#I made a front design for it that I might post tomorrow so we'll see

[slumbergoblin]

Cry big man! Cry!

[copperbadge]

I had a very successful and entertaining day today, as you guys can probably tell from the posts I made. There's a few more queued posts of stuff I didn't get to post in-situ, so enjoy that!

Some anecdotes I did not post about from today:

-- I can't remember the last time I queued for a museum. Mostly because if it's not one of "my" museums, like the Field or the Art Institute where I know the best ways in, I'm attending on a weekday deliberately so that I am not amongst the crowds. The line to get into the British Museum was a full block long, but to be fair it only took me ten minutes from opening to get inside. I was mostly amused by the people who a) didn't understand how museum entry works or b) didn't understand how to stand in a line without also blocking foot traffic on the rest of the sidewalk.

-- Almost got in a fight with someone, a definite first for me in a museum. I got salty with a guy who touched a sculpture when he knew he shouldn't, and he got up in my face, and I think genuinely the fact that I knew what the sculpture was called and he didn't confused him so badly he backed down. So if you're looking to defuse a situation via confusion, the phrase "Hey, don't fucking touch the Lamassu and we won't have a problem" worked for me.

-- The British Museum is great but among other issues (looted objects, weird relics of museum-specific imperialism, etc) it does suffer from poor display design in places. I'm okay with that, I kind of like old museums that are a little fucked up, even as I acknowledge that old fucked-up museums also have old fucked-up messaging. They appear to be trying on that front, but they could use a display placard overhaul. At one point I found an object in a case that appeared to be a carved human leg bone, and while I'm not a Bone Specialist there was also absolutely no placard about the bone at all. (I looked it up in the collection later using other objects in the case as reference, and it's just noted as "bone".)

-- I did have a great time overall; I saw most of the museum and then had a fancy meal, as documented. I was especially pleased to get to sample their coronation chicken since I collect tastings of coronation chicken, and I think they either used molasses in it or the bread had some, and either way it's grist for my mill as I start to develop The Chicken Salad War. After lunch I went on the hunt for a few last things, but I could feel myself getting tired and Becoming Unmedicated so I decided to leave a little early, which was the right choice, and gave me a little time to do some exploring.

-- @neil-gaiman did a post a while ago about stuff to see in London which I saved, and while I mostly planned my own journey, I did stop at Atlantis Books on his recommendation, which was well worth it. The woman working the till left me alone until I was ready to buy my book, then praised my choice (always a good move) and made a few minutes' small talk about my visit from America while she was ringing me up. Also I have never seen such a variety of Tarot decks for sale in my life. It was extremely impressive given the entire shop is roughly the size of my bedroom in Chicago.

All in all an excellent day out in London. Tomorrow I'm traveling to meet up with a friend, so probably fewer photos, but day after tomorrow I'm bound for Amsterdam so expect Rijksmuseum photos! I did not get into the Vermeer exhibit sadly, but I still want to see the museum and I'm on a quest for freshly made stroopwaffels and authentic gjetost, so I'm excited for the journey. I thought this trip might be one small anxiety after another -- would I be okay on the plane, would I get on the right trains, etc -- but I'm feeling more confident now, and I think between my early-bird tendencies and the ADHD meds I kicked the jet lag pretty quickly. I'm off to bed in a few, because tomorrow is an early day, so I guess we'll find out then how much I really kicked it....

[quasistarjudgement]

ALRIGHT CLASS, LET US BEGIN

We'll start with my right side! Here you can see quite a hearty mix of patches and buttons and pins. I of course needed to have my heart on my sleeve, and an Evangelion patch from my first roommate that. Actually might be the oldest contribution I have on here? She gave it to me in my first semester in college I believe, and even the kind-hearted degenerate pin was given to me as a birthday present, later in the school year.

I also have some Japanese patches - one that reads "anzen daiichi", "Safety first!", and the patch above it being a Hokusai painting! I got that patch from the MFA, in Boston, along with the corresponding pin that I received from my dear friend I was visiting at the time ^-^

Beneath that pin is my TMA Vast pin, designed by Greer Stother, and below THAT is my New York Public Library pin from when I. Just decided to skip class last November and spend the day in NYC!

Continuing down, we have a Fallen London patch associated very commonly with Seeking Mr. Eaten's Name, and other similarly grisly storylines.

And after that, rounding off this side, is my Mountain Goats Ten of Swords tarot patch!

Moving on, we have my left front! This is taking. Way longer than I would've liked lmao and I do have work tomorrow morning so! Let me explain. No, there is too much; let me sum up.

Here we have a whole bunch of Fandom patches and pins!! Perhaps most notably are my Nerdfighteria accountrements; the DFTBA patch is genuinely kind of ancient, and honestly at this point the pizza pin probably is too; it was from a Pizzamas some number of years ago where Hank and John were trying to see whether more folks would want the deep dish or think crust (Chicago style vs New York style) pizzas, and of course I had to bat for NYC ^-^

The emotional creature and flowery survival patches are both just delightful finds i got from Strange Ways that I rather liked!! Additionally, we have some items of Sentimental Value, including my Bangladeshi flag patch made for me by @floratropics !!! And my Mountain Goats jam jar patch that I acquired last December, in the halcyon days.

I also have my Wawa pin from my time working there that I'm unfortunately too attached to to get rid of 🥹

Also the Hell and Lightning patch! I. Don't know what that is, it just looked cool!

On the BACK we have!!!!!!! A bee patch from my dear friend @the-specters-stag from a WHILE ago, and a mushroom patch I acquired from! A festival i will not be returning to, unfortunately.

The little Fresno nightcrawler patch was acquired from!!! Hot topic. And the big boy back patch was from Etsy!!! the terrible sewing along the top was my attempt at freehand stitching the "To Become Fire Rather Than Be Burned" Correspondence sigil. I'm planning on filling it in soon also!!!

AND BEHOLD!!! MY NEWEST ADDITIONS!!!! Studs and spikes!!!! Not much else to say here, beyond the fact that they look sick as hell and were from @gluttonsfork !!!!!

THANK YOU ALL FOR COMING WITH ME ON THIS JACKET JOURNEY SORRY IT TOOK SO LONG TO POST I TALK SO FUCKING MUCH

Battle jacket 👀👀👀👀

YES! I HAVE A JACKET COVERED IN PATCHES AND SEWING. AND I THINK IM GONNA BE ADDING SPIKES SOON. WOULD THE CLASS BE INTERESTED IN PICS?

[frogsandfries]

WHEW

So I got my garage shelf today.

It took several minutes of arguing with the instructions as I understood them, thinking the engineers were stupid, only to realize, the engineers may not be stupid, but whoever designed the instructions sure was an asshole. So that was fun.

Once I decided to do my usual of throwing the instructions over one shoulder and pretending they didn't exist, things went as they were meant to.

So yeah.

I finally got my beautiful, majestic garage shelf put together in my kitchen. I even tried to put my toaster oven on it, to clear tons of counter space, but the way I put that shelf, the cord doesn't reach the outlet *whamp-whamh-whahhh* so the toaster oven had to stay on the counter for now......

I'll slowly get everything migrated out of the baskets I stored it in for pest control, and on to appropriate shelves. I was thinking like, boxes like rice and biscuit mix on the bottom-most shelf, and maybe some canned goods, and mostly canned goods in the middle. I was thinking about putting some of the dishes on the shelf too, but I mainly want to keep food and small appliances isolated. We'll have to see. I definitely need more organizers, maybe some smaller shelves somehow, more cupboard gripper.

Anyway, I slipped up at work and made the mistake of calling my partner's parents my in-laws, since I'm taking his mom in the divorce anyway (don't tell her; I haven't 😜) and immediately got called on it, so I marked my territory, instead of backing down. I'm working on it, I'm just the world's biggest procrastinator: Why do today what you could put off for tomorrow? If you can put it off for tomorrow, why not put it off for a month? Eh, it can wait till next year......

Now a former trainer won't let it go and weirdly brings it up constantly. I make one casual slip and he's like "I've told everyone you know at work"; "hey current team, look, lookit!"

It bugs me at least as much if I wasn't holding onto a post-dated truth. Like......... it's not a big deal. I'm probably not changing my name anyway so there's nothing to get excited about. I mean, I'll probably change my first name, for sure. Maybe hyphenate my last name. But I'm not the "make a big deal" type........ which actually may be the fun in picking on me....... He asked me in front of the training group when we did it and I honestly probably wouldn't have remembered anyway, so I was just like, recently; I procrastinated on it. I wouldn't remember our first date if I hadn't made it valentines day to be a shit. My sister's wedding was on valentine's day and I thought it would be funny if I formally met my future final spouse on that day. We'll probably finish everything randomly at this point. Summer solstice was a weekend this year, autumn equinox, Halloween. New Year's is a holiday......... I'm about to just throw a dart at the calendar. But at least then I can do so quietly without constant teasing-slash-congratulations. If I'm lucky, I'll get a ring out of it. A stainless steel spinner style ring might be cool, something that I won't be allergic to.

Edit: I referred to my partner the same way I've referred to my dating partners for a long time--my partner--and this coworker corrected me under his breath.......... Like, don't language train me. I'll freaking language train you.......