(no subject)

I need to pull my CAIPS again, just to see, but I have the feeling that nothing is going to have changed since the last time I looked, which means (from my perspective) that CIC will have done absolutely nothing with my file for about a year. In any case the last time I received any communication from them was a year and three months ago.

Mundane logic ("I can think of something that might still be holding it up") thus having failed me, I wonder what mystical thing it could be that is keeping me here. Is there something unfinished? Is there some specific event (as opposed to a task to finish) that has to pass? Have I got the "cutting hair" thing wrong and I should do that as a sacrifice first, rather than as a ritualistic mark-the-event afterwards? (The climate there is much more humid and I can't abide the frizzies it sends my long hair into, so I've been planning to cut my hair all off, like, to just long enough to lay flat and not be fuzzy long stubble, when I got the notice.) Is there something else random and bizarre that I totally haven't even thought of the category it might fall into, much less specifically what I am supposed to do or wait for?

pint glasses again

A few weeks ago I posted about searching for some pint glasses to give to enotsola as a present. zaecus gave me some good suggestions, but I've concluded that the only way to get something that really pleases me is to make them myself, by dint of some contact paper and etching cream (finding blank glasses was relatively easy). These are the designs I think I am going to use: ( Read more... )

pint glasses again

A few weeks ago I posted about searching for some pint glasses to give to enotsola as a present. zaecus gave me some good suggestions, but I've concluded that the only way to get something that really pleases me is to make them myself, by dint of some contact paper and etching cream (finding blank glasses was relatively easy). These are the designs I think I am going to use: ( Read more... )

post no bills!

This picture in torontophoto highly amuses me.

post no bills!

This picture in torontophoto highly amuses me.

names

What are people's thoughts on names that describe what you would like to be, or wish you were, rather than something you are?

That sort of name always feels like false advertising to me. If someone wants to name themselves "Morgana", for example, they had better have the personality and power to wear the name well; otherwise it is just silly and feels like self-aggrandizement or fluffiness (cf. "Lady Pixie Moondrip", for you Pagans out there).

I have been thinking about how names are acquired both in life and in myth, and it seems to me that the names that actually mean anything are generally the ones that are bestowed upon us. The names on our birth certificates, of course, are given by our parents. In some traditions one's initiatory name is given by the group or by one single other person, and not chosen for oneself. Nicknames and sometimes changes of "real" name are given by the family or peer group based on some physical or personality characteristic, or a deed (such as Setanta becoming Cu Chulainn after killing Culann's hound). Even those who have apparently changed their names for themselves (such as tyrsalvia), I'm going to lay a small amount of money that the name seemed to be made obvious by circumstances, and not simply dreamt up because they liked it.

What all this is boiling down to is that I don't think I am ever going to be able to pick a name for myself, because that's "impure" - real names are given.

Part of the reason this is a problem in the first place is that I don't feel I can "be anyone" (skipping whether I am inherently capable of that in the first place) without having a name to hang it on, and I don't want to stick things to a name that gives others unfavourable first impressions of me (no matter how much I might like "night-forest star-song", it's a bad idea), or that I would later regret or outgrow. Without a name I am paralyzed.

names

What are people's thoughts on names that describe what you would like to be, or wish you were, rather than something you are?

That sort of name always feels like false advertising to me. If someone wants to name themselves "Morgana", for example, they had better have the personality and power to wear the name well; otherwise it is just silly and feels like self-aggrandizement or fluffiness (cf. "Lady Pixie Moondrip", for you Pagans out there).

I have been thinking about how names are acquired both in life and in myth, and it seems to me that the names that actually mean anything are generally the ones that are bestowed upon us. The names on our birth certificates, of course, are given by our parents. In some traditions one's initiatory name is given by the group or by one single other person, and not chosen for oneself. Nicknames and sometimes changes of "real" name are given by the family or peer group based on some physical or personality characteristic, or a deed (such as Setanta becoming Cu Chulainn after killing Culann's hound). Even those who have apparently changed their names for themselves (such as tyrsalvia), I'm going to lay a small amount of money that the name seemed to be made obvious by circumstances, and not simply dreamt up because they liked it.

What all this is boiling down to is that I don't think I am ever going to be able to pick a name for myself, because that's "impure" - real names are given.

Part of the reason this is a problem in the first place is that I don't feel I can "be anyone" (skipping whether I am inherently capable of that in the first place) without having a name to hang it on, and I don't want to stick things to a name that gives others unfavourable first impressions of me (no matter how much I might like "night-forest star-song", it's a bad idea), or that I would later regret or outgrow. Without a name I am paralyzed.