Praise then darkness, and creation unfinished

I realized a few hours ago that it felt as though I had gotten a lot done today. Thinking about it, that's a combination of having spent most of the late morning and afternoon on those things, and I think that I did several things, in chunks large enough to feel like they count, yet small enough that none of them used the whole day, or even half of it.

Putting the electricity and natural gas for our new apartment into my name is two significant useful tasks done; it took maybe ten minutes, counting the time to write a reminder to take a photo ID to the Belmont Light office, and note their summer hours, closing early on Fridays. I like the idea of getting my electricity from a municipally owned utility, rather than Eversource or National Grid (or Puget Sound Energy, Consolidated Edison, or Northeast Utilities), even though this is also the first time I haven't been able to set up electrical service over the phone. (It's two tasks because having a gas stove means we will also be doing business with National Grid.)

Getting my hair cut didn't take very long, since I just told Taylor to do the same fairly simple thing as last time. Neither did going to the Davis Square farmers market after lunch, but I came home with strawberries, cucumbers, a Boston lettuce, and smoked fish pate, so that definitely feels like something accomplished.

Before all this, and after it, I finished editing and sent back another chapter of the book I'm working on.

And I did several of my PT-related exercises (and crunches, which aren't really part of my shoulder, hip, or knee physical therapy homework/maintenance, though the therapists I saw for the hip and knee were in favor of them).

I'm posting this partly because a bunch of other people have posted theirs, and partly as a reminder to myself that I need to do useful things like think about some of this stuff, and get an airline ticket.

"Tentative" because one of these items is later than I'd said I could do, and later than I really can do; I have a request in to the program managers about changing it, but haven't heard back yet.

How Have We Grown? (WiStory) Saturday, 2:30-3:45 p.m.
In her interview at WisCon 30 Joanna Russ said that her opinions about gay men and trans women had changed significantly since the early days of feminism. We all change and grow as we get older. In what ways has feminism changed since the start of WisCon, and where do we think it might go next?
Vicki Rosenzweig, Cheryl Myfanwy Morgan, Jorjet Harper, and Joan Haran

The Tragedy of Change (Feminism, Sex, and Gender) Saturday, 9:00-10:15 p.m.
How often is futuristic morphological change viewed in a tragic light in fiction, as in the cybernetically enhanced person feeling sorrow for the physical feelings they've lost, or the "inhumanity" of disembodied aliens? Why are transsexual humans of today often portrayed tragically in fiction and movies? How about post-menopausal women? People who've lost mobility or ability through illness? Is there a way to look at the future of our bodies that doesn't involve what we've lost, but what we have to gain?
Rebecca K. Rowe, M: Vicki Rosenzweig, BC Holmes, Alicia Ellen Goranson, and Gregory Frost

Fun Home (Feminism, Sex, and Gender)
Sunday, 11:30pm -12:45 a.m Time magazine named Alison Bechdel's graphic novel "Fun Home" as its top book of the year, and it spent a good chunk of 2006 on the NYT best-seller list. Bechdel is an artist/writer best known for her syndicated comic strip "Dykes To Watch Out For". It's pretty rare for (a) autobiography, (b) lesbianism, or (c) a graphic novel to be at the top of ANY critical list of best books of the year; hitting the trifecta is unprecedented. Which of these 3 aspects is most surprising? Does this bode well for the future?
Vicki Rosenzweig, Jenni Lauren Moody, and M: Rachel Sharon Edidin

I'm at least as interested in talking about Fun Home as about the implications of a lesbian autobiographical graphic novel being a best-seller and getting that much positive attention from the straight media. But I can't manage a panel at that hour. The scheduling for "The Tragedy of Change" is on the edge of what I can handle, but 11:30 p.m. the last night of the con is not going to work for me.

I just sent an email to the other members of the panel I'm moderating, basically asking to confirm that they are all on the panel [since I'm considering bailing from one of mine, it seems worth checking], and talking a bit about my theory of moderating, and a couple of things about the topic that interest me. If nothing happens, that's fine, but I've had some good pre-con "how shall we do this panel?" email discussions in previous years, and as moderator I figure it's for me to get the ball rolling.

I called my GP's office and got the podiatrist's surname and phone number, but haven't called yet. (I should probably either call the doctor's office, or check the HIP provider directory, rather than assume the podiatrist's gender from zir surname.)

The reason I didn't call yet is that I was tidying up some bits, and writing things up, for a small research project. That's now sent off, and I figure I'll get back one (at least) of "thanks, that's good"; "thanks, can you get me more about this piece of it"; "not quite what I wanted/can use, the other thing you mentioned looks possible"; or (unlikely, I think) "no, that's not it at all."

Two vaguely-related grumbles, here.

One is that I do not want to be on random friends' and acquaintances' lists for forwarding news about the attacks, anti-anything petitions, or the like. And I haven't come up with a concise, polite way of saying "stop that" to people who never asked if I wanted to be on it, and probably don't think of themselves as running mailing lists.

That's not an objection to bcc'd personal news or party invitations: if I've known you for years, sure, send along that COA or tell me you're having a barbecue. But if you want to run a Web log, set one up. Don't drop all the pieces in my email in-box.

Two, I've sort of inherited the job of organizing and announcing a local get-together for people who post to rec.arts.sf.[fandom|composition|written]. As an adjunct to that--also inherited--I send out a monthly copy of the announcement, because those are high-traffic newsgroups. But I'm getting more and more notes of the form "please add my friend so-and-so to the list" and/or "please add me/my friend to the list because I/they can't read the newsgroup." If someone can't be bothered to email me themselves, I don't see why I should take the trouble to put them on the list. My address isn't hard to find. And if you can't get at the newsgroups this event is organized around--not a difficult task these days--this isn't really your social event.

Someone I barely know, who a friend asked me to add a month or two ago, because she'd been out of fannish social circles for years, just asked me to add another friend. I told her more or less the above, starting with "tell him to write to me himself." I ended by saying that if she wanted to create a general social event for all of local fandom, that would be fine, and I'd forward the first announcement to my mailing list. But that's not what I'm organizing. I'm thinking of including an explicit note in the emailed version of the announcements, that the email list is an adjunct, and I'm not going to add people to it if they can't, or don't care to, look at Usenet.