ARGHARAGHGH THANK YOU!!!!

Thank you so much to everyone who cast a nominating ballot for me. I have been slamming my head against the institution that is WSFS and the Hugo awards and just decided that I would try and get nominated in my own right.

Spite is a powerful motivator and it and my knitting got me here.

Remember the melting ice cream gif?

I AM A HUGO FINALIST!!!!!!

I mean, I’m really glad I took this step. But I also am realizing I ought to have said to a doctor things like “being hungry all the time isn’t normal” and “why did my facial hair suddenly go from 4 chin hairs to full on beard patches.”

To be fair, as I mentioned later on in the thread, I am chronically unable to actually consider anything less than imminent death as something that needs coping with.

This has given me the mindset that unless I feel in immense pain or that I am actively dying, I don’t need to go to the doctor. Even though never not feeling hungry isn’t actually normal for people. See also my persistent “it’s not killing me, it’s just annoying” 10+ yr long plantar wart cluster.

“Oh, you had a baby? Now we must make sure you are stout and ready to flee from the Cossacks at a moments notice.” It turns out, no, my endocrine and metabolic systems are actually just fucked up.

But also I spent several years without adequate health coverage in my early 20s.

I’ve also never had a cyst. So the diagnosis came out of left field as far as I was concerned.

But I’m glad I have a diagnosis and the beginnings of a treatment plan. One step at a time.

Part of why I’ve never addressed these issues is that I just assumed Eastern European peasant epigenitics.

And while I didn’t get pregnant the minute I went off the pill, I was 27 and it took less than a year. This was entirely normal according to my OB. I got an IUD when Monster was around 6 months old and haven’t been without one since then. I haven’t had irregular periods, I haven’t had any!

I knew that my facial hair grew in the characteristic patterns for PCOS, and it certainly took ages for my cycle to regularize in my teens. But most of my adult life has been spent on one form of hormonal birth control or another, except for the time I was trying to get pregnant.

After that, we tackle the high testosterone so maybe my facial hair will stop playing stupid human tricks.

And yes, I will likely lose weight. But also I will no longer feel hungry nearly every single moment of every single day. That’s actually not normal.

I sure didn’t! But apparently the trio of insulin resistance, high free testosterone and a borked thyroid (thanks Monster) = PCOS. So we are starting to deal with that by first solving the insulin resistance problem with a GLP-1 to address my shitty blood sugar levels.

First news: I am disturbingly vitamin D deficient (unsurprising considering I live in the PNW). This is easily remedied by doubling my supplement and making sure I take it with meals.

Second news: did you know you could have PCOS without ever having had an ovarian cyst in your life?

Thank you @delafina777.bsky.social for talking about Midi Health on this app. It inspired me to make an appointment. My NP sent me for a comprehensive fasting blood panel, which no one had yet ordered.

To make: fill glass with ice. Pour in as much gin as makes you happy (or the bartender is willing to part with). Add passion fruit purée. This is, again, measured with one’s heart. Top with seltzer or club soda. Stir with bar spoon. Enjoy on a deck chair, the hotel bar, or your sofa like a gremlin.

While in Puerto Vallarta, I have invented a delightful cocktail that is kosher for Passover (if you can get the correct ingredients). Passion fruit purée (the one here comes with seeds, but they aren’t compulsory), gin and soda. It is delightful both poolside and as a nightcap.

Brassey is doing this cool serialized fiction release called GLASSBLADE that is high epic fantasy thru a modern noir lens and y’all should check it out and help spread the word.

חג כשר ושמח לכולם! 🫓

In today’s other rants, I should be in Mexico right now. We missed being able to check our bags and thus missed the flight. We are rebooked tomorrow and will hopefully arrive with enough lead time before Passover starts tomorrow night.

At least I have a cat on my lap and a daybed to rest on.

Dear fans of authors’ works,

Telling the author all of your personal pet peeves that appear in their writing would be better written in your own personal notebook of rage. If the author has anything resembling infrastructure, they’ll never see that email because someone else will get there first.

Today is the Trans Day of Visibility.

I am very glad my many beloved trans friends and companions are visible, because my eyesight is bad enough without a bunch of invisible people cluttering up my living room.

a chocolate covered ice cream bar with a bite taken out of it on a stick . Alt: A chocolate covered ice cream bar on a stick with a bite taken out of it. The ice cream is melting out rapidly.

IT ME.

#NoContextForYou

Hugo Eligibility Post 2025 — Terri Ash After the defeat of my amendment to the WSFS constitution at the Business Meeting in Seattle in 2025, I began on path to qualify as a Fan Artist in my own name. Here are my fannish projects completed ...

Quick note for those doing #Hugo nominations - I am eligible for Best Fan Artist! Here is a link to my post:

www.artistwrangling.com/fannish-musi...

Man wearing a fedora, brown coat, and very long multicolored scarf. Next to him is the following text: NO KNITTING REQUIRED! • Twelve feet of scarfy warfy • For being Tom Baker (or every day) • Knitters will thank you for not asking them

NO KNITTING REQUIRED! When a Whovian discovers a friend is a knitter, it is very, very tempting to ask them to make you a Doctor Who scarf. On behalf of most knitters out there, we say, please don't. We love Doctor Who as much as you and you might notice that we don't even have a Doctor Who scarf for ourselves. There's a reason: it takes forever and it's all knit stitches, so it's pretty boring. In fact, when made in worsted weight yarn, a 12 foot long Tom Baker scarf contains 56,448 knit stitches. That means someone is cursing you 56,448 times while holding pointy sticks. Catch our drift? Embrace laziness and keep your knitter friends by picking up the Doctor Who Deluxe 12' Scarf. Use it to complete your Tom Baker costume for convention season or wear it as your regular scarf in chilly weather. It's long enough to wrap at least twice around the average neck, with plenty of dangle to spare. Just don't get it caught in the TARDIS door, okay? Product Specifications • Tom Baker scarf for fans of Doctor Who • 12 feet loooooooooonnnng • Officially licensed Doctor Who collectible • Materials: 100% polyester • Love your scarf: Hand wash, please.

Inspired by @bethrevis.bsky.social’s post on Threads looking for pre-assembled Doctor Who scarf kits, I present screenshots from the late, lamented ThinkGeek’s product page for their Tom Baker scarf. The person that wrote this either was a knitter, lived with one, or loved one very dearly.

Monster has two pre-Passover spirit days this week. Yesterday was “anything but a water bottle” and today is throwback Thursday. So I gave her a highish side pony.

Monster: “my hair looks ridiculous.”
Me: “bold of you to assume we didn’t all look ridiculous when this was stylish.”

This particular point is very important. It goes hand in hand with “I never liked it anyway.”

Hoop skirts only.

Can someone link me to a good list of Aussie/NZ speculative fiction authors? I promise I won’t use it for nefarious @brisbanein28.bsky.social purposes…

And when I say “deeply disappointed,” please understand that it is the understatement of at least the month.

I am a former @warren.senate.gov constituent and I am deeply disappointed in her endorsement today.