Day Three hundred thirteen
by V.E. on November 30th, 2009
filed under powerof5
01 this icon just makes me happy every time I see it.
02 finishing NaNoWriMo, just in the nick of time!
03 completing the draft of my manuscript. Have to read it over again…
04 … but I don’t have to do that until Johnny gets home in two weeks!
05 granting 49 holiday_wishes so far! only 21 to go!
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Things I’m thankful for on this Thanksgiving
by V.E. on November 26th, 2009
filed under personal
1. Family and friends
I’m actually thankful for my friends and family all year round, but I hate it when people say “Oh, you should always be thankful”… Yes, I know, asswipe; let’s not make me feel anymore guilty than I already do, okay? I have the Puritan thing down pretty well, thanks. Anyway, I love my parents and brother and sister, my waterbrothers, and my other friends from LC and F&M who probably won’t read this today, if they ever do. I tend to be very hands off in my relationships, and I want them all to know I love them and appreciate them. I’m sorry if I don’t show it well or often enough.
2. My writing colleagues
I miss my writing friends most of all, recently, since I’ve been writing this memoir. I don’t feel like I’m close enough to reach out for help, even though I know they’d be here in a heartbeat if they could be. I had to move from my favorite city in the world back home after losing my job last year, and I’m thankful that I’ve been able to stay in touch with the people in my life who write. I need a community, whether I admit it or not, and I’ve found one in them. We may be different in a lot of other ways, but we all love writing, and I love them.
3. Positive role models
Like my parents, Helo and Athena, and other women and men who stand up for what they believe in, even through hard times. I know people whose idea of sticking up for something really important is attending a rally in support of that thing and that’s all. That’s not all. That’s a good start, but standing up is a lot harder when everyone is against you. I believe in well-thought out opinions and the good in people, no matter how much I decry them. I think humanity could use some more positive role models, and I hope that I am one, too, to some of my friends.
4. Diversity
I’m so thankful that I live in a country that—at least in theory—holds diversity as an ideal. I like learning about other cultures and customs and I think diverse opinions and backgrounds make us stronger, not weaker. I complain about my country more than is probably necessary, but I know that dissent is patriotic, when—in another country—it might get me reprimanded, jailed, or worse.
5. The internet
No, seriously. Without the internet, I would have much less to do, and I wouldn’t know that there are other people in the world like me. I wouldn’t be able to read manga or watch anime so readily, and I wouldn’t be able to so easily stay in touch with my friends. I wouldn’t have even be able to complete my MFA at Wilkes, since it’s a low-residency program. I’d be stuck in this house, truly a recluse, and even I think that I need a little more social interaction than that.
Trangender Day of Remembrance
by V.E. on November 20th, 2009
Today is the 11th annual Transgender Day of Remembrance. Here is a list of 162 names of known trans people who were killed from 20 November 2008 to 12 November 2009. “Most were women. Most were black or Latina. A disproportionate number were sex workers. Several were still only teenagers.”
“Today is a day to remember the transgender people (or people perceived by their killers to be trans) who have died as a result of hatred and violence, and as a result of the hateful and violent cultures that support the perpetrators. Today is a day to remember those whose deaths authorities and media attempt to sweep under the rug, whose identities are devalued and erased once they are gone, whose murders usually go unsolved. Today is a day to read their names, and not forget.”
I am sick with grief today.
h/t Feministe
Origins
by V.E. on November 18th, 2009
filed under anime/manga
Holy shit; it’s Blade and Eve as children. And Gido-hakusei with hair.
And—ohmaigod—I just realized their names are Adam and Eve.
/facepalm
I am so slow sometimes. It took only 20 episodes for me to put two and two together.
From Needless, episode 20. (Click picture for larger.)
Black and Blue
by V.E. on November 17th, 2009
Black and blue nail polish. That’s what I went down to the store for this afternoon. I took my brother’s bike, a blue and green thing with mountain-ready tires and like 24 gears. The seat is almost too high for me, but I was able to manage. (When I’m actually pedaling, it’s fine; it’s when I’m trying to get on or off that it becomes a tiny problem.) The CVS near me is less than a mile away, and I didn’t bother with a helmet. There’s a left turn about halfway–and that’s where things got messy.
I was riding along just fine, the wind in my hair and all that, when I started to slow down for the turn. There were two cars there, waiting for me so they could turn, and I was distracted. I didn’t slow down fast enough, but I did keep turning. Suddenly, my bike was on the ground and I was flipping in the air and then skidding face first on the asphalt.
I managed an “uuugh” as I landed on my arms and face on the pavement. I kind of bounced and then the ground took off a lot of skin while I skidded to a stop. The bike was a few feet in front of me, the front wheel turned completely around and the seat crooked. My glasses weren’t broken, exactly, but they were bent almost beyond repair.
I stood up slowly as one of the cars’ drivers rolled down her window and asked, “Hey! Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Thanks,” I said, dusting myself off and reaching for my iPod earbud headphones. One had been pulled from my ear when I landed. I pulled the other one from my ear, Bill Kaulitz and Tokio Hotel’s music forgotten for the moment.
“You sure?” she prodded.
I took a mental tally. “Yeah, I’m all right. Thanks, though.” The woman drove away just as another came walking up toward me from the direction I’d been heading.
“You all right, kid?” she asked.
“Yeah. I just fell off my bike,” I said sheepishly.
“On this turn, here?”
“Yeah. Took it too fast.” I grabbed my bike and hauled it up.
“I’ve seen that happen before,” she said.
“Got scraped up pretty good, but what can you do, y’know?” I could feel the blood oozing from both elbows and my left knee, even though I was wearing jeans. My chin and my forehead above my right eyebrow stung, but I tried not to let it look like it hurt.
She nodded and looked me over from head to shoe before apparently deciding that, since I was up and walking around and dismissing the fall, I must be fine. “You need something, I’m over there,” she said anyway, pointing to a house across the way.
“Okay, thanks.” She kept walking and I threw my leg over the bike, determined to ‘get back on the horse’ as soon as possible.
I made it the rest of the way without incident. It was actually kind of liberating. I didn’t think anything else would happen to me. That’s a total lie, of course, but that’s what it felt like. I felt more alive, even though everything ached and I could feel the blood dripping from my elbows. They’d taken the brunt of the fall and were pretty bad off. But it felt good, in a weird way. Not really like I wanted to do it again, but like I wouldn’t have minded if it had happened again anyway.
I had my earbuds in again, listening to the German melodies of Tokio Hotel, as I parked my bike and walked into the store.
I headed for the nail polish section before I realized that a woman and her small child had avoided coming down my aisle. I looked up and down the aisle and saw no one else. I went to the next one and another mother and her kid moved out of the way for me, steering her child away from me.
I was being avoided. I nearly laughed out loud. I was officially the people my my parents warned me about. Now, other parents were avoiding me. I looked down at myself. I was wearing a Nine Inch Nails/Jane’s Addiction NIN|JA tour shirt, ripped jeans, and grey Converse. I looked like a punk who’d just gotten into a fight.
It happened at least one other time before I found the polish I wanted, which turned out to be “Black Magic” and “Bolting Blue” shades, and headed for the counter. I briefly thought about stealing the polish, but squashed the desire forcefully under my foot as I pulled out my credit card to pay.
The cashier waited until I put the two small bottles onto the counter before she picked them up each in turn and rang them through the register. When she refused to take my card until I put it on the counter, too, I realized she was also avoiding me, just like those mothers had been.
“You should see the other guy,” I joked. The cashier laughed, and the ice was broken. I wasn’t a scary punk girl anymore, at least to her. The middle-aged woman behind me, though, changed cashiers upon hearing my comment, as if my being too close to her son would make him violent. I laughed.
Heading back home was less exciting, but my wounds were still stinging when I finally got in the door. I laid on the floor for a while, trying to figure out how I was going to be able to sleep tonight without re-scraping my injuries.
It was a little bit later I discovered that my cell phone was similarly scratched. It looked like it was windblown, and the wind had been scratched into the front. Neat, matching war wounds, right?
Am I weird to think the whole thing was way cool instead of being angry or thankful for my life or something? I’ll be black and blue tomorrow, for sure.
Day Three hundred twelve
by V.E. on November 17th, 2009
filed under powerof5
01 the Tokio Hotel CD, Humanoid, is love
02 getting to just over 20,000 words in my manuscript editing
03 almost halfway done with the audiobook The Year of Living Biblically
04 being able to knit while “reading” (see #03)
05 OMG finding my camera!
holiday_wishes 2009
by V.E. on November 16th, 2009
I’ve participated in holiday_wishes since 2005 and am going to try to grant the wishes of more people this year! In the past I’ve done (1) as many people as possible, (2) the same number of people as the number of wishes I had, and (3) some multiplication of #2. I think this year I’m going to do the latter (#3).
Seven is a lucky number, so I’m going to try to fulfill seven wishes for every wish I make. With 10 wishes of my own, it’s a total of 70 wishes for me to fulfill. I don’t have much besides snail mail and stickers to give out, though, so my gifts are going to be for the cost of postage because, basically, that’s all I can afford.
Letters/Cards to: (67 total)
scoff, scatterheart, grlxinterrupted, punkgirl28, shellasaurusrex + tea, conjure_lass, love__me_baby, angelwolf24, devils_sidekick, arizonaicerose
smurphy487, zianuray + earring, greenet + poem, weaponx2032, memoryanddream, snowflakie06, fabricdragon, gocart_romance, skudge, sacred_darling
wanderlustlover, drop_down_dead, y2jdingo, inspired, dixid, allingoodtaste, mstangledwebs, outoftime, trashcan_blues, insixeighttime + quotation
recycled_wings, missdew‘s mother, unboundbebedora, yoshiiii, daez, amethyst_clan, istalksnape, guiltyred + $2, just_chiara, alchemia
julie709, emekitty, gizmometer, neonrose5, winnable, coldblackhand, oregano42, xopink_heartsox + stamps, randomlacila, tissuepaperpet
tabbiewolf, cimplybe, writtenxxpages, homsan, uglybracelets, eleventy_first, pandoraisis, apeystar, sheryll, sweetgingertea
maika_75, cherrydanish + yarn, ezhang1 + book, blueleopard87, myras_girls, sualocin, sondora9
Stickers to: (4 total)
dont_deny_me, lchan, fish_are_icky, rainbowserenity
I do it this way so that I can feel like I’ve “earned” my ten wishes for holiday_wishes. I know that wishes are wishes and the granters are giving gifts, but it helps my conscience to give back and not just ask ask ask.
So far, I’ve earned 10 wishes with 71 granted! Yay! I’m done!
Last updated: 21 December 2009, 23:31 PST
