Wild Monkeys!

Okay, after conducting a very unscientific survey, I have come to the conclusion that debit cards just simply do not work on TriMet ticket machines, regardless of what TriMet says. I've tried a number of different debit cards, from my bank-issued VISA CheckCard to a handful of prepaid debit cards from as varied as places as 7-11 and Wal-Mart.

All these cards just simply say "AUTHORIZATION DENIED" when swiped (or in the case of one of the cards which is a contact card, tapped on the reader at a CARDS-ONLY machine).

Has anybody ever successfully used a debit card at a TriMet ticket vendor? I'm especially interested in hearing reports from the last couple of months, as this seems to be a recent phenomenon.

Oh, and before you ask: every TriMet employee I've ever asked about this just shrugs their shoulders. What do they care, after all: they get to ride for free, while us peons have to scrounge for change.. (end rant)

EDIT: Maybe TriMet just hates me.

Does anyone here attend a congregation in Portland, Oregon? I'm considering moving there and I see there are 6 medium/large congregations with full-time ministers in the area. The three that look most appealing to me are West Hills, Vancouver (formerly Michael Servetus), and Washington County, but I would want to check out all of them (the other 3 are Eastrose, First Unitarian, and Atkinson, did I miss any?). We would probably be living in Beaverton at first. I'm married, no kids, but my husband desperately wishes he could find a liberal Episcopalian church to attend instead so it would probably just be me unless and until we have kids.

Does anyone have any experience with any of the UU churches in Portland? Do any of them have Young Adults (18-35) groups?

cross-posted to uuyoungadults

Two things!

The chorus that faethverity and I sing with, the Columbia Chorale, is having two concerts very soon. The first is on Saturday, December 12 at 7:30 p.m. at Milwaukie Presbyterian Church. This one is FREE. The second one is on Sunday, December 13 at 3 p.m. at St. Helens High School in the auditorium. Tickets for that are $10 for adults, $5 for seniors and students. We'll be performing a wide variety of Christmas music, from medieval and baroque classical pieces to jazz and fairly traditional carols. The music is fun. Please come hear us!

The SECOND thing is that on Friday, December 18 at 7 p.m. I am hosting my annual Cookie Party. Bring your favorite cookies or something to drink (I'll be making DOZENS of cookies and Christmas candy) and come hang out. There will probably be Christmas music, because that's how I roll.

Have more CD's than you know what to do with? Know someone with more CD's than they know what to do with?

I've ripped my library, so everything's going into storage and I don't need my racks anymore. Very nice all-metal Boltz CD racks, pretty much like new - non-smoking house. Holds 1800 CD's total, and will hold some DVD's along the top. You can't store this many CD's more compactly than this.

$650 to buy new - will sell for $200 to DP'er, can deliver. Plus, you can spend a leisurly afternoon reassembling them! Everything's there, plus a few extra rods, etc., that came with them.

( pic below the cut )

Selling my queen sized pillow top bed that comes WITH TWO INCH memory foam and box spring set!

Asking $175 or best offer

Moving and I need to have this bed sold. It's currently sitting in my old room at the property I was renting.

I've had the bed and foam less than a year...the bed has been WELL taken care of. No stains, no marks; there has always been a mattress cover, bottom sheet, THEN the memory foam, then another sheet, and finally, the comforter (only coming off when washed.)

Bed is VERY soft and made even softer by adding the memory foam, which comes with the bed for $175.

U-haul out of the room and back to your place.

Mattress, memory foam, and box spring for sale.
No headboard , footboard, or frame.

Contact Dusty - 503-780-1262

I'll be in Sellwood this afternoon for a few hours and then again on Sunday and Monday.

Does someone have a copy of "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" by Junot Diaz that I can borrow ASAP (need it before monday night)?
Send me an email (corsoe AT ourschool) or stop by my desk (162).

The driver's side automatic buttons for the window control are breaking on our Corolla and looking to go get it fixed. Where's a good reliable place in PDX for that, that you guys recommend? I'd love it if I could get my oil changed there too.

Has anyone had any experiences, good, bad or indifferent, with Parklane Mattress in Tualatin?

I'm looking for a new mattress and I am trying to avoid the feeling of walking onto a car lot like I get with the chain mattress stores.
Thanks.

I don't know if my audience is tired of my various car rants, but this New York Times review of the new Cadillac station wagon made me go, "Ugh... car designers are still that stupid, eh?"

The portion that actually set me off was this triumph of style and design over usefulness and safety:

“There’s a stigma of what a wagon is and I think what we were trying to do is something that was not a traditionally defined wagon,” said Clay Dean, Cadillac’s chief designer, who is also executive director for G.M. global advanced design. “The D-pillar is thicker than you would normally do; normally you’d thin that thing up as much as you can for visibility, but it was a conscious choice — we were trying to convey a sense of dynamics and sportiness and masculinity.”

F'ing morons.

I am having my cooking day and hope to give thanks for all turning out well :)
appetizer: green/kalmata tapanade and bruschetta
Ham with a brown sugar and honey glaze
my own recipe of fresh cranberry, orange and raisin sauce
Macaroni and 5 Cheese Casserole
Collard greens (made the southern way)
Homemade parker house rolls

And to top it all off:
Walnut pie with ice cream

and drinks.

I have everything done but the greens and I had to ask the vegetable department to make sure they would be available today, they were all out.

I hope you all have a great weekend, I am enjoying having a four day weekend.

Elections Update!

We are RECOUNTING the Vice Presidential ballots on Sunday, and will have the results of the recount on Monday.

There will be a RUN-OFF for Senate (and possibly Vice President) starting Monday, 11/30 and ending Thursday 12/3. The Senate candidates in this run off are:

Nabeel Arshad
Zoe Kipping
Sam Kraus
Zach Levin
Louis Melendez
Jeffrey Poon
Nina Showel

VOTE AT SIN.REED.EDU/ELECTIONS on Monday!

Anyone been thinking lately of opening up a credit card (to get points, track spending better, improve your credit...)? If you're in the market, your application could really help me out. I've been trying for a while to get enough points from one of my credit cards for a free flight to visit my fam in Londontown, and since I don't plan on spending 3,000+ dollars anytime soon, I was was kinda at a loss about how to do it. Well, until they sent me an invitation to Citi's referral program today, that is.

So, if you want a pretty sweet credit card, I can hook you up--and if you get approved, I get the points I need for the flight. One of the two I can refer you to is the Citi Premier Pass, which, as you probably know, was Kiplinger's choice for Best Airline Card four years running because it awesomely awards points for the airline miles you fly--in addition to the miles the airline gives you. (That is, buy a roundtrip ticket from Boston to Paris, for example, and you'll get 7,000 point for the miles flown, plus the cost of the flight--enough for a $75 gift card or tuition rebate.)

On the other hand, if you don't care about the flight points, or need a starter credit card if you don't have credit yet (also it has 0% APR for the first 6 months, if you need that, just don't get yourself into debt, plz), I can give you another referral for that. My quest to get a free flight aside, it's a good way to go if you want to build credit in anticipation for getting screened for renting a house next year, or applying for lucrative points-earning cards later on.

If you're at all intrigued, interested, or indeterminate, pleeeeze send me your email and I'll send you a referral...and help me get the extra 3,420 points I need to get my own free flight. :) Thanks!

I like Blipbox better than VBox, and it goes along with Bliplace. So that'll be the name for now. :)

At this point all the main systems are designed on paper, most have test circuits designed and laid out and test parts purchased, a few have been prototyped (signal generator, power supplies) or have had pre-made prototype modules purchased (fpga, microcontroller, usb interface).


Current very rough feature list is -

Two 1 Ghz bandwidth scope input stages with preamp (ADA4817-based), switchable as 1x/10x passive attenuation (before the preamp), AC/DC coupling, 1x/10x gain, (likely physical switches for first version, maybe relays later). Input impedance is 1MOhm || ~15 pF, compatible with standard 10x probes. Voltage at the preamp will be clamped to +/-5v, so with 10x probes and 10x attenuation it should be able to handle +/-(a few hundred) volts. I've put together a couple SPICE simulations and everything seems to check out - with proper calibration the frequency response should be darn flat.

Two 150 mhz variable gain amplifier stages (AD8330), software-controlled with gain/bias adjust. That part has a crazy wide gain range - maximum scope sensitivity will be limited by the noise floor.

Two 200-msample ADCs with ~1 meg of buffer per channel (DRAM is cheap, but I might end up limited by the complexity of FPGA DRAM controller - if I go with a tiny FPGA I'll use ~64k SRAM buffers instead).

Two ~100 msample DACs driven by the FPGA for arbitrary waveform synthesis (I've got dedicated waveform generator modules up and running already for testing, but don't really need them for the final box)

One or two clock generators (current parts I'm using are up to 133 mhz in 10 khz increments).

Analog crossbar switch - current chip I've got is a 8 x 16 array, bidirectional, bipolar (up to +/-7.5v) 300 mhz bandwidth - route any IO source to any IO sink however you like. Really neat little part, can't wait to see what people do with it.

16x general-purpose IO pins (standard 0.1" dual-row header), 8 of them routed to the analog switch matrix and 8 to the FPGA

Spartan-3 FPGA, somewhere in the 50k to 250k equivalent gate range.

At least one, possibly two adjustable bipolar switching-mode power supplies (one for the analog input stage, maybe one for external use) - current chip I'm using is software adjustable via I2C and can do ~300 mA at +/-12v.

At least two, possibly more linear power supplies (500 mA @ 1v to 5v, something like that), switchable between constant-current and constant-voltage mode.

The "bring-your-own-amps" miniature bench power supply feature (circuit in box, but only runs off external power) is probably nixed for the moment due to already excessive feature & power creep (was hoping for something that could match my current 30v @ 1 amp bench supply, thinking about doing external I2C-controlled module that can use the box for UI). Needs more research anyhow.

Color touchscreen (I've got a PSP screen which is gorgeous but expensive, will probably end up with 320x240), LED backlight, li-ion battery, high-speed USB interface for scope sample grabbing & firmware, etc (20+ meg/second courtesy of a really nifty new FTDI chip), Arduino-compatible bootloader, other goodies.

Other feature possibilities include some sort of video input/output (greyscale composite video generation is surprisingly easy and only needs 1 pin), some sort of audio input/output (moderate power amplified audio DACs are cheapcheap), whatever other fun shiny bits happen to intrigue me.

For open-source projects, it always seems better to build a platform than a product. :)

This is a year-long project at least, and I'm only a few months into it - some of the above will no doubt be cut, but I very much like the idea of having a suite of undedicated IO and amp and filter modules, a crosspoint switch to allow on-the-fly rewiring of them, and enough ADC/DAC and FPGA horsepower to be able to digitize high-speed signals, manipulate them via a soft-DSP, and spit them back out again.

We shall see if I succeed. :)

-tanjent

Now that I feel mostly finished with being a Mom, I can see that I'm not finished with the difficult struggle over knowing where the line is between too much and not enough--specifically when is the time to try to bring about change and when is the time to accept things as they are. My approach with my kids was to set broad limits and encourage each one to develop his own conscience and goals. I still struggled over enforcing the few rules I put in place and how and when to exert positive pressure in a particular direction.

I found this to be the hardest part of parenting and now I see that I still have to figure it out with respect to myself. I think I have the will and self control to adapt to most circumstances, but don't have a great sense of self-direction. Losing the roles of wife and mother has left me somewhat adrift.

There are certain patterns of behavior that I have that could be considered flaws. Some might be essential to being me, while some might be the type of thing I'd benefit from trying to change. I can't really tell which is which. It could make sense to start with areas where there is a consensus among the people who know me. But my stubborn rebel side doesn't want to concede to conventional wisdom and following the opinions of others seems like a bassackwards way to take charge of my destiny.

NaNo update: 46,043. Only 4,000 words to go!

So, I'm at work. At 11 pm. On a holiday. And I'll be here tomorrow, too.

This is fine. I mean, it sucks, yes, but it's an extraordinary circumstance, this doesn't normally happen, and it's for a big important project, all that kind of stuff, so I don't mind.

I spent all day with my Dad's side of the family yesterday, which was much longer and more enjoyable than I expected. There are a lot of small childrens, and some of my nephews are a bit shrieky, but there were enough children and parents that they didn't demand attention. Maybe they kind of cancel each other out once you get enough of them?

There was lots of tasty food. The turkeys (one roasted, one deep-friend, both brined) were really excellent this year, and the sesame-ginger (aka Of Crack) green beans went over well.

It turns out that my middle sister is, indeed, divorced, and has been for long enough that she's been with her current boyfriend for a year. I got to pick the two of them up and drive them down there, so I got to hear some details, and it sounds like it's all for the best. New Boyfriend definitely earns more approval points than Ex-Husband. (It also turns out that my sister and I have similar taste in men, but that's neither here nor there.)

I remembered to bring games this year, and we played three(!) rounds of Dominion. It was a bigger hit than I expected.

Had some good conversation with siblings, and we got some pictures with all of us, since this may well be the last time we do everyone in the same place for a holiday. My youngest sister is graduating high school in the spring, and then my step-mom will be selling her house and moving out to West Virginia with my step-sister & her (large) family, so there won't really be a central gathering point any more.

I'm thankful for a lot of things this year, as always. Friends and family are one of the big ones.

1. Who is organizing this? I want to attend practices if there are any.

2. I'm looking for a trumpet to borrow.

Please send any information to gagnehawes at gmail.com. Thank you and seniors, keep going. It is already worth it.

I've always been under the impression that people are more likely to purchase items from people on ebay if that seller has many transactions on their ebay account. I have an ebay account on which I've never sold anything, but have purchased maybe 4 items (and forgot to ever leave feedback)..

So.. I have a few things I'd like to see if I can get maybe $20 a piece for (clothing items mostly I think) so I can have some $$ to buy a few gifts this year.

Does anyone know if I'd have luck doing this (getting buyers) with my account being so barren? Is there anyone with an ebay account that they sell lots of things on, that they would let me post a few things? And I would take care of shipping and photos and all that, I just want to try to successfully sell these things. How much do they even charge you to post items?

Thanks DP

None of this faux-nlc shit.

What's up, kids?

I am having a migrainey evening and am not really up for going clubbing - does anyone want to go show my little sister (yes, she is legal drinking age) around Pike/Pine?

-tanjent

marie_paris/lacy_b_timeless is an artist and musician, a steampunk and goth, a Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer fan and undergoing severe health problems. She's got about a year to undergo treatment for temporary brain damage before it becomes permanent. I don't know her personally, but it's easy to tell from afar that she brings joy to the lives of others. More than that, she deserves to live. Help save her life.

Looking for a good open source photo editor. Someone mentioned Gimp (three whoops for tags!). Is it good? Are there any others I should consider?

Thanks.

( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )

( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )

I was walking down SE 34th and saw this:



I wonder if TV in general is evil, or if that particular one is evil.

and i hope this doesn't turn into a sinus infection

thanksgiving was really supersweet with my awesome lil' bro and my daddio and his rad partner-lady and lots of exquisite food and they even made some epicurean delights that were gluten-free for me <3 my bro is way into greek mythology and he told me about theseus while we got some sage and rosemary for the candle centerpiece what a wonderful family i have <3

i'm done with period punctuation

oh yeah but what sux is that my friend (who's half black and half shawnee) got arrested on thanksgiving for goddddddddamn old-ass parole violation with no warning or explanation at first by a particular cop who's known for fucking with brown people (racists cops - go figure) so he's in jail and that totally blows this is a few days after he and my roommate billi totally called out this crazy ex=marine asshole who was threatening a family of chicano/latino/native(?) folks with like little kids and saying "get out of my country you're on my death list" etc so they told him to stop and he lunged at billi and got him in a choke hold and ryan got him to stop and they ran off making out while he called them faggots and they shouted "this is MY country! get out of My country" which is pretty great if you ask me but man AMERICA what a racist-ass place

so there's that good old thanksgiving i have mixed feelings

i had this ancestor named william tritt who was a swiss anabaptist farmer who settled in wisconsin and he got there and there were a whole bunch of native folks there and they were supposed to be "relocated" but like they heard that the land on the other side of the mississippi that they were supposed to move to was SHIT so they were like FUCK THAT we're staying here and all you crackers can eat a dick, but william tritt found a way to mediate peace between his fellow europeans and the natives and they all lived happily ever after until the civil war came and he fought even though he was already like 40 because he was so against slavery and so he wound up in the prison camp in florida for a longass time and wrote a bunch of diaries that got published and then he got out and went home and kept farming until he died at age 80something when he fell off a stack of barley i love that story

that's my thanksgiving story, er something

i mean, i like food
and my family
and my heritage -- all parts of it -- swiss english scottish (go william wallace!) irish native american native mexican (go aztec mathematics!) spanish german french and who knows what else
even kind of proud of what america is and could be becoming
it's an uphill battle
but there's a whole lot of potential

my neighbours are these awesome white trash sorta white pride american flag sorta people and they're supersweet they hang out with me and billi and they love us and we help eachother out all the time... billi's dating that black/native boy he's been a friend of their family for years and they help support their relationship in meaningful ways and they know i'm a witch and so is grandma and we talk about magick and being psychic and energy work they prayed and gave energy to my crystal pendulum for instance and they brought billi a homemade birthday cake with candles and sang to him it was cute

maybe america can be more like that in general who knows

love, lizo

In a few short hours, I will be at Dragonmeet, in Kensington Town Hall.

Who else can I expect to see there?

Today (Friday, that is, not actual today), I attempted to cheer myself up with a half-price new dress. It is stripy, and has a giant robot stomping on buildings. I think you can see why I bought it, yes? I may wear it tomorrow if the weather isn't too cold. See how awesome it is! Only £20 too, bargainacious.

Watched 'Cronos' (I <3 Del Toro) with alextiefling. This one made him cry! I hadn't seen it since about 1997, so it was lovely to revisit.

Tired now. Mm, curry and melon. Maybe not in the same mouthful, though.

Okay here's the deal: I have two Xbox 360's. One is brand new still in the sealed box and the other has been played for the last two weeks. We got a good deal on the system on Amazon a few weeks back which is why we bought two (one for profit). Anyway, I am slowly realizing that there are not many games for me on the system. Yeah I know, there are GREAT games, but they're "boy" games, and I'm not really into the shooter type games. My boyfriend has been playing it since we got it and I'd rather we have something that we can BOTH use. We thought it would be cool to get a PS3 (hello, Blu ray!). Does anyone have a new or very gently used PS3 they would like to trade for the two Xbox's?

Alternatively we are also interested in a new Wii. Mine is on it's last leg. So maybe you have a new Wii you would like to trade for a new Xbox? OR if none of those do it for you and you want a brand new Xbox I can just flat out sell that-$175. Oh and the Xbox is the Arcade version. I have a CL ad up that has no more details than I put here but I'll post it anyway: http://portland.craigslist.org/clc/vgm/1484526974.html

So if you are interested in any above offer please message me. Thanks!!!

Have any of you used outdoor solar Christmas lights here? How well did they work with our cloudy weather?

I don't have an outdoor plug but I really want to put lights out this year!

where in portland can you get ear candles? tried whole foods and zupans but nothing...any suggestions?

Okay, yes, I know y'all work crazy hard. And most of the time, the callers are idiots. But the tech support guy I'm currently on with is making me crazy.

My xBox is telling me it's broken. I have called to find out what to do about it. I've been on the phone for almost 20 minutes now (18:40, according to my cell phone) and he hasn't even gotten my name, address, and phone number quite figured out yet.

Keeps telling me he is "unable to verify" my address.

WTF does that even mean? It's a fucking address, how complicated is that?

Haven't even had the bloody box for a year yet (and I splurged to get the 360 elite because I was told it was the *least* likely to die like this), I just rented a game which is still a little spendy for my budget, and now I can't *play* the game I just spent extra money on and I'm still on bloody hold while he tries to "verify my address".

Rawr.

Any suggestions for a fun, free Saturday?

We have a birthday boy (ok man) that is broke and needs a special day. I know there are some deals out there for free desserts but we can't afford the meal or other fine print that goes along with those.

We are outdoorsy folks that spend a great deal of time wandering around aimlessly.

This might be helpful for those that are looking to not spend a dime to offset Black Friday.

Any thoughts?

So, as delicious as my Thanksgiving dinner was, I had neglected to get any pie. Not that I need a whole pie to myself, but you know what I'm saying. Now, I am hungry for some sort of pie, but I don't know any restaurants, cafes, or the like that would serve me a delicious slice with a cup of coffee.

So, DP - where is the good pie? I'm close-in in NW, so something in this neck of the woods is my preference, but a catalog of awesome places for pie isn't a bad thing to have in the archives, is it?

Do any of you happen to know anything about what it takes to have someone sent to rehab without their consent? Is that even possible? I know that you can go to court and prove that someone isn't fit to make their own decisions...is there a way to do that without actually going to court?

Any help would be greatly appreciated...their are kids involved, so also any info on getting temporary guardianship would be good too!

We're prepping for a move, and we have quite a bit of stuff we'd like to donate. I know Union Gospel Mission downtown advertises free pick-up; does anyone have any experience donating to them this way?

How about other companies that do free pick-up? I heard that place by the NW Trader Joe's does, but that they're picky. Any leads would be excellent. If it helps, what we've got so far are mostly adult women's clothing running the gamut in regards to size, and various other household goods (alarm clocks, coffee pots, etc) which we would rather just donate than attempt to sell.

Thanks in advance!

I asked someone to post this a while ago, and they did, but no one ever came for it.

So long story short, I have a mini fridge that I want to get rid of. If you want it, come and get it.

To arrange, email mcarlson@ourschool.

• 12:20 Happy day of overeating. I am thankful for all of you, except #

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My tiny little short fiction contest is hereby extended through to noon next Wednesday.

There. More time. Now go play! Don't worry too much about what you put into it. This is meant to be a prompt people can have fun with, ideally on their lunch breaks.

In other news, I think the Associated Press has officially jumped the shark.

• 14:35 Monster Palace thanksgiving folk! Looks like dinner is closer to 4pm than 3pm. Please come over any time! :-) #

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Anyone else stuck at your family's house and bored out of your goddamn mind??? >.>

Hey! My fabulous little ten-year-old girl is done with "Twilight" and now she really, really wants to read "New Moon" as her next in-class book. I know there are roughly 39984772299 copies floating around the greater metropolitan area, so if you don't feel like taking yours to Powells, how'd you like to donate it to a voracious young reader? We'd be happy to come pick it up from you and thank you in person. :)

That's her in the icon. How can you resist?

My uncle's looking for a home for a wee kitten that he's rescued. She's a she, she's young, and she's missing an eye from a dog attack. My uncle had her repaired as best he could, and he's keeping her in his office trailer for the time being, to keep her safe.

Looking for a home for her with no other animals. Message me if you think you might be interested. I hope to have some pictures and more details by tomorrow.

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This has been around before, but its just to good not to share again.
( Read more... )

Happy Holidays.

If any one is looking for anything to do tonight this will be going on @ the fez ballroom and it's free!

Shadowplay
Industrial-goth-electro-eighties dance night

with Djs:
Ghoulunatic
Horrid

Thurs Nov 26th 2009
Doors at 9:00pm - 21 & Over
(HAPPPY HOUR DRINK SPECIALS FROM 9PM-11PM)
FREE! NO COVER!

The Fez Ballroom
(Next to Powells Books on Burnside and above Buffalo Exchange)
316 SW 11th
Portland, Oregon
http://www.myspace.com/shadowplaypdx

You knew it was coming...

What are you thankful for?

So over the past few months my boyfriend has been playing an online MMORPG and I finally started to play it after him bugging me about it.
Well, I have to say it is pretty darn fun.
From what people tell me its similar to WOW in game play but since I have not ever played that I can not tell you myself.
If anyone is interested its called Fiesta. It is downloaded from outspark.com
Best deal. It is 100% free to play!
( Rambly info over here )
If anyone plays already or ends up playing let me know and maybe we can play together. I have 2 characters myself (a mage and a fighter).

Craving delicious home cooked food for Thanksgiving, but have nowhere to go?

Come join us in Naito Lounge from 5-7pm for a Sub-Free tradition!


Want to cook a Thanksgiving meal, but have nowhere to cook and no one to cook for?

We could use a few more hands to help out with the cooking. Come to Sullivan (Steele East) third floor if you want to help!

Many thanks to everyone who gave such useful and practical advice yesterday. On my third attempt, I managed to get the Mooncup in at what seemed like an acceptable and not too painful a siting, so I left it in there overnight, hoping that removal would be easier than insertion.

Big. Mistake.

During the night, it seemed to have shifted up a bit. Quite a bit. As in, so high I couldn't reach it, and was thanking my lucky stars I hadn't cut the stalk off. I then discovered I couldn't shift it. At all. Not from any angle. My fingers are quite short and fat, which didn't help. The problem is that even Mooncup + 1 finger is really quite unpleasant. Mooncup + 1 finger + 1 thumb is absolute agony.

After nearly 10 minutes, getting a bit distressed (not good) because it was getting late, alextiefling pointed out I wasn't going to be able to do it on my own and offered to help (he has very long and slender fingers, which is a positive). It then took TWO PEOPLE HALF AN HOUR to get the vile thing out. 20 minutes of that was spent with me screaming continuously at almost full volume because of the utter, wrenching, shredding pain it was causing (my poor neighbours!). The final 10 minutes was spent coughing very hard (and inducing sore throat) to try and get it to shift downwards, and this was probably what finally got it to pop out. I really do mean "pop" - final removal caused the loudest scream of all, and I really did think for a few minutes that I'd done my usual smart trick of tearing the labial/perineal join (like tearing the corners of my mouth, this is something which happens far more than I'd like), but couldn't really check as I then had to shove a tampon straight back into the distressed area and leave, 40 FUCKING MINUTES LATE FOR WORK. I need to do that kind of now and yes, I'm putting it off. *shudder*

The journey into work was spent by both of us in a sort of shell-shocked silence (and not just cos of it having been one of the least sexy experiences in the history of the universe). I think I might actually have burst into tears if I hadn't been quaking inwardly with the horror, the horror. I've subsequently spent the day in a sort of post-traumatic edge-of-panic mood, similar to how I've felt on the rare occasions I've had really frightening experiences. And putting off peeing for as long as possible ftb THE BURN, which really did bring a couple of tears to my eyes come mid-afternoon.

This probably sounds a bit melodramatic, and no doubt it is (although my witness and fellow participant also seems to have been nearly as traumatised by the grimness of it all), but yes, it really was that bad. Am now genuinely quite frightened of the Mooncup. On the positive side, I suppose it *has* reduced my fear of the speculum. I spent quite a bit of my screaming time wishing for a nice, non-scratchy, professionally-wielded speculum instead of the nasty finger-poking which was going on, and which I was trying and spectacularly failing not to think about.

This is (probably) why I have never, ever been able to get on with fisting. And yeah, I'm looking back all those experiences with comparable calm, by contrast. The Mooncup was many, many times worse - at least putative fisters aren't usually *trying* to aim sharp flicks at your vaginal walls. Not if they want to live, anyway.

I haven't quite decided if I'm brave enough ever to attempt another go. One the one hand, I hate waste, and I want to collect my useful useful blood in a versatile and ethical way. On the other hand, I generally quite *like* my periods, or at the worst don't mind them, and I don't particularly want to turn an OK experience into a hellish one for several days a month. That's a poor trade.

One thing I really didn't need at this point was anything to reduce my current libido yet further. At present, I'm contemplating the possibility of NO MORE PENETRATION EVER AGAIN EVER with surprisingly positive feelings. That can't be healthy, especially not with side fantasies of permanent thigh bondage.

From now on, my crushes will all be pure and spiritual! Honest.

Have a great Thanksgiving. Whether you're drinking or not.