Hi guys. Just a quick note: I owe replies to some of you, but it'll take me a while because I've come down with some kind of nasty flu bug and my thoughts riught now are like bleegle blibble garg. Just letting you guys know I haven't forgotten you.

Now I go pass out in front of the TV... haha I've almost literally been sleeping all day.

Thank you all for your responses to that last entry. ♥

Right now I'd like to share something that always cheers me a little: the story of Gordafarid (a.k.a. Gurdafarid, Gurdafrid, etc) from Ferdowsi's Shahnameh, the national epic of Iran, which was written around 1000 CE. This is an excerpt from Helen Zimmern's translation (which is in prose and only includes the first half. It can be found here).

( See, the women of Iran have ALWAYS been badass. )

Probably old to most of you who've been keeping an eye on the situation, but maybe there's someone out there who hasn't seen them?

Huffington Post's liveblog coverage has been pretty good.

#iranelection photo set on Flickr (warning for blood/violent images). Large versions of some of them can be seen here.

Informative post with many links (and a really cool little video about bloggers in Iran) at ontd_political. The live discussion post (this is the second one; another may be posted soon) also has lots of good links.

Anonymous Iran forum.

Simple Ways to Help Iranian Free Speech: some good advice and links to more good advice on how to help Iranian bloggers without further jeopardizing their safety.

Edit: In case anyone was wondering, my uncle finally got through to my aunt, and everyone's okay over there. ♥ They didn't have long to talk (apparently the phone lines are only up intermittently) but they're all fine.

I feel like I should post about the Iranian elections and their aftermath, but I... am not good at talking about this kind of thing. So I don't really know what to say.

I hope my relatives are all right. I'm pretty sure my cousin and her fiancee were participating in protests in Tehran... but of course social networks have been blocked again, so her Facebook hasn't been updated since she posted a cell phone video of marching protestors on Saturday. One of my uncles was going to try calling them and some other relatives there (though usually whenever shit goes down we're not able to get through). Hopefully we'll hear from him today.

Been following several people on Twitter; searching for the hashtag #iranelection will get you a dizzying array of results, though sifting through it all and figuring out what's true and what's bullshit can be difficult -- like a lot of the information we're getting about the situation.

Edit: an Iranian Twitter user just linked to this video of Mousavi supporters gathered by the Azadi Tower in Tehran.

Edit again: removed links to personal Twitters just in case.

Sorry for the repeat if you're following my Twitter, but I wanted to mention this firefly observation study I'm doing. It's based out of Boston's Museum of Science, but it looks like they'll take volunteers from all over North America.

I am concerned about these rumors of firefly decline. Doesn't help that I haven't seen any at all this year, and I usually have by now. :(

Also insect-related: holy crap, look at this rosy maple moth! Isn't it gorgeous?

...so I guess now I'm going to have to become an amateur bug-nerd in addition to the amateur bird-nerd path I seem to be heading down. Heh.

Sent out all the mail except internationals and packages (which will be mailed as soon as I can get to the post office on Monday). This means that slightly awkward letters and random bits of crap from me are on their way to you right. this. instant. I know it's difficult, but please try to contain yourselves. 8V

(And since it's probably hard to tell, considering how much I procrastinated on writing these: I'm really happy to be getting back into snail mail penpallery. I hope we can continue writing to each other. ♥)

In further exciting news, we got a hummingbird feeder today. I've seen hummingbirds here before, but we never really had anything to keep them coming back. I hope this time they will find the accomodations more to their liking!

Since I've started paying attention, there's actually quite a bit of interesting birdage stopping by our yard. Well, at least they're interesting to me, because before I got into bird-watching, all I ever seemed to notice were robins, sparrows, crows, and the occasional cardinal or hairy woodpecker. (This little fella has been my favorite of our recent visitors. GMMMF SO CUTE.)

Was digging through the closet today and found an old diary. Here's a glimpse of me at age 12:

"3/17/92
Everyone pinched me today cause I wasn't wearing green. I'm starting to like dragon books. I think that when I redecorate my room, I'll put up pictures of old-movie stars, but I'll clear a shelf for dragon things. Cool!"

...that would be a pretty cool room.

...so this morning, our coffee maker apparently decided it would be fun to imitate the sound of my dad yawning. The thing usually makes a racket while it's brewing anyway, and this particular sound was rather quiet (it seemed distant, like it was coming from the basement), but it still sounded JUST LIKE HIM. And it kept doing it over and over again. I was like, "What the hell, why is Dad yawning that much? Is he okay?!" and was halfway to the stairs before I realized the yawning noise was coming from the coffeepot. wtffffff.

Brings back "fond" memories of the heating system at our old house, which sometimes made a raspy noise that sounded like heavy breathing. :D At least I hope it was the heating system.

( Sorry if I'm adding to the 'omg dreamwidth' glut on your flist. )

ETA: okay, done waffling! I am opoponax.

On another note, I just realized my surgery was a year ago today. Whoa.

There was a mourning dove sitting on the railing of our back porch this morning, staring right at me. So I decided to be a dork and, through the sliding glass door, did a really bad impression of a mourning dove call while standing very still...

And it ANSWERED me. TWICE. We were having a regular conversation! Though finally I think I must've said something offensive in Dove-ese because it took off in a flurry of tweets. Another one landed on the porch a bit ago and I tried talking to it too, but this one wasn't having none of that bullshit. Damn. I was all about to add "dove whisperer" to my résumé and everything.

Also, I know I've sucked at replying to stuff over the last few days. Sorry about that. (The weekend was kind of terrible. Let's just sum it up with "assorted health issues, most of them not mine aside from the killer cramps from hell.")

( Closin' tabs )

Icon meme from jantalaimon:

1. Reply to this post, and I will pick six of your icons.
2. Make a post (including the meme info) and talk about the icons I chose.
3. Other people can then comment to you and make their own posts.
4. This will create a never-ending cycle of icon glee.

(If you only have six icons but want to play, I'll pick like... three or so.)

( Warning: I'm, uh... sort of bad at these. Haha. )

P.S.: I'm really sorry about taking so long with the postcards. I will get them out to you eventually!

Sorry for double posting, but I just noticed there are the cutest little clusters of violets in the backyard. AHHH. I'm sure they've been there awhile and I only saw them when I ventured out of lalaland, but it still made my day.

The house I lived in from about age ten to twenty was right next to a small stand of woods. Just past the entrance, the floor would be carpeted in violets, and their scent would hang in the air like a fog. That's one of the few things I miss about that place.

Made a little BPAL imp order a while ago, and I finally got around to sampling them all.

( Mini-reviews behind the cut. Not sure if anyone is actually interested in these, but they're fun to write. )

Also, my glasses are still kind of driving me nuts... I think the Rx might be slightly off or something. They made some adjustments to the frames, which helped a little, but I still feel like I could see better with my old glasses. Bleh.

Went in to get tested for new glasses, and when the clerk pulled up my chart afterwards, I noticed that my prescription was listed as -7 something (I have astigmatism too, but I didn't manage to catch those numbers). That's... pretty bad, isn't it. XD; At least the eye doc said it hadn't worsened much in the last five years.

Also, what the hell is up with all those boxy rectangular frames? They're EVERYWHERE. I know it's the trend now or whatever, but seriously, like 80% of the frames in the store were slight variations of that shape -- annoying for those of us who look awful in them. It was stupidly difficult to find frames that were both oval enough and big enough, not to mention ones that sat comfortably on my bumpy nose (this is the only thing that bothers me about my nose anymore). Sigh. I did end up finding some that looked okay, though now I almost wish I'd gone with the odd little round pair that kinda made me feel like a mad scientist from the 1890s.

I don't normally do these sorts of memes, but this one is so cute.

the icon love you meme!

Also, I'm discovering how inadequate my icons are for this. Too much with the creepy. 8(

Also also, if I can't find you on the meme I am going to icon at your icons. Just you try and stop me, huh. HUH.

1. I had a cup of cheese crackers and a steaming hot mug of rooibos tea sitting side by side while I was distractedly browsing the internet a while ago.

I'm sure you see where this is going. ow my fingers :(

2. In the kitchen, I picked up a wet hand towel which I meant to toss down to the laundry room, but then was distracted by my mom asking if I'd bring her a drink. Where did the wet towel end up? In the refrigerator, on top of a loaf of bread. At least this time I realized something had gone awry in my plans just a moment after I closed the refrigerator door.

3. While my mind was off in an alternate universe, I must have decided I didn't need earthly trifles such as salt shakers anymore, because my brother found ours lying in the trash. I don't remember doing this.

I would worry about my mind deteriorating, but well... I've pretty much always been like this. Though three in one day might be slightly more than usual. So if I don't post or comment for a while, you may be able to correctly assume that I have misplaced the internet.

I was talking to my mom about I didn't plan to change my surname if, by some amazing happenstance, I were to get married. There are several reasons, one of which is sort of shallow: I like my last name and I think it's cool.

Mom's response: "But what if they have an even COOLER surname? Like... like Goldfinch."

I'm not going to transcribe the rest of that conversation, but suffice it to say that we somehow ended up deciding that if I ever had kids (even less likely to happen), their names would be...

Mom: You are not naming my precious grandchildren Metal Gear and Deadbolt!
Me: Uhh, Metal Gear was your suggestion.
Mom: THAT WILL NOT BE ITS NAME. Name them something cute, like... uh...
Me: Peanut?
Mom: ...
Me: That can be their middle name.

I dunno, I think Metal Gear Goldfinch and Deadbolt Goldfinch have a certain something to them, don't you?

Hi. I've been pretty down in the dumps lately (as you might have guessed from me not posting in like, a month). I'm not really feeling better yet, but it'll pass at some point. Pretty sure at least part of it is just the seasonal blahs.

...why do people with whom I exchanged maybe three words in high school keep trying to add me on Facebook. Leave me alone! Augh.

Moving on: are any of you familiar with the perfume Mitsouko by Guerlain? I'm not usually into alcohol-based perfumes because they tend to go all sickly on me, but that list of notes is intriguing. (Too bad it sounds like the reformulation isn't quite as good.) Though actually, my interest in it was piqued when I stumbled across a blurb on this page:

"From 1919, this is a much-contested perfume, either love it or hate it. As much as I wanted to love this historical scent, I just can't wear it. It is overly-woody and dusty on me, like I've been laying in the bottom of an old trunk faintly perfumed by clothes from another century. Now if only there weren't cobwebs in my hair, too."

It's supposed to be a negative review, but... BUT THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT I WANT TO SMELL LIKE.