20nov2025

So today is the Day of Trans Remembrance, which is different from the March 31 International Day of Trans Visibility, in that the former is a memorial, whereas the latter is a more celebratory holiday.

I fail utterly to understand why the average cis person finds trans people, who are a tiny minority, so scary, but the most interesting comment I encountered over gender affirming care is that cis (non trans) folks get gender affirming care all the time—breast reconstruction after cancer, for example, or even cosmetic breast enhancement in terms of commonplace surgery, or the steroids that bodybuilders and other elite athletes frequently take on the hormone side. Minoxidil (let alone viagra) also spring to mind as typically male related gender affirming care.

Until I encountered this comparison, I tended to think of the one as ‘gender affirming care’, a trans thing, versus stuff regular people do to make themselves look and feel better. But really, there's not a whole lotta difference, is there?

(Perhaps the most extreme gender affirming care I've heard of is leg lengthening, a process which sounds like it puts any surgeries or hormones used by trans folk to utter shame with regard to pain and expense. Though I suppose trans folk could also do this, but because they're such a tiny part of the population this procedure is typically performed on cis men.)

I admit I can't help feeling that striped flowers kind of fit with today's theme, not least because they can—and do—revert to one colour or the other. Today's example is shima nishiki tree peonies in the original red and white; mine, while still striped (because I keep removing any branches that produce solid coloured flowers) are more of a magenta than red, like the type shown here.

17nov2025

I was all set to do something different this week, say, studio photography of some (relatively) recent kumi. Got the new flash trigger, looked up the strobist site, paired trigger with my godox flash, got it working, mounted the flash on the tripod to start testing it with the camera...

...and promptly cracked the plastic housing on the flash hotshoe contact.

Fortunately, godox does make a replacement part for twenty bucks, so back to B&HPhoto I went to order it. In a perfect world I suppose I could complain about that plastic housing, but a) godox seems (from comments on the intertubes I did not pursue) to have fixed it in later models b) they offer a metal replacement and c) let's be real here, this is a cheap alternative to the brand name flash (which moreover has way more manual controls, which is why strobist recommends it, besides cost).

I really was pleased to be able to (potentially) repair this thing so easily—nothing like the effort the wizard expended to fix my trigger, let alone replacing the battery on his phone, for which he ordered a kit from ifixit, and involves, if I understand correctly, taking a heat gun to the phone (and this is rated a ‘medium difficulty(!)’ repair)...

So. Have another little doodle. At least it's a cute cat.

15nov2025

Happy Friday, er, Saturday...

Guess we're doing tues–sat, instead of mon–fri this week.

Remember when I said organizing all my photographic equipment mgiht actually get me doing studio (i.e. flash) photography again? My flash had been getting increasing flaky for no good reason I could determine, but I thought, after I got everything organized, I could re-read the manual, start fresh from the beginning & see if I could get things to work.

By the time I upgraded to the sony 90 mm macro, er, the A7c, strobist was by now recommending a godox flash, for which a wireless trigger considerably cheaper than the once go-to product, pocket wizards, could also be purchased. Yippee, no more cords. I went all out and got the remote release as well, and this new setup was pretty sweet.

For awhile.

Turns out the problem was not operator error or flagging memory, but bad storage: the alkaline batteries (recommended for this device, as opposed to the rechargeable ones I use in the flash itself) combined with the horrid humidity of my basement, and some forgetfulness on my part equalled a lot of corrosion on the battery contacts.

Worse, when the wizard opened up the case, the circuit board inside was also badly corroded. He carefully cleaned up, I berated myself for stupidity, and ordered a new trigger. But! When he tested the thing with a couple of batteries, the display looked good, so perhaps it's salvageable.

In any event, the moral of the story is: remove batteries at the end of the session, or, at the very least, store electronics upstairs. This has been your PSA for the day:)

Or you could check out another mixed media piece. Perhaps I'll actually get to some studio photography this weekend, and have something different next week.

14nov2025

I wonder how many people will take this shark biologist's message to heart? Anyone with expertise who's been consulted by the media will tell you, they mostly get it wrong, or at least, vastly oversimplified; but even the title, while surely designed to grab your attention (’This animal spared my life’: Biologist bitten in head by shark hopes to meet it again) is not nearly as click-baitey as it could've been, or even as my cliche driven memory thought it was (I added a ‘savagely’—which is completely wrong, as the article makes very clear: the snark did the marine equivalent of snapping at him like a deeply annoyed/frightened dog).

The other part of the story that deeply impressed me was how much preparation and practise counts: his oxygen line was severed, and without experience and staying calm enough to function he still would've drowned. And I suspect his generally positive attitude also contributed to his rapid healing, which amazed his doctors but makes perfect sense: he's motivated to get well, and return to his beloved research, to perhaps have a more amiable interaction with the shark, and since it's tagged (the tagging triggered the bite) that might just happen.

Sharks, the researcher notes, are incredibly important to marine ecosystems (which actually are referenced, albeit subtly, on today's mixedmedia.) I wish both of them well.

13nov2025

Here's a little collaged piece, decorations on the back of an envelope for a friend's birthday note.

And, to create enough text so the intro layout works correctly, a perennial favourite, someone calling out men who want to repeal the 19th amendment (that's the one that gave universal suffrage, i.e. women the right to vote). Nothing new to see here, if you haven't the spoons; the notable elements of this particular takedown, at least to my eyes, is that 1) they chose one of the most beautiful depictions of rape ever created, and 2) the author was so authentically an ally I didn't realize he was male till I got to the end of the article, scrolled back up and saw his name, so, go you, Mr Alan Elrod.

(I really wasn't paying attention. Not only did I have to look for the author's name, instead of, you know, noticing it right under the title where such things are traditionally put, then I went digging around my elderly of Art Through the Ages, (so old that I bought it used for under $20) without doing much except identifying the period, which, duh, was plainly obvious from the twisting poses (it's by Bernini, and Baroque, if you care) before dimly recalling that with that crown, it must be Hades and Persephone, and with a bit a googling found the wikipedia link. Which, um, was at the bottom of the article. Le sigh. I'm not brain-dead, I just play something like on the internet. Have a little piece of art, emphasis on the little, as that appears to be all I'm capable of...)

12nov2025

Hi all.

I'm back to watching a lot of lo-content stuff while I continue to tidy my office/catch up on years of ephemera/journalling, so no linkies today:)

Absolutely loved coming home from a short trip to a tidy office, but now I'm trying to figure out how to simultaneously keep it that way, and continue to do the journalling. Turns out it can be tricky to keep a more-or-less continuously-in-use space tidy, at least without copious designated areas for in-progress projects.

But I'm determined to figure this out! And very happy to finally be making some art, even if it's very small scope.