APW - 09/10: B+

Yesterday was an okay Anti-Procrastination Wednesday. I'm giving myself a B+.

I only got 4 of the 5 assigned tasks done, hence the B, but I get extra credit for sorting out and dealing with the Grocery Awfulness in an intelligent and independant way. I swear, that particular grocery run was cursed. I need to get a chance to find another small bolt for my bike rack --I'd been holding it on with zip ties for over a month, and yesterday, with a full load of groceries, I found out what a disaster that could be. So I need to _actually_ fix it, and not just pretend to fix it.

On the subject of Vin (my beauteous lavender steed), I need to do a hell of a lot of repair work on her, and quite plausibly pay someone else to do more of it. She's been having gear wonkiness since the winter, and I realized yesterday or so that her brakes need, at the least, a sandpapering and realignment. I should see if I have a friend I can hire at "parts+beer" prices, or just bite the bullet and give her to Wheelworks for the weekend sometime. We're not even going to discuss how badly she wants an oiling (and a de-rusting, eep! I miss having indoor storage, awful basement steps and all.

Today is going to be an Anti-Procrastination Thursday, because I have even less to do than yesterday --no boring afterschool professional development meetings, and no Highland class. I know one of my five tasks will be to _wash my damn hair already_, I'm not sure about the other four yet. I think assigning them times, and giving myself the reward of being able to read as much as I want if I finish with extra time, will work out well for me. Another task should probably be _something_ to do with my room, it feels perpetually half-finished and I get the sense I just need to rearrange everything in a fit of pique to feel better. But that's not a small task, and the more small organizations --and the more things I can get rid of-- the better.

What do you need to get done today? Would you like me to send a nagging text/email/comment/Facebook message sometime this afternoon or evening to remind you to do it? (or revel with you if you have.)

~Sor
MOOP!

(no subject)

Trigger Warning: Street Harassment, sexist slurs.

In "dudes suck and I hate them" news (as well as "seriously, this one particular batch of groceries was fucking cursed"), I had an unpleasant and blatent gross-dude-being-gross at me yesterday. After shopping, I was bending over my bicycle in order to sort out what groceries go where --even without the dangers of a rickety rack, this is a somewhat exciting adventure. I am startled by someone honking directly behind me. I presumed they were upset that I was close to the curb, and I was all set to give them the "look asshole, I'm on the sidewalk, this is as much space as I get, fuck off" glare, but when I caught their eye, they just gave me a lacivious look and drove off smirking. At which point I realized my crime was not taking up space, but the fact that I was bending over.

And here's why I roll my eyes at people who make tut-tut noises at women who wear short skirts or low-cut shirts, or whatever other comfortable clothing they want. Because I had a slimy dude pay me unwelcome and unwanted attention, and then drive away before I could confront him on it, and I was _wearing my fucking professional drag_. My line of work involves interacting with a large number of _teenaged boys_. I assure you, only the most utterly puritanical or otherwise deranged minds could find fault in my choice of work wardrobe, at least in terms of being "sexy" or exposing skin. Simply put, I don't, ever.

But no, apparently my perfectly functional act of bending over to pick up my groceries off the ground (where I had to put them while I unlocked my bike, because oh hi, while I can unlock the bike one handed, it's a pain in the ass and it's so much easier to just set down my stuff for a mo' to do so) was so unbelievably and blatantly attractive that this old asshole just *had* to let me know his "appreciation". I won't actually wish him to "die in a fire", because Heralds don't do that¹, but I do wish that at some point he _truly understands_ what he's done to me and in all liklihood other women, and has to find a way to deal with the horror of permanently *being* the slime I (thankfully) temporarily felt.

I really don't understand what's been up with the recent past. I don't normally feel I recieve anywhere near this much street harrassment or bother, from men or otherwise. I generally notice when someone is being an asshole to me, especially when it has a creepy sexual slant to it, but I really have documented most of those incidents here --and if you've been reading a while, you'll recognize how rare that makes them.

I don't know if I'm just noticing them more, or if something in my demeanor has changed recently such that I'm recieving more harrassment. Or maybe it's just the full moon. Whatever it is, I seriously wish men could fucking _stop being assholes_ already, because it's really quite draining. At least online, I can tell them that "hey, using 'cunt' to attack a woman you don't like makes you a creepy sexist asshole and sets off huge warning bells"² and block them, in real life I've no such recourse.

~Sor
MOOP!

1: I don't think I'm good enough, necessarily, to be a Herald, but I do think I'm good enough to want to be a Herald. I was thinking about this on the way home, for unrelated reasons.

2: Yes, this also happened. This morning in fact, as I was poking around on Facebook. Fun fact: You can absolutely despise a person, and say as much, without resorting to sexist (or racist, or homophobic, or appearance based, or whatever) slurs! Call a spade a spade, call an asshole an asshole, but if you attack someone for their gender (ie, cunt, bitch) then you're telling me you hate all women (including myself) rather than you hate that one woman.
Trigger Warning: Street Harassment, sexist slurs.

(no subject)

Good girls aren't here.
For well over a year now I've been having intermittent trouble with feeling existent.
Good girls aren't here.

I feel especially strange at this revelation that it comes as I let Vienna Teng's "Level Up" swirl through my head. Eyes to the ceiling, hit just the right index card, ponder amused that I have not been a Good Girl today, I've been an Angry Cunt, and "Level Up" is suddenly not a song so much as an intense feeling of "oh _right_"

(This word choice is meant to be taken incredibly ironically, to a level I don't really want to discuss. I am not actually a cunt, and while I accept that some women choose to reclaim the word for themselves it still feels too much like an attack to me, even when I use it on myself. Cranky Feminist is probably a lot more accurate, but the term that feels best to my soul --if not my writer's ear-- is just Fighter.)

Or to quote my Everquest days, (approximately eight hundred years ago), ding!

Because it's been almost a year since Racheline posted that perfect series of words that made me realize just what it was that always felt so wrong. I was never in a sorority, don't think of my ability to disappear as art, am neither a libra nor object.

But the first time I read it, and damn near every time since, that last line hit me in the sternum¹ and slammed around mySelf. "How old were you when you learned that good girls aren't here?" Too fucking old and too fucking young. I have been a Good Girl my entire life, able to say "yes ma'am" and do whatever it is that's been asked of me, past pain or sadness or sense. It ties in heavy with being a Leader's Daughter, that commitment to do whatever needs to be done regardless of whether you want to or think you should. I will work myself to the bone to please you.

To this day I find it extremely hard, nigh-impossible to ignore or refuse direct requests, to the point where I actually advise that if you're trying to get me out of a negative emotion.

But Good Girls aren't here, and I want desperately to be. So apparently that means I have to fight, to push my way into existence, to demand that I _am_ here actually, and you better pay me the tribute I deserve.

I've not tied these together before, but I've known for several months now that I need to figure out how to be more in control of when I am a Good Girl and when I am not. This is a good data point.

Comments turned off because fuck you, today's been weird and awful and I don't want to talk about it.

~Sor
MOOP!

1: One of my favourite random questions I've ever heard from a child came from one of MommyRexes mini-giants, who asked her "where are you located in your body". I'm sure I was aware of the fact before I heard the question, but for years and years now because of it, I have been acutely aware that my Self is located directly between my breasts, wrapped hard around and against the sternum. That's what aches when I'm in emotional pain, that's what I curl to protect when I am scared, that is where *I* am stored.