People keep saying, "Well, you look good." to me.

This is after they've asked how I am. "Still recovering," I say. Sepsis has a 28-50% mortality rate and I made it through a second time, but this time it's been five months and my muscles are still screwed up. Most of them are healing, it's vocal cords and lungs that are slowest. Mostly because I can't stop breathing and I am rather a fail at stopping talking.

It is quite weird to want to say "Not dead yet," cheerfully to people, "though I nearly did" and have the response be, "You look beautiful."

I am postmenopausal. Pretty firmly now, I think, though you never know if some last oocyte will get all excited and try to do something. Menopause is official once a woman has gone a year without periods. Women can then still have a cycle and a period, weirdly enough. If it acts like a normal period and a normal cycle, that is the one time that I don't get all excited about postmenopausal bleeding. Usually postmenopausal bleeding is worrisome for uterine cancer and needs a work up. Found one last year in an over 80 woman. She had a hysterectomy and is fine.

I had a man recently tell me that I could have sex with any man. Ok, that is just weird. Why would I have sex with any man? Yuk. I am picky, now, and it reminds me of that story where the grandfather would lean in the window of the car as the family left and say "Be particular."

I suppose that being postmenopausal aka can't get pregnant I could cut a swath through the single men (or married men, right?) in town. This does not appeal.

The same man told me that as a working single dad, he is hunted by women. "Don't complain too much," was my response. As a single working mother, I got the opposite end of the stick: no one invites me to anything. There seem to be periods (oops, male readers cringed) times that I am very attractive to the male population. This seems to coincide with the panda strep antibodies being up, which is weird. Though I do go out more then, trying to burn off the energy..... I conclude that single men are an asset, to be hunted, whereas single women are way too common and are disliked and feared. We might steal a man.

If I was part of a social circle, perhaps I would be less welcome in couple's houses once I became postmenopausal. After all, sex without the most obvious consequence. I know too much infectious disease to be enthusiastic.... and like I said, I am picky. If I were starting to be ostracized, I might be sad. I might grieve. I might wear black.

But I have been out in the cold for 14 years. I put a fence up recently, because someone stole a picnic table built of 2 by 6 boards from our front yard while we were on vacation. The fence has a community library box, with a bench beside it. Sometimes I put coffee and two cups out. The fence is made of that square wire, to let as much light through as possible. I also want to confine deer to the back yard and have a garden in front. They may be able to crawl under, we aren't sure yet.

Since I am alone anyhow, I might as well dress to please myself. If I was a frightened postmenopausal woman, hated by the community of married couples and with rumors starting that I am a witch, I might dress in black and mostly stay hidden. But I have been alone for years and the gossip has been beyond mean. Assumptions have been made and lies perpetuated.

The best revenge: to be busy, involved, happy. And everyone knows that engagement makes you absolutely stunning.

mauler's Triennial Report on Everything2 Wealth Distribution

So three years ago, at the height of the "Occupy Wall Street" movement, I ran some numbers comparing wealth inequality on Everything2 (as measured in GP), with wealth inequality in the United States (you can find the original writeup here).

Well, since it has been three years, I decided to re-run the numbers and see how the GP wealth distribution on E2 has or hasn't changed.

As of this writing, there are 1380 E2 users in possession of at least 1 GP. Of these 1380 users, 139, or just about 10 percent, have 1 GP and 1 GP only, and 697 users--the bottom 50%--each have 13 GP or less.

Meanwhile, the richest 1% of users today--a total of just 14 Everything2 users--control an incredible 421,706 GP between them, or an average of 30,121 GP each.

With a 937,858 total GP in circulation as of this writing, this means that the richest 1% of Everything2 users control nearly 45% of all the wealth on E2. This compares to the richest 1% in the United States owning about 40% of all of the wealth.

Compared to the last time we ran these numbers three years ago, the GP system on E2 seems remarkably stable. The size of the pie has gotten slightly larger, with 162,717 more GP in circulation (a 21% increase), but there are also 221 additional users with at least 1 GP (an increase of 19%).

Whereas GP wealth inequality on E2 plunged in the previously analyzed three-year period from November 2008 to November 2011, with the wealth of the richest 1% decreasing from around 80% to around 45%, E2's wealth distribution has remained remarkably static since then; the richest 1% held 44% of all GP three years ago, they hold a slightly higher 45% today.

However, with the size of the 1% increasing from 11 to 14 noders, the average net worth of each member of the 1% actually dropped by 1300 GP, down from 31,421 GP three years ago.

Overall the average net worth of all noders with at least 1 GP increased only slightly, from 669 to 680 GP, suggesting a very low annual inflation rate of just 0.5%.

In conclusion, six years since it was first implemented, the GP system seems to have achieved something approaching a state of equilibrium. This is encouraging, because it means that the problems we had with massive XP inflation under the original XP system have been largely tamed, and users seem to be spending GP at around the same rate that they are acquiring it.

Todays bullshit daylog is brought to you by the letter A. And then B,S,O,L,U,T,E,L,Y. Followed immediately by F,U,M,I,N,G.

Two things are true. Well, more than that in the grand scheme of things, but at LEAST two things, I suppose.
1) I am a very sentimental person. I attach a lot to normal run of the mill objects, let alone things that a regular person would get attached to.
2) I'm extremely tight for cash right now. I wont say poor, because my bank actually has plenty in it, but unfortunately it's all earmarked for future rent and bills and travelling.

Both these factors combine to make me so goddamn LIVID that my housemate and supposed friend has stolen from me. The item stolen was a hoodie that I got while working in New York post Hurricane Sandy. Very sentimental, very irreplaceable, and also one of only two hoodies I possess.

If you could make it worse than that, he actually already has three of the exact same hoodie, and there is no way mine would have fit him. So why would he steal it? To give to his girlfriend, of course. He claims it shrunk in the wash. I fail to see how you can shrink a normal cotton blend hoodie from XL to S, but clearly his knowledge of laundry is far greater than mine.

Fuming.