Life is pretty good! Here are some updates that were too large to send to Twitter! It’s an exclam day! I'm vaguely sick but I took cold medicine so I'm still enthusiastic and excitable and a bit loopy!

• Magic: I’m playing Magic! I meant not to get into it super seriously, but I got recruited into a team, cardagain.com, and now I’m editing for their website and sponsored to play in major events. Oops! It’s super fun, and while if you don’t play Magic you don’t care, we recently got Travis Woo as a writer, and you can see a cool new article of his here! If you like it and want to share it around that would be awesome too I guess? I dunno, I'm terrible at social media. cardagain wants to be, like, magiccards.info plus tcgplayer when we grow up, and some of the features (visual decklists sorted by CMC) are already very cool.
• Computers: The Homestuck Shipping World Cup kind of took up a hobby slot this summer. I don’t really care about the event at this point, and didn’t really participate as a fan, but I’m on the mod team, and did almost all of the coding. I feel like a way more proficient programmer than six months ago. Not _good_, but proficient, which feels nice. I can take python and sqlite and make them do things that someone might want software to do. It’s been very confidence boosty, and I _finally_ learned git. I’ve also gotten to play sysadmin, since it’s all hosted off of my server. I originally planned this as a way to have a record of me being able to do things with computers if I lost my job, but…
• Work: I was worried I might lose my job because the work I had been doing was kind of drying up, but instead, I got promoted into new responsibilities! I’m doing new and different stuff, which is really refreshing! I’m not good at it and that’s mostly great because I get to learn things but it’s occasionally terrifying!
• Therapy: I’ve been doing the therapy thing again after all the horrible bullshit from a year or two back. In the past I used to do mean things to future rax, and in the more recent past, I started doing nice things for future rax, and that’s treated me very well for the last few years. Right now I’m trying to figure out doing nice things for past rax. It’s super cool. It’s definitely hard and going to stay hard and… intersects with some kind of spirituality in weird ways I haven’t figured out yet? I dunno. I’ll talk more about that if I figure it out, maybe.
• Travel: Has been awesome!!! So many wonderful people and I get to see them in so many wonderful places, between Boston and SF and Seattle and random road trips from those places and so on and so forth. (Also, I edited /home/rax/random-text/people-history/people-i-have-kissed for the first time in a long time, and it was great. <3)
• Music: Has taken a bit of a back seat! But I’m getting back in the groove and have two DJ sets in September and one or two in November and I’ve already started working on them because it remains _super fun_.

That’s about it. Hope y’all are doing wel!

• Realized this morning while talking to Krinn that I am simultaneously very stressed and not depressed at all, which is unusual for me. It's kind of amazing, because I am not depressed, fuck yes. But in the past when I've been super stressed the depression was kind of a coping mechanism around not caring that much because, you know, nothing really matters. (Anyone can see.) And so why bother engaging with the stress? Right now, I care, dammit. I want to do well in my classes. I want to do well in my job. I want to support my friends and loved ones. And daaaaaang that's a lot of work. I will take it over the alternative, although I really want to reduce the stress, because I can feel it weighing on me (and I'm grinding my teeth in my sleep a lot, ugh --- this is something that has happened intermittently to me since I was small, and tends to go away when I get my stress levels back down to manageable, although apparently it has been pretty consistent lately; at one point I tried a mouthguard and it stopped the grinding but also caused me to wake up all the time, which was not worth it). 
• Grad school: Classes are getting better, which is pretty great, and I am enjoying the majority of my readings a fair bit, even though occasionally I look at something like Descartes and think "While I understand that I should have read this in order to get a PhD in something humanitiesy, this is so fucking dumb." [0] I've also been spending time meeting faculty from other departments and traversing the academy in order to find people to work with on my research. I'm not quite sure where this process will end up yet but if nothing else the conversations are really exciting and fun. I actually found someone in academia who knew what a furry was! That was pretty awesome. There is also stupid departmental drama but it does not merit my or your attention to discuss further. [1] Overall I am feeling more excited and motivated, which was good, because I was at a really low point like a month ago.
• Work: Has been slow this week, which is nice because I had a paper due yesterday. This working 6-2 or 6:30-2:30 thing is a little crazy, but ultimately works out. In general work is pretty awesome. I need to figure out when I next go and visit them; sometimes the phone can be a little tough. On the plus side, I am actually helping customers do real work of value, which is a hard feeling to beat. And I have metrics! And I do well at them! Oh, if only gender studies had metrics.
• Pokemon: This is sort of my main leisure-time activity? I played in some tournaments, came away with one Championship Point (if you get enough, you get an invite to the World Championships), and most importantly had a lot of fun. I got a little down at one event where I made a stupid mistake and lost a chance at a very high place because of it, but what can you do? ... If you are me the answer is apparently "play a bunch of games of speed chess afterward to calm your nerves." One of the people I played with said "It's cool, dude, this is just for fun" and my response was "This is how I have fun." He gave me a look, which was fair, but I wasn't joking. I will be going to a Regionals tournament, which should be much bigger and allow me to meet lots of new people. It's sort of like meeting new people through chess, except everyone isn't either a middle-aged man or a nine-year-old prodigy. [2]
• Tucson: Making friends is slow but proceeds apace; feeling enmeshed in the community will take some more work, which I hope to put in over time. But oh my god the climate, the geography, the materiality of this place are so perfect for me. I love the mountains. I love the sky. I love the air, I love the bike lanes, I love the plant life, I even love the terrifying peccaries who show up in packs and hold my house under siege. (Seriously. Pigs the size of small wolves.) I wish I had more time to engage with it all. I need to prioritize engaging with it all. I, just, it's mid-October and the high today is 93. HOW DID I EVER LIVE ANYWHERE ELSE.
• House in Bloomington: Is pending a sale with a signed offer. I am not counting my chickens until they hit puberty, but this is promising. I will be losing a ton of money but I am just, barely, by a finger, in the range of acceptable losses.
• Friends and loved ones: A lot of people very dear to me are going through some really bad shit right now, and that is part of why I am so stressed. There's not so much I can do about it, but I do what I can; if there's something I can do for you that I don't realize, please drop me a line. I don't have a lot of temporal resources, but I have many other kinds. And I care. <3
• In conclusion: I'm a stressball (oh god am I a stressball, fur flying everywhere) but I am nonetheless happy. Reducing stress levels is probably important longterm, but I prefer this situation to a whole lot of recent alternatives.

[0] Terrifying thought: Do other people think this about the authors I like??
[1] It is based on real issues and has real effects on people I care about, and thus is worth mentioning, but the way to deal with that is not to rehash it all on LJ.
[2] This is sort of an unfair characterization --- in particular there were a couple of awesome women who were also very strong players in the Boston chess scene --- but it's how it feels at large events especially. And I'm being nice to Pokemon; while there are a lot more women in the game overall, the top levels are still mostly male, and a lot of the online community is awfully... representative of structural gender inequalities and biases. So far though tournaments and leagues have been super pleasant, and the only person I've seen do something obviously sexist was a twelve-year-old who shat a brick when I called him on it.

So, gender!

For a while now I've been mumbling about maybe using gender-neutral pronouns or something because I have this discomfort with gender. My name is Rachel, and I present myself as female, and you might think I'd be reasonably happy about both of those because I picked them. And in some ways I am! Because damn, are they better than the alternative.

Except that "the alternative" is a false choice; I don't have to choose either or. I could pick preferred pronouns of "they" or "ey" or "hir" or "xyzzy" and most of you would respect it and a lot of you would even use it most or all of the time. That's pretty awesome! I could say that my gender was "neuter" or "other" or "awesome" and that would be great. It's something I appreciate about my friends and even some of my family that this is true. I appreciate it a lot, and I work to extend the same courtesy to everyone, though particularly those folks who ask me for it.

Problem is: I can't get that from strangers, and that's who I actually want it from. I don't care that much if my friends treat me as female, because I think it has way less impact on how they treat me overall; sure, there's some amount of ingrained gender bias and I did notice people treating me differently before and after transition, but people who know me well think of me as more than a gender, even though they do think of me as having a gender. And I am OK with that. I did pick it, after all, even though I picked it from fewer options than I realize now that I might have had.

What really bothers me is when strangers and acquaintances and use gendered language for me. I don't want to be Mrs. Dillon (which I've been called like ten times today) and I don't want to be Ms. Dillon either. Mx. Dillon is tolerable, at least; I'd rather not have a title at all, but if I have to I would like it to not be dependent on my vagina. [0] I feel similarly about pronouns and social expectations and all manner of things. But at the moment I don't really have any desire to declare my gender other or change my pronouns or change much about my presentation, because I don't think it would change the situations I really care about. I want people on the phone who I will never talk to again to not use sir or ma'am, because it shouldn't matter, and they make it matter and I don't like it. I don't care if people I know well use that kind of language, though. Usually. [1]

I don't really have a point here, other than this is more formed than my usual pointing at gender and going "Urgh! Meh!" and so I figured I would write it down. I realize that I could ask random people on the phone to not use gendered language, and I could enforce that in all social situations, but it isn't worth it for me right now; the effort threshhold of saying "I prefer you not refer to me as ma'am or sir" to the clerk at the store is higher, to me, than just dealing with it. I recognize that not to be the case for some people and I totally support that! It's just not me, right now.

This comes up in part because I've had people in my new department ask me pronoun preference and I said "she or they, whichever" and they were like "...whichever?" and I was like "Yeah, basically." Because that's where I'm at, right now? It's a moving target, who knows where if anywhere it is going. If you wanna call me "they" and "Mx." I am neutral to vaguely positive on that. "male pronouns are still wrong, thanks"

[0] Or more correctly the social expectation that I have a vagina, and thus a particular set of social obligations, based on the way I am presented and present myself.

[1] There's one coworker who calls me darling, who does not accept correction on this (when I asked him not to, he started calling me sir, which is worse). In basically all other ways I really like working with him. I'm mostly used to it, but it's kinda frustrating.

Maybe I'll try to do one of these "things that aren't class notes or tasklists" posts a week.

• So far, new housemate is awesome, and there's ample space in the house so I don't feel trod upon but there's someone else to talk to periodically. That's basically ideal. (Also, I think his alarm is going off at... 11 AM. Damn, crazy nightshifted people. (edited to add: I think he turned it off and went back to sleep. :P )) A mutual friend of ours is considering taking the remaining room --- I'm trying not to get too excited but it would basically be perfect. 
• This weekend featured great conversations with people I hold dear, which is always excellent. It may even feature more, although I expect today to be mostly homework with a side of housework; I spent more time yesterday on social than I had initially budgeted.
• I tried to run errands this morning, but stores aren't open at 9 AM on a Sunday. I guess everyone else is either hung over or at church. Well, I wanna buy some stuff! Come on, people! (In particular I am out of soy sauce and do not wish to pay Bloomingfoods prices when I could just go to the Asian grocery. I wil stop by on my way home from class in the next couple of days, I guess.)
• My Pokédex is now at 441; if I have time this evening I will be making a list of everything I need, and how I can go about getting it. I'll probably post that here just in case any of you are curious. I guess when I hit 493, I... stop? Or I could do a Nuzlocke run (you can read the rules here since Nuzlocke.com is down right now) which for those of you unfamiliar with pokemon is basically like doing a NetHack conduct run, which as you may know I have some history with. I'm still proud of that NetHack game. Orrrrr... has anyone heard anything about whether the new Final Fantasy for the DS is any good? (Old-style RPGs seem to be really good for my sanity in small to middling doses. I don't ask questions, I do the things that make me not lose my shit.)
• Spent last Thursday night and Friday in Ohio for work, and worked like 18 hours or something while I was there; have to do it again this week but with more hours (probably like 22-24). On the plus side that means anyone who calls me on Wednesday can kindly fuck off speak to another representative. And I should be able to get ahead on homework this week which will be awesome.
• Leaves are starting to change, and I should probably buy a rake. Potentially dumb question: Do homeowners rake and dispose of all of their leaves, rather than letting them degrade into the soil, for appearance reasons? Or is there a good reason to make them go away? Also uh I should figure out how to go about being an adult who has a fireplace. This is not a skill I have ever learned. I can start a fire --- I did go to MIT after all --- but I'm not good at things like "keeping it contained in a fireplace" or "having it go out without the use of fire extinguishers. (I even managed "starting a charcoal grill without lighter fluid because furries are not prepared for things" a couple of months ago, although we didn't really get it to meat-cooking heat until someone brought lighter fluid. By that point I had eaten, go team vegan.)
• I should also buy a snow shovel, so that I don't get caught without one when everyone else is trying to buy one. I do have an electric snowblower, but something that's not terribly effective.
• I think for the time being "not drinking" has changed from "I don't seem to be doing this anymore" to a rule; I dunno if it will stick or not. I'm pretty sure this is the opposite of what one is supposed to do in grad school, but so is having a tech job, and so is owning a house, so whatever.
• A coworker got me listening to Kate Miller-Heidke, who has less bass in her music than is usually my preference but an amazing voice and a great sense of timing. Here's a link to one of her songs I'm fond of --- sorry for the boring video but I couldn't find a non-live version. As a side benefit, having iTunes do the Genius thing with her is finding stuff I had forgotten about but really like (is "Little Boots" your fault, Rik?). I have no idea how said coworker can like Miller-Heidke so much and hate Kate Bush, though.
• Speaking of music, have you all heard the new Of Montreal album? I found it much easier to get into than Skeletal Lamping (or even Heimdalsgate Like A Promethean Curse) but a little more heavy-handed or less nuanced or something? The tracks with Janelle Monae are particularly enjoyable, and I should track down some of her stuff. I have not been listening to it non-stop to try to get it like I did with the two albums previously mentioned, but it was hardly a waste of $5.

I'm flying MHT->IND today and got here early because, you know, getting to the airport is just what you do. And I got to the lounge area and was like "Oh hey there's like an hour before the flight leaves." What did I do. Did I lounge in one of the chairs and go to sleep? No. Did I pull out the novel I've been reading and say "Yay, I get to get some light reading done?" No. Did I even start working on my thesis, despite being up until 1 AM last night and the last three nights previous working on it? Of course not! I walked over to the little business traveler area, pulled out my laptop, plugged it in, got on the (awesome, free, unencumbered) wireless, and immediately started working. Like, for my job.

I'm wearing my Glitter Jacket and cat hat and one of Blake's awesome towers bug hoodies. (Warning: Picture contains bug.) Periodically someone in nice clothing wanders over with coffee and a blackberry and stares at me and then sits down. Whatever, man. I'm a professional catgirl. Mew mew mew synergy mew!

OK, now back to work.

EDIT: Flight got delayed around three hours, after momentary panic have confirmed a new connecting flight to get to IND this afternoon. Pending response from IU is is likely that I will rent a car and manage to get to the 6:30 event just barely on time. YOUR MERE FLIGHT CANCELLATION CANNOT STOP MEW

DOUBLE EDIT: They're shipping us to Boston for a direct flight and I've got a car lined up. Catgirls On The Move!

TRIPLE EDIT: Now waiting at Logan, which also has free wifi now, unless you'd rather pay for it. (???) It's snowing, and my vegan burrito had accidental chicken in it. There are rumblings about a potential delayed flight due to weather, which... well, I do conveniently live in Boston, but now my car is in New Hampshire. But I'm caught up on work again. Maybe I should take a... catnap?