Wow, it's been awhile. I hope everyone had good holidays and a happy New Year!

Mine was pretty amazing. I went with Danny and his family on a cruise! We went to San Juan, St. Thomas, Antigua, Barbados and Dominica. For most of the islands we had excursions set up, so we got to go to a beautiful beach, go ziplining in Barbados, and went tubing in Dominica. Danny and I also set up excursions to swim with sea lions and stingrays. I'll post some pictures below.

Also, today I finally got around to adding up the totals for all the books I read this year. Last year I started to keep a list, because I was curious to find out how many books I tended to read on average, but it was lost. So this year I kept track again. Here's the total:

169 books read total
45,985 pages
An average of 126 pages a day

Keeping in mind that about 24% of those pages read were comics/graphic novels, I'm still pretty impressed with myself. Especially since reading the Game of Thrones books took up a good month or two all by themselves.

Anyway, pictures!

Hello again friends! Sorry it's been so long since my last update. Our internet has been down for awhile and just got fixed today. I gotta say, as much as I missed checking SG and reading all my favorite blogs, I got a TON of reading done, which was nice. Not much has been up otherwise.

Work is good, and I'm liking the job so far. My co-workers are nice, the job is just busy enough to prevent me from getting bored very often but usually not so busy that I feel super-stressed. I've been told I'm doing well and that I've been a quick learner, which feels nice, and next week I might end up taking on a pretty solid amount of responsibility, which makes me feel like they already trust me as a hard worker. As much as I feel like complaining in the morning about getting up early, it feels good to be working again.

I finished the new Terry Pratchett and loved it, of course. The other night I said that every Terry Pratchett novel is my favorite after I read it, and then the next one I read becomes my new favorite (with one exception, because almost every Pratchett fan I know has at least one book that they aren't a big fan of). However my favorite storylines are Vimes stories, followed closely by Tiffany Aching, so of course a new Vimes-centered book made me extra happy.

Danny and I had been watching (re-watching for him) The Wire and finished season 4 just before our connection stopped working. Because it's such an intense show we would watch a couple episodes and then watch an episode of Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends. A strange but good combination.

And that's really about it. Hope things are going well for all of y'all.

Good news and less good news!

Good news: I GOT A JOB! Starting Wednesday I will be an Underwriting Facilitator at a local company that seems like a really great, comfortable place to work. Plus, health benefits! I'm really excited. After a long, LONG and disheartening search it feels wonderful to know I'll have money of my own, that I can contribute to my household and that I'll feel like I'm doing something useful.

Though I will admit I'll miss spending hours a day futzing on the Internet and playing video games.

Not so great news: I saw my regular doctor and they just have a policy that they will not prescribe any sort of painkillers if they haven't done tests to pinpoint with more complete accuracy what the issue is. Which I understand, but it sucks. They did help me out with other suggestions and now that I"ll be working I can save up to get any needed tests to make sure there's nothing else wrong that I need to worry about. I'm also seeing just a regular GP on Saturday to discuss the same issue and they may be of help to.

Anyway. Yay jobs!

Fuck I hate medical stuff sometimes.

So I've been dealing with a pain issue since early last year. Slight TMI behind spoilers:

Anyway, long story short, I know what the problem is. I also know it isn't dangerous and it isn't really treatable in this case, it's basically something that will eventually go away on its' own, in all likelyhood. More slight TMI:

But in the meantime it means that several days out of every month are extremely painful for me. Like for my personal pain scale it's an 8 out of 10. I've tried every over the counter painkiller I can but they don't do much and I'd rather not be popping tons of those every day.

But my primary doctor does not want to prescribe anything for the pain until I get another test, the exact same one I got at the clinical trial. But this one instead of being free would cost $600, WITH insurance. I can't afford that, obviously. I called her again today to ask if there's any way she can prescribe something anyway and I'm supposed to hear back tomorrow but I don't have my hopes up. It's so frustrating. I'm not drug seeking. I just want to not be in that much pain for a chunk of each month and there's no way I can submit to a $600 test just for a prescription that would probably cost under $50. Long story short is that even if you have insurance here it blows, and it's incredibly frustrating to deal with.

And also ow.

Thank you all for the birthday wishes! I had a really nice day/evening (with a couple's massage, great presents, time spent with my wonderful boyfriend and champagne) and have more fun birthday plans for the weekend.

Alright, I'm replacing my last entry because it's my birthday and my birthday entry shouldn't be mopey.

Happy birthday, me! There are some aspects of my life that are less than ideal right now but I've got great friends here on SG, a wonderful and supportive boyfriend, and good things to come in the future, I'm sure of it. I'm going to start this birthday off on the right foot by being positive about where being 29 will take me.

It helps that my first birthday celebration thing will be a couple's massage with Danny.

I was waiting to update because I was hoping I'd be able to post that I had gotten one of two jobs I was in the running for. I was high on the candidate list for both and thought I had one basically set. But I got turned down for both this morning.

So. There's that. I know I'll be super upset about having to dive back into the misery that is job searching without any solid prospects soon but right now I'm relatively calm.

In better news, it's my birthday Wednesday.

Warning: this is going to be long.

This morning while trying to fall back asleep, I had thoughts swirling around in my head about various discussions online I've had/read about men approaching women and women's boundaries. I've been thinking about this a lot more than usual in the past couple of months mostly because of what was called "Elevatorgate". If you don't know of it, I'll warn you that googling it will lead to a LOT of 1000+ comment threads, though I think the best posts about it in general were at were at pandagon and Greta Christina. If you do know about it, you're probably tired of hearing about it. Long story short and probably pretty edited behind spoilers:

I think I finally hit on what upset me about this the most. First I'll say that there were plenty of men who got it, who listened to the women in comment threads about this stating their boundaries (which of course were varied) and internalized it instead of arguing with every little point. But they were the vast minority. The undercurrent of almost every post saying Watson was in the wrong was that if women stated their boundaries, men would have "no place" where they were allowed to approach women. Again and again women posted about what made them uncomfortable (again, this was varied): being approached on the street while they were clearly listening to music, being stopped on the street, being approached on the subway, and yes being approached in elevators late at night. Women said that these behaviors could make them feel nervous, degraded or even scared.

And again and again the response from SO MANY MEN was "but if we can't do that when do we get to approach you for dates/sex/conversation?". Many of these men started off bemoaning the fact that they don't know what women want and what their boundaries are but then responded to women explicitly stating their boundaries by bemoaning that this limited their opportunities to approach women. But here's the thing: when they responded that way what they were saying, in my translation, was that THEY DON'T CARE that women said some behaviors make them feel nervous, degraded or afraid. They were telling the women in these threads that what is more important to them, in the end, is their "right" and entitlement to approach women. And that is horrifying and scary to me. The response when another human being says "this is hurtful to me" should generally be "oh shit, I shouldn't do that, then". It speaks to a really fucked up priority system in our society that so many of these men felt that their desire to get to know a woman trumped a woman's general right to feel safe.

There are two other common responses that bothered me, and they were:

1. Women saying Watson was over-reacting. To me this spoke to a general thought process of "this wouldn't bother me, so it shouldn't bother you". Which obviously just shows a problem with the ability to empathize. It's fine with me if being stopped on the street, being approached on the subway or even being approached in an elevator at 4 a.m. is okay with another woman. That doesn't mean it has to be okay with me.

2. Many people insisting that the Elevator Guy (and therefore almost any guy approaching a woman at any time) was probably just a genuinely nice guy with no ill intentions, and therefore Watson/women in general were over-reacting. Maybe he was a nice guy. No one involved in this can know. But here's the thing: people aren't mind-readers. I have no way of knowing whether or not a dude approaching me on the street just wants to have nice conversations or if he wants to hurt me. This is why the Schrodinger's Rapist article is such a good and important read.

Not only that but asking me to assume good faith on the part of every guy who approaches me is asking me to go against every single thing I have been taught about safety as a woman since I was young. It is teaching me to go against what society has ingrained in me. And you know what else? I can guarantee you that if I did assume good faith for every random dude and one of those dudes ended up attacking me, I would be asked why I wasn't more cautious. So I can't win here.

Anyway, that's my rant.

I hear a lot of people act like the unemployed are just lazy, or not trying hard enough, or LIKE being unemployed. Lots of arguments that they should just pull themselves up from their bootstraps. In my experience these comments seem to often come from people who have had a lot handed to them when it comes to networking, business etiquette savvy, the ability to dress the part, and all kinds of other privileges.

I've been unemployed since the end of last August. I'm also very committed to social justice and I know that the attitudes stated above are generally bullshit and show a severe lack of understanding of the economy, of class differences and of many other issues. Yet it is still hard not to internalize those negative messages of the unemployed. The other night I lay in bed feeling so guilty and terrified about the prospect of continuing to be unemployed to the point where I didn't get to sleep until 3:30 am. And I had become so anxious that I was shaking enough that I thought there might be a minor earthquake going on in Chicago. There is that much internal anxiety about joblessness for me, and that much guilt because I HAVE internalized the idea that I must not be trying hard enough.

But today I kicked major ass and really throw off a lot of that internalized guilt. That's not to say it's all gone, but when in two days I've applied to well over 30 jobs, set up an interview at an employment agency, and found a dozen new job seeking sources, I don't think I can feel too terrible or think that I'm not trying hard enough. Today I feel fucking proud, and screw anyone who tells me I'm just not using my bootstraps enough!

Also, if you haven't read it already my new casual review column is up. Check it out right here and I'd be very pleased if you commented!

My new Casual Game Recommendations column is up with some really fun stuff to play, so check it out!

I wish I had more to report, especially on the job front, but things have been relatively quiet. A few good leads job-wise that I'm hoping will pan out, but otherwise life is the same as it was last time I posted. Which of course isn't all bad, as I still love spending time with Danny and my friends and by virtue of being home all day most days have plenty of time to read and play new games.