Just to let any denizens of New York or Boston know, Richard & I are going to be in your fair cities next week. Yes, I know I should have mentioned this earlier. Really haven't had enough spoons to plan anything lately. I think I might still be somewhat in denial about it all. The Freezepop 10th Anniversary? Yay! Kasson leaving Freezepop? *sob*

We'll be in New York from lunchtime Wed 22nd July until early afternoon Fri 24th, then in Boston until the last flight on Mon 27th. The whole of Saturday 25th is reserved for the Freezepop 10th Anniversary show, and much of Sunday 26th will be spent hanging around with hoopycat and veryfineredwine. (We're all sharing a hotel room together for the trip.)

If you happen to have any spare time to see us, I'd love to see you. (Richard will enjoy spending time with you but will probably forget who you are almost immediately. No offence should be taken by this, it's just what he does. I regularly have to remind him of people, in a format similar to "You know. So-and-so! Who we met at such-a-place on such-a-time for that-event!". You should be highly complimented any time that he spontaneously remembers your existence and asks about you later!)

Tags: boston, freezepop, new york, travel, wuzzie
Current Mood: weird

I'm amazed no one on my friendslist linked to this: BBC News: A job centre is advertising a "witch" vacancy with tourist site Wookey Hole, in Somerset, for £50,000 a year. Although it turns out to be £50,000 pro rata, which could be considerably less. Still, I'm sure I know several people qualified for the job.

AWKWARD ZOMBIE: Shelled. The rather amusing video game comic features Okami.

Compulsory Reading. An "essay" about having turned into "a person who doesn't read enough" by Alison Bechdel of Dykes to Watch Out For and Fun Home.

Xylocopa.com: The Complete Ukulele Guide to the Moustaches of the World. A ukelele made entirely of wood panelling, featuring "complete coverage of the 25 major moustache groups, enabling you to instantly identify any moustache you spot without even putting down your ukulele." Really quite something.

Also, apparently this is news: Cats 'exploit' humans by purring. Really?! I am shocked, and horrified!

Tags: links
Current Mood: blah

Richard is not only listening to Dream Theater, but also singing along in falsetto.

For context, Richard doesn't sing.

Tags: music, wuzzie
Current Mood: scared

Today I am Unimpressed with Threadless.com. Having spent a while on their site choosing stuff, I've come to pay for my order and discovered that it is not possible for me to buy things for someone who lives in another country to me.

Can shipping and billing addresses be different?
As long as the billing and shipping addresses are in the same country, you can use different billing and shipping addresses.

Now, this just seems bizarre. I can only assume it's some sort of fraud prevention thing, but... for the size of order we're talking about, I can't see why it's necessary. I mean, let's go on a t-shirt buying spree with a stolen credit card! Doesn't quite work, does it?

In this internet age tons of people have friends who live in different countries to themselves. It seems absolutely ridiculous for me to have to wait two weeks to receive a t-shirt in the UK, pay huge customs charges (the borderline here is so low - £18 iirc - that sometimes even one t-shirt can make you have to pay charges. I don't mind the % duty so much, but it's the £8/£9/£10 fixed fee "handling charge" that kills me, often doubling the cost of the order when postage is also considered), only to have to send it straight back to the US, taking another two weeks before it gets to my friend!

And it's just not the same if I PayPal over the amount of money to my friend and get him to buy his own present...

Tags: internet drama, rants
Current Mood: grumpy

For kightp and rjw1, and everyone else who loves bacon: Bacon Salt! Makes everything taste like bacon! Also Baconnaisse, which is bacon-flavoured mayonnaise. All the products are vegetarian and kosher (!), some are vegan.

For epi_lj and stellarwind: Awesome games of great awesomeness! Personally, I think that wuzzie and I should get Accordion Hero II, but Cthulhu Karts is also appealing. Note to meeping and gerwinium: Nacht Musik sounds like the best haunted house horror crossover since Typing of the Dead. And what Sims or Animal Crossing fan could resist Grand Theft Ottoman?

For anyone who knows enough about Pokemon to get the joke: Murderous Magikarp t-shirt. I want. Does not exist in girl sizes though, grumble.

Why is the coolest thing on the list fake?

Tags: links, surrealism
Current Mood: amused

I've started reducing my dose of Efexor, so as expected, I am feeling more than half-dead. Except things aren't really going the way I was expecting. I thought I'd get migraines, pins and needles, brain shivers and weird electrical discharges, as those are the symptoms I get when I forget a dose. Instead, I seem to have become basically comatose. Crashing out for 12 or more hours and still exhausted once I've struggled back into consciousness. As I write this, I've been "awake" for an hour, have thick black circles under my eyes, am yawning my head off, and feel ready to zonk out again.

I'm not sure whether I'm having the promised "bizarre dreams", because my dreams are always bizarre... but I certainly seem to be having a lot of dreams relative to the amount of sleep I'm getting. Which could be why I'm so tired.

Tags: drugs being annoying, sleep disorders
Current Mood: exhausted

For anyone who was wondering/worrying, my application form is DONE and was dropped off at the Registry yesterday.

Currently enjoying a few days of not having to do anything important before I start all the jobs for the summer. Like sorting and posting all the photos from my camera over the past couple of years, a massive reduction in the entropy of our house... Probably trying to find some work-for-money (though there is little tutoring available over the summer holiday) so I'm not completely broke come September.

Richard is going away early on Thursday morning and won't be back until very late on Sunday, so I will need company to stop me going completely insane. Especially as I may be in the middle of a week-long migraine and so have no patience or desire to do anything. If you can cope with me when I'm a grumpy bitch then please sign up now ;)

The thermometer outside our house is claiming it's 31.7 degrees C. I think it's probably overestimating due to direct sunlight on the probe, but even taking that into account... it's hot and humid! For those of you who are interested in such things, I am typing this while naked. Need to go shopping, but can't face putting clothes on yet.

Tags: drugs being annoying, project x-2, wuzzie
Current Mood: hot

Went to the doctor this morning. Now have the timetable for my Several Months of Living Hell, a.k.a. coming off Efexor.

It is a very well-known fact that venlafaxine Is Evil, which is why it's usually only given to people who have not responded properly to any other antidepressant. Coming off venlafaxine is "fun". So much fun that it can be really dangerous for you and others around you. In fact, it's even possible to have such bad symptoms that you think you're having a stroke.

My doctor wants me to go reeeeeeeally slowly. 75 mg per month or less, meaning it'll take a minimum of three months to reduce my dose from 225 mg to zero. I'm not liking the look of this at all. I'm especially not liking the fact you can't get 37.5 mg extended release capsules in the UK, so I'm going to have to make up intermediate doses with a combination of the extended release capsules and the regular tablets. Seeing how badly it affected me when I got tablets instead of capsules one time by mistake, I'm quite scared.

So if you are around me over the next few months, in person, on the phone or online, and I seem to be acting like a psycho bitch from hell: a) please understand it's not my fault and b) TELL ME! Because I don't always know that I'm behaving like a crazy person until someone else points it out, and I need to know that I'm not right in order to stop it. Also, I have a higher-than-average chance of going manic (Efexor is pretty much THE WORST antidepressant still in common usage for triggering rapid cycling), so be aware that if I'm bouncing off the walls it may not be a good thing. Ask me some basic questions to see if my inhibition is lowered. Though I'd prefer it if you didn't ACT on the results of whatever I say. ("Do you want to have sex with me, on this table, in front of everyone, right now?" might well get the answer of "YES!!" even if I don't fancy you.)

Or just shoot me to be done with it :P

Tags: bipolar, drugs being annoying, mental health
Current Mood: worried

Am I really the only person who thinks that Michael Jackson faked his own death? ( Read more... )

Tags: fraud, h-l is weird
Current Mood: cynical

Bah. I had hoped to be spending the rest of this week a) cycling and b) playing bass guitar, and not a lot else. Instead I need to get my PhD application form submitted because that's what's needed in order for me to apply for the College Research Studentship. It's fees only for three years, but even that is a considerable amount of money.

I don't like filling in application forms at the best of times, let alone ones where I'm supposed to tell people how awesome I am. And it wants me to suggest a research proposal, which is all still up in the air depending on whether my first choice of supervisor can sort certain things out. Blargh.

Tags: college, project x-2
Current Mood: stressed

So, how exactly do you go about approaching an academic that you admire and say "Can I be your PhD student? Please?".

Apparently there exists some sort of college academic scholarship which you have to apply for by 29th June, and apparently the person I want to work with isn't going to be around for most of this week, so I need to talk to him asap. Argh. I'd been hoping to have stalkedresearched his entire paper output on the Web of Science and read all of them before going to see him.

Well, I've arranged a meeting for 4pm tomorrow and I'll spend as much of the morning as exists in the British Library.

Tags: college, project x-2
Current Mood: curious

I got my "dissertation" in on time. It is pretty awful due to the fact that 2/3 of it was written today. Apparently I went completely overboard and read 70 references before I started writing anything. And then didn't have enough time to include all of the interesting things I found out. Bah. I didn't even have time for childish livejournal posts in which I giggled about "molecular surface matching of knobs and holes" or the method called SPERM (Superposition by PERMutations)!

Still, it is done and I don't have to worry about it any more. Just wish I'd had the weekend to finish it off, even if Sunday is my birthday. (I'd rather have spent my birthday writing a dissertation so it was finished properly than have handed it in rushed and not very finished. Yes, I am strange.) At least it's crap because I didn't have enough time, rather than because that was the best I could manage...

Tags: college, moaning
Current Mood: blah
Current Music: Richard drumming to Rock Band.

Argh! Does anyone have any spoons they could lend me for a few days? I'm physically and mentally exhausted (to the point where I've been having trouble walking) but I have to get this dissertation finished by 6pm tomorrow. Any kind of spoons will do - metal, plastic, wooden, beaten up, chipped, the one that you keep down the back of the sofa for emergencies... I'm hoping that I'll be given lots of spoons for my birthday, see, and I can pay you back then.

I will never, never, never, NEVER leave coursework until the last minute again. Well, at least, not until the next time that I'm sick or depressed and incapable of working in a more timely manner :/

Tags: college, spoon management
Current Mood: stressed

I've been speed-reading academic papers for a couple of days. This is because I am working on my dissertation. Actually, "dissertation" isn't a good name for this piece of coursework. Normally a dissertation is a presentation of your own research, whereas this is more of a literature report - read a load of papers and condense them into a coherent piece in your own words with references. Anyway, you know what academic style is like, and reading too many papers all in one go does break your brain rather.

Thus it becomes incredibly funny when I find sentences like this in the middle of an article: Several therapeutically used drugs bind to more than one receptor and are correspondingly termed "promiscuous" ligands.

Tags: chemistry, college, h-l is weird
Current Mood: amused

I wanted to forward a link which skibbley posted today, as it's actually rather impressive. The National Health Service trust for a relatively small area of the UK (200,000 people) actively tried to find out how many transgendered people were living in the area so that they could improve their services. It's surprisingly well-designed, and clearly acknowledges all the limitations, yet manages to draw several useful conclusions and recommendations nonetheless.

I especially like the bits about hitting GPs with a cluebat, and making sure all of the healthcare workers in the Trust are using the same guidelines and criteria. The points about how the majority of trans people become "stealth" post-transition and the increase in the number of children with gender dysphoria presenting for treatment are particularly worth a provider of healthcare noticing. It is important that trans people who retain some of their original body parts (e.g. prostates & cervices), are offered the appropriate screening in a sensitive manner, and it's important that a coherent policy exists for dealing with children too young to consent to surgery that is more useful than "send them away until they're 18". 

Obviously, the document isn't going to be directly relevant to people who live in countries without state-sponsored healthcare, but I'm sure some of these conclusions and recommendations would be worth forwarding to insurance companies if you have enough energy to do so.

Calderdale NHS Survey of the Trans Population (pdf). 

I'm not screening comments because I don't have enough time to unscreen the useful ones, but if you want to say something privately, post anonymously. Ideally signed with your name or lj name so I know who you are :)

Tags: gender, links, queer
Current Mood: impressed

Am weirded out. Chained up outside the pub at the end of our road is an adult-sized bike which has: a pink fluorescent frame, a yellow fluorescent fork, a small green fluorescent bit, fat pink tyres and silver streamers hanging off the ends of the handlebars. I didn't even know you could *get* pink tyres.

The really scary thing is that if it was only fluorescent pink with none of the nasty neon yellow, and with black tyres, I'd quite like it. Probably not surprising from the owner of this dress. (Or this one).

Tags: h-l is weird
Current Mood: weird

Saw Tim & Peter tonight for pizza & polar bear exchange. (We co-parent a small plushy polar bear called Knut, who came from Iceland yet is a replica of Knut from Berlin Zoo when he was a fluffy baaaaaby rather than a Godless Killing Machine. If this doesn't make sense to you, don't ask.) Pizza was beyond excellent as it always is in Italian Graffitti, polar bear was naughty, surreal conversation occurred. I love them dearly, especially for the huge amount of help they've given me with my recent crisis.

I do not love that Tim gave me an earworm of the Philippe song, a.k.a. Freezepop's most silly song EVER, about Philippe the otter from Achewood. I may need to surgically extract my brain to get rid of it. Meanwhile, Richard was so discombobulated that he accidentally left a 115% tip by entering the amount he meant to pay in the tip box. Oops. If that's what happens on one glass of red wine, it's just as well he didn't have any Limoncello liqueur.

HUGS!

Tags: food porn, freezepop, tim+peter, wuzzie
Current Mood: silly

My neighbour, at business address 242A, is trying to change energy supplier from EDF to Scottish Power.
I, at residential address 242, am not trying to change energy supplier.
EDF think that I am and that they're not. And I have to get this sorted out a.s.a.p. before we get cut off (and they get billed twice).
Argh!

How difficult is it to understand the difference between 242 and 242A?

Tags: house, people are stupid
Current Mood: irritated

So, um... I realised somewhat belatedly that I was manic the whole of last week. That would explain the lack of sleep, the hyperactivity, the super-rapid mood shifts... I don't seem to do pure mania, but I have weird hypomanic mixed states where I oscillate between extreme perkiness and severe anxiety/panic attacks. I'm still not very good at identifying them, because, well... being bouncy/perky must always be good, right? Hmm.

On Friday night/Saturday morning, Something Very Bad happened. The sort of thing that I would never do if I was in proper control of myself. One of those bipolar impulsiveness thing that you start regretting as soon as you're back in your right brain. As a result I had to go out at the crack of dawn on Saturday for emergency medical treatment, with a followup yesterday evening and this afternoon. Yes, I am being deliberately vague about what happened and I want to keep it that way. (Apologies to the terminally nosy :P ).

I think I'm okay now mentally, but I have completely screwed up the exam I did on Monday due to doing no revision because I spent the whole weekend crying. (Three hours quickly skimming notes on Monday morning doesn't really count, does it?). Have obtained a mitigating circumstances form from college and a letter from the doctor to say I was mad, also going to talk to my mental health mentor who probably has a better idea of what to write on the form than I do. Still rather sore physically, and realising that there is Stuff From My Past that I *do* actually need to speak to someone about. Should have asked the doctor today about getting back in the queue for psychotherapy, damn. Kinda had other things on my mind.

Also, my personal tutor is now officially in need of a medal. I phoned him on Sunday night and he spent 20 minutes saying helpful things and being comforting while I cried. ("It's only an exam and your health is more important" being the one that I remember best - I'm often bad at priorities). How exactly do you go about nominating people for things like CBEs and MBEs? He needs some sort of official certification of awesomeness. I wonder if the college has any kind of award for staff who go way beyond the call of duty with regard to student welfare. If they don't, I'll go and moan at my friend in the student union until they come up with something ;)

Tags: aargh, bipolar, college
Current Mood: blah

Argh! As if I wasn't stressed enough already!

Tags: aargh, crypticism
Current Mood: worried