In which we confirm that I am not a low-fat food

So, there's a company that comes 'round to the gym at my place of employment every few months and does hydrostatic body fat testing. I've never bothered to get my body fat percentage measured before, but now that I'm lifting weights, I figured I should get a baseline on my lean body mass, just so I can see if I actually manage to put on any muscle.

The test is fairly simple. You put on a bathing suit, and they weigh you. They measure your ankle circumference to get a read on whether you are small, medium, or large-boned. (I'm solidly medium.)Then you get into a tank of water in a sort of push-up position, with your hands and feet balanced on a metal frame. You lower yourself into the water and blow all the air out of your lungs, and they weigh you in the water. You do this about 3 or 4 times - it takes a bit of practice to get yourself fully submerged and get all the air out of your lungs. By the time you've toweled off and changed back into your clothes, they've crunched the numbers.

I'd guessed that my body fat percentage would be in the low thirties, and I wasn't far off. The relevant numbers:
Body Fat %: 34.29% (Average is 33%. The recommended target for a woman my age is 22% to 28%.)
Fat Body Mass: 57.69 lbs.
Lean Body Mass: 110.56 lbs. (This is apparently exactly what it should be for a 5' 3" woman of medium build. That's nice to know - I've been a bit worried that with the weight fluctuations I went through in my late twenties and early thirties that I might have ended up a bit under-muscled.)

So, there's my baseline. I suppose I'll get retested in 6 months or a year and see if I've managed to move any of those numbers in interesting directions.

Goth rock nostalgia drives down the highway 101

As a salute to all of you who drove back from the Reno Worldcon, here's a curiosly mesmerizing roadtrip video, featuring Andrew Eldritch driving around Southern California in a souped up car while the rest of his band sleeps in the car. It's The Sisters of Mercy with "Black Planet":

Fogcon 2012 Open for Registration!

Fogcon 2012 is open for registration: http://fogcon.org/

Fogcon is a literary-themed San Francisco Bay Area science fiction convention. The convention theme for 2012 is "The Body", and the honored guests will be Nalo Hopkinson, Shelley Jackson, and Mary Shelley (as ghost of honor?).

I had so much fun at last year's Fogcon that I volunteered to be on the con committee for this year's. I will be helping to run the consuite. So, y'all have to come or I will be encumbered with sadness and an oversupply of snacks.