MeghanIsMe

That was my first pride parade marching as a transwoman. I have many complicated feelings.

I'm in this video starting around 12:45. In am on the camera-left side of the group with the UR Pride banner. I am carrying an umbrella that someone gave me over my shoulder, and am wearing a cloth mask. When people were packed together in the staging area and not moving, I kept my mask on. I took it off later when we were moving and a bit more spread out.

Maybe more videos with me will appear in time.

This reminds me a little bit of searching for videos of the Chicago Naked Bike Rides that I was in. That said, this felt both more meaningful, and scarier, then riding through downtown Chicago stark naked.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=RF_RMT-RhCA

I rarely am away from this space for so long! Life is just so full, yet sometimes empty, at the same time. Depression/anxiety for the win!

My partner, Danae, has been having a dry cough off an on since we moved here. It was a lot worse recently: she was having coughing fits that would almost make her vomit or pass out and was using a rescue inhaler regularly. To make a long story short, she finally got to a doctor (we've been worried about Covid exposure, but I really wanted her to go) and got checked out. If it was Covid, it didn't show up. They did lung x-rays too, and gave her antibiotics based on borderline test results suggesting an infection.

But perhaps most interestingly is that this latest medical stuff combined with a lot of other long-term symptoms she's had have led to her thinking she has Sjogren's Syndrome and/or another connective tissue disorder. She was tested for Sjogren's once before and there were indicators, but she didn't think she had common symptoms like a dry mouth and dry cough. Thinking about it more though, she realized little things like how she always has to have water near the bed, and with her during the day. A lot of little things point to something like that and she's following up with a doctor next month. In the meantime, her cough has finally diminished to typical levels. Maybe it was the antibiotics, or maybe it just ran its course.

School is going ok. I'm having a lot of trouble getting things done before the last minute. That's the point at which panic of 'have to get this done' outweighs panic of 'I have to do this scary thing.' Fortunately, I have a letter of accommodation from disability services at Simmons about flexible deadlines for work and that helps a lot. I still do my best to get things in on time.

Speaking of school stuff, I just recorded a short instructional video for my class on reference and information services. As I wrote in the class forum, I was always amazed at how many med students seemed to have no idea how to use a library, so this video is for them. Though at this point it's irrelevant because Rush was moving to closed stacks as I was leaving!

I hope somebody in my class knows what trepanation is and gets a chuckle.

https://simmons.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=51807ab6-371e-4fed-a696-ad160148932d

With Factorio version 1.5 coming out, I think a lot of existing builds are going to become obsolete. It's inspired me to finally try making a video or two of my Factorio builds like I've been thinking about for so long. Turns out, it's not that hard.

I'm using an open source recording suite called OSB that lets me superimpose video sources on each other and do audio mixing. I wrote up some notes, kind of like I was doing a Powerpoint, and walked around my factory giving commentary. As a backdrop, I put two clothes drying racks on top of each other and hung a bedsheet. It worked surprisingly well! You may or may not have any interest in the game, and that's fine. But I'm really pleased with how the video came out, both in terms of sound quality and how I sound in it.