Mubix’s Neighborhood

Go forth and fill your libraries with media.

Seriously, thanks to everyone for being so amazing and patient. You are the reason I love Vox.

~daisy

I was just told that the Amazon Conduit will be fixed by tomorrow. I will post here as soon as I get word that it's back up and running.

I know this has been frustrating and I am sorry there wasn't more I could do to make it less so. I really appreciate your patience though.

Cheers,

daisy

Three new scarves posted in my Etsy shop, more coming soon.

My So Called Scarf (Sunset)

50% silk, 50% merino wool, 100% soft, warm, and gorgeous!

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DSCN0332

My So Called Scarf (Heathcliff)

50% silk, 50% merino wool, 100% soft, warm, and gorgeous!

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DSCN0342

Cloud Around My Neck (Dark Denim Blue)

100% baby alpaca.  sooooo soft...

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Bad news. As many of you have probably noticed, the Amazon Conduit was not fixed in the last week's release. Unfortunately, there was an undetected bug that is preventing the conduit from working.

We are working on this bug fix and hope to have the Conduit back up and running this week.

I will keep you posted.

Thank you for being so patient.

~daisy

So my Trying Something New blogpost has resulted in me being contacted privately by a few people, apologizing if they've ever made me feel uncomfortable.  Thing is, they haven't.  They probably have no idea what it is I'm actually referring to. 

I attend conferences where the average adjusted age for maturity is about 16, where I can be standing in the lobby dressed up to go out and waiting for a friend, and listening to a group of 5 or 10 guys about 20 feet away talk really loud about the hot redhead, or calling 'hey redhead' trying to get a reaction from me (and the really stupid thing is that one of the guys knows my name).  I don't ask for drunk texts saying 'we gotta hook up sometime' (no, we don't), or 'I'm out with X Y and Z and they're impressed I know the hot redhead and want you to come out with us' (which guaranteed I didn't go out that night, even though I actually enjoy the company of the people in that case).  I don't appreciate questions about my personal hygiene or sex life.  I don't ask to be propositioned almost every conference.  I don't ask people to IM me out of the blue with a url to porn asking me what I think of the picture.  I don't ask strangers in the grocery store to ask if my haircolor is natural and then go on to tell me about their personal sexual fantasies. 

Some of the behavior towards me I can see how I contribute to.  Sometimes I joke and talk with the guys as if I'm one of the guys, and forget I'm not.  Then when someone gets a little too forward I don't respond assertively - I've always felt like I had to be nice and polite and uber-nonbitchy, so I would just change the subject or laugh it off/make a joke.  This summer for the first time I told someone to @#$! off when they made me uncomfortable, and probably need to do that more often.

Those are the more extreme examples, but each one is true.  I wish I didn't have so many.  I haven't been to a conference as a brunette yet, but grocery shopping, going out to dinner, and generally anything I have done in public has been way more comfortable, I don't feel as many eyes on me which has been kind of nice.  And it isn't that I don't like the brown or the short cut.  I just loved my hair before.  I'm going to have to learn how to be more comfortable being myself as a redhead and setting boundaries with people who make me feel objectified.

Mid September I had a bad couple days and in a morning driven by a desparate need to change SOMETHING in my life and feel different, I went and had my hair dyed brown and chopped off.  There were a lot of reasons for this.  I was really unhappy with myself, and had been a redhead for 16 years, and desparately wanted to feel different about myself.  Now I'm the first one who will tell you that changing your hair won't change your life - the issues you had pre-hair-change will still be there post-hair-change.  But I felt like it was the only thing in my power to change at that particular moment (because I'm still way too uptight to get a tattoo).  Plus, I wanted to see if people would treat me differently (SPOILER: they did).  When I had red hair I would get a lot of inappropriate sexual comments/advances from people.  Friends, acquaintences, co-workers, strangers in the grocery store...  It was making me really uncomfortable in public, like people weren't seeing me as a person but an object.  I ended up not trusting that anyone was actually interested in me, the person inside the biological container, but that they were just saying whatever they thought I wanted to hear.  I always said if I weren't going to be a redhead, I'd like to try a chocolate brown, so that is what I went to the salon and asked for. 

Brown

The next morning I woke up and was startled in the mirror.  And a little freaked out that the my identity, both IRL and online as KymPossible wasn't what I had known and been familiar with for so long.  It definitely took some getting used to.  I started wearing makeup regularly though, and I did like how the color and cut made my eyes really stand out.

So it's a month later, and what do I think of it now?  The social experiement was a success and people did treat me differently, and I made a point to not dress or act any differently than I had as a redhead.  That was actually pretty awesome, to feel like people were seeing me as a person.  Sure, I still had the occasional guy who talked to my chest (I think a tshirt with a picture of eyes across the boobs would be pretty funny) but overall it was a lot better.  It is a lot more maintenance to style, and there was a fair amount of trial and error figuring out how to make it look decent and not all foofy like a muppet.  It is less maintenance (and thus less $) in color, red fades pretty quickly and the roots are visible sooner than the brown.  It didn't quite turn out chocolate brown, a lot of the red shines through. 

Net: I like it. 

BUT.

I miss the red.  I was looking through photos this morning and when I hit this one I suddenly realized that I miss my hair. 

Iphone 935

I can go back to red pretty quickly.  But growing the length back out will take a couple years.  I'm glad I changed it, its just hair and will grow back.  And I needed the change at that moment.  And I did like feeling like people were treating me like a human and not a fembot.  But I miss the red.  Guess I know for sure now how I look as a brunette, and know that it's pretty good and still a viable option for the future if I ever decide to grow up and look more mature (I had several people tell me the brown looked more mature and sophisticated, to which I tried really hard not to cringe and roll my eyes). 

In the past I tried to be someone I wasn't in order to try and make other people happy.  It was a long, hard, painful realization that I was unhappy doing that.  Some women change their hair all the time and it's no big deal.  But my hair was such a big part of my self identity, and I changed it so rarely (chopped it off but kept the red in 1994 and 2001, roughly a seven-to-eight year cycle) that this just doesn't feel like me.  I knew it would be temporary, but I'll admit I thought it would be longer than 6 weeks.  :)

It was a good experiment and I'm glad I did it. I'll miss the feeling of freedom I have now when I go out, I don't feel like I'm being hunted anymore.  But I'm going to go back to red soon.  Hopefully I'll do a better job shutting down inappropriate comments and advances so I can still feel like a human instead of an object to acquire. 

Blog Action Day

4 comments

Blog Action Day is every October 15th, when blogger are asked to post something about a single issue to show our strength and conviction as an online community. It's a great way to feel connected to the greater good, and the participation of so many bloggers to support the world's leading non-profit organizations is something you can do to help, right now. By blogging today, you're supporting some of the world's leading non-profits and sharing your voice for change.

This year's topic is climate change, and we'd love to read your thoughts on the topic. If you participate, leave us a link to your post in the comments, so we know to check out your post!

Go to www.blogactionday.org to learn more, get a badge for your blog showing your participation, and see some ideas for your post on climate change.

Can't wait to read your posts!

~ daisy

The Amazon Conduit will be working again on October 15, 2009. Thank you to everyone for your patience.

Have a great weekend,

daisy, Team Vox

In my last Team Vox post, I let you know that we're aware that the Amazon conduit is broken and that we're working to fix it. Many of you want to know when it's going to be fixed and I'm so sorry I haven't gotten back to you about that sooner.

Unfortunately, I don't have an exact date to give you, but rest assured, the Amazon conduit will be fixed in the coming weeks.

In the meantime, I'm about to finish my latest book and I could use a few suggestions as to what to read next, so... if you don't mind, let me know in the comments what's on your nightstand and/or what book you think I absolutely must read next.

Thanks! :)

daisy

I was asked to judge a debate on the merits of the EPL, GPL, and BSD licenses.  Note that I'm not judging the licenses themselves, but rather how well each representative presented their position.