Happy Friday!

Administration
Happy birthday to itouchroses, kyranjaye, and shimmeringjemmy!

Happy early birthday to reprobayt, who advances a year tomorrow!

Hello to new reader(s) neopixie and, I guess, voyagerquotes!

I feel all proactive and stuff.
Remember when I did that "Friends of Survivors" program at our local Rape Crisis Center? They sent me pamphlets yesterday about programs they offer for college campuses - ideal, they say, for freshmen orientations! So I sent one in to our orientation coordinator. Yay! I really hope they incorporate this into orientation. Good stuff.

Free weekend!
I actually have nothing planned for this weekend.

Visits!
I'm going to Boston! Just bought my ticket this morning. August 27-29.

kires is coming to town! Sometime early next week. We'll probably have a JavaMonkey meetup.

...and my Friday three...

Wearing
The silky black stretchy shirt that used to show off curves and now just shapelessly hangs on me. I need clothes that fit.

Reading
Here at lunch: Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse, by Robert Rankin.
At home: Microcosmic God, a short story collection by Theodore Sturgeon.
Just finished: Second Variety and Other Stories, by Philip K. Dick. I b'lieve that I now only have one more volume of his short stories to collect - The Old Brown Oxford and Other Stories. What pisses me right the hell off about this is that they used to number those collections - but in the new editions, they stopped. So I have II, III, and two others with no numbers on 'em.

Planning
As we say at wmga, shut up and write. I must produce a story as a Blog-A-Thon incentive. Blog-A-Thon is a week from tomorrow, and I actually have time this weekend, so - perfect!

And you?

Blog-A-Thon!

Saturday, July 17, starting at 9 AM, I will be participating in the Blog-A-Thon.

So, Shadesong - what will you be doing for this?
I'll be pulling an all-nighter for charity! I will post every half hour for 24 hours.

And what do you want your readers to do about this?
It's for charity, baby - so I want you to donate money! I'm blogging for RAINN - the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network.

So what is RAINN?
"The Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN) is the nation's largest anti-sexual assault organization. RAINN operates the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1.800.656.HOPE and carries out programs to prevent sexual assault, help victims and ensure that rapists are brought to justice." Essentially - in addition to the programs, that's a 24/7 crisis hotline for rape and sexual assault survivors. They'll talk you through things, help you in any way possible, and refer you to your closest local crisis center for followup, to get the help you need to deal with what's happened to you and help you start your recovery.

What do I get out of this?
The satisfaction of helping an excellent charity. Also, I'll provide and incentive, which will most likely be an exclusive short story. Last year's was about Jessa's death during the Purges, and Fenris' reaction to it. This year - who knows? I'll let you know when I've written it.

Well, that sounds great! How do I donate?
Just go here! Put "Shadesong - Blogathon" in the comments so they know where you're coming from. And e-mail me your receipt so I can track the sponsors for incentive purposes, and also so I know how much has been donated overall. If you don't have a credit card, you can mail me a check made out to RAINN (*not* to me), and I'll send them all in after the Blog-A-Thon.

Current total is $150. I raised over $1700 last year, so I know we can do this! Let's go, people! :)

Comments

They found the problem.

They say that the old comment notification e-mails have been recovered, and they'll be sending them shortly... so prepare for a flood of old notifications!

About damn time, I say. What's it been, two weeks?

*vibrate*

Called the magnet school we applied to. Gave them our change of address. Talked to both voicemail and a Real Live Human Being.

Real Live Human Being says that they're due to receive the Iowa Test scores any day now; they'll just have to verify scores before doing the lottery, which should be "late next week or early the following week", and then they'll send the letters.

*vibrate*

irana's daughter goes there and loves it. irana says that they do the lottery for all the kids who've applied - two kids per school, and an alternate - and then check to see if the test scores are up to snuff. And then contact the kids. So the stupid kids with ambitious parents really don't contaminate the pool that much. Obviously I don't know how Elayna scored this year, but last time she was in the 99th percentile. And she's in the gifted program, which has to help.

*vibrate*

Oh please oh please pick my daughter. Magnet school focusing on her favorite subjects - math and science. A school with proactive parents. A school with only smart kids, where the whole class will be on her level and she'll get the education she deserves rather than working mostly on her own because the teacher has to devote more time to the slower kids.

Oh please oh please oh please pick my daughter.

*vibrate*

Hippo!

It is not like the one in my brain. Because it is not all scarred and sick and seizure-causing. It is cuuuute.

( Here it is! )

Hot-button topic much?

"There are many books that he might like but which you definitely won't, and must therefore be banned: anything by Paul Auster; sci-fi by Philip K Dick; anything involving Nearly Falling Off a Mountain; all 'cyber-punk' (whatever that is); Titus Groan; business books. Then again, if he wants to pack any of the above, ditch him and go away with a Carol Shields-loving girlfriend instead. "

*growl*

Foul misogynistic brain-dead willfully-ignorant insipid vapid bitch.

Go to yendi's post for the link, his commentary, and my detailed commentary.

Epilogue

(What has gone before...)

I went back to Vegas last month.

When I say that, I feel like Christian in Moulin Rouge - "I first arrived in Paris one year ago." And then the zippy time-going-in-reverse thing.

Not so here. Here, it was slower.

Ten years ago, I didn't have a car. No one had a car. We walked everywhere. So to get back to my old haunts, volta and I walked from the strip down to Maryland Ave.

Layne gestures - "That's the apartment complex Denise and I used to live in."

Denise was the first person Layne told he was bi. Upon hearing it, she freaked out, barricaded herself in the downstairs of the apartment for months.

I remember that Goodwill. I bought my shorts for work there. Before I started dancing at Glitter Gulch, I used to walk up and down Fremont Street passing out cards for them. The uniform was a short-sleeved white tuxedo shirt, black shorts, and a bow tie and cummerbund. I still have the bow tie and cummerbund.

Cafe Copioh is gone.

Stacey and I snuck back to the bathroom together. Mike would throw us out if he knew, we figured - but he was probably too tired. Two fat lines on the toilet tank - then the world was clear, and we went back out for more coffee.
-------
A bunch of us on the couch in the center of the room, Brandy pretending to tie off to shoot up, and we had to hold her down.
-------
Geordie wearing a Star Wars sheet as a cape. He always looked like a line drawing.

The Arthur Murray dance studio next door is still there. Layne flashed it once.

Behind Copioh. The shortcut. Retracing steps. The apartment complex we lived in with Jackson and sometimes Garet. Low to the ground and sunbleached, white and dirty.

"Jackson, what the hell? I just crashed out!"
"I had to wake you up. You're like Sara in Moonheart, you know stuff, I gotta get you when you're not thinking. Freewrite for me."
-------
"Frank, if you play "Heart of Glass" one more time, I'm gonna fucking kill you."
-------
Layne's eyes slightly unfocused, lip bitten, as he tinkers with his bass.
-------
Sitting on the floor, Hal leaning over to kiss me, dipping down to kiss my breast through the thin white tank top. "Hal, no."
Eyes dark brown, confused, sad. "Why not?"
"I don't know. I'll figure that out." And I did, and I made a list, and in closing, "I think with Hal, it's just that I see him as a big brother, and he sees me as his confessor..."

I aim, take a picture.

Layne in the doorway, shoving me out. I shove back. Frank laughs inside and, struggling with himself, Layne succumbs to that, decides that being laughed at is the greater evil - and hits me, and closes the door. My glasses are broken, and my dad's not coming to town for another two days.

I walk, dreamlike, toward the courtyard apartments, where everyone has a little plot of sand. Morgan's apartment - ten years ago it had purple stairs, punk stickers on the door. Now, of course, it's just another apartment, and we walk quickly through the courtyards so's to avoid looking like we're casing the joint.

Morgan's girlfriend has dumped him, has left for Japan. They're one of those couples who you never thought would break up, but here's Morgan, alone. I flit around the apartment, selecting music, making some ramen; at his request, I sit, and he rubs my shoulders, fingers slippery with fragranced oil. My shoulders, my neck; he dips down to my cleavage only briefly. When he's done, he kisses my forehead and says, "Thank you."

I'm deliberately going out of order now.

We approached the two-story strip mall from behind. I see an afterimage of myself on the stairs, talking to Brian. Brian, who wasn't a speedfreak, who was a normal guy, as compared to us. More on the stairs...

"The guy from 7-11 wants to know if you've got anything."
Layne: "You're not supposed to be in this *business*!"
"I'm not!"
"I'm gonna fucking kill him for dragging you into this."
"He knows I'm your girlfriend, he knows that you sell, it's not a big fucking deal, okay?

And around the front. The empty storefront that used to be Cafe Espresso Roma.

Two tickets dropped onto my magazine. I looked up, blinking, but the guy was already halfway across the cafe. I followed him. "Uh, excuse me. Did you *mean* to drop these?"
"Yeah. Tickets to a local punk show. I'm a promoter, I get lots of them. Seen you around, thought you might like them."
"Thanks... hey, what are you drawing?
"A comic book. I have a zine, half of it's a comic book and half of it's articles." His name was Romney.

Around the front. A blank space where there used to be a table. I remember exactly.

Jason brought me over to the table, introduced me around. "Darryl and Christine. That's who I'm crashing with. And that's Layne."
His back against the wall. He looked up and gave a shy, quick smile before ducking his head back down to whatever he was writing. If a man's face can be beautiful, Layne's was, and then there were the pale, pale blue eyes, the tumble of dreadlocks that used to be a mohawk but were now surrounded by stubble instead of shaven skin. The rectangular glasses. No words. Hi, Layne.

Backtrack. Where I went before this.

The shortcut from Copioh. Layne had broken my glasses, so I was near-blind. Walking through the apartment complex that night. No one at Jackson's. Walked across, heading to Garet's place to see if he was around. ( Across the vacant lot. )

"Hey," he said.

I have told this story before. I have told it aloud, I have told it on paper and in pixels, each time feeling more success in exorcising it. Nothing compares to the immediacy of it. I take my picture. I see where he grabbed me. I see where my shoe fell. I hear little-me asking for her shoe back. I feel little-me knowing that she was going to die.

I stood there. I would like to say that I stood with my head held heroically high, metaphorically brandishing a sword, a breeze teasing my hair like an unfurling banner, and declared, "You have no power over me!"

I didn't.

I stood there very quietly, with volta watching me. I stood with an inner stillness. And a little voice in the back of my head.

"I'm here.
And you're not."

I walked on, as if in a daydream. The apartment complex. ( The apartment. )

He dragged me out of the car over the driver's seat. Warned me that he'd kill me if I tried to get away or yelled for help.
-------
When he lets me go, I turn and read the door number, squinting as hard as I can, so I can write it down, write everything down. For the police? For Layne? I don't know. I need to remember, to write it down

Today. I stand. I take a picture.

And this is when I fall apart, sobbing incoherently, and I manage to get it across to Volta that yeah, it's okay to hold me. And there are so many reasons why I'm crying. Terrible things happened here, and they haunt me; I can see little-me behind that door.

But I am crying from relief.

I am here, and he is not here.

His shadow is not here.

From the distance of ten years, I can see. And I see that, all along, he was so small.

We were all so small.

I had a nightmare ten years ago, and I have been half-awake for much of the time since.

But my eyes are open as I stand here with my camera.

And there are no monsters here.

And I'm crying because I finally, finally know that he is not here, that the monster is not coming, that now he's nothing, and he really only ever was nothing, this petty demon, this so-small beast.

Through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered, I have fought my way here to the castle beyond the Goblin City to take back the child that you have stolen. For my will is as strong as yours, and my kingdom is as great. You have no power over me.

That child was me. I have taken her back. I have taken back the shadow of myself that remained here on this cursed ground, the shadow that was trapped all of these years.

He is gone. He is gone, and the nightmare is gone.

And I am here.