Everyone I Ever Was and Everyone I Ever Will Be

Just got back from my last day at work-- still not quite sure how I feel about that. Probably because it isn't actually real yet. I just know I'm going to wake up on Monday all, "Oh no I'm late!"

My boss said, "I'll have you know that you're the only employee who's ever gone to such extreme measures to get out of working here." ;-)

I probably wouldn't have quit-- at least not permanently-- if the job offered insurance or more hours, but considering that if I kept working my entire paycheck would basically go toward a babysitter anyway . . . yeah, no point.

Besides, I plan on kicking some writing ass before the baby's born. Hopefully after, too, but from what I've heard I shouldn't underestimate the amount of sleep I'm going to be missing.

I am staying inside where the world can't get me.

This morning I got up and got ready for work, feeling kinda blah. Took some ginger to help with that, and went outside. That's where I found your friend and mine, the really big spider that's taken up residence on our porch. For the past three mornings, he's built a web across the supports, right about at head level. No big deal, I just go down the side steps and drive to the donut shop.

Start feeling a lot more than just 'blah' as I drive in, and before I can even go start my shift I have to get to the bathroom. Over the next half hour, I had to go back to the bathroom two more times, and I finally decided heck with it and asked if I could go home early. Fortunately it's a Monday, so it wasn't a problem.

I get home, head for the door, and guess what. If you guessed "walked right into the spiderweb" congratulations, have an e-cookie.

Too bad the neighbors weren't outside, they probably would've gotten a kick out of my 'oh my god oh my god is there a spider in my hair' dance. (No, fortunately. After I got done frantically swiping at my hair I looked back to see the spider scrambling up to the porch roof on what scraggly threads remained of his web.)

Definitely staying inside.

Me: "Okay, that'll be $2.10."
Lady: *gives me three dollars* "You still writing?"
Me: "Yep!" *hands back change*
Lady: "That's great." *takes out a ten-dollar bill* "Here-- keep five for yourself and use the rest to buy for whoever's behind me."
Me: ". . . will do. Thanks!"

And since orders there tend to be pretty small, her five dollars fully paid for three other very happy customers.

Faith in humanity = restored.

I'd already taken tomorrow off work, in honor of Halloween, but after I sprained my toe I took today off, too-- and a good thing, since I'm limping like crazy. Chris and I did head to the grocery store, though, because I want to walk around enough to gradually prepare myself for Wednesday.

I like having days off, but it always throws my mental schedule out of whack. Wasn't until Chris left for work that I really remembered-- "Oh yeah, it is Monday, genius. Update Karavan's Mirror."

So that's done, and now I'm going to do some more NaNoWriMo plotting/panicking.

***

My dad was walking home from work the other day, and he heard a woman shriek, "Leave me alone!" Her voice was coming from a house about half a block away, and as he walked closer she yelled it again. So he took out his cell phone and called 911.

A moment later, a guy comes out of the house, looking none too happy.

Idiot: "What're you doing?"
Dad: "I just called the police."
Idiot: "What the . . . you just called the cops on me?"
Dad: "Yes I did."
Idiot: "And now you're just gonna stand there and wait for them?"
Dad: "Yes I am."

So the guy proceeds to yell at my dad, threatening him and saying a bunch of 'if I ever see you around here again' stuff. Meanwhile, the woman who was in the house heads out a side door, gets into her car, and drives off, circling the block. The guy sees this, gets into a different car, and leaves. When the cops get there, the woman comes back and she and dad explain what was going on.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why my father is awesome. :-)

***

Speaking of awesome, if you haven't done so already, go rent Slither. I cannot recommend this movie enough. Nathan Fillion! Sarcastic characters! Alien slugs bent on world domination! It's great.

There are days when I love my job. And for once, I'm not being sarcastic. ;-)

When I came in, my coworker was rightfully irritated with one of the regulars. Said regular is either 1) a complete misogynist, or 2) pretending to be a misogynist in order to bug the counter staff. Either way, he's an idiot.

Today he came up to us and slammed his hands down on the counter and started going into his usual spiel (about how women shouldn't vote, own property, be 'allowed to have' education or birth control, etc.). But this time, I interrupted him.

Idiot: "No vote for women!"
Me: "No sex for men!"
Idiot: *gapes for a moment, then smirks* "Well, now the women's lib is coming out."
Me: "It never leaves. You, however, are welcome to."
Idiot: *mutters something, and while he does not leave, he is blessedly quiet the rest of the morning*

This might just be the Best Idea Ever. ;-)

I don't know how far news of this has traveled, but a group of high school students in a town about twenty minutes away from mine went on a Spanish class end-of-the-year trip to Costa Rica. They'd been saving for it all year. They were swimming in the ocean, and some of them got pulled out too far when the weather changed for the worse. Their teacher went in to help them, and did manage to get at least one out before he disappeared, too. Three kids are confirmed dead; the teacher's body hasn't been found yet.

So then this shining example of humanity comes into the donut shop today:

Man: "You hear about those kids who drowned?"
Me: "Yeah, just read an interview with one of the survivors."
Man: "You'd think they would've gotten out of the ocean when they saw a storm coming in."
Me: *realizing that I am quite possibly in the presence of a jackass* "The girl the reporter talked to said the weather changed in five minutes. They'd been swimming out there for hours, no problem."
Man: "Well, there still had to've been some sign. Clouds coming in. Waves changing. They should've known."
Me: *yep, jackass* "Not what she said."
Man: "Hmph. Don't know what swimming has to do with learning Spanish anyway."

Fortunately, he walked out then, before I could go with the impulse to beat him to death with a bear claw, or say what I was thinking, namely-- "So does it make you feel good to lay blame on teenagers who drowned, and the teacher who died trying to save them?"

If it's one thing that'll take my mood from cheerful to snarly in a heartbeat, it's victim blaming. I heard a lot of it when the Natalee Holloway case was still in the news all the time, people muttering about how she shouldn't have left with three guys (never mind that they'd never automatically say that about a guy leaving with three women, so I won't even get into the 'all men are potential rapists and killers' mindset that attitude gives away); saying awful things about her because she trusted the wrong person (gee, what a crime); or she shouldn't have been drinking; basically a huge list of shoulda-woulda-coulda.

Funnily enough, I never heard one person say something about how whoever killed her shouldn't have done that.

I know, goes without saying, right? But how long does it take before something left unsaid just kindof disappears, and leaves in its place a huge mess of "Why was she wearing that?" "Didn't they know better than to go there?" "Why doesn't she leave him?" "Well, there still had to've been some sign."

If it is one thing we all have in common, it is mistakes. That should join the 'death and taxes' list of guarantees. But is it ever a popular pasttime to sneer at those who make them at exactly the wrong moment or around exactly the wrong person. I'm not leaving myself out here; I used to read stories of another battered wife dying and ask why she didn't just go to a shelter or something. Then I finally took a deeper look at those stories, and got into a few potentially bad situations myself, and realized how useless and heartless griping at the victim is.

I still sometimes beat myself up over bad decisions I've made, and those didn't even result in the worst-case scenario. So imagine how someone who did go through the worst feels? They'll already be second-guessing themselves for a long time, going through the what-ifs over and over; there is absolutely no need for anyone else to look down their noses at them and make comments about how they'd never be that stupid. The only one truly at fault is the criminal, not the one they hurt.

It's easier to find some fault with the victim. Feels better to think, "Well, she did this and since I'd never do that I'll be safe." But that mindset comes with a very nasty price tag.

Feeling much better today, thankfully. Maybe I'll even be able to get some writing done. *gives don't-even-start look to the rainclouds*

Since I couldn't get online last night, Chris and I decided to reconnect with our childhoods (like we ever left. . .) and rent some animated movies. Got Hunchback of Notre Dame-- which I hadn't seen since it was in the theatre-- the sequel, and The Swan Princess, which I've heard good things about but never watched.

Had time to watch Hunchback before it was time for bed. Neat little movie, and at the end of it they played the original version of "Someday". I knew it sounded familiar when I heard it on my Celtic Woman CD, but I had no idea where I might've heard it before. Now I know. :-)

Saw a woman in the donut shop today who I absolutely have to base a character's appearance off of. Dark skin, blue and green mottled shirt, shorts, long black hair, and bright blue eyes. I'm talking neon blue here. I know they had to've been contacts, but it was still cool. :-)

And in the last topic jump of the post, you have to go read this right now. *S*

"I appreciate that you want gay people to have full equal rights, but surely you must agree that the will of the majority should win out and a judge should not be able to overturn it."

What I always ask is, do you think Brown vs. the Board of Education of Topeka (which made racial discrimination in schools illegal nationwide) and Loving vs. Virginia (which made interracial marriage legal nationwide) were wrongly decided? No one ever says yes. But if they did say yes, they'd at least be logically consistent, and we could have an honest debate. As it stands, I don't think anyone who's actually thought the issue through could be in favor of always letting the majority win--except in those two cases when the courts were right to step in which are somehow magically different.

Basically, I don't happen to think my civil rights, or anybody's civil rights, should be subject to a veto if 50-percent-plus-one of the public wakes up one day and decides I shouldn't have them.

Oy. Attention news media-- a woman is accusing some Duke lacrosse players of rape. Therefore, the entire thing should not be referred to as a sex scandal. "Sex" and "rape" are not interchangeable. I can't believe I even had to type that out. Sheesh.

While I'm on the topic . . . I don't know absolutely everything about the case, but I do know that right now, I believe the woman. Innocent until proven guilty means, in these circumstances, misidentification instead of 'omg she's just lying to get money'. If she wanted to get something out of them, she could've just claimed that a robbery happened and everything probably would've been settled quickly and quietly. But I can see why women would file false rape charges all over the place-- they're treated so wonderfully by the press and the general public; it's not like their characters are dragged through the mud or their every action is second-guessed or they ever receive death threats when their names are revealed. It's just so much fun!

Seeing that in the paper probably wouldn't have ticked me off so much if I hadn't also had to endure a customer earlier who was babbling on about how, "I'm telling you, in any society, the minute you give women any rights that's it. It's over, and there's no going back to how things should be." This was, unsurprisingly, one of the guys who chuckled at the 'what do you tell a woman with two black eyes' joke of several weeks before.

General disclaimer: Sorry, but rape is not a topic where I debate or toss around different points of view. Any comments from anyone bringing up her clothes, her profession, criticizing her, etc. will be deleted without reply. If you'd like to understand more about where I'm coming from with all this, go read this essay. Thanks.

Now, off to go write or watch something cheerful.

Part of this entry under the cut due to questionable language. :-)

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Snarking aside, I did have a nice thing happen today-- a guy I know came up and asked how the book signing went, and said that he really enjoyed We Were Strangers: "No, seriously-- I don't normally sit down and read, especially fantasy, but that one was good." Cue huge dorky grin on my part. :-)