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Things I Tweeted today.

• Just had some burgers from the Omaha steaks my mother sent us. Yum!
• "Last year on New Year's Eve Mike proposed." "I don't think I'm going to top that."
• Wishing one of my favorite insomniacs/nocturnes was up at the moment.
• Up, late, again. Hoping to get that fixed this week. Seeing a specialist.
• Maintenance guy accidentally broke a wine glass. He was really upset about it, too.
• Finished morning pages. #writing #artistsway
• My sweetie wants me to trade him Flips.
• Yes! I got named as Best Perfume Oils in 2009 on Perfume Nerd! bit.ly/5ZQAuL
• Making rum balls and watching Hustle. Yay for the new Golden Grahams formula!

http://magickalrealism.etsy.com

This mainly applies to people who use a home service for shipping – I’m not sure if PayPal has international service (I would think so.) I use and prefer Stamps.com, and that’s the reason I know about this. That image you see above? It’s called a Form 2976-E, E standing presumably for envelope. Technically, it’s the “required” form for international shipping from the US Post Office, although I’ve never seen a postal worker request it or even seen one of these creatures loose among the plethora of forms and envelopes you might see at your post office counter.

Form 2976-E is a plastic insert envelope where you can slide in a hand-written customs form or a simple printout for international shipping. It’s amazingly handy – and better yet, you can order them free. It keeps precious information from getting wet, and while it’s a bit awkward on my 4×4x4 boxes, I think the origami effort is worth it – especially considering the price!

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• 08:26 Time to swallow my pride and call the shaman. :( #
• 21:39 What a strange and freaky day it's been. #
• 22:10 Just had some burgers from the Omaha steaks my mother sent us. Yum! #
• 22:19 "Last year on New Year's Eve Mike proposed." "I don't think I'm going to top that." #
• 23:21 @OmahaSteaksHelp good stuff! :) #

Also, you can visit Fat Chic and Magickal Realism.

Things I Tweeted today.

• Saw Sherlock. Fun movie!
• More cleaning up the living room, so that bakeathon 2009 can commence.
• Watching season 4 of Hustle while Mike telekinetically loads the dishwasher.
• Made chocolate dipped pretzels with @jamuraa. Turned into a strange exercise in communicating expectations.
• Now prepping for rum balls using golden grahams cereal instead of vanilla wafers (no corn syrup in Golden Grahams.)
• Time to swallow my pride and call the shaman. :(
• What a strange and freaky day it's been.

http://magickalrealism.etsy.com

• 03:25 perfume arts blog Links for 2009-12-25 [del.icio.us]: Banishment without Symbols
  Pythagorean Banishing Ritual
  The H... bit.ly/5gDV9j #
• 05:22 Still getting woken up. :( #
• 15:20 Finished morning pages. #writing #artistsway #
• 15:20 Attempting a juice fast this weekend - not about weight loss, just about cushioning the blows to my body from recent travels. #
• 16:59 Still sorting out car stuff. #
• 22:21 Saw Sherlock. Fun movie! #
• 22:21 More cleaning up the living room, so that bakeathon 2009 can commence. #
• 22:56 Watching season 4 of Hustle while Mike telekinetically loads the dishwasher. #
• 23:56 Made chocolate dipped pretzels with @jamuraa. Turned into a strange exercise in communicating expectations. #
• 23:57 Now prepping for rum balls using golden grahams cereal instead of vanilla wafers (no corn syrup in Golden Grahams.) #
• 00:56 @mydwynter might as well just eat oatmeal. :) #
• 01:37 @mydwynter yay~ #

Also, you can visit Fat Chic and Magickal Realism.

Things I Tweeted today.

• A lull in the snow, and now it's snow...but faster.
• perfume arts blog Links for 2009-12-25 [del.icio.us]: Banishment without Symbols
  Pythagorean Banishing Ritual
  The H... bit.ly/5gDV9j
• Still getting woken up. :(
• Finished morning pages. #writing #artistsway
• Attempting a juice fast this weekend - not about weight loss, just about cushioning the blows to my body from recent travels.
• Still sorting out car stuff.

http://magickalrealism.etsy.com

Things I Tweeted today.

• Still experiencing the "jerked awake" phenomenon in my home. I'm sure it's a jerk seeing to it I'm awake.
• Ended up spending the day doing witchy stuff. NOT how I intended, but hopefully will lead to a more balanced approach in the future.
• Watching Doctor Who

http://magickalrealism.etsy.com

• 07:02 perfume arts blog Links for 2009-12-23 [del.icio.us]: Burpee Seeds and Plants for home gardens. Vegetables, flowers... bit.ly/90brn0 #
• 14:08 I guess the jet leg caught up with us! #
• 14:10 JCPenney is on my email craplist: I unsubbed around the beginning of the month and I'm still getting emails today. #
• 14:55 Happy culturally dominant holiday eve. #
• 17:05 Interesting blog: I'm the Adult. bit.ly/6suGli #
• 17:06 Yeah, port BEFORE omelette, not my best decision. And I can't find my migraine meds. #
• 18:17 Trying to clean out the apartment. This could take awhile, I fell off my cleaning schedule in October. #
• 21:12 Wishing I weren't snowed in because I'd love to go see a movie. #

Also, you can visit Fat Chic and Magickal Realism.

Things I Tweeted today.

• I am seriously considering watching General Hospital just for James Franco.
• Plotting out my indoor garden.
• perfume arts blog Links for 2009-12-23 [del.icio.us]: Burpee Seeds and Plants for home gardens. Vegetables, flowers... bit.ly/90brn0
• I guess the jet leg caught up with us!
• JCPenney is on my email craplist: I unsubbed around the beginning of the month and I'm still getting emails today.
• Happy culturally dominant holiday eve.
• Interesting blog: I'm the Adult. bit.ly/6suGli
• Yeah, port BEFORE omelette, not my best decision. And I can't find my migraine meds.
• Trying to clean out the apartment. This could take awhile, I fell off my cleaning schedule in October.
• Wishing I weren't snowed in because I'd love to go see a movie.

http://magickalrealism.etsy.com

• 14:34 My desktop computer won't start, the car won't start, and snow is falling down. Grr. #
• 15:43 Gah! We need groceries delivered because of car + blizzard issues and the Coborn's site is broken. Grr! #
• 16:45 @revia I have a perfume with mini ball gags... #
• 17:07 Really dehydrated, and going out to see if there's a fix to the car issue. #
• 17:07 Apartment haunting issue continues, but since I KNOW I was here first... #
• 18:01 Unscheduled dinner at Holy Land. Ah well holiday chaos. #
• 21:53 @xiane_org I'm doing some goal setting this week myself. :) #
• 21:53 Car is broken down, blizzard is going, desktop computer is broken...welcome home? #
• 22:45 I am seriously considering watching General Hospital just for James Franco. #
• 22:45 @krisbrowne42 aw, thank you. #
• 22:46 @xiane_org sure does! #
• 00:51 Plotting out my indoor garden. #

Also, you can visit Fat Chic and Magickal Realism.

The general ignorance/selfishness of your averageairplane seat recliner is usually on par with people who drive offroad vehicles in urban environments when they never have reason to drive offroad. It's usually a "sure, but..[insert excuse that really is just an excuse here - with occasional variations for health/back issues that most airlines can accommodate without you torturing another passenger]." I did see one blog from a Boeing seat designer who says "everyone wants more seat recline." I have a hard time believing that people who are capable of empathy would genuinely want this if they stepped back and saw the whole picture, or at least flew often enough to realize that reclining seats just add misery to a form of transportation that is already psychologically challenging. Are these aviation companies only interviewing their first class passengers?

And yes, I realize all this is a big first world problem, so wah, poor privileged semi-annual flyer cry moar. I would just like to instill a little fresh civility somehow. Fair and reasonable coach seating in airplanes isn't the answer to world peace, but it seems like one small way of making the world suck a LITTLE less by not issuing the domino post-travel bad mood that comes with flying coach. (Instead keeping the horrid mood to the fear-of-flyers and the people stuck between my fat ass and the crying baby.) We get so little space in coach, why in the hell are we given a chance to steal it from one another? Is this some corporate test to see who's fit to swim with the sharks?

You read my complaints about the douche twins from LAX to Honolulu. THEN there's the guy on the flight back to Minneapolis. It was a Delta flight, and a true Delta plane, not one of the crappy Northwest ones. There's basically a huge wall  between first class and coach, leaving row 12 middle with a TON of legroom. The guy reclines his seat - which I try to ignore (although it sucks because he's stealing space, and if I "just recline my seat" it begins a domino effect of selfish behavior that completely screws over the families invariably stuck in the back of the plane.) The flight attendant, seeing that he was completely negating any possibility of my working, or eating because he was fully extended put his seat up during the meal. I had nothing to do with it, and while I think seat recliners are awful, at the moment they are allowed to do this on airplanes, and there's not much I can do beyond continuously writing the airlines.

Everyone around us saw the guy look around at me, realize I was still eating, and then he RECLINED HIS SEAT TO THE MAXIMUM very quickly leaving me wearing pieces of airline food. He actively ignored me and Mike when we asked him to please pull his seat up until the meal service was done, and when I asked the airline attendant to intervene, he claimed he "had a bad back" and refused to pull his seat up. Yes, I hate seat recliners, but I had behaved - there was NOTHING in my behavior to warrant what, as far as I'm concerned, was an assault using a plane seat. He may well have had a bad back, but I know from having dealt with back injuries and plane travel that you're supposed to get up and move around, and do what you can to use good posture and keep your spine properly aligned - I'm not sure where a reclined plane seat fits into that. The flight attendant whispered to me, "He's a crab." The man was a lot worse than a crab - what he did was obviously malicious, as was noted by the several other passengers around me who saw him pull this stunt. Unfortunately I have no recourse because of the vast knot of airline regulations.

To make matters worse, this guy began to fart and continued to fart throughout the rest of the flight. He was right by the bathroom, no one obstructed him, and yet he chose to sit in his chair and fart over me and the other passengers around him. He wasn't old enough that flatulence had become involuntary.

I'm furious, because I feel like not only was I stuck in the crappiest of flight situations for eight hours, but I was essentially assaulted by another passenger under the guise of airline policies and "features."

I already object to seat reclining, and what I experienced on the way back is among the worst of the ways that this feature is abused.

Things I Tweeted today.

• My desktop computer won't start, the car won't start, and snow is falling down. Grr.
• Gah! We need groceries delivered because of car + blizzard issues and the Coborn's site is broken. Grr!
• Really dehydrated, and going out to see if there's a fix to the car issue.
• Apartment haunting issue continues, but since I KNOW I was here first...
• Unscheduled dinner at Holy Land. Ah well holiday chaos.
• Car is broken down, blizzard is going, desktop computer is broken...welcome home?

http://magickalrealism.etsy.com

• 06:02 perfume arts blog That’s very…oud: image by Glamour Schatz on flickr
  
  The Financial Times dug up some mold on... bit.ly/4wuCMw #
• 12:20 Can't find my notebook. Typed morning pages. #writing #artistsway #
• 12:20 @EvelineTimeless somehow I think Etsy will slide by, but I think my experience will only get more frustrating. #
• 12:21 @EvelineTimeless also, I suspect things are MUCH improved in areas that sellers don't see daily. Etsy should just webcam their offices. #
• 12:23 @juliebenz I know a woman whose family is going to turn her in to that show. With good reason - scary in real life! #
• 12:23 @NikkiBlonsky1 David Hyde Pierce ftw! #
• 12:24 @troyapeterson sockpuppet Twitter? #
• 12:36 I'd love to discuss the difference between negativity and constructive criticism/observation. Mostly because I haven't mastered the latter. #
• 12:37 I think I'm allergic to teakwood furniture, or my body has manufactured an allergy since I dislike the smell of this particular wood. #
• 12:38 I'm sad. Don't wanna leave Hawaii! #
• 13:09 I am realizing as I go that I really don't know how to read weather maps. #
• 13:20 @miscellaneaarts reflective listening - definitely an important and overlooked skill. As is avoiding assumption. #
• 13:21 transferring a bunch of videos and pics before I leave - hopefully I can work on labeling, etc. on the plane. #
• 18:44 Waiting at Lihue airport. Car frustration waiting at home, wish well meaning friends let it alone. #
• 20:44 I hate Honolulu airport. Less functional than Midway. #
• 20:52 @troyapeterson you mentioned earlier you wanted to say something inappropriate. An acct for naughties would solve that. #

Also, you can visit Fat Chic and Magickal Realism.

Things I Tweeted today.

• Did Solstice ritual on Key Beach. Saw a washed up seal, too.
• perfume arts blog That’s very…oud: image by Glamour Schatz on flickr
  
  The Financial Times dug up some mold on... bit.ly/4wuCMw
• Can't find my notebook. Typed morning pages. #writing #artistsway
• I'd love to discuss the difference between negativity and constructive criticism/observation. Mostly because I haven't mastered the latter.
• I think I'm allergic to teakwood furniture, or my body has manufactured an allergy since I dislike the smell of this particular wood.
• I'm sad. Don't wanna leave Hawaii!
• I am realizing as I go that I really don't know how to read weather maps.
• transferring a bunch of videos and pics before I leave - hopefully I can work on labeling, etc. on the plane.
• Waiting at Lihue airport. Car frustration waiting at home, wish well meaning friends let it alone.
• I hate Honolulu airport. Less functional than Midway.

http://magickalrealism.etsy.com

The Financial Times dug up some mold on oud, and while they’re talking about agarwood like it’s news, the stuff was sniffed out by perfumers centuries ago. Believe it or not, that modly old wood is one component of the genius behind natural ambers and many a wood-scent cologne.

It’s also insanely expensive, and there’s not really a great way to harvest it sustainably – you pretty much have to break the tree to bits to get at the good stuff. Arguably, if you keep prices high and break very few trees to bits each year, demand for the scent can be managed. But that does run contrary to capitalism at least as I know it thus far.

Here’s hoping there’s a manageable way I just don’t know about yet.

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• 03:32 perfume arts blog Links for 2009-12-20 [del.icio.us]: Every celiac's nightmare
  Prepaid Funeral Planning: Don't Do I... bit.ly/6ZVhGP #
• 06:32 perfume arts blog Garden spy: apartments:
  
  
  
  
  Share on Facebook
  
  bit.ly/5w8a21 #
• 12:14 Happy Solstice! My last day at the equator today - wishing for a happier year for everyone in 2010. #fb #
• 12:25 Bunches of sirens on the island this morning. A surfer get hurt in Hanalei? #
• 13:04 Emailed Delta airlines making an appeal to remove reclining seats from coach. #
• 13:05 WTH B&LU? 3X is NOT 18/20! #
• 13:22 Brianna Lacey is still missing. Please RT. bit.ly/4D3iQt #
• 13:55 Why on earth did LJ remove automatic line breaks? #
• 14:32 bit.ly/7wmJsK Although I disagree with some of this, these are NOT personal bribes. These are for constituents. #
• 14:55 .@jamuraa can't get a TA next semester. He has been alotted one hour to mope. #
• 14:59 and he's announced he "doesn't mope on a schedule." #
• 15:01 So Maria Thomas is leaving Etsy? This is very bad news. #
• 15:30 .@jamuraa tried to cook omelettes. Stove is evidently broken, and he is NOT happy. #
• 16:20 @EvelineTimeless I'd prefer Maria over Rob since it seems she actually turned a profit, and I feel like at least communication improved. #
• 23:26 Did Solstice ritual on Key Beach. Saw a washed up seal, too. #

Also, you can visit Fat Chic and Magickal Realism.

Things I Tweeted today.

• Watching the lights go out over the Pacific.
• Wrapping my head around the latest #dollhouse. Just wow.
• RT @jvfriedman A Chicago-area LJ friend's family member is missing. Please RT. bit.ly/6JdJ5J #amberalert #chicagoland
• I'm not the least bit sorry to see the Saab go out of production. More room for smart cars, or for NO cars.
• Massive tropical rain going on tonight.
• perfume arts blog Links for 2009-12-20 [del.icio.us]: Every celiac's nightmare
  Prepaid Funeral Planning: Don't Do I... bit.ly/6ZVhGP
• perfume arts blog Garden spy: apartments:
  
  
  
  
  Share on Facebook
  
  bit.ly/5w8a21
• Happy Solstice! My last day at the equator today - wishing for a happier year for everyone in 2010. #fb
• Bunches of sirens on the island this morning. A surfer get hurt in Hanalei?
• Emailed Delta airlines making an appeal to remove reclining seats from coach.
• WTH B&LU? 3X is NOT 18/20!
• Brianna Lacey is still missing. Please RT. bit.ly/4D3iQt
• Why on earth did LJ remove automatic line breaks?
• bit.ly/7wmJsK Although I disagree with some of this, these are NOT personal bribes. These are for constituents.
• .@jamuraa can't get a TA next semester. He has been alotted one hour to mope.
• and he's announced he "doesn't mope on a schedule."
• So Maria Thomas is leaving Etsy? This is very bad news.
• .@jamuraa tried to cook omelettes. Stove is evidently broken, and he is NOT happy.

http://magickalrealism.etsy.com

These are my personal views, and in no way approved, verified or validated by Etsy. My only association with Etsy is that I have a shop there.

For those of you running behind on your blog feeds, Maria Thomas is leaving Etsy and Rob Kalin is returning. Now that Thomas has made Etsy actually profitable (by a narrow margin, judging from her comments when she came to Minneapolis) they’re handing it back over to Kalin, who has been very quiet both as the person who stepped down and in whatever he’s been doing since his Etsy sabbatical. You can see more direct reactions in this thread, until it gets shut down – no one knows why they’re not using the admin forum for this.  If the Admin forum goes away with Rob’s return, my rage will know no bounds.

Etsy was already pretty opaque by the time I got to it in 2006, and having met the staff – and also having met Maria Thomas in person – it’s pretty obvious to me that the entire company is running on personality.  That’s a good thing when you’re starting out but it’s a bad thing when you’re going long-term, which is what’s happening with Etsy. Lots of staff member making lots of assumptions, and very few with genuine research and education to back it up – and coming from the last generation where college education made a damn bit of difference, I can tell you that the lack of curiosity/self-education going on among younger staffers is really disturbing and upsetting to me. New York is lovely, but it is in fact not the center of the universe – but from what I saw and continue to see from Etsy staffers, I don’t think they’ve figured that out yet.

I can imagine I’d be freaking out if I were an investor.

It seems backasswards to me to have Thomas get Etsy profitable (barely) and then to have her step down. “We’re making money, now let’s get in someone who wasn’t, buh-bye.” Um, what? I’m sure it’s more complicated than that – or phrased so it sounds more complicated than that. I’ve learned from many years past in corporate that ultimately, it’s always down to who likes you, not how much money you’re making. I suspect Thomas may have had to play mean-old-grownup a bit too often for anyone’s liking. But THAT is pure speculation.

I hope, truly, that they keep the structures in place that Maria set up – she’s being tossed before her very critical public would even have half a chance of seeing the results, and for a business like Etsy, results are slow because it’s online and we can’t physically see behind the scenes. Running well is about what doesn’t happen – we’ve had way less downtime, much fewer PR disasters (remember those brilliant remarks confusing the exact location and culture of Appalachia, easily corrected by looking at a Google map and by doing a bit of reading?) and it seems like some results are happening more or less on schedule. Also, Admin stickies – we had better keep them.

What this means to me as a seller

Frankly, I’m worried. Etsy hasn’t been great with serving sellers, their primary customers, and it barely protects them as is evidenced by the blogs that have cropped up pointing out resellers pretending they’re handmade.  Some steps have been made to help – hiring Ian from Etsyhacks was a brilliant move – but I get the impression that all efforts are going into getting sellers to sell handmade, not in getting people to shop handmade. Combine this with the cheap-cheap-cheaping that has been picked up by national and international press advocating Etsy as a bargain site, and Etsy’s practices have undercut the very handmade livelihoods they claim it’s their goal to support.

So why am I there still?

Simple: It’s the devil I know. And I’m making what I can of it as far as my section of Etsy is allowed to be my personal domain.

But just in case, I do have a mailing list and Facebook fan page.

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I still feel a bit yearning and homesick, but I think it's mostly my imagination.  Family holidays were regularly marked by one or both parents melting down, invasive comments about my body, appearance and life from extended relatives and as I got older increasingly vicious behavior directed at me by my mother, based as far as I can tell on my refusal to attend Ball State University. (She remains unconvinced that a school's quality could possibly change since 1968.)

Holidays at our house were times of dread: it was always a countdown until one or both parents had their temper tantrum. Since converting to Wicca and disengaging as best I can from those dynamics - it's taken awhile, as you do often end up repeating family patterns in friend and social circles and it can take awhile to spot - I still feel a little sad at the holidays, but I think it's mostly sad at a potential that's never been met.

Last Christmas was my last Christmas ever with my father, and I was even frustrated then - I couldn't talk to him one on one without my niece interrupting, which did not endear her to me, and my now-husband couldn't get him alone to ask permission to propose because my mother was being even weirder and crappier than her usual.

Most winter holidays have earmarked my dark moments, and highlighted - and encouraged - the impression that no one really cares about me. 2002 was probably the worst; I got manipulated into spending Xmas with my ex (there was an entire poinsetta eating/alcohol poisoning thing around it to force my hand) and on New Year's Eve I couldn't bring myself to go out with either of the men that asked me out, and my so-called local friends at the time ditched me altogether. This was the same week that the chronic urticaria began. Cut to scene: me in my warehouse district living room, screaming over top of the Rob Zombie. Thank god all my neighbors had social lives. I know that people care. But at holidays, it's all too easy to feel dark and empty.

My birthday being in such close proximity to the holidays is also extremely unhelpful. I get where it comes from now: my relatives are the sort of people who think only little kids should be allowed to experience joy, and that happiness and celebration are the sorts of things that make you some sort of unpious no-parking-space-in-heaven hedonist. It's bullshit, of course, but it's not my job to fix their crazy, just my own.

And I choose joy, especially as a grown up.

I'm making it a personal goal to do as much of it as I can muster in the coming years: travel more. I've made this goal before. It comes after things like "finish a book." And I really want to get enough done that I can go to PantheaCon, and maybe a few other cons.

Sirens followed the roosters this morning, first time I've heard emergency sounds since I've been here. It's been raining frequently on this trip, mostly at night, and it's really too cold to swim most of the time - which still beats the hell out of the Minnesota cold we were greeted with last week. I've been pestering Mike about doing anything possible to get better plane seats, and while it looks like we'll be flying on an actual Delta plane and not a Northwest plane, I still prefer not to deal with the torture involved on an eleven hour flight. We're leaving just as other vacationers are arriving for Christmas. It's sort of interesting to watch. I'm also launching my "no reclining seats in coach" campaign. Unless you've got a specific medical problem like a broken bone, don't do it. You CAN sleep sitting up. I have to admit that part of my difficulty committing to this vacation is in my dread of the trip back. Not the cold. Just the airplane seats. Unfortunately, since we can't have universal cooperation guaranteed I'm moving that the airlines make the decision.

It's been truly lovely and healing here, and I'm sad we're leaving tomorrow. Mike and I played around with the idea of retiring here, but it's obvious there's some stuff that needs to be worked out in the local economy. We're not in a position to buy a condo and rent it out to other vacationers, but we're bookmarking the idea for the future. As it is, there isn't even a pizza place that delivers. This is my one rule after dealing with the isolationist ex: I will not live anywhere where pizza is not available for delivery. I don't even like pizza that much. It's just a good indicator of the population and other services. Princeville is a planned community, in this rare case, good for the environment. It is also a grouping of some of the most overprivileged people in the nation and I don't like that at all. I find myself preferring Hanalei. It's a very physical island, and there's a lot of emphasis on fitness - the public park even has calisthenics stations. Also, the one lane bridges are a bit strange, and since people aren't in agreement about proper conduct on them, I'd rather not take my chances with having a collision.

It's been lovely, and I hope to visit again - this is one of those still calm spaces in the world, and I'm happy to have enjoyed it, even if as usual I'm poking at the layers beneath any facade.