Happy Monday!

Administration
Happy birthday to dydan!

Hello to new reader rafaela!

Blessed Relief!
The internet! Yay!

I am so 'net-dependent, y'all. And we have no idea when we'll get DSL at the house. But all weekend I kept almost running down to do a quick e-mail check. It's a reflex; whenever I'm between tasks, I check e-mail. So. Gah.

And poor yendi is home with Miss Kid and has no net access. And no TV. Yee. Well, he has plenty of books, and so does she, and he expressed an intent to work on the kitchen today. And she has her room to organize.

Seriously. Help?
Lots of stuff still needs to come over. Little stuff, except for the two bookcases and the kitchen cabinetthingie. But stuff nonetheless.

Including the TV and DVD player, so if any of y'all at LEWD tonight want to watch anything - you may wanna lend a hand. Seeing as yendi can't drive and I can't lift the TV. The DVD player I can get on the way home, plus some of the small stuff. But the TV? No way.

Different kind of help!
We bought a floor lamp yesterday! Like this, but with each shade a different color. Exactly the kind I've been wanting. However... it was a previously-sold lamp, and not only was it missing instructions and two of the light bulbs, several of the shades had been swapped out - so it's not a rainbow lamp, it's a red-and-yellow-only lamp.

So yendi needs a ride to JCPenney to exchange it.

This is a priority, as the area by the couch is the only area in the house that isn't well-lit.

Contact
If you can help in any small way, please call yendi's cell phone. Not our regular number - we have no phone service yet.

If you don't have that number, e-mail me at shadesong AT livejournal.com.

I'm doing my best/And I'm doing all I can
I did more driving this weekend than I have since my diagnosis. Six trips between houses Saturday morning. Target, three trips between houses, Decatur, Northlake mall, supermarket yesterday. I did this by not taking my meds til I was done with errands, around 3:00. And I suffered for it, taking my doses so close together.

But I can't focus enough to drive after taking my medicine. I cannot. It's the buildup in my system that keeps the seizures at bay... but it's my body processing the daily dose that causes the side effects.

I'm trying, I'm doing all I can, but this is not good for me; this is very bad for me. So I'd really appreciate it if people could lend us a hand. Just to JCPenney. Or just one trip to the old house and back.

Settling In
The unpacking goes apace, and while there are boxes everywhere, of course, I think we're doing fairly well. My closet is almost done, the books are all either on shelves or in staging - just need two more bookcases to have the entire fiction section shelves, save for the anthologies, but those can stay in boxes for the nonce. A-D are all over the place and need shelving.

Yes, I'm shelving backwards. Because I knew where the cases had to end, but not how far they'd extend, especially because we're moving them in shifts, that's why.

But we have a nice little sitting area, and the dining room's set up. And we're loving having a pantry. Etc.

One Good Thing
The good thing about no net access at home? No goofing off when I should be working on the house.

I promise you posts with no house content later today!

Adjustment

When we needed a ride yesterday, I actually said, "Try calling mightywombat.

And then I remembered he was gone.

It'll take time to adjust to that.

And I have a local friend who is ... not my friend anymore. We're not on Square One. We're on Square Zero. And no one's moving. And I can't adjust to that, either. Rent will be in town next week, and I wanted to call and invite him because I know he'd enjoy it, but... I don't do that anymore.

Adjustment.

The face of my community is changing. Two people gone, and a few that I rarely see these days. New people coming in, which is a blessing; thevault and copycatjsh, satia, enchant, etc.... but that doesn't erase the little pangs of loss.

Don't wanna cry again.

Me and my girl

I love our new backyard. Less labyrinthine. Cozier. And it's got a picnic bench and birdfeeders...

Last night Elayna and I went out to fill the birdfeeders. When we were done, we sat on the picnic bench to discuss our plans for Father's Day -

Quick digression: We're celebrating Father's Day this weekend. Elayna's in Florida on Father's Day every year, so we do it early, because yendi deserves it.

So we decided what we were getting him and what else we were doing for him. And then we just hung out and talked. She described the entire plot of a movie she'd watched with albumlady's kids this weekend...

Slight digression: albumlady, I cannot thank you enough for having her this weekend. And for helping me decide where to put all the furniture. And general for being a most excellent friend.

yendi cooked dinner, and Miss Kid and I just hung out and talked about random stuff. No direction to the conversation, just hanging out and talking. We don't get to do that very often; life is busy.

I really enjoyed it. We need to do that again on a regular basis.

w00t!

( Girly TMI. You have been warned. )

About rape in fiction

This comment was too long for the intended comment thread, so I'm posting it here.

It's not an old wound thing as much as it's... well. Background. It was ten years ago next week. I'm mostly okay now. Not 100% - if anyone ever gets 100% better, well, I haven't heard of 'em. But it doesn't really affect me on a day-to-day basis.

Since I'm someone who's a little bit in the public eye who talks about it, though... people come to me. I'm a support system. You'll notice a lot of comments on that post are fairly recent, considering the age of the post - the link gets around, and I know of several people who were sent by mutual friends to read it. Other survivors.

I get at least one e-mail a week from other survivors. Because I'm not silent, and because I'm a safe person to talk to. I've worked hard to transform a life-destroying thing into a way to help other people. Can't solve their problems, can't make them poof!-all-better. But you'd be surprised at how much just talking about it helps.

Gods, I feel like a missionary here. *laugh* I'm not a saint. I just do what I can, and two of the things I do best are write and listen.

Re: the idiot above and compassion - certainly wasn't asking for any from him, as I doubt he even knows how to spell it. I just take objection to being attacked for a simple comment that no one else seemed to have any problem with whatsoever, y'know?

The point of my objections here: Rape is often handled irresponsibly in books (I'd say literature, but Donaldson doesn't qualify!). The reason for this, I assume, is that the author has no clue what it's like. Many writers will just toss in a rape. Donaldson builds his book around it, he doesn't just toss it in, but still: In order to show that Covenant is A Bad Guy, he has him rape someone is Chapter One.

Which is lazy writing, too.

But yes. He doesn't rob someone, or beat someone up, or even kill them - he rapes them. Example two: Guy Gavriel Kay's The Summer Tree. The book follows a group of people. Each chapter follows a person, goes back and forth, etc... but there's one character Kay seems to have forgotten about after Chapter One, and the final chapter, he seems to remember that she exists and, oops, gotta have something happen to her - so she's raped by a random character, and end of book.

Lazy writing, yes. If you, as a writer, want to do something bad to a male character, there are options. Beat him, kill him, make him sign bad checks. With a female character, these writers take only one option: rape.

My objection comes in here...

In books like this, there are no repercussions for raping a woman. Rape her, tra-la-la, walk on with your life.

If you don't think this sends a message, you're fooling yourself.

In a lot of cases out here in the real world... rapists think they can get away with it. And they often do, because they've intimidated the victim into not reporting it, not pursuing it. So they zip up and walk off - and the girl is left there, shaking, wide-eyed, broken inside, cowed into silence. Because We Don't Talk About Rape, as a society. We don't talk about rape and we don't talk about child molestation. Breaking that silence is difficult beyond the imagining of it. It is.

My rapist wanted to give me a ride home, once I'd talked him out of killing me. So nobody else would grab me, he said. Because I seemed like such a nice person. He figured he'd see me at the local coffeehouse sometime.

I have a friend who was raped by her friend. On her birthday. When he was done, he asked her out.

I know girls who've been told that the rapist would kill them if they ever told anyone.

I know of serial rapists.

They see characters get away with it, and they see how, and they know that they can get away with it too.

Which is why, IMO, writers have a moral responsibility to show repercussions. To focus on the girl and show that this is not just physical assault, this is tantamount to murder; in After Silence, Nancy Venable Raine said that when a woman is raped - she dies that day. Her life is so completely different afterward that she simply is not the same woman. There's truth in that.

It's not what it's portrayed as in fiction. The woman does not walk away from this. Not right away. Often never. Part of why I keep walking - because others see me and know that if I can keep walking, if I can gradually heal, they can too.

I did a ritual last year to ask for healing for sexual abuse survivors. I did a poll here on LJ and lit a candle for each person, each man and woman and child.

236 candles is too many. Far, far too many. And only a drop in the ocean.

A rapist thrives on silence and the "knowledge" that there will be no repercussions.

In my comment to the idgit above, I said that no, I don't believe that rape shouldn't be written about at all. It should, if for no other reason than to break that horrible silence. But it should be written about responsibly. It shouldn't just be a throwaway plot device. The girl shouldn't be All Better three pages later... that just sends the message the rape isn't actually all that bad. Yeah, sucks that you fucked her when she said no, man, but she's fine the next day, no harm, no foul...

That's wrong. And it's a message that's being sent. Which is what pisses me off.

Wow! Sorry I rambled. *laugh*

-------

In conclusion (not in the original comment) - if you need someone to talk to, I'm here. I can't do your healing for you. Only you can do that. But it helps to talk and know you're being listened to. It helps to get to feeling safe. It helps to know that someone else understands.

Alchemy. I've fought my way from the brink of suicide over this, put myself back together for the most part. And part of why I'm public about it is that other people need to know they can. That they are not alone.

Feel the need to support rape assistance? Good. The Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network runs a national hotline to help survivors and direct them to crisis centers in their area. They perform an invaluable service and deserve all the support they can get. Bonus - I blogged for RAINN for last year's BlogAThon (raised about $2K, yay!), and I offered an exclusive Shayara short story as an incentive. Took me forever to get to writing it, but it exists now. Want to read it? Donate to RAINN and send me your e-mail receipt.

Need to speak to a local professional? Call RAINN. 1-800-656-HOPE.

/PSA

Oh shit.

Richard Biggs - Dr. Stephen Franklin on Babylon 5 - died Saturday morning.

I'm speechless. As puppetmaker40 says, he wasn't just an excellent actor; anyone who's met him, even just at a con, like me, can testify that he was a really great person.

Just... damn.

earworm

You could write a book
Play guitar or save the world
Who could doubt the words
Of such a beautiful girl...

Sorry. HAD to get that out of my head; only thing that works on earworms, for me, is writing them down. And none of you know the song, so I'm not infecting you.

Song by a childhood friend. Yes, when he was All Growed Up.

Damn, I miss Jeff. *googles* I'm going to go e-mail him now. Yay Google!

(no subject)

"When will this be over? When do I get to die?"

"... you don't, princess."

(no subject)

Why do I so love the phrase "eyes heated beyond incandescence"?

I go home now.

If you wanna come to LEWD, get the address from one of the people who's helped move us or, if you have Yendi's cell number, call him. I am 100% offline from right now til 8 AM tomorrow.

Bye...