them in all their sepia-toned glory. There was one on during lunch at the cafe I write at and I have no idea what it was, just that there was a horse race and a woman who wore a french hat (a casquette!) and there was an awful lot of awkward romance. I kept trailing off writing and staring at the screen with a fond smile on my face. I'm pretty sure the horse was named Durango, they repeated it about a zillion times.

Nano report day 3 and 4.

My novel - which I have named Red Riding - is going pretty well. I learned that I can crank about about a thousand words during lunchtime. This is an improvement from last year, where my lunchtime wordcount was about 600-800. I don't know where the extra 200 words an hour are coming from, but hey. Gift horse.

I'm still slightly ahead of the curve for when I start to fall behind because I'm, oh, GMing a game of Dnd or mooching gourmet food off of the guy who runs Exalted for us. Or, yanno, family holidays or the week that I'm /hoping/ Josh will get off work before they start whipping him to put more fur on digital puppets.

Either way! Writing.

In my story last night, my main character (MC) Red (Yes, I know she has a stereotypical name, but it's kind of required because of the natureof the fairytale/horror/epic poem storyline) was talking on the phone while riding in a taxi. Since my taxi driver could obviously hear her, he stopped her on the way out and basically told her she should claim her city as territory like her parents did to protect it from supernatural beasties. The only problem with this is, of course, that he used some really reactionary, extremist language to do so. So now Red is posed with a philosophical conundrum. She nominally agrees with him that someone should do something about the influx of dangerous netherworld creatures, though she's not convinced it should be her, but she is greatly disgusted at the blanket bigotry being applied to Physical In-The-World People-Eating Monsters.

Red got real uncomfy real fast, especially since her plan - even though she doesn't want to admit it - is to hunt down the people/creatures who attacked her friend and deal with them in what probably won't be a 'throw 'em in jail and let the authorities sort it out' kind of confrontation. She doesn't want this random guy's extremist argument tarring her actions, because she already knows she's stepping into a moral gray area by falling back to vigilantism however justified by the world built around her.

Anyways, this bit just came out of nowhere last night. Don't know if it will stick in the final version, but for Nano it's turning into an interesting part of the 'following in her parents footsteps' subplot.

Day 1 (and 2) report.

Happy November!

I have begun Nanowrimo in earnest and have, much to my surprise, completed the first chapter of my scrawny little book as of *checks watch* about 1 pm today.

I'm not sure how I feel about how things are going so far. I'm writing in a new style, some of which is choice and some of which is just so utterly 'I have no idea what's going on' that I can barely stand it. I think it has something to do with the perspective I'm using. Since it's first-person and my main character is very no-nonsense, the prose is very no-nonsense.

I just hope it's not also very boring.

It seems to be the order of the day to not have wireless internet at any of the places I've been choosing to write, so I've been trying to scatter multiple copies of my baby book across several computers and have been attempting to use DropBox and Gmail to save bits and pieces, just in case. Never can be too careful.

First chapter events: Red shot a monster, called an ambulance, and chatted briefly with a psychopomp.

Current word count (CWC): 3800 or thereabouts.

Nanowrimo Approacheth

I don't think I'm a natural blogger. I'm a wordsmith-in-my-head-on-boring-days-at-work writer, but not a sharer. I think I'd have to be more of a sharer to blog as often as some bloggers do. I love reading bloggers', um, blogs. I also love reading writers' blogs, but writers' blogs don't update nearly as often.

It occurred to me today that I haven't posted since July. July! I even skipped past my birthday and didn't even mention it. (It's the 19th of October, btw)

It's not that I haven't had anything to say. I simply don't post because I forget I have a blog. Blogging isn't in my blood like writing is.

I am doing Nanowrimo this year! (The peasants rejoice~) So, I figure if I remember that this is here, I might post updates on my progress.

Little Rules

If I had a list of rules, this would be it:

* Never stop learning.
* Never apologize if you do not regret your actions, even if that is the appropriate social response.
* Do not make excuses. Explain if necessary, but own your responsibilities.
* Get pissed off if you're pissed off. Get sad if you're sad.
* If you have a problem, sort it out. Address the problem directly and asap.
* Don't try to fix everyone.
* Bask when others shine.
* Parse constructive criticism from opinion.
* Don't hurt people through carelessness and/or cruelty.
* Tell the truth as you know it.
* Omit the unnecessary.
* Communicate

The rule I break most often is 'Communicate'. I neglect to tell people what I'm doing, when, and with whom. This mis-communication has resulted in more than one upset person, especially if that person was one with whom I have plans or was supposed to have plans.

The thing I must work on the most is 'Bask when other Shine'. Sometimes I err in my judgment of situations and bring in a buzzkill. I've been scolded by others to be happy for them. I love it when my friends do awesome things, so I am always happy for them. :) When the high is half fantasy, however, it's hard for me not to say something - anything - because I know they'll be disappointed when the high wears off and reality sets back in. It's happened around me more than once, but I've been training myself to keep my mouth shut and trying to adopt an 'enjoy the high' outlook.

The rule I follow most closely is 'Never stop Learning'. :)

Playon is posting!

Playon is starting to post results on their longitudinal study of WoW players. This is utterly awesome for the very simple fact that I love Nick Yee on principle. He's been a huge hero of mine since I found his Daedalus project while I was in college. I would definitely fangirl if I ever met him, if I could manage to say anything at all.

Anyhow, he and Nic Ducheneaut (who datamines and thus is cool in my book) have been posting very interesting things on their blog for the enjoyment of the internet.

One of the things I noticed they mentioned was that they have a higher reporting of women players in the US than average estimations. I'm thinking that's probably because someone (might have been me >_>, but I don't remember) posted the study announcement on WoW_Ladies. As far as I know, the WoW_Ladies livejournal community is the largest collection of wow-community-active women on the internet. The fact that many of the Ladies love this kind of thing probably has skewed the results a teeny bit.

So far, the most interesting post - for me - has been their Gender-Bending prelim results.

The graph above shows how often (in a ratio of days played) a male or female player chooses to play a character of the opposite gender. This isn't self-reported data, this is them combing through reported characters and registering their up-time. The very interesting thing is that women play male characters about 10% of the time and men about a third of the time.

I could posit why more males gender bend than women and it has to do with the concentrated gamer culture. Women get way more shit than men for being women (men get shit, but it's for other reasons) and compounding that with 'but y u play a boy?' it gets really uncomfortable really fast. My first 'main' charrie was a boy and it was frustrating for a long list of reasons. Now, I know that my experiences don't map 100% to other women gamer experiences, but I've been in enough discussions to know that the uncomfortable-factor plays a part in more than just mine. Not all, but a significant amount.

To change gears, however, on the longer-term that has nothing to do with male vs. female, one of my pet theories of why women don't reflect men in some activities is that there are a lot of women who are brand new to gaming within the last two or three years. It takes a while for the gamer mentality to percolate (for good or ill).

The activities that are ostensibly androgynous at a certain level of detachment/involvement take a while to get to. The only other example I have is that online long-format roleplayers (who essentially write collaborative stories online) often play only their gender when they first start out before creating characters of the opposite. Or authors only writing convincing opposite sex characters after they have matured as writers. It's a comfort thing, and a stereotype thing.

So when I say that women are new, I mean that for the women who didn't get their start in MUDs and wander into graphical MMOs, WoW was the beginning and it has only been out about 5 years and change. If women who game do not have the incentive of roleplay to explore opposite-gender characters, 5 years makes no impact.

I hypothesize that the ratio for women gender-bending will look the same as men in ten years - with the caveat that some gamer culture change would have to take place. Additionally, since the Playon survey does not include minors, I hypothesize that the picture of male minors looks an awful lot like the picture of female minors. I honestly think that gender-bending - all other things being equal (which they're not, but if they were!) - would boil down to simple experience.

The radical difference in the gender-bending ratios by gender ask 'Why?', which I think is an interesting discussion no matter where you're coming from.

Best Diet == Sustainable Lifestyle Change

Diet:

1. The usual food and drink of a person or animal.

2. A regulated selection of foods, as for medical reasons or cosmetic weight loss.

3. Something used, enjoyed, or provided regularly

A diet-with-respect-to-food, for me, is a combination of all three of the official definitions. A enjoyable, sustainable regulation of intake that constitutes your usual food and drink. The concept that you can go 'on a diet' for a temporary period of time and expect it to have long-term results stops making logical sense after I process the word temporary.

My weight is my weight, and your weight is your weight. Even if there are health issues involved, or there is a lack of access to food that doesn't screw up your body, or you have psychological issues and damage as a result of any number of chronic or acute mental traumas, or you have low activity (for whatever reason), or any other factor that makes up your weight, your body is doing the best it can with the tools it has. Don't hate on your body for doing what bodies are designed to do.

Sometimes your body wonks out, trips a circuit breaker and goes haywire, or starts breaking down. Your body is a collection of algorithms, processes, responses, reactions, and automations. It doesn't necessarily know how things are going to turn out for you 10 years down the road, but it sure as hell is trying its best to run right now no matter the circumstances. Your meatsuit is gamely trying to keep up with everything happening that makes it respond and adapt.

The cumulative algorithm analogy, of course, works best under the assumption that you are not your body. That your totality cannot be expressed with the physical alone and, even further, that your physical is not under your direct conscious control. Treating the body as a machine, computer, or vessel works from the fundamental idea that human beings are greater than sum of their parts, that a human's gestalt incorporates the body, but is not defined by the body.

To be absolutely fair, certain disciplines can (or at least claim to) give you amazing conscious physical control over usually automatic processes. However, for me and most of the people I know, our bodies are like our cars. I know how to change oil and flat tires, but the intricacies of the timing belts for an interference engine is a little beyond my immediate capability or interest. Additionally, this viewpoint is based heavily on the mind/body dichotomies or mind/body/soul trichotomies of western thought.

My point is that the best diet is a sustainable lifestyle change. It's not an isolated thing. Every algorithm your body uses to determine weight and health has hundreds of variables, some as blatant as 'I ate a Big Mac every day for forty years and I feel fine' and some as subtle as 'I function better in dry climates or low altitude'. As Dianne Sylvan (in the post that prompted my post/rant) says, "Each person has a [...] healthy zone of size, diet, and activity in which they function optimally without having to do anything extraordinary to maintain that health." I wanted to jump up and down and scream 'Yes! This!'

Your body's doing the best it can with the tools it has. You can sometimes offer it better tools, but that's not always an option. Punishing yourself - or having others punish you - for 'choices' that you have no control over is ridiculous. If there are ARE choices you can make (the ones that are not dangerous, short-sighted, uninformed, or unpleasant), then give yourself different tools and don't confuse your body by swapping them around constantly.

I hit a point a year or so ago where my activity level dropped to nothing, my food intake shot up with access to new-job money and increased stress, I was coping with a new sleeping schedule, and trying to sort out a new routine. With all of these factors, I offered my body a set of tools that it took and I gained about 25 pounds. Not much, nothing near what others struggle with, but enough that I /felt/ the difference.

It was little things. I panted more going up stairs. I had less energy. I was crankier and even more asocial than usual. Tiny, insignificant things that said, "you are not running on all cylinders" and "there's a bug in the system."

I have a very blase attitude towards food and weight. I am privileged in that I could, in High School and College, eat whatever I wanted to and because of my activity levels, it never adversely affected me. Even when I grew out of 'gawky string-bean' and into 'I have hips!', I basically said, "Fuckit, I love my hips and anyone who tries to make me feel bad about them will get a sock in the nose." I'm lazy as hell, I know it, and I embraced it because I'm Contrary and trying to keep up with the 'ideal' was something my Contrary side fought against. When I started actually feeling physically bad I kind of had to smack myself in the forehead and say, "Well, shit. You can't lean on luck and circumstance anymore." I am thankful that I am employed and able-bodied enough to buy body-friendly food and perform physical activity. I made a lifestyle change towards walking and biking more places and started informing myself about ingredients and quantities of food I was intaking and lost the weight and - more importantly - returned to my happier, not-panting-up-the-stairs self.

I'm physically a very large person, about 200 lbs at my natural weight, and comfortable with that. By BMI standards, I'm fat. I only care because I prefer to be informed; I do not think it applies to me. It's my body, my machine.

Keeping myself within optimum operating parameters is sensible, so that is what I strive to do. My body is chugging along the best she can, and I respect her for her effort. It's not fair of me to blame her when nothing about her weight, shape, or size is actually her fault. She's simply a machine and what I put in is what I get out. If something breaks, I adapt for her sake and mine. She's not a conscious entity out to get me. I must be kind to her, accommodate her and understand her when she does something strange, but as a machine, she can never be inherently bad.

There is so much more to me than just my physical appearance, and I object most strenuously to being defined by it. I object to being defined by any facet of myself, but that's another rant for another time.

Anyway - a diet must be a sustainable lifestyle change if there is any hope of changing the operation and response of my body. Garbage in, garbage out. There is no ideal, shape or weight that anyone else can define for me because statistics can only go so far and - as part of how they are generated - are not tailored to individuals who are magnificent chemical cocktails and masses of moving parts, and any one part might never approach average (or even functioning). I can only attempt to put Non-Garbage in and trying to get Non-Garbage out. On top of physical food and exercise input, mental and situational factors can determine how much Non-Garbage I have to work with. This is obvious to me, especially after my stressful no-job period after college and watching my other stressed-out, unemployed friends gain weight.

The bottom line is that temporary diets are logically fallacious, my body can never be out to get me, and my weight is natural no matter what it ends up or how far from supposed 'correct' it gets.