I'm back from the Chikara wrassling show, huzzah. I almost didn't get to go, since the trains weren't running to that side of the city on Saturdays. I'm lucky I'd been building up brownie points though, because my dad came to the rescue with the offer of a ride to the arena!
So, I did at least get to see the 2:00PM Chikara show, though I skipped the evening Ring of Honor show. I wasn't going to make my dad sit around waiting THAT long, but I'm grateful he made even one awesome show possible.

Let me tell you, the crowd was HOT. The pops were huge and sincere, the chants were plentiful and sarcastic. Every single match was amazingly entertaining. All the wrestlers I spoke with during the intermission were all consummate gentlemen to the fans - especially Dasher Hatfield.

I did get a small memento from the trip. I bought a miniature version of El Generico's mask, which is now being worn by Swag the stuffed hamster. ¡OLÉ!

I was mildly disappointed that Archibald Peck wasn't using the Marchie Archie marching band gimmick any more... But since he turned face and started his run as Mixed Martial Archie, the dude is a PRICELESS comedy wrestler.

I did have my black luchador's mask with me, but I decided not to wear it since it made glasses really difficult or uncomfortable. But hey, in a twist of serendipity, it turns out that I got more comments on my raccoon ballcap anyhow!


This was an amazing event. I'm glad I was able to get there, meet up with a friend from reddit's /r/SquaredCircle so I wasn't sitting by myself, and just had a hell of a good time. Even better... Pat from /r/SC answered a trivia question correctly while we were waiting in line outside, so he got our seats upgraded from nosebleed bleachers to fourth row, right against the aisle where the wrestlers came running in!

I once walked half a mile through snow wearing nothing but a pair of speedos, a bandanna, and a three-legged monkey clinging to the hair on my back.

I cuddled that monkey and kept him warm through the blizzard, creating my own thermal energy through fury and willpower alone.

I named him Kevin.

I fed him on my own milk, which I lactated especially for Kevin.

And then, when the blizzard was over, I roasted him over an open fire with savory herbs and lemon zest.

Kevin was delicious.

I had a hamster once, named Ball. I named him after Koko's Kitten. Also because he was a fatass chubbyham.
Ball was buried behind the garden shed, close to a decade ago. We hadn't left a marker then.


But over time things accumulate naturally, behind a shed. I was just out mowing the back lawn, and I happened to pass by the spot. There was a decorative cinderblock, and wedged into its crevices were three balls that the neighbor boys had lost over the fence.

Ball found his own tombstone, and his own name marker.



A note to my cousins up in Racine who live next door to a veteran who worked with explosives: step VERY lightly around Claymore's grave.

Greetings, O ye Vast Unpaid Research Department and underappreciated focus group! I'm starting to think about what I'm planning to perform onstage for this year's act.
I always try to do a variety show act that's the opposite of what our old Furry Variety Show acts used to be (And the direction in which it seems to be regressing, though we've tried to lean on the director to turn down more bad acts).

I.E. I prefer to get on, do thirty to ninety seconds of a quirky dynamite comedy act that takes a chance on flopping, then get off the stage; rather than stick the audience with eight minutes of boring fursuiters dancing along to their favorite song.

In the past I've done quickies like:
* The Memesweeper, a kigurumi striptease that reveals a T-Shirt bearing the logo, "YOU JUST LOST THE GAME";
* Zel's Flea Circus, complete with invisible flea and cardboard props;
* The Agent: An overly colorful dramatic description of the aerial act of Amazing Fantastic Dynamic Gymnastic Portly Porcina The Pogo Pig, who is set to follow me, but couldn't make it to the show due to swine flu.

This year the theme of the convention is "AS SEEN ON TV," so I'd like to work with that in a clever fashion. Also needs to be a one-man act, preferably with zero budget. Intentionally corny, campy, vaudevillian is a plus.


I've been considering something on the theme of "BANNED FROM TELEVISION." Especially if I get to use a punchline of something like, "Banned from what channel, precisely?" "Well, that's kind of awkward... Okay, fine, you made me say it. I was banned from the Hub. I was banned from the Hub, Lauren Faust took out a restraining order, and I am no longer allowed within five hundred feet of any pastel-colored ponies."

Idea seeds are slowly starting to crystallize. This could be fun.

Congratulations to nancyfulda for her amazing Hugo nomination, for the amazing story, MOVEMENT: A short story about Autism in the future.
This is the note I just left to her.

I finally got around to reading your story, instead of just congratulating a friend.

There are tears in my eyes, tears of recognition from every sentence you wrote.

I wonder myself sometimes whether it would be better to be happy instead of unique. Whether it would be better to be part of the many instead of just the me that I am now. Whether I'd take the chance if it were offered me, instead of just trying to train who I am to integrate better.

And I think... I think that I do not want new shoes.

And still I cry, knowing that I have to make that choice.

This is a gorgeous night to do midnight garden planting. I suppose some other people are out at midnight mass, I am up for planting. But we are both celebrating the season of rebirth.

To the tune of: The Wonderful Thing About Tiggers.

The wonderful thing about boobies,
Is boobies are wonderful things!
Their tops are made out of rubber,
Their bottoms are made out of springs!
They're bouncy trouncy flouncy pouncy fun fun fun fun,
But the most wonderful thing about boobies is..

There's never only one!

I have an idea. Those of you around me, near Waukegan IL, would you like to have a Gardening Party? I'd have to ask my parents, but I think this might just be cool!

Have, like, six decent-sized men with their own gardening tools help make Carl's Garden! And the wives and witches would have a happy old time indoors while the men do the work.

No, I am not soliciting gay sex with a cute metaphor. I think that a garden party is a great place to start!

"I guess I don't understand depression. Why would you allow yourself to fall into a void like that?"


Don't take this the wrong way, please. But no, you don't understand depression. I'm not talking "I am down in the dumps, but I'll pull myself up and get back to stuff tomorrow." I'm talking significant chemical imbalance in the head, that several attempts at legitimate medication haven't been able to fix.

It's where you're sapped of desire to do anything more than sleep, poop, and browse Reddit. It hurts, you almost need somebody to remind you to eat, to drag you out the door in the chance that you might actually get something done today because you just don't give a damn. And you know it's destroying your life, but you just can't find the motivation to seek aid. It might take literally months to work up enough give-a-damn to shout out a call for help, and if that isn't heard... Well, maybe next month you'll care enough to think about it again.

It sucks. It hurts you, it hurts the ones you love, and you just can't stop it. The only time I get any sort of serotonin respite is when I binge on Robitussin and it triggers an evening of a manic snap, and maybe two or three days of feeling normal before I slump back into grey. I wish I could fix it, I really do. But the standard meds don't seem to work, I don't have any insurance so I'm stuck using a local clinic with very limited resources, and ... I don't know.

The one thing that brings me any real joy and fulfillment is making my music, and in the past few years I've even lost my motivation to do that unless someone drags me out of the house. And when I lose my music, THAT scares me most of all. Because that's all I have left.

Hmm. I'm still getting accustomed to publicly acting as staff for Midwest FurFest. I have my own standards for posting online, and I don't mind taking my own reputation into my hands. But I made an idle comment earlier on the MFF page, someone pointed it out. (Nothing serious, just a mild joke in the wrong direction.) I started to say that I felt they were overreacting a little... Then I realized that I am STAFF, and my words do affect the reputation of the con as a whole. I deleted the comment and thanked him for reminding me that I am now a public figure, albeit a very minor one.

It's Pi day, Pi day, gotta get down on Pi day...





(I still give this song props for the mellowest chanting of the digits of Pi EVER.)

I remember one of my right-wing college professors gave us the first page of an ecological essay to read. A manifesto, if you will. Everyone in the class was nodding and agreeing with the stuff.


Next day, he gives us the second page. It starts getting darker and technophobic, but most of the liberal community college kids were still all Hoo-Rah! I recognized the anti-industrialism schpiel immediately, raised my hand, winked at the professor, and said, "This is from Uncle Ted, isn't it?" He smiled and nodded, and asked me not to ruin the surprise.


Raise your hand if you know where this is going.


My college professor's own professor back in grad school had gone to college himself with one Theodore Kaczynski, the Unabomber, and had kept a copy of one of his term papers.

The other students were not nearly as amused as I was.

I want to thank the movie Superbad for including this scene.





I'd say that this was one of the first mainstream guy-movies where the characters felt comfortable talking about their bromance in such plain language. "I love you. I missed you. Boop your nose. Gimme a hug." And not a word of it ironic, jaded, or guarded.

In general, guys do NOT talk like that, especially to one another. And no, this movie never was and never will be Oscar-bait. But seeing this kind of thing onscreen changes things. That broke the ice, and invited us to say the same things to the friends we care about in that same way. Not all of us will... But now we have more permission.

Maybe this could show something of how I see religious symbolism that's hard for me to explain directly. What would the world look like if you replaced all religious symbols with a watering can? You see people inspired by it, wearing it, putting it on their buildings, killing in its name, healing in its name. And yet you can't help but feel absurdly separated from what everyone else is feeling.

Crazy Watering Can from vania heymann on Vimeo.

The annual fandom survey is out again, and just as with last year, and the year before, furries are bitching about ANYTHING that would make them seem less like a beautiful and unique snowflake by compiling THEIR data in with that of all those OTHER furries who aren't absolutely like them.

I filled out the survey, it's quick and unintrusive by my barometer. However, the people behind it haven't yet broken the habit of using loaded language to lead out the answers you're looking for. "I find corporations and corporate culture to be cold and soulless. Answer on a scale of one through six."
It's an amateur mistake, just take that into account when you look at the results data. I dropped them a line, hopefully we'll see more neutral language in future editions. (Though considering my experience with furries, I've just dropped a drama bomb and this will come back to haunt me directly.)

Monday afternoon, we got a phone call. My aunt was on her deathbed. Everything finally decided to quit at once... Severe diabetic crash, stroke, heart attack, and a MRSA infection in her lungs. She hadn't been conscious in several days, and the CT scan showed very little brain activity. Her husband had just signed a DNR order.

The whole family went up to the ICU to say goodbye. Once all the nearby relatives were there, they removed her ventilator tube. She didn't take long.

This was the first time I had ever been around a recently-deceased person. (I wasn't in the room when she actually died.) I pulled back into a book, helped my nephew take a walk and figured out where the line is on dirty jokes around family or empty hallways where acoustics carry... (His fault, not mine, this time, caught it before we got into trouble.)


When someone dies it's like you're carrying a huge sheet of glass around on your back. It's awkward, and you've gotta drop it sometime, and there will be a mess to clean up. Some drop sooner than others. Those who don't let go, keep carrying that weight forever.


The best way, for me, is to call as many friends over as soon as possible to help take the weight off your back, and help make a coffee table out of it, for remembrance.

Could A Club Drug Offer 'Almost Immediate' Relief From Depression? : NPR

Okay, I generally don't talk about my history of drug abuse in public posts but I have a vested personal interest and this needs to be shared. I suffer from bipolar disorder that's largely depressive in nature, and put bluntly, no prescription pharmaceutical given to me to treat it has worked. It's VERY difficult for me to find a reason to get off my butt and do ANYTHING on any given day. Then for a day or two I'm a lunatic with no filters. I take 5-HTP and St. John's Wort to take the spikes off of my cycles, but that only barely curbs the worst of the ups and downs.

I have a long history with Dextromethorphan, the active ingredient in many cough syrups. I was taking it recreationally. However, I was also part of an online community that was one part support group, one part chat room, one part neurochemistry think-tank. A few of us found that regular low doses of DXM *dramatically* increased our give-a-damn and productivity. DXM is in the same family of chemicals as Ketamine, and has similar dissociative effects when taken in bulk. We'd figured there may have been a serotonin reuptake inhibition side-effect, but you can only get so far when your brain trust consists of a chat room full of armchair theorists with high-school/bachelor level training and zero professional support. You know, the Vast Unpaid Research Department.


Since I stopped using DXM regularly, I've fallen back into deeper depression. Part of me wants to go back just to bring back the bounce in life and respark my give-a-damn. It's not an easy balance.


tl;dr: Ketamine (dissociative psychoactive) may show clinical success in fighting depression with those unresponsive to current drugs. I support this with anecdotal evidence from my own recreational drug use of a similar chemical.

I was sitting in bed last night, considering what to do for this coming year's act in the Midwest FurFest Furry Variety Show. In past years I've done flea circus acts, a clean variant of The Aristocrats, a striptease revealing a T-shirt stating "YOU JUST LOST THE GAME," and other quick and dirty sketches.


This year, the theme for the convention is, "As Seen On Television." I was considering riffing with the MC on themes of Not Safe For Broadcast. Specifically, what CHANNEL am I banned from?

I like to do sketches that are maybe ninety seconds on the long end, and very low-budget. I'm thinking come out with a series of cardboard squares to censor out my naughty bits. Start with basic pixelated matrix. "Well, are we banned from The 700 Club?" Switch to a board with a fig leaf. "Banned from The Pirate Bay?" Switch to a board with a SOPA takedown notice. (We'll see if that's still funny in November.) "Banned from 4Chan?" Switch to a board with "YOU JUST LOST THE GAME." "Banned from The History Channel?" Switch to a board with a huge Alien head.


This is just a rough draft, I wanted to get it typed out while I have it in my head. I'll happily take feedback.