Illusion of Competence: Self-injury, complicated realities, and Big Emotions -- This is the blog of a young woman with Autism Spectrum Disorder. It's one of my favorite blogs that talk about disability. This particular post had me going HELL YES. (I don't self-injure -- unless you count picking at my cuticles when I'm nervous -- but I'm very close to someone who occasionally finds all other coping...

G's family gives fantastic presents. I got a bunch of awesome button-down shirts, two pairs of really cute thigh-high socks, and a cute pair of gloves that fit me well enough to knit in. G and I each got a KnitPicks gift certificate, plus an Xbox 360 and three games for the two of us -- The Orange Box, Left 4 Dead 2, and Assassin's Creed 2. I'm making myself this hood (eventually) with some of the...

So apparently today there's a thing about wearing purple to memorialize the teenagers who've committed suicide recently because they were being bullied for being queer/perceived as queer/something along those lines. I gotta say, it's about time the mainstream noticed the amazing suicide rate among LGB teens -- although it'd be nice if they worked to include the T there, too. (Anybody interested in...

French toast! This looks pretty simple, or you could just replace the non-vegan ingredients with Ener-G Egg Replacer, plant milk, and margarine and top with fruit and lots of agave nectar -- G did that a couple of weeks ago and it was really good.Cream cheese and vegetable wraps -- this has several parts, and you can leave ingredients out as you like.1. Sautee a handful or two of whole little...

Random tasty packable things G and I (but mostly G) have made recently and other lunch ideas follow, placed here mostly for my convenience.-I'm calling this the State Fair sandwich because it's easier than naming all its ingredients every time I refer to it: hummus, spinach, lettuce or other leafy green of your choice, basil, tomatoes, button mushrooms and olives on sourdough bread.-vegan...

and the health reform bill decreed that children can stay on their parents' health insurance until age 26, even if they get married (sauce)...So if G and I get married in October/November, we'll probably still have health insurance, *and* I'll never have to worry about getting my dad's tax return info for my FAFSA again. (He cut me off in June and is giving me all kinds of crap about giving me the...

So you all probably know my girlfriend, G, has six birds -- although really only three are entirely hers. The finches were her mother's idea, and the African Gray is much closer to being her mother's bird than hers. She has no such excuses for the cockatoo, the conure and the parakeet, though. Anyway, I grew to love these birds over the course of the last year, and I started doing some research......

So I just finished spring semester, and my best guess as to my grades goes like so: Intro to Business - B, Business Law - A, Computerized Accounting - A (actually, I know this one for a fact because she posts all our grades online). I win at life.Meanwhile, G is getting back into theater, and she's been cast as Fabian in Twelfth Night. (She wants me to tell you all that this is where you can find...

So there's an extra-credit paper assigned for my business law class, and one of the available topics is "Same-Sex Marriage: Legal, Political and Religious Arguments For and Against".*rubs hands together gleefully* I know these arguments. I can kick butt at these arguments. And there's nothing in the assignment saying we're not allowed to take a position on the issue. Five to seven pages of...

I just got an email from something called SecretBuilders saying my child had registered for an account there. (No, I don't have any kids.) I'm not sure who to suspect -- the username is "giantfruit", so either somebody is calling me a giant fruit (which, LOL) or it's really a kid under 13 and they're just odd, as many children are. It could easily be either of my siblings, G's best friend, or her...

So G and I went to see my family last week. My nanny was... well, slightly awful. She commented to me that G was "clingy" and we should get a room (...not really. We have been known to send people into sugar shock, but we don't make out in public or anything. I think what bothered her was mostly that we're both gay and more affectionate than my family is used to.), and then she started going on...

G got her hair cut at this independent salon across the street from the co-op a couple months ago, and my hair's been driving me nuts after six months of growth, so I finally bit the bullet, printed out a pic of what I wanted, and made an appointment. Fifteen minutes later, I had exactly what I wanted for less than half the price of my usual stylist, plus my fedora fits better now without six tons...

-- I had to mess with the shadows and highlights on this one so you could tell the tights were green. This is what happens when you take pictures with Photo Booth in your apartment at night, kids. -- Shoes and tights detail, because I'm just so thrilled with the texture of these things. -- Hat! Haaaat! I'm pretty sure fedoras aren't supposed to fit like that, but... I want a Julie Andrews drag...

We were at Target a while ago, and I saw this shirt in the men's section that made me squeak and reach for it. We had to hustle out, though, so alas, I was quickly parted from it.Now I've found it on the Target website, and, you guys. I WANT this shirt.Judging by Target's size chart, I think the size 40 (medium) should fit. A little hemming and/or taking in at the waist may be called for, and I'll...

Okay, so I liked it. It's not the book, and there was some canon-fail, but I'm very fond of sequels to and re-imaginings of classic children's stories and/or fairy tales. Also, I know there's going to be an explosion of Hatter/Alice, and that's all well and good, they were cute (and Johnny Depp has the gayest walk I've ever seen on a straight man), but I got *serious* Alice/White Queen vibes. Does...

Non sequitur, but: discovering Vegan Gourmet cream cheese totally made my day last Wednesday. And spreading it on both halves of a bagel, covering one half with basil and the other with oregano, and adding Tofurkey cold cuts? Yummmm.Anyway! I stopped by the SPCA Friday on a whim and discovered the best dress ever. It's a black-on-white check fabric, square neckline, inch-wide straps, hits just...

So I was waiting at the bus stop, knitting, wearing my pride scarf, when a random dude (maybe 40-50-ish) on a bike came up to me and asked how to get to... some intersection, I don't remember. Trinity and something, I think. He said he was a preacher there. I've only ever been to Catholic churches in fairly wealthy neighborhoods, so for all I know there might be preachers who bike around looking...

I finished my first week of classes last week -- Business Law (potentially very interesting, and the professor keeps going off on hilarious ranty tangents) and Intro to Business (seems slightly dull for now, but it's only once a week, and there's a fabric store with a great selection of yarn and knitting needles practically across the street from the east end of campus, so whatever). Computerized...

Okay, so break was lovely and wonderful, and also gave me a new fandom, which I need like a hole in the head, but whatever. Leonardo and Ezio are so cuuute! And once you get the hang of ACII-style movement, it's actually sort of useful to be able to steer independent of the camera. G and I nearly went nuts being 500 miles apart for three weeks straight, though, and I'm told Diana Barry (the Goffin...

So G finally succeeded in teaching me to knit despite my general stubbornness, and now I'm having fun with it. I set up a Ravelry account -- I'm spockface, if any of you lovely Mibbians are also on there -- and I find it a very useful tool for keeping track of my projects and my progress on them. Also my yarn stash and what sorts of needles I have.I've been telling G I'll make her a few...