Lilith Saintcrow's Blog, page 157

All Aboard The Pliny Train

Can anyone guess what this is?

What’s “choo choo, motherfuckas” in Latin?

It’s THE PLINY TRAIN.

You’re looking at Loeb Classical Library’s ten-volume set of Pliny the Elder‘s Natural History. Which I’m going to do a read-along of, right here on this very blog.

Lest you think this will be boring, oh my chickadees, let me school you.

Pliny the Elder was a BAMF. This was a guy so committed to science he saw Vesuvius erupting and didn’t thing “fuck me, let’s get away from that.” Oh no. Instead, this guy grabs a ship to take him closer, because he’s gotta find out what happens. He’s gotta see for himself, because that would make an awesome addition to his wide-ranging studies on the natural world.

Of course, the volcanic gases killed him. You guys, he DIED FOR SCIENCE.

I like the Loeb books because they’re Latin on one side, English on the other. The Natural History is a big ol’ whale full of detail, and frankly I need to get back into studying my Latin. SO. If you want, read along with me. I plan on finishing Book I in March, quite possibly sooner.

The Pliny Train is now boarding. Come along for the ride. I promise it’ll be fun.

Twitter, Cut It Out

The Twitter accounts impersonating me are small annoyances. Even the fact that one of them is almost certainly one of my stalkers (yes, that’s plural) is only mildly interesting. I don’t talk about the stalkers here–why give them the satisfaction, really? But there is something I do very much mind.

One of my followers very kindly notified me of an impersonator Twitter account. I decided to report it. Now, as you go through the reporting process, it’s stated that the other party in the dispute may be given access to the claim information. Fair enough, I figured, and hit “report”.

Here’s the data on the report (small bits redacted for obvious reasons):

no-username, Feb 07 09:43 PM:

== Reported Account Information ==

Reported user: *REDACTED*

== How is the account impersonating you? ==

Using the full name, common name, or legal alias of the impersonated party

Using a photo or image belonging to the impersonated party

Posting content as if they were the impersonated party

== Additional Information ==

Requesting that this account be suspended

== Wrapping up ==

Anything else? (optional): I am an author and I have stalkers. Please take this into account, and please consider verifying me so I don’t have to do this again.

== Reporter’s information ==

Your first and last name: Lilith Saintcrow

Your Email address: contact@lilithsaintcrow.com

Legal alias: None

Common nickname: Lili

Your Twitter username (optional): @lilithsaintcrow

== Required statements ==

I understand that Twitter may provide third parties, for example the reported user, with details of this report, such as the reported Tweet. Your contact information, like your email address, will not be disclosed.

I declare under penalty of perjury that all of the information provided above is accurate.

I understand that filing this report and submitting a photo identification will not result in my account being verified by Twitter.

But that’s only half of it. Here’s the form email I received:

Hello,

This email is to confirm that we have received your report regarding an account impersonating you on the Twitter platform. In order to process your report, we first must confirm your identity.

To confirm your identity, fax a copy of your valid government-issued photo ID (e.g., driver’s license, passport) to Twitter at 1-415-865-5405. Please write “Attention: Business and Platform Policy, Twitter Inc. – User Impersonation” at the top and include your ticket number (#*REDACTED*).

Once we have received your fax, we will review and process your report. We will not process your report until we receive your faxed ID.

Please note:

• If you are making a report regarding an account impersonating your family member on the Twitter platform, we first must confirm that you have permission to take action on behalf of your family member. Please fax documentation authorizing you to act on your family member’s behalf. (e.g. power of attorney, birth certificate, documents showing parental/guardianship rights of minor children), AND a faxed copy of your valid photo ID (e.g. driver’s license or passport).

• If you are reporting an account that is not using the name that appears on your government-issued photo ID, you must also include documentation demonstrating that the name used by the account you’re reporting is associated with you (e.g., proof of registration of your trade name or pseudonym).

• We must be able to see your full name and image on the faxed photo ID, so double-check to make sure you’re sending a clear copy. 1-415-865-5405 is a United States number; if you’re faxing your ID from outside the United States, be sure to include the appropriate international dialing code.

• If a fax machine is unavailable, you can send a fax from your computer for free through third-party services such as FaxZero (http://faxzero.com/), Popfax (http://www.popfax.com/), or efax (http://www.efax.com/). Please do not reply to this email with a copy of your ID.

• If you have previously filed reports about impersonation accounts from this email address and faxed a copy of your government-issued photo ID to Twitter as part of that process, respond to this email with that information (and, if possible, the ticket number associated with the previous report).

• Twitter allows parody, commentary, and fan accounts; if an account is in full compliance with our policies, it is not considered impersonation. For more information, see this help page: http://support.twitter.com/entries/10....

If you are not attempting to report an account impersonating you on the Twitter platform, please see the following links for resources you may find helpful:

• Questions or requests regarding an inactive username: https://support.twitter.com/forms/gen...

• Reports involving your brand or trademark: https://support.twitter.com/forms/tra...

• Reports of someone using your email address to create a Twitter account: https://support.twitter.com/articles/...

• Appealing an account suspension: https://support.twitter.com/forms/gen...

• Reporting an account compromise or that you’ve been hacked: https://support.twitter.com/forms/hacked

Thank you,

Twitter Trust & Safety

————————————————-

Your ticket number: #*REDACTED*

What jumped out at me here was this: it’s stated clearly that the other party, or really any other party, can be given information about the claim by Twitter. That information includes a scan of my driver’s license. Um, no, I don’t want any stalker getting their hands on that. Seriously. Would you?

Here was my reply:

Dear Twitter,

Naturally I wish this situation resolved as soon as possible. However, sending you a copy of my driver’s license when you clearly state that this impersonating party may be given access to information about the claim worries me. I cannot be entirely sure, but I suspect this is one of my stalkers, and the last thing I need is for him to be given my license number and vitals.

Alternatively, I’d like to suggest that you look at my website:

www.lilithsaintcrow.com

My Facebook and Facebook fan page:

https://www.facebook.com/lilithsaintcrow

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Lilith...

My Goodreads page:

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...

My Amazon Author Pages:

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B002BLOSOU

http://www.amazon.com/Lili-St.-Crow/e...

These should suffice as proof that my Twitter account, which is clearly displayed on many of these sites is being impersonated by someone who has also taken my userpic to do so. Again, I offer this as an alternative because I have stalkers/harassers, I suspect the impersonator is one of them (due to the content of one or two of the Tweets) and I do not under any circumstances want this person to have access to my personal information. I cannot trust that Twitter will not make a scan of my driver’s license available to this person, so I ask you to please consider this alternative route.

Best,

Lilith Saintcrow

– Lilith Saintcrow

contact@lilithsaintcrow.com

Days went by. No response. Until this morning:

How, Feb 19 08:34 AM:

Hello,

We need to confirm your identity in order to further investigate this report. Please provide a faxed copy of a valid photo ID (i.e., driver’s license, passport) within 48 hours of receiving this email.

Please fax the document to Twitter at 1-415-865-5405. This is a United States number, so be sure to include the appropriate international dialing code if you’re sending from outside the United States.

Include your ticket number (#*REDACTED*) and write “Attention: Business & Platform Policy – User Impersonation, Twitter Inc. -@How.”� We need to be able to see your full name and photo on the faxed ID, so please try to send a legible copy. This information will be kept confidential, and will be deleted once we have used it to confirm your identity.

For security reasons, we are only able to accept this information via fax; our systems strip incoming email attachments. If a fax machine is unavailable, you can send a fax from your computer for free through third-party services such as FaxZero (http://faxzero.com/), Popfax (http://www.popfax.com/), or efax (http://www.efax.com/).

Thanks,

How

Twitter Trust & Safety

Thanks for not even reading my response, guys. So what am I supposed to believe? That any information I give will be kept confidential, or that Twitter reserves the right to give a scan of my driver’s license to a potential stalker? Is this a risk I’m supposed to take and trust Twitter’s good faith? Seriously?

If Twitter wants to have the reputation of being a stalker’s best friend, they’re doing a damn good job.

ETA: I should probably add this, from my Facebook wall: “The problem is, first they say they reserve the right to share the information, then they say “oh no, THAT’S kept confidential” and expect me to believe both? Or that if somehow said stalker gets my vitals, Twitter won’t cover their own ass with the “Well, you accepted the conditions when you made the report, too bad so sad.”

One Forward, A Hundred Back

Broke 20K on the fourth Bannon & Clare book recently. Then I had to get rid of about 3K, because things were going the wrong direction. One step forward, a hundred steps back, that’s what it feels like. But now I think I have the right track, and the past couple days have been pretty productive. Probably because of the parental controls.*snork*

The no-shampoo experimental stage is over. I’ve found that I do occasionally want to use a shampoo with sulfates, just to keep everything balanced. The honey shampoo (super simple, 1Tb of honey, 2-3Tb water, that’s it) works really well, but it also makes things greasy with constant use. So I alternate between honey shampoo and the baking soda/vinegar method, with occasional Lush Godiva washes when things start to feel super-icky. Not surprisingly, going straight no-shampoo is not for me at this point. Eventually, maybe, but the process is long and drawn-out and involves the scalp slowly changing the way it produces oils and reacts to washing. All in all, it’s another small step into hippie granola for me, YMMV, all usual disclaimers apply.

Let’s see, what other news is there? We’ve gotten things ironed out over on the Madhouse forum–much like no plan survives contact with the enemy, no forum ever has a smooth rollout. Thanks to everyone who let me know where the problems were, and a huge thank you to Skyla for getting things all pulled together. Again, I’ll be answering questions at the forum until Sunday, so if you want to ask, come on by!

The ebook of Selene is almost, almost ready. Talk Wordy is doing some proofing, and as usual, Skyla is taking care of formatting and other things. I recommend both of them, especially if you’re looking to self-publish without looking like an advert for bad self-publishing.

Speaking of publishing, I am also running a discount on my editing services this February.

Last but not least…about yesterday’s post. Thank you for all your kind comments. I can’t say more, mostly because it was nerve-wracking to put that out there and I’m a bit emotionally exhausted from it. Thank you.

And now, it’s time to get back to work.

photo by:


h.koppdelaney

Bruise, Trash, Write

In the bathtub. The bruises hurt a little, tiny cuts stinging under warm water. My mother, drying me off. Touches a deep purple-blue mark. Why do you make me do this?

I have no answer.

***

The teacher asked questions. I told the truth. My mother was called. She was closeted with the teacher and the head for a long time while I kicked my heels in the hall, my face still tender and inflamed, smelling chalk and sweat and metal. The halls were empty.

My mother came out, she walked too fast to the car, I trotted to keep up. Inside the car I began to ask her what would happen now, but she slapped me again, hard, on the same side of my face.

If you make trouble like that again, he’ll lose his job. We will all starve. Your sisters will starve.

I stifled the sobs on the silent drive home.

He didn’t hit me in the face again. For a while.

***

Held down in the hall and punched repeatedly while family photos smiled emptily above. The next day, a different teacher asked questions. I said it was my fault. I had done it to myself. It was all I could think of.

***

If you tell, I’ll take them away. We’ll all leave you here.

I didn’t tell.

***

I came home to find my mother sitting at the kitchen table with my diary open in front of her. She ripped pages out and forced me to put them down the garbage disposal, smacking the back of my head repeatedly while I cried. I hid them, but she always found them. This is MY house, you won’t hide in MY house!

I learned to lie even in diaries. Later, a French teacher kept them in a sealed box for me over the summer. I remember being surprised she didn’t slit the tape and read them.

***

I was fourteen, he was much older. The first time he hit me was after a party. I had talked too long, smiled too much, at another male. Afterwards, he held me, stroked my hair as I sobbed. I just love you so much, he whispered over and over again.

It felt familiar.

***

Dissimulate: /diˈsimyəˌlāt/

verb

verb: dissimulate; 3rd person present: dissimulates; past tense: dissimulated; past participle: dissimulated; gerund or present participle: dissimulating

1. conceal or disguise (one’s thoughts, feelings, or character).

***

I hid in books. In stories. If it was “just a story” they wouldn’t catch me, wouldn’t hurt me. Still, I took no chances. I had to learn to always carry the notebook with me–Mead 5-star, 5-subject, spiral bound, easily mistaken for schoolwork in a backpack. When I had a driver’s license, I drove to rubbish bins in different places. Public places–parks, malls, streetcorners. I learned to let go. When the notebooks were full I jammed them into the public bins and walked away quickly, hurrying back to the car. Sometimes I would ride a bus, get off at random places, stuff the notebook in a bin, walk to the next stop or the next, wait for the next bus.

It hurt to throw them away. But the stories were safer there.

***

I learn to hide what it feels like to be held down and punched, to be slapped in the front seat, to sob snotnosed over the purring garbage disposal, between the bars of stories. Terror, pain, never being good enough, the feeling of fingers slipping one by one off the edge as your feet dangle. Lying in bed wide-eyed, hoping not to hear stealthy footsteps. All this, poured into story containers. Playing hide-and-seek, afraid of being caught telling the truth and the inevitable consequences–shame, agony, abandonment.

***

Sometimes, just on the edge of sleep, I think about all those notebooks in landfills, sleeping under plastic and layers of rubbish, soaked with noisome fluids. Their paper will decay, and if an archaeologist ever digs there to find out what her ancient ancestors ate, thought, believed, threw away, only the plastic covers and the corroded metal of the spiral bindings remain. I wonder how much history is hidden, how many other children through time had to throw away, abandon, hide, without even the small comfort of weaving it into stories to relieve the awful pressure of untold secrets.

I can never get those notebooks back, but in the end I won anyway. I pushed their poison out of me with each scrawled word. My therapist calls it resourceful, tells me I was smart and brave to keep going, to try to keep myself together with those words, and to even throw them away.

I am not so sure. But I know I won. Every word I wrote is burned into me, flesh and blood and breath. By throwing them away, I made them even more mine, something nobody could take away even if they killed me, secrets hidden inside me, in the only places I had left.

***

Now I write other stories. Between the bars, I catch glimpses of those things. Exorcism is an ongoing process.

They ask why do you write?

Because I must. I have to. Because the stories demand it. Because my own sanity demands it. Because it is the only way to prove I exist, that I am not what they tried to beat into or out of me, that I can be intact. Because it is a way I can prove I am whole.

I get letters, sometimes. Thank you. This gave me the strength to go on. How did you know? This was exactly what I felt. I understand this. It put into words what I felt.

Each notebook in a landfill was a seed. The shock of recognition, when someone else reads what I struggled to say, is the tree.

No longer lonely, isolated, alien, is the fruit. If someone else felt this, saw this, heard this, I am not alone.

This, this is why I write.

photo by:


AnnieCatBlue

Question Me

So, in order to kickoff the new fan forum the right way, from now until Sunday, February 23, I’ll be answering questions there. If you have a burning question (that is not “will there be another Strange Angels book” or “who does Dru ‘end up’ with” or “is there another Steelflower”) now is your best chance of getting it answered! Just pop over to the forum and make an account, and have fun.

This forum is actually a WordPress-integrated plugin, so it’s way less likely to get hacked than the old ones. Which is flat-out great, since the hacking I lost a good chunk of my from-2006 blogging (including SquirrelTerror) from was through the forum software setup and this effectively closes that loophole.

So, come on over, sign on up, and ask me some questions.I’m looking forward to hearing from my Readers.

photo by:


Daniela Vladimirova

Finite Willpower

Torrential rain. Strong winds. Soaked earth. Flood advisories, and the yard looks like a war zone. I am endlessly glad we’re in this house, and not the old one.

I finished the weekend-weekend (today extends yon weekend for the kids, but not for me) by slapping parental controls on my Warcraft account.

No, not for one of the kids.

For me.

Because the shortcut is there on my desktop, the game is built to be addicting, and OMG it’s so tempting to think “just 20 minutes of grinding a little more Golden Lotus rep, it can’t hurt,” and then I realise an entire day has gone. I’d be angry at myself for lack of discipline, but that doesn’t really solve the problem, right? The time spent making myself feel miserable can be used far more productively.

It’s important to have discipline, and the other half of discipline is setting things up, as far as you can, to make it easy to do what you should. Willpower is a finite resource, after all, and it just makes sense to structure everything around writing, as far as I can, to make it easier on me. Practice makes discipline easier, yes, I’ve said that a million times. I also say: try to arrange things reasonably, as far as possible, so you don’t have to struggle more than one already does with the task.

So: parental controls. The Freedom app. Closing the office door, if you have one, if you can. I can work despite incredible distractions, but I often find I don’t want to.

I often quote the old adage “Habit is the best of servants, but the worst of masters”. Nipping a bad habit (playing WoW all damn day) in the bud is easier than wrenching a long-established habit (my writing schedule) around. It’s easier to make the decision to put the damn controls on despite feeling like a morally-reprehensible addict (yes, that’s exactly how I felt) when one already has the habit of writing time burned into one’s synapses and daily decision-making. (The fact that the mortgage needs to be paid is also a wonderful concentration aid.)

I’m sure I’ll click over to sign on into WoW several times today and be reminded that no, that’s not what I need to be doing with my writing time. That’s okay. Falling off is not a bad thing, it doesn’t make you weak or a terrible person. It does, however, require you to dust yourself off and get back on, and it’s easier to do that if you don’t spend a long time beating yourself up. Calling yourself nasty names, engaging in negative self-talk or cognitive distortions, takes up energy I could be using for writing. Stopping and redirecting is hard, but it’s worth it to build the new habit of shortening the time between falling, shaking the dazed noise out of your head, and getting back up into the saddle.

photo by:


rsaxvc

Ring, History

A horse-ring*, attached to the wall inside Niche. Every time I see it I think about history. Not the Great Man sort of history but the everyday kind, where supper had to be made, people had to find a place to pee, horses had to be tied. The older I get, the more I find the details of everyday life in history fascinating.

* At least, I think it’s a horse-ring. If it isn’t, well, I’m sure someone on the internet will tell me.

Back!

Schools start two hours late today, to make sure the roads are well thawed. I might even brave the trip over the river to pick up my desktop, since it was repaired much earlier than we thought it would be. It is, as my writing partner called it, like working without half my brain to be without my trusty current computer.

*time passes*

Well. That was interesting.

Through the magic of the internets I am coming back to this draft hours later, to report that I have my desktop back! The worst part about the trip to go fetch my darling from the Tower of AppleStore was finding parking; the garage attached to the mall was full. Which meant another walk in the chill, this time with rain, to get my baby back to the car. I begged a clear plastic rubbish bag from the very nice young man who surrendered my desktop into my custody. (Hey, I’m not proud, and they didn’t have any covers.) I made it home, plugged everything in, breathed a prayer to my personal patrons…and voila. I didn’t even need the backups of the backups, or the backups of the backups of the backups. (Look, I don’t want to lose 45+ finished books and uncounted unfinished bits. I just don’t.)

It’s good to be back. Now I need to make up for lost time, both snowbound and otherwise. Plus I should really start that Sekrit Project that there will be a Kickstarter for very soon.

I love leaving you in suspense, dear Readers. But then, you knew that.

photo by:


Alan Smythee

The Thaw Begins

The melt has started. Our snowpocalypse has been of short duration. I’ve enjoyed having the kids home, but I’m also looking forward to going and rescuing my computer from the ice-locked city. I miss my faithful brute servant, even though this one is perfectly adequate it’s not as nice. (I should probably refrain from saying that until I’ve got the other one back and it works, but living dangerously, thy name is Lili.)

I did go out in daylight and found out what was making the heat pump sound like a badly loaded washer. It was simply a little ice–moisture whipping off the fanblades that froze as part of the thaw-refreeze-thaw-refreeze thing we’ve had going on since yesterday. A few minutes with a pair of screwdrivers got the grill open and the ice knocked off…and once more, glorious heat. I am feeling particularly victorious because this all happened before coffee. FEAR ME.

The Facebook fan page has been seeing some action lately, too. In particular, lots of people are still asking me about the ending of Reckoning. Normally I simply point people at this post, when they ask. Very rarely, I respond to other questions.

One Reader in particular on the Facebook fanpage had this to say:

I get when people want to know who Dru chooses, which, sure would be great, but that’s not why it felt unfinished to me. I kinda feel like the ending was punking out, or unable to deal with the fallout of from fans swinging either way and so just going for the safe road in the middle. For me it’s not about knowing who she ends up with it’s about the lack of development of their relationships, you feel like nothing has changed and she hasn’t grown up at all. Right up till the last pages there is still the same old stuff about how she feels strongly for both, same old indecision, none of the winding down toward the farewell of characters. It’s like she still has no self-awareness or idea of what she wants.

Why would it have to be either? Why wouldn’t the relationships be able to develop in different directions? Maybe it’s neither for good, but we never see any of that developing.

It seems kinda cruel, perpetuating the love triangle and the imminent decision the entire way throughout a 5 book series only to end with no resolution.

Hooking up with one and then the other, and then getting mad when they hate each other. All it did was make me disgusted with the character (who I had loved up till this point). She doesn’t have to be built around who she decides to be with but making her a cruel and selfish game-player completely disregarding the consequences of her treatment of people didn’t make me think she had grown up at all. Seemed less like Dru and more like Anna…I know too many girls like that, they’re not true blue and we got a certain name for them where I’m from.

And why would that decision define her, is she really that two-dimensional? Surely women can still be their own person and grow regardless of the relationships in their life?

And considering the critique of her options, hey, they’ve both got problems but in the real world no one’s perfect.

There’s a difference between unanswered questions about intriguing matters of the story and failing to address something that was a pretty major thread, leaving it unresolved. To be honest I stopped reading fiction after I finished this series when Reckoning came out, not on purpose, just happened…. Thanks while it lasted.

I figured I’d post my reply here as well as in the fanpage thread.

What an interesting viewpoint.

While I was writing, sticking to a “safe middle path” was the last thing on my mind. Instead, I thought often about how Dru, as a teenager, was abandoned and thrust into several life-or-death situations that certainly confused and possibly traumatised her.

As a sixteen-year-old who openly admits she hasn’t dealt often with the “boy situation”, I think she acquitted herself rather well. Especially since there was the not-inconsiderable problem of her trying to protect Graves–and maybe not wanting to piss off Christophe, who was a good protector. Between the two of them, no wonder a teenage girl struggling with grief and abandonment ends up confused. Many adults could not have handled the situation any better–in fact, I think often an adult would have done worse. (I’ve SEEN adults do much, much worse.) As for calling her a “cruel and selfish game-player,” well, if you’d like to believe that of her, you are free to. That’s not what I saw when I was transcribing her story at all. *shrug*

The decision between Graves and Christophe does NOT define her, either to herself or to me as the writer. I did not leave the major plot thread “unresolved”, I simply didn’t resolve it in the standard way we’re told such situations have to resolve in fiction/song/movies.

Thank you for reading.

I think that about covers it. In the end I have no control over what Readers get out of the book, or what they put into it. The only thing I take a bit of exception to is the accusation that I “punked out” or took the middle safe road. I had to fight for that ending. I had to dig my heels in and wade into the fray for it, because I believed so strongly it was Dru’s ending, it was the right ending. I took that route in the face of immense pressure from several quarters to have Dru “end up with a boy” instead of where I knew the story ended–a girl sitting with her best friend on a window seat, watching the night come in. Still, Readers don’t see that sort of behind-the-scenes pressure, which may be a good thing. It allows them to engage with the book, to project into and get things out of it that they need, which is the whole point.

photo by:


chriszak

Ignoring May Not Work

So this morning started with me doing up spam protection for the website and, not so pleasant a chore, sending an email to Twitter support. Funny that my Twitter account is visible on my website, my Amazon books page, Facebook, and everywhere else…but they want me to send in a scan of my driver’s license too. Since this whole thing is to block a harasser (oh yes, I have stalkers and harassers, I just don’t give them much attention) I find it interesting that Twitter makes a point of saying that the other party may be given access to information about the claim.

In other words, a harasser/stalker could end up with a scan of my driver’s license. Which has, as you might imagine, a somewhat chilling effect on me getting this issue taken care of.

And before you tell me “just ignore them”, you might want to consider why ignoring harassment may not be a good idea for women.

Yes, that’s four different articles. This one, though, is what I want you to read before you start telling me “Just ignore.” Ignoring sometimes works–it’s one tool in the shed, as Gavin de Becker stresses–but what gets overlooked is the fact that ignoring takes emotional energy. For every bit of hatemail/harassment/social media hateshite that gets caught in the filters, there are many fresh pieces that require updating and repairing your walls. It gets exhausting, especially if you have stalkers who have nothing better to do with their time. That energy could be better spent writing books etc., but instead it has to be spent on “ignoring”, and it gets old. The drain can become crippling.

Not only that, but the emotional “hit” each time a harasser, stalker, troll, or just plain asshole takes it into their head to aim at you adds up. Over and over again, even tiny bites can eat a whale. (Like Melinda Mae in Shel Silverstein’s poem.)

I love hanging out with most of my Twitter buddies. I like Facebook just fine. I wouldn’t have the career I do without the internet, certainly. But the shit a woman has to deal with every day online makes me want to not engage, to just turn my back on things like Twitter, Facebook, etc., etc., ad nauseum. It’s called a chilling effect, and I wonder how many voices and how much awesome we’re missing out on because it’s easy to harass people online without a social cost. Even something so simple as a quiet statement of “Your behaviour is not appropriate. Stop.” could work wonders.

The intent is to silence/terrify me. I have no intention of ever shutting up, mostly because I’m contrary and more stubborn than these assholes can ever dream of being, but the cost of dealing with the bullshit every day has to be factored in, and is a huge cumulative stress/drain. It impinges on daily life, it takes up energy that could be used to write books, and there is always the chance that it can turn deadly, if you’re a woman. There are news reports and stories about stalkers and harassers, whether they stalk online or offline, showing up physically to harm their victims. Funny thing: I don’t have a female stalker. (I suppose I should say “yet”, and isn’t that sad?)

Men are afraid women will laugh at them. Women are afraid men will kill them.

*sigh* And with that passel of cheerful thoughts, I’m off to have another snow day with the kids.

Over and out.