it was lovely by fits and starts

So remember how my last entry ended with me having plans to (reluctantly and resentfully) go to the ER about my ankle?

Yeah, that didn't happen. Oh, I still wound up at the ER on Tuesday, but it wasn't for me. Instead the universe decided that my Gran needed to have respiratory issues so bad that she had to pull the emergency cord in her bedroom.

Thank fuck we got her moved a couple of months ago. I seriously owe the staff at her new apartment complex a cake because they had people in with her in under 90 seconds and an ambulance called immediately after that. They called me before the paramedics had even gotten her into the ambulance and Mom and I were able to meet them at the hospital.

She wound up being admitted with pulmonary edema (fluid in the lungs) with the root cause being cardiac issues. Her heart is just plain wearing out and it's not pumping enough blood, which (because bodies are fucked up and weird) is resulting in things that should go squish not going squish and things that shouldn't go squish (like lungs) going squish squish squish. :/

Added to that, she managed to get one of her pills stuck in her throat where the goddamn thing melted and gave her a chemical burn. Folks, if you're taking pills, do yourselves a favor and drink a load of water with them. Don't let your Prozac fuck your throat up so badly that you croak instead of talking and need to see an ENT. It's not fun and it apparently hurts an awful lot.

So yeah, that's been my week. Being my grandmother's caretaker is the hardest job I've ever had, no questions asked. It's ridiculously emotionally draining, and my hats are off to people who do this kind of thing as a career and with more than one person at a time. Our society really doesn't respect this kind of job enough - and as a result I've gotten to the point where I'm like, "You wanna talk shit about stay at home parents? COME AT ME. I'll FUCK YOU UP" and "The real heroes are the people juggling kids and aging parents and keeping their own sanity." (On the other hand, I cannot imagine leaving Gran's care to anyone else, much less someone outside the family. She's my best Gran and as much as she sometimes drives me to the whiskey bottle, I love her so very very much.)


On the bright side of life: after much debate and arguing, Mom and I figured out how we want to redo our kitchen floors. We're going from badly installed 80s style vinyl with a rotted subfloor where the dishwasher leaked for years and years (so gross) to a whitewashed and varnished floor of planks made from plywood. No, really! It can look SO COOL and it's hella cheap, so if we need to redo them or slap some vinyl over them in a few years we can. We had been talking about an actual wood floor, but after pricing it out we were looking at $1500 for labor and wood. We're going to do a lot of the demo ourselves and the switch from fancy oak to plywood is going to save us a bundle. YAY for new floors!

So last week - hell, two days ago - I didn't even have the energy that God gave a Sloth. I was managing about one thing a day and wasn't bathing or brushing my teeth enough. Depression is a bitch, you know?

And then four days ago I started taking lithium.

Guys, I'm just gonna say it - unless something goes dramatically wrong, you will pry this prescription from my cold, dead hands. The difference is fucking amazing. I'm still nowhere near 100%, but I'm totally thrilled to be hovering around 50%, considering where I was last week. I got shit done today! It was AMAZING. And I've only been taking it for FOUR DAYS.

Other things - both the psych and my doctor were very very clear that I need to cut my sugar. It's not a weight loss thing, it's not a diabetes thing, it's a fatty liver thing. So I started with my beloved Dr Pepper. Last week in one day I downed four or five of them. It's currently been 2 days since I had a soda. I'm not cutting them out entirely! The limit is 1 a day! It's just that I'm too lazy to go get the 36 pack out of Mom's car. :P So yeah, 48 hours soda free. I've also upped my water intake from, oh, none? I'm drinking 64-80 oz a day right now - it's required to keep the lithium from shredding my kidneys, but it's also good for me.

Oh, and I've actually started walking again. Today was the third day in a row that I went out for at least 15 minutes.

I mean, my diet is still a hot mess and I'm still unsure about veggies and shit, but this is progress and I'm so fucking proud of myself.

So my doctor wants me to lose weight. ( I'm cutting this because I'm discussing numbers and disordered eating issues. It's a lot of fun beyond this point, but you might not want to click if that sort of thing triggers you. )

I don't feel like I can talk about this on Tumblr. There's definitely a slant towards body acceptance that almost runs to the anti-weight loss on my feed, and while that's okay I don't want to talk about hating my body and trying to lose weight over there. Fortunately I have this old friend to fall back on - bless you LJ for still being around. ♥

Christmas this year was deeply deeply emotional for me, for a variety of reasons.

For starters, and most importantly, my Grandfather was being kind to me.

Things you should know: I've spent the last two decades aware that my grandfather hated me. I would explain to people that he and I had mutually silently decided that we would politely loathe each other and that was okay. He once drunkenly yelled in my face that I had ruined my mother's life by being conceived. Yeah, good times. He was neither kind nor nice to me.

Over the last summer he had a very bad fall and decided to stop drinking. (The sobriety only lasted 3 and a half months, but he's drinking a lot less and thinking a lot more.) That, combined with a truly excellent pie that I baked in September for Mom's birthday, led to him apparently realizing that I wasn't a terrible human? He asked if I would be willing to bake him a pie every month and occasionally write and send emails for him to a young man doing research on his unit from the marine corps. I said sure, he said he'd pay me $40/mo for this, I gratefully accepted.

And then cut to yesterday. Guys, he was -- he was so fucking kind to me. He was so thrilled that I'd baked a mincemeat pie (mostly because he loves them) and was just so agreeable and -- he kept complimenting my cooking and the way we'd decorated, and just, like, he was being nice to be around. Like, he told my grandmother that he thought I could be a professional cook and that nobody bakes a better pie than I do, nobody. He also basically gave me his enormous stand mixer and told me that he was sure that I'd do great things with it.

Add to this that my Cop!Uncle is now Retired!Cop!Uncle and is so much more relaxed and happy. He also started drinking again - after 30 or so years of sobriety - but is doing really well with a two drink maximum and he was also being a delight to be around - helpful and funny and it was like the uncle I loved so much when I was a wee Bunny had come back from a decades long trip around the world. He told me I looked really nice and that he liked my dress and was generally complimentary about my cooking and told me that I shouldn't worry about taking school slow, he was sure I'd manage it in the end.

I spent most of the day confused, but in a really good way. I kept almost crying and then holding it back by massive willpower alone, because I was sure that nobody would understand that this was overwhelmed good kind of crying.

Just, like, when I was a very little girl I just wanted my Grandpa to love me so so badly. I loved my uncle more than almost anyone in the world, and he was the most important man in my life. And my grandfather never loved me and my uncle got married and had kids and suddenly I didn't matter to him very much anymore. And I'm so overwhelmed right now that my grandfather -- okay today he told Mom that he wanted very much to improve his relationship with me. And my uncle might not approve of my sexual orientation or my politics, but he loves me. I honestly feel like this is the closest I'll ever come to a Christmas Miracle.


So even though my Crazy!Aunt was being spectacularly crazy, and even though I'm suffering from an acute case of I Really Hate How Inferior Being Poor Makes Me Feel (Cousin Kitten got a Macbook Pro from Cop!Uncle, which is actually wonderful and great and I'm super happy for her, but I'm also really fucking jealous that her dad can afford to give her really nice and lovely presents and well. I mean. I got a calendar (that I wanted!) and a nose hoop (that I wanted!) and $100 (which is wonderful!) but nobody's going to be giving me anything even remotely like a laptop) Christmas was mostly full of really good emotions. :)

What a delightful note to end the year on.

So I've decided to stop automatically posting under friendslock for a little while, to see how it feels.

This is, I suppose, as good a place to start as any, particularly considering that this post would have been unlocked regardless.

Let me say first and foremost that I agree with Kita to the fullest extent of my abilities. If you come to me and tell me that you have been violated in any way, ranging from being made to feel uncomfortable straight across the spectrum to far far more horrifying crimes, I will believe you. I understand, intellectually, that there are some people out there in the world who have lied about this kind of thing, but let me be clear: I do not care about that. For every "false accusation", there are literally hundreds of thousands of people who either choose not to or can't talk about sexual violations taken against their person. In light of that, I will always believe you.

And if I ever do anything that smacks of victim blaming, I sincerely hope that I get struck by lightning and fry horribly. I've been the woman who people questioned before, and I think it is utterly disgusting.

With regards to thenyxie, when I first saw her comments in the Wincom community, I really had no idea what was going on. I didn't even know where the wank was, I just knew that someone was questioning the integrity of the Con Organizers, both of who are on my friendslist and have been for years. It pissed me off, and I went to talk to someone in the know about what the situation was. I'm not going to name names here, because I'm not sure how she would feel about that, but I had a very enlightening conversation with her and came away from it wanting to mangle people. (I've had a draft of this post up for two days now, and finally just went and started commenting instead. I find that I'm better in comments.)

So let me just put a few things out there in a bulleted list.

• There are many reasons why survivors of sexual assault frequently feel unsafe about coming forward. Victim blaming is a huge one. Being forced to offer up "proof" is not acceptable. I feel that the burden of proof should, in fact, be on the accused when it comes to sex crimes. I'm aware that this isn't a popular opinion, or even a legal one in this country. As the survivor of rape, I don't actually care.


• If someone on an anonmeme says that they were assaulted, raped, felt uncomfortable in a situation, whatever, I am inclined to believe them. Please see my point above. Further, there's a reason why a great many crisis lines are anonymous - people may not feel comfortable admitting to painful truths with their names attached at first.


• Be that as it may, I think that it's clear by now that the decision of the Con Organizers to ban thenyxie from Wincon was made in 2008, and was prompted by her behavior, her husband's behavior, and the behavior of their guest who was not a Wincon participant.


• HOWEVER. If that had not been the case and the first they had heard about it was the anonymeme, I still think that they would have had a responsibility to bear that in mind when dealing with thenyxie, and would also have had a responsibility to investigate said issues. I realize that this too is not a popular opinion, but given my prior point about the comfort of anonymity and confession, I feel comfortable with it.


• If I am ever an asshole, be it in public or in private, I would hope to shout that at least a few of y'all would feel comfortable telling me that I was being an asshole and to knock it the fuck off. In other words, if I am ever acting like this, I do not want your unquestioning support. <3


• Kassie and Jenn have done an amazing job organizing and running Wincon for five years now, and I support them in any way that I can. Period. Their actions, and the actions of the rest of the Con Comm are commendable, and I am deeply proud of their behavior and their efforts to create a safe space for fandom to come together and party.

On that note, let me tell you a brief story about myself and the first Wincon:

We went as a large group to a bar for karaoke that year, and I got hammered. I hadn't eaten, I don't drink much, and there was a lot of booze flowing that night. I had a very good time, for the most part, and that night has produced some of my most amusing memories of any night of my life.

One part of it that wasn't particularly amusing though was when I found myself against the wall by the bathroom with my tongue in the mouth of a man I'd never seen before and his hand going up my shirt. I was drunk off my ass at that point, and was in no shape to be doing anything of the sort with a stranger in a strange city. I can't remember who it was at this point, but a fellow fangirl saw this going on, intervened, and upon asking me questions realized exactly how fucked up I was. She got me back over to where our group was sitting, got me some water, and made sure that I didn't wander off again until I'd sobered up somewhat and we'd left the bar. (If that fangirl sees this and remembers the incident, please speak up!) I'm incredibly fucking grateful to her - I don't make smart sexual choices when I'm drunk, and her intervention very likely prevented me from doing something incredibly stupid.

That's what I think about when people talk about Wincon being a safe space. Because it is, and it should be, the kind of place where fangirls keep an eye out for each other and step in when things get out of control. It is, and should be, the kind of place where we ask questions of the fangirl making out with the strange cowboy, and where we keep clearly drunk women from going to hotel rooms with men who they don't know. That's what I feel like fandom should be - it shouldn't be the kind of place where we slut shame or victim blame.

In any case. I'm still flamingly angry at thenyxie and her absolute lack of comprehension for the harm that she does and the rape culture that she supports by defending the actions of her husband and his friend. I am, however, so fucking proud of fandom for standing up and getting loud about how utterly fucked up that is. I'm in no way, shape, or form active in SPN fandom these days, but this reminds me of why I was once so pleased to call it my home. <3

P.S. And if anyone wants to take up a donation for a plane ticket, a hotel room, and registration, I'd be pleased to join y'all in Chicago this year. :P :P :P

Originally posted at http://bunners.dreamwidth.org/1093632.html, where there are currently comments. I would appreciate it if you would consider commenting there.

What a day - work has gone *crazy* this week. Excuse me while I collapse into a heap, okay?

So I said I would post a scan of the thank you I got from the Panties for Everyone drive last year by tonight, and I fail exponentially. I did get it scanned - and then forgot my thumb drive at work. I have to take out the trash and pick my roommate up from the airport, and won't have time to get back to the building before it security locks up tight for the night. D: I will be able to get that posted tomorrow though, along with the receipts for the things I've bought so far this year. :D We're currently at $1,282.94, for the record, less the $620 or so that has been spent on hoodies, gloves, and hats so far. Woot woot! I'm making my first drop-off tomorrow, since the back of my trunk is full to bursting.


In other, much less important news: my hair has finally grown out of the slightly awkward phase it's been in since I got it cut, and looked adorable today. It seems that the best way to style it is to wake up, wash it, and go out into freezing weather, thus making my still wet hair freeze into tiny little icicles all over my head. This makes my entire body scream for the Bahamas, but seems to work absolute magic, since my hair thaws and is soft and adorably flippy and bouncy for the rest of the day. Or at least until I take my sweater off and on a few times, at which point it's soft and static-electricitied, but still adorable in that reaching-for-the-ceiling sort of way.

This is the weather in Spokane right now. In case you don't want to click that link, it's currently nine degrees out, and with the windchill it's -7 degrees. The forecast is: "Sunny. Highs 14 to 17. Northeast wind 10 to 20 mph. Wind chill readings 12 below to 3 above zero."


On the bright side of life, my paypal balance is $957.30 USD. \o/ That's a LOT of hoodies and socks y'all. I'm still waiting for my paypal debit card to arrive in the mail (should be by Wednesday) and then I'm going SHOPPING. (Old Navy is running a billion sales right now, and hoodies are $15!)


If you've donated or boosted the signal, I thank you most sincerely: you are all big damn heroes. Even in three layers, with fingerless gloves, and in an office (okay, it's 63 degrees in here, but STILL) I'm damn cold. I flat out can't imagine being homeless in this weather.

I woke up a good 14 hours after I initially put of the donations post, and found $587.02 $588.85 in my paypal account.

We're past the initial goal, and rolling on into the territory of bonus items like maybe jeans and bras and toothbrushes now, y'all. \o/

I can't thank all of you enough - the signal-boosting is awesome, the donations are awesome, y'all are awesome. ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

So last year, on December 4th, I made a post. I said that I was too poor to give people gifts this year, and instead of giving me anything, I wanted my friends to donate money so I could go shopping for underwear for the local teen homeless shelter.

The project took on a life of its own, and in three weeks the internet raised over $3,000.


I'd like to do that again this year. So this is where I tell you that Spokane is cold. Thursday, when I was driving to work, it was 19 degrees out. Our weekly high has been in the 30s. These kids don't have much in the way of clothing, and they especially don't have much in the way of warm, practical gear. Most of what they own is second, third, or fourth hand.

I went by the shelter tonight, and grabbed their Holiday wishlist. It reads:

• Underwear & socks


• Jeans, hooded sweatshirts, flannel shirts & tops (esp XL-XXL)


• Gloves & stocking caps


• Games & activities (basketballs, board games, footballs, hacky sacks, hand held video games, playing cards, tech decks, etc)


• Toiletries (esp. deodorant & toothbruhes) & make-up


• Arts & crafts supplies


• Boots & winter shoes


• Gift certificates (books, clothes, food, movies, music, etc)


• Twin bedding & bath towels


• Bicycle helmets, lights & locks

Socks, hoodies, and gloves have been circled. I'm told that (again) underwear are in great demand.

I've gone and priced those items, and hoodies seem to be running around $18. Socks and gloves and underwear can be bought in multi-packs, and run between $2 and $7 dollars a pack.

I'd like to raise $500 to buy hoodies, socks, underwear, and gloves for these kids.

I know that money is super tight for all of us this time of year, and I know that nobody has a lot to give. But here's the thing - if a hundred people each give $5, that's $500. I know that's possible, because over 300 people donated last year. If you've even got a dollar in your paypal account, that would be wonderful too, and if you don't have that - please please repost this. Spread the word, this won't be possible without it! Livejournal, blogs, twitter, facebook, whatever. The more people who see this, the more likely it is that we'll be able to do this.

So yes. that's my Christmas wish again this year. Help me help out a bunch of kids who don't have anything, and could really use something to make their lives a little bit better.


My paypal is jessamayone@hotmail.com , and if you have any questions, I can be reached at bunnymcfoo at gmail dot com, or through a comment on this entry. Please be sure to mark donations as being a gift, or paypal will take a small chunk out of the donation D: I would prefer it if you did not use the button, since you can't mark a gift at that point.

I'm really really crossing my fingers that this works out well. If anyone wants more information about the shelter, I can provide that - just ask! All of your contributions are tax-deductible, and I would be more than happy to mail receipts to you.


EDIT: The Holiday party for the shelter is the 15th, so if it's possible to get this done before then, that would be wonderful. I will, however, be accepting donations until the 24th - they're always accepting things, and I could hit the after Christmas sales with whatever was left after the 15th. <3 <3 <3


CHILD OF EDIT: It has been pointed out to me that non-US paypal is slightly different, and may not give you the option of marking something as a gift - if that's the case for you, please don't worry about it. The amount taken from your donation is negligible, and your gift will be gratefully received.


THE EDIT STRIKES BACK: This post has been up for about 20 hours at this point, and just over $800 has been raised. I'm so utterly delighted in all of you, and wish that I could hug the internet. At this point, we're past simply hoodies and socks and into hoodies, socks, undies, jeans, and toothbrushes. Thank you, you are all wonderful.