1. There are many times lately where I get sad that I am completely broke, and I wish that the job search would make more progress. Major things are the fact that I feel bad having to have Daniel pay for so many things, and the fact that I'm very sad that I can't afford Christmas presents. And unfortunately I'm not very crafty so there's only so many homemade presents I can manage. Then there are other smaller things like being sad that I can't afford to buy my own beer when I want some, or that I can't buy little presents that I think Daniel might like. Or today, seeing one of the few GroupOn deals I get excited about, the one with huge savings at Barclay's Wine. I got super-excited for a minute when I saw it and then immediately remembered, hey, I have exactly 2 bucks to my name in my bank account. But damn that coupon would be useful, especially for the holidays. Fuck.

2. This article has been floating around the feminist blogosphere lately with obviously legitimate outrage. Here's a warning as a summary, in case something this stupid and offensive might make your brain melt out of your ears: This is a potentially triggery article about a pseudo-intellectual 20-something dude who spent some time in Paris and came back with the idea that French women are much "cooler" about consent and that consent really isn't such a big deal. His argument is terribly written anyway, and his assertion that French women are either empowered or just totally okay with random men groping them and aggressively perusing them is based on...watching some of them on the street and one French woman he talked to once. I think his suggestion that we should "turn down the volume on consent" is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever read. On top of that, Jezebel's choice to post it and their disingenuous explanation as to why they did just adds insult to injury for a lot of people who read the article. I will say I take some glee in this in that I've hated Jezebel for ages now and think they scream "girl power" while being anti-feminist, and I'm glad to more people get disgusted with the website.

3. I fly to Aruba with Daniel and his family in a month! I'm very excited, though I am not at all excited about going through security. I am going to have to spend sometime preparing myself for the worst case scenario if I have to go through either of the new "enhanced" security (read: bullshit security theater) procedures, because I know either one will upset me. If I could punch organizations right in the fact, my first choice would be the TSA.

4. On good news, Thanksgiving was fantastic. Daniel made an absolutely delicious turkey with yummy sides and we had a nice day in. And he gets today and Monday off, which is nice!

I feel like this is a post I make annually, and it's probably because I sometimes randomly get in the mood to go through my old entries here, but it's neat to think of how influential SG has been as a part of my life over the years. I mean, just on a base level it's interesting to have a place where I can track my thoughts basically from when I was 19 to now. Most of the time when I look back I have to laugh at myself, and be glad that I've grown up over time (and that I still have a lot of growing up to do). Sometimes I go back and read stuff that makes me want to give my old self a big hug, or to tell her to stop being so ridiculous, or to stop being an idiot.

But there are many many entries that remind me of how many good experiences I've had here over the years. Meeting people I never would have had a change to meet otherwise. Taking trips all over the U.S. and even overseas because of people I've been connected to here. Being involved in threads that were so funny that I even look them up occasionally now because they were so much fun. Having people that I've known, as much as you can know someone online, for years still sticking around and talking about how their own lives have changed over the years. Looking back at times when I really needed support and got a lot of love and comfort from this community, from people I knew IRL and people I had never met before, is also really touching. I was just looking at posts from when my cat Albus died and I still can't believe the outpouring of support I got at that time.

Basically 1. It's strange to be able to track important parts of one's history through a website and 2. I'm glad it was and continues to be this website, because there are a lot of great people here.

ETA: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO the page is gone! That makes me very sad I saved so many of the images.

Privilege Denying Dude is my new favorite website and I am very very glad I discovered it. Every time I go there I seem to right click and save at least one image for future use. My PhotoBucket has more pictures from that site than of anything else now.

Best two:





Other favorites:

The sad thing is that most of these really aren't all that exaggerated. I can honestly say that I've heard every single one of these arguments at one point or another, both online and in real life. Sometimes they have essentially been direct quotes. I am not even kidding. And I've heard most of them many, many times.

Dear lord, we watch a lot of TV here. Not that I complaining because it's mostly really good TV, but still.

Every week we watch:

Dexter
The Walking Dead
Bored to Death
Boardwalk Empire
How I Met Your Mother
Lie to Me
Glee
Sometimes, and this is a huge guilty pleasure, we watch The Millionaire Matchmaker. It's so horribly, horribly entertaining. And infuriating on occasion.
Criminal Minds
30 Rock
Community
Psych
Bones
The Simpsons
American Dad
And of course we'll be watching Brewmasters when it comes on, because who DOESN'T want to watch a show about beer, particularly Dogfish Head?

We've also downloaded Sherlock, which is fantastic and sadly only three 90 minute episodes. And we have all of Homocide: Life on the Street which we'll eventually get to. Oh and we love watching House Hunters when it's on.

Then I watch In Treatment when I can catch it or download it, and I'm working on re-watching all of Six Feet Under.

What do y'all love to watch?

On an unrelated note, the weather here is making us paranoid. It shouldn't be in the high fifties in Chicago in November, and the fact that it hasn't snowed yet is bizarre*. I'm not currently complaining but I'm hoping that doesn't mean that when winter finally hits it's really, REALLY bad.

* Note: I am so addicted to Echo Bazaar that just typing "bizarre" made me want to go check it. Sadly I am out of actions until late this afternoon.

Howard Brown Health Center, one of the largest GLBT healthcare organizations in the U.S., might have to shut down by the end of the year if they don't raise enough money. They are a wonderful organization and have helped me personally this year, and it would be a huge loss to the community if they were forced to shut down. If anyone wants to help out and can, the link goes to their fundraising letter and to information about donating. And please, spread the word about their Lifeline Appeal to keep their doors open. Being jobless means I can only boost the signal and get the word out there, but at least it's something!

I also emailed Dan Savage in the hopes that he might mention it on one of his blog posts.

word

1. This is so true to my experience it's funny/depressing:
How Every Discussion About Sexism Ends. What's sad is that when it was originally posted, the exact thing the comic is pointing out happened in the comments.

2. No news on the job front yet, but I've done the whole routine of calling and emailing once to check up. Hopefully I'll hear from them next week or find another good prospect. In small good news, I signed up for a quick survey that will earn me $25. It's kind of sad to get excited about having only 25 bucks of my own, but hey, money is money.

3. In other good news, I finally gained back the weight I lost this year. Since maybe January I'd been losing weight and wasn't sure why, and probably lost about 10-15 pounds. I started drinking Ensure shakes, taking vitamins and trying to eat better and I'm back up to around 140, which is where I like to be.

4. A friend is in town this weekend doing a tasting (he's a brewer) this evening and then hanging out after, which should be lots of fun. And perfect because I was beginning to feel somewhat stir-crazy. Plus good beer is always a fantastic thing. Good beer =

5. The fact that I can use a flying monocle in Super Scribblenauts is fantastic and I have used it as often as possible in the game. Which I am already almost done with.

Let's see, it's been a while since I updated. What's new in my life?

1. My dad visited this weekend, which was great. I hadn't seen him in way too long. We went out and had some good food, but mostly just hung around the apartment watching Haven and other TV and talking and enjoying each others company. It was a really good weekend. Makes me wish I could travel back home more often or that I could have my family up here more often. This is why I need to be paid millions of dollars just for doing the things I do every day.

2. Speaking of things I do every day, I remain obsessed with Pocket Frogs. Sadly I can't access the extra features that you get with a WiFi connection (my iPod Touch doesn't have that), but it's still really fun. I've been playing it even more than usual this week.

3. On top of that, Daniel bought me a surprise present of...Super Scribblenauts! Some of you may remember how obsessed I was with the first game, and already I am finding it hard to put down the sequel. I'm really enjoying the additions to gameplay and am excited to spend time playing more of it. Plus I think it's really sweet that he got me the present because he remembered me being sad that I rarely get any mail that isn't a bill or junk mail.

4. I'm super-graceful and managed to hit my head hard against one of our radiators this weekend. I honestly wish I could have had a booze-related excuse for it but I had about 2 and a half beers over 4 hours, so it was just me being clumsy. My head still hurts from it. Stupid lack of bodily awareness.

5. I discovered these candies today and kind of want a lifetime supply of them.

1. The job interview went really well, I think. I was super-prepared, which ended up working out well because their computers were down and they didn't have copies of my resume and the job description because of it. I interviewed with one person for about 40 minutes, then she showed me around the organization, and introduced me to two more people who I interviewed with for another 40 minutes or so. They all seemed to really like me and were impressed that I was passionate about their mission (for those who missed it, they work with homeless/at-risk youth and adults, the program I'd be working for is a house for teenage pregnant/mothering girls). One of the people interviewing me had a daughter named Morgan, which I think gained me some accidental brownie points. And I was nervous, but I don't think I came across as nervous. I think I came across as personable and well-spoken. Maybe a little nervous, but not as nervous as I FELT, which is the important part.

So I feel pretty good about it. If I got the job I'd have to reschedule with my shrink, which might be a pain in the butt, but whatever. Worth it for a good and interesting job, and I like that it's not full time but still plenty of hours, so I still get some time to myself every week. It sounds like the actual hours/days are pretty flexible too, as long as stuff gets done.

2. I've mentioned it before, but since New Years I've been keeping a list of every book I've read just to see how many books I might read on average every year. I just went back through to check the count and I'm at 103. And for the past couple of months I've been reading huge books (Dark Tower books and several books connected to them), so those are like two or three books in one. Though of course I counted them as only one. So yay! So much reading!

3. I'm a dork and just calculated how many pages of Steven King I've read since August (with some other random books in between, for my sanity). The total is *drumroll*

6,217 pages.

That's a fuckton of reading.

4. Though when you divide it that makes it 75.8 pages a day, which isn't that insane. Maybe someday after the year is up if I'm feeling extra dedicated I'll add up the pages of all the books I read and see how many it totals a day.

I have a job interview next Thursday!

It's for a local shelter for pregnant and parenting homeless teens, and is an admin assistant job. It's part time, but at 30 hours a week, which is pretty damn good. Plus it's just exciting and affirming to know that the resumes I'm sending out aren't just being thrown into some huge Unemployment Shredder.

1. The Internet has made me bitter about a number of subjects. One of the main ones is self-hating/misogynistic women. The ones who victim-blame. The ones who say "I'm not like other women, I play video games/like sports/burp in public" or "I don't get along with other women because women are catty/bitchy" (which in itself is a catty statement, I'd like to point out). The ones who go along with sexism because they're "just one of the guys". The ones who insist that THEY don't experience sexism, so obviously other women don't either. The ones who tell other women to just take street harassment as a compliment.

I know I should feel more sympathy or understanding of that attitude, because I know usually it springs from a sexist society that treats femininity as something bad and pits women against each other, along with all kinds of other factors I'm not going to get into here because this is a blog, not a sociology paper. But I've just seen these attitudes so much online that my pity tank is empty. Instead it just makes me angry and frustrated. I'm sick of seeing the kind of stuff I mentioned posted online, because it's like the people posting it expect a flock of approving men (and other women) to show up and tell them how unique and awesome they are for not being like Those Other Women. It's sad and annoying and I see it way too often. Eventually I'm just going to be immune to even noticing it because it's so damn common.

2. Other things that fall under the "I see this shit too much" category:
- "Not to be offensive, but *insert something really offensive here*"
- "You can't criticize me because it's just my opinion, and opinions can't be wrong" (or it's sister "If you criticize something I posted in a public space publicly you are silencing me!")
- Derailing in general (For example: yes, we understand that women who are super skinny experiencing body policing, too, but in a post about the body-policing of plus-sized women, it usually isn't relevant)
- On a similar note, any sentence that begins with "Real women _____".
- "I'm not offended by _____, so I don't understand why anyone else is". Which is related to "Well I have black/gay/whatever friends and THEY aren't offended when I say stupid shit, so why should you be?"
- "Fandom can never have faults because it's about ~fiction~"

3. I'm going to stop now because this list could get very, very long.