Chelsea Gaither's Blog, page 4
January 8, 2015
On Homeschooling: Innoculation
When my mother decided to start homeschooling me (and later, my younger brother) she wanted to do it the "right" way.
This was back in '91, '92. At the time, we did not have the internet (That came in '98) and while we had a television, we didn't have access to a television station (less because religion and more because cable costs money and the local access channels came in via antenna and were mostly illegible). I was enrolled in the local public school for approximately half of first grade. I remember very little of this. Mostly the playground, the Candy Day, and how very much I enjoyed buying lunch from the cafeteria because it was something other than sandwiches. My mother, however, had a rather nasty run-in with my teacher--According to family lore Ms. Satoff started shouting at mom in the hallway because I couldn't do math problems in order--and that was the end of my public school career.
However, she had no clue how to homeschool, just that it was something she needed to do because we couldn't afford the alternative--private (and, naturally, Christian) school. So she went to the local bookstore and began buying whatever she could. Grade appropriate used textbooks that she chose without reguard for religious background. I remember a big workbook that was second and third grade material, all subjects together, and as long as I did two pages of math a day I was allowed to do as much of the rest of the subjects as I wanted (This book was approximately the size of a phone book. The math took an entire year to complete. The rest of the book didn't last very long). She bought new reading text books about once a month. These also did not last very long. She began to understand very quickly that, while information retention wasn't much of a problem for most subjects, math was definitely A Problem (all caps required) and that she probably needed to invent something resembling a lesson plan before I ran through everything else she'd bought in the first month.
This was when she started looking for help. And this was when she started running into what I consider to be a big, big problem.
At the time, all of the homeschooling resources locally were run and dominated by Christian groups. This, in and of itself, was not a problem. 99.999% of the local folks were congenial to a fault, your standard white Southerners who would sooner die than allow someone to feel uncomfortable. But when you have an unusual interest--and in the 90s, Homeschooling felt rather unusual--it becomes very easy for information on that interest to become highly centralized. That, in turn, allows the Powers that Be, so to speak, to control what information is delivered, as well as the tone and method of delivery.
The congenial Christian ladies here were all enamoured of several magazines. One of them was The Sycamore Tree, which I have yet to hear anything bad about and which simply delivered a listing of supplies, curriculum, lesson plans and educational toys. Getting the new magazines every month was like Christmas; I circled the things I wanted (princesses, castles and shiny science sets dominated) and looked forward to getting them. When you are seven, eight, and nine, it's difficult to understand that you're not ordering toys, especially when the workbooks were so much fun.
The other magazine my mother subscribed to was one called Homeschooling Today.
This one was the problem.
Once again, educational products dominated the pages. However, this magazine also reviewed information and offered opinions on how valuable each product was, and the emphasis was not on their educational quality but on their religious value--a judgement that is highly subjective, but that was presented as highly objective. An invisible standard that, in the magazine, at least, is never properly articulated, but to which everything is held.
We absorb most of our information as humans by osmosis. We go to spoken dialogue to confirm our own biases. We form those biases by what goes unspoken. There's a story that Whoopi Goldberg told about seeing Nichole Nichols in Star Trek for the first time, where she ran to her parents shouting "Mama, Mama, there's a black woman on TV and she ain't no maid," and how that moment defined something important for her. It isn't so much what Star Trek did as it is what everything else did. Everything else defined what her role would be by what it didn't let her be. There was a void in her experience that said so much more than any amount of racism ever could: You can't go here because there's no one like you here.
That's how those early homeschooling magazines were. Here's an ideal lesson for boys: Science, math, citizenship. Here's their role models: George Washington, George Patton, Buzz Aldren. Here's an ideal lesson for girls: How to sew. Role models? That's you, mom, so here's some advice on how to raise a good little girl. Boys get knights and castles. Girls get the princess locked in the castle. And there's a gigantic void where the alternative ought to be. I remember looking for girl cowboys, girl soldiers, girl knights. Nothing. There was one small paragraph and one small portrait about Joan of Arc in one history book, and I remember reading it over and over and over. One of my favorite movies as a young teen was Lee Lee Sobeski's Joan of Arc, not because it was a good movie, but because it was a girl commander.
And the magazine repeats it over and over: Here's the role for girls. Here's the role for boys. This is what a boy's book looks like. This is what a girl's story ought to be.
And then came the religious suggestions. Study this part. Study this story, because it's edifying. Study this. Make sure you address this part. Define your faith this way because it's the right way. Read this book, it's good. Read this one. Read this.
It's an attempt to develop a world in monotones by delivering only one color. Here's blue. Here's blue. Here's blue. Red, Green, Yellow, these are never even mentioned. It's hard to explain the massive vacuum where an alternative ought to be. It's not that it was railed against. It's that it wasn't even there. The words you'd need to identify the concept aren't permitted. Maybe subjects would be mentioned in hushed tones, a sort of hint at pearl clutching. This is a book with no hint of evolution. No sex education in this health book. This material is edifying for girls. But it never went so far as to actually define what was being avoided.
I am still relatively lukewarm about Harry Potter, but there was one aspect that I fell in love with immediately: the idea that avoiding a subject gives that subject power. Calling Voldemort He-who-must-not-be-named gave him power, made him so much more evil than simply saying the word ever could. That was how the homeschooling magazines worked. They inculcated a horror--not just a desire to avoid, but a horror of subjects--in the hearts of parents who didn't know any better simply by avoiding a topic.
I can't blame the parents at all, because my parents were there. Desperate. Ignorant. Frightened of doing wrong, of ruining their children, and facing an overwhelming opposition. Because oh, those magazines were so careful to validate the choice to homeschool, to educate on particulars, to soothe fears. And there was a great deal of good information in those magazines. Just enough truth to make you swallow the rest.
The result was that my mother worshipped this magazine. If she needed validation, there it was. If she needed information, she could likely find it. And she bought everything they said. To question any part of it was to call the entire thing into doubt.
I believe that my mother made the right choice by homeschooling us, but I also believe that Homeschooling Today, and the materials it advertised, were a poison pill coated in sugar. The best aspects of my education came, not from the magazines or the religious sources, but from secular resources and from my mother. The religious education I value wasn't some workbook or bible study, it was my mother having us create Fruit-of-the-Spirit baskets (Patience was grapes. I have no idea why) or having us act out the ten commandments and the crowning of King David (in which both myself and my brother were crowned. We had tie-dye robes and crowns made of oatmeal cannisters and tinfoil.) When my brother had even more trouble with math than I did, my mother created "Video-game math", in which a hand-drawn Megaman fought his way through stages involving multiplication tables and long division.
Many of the things that I regret came from the suggested materials. Books I hated were the ones recommended. The suggested religious studies left me believing that fantasy books were evil, and that I was committing a mortal sin by writing my own (I spent most of my earliest attempts at writing firmly convinced that they were damning me to Hell.) The gender education is something I am still working through.
Homeschooling is, and likely will continue to be, tied to religious inclinations. Having moral outrage for some aspect of a curriculum is generally the reason parents pull their kids from school, with underlying issues like abnormal learning styles or disabilities being the "reason beneath the reason", so to speak. Mom knew I was struggling with some subjects and was bored to tears in others. The shouting match with the teacher was just the final straw.
But a great number of people have hijacked homeschooling for their own reasons: To indoctrinate a generation into ideas and concepts that are so out-dated and (yes, kids) outrageous by the standards of the religion they claim to advocate. For several decades this movement chose to call themselves Christian Patriarchy. That name has only recently fallen out of favor, and it's not because their attitudes have changed.
And the path into it? It's not chosen by parents who want to live a life that limited. It's chosen by people--scared, frightened people with children, in over their heads and desperate--who aren't aware that the help being offered is, likely as not, rotten to the core.
This was back in '91, '92. At the time, we did not have the internet (That came in '98) and while we had a television, we didn't have access to a television station (less because religion and more because cable costs money and the local access channels came in via antenna and were mostly illegible). I was enrolled in the local public school for approximately half of first grade. I remember very little of this. Mostly the playground, the Candy Day, and how very much I enjoyed buying lunch from the cafeteria because it was something other than sandwiches. My mother, however, had a rather nasty run-in with my teacher--According to family lore Ms. Satoff started shouting at mom in the hallway because I couldn't do math problems in order--and that was the end of my public school career.
However, she had no clue how to homeschool, just that it was something she needed to do because we couldn't afford the alternative--private (and, naturally, Christian) school. So she went to the local bookstore and began buying whatever she could. Grade appropriate used textbooks that she chose without reguard for religious background. I remember a big workbook that was second and third grade material, all subjects together, and as long as I did two pages of math a day I was allowed to do as much of the rest of the subjects as I wanted (This book was approximately the size of a phone book. The math took an entire year to complete. The rest of the book didn't last very long). She bought new reading text books about once a month. These also did not last very long. She began to understand very quickly that, while information retention wasn't much of a problem for most subjects, math was definitely A Problem (all caps required) and that she probably needed to invent something resembling a lesson plan before I ran through everything else she'd bought in the first month.
This was when she started looking for help. And this was when she started running into what I consider to be a big, big problem.
At the time, all of the homeschooling resources locally were run and dominated by Christian groups. This, in and of itself, was not a problem. 99.999% of the local folks were congenial to a fault, your standard white Southerners who would sooner die than allow someone to feel uncomfortable. But when you have an unusual interest--and in the 90s, Homeschooling felt rather unusual--it becomes very easy for information on that interest to become highly centralized. That, in turn, allows the Powers that Be, so to speak, to control what information is delivered, as well as the tone and method of delivery.
The congenial Christian ladies here were all enamoured of several magazines. One of them was The Sycamore Tree, which I have yet to hear anything bad about and which simply delivered a listing of supplies, curriculum, lesson plans and educational toys. Getting the new magazines every month was like Christmas; I circled the things I wanted (princesses, castles and shiny science sets dominated) and looked forward to getting them. When you are seven, eight, and nine, it's difficult to understand that you're not ordering toys, especially when the workbooks were so much fun.
The other magazine my mother subscribed to was one called Homeschooling Today.
This one was the problem.
Once again, educational products dominated the pages. However, this magazine also reviewed information and offered opinions on how valuable each product was, and the emphasis was not on their educational quality but on their religious value--a judgement that is highly subjective, but that was presented as highly objective. An invisible standard that, in the magazine, at least, is never properly articulated, but to which everything is held.
We absorb most of our information as humans by osmosis. We go to spoken dialogue to confirm our own biases. We form those biases by what goes unspoken. There's a story that Whoopi Goldberg told about seeing Nichole Nichols in Star Trek for the first time, where she ran to her parents shouting "Mama, Mama, there's a black woman on TV and she ain't no maid," and how that moment defined something important for her. It isn't so much what Star Trek did as it is what everything else did. Everything else defined what her role would be by what it didn't let her be. There was a void in her experience that said so much more than any amount of racism ever could: You can't go here because there's no one like you here.
That's how those early homeschooling magazines were. Here's an ideal lesson for boys: Science, math, citizenship. Here's their role models: George Washington, George Patton, Buzz Aldren. Here's an ideal lesson for girls: How to sew. Role models? That's you, mom, so here's some advice on how to raise a good little girl. Boys get knights and castles. Girls get the princess locked in the castle. And there's a gigantic void where the alternative ought to be. I remember looking for girl cowboys, girl soldiers, girl knights. Nothing. There was one small paragraph and one small portrait about Joan of Arc in one history book, and I remember reading it over and over and over. One of my favorite movies as a young teen was Lee Lee Sobeski's Joan of Arc, not because it was a good movie, but because it was a girl commander.
And the magazine repeats it over and over: Here's the role for girls. Here's the role for boys. This is what a boy's book looks like. This is what a girl's story ought to be.
And then came the religious suggestions. Study this part. Study this story, because it's edifying. Study this. Make sure you address this part. Define your faith this way because it's the right way. Read this book, it's good. Read this one. Read this.
It's an attempt to develop a world in monotones by delivering only one color. Here's blue. Here's blue. Here's blue. Red, Green, Yellow, these are never even mentioned. It's hard to explain the massive vacuum where an alternative ought to be. It's not that it was railed against. It's that it wasn't even there. The words you'd need to identify the concept aren't permitted. Maybe subjects would be mentioned in hushed tones, a sort of hint at pearl clutching. This is a book with no hint of evolution. No sex education in this health book. This material is edifying for girls. But it never went so far as to actually define what was being avoided.
I am still relatively lukewarm about Harry Potter, but there was one aspect that I fell in love with immediately: the idea that avoiding a subject gives that subject power. Calling Voldemort He-who-must-not-be-named gave him power, made him so much more evil than simply saying the word ever could. That was how the homeschooling magazines worked. They inculcated a horror--not just a desire to avoid, but a horror of subjects--in the hearts of parents who didn't know any better simply by avoiding a topic.
I can't blame the parents at all, because my parents were there. Desperate. Ignorant. Frightened of doing wrong, of ruining their children, and facing an overwhelming opposition. Because oh, those magazines were so careful to validate the choice to homeschool, to educate on particulars, to soothe fears. And there was a great deal of good information in those magazines. Just enough truth to make you swallow the rest.
The result was that my mother worshipped this magazine. If she needed validation, there it was. If she needed information, she could likely find it. And she bought everything they said. To question any part of it was to call the entire thing into doubt.
I believe that my mother made the right choice by homeschooling us, but I also believe that Homeschooling Today, and the materials it advertised, were a poison pill coated in sugar. The best aspects of my education came, not from the magazines or the religious sources, but from secular resources and from my mother. The religious education I value wasn't some workbook or bible study, it was my mother having us create Fruit-of-the-Spirit baskets (Patience was grapes. I have no idea why) or having us act out the ten commandments and the crowning of King David (in which both myself and my brother were crowned. We had tie-dye robes and crowns made of oatmeal cannisters and tinfoil.) When my brother had even more trouble with math than I did, my mother created "Video-game math", in which a hand-drawn Megaman fought his way through stages involving multiplication tables and long division.
Many of the things that I regret came from the suggested materials. Books I hated were the ones recommended. The suggested religious studies left me believing that fantasy books were evil, and that I was committing a mortal sin by writing my own (I spent most of my earliest attempts at writing firmly convinced that they were damning me to Hell.) The gender education is something I am still working through.
Homeschooling is, and likely will continue to be, tied to religious inclinations. Having moral outrage for some aspect of a curriculum is generally the reason parents pull their kids from school, with underlying issues like abnormal learning styles or disabilities being the "reason beneath the reason", so to speak. Mom knew I was struggling with some subjects and was bored to tears in others. The shouting match with the teacher was just the final straw.
But a great number of people have hijacked homeschooling for their own reasons: To indoctrinate a generation into ideas and concepts that are so out-dated and (yes, kids) outrageous by the standards of the religion they claim to advocate. For several decades this movement chose to call themselves Christian Patriarchy. That name has only recently fallen out of favor, and it's not because their attitudes have changed.
And the path into it? It's not chosen by parents who want to live a life that limited. It's chosen by people--scared, frightened people with children, in over their heads and desperate--who aren't aware that the help being offered is, likely as not, rotten to the core.
January 5, 2015
Stroke of Midnight--chapter 18, Yet more Elsie Dinsmore
We are still having sex. With very mixed metaphores:
...and what kind of mud are you making right now?
Amatheon, the dude I couldn't remember last post, refuses to have sex with Merry.
For someone who writes 75% sex, LKH sure seems to hate actually writing about screwing.
But LKH hasn't actively failed with consent for a while.
This is not romantic. It's not necessarily abusive but I really don't like it. And speaking of shit out of context:
If you want to write rough consensual sex, break that shit up. Merry could gasp with pleasure or moan or think "WOW this really ought to hurt but I love every second of it" or do something to indicate that she's not being raped by one of her guards. The reason she is not is, once again, LKH cannot stand the idea of women enjoying sex because how the fuck should I know. It's the only thing that is consistant through all her writing. Depections of female pleasure are to be avoided at all cost. And when they do show up, they're short, to the point, and less "female pleasure" and more "This is the noise women make when they're happy, right?"
How the fuck a woman can write this shit, I have yet to understand.
And then Merry asks for a different position because the description up there hurts too fucking much.
You know, this IS your book. You CAN write fantasy sex that doesn't feel like you've just rammed a soda-pop bottle up your vajayjay.
Merry rides him. For a paragraph. Where every sentence starts with the words "I rode".
And then we go from screaming orgasms to assassination attempts? The HELL?
No, no, if this is a real plot thing I'm not protesting. GOD I AM NOT PROTESTING LET US STOP WITH THE PAINFULLY STUPID SEX AND GO ON TO THE PLOT.
Frost and the other Random Assorted Penii drag Merry down the hallway. Amatheon vanished from the astral sex so I'm gonna bet we're about to turn around and find him dead.
And then I'd lose, because it's Galen all bloody and nasty on the floor. Merry cries out his name and that is the end of the chapter.
The next book in this series opens with Elsie being unhappy that her father is being courted by Miss Stephens.
Assuming that there was a good chunk of time between the publishing of this book and the last...why are we just diving in? I mean...usually we get SOMETHING like a buffer. If it weren't for the big-ass Chapter One I wouldn't even realize we've switched shit.
And of course Horace, being the wonderful asshole that he is, asks Elsie why she didn't go to him with her problem, and instead went straight to bed. GOD FORBID THE KID SHOW ANY SIGNS OF BEING INDEPENDANT AND/OR CAPABLE OF SELF-SOOTHING.
WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU.
Horace buys Elsie better books than the one Miss Stevens gave her. Note: We never find out what the "trashy" book was, or what these books are. We just know that Horace Disapproves.
Then Elsie refuses to go to a children's party because Horace won't be there...but she heads off to play with the other girls because it gives us a chance to shit on Enna for a while. There aren't many characters in this disgusting series that get shit on as roundly as Enna, so we'd better get used to that.
And then Horace gives Elsie a lecture because she gave a friend a lock of hair as a Christmas present before he told her she couldn't give her own hair away. Giving hair was actually a really well honored tradition back then, and the work they'd make from it was INCREDIBLE.
The clasp says "Lizzy". Apparently, this was Lizzy's hair.There were two reasons for this. One was because making hair jewelry was a fun hobby. The other was so that if your friend died, you had a part of them forever. They didn't have photographs back then (And when they did...trust me, whenever you see a photo of a victorian kid "sleeping"? Yeah, they're not asleep. They're dead.), and hiring a painter was sometimes too expensive. But getting your best friend to lop off a couple curls from the back would give you something pretty you could wear just in case your best friend dies of smallpox/measles/chollera/TB/fire/horse accident/pnumonia/the common cold.
So basically this is Horace saying "No, you can't make a friendship bracelet."
God, he's such a prick.
Elsie stays home from a party to write a letter to her friend.
Horace spends the entire evening correcting her.
Oh, yeah, have we forgotten that this family owns slaves? Yeah.
The kids ask Elsie if she will play "Jackstones" with them. She asks Horace, who had told her no several weeks ago, so he makes her go lock herself up in a closet as punishment. She has to sit there for several hours because he forgets all about her.
And of course he chews her out for asking if she can play. Because Horace being nice would probably mean a heart attack or something.
Then she asks him why she can't play.
Yep. GOD FORBID a girl do something that might make her less of a sex object for a man.
ALSO: YES. YES LET US BLAME A DEBILITATING DISEASE ON FUCKING GAMES THAT WILL FIX EVERYTHING. Arthritus runs in my family. My grandmother's got it, my mom's getting it, and the other day I had somebody ask me if it's in the family because my knuckles are getting "that look". It's a hereditary disease that has nothing to do with popping knuckles or overworking your hands and EVERYTHING to do with immune systems and genetics.
The chapter ends with Elsie being stressed to the point of tears.
This book. This fucking book.
WE ROLLED OURSELVES IN IT UNTIL WE LOOKED LIKE GREY ghosts. The shine of our magic was dimmed by it like Christmas lights shining through snow.Are you ghosts or is it Christmas? And why would you want to do this? I have it on pretty good authority that sex on the beach hurts like hell, why would you want to get fine black powder all over everything?
...and what kind of mud are you making right now?
He pressed his hardness against the front of my body and the back of me.How the fuck is that anatomically possible? I'm like...is it wrapping around her torso? Has he impaled her on his dick? Oh, wait, I get it now. It's a penis Portal gun. Is he using the orange or the blue portal for entry?
My hand found that a second pulse lay in his groin, beating against the palm of my hand.WE HAVE GROIN DEAR ONES WE OFFICIALLY HAVE ANATOMICALLY CORRECT LANGUAGE.
Amatheon, the dude I couldn't remember last post, refuses to have sex with Merry.
For someone who writes 75% sex, LKH sure seems to hate actually writing about screwing.
But LKH hasn't actively failed with consent for a while.
“I am no longer certain what I mean. I think I would say almost anything, do almost anything, in this moment, if it would make you say yes.”AAAAANNNNNNNDDDDD there we go. It's not exactly rapy--consensual sex is what they're in the middle of--but there's a very fucked up dynamic here that I'm not sure I want to touch. I'm purposefully not identifying which one of these idiots said it because I don't think the gender involved matters.
This is not romantic. It's not necessarily abusive but I really don't like it. And speaking of shit out of context:
He used his grip on my wrists to swing me around. He flung me to the ground. I barely caught myself with my hands in the dirt, barely kept my face above the ground. I drew breath to protest, but his weight was suddenly on top of me, pressing me to the ground. He jerked me up on my knees , so that I was on all fours. He shoved himself against my body, I think he meant to shove inside me, but the angle wasn’t quite right. and he had to use his hands to move my hips ever so slightly. Again I started to say something, but he had his angle, and he shoved himself inside me, as hard and fast as he could. He shoved himself in until his balls smacked against my ass. I screamed, because he was too hard, and the angle was sharp,This is still supposed to be consensual sex. This does not read like consensual sex. This doesn't read like anything that should be in the same room as consensual sex.
If you want to write rough consensual sex, break that shit up. Merry could gasp with pleasure or moan or think "WOW this really ought to hurt but I love every second of it" or do something to indicate that she's not being raped by one of her guards. The reason she is not is, once again, LKH cannot stand the idea of women enjoying sex because how the fuck should I know. It's the only thing that is consistant through all her writing. Depections of female pleasure are to be avoided at all cost. And when they do show up, they're short, to the point, and less "female pleasure" and more "This is the noise women make when they're happy, right?"
How the fuck a woman can write this shit, I have yet to understand.
And then Merry asks for a different position because the description up there hurts too fucking much.
You know, this IS your book. You CAN write fantasy sex that doesn't feel like you've just rammed a soda-pop bottle up your vajayjay.Merry rides him. For a paragraph. Where every sentence starts with the words "I rode".
And then we go from screaming orgasms to assassination attempts? The HELL?
No, no, if this is a real plot thing I'm not protesting. GOD I AM NOT PROTESTING LET US STOP WITH THE PAINFULLY STUPID SEX AND GO ON TO THE PLOT.
Frost and the other Random Assorted Penii drag Merry down the hallway. Amatheon vanished from the astral sex so I'm gonna bet we're about to turn around and find him dead.
And then I'd lose, because it's Galen all bloody and nasty on the floor. Merry cries out his name and that is the end of the chapter.
The next book in this series opens with Elsie being unhappy that her father is being courted by Miss Stephens.
Assuming that there was a good chunk of time between the publishing of this book and the last...why are we just diving in? I mean...usually we get SOMETHING like a buffer. If it weren't for the big-ass Chapter One I wouldn't even realize we've switched shit.
And of course Horace, being the wonderful asshole that he is, asks Elsie why she didn't go to him with her problem, and instead went straight to bed. GOD FORBID THE KID SHOW ANY SIGNS OF BEING INDEPENDANT AND/OR CAPABLE OF SELF-SOOTHING.
"Not half so angry as if you refuse to give me your confidence. I would be glad to know that my little daughter had not a single thought or feeling concealed from me."The truely terrifying thing is that Martha Finley intended Horace to be an ideal father. This controling piece of shit. An ideal father.
WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU.
Horace buys Elsie better books than the one Miss Stevens gave her. Note: We never find out what the "trashy" book was, or what these books are. We just know that Horace Disapproves.
Then Elsie refuses to go to a children's party because Horace won't be there...but she heads off to play with the other girls because it gives us a chance to shit on Enna for a while. There aren't many characters in this disgusting series that get shit on as roundly as Enna, so we'd better get used to that.
And then Horace gives Elsie a lecture because she gave a friend a lock of hair as a Christmas present before he told her she couldn't give her own hair away. Giving hair was actually a really well honored tradition back then, and the work they'd make from it was INCREDIBLE.
The clasp says "Lizzy". Apparently, this was Lizzy's hair.There were two reasons for this. One was because making hair jewelry was a fun hobby. The other was so that if your friend died, you had a part of them forever. They didn't have photographs back then (And when they did...trust me, whenever you see a photo of a victorian kid "sleeping"? Yeah, they're not asleep. They're dead.), and hiring a painter was sometimes too expensive. But getting your best friend to lop off a couple curls from the back would give you something pretty you could wear just in case your best friend dies of smallpox/measles/chollera/TB/fire/horse accident/pnumonia/the common cold.So basically this is Horace saying "No, you can't make a friendship bracelet."
God, he's such a prick.
Elsie stays home from a party to write a letter to her friend.
Horace spends the entire evening correcting her.
"There, you have spelled a word wrong, and I see you have one or two capitals where there should be a small letter; and that last sentence is not perfectly grammatical," he said. "You must let me correct it when you are done, and then you must copy it off more carefully."Arthur tries to borrow money from Elsie, saying that she could tell her father she bought Christmas presents for the servants.
Oh, yeah, have we forgotten that this family owns slaves? Yeah.
The kids ask Elsie if she will play "Jackstones" with them. She asks Horace, who had told her no several weeks ago, so he makes her go lock herself up in a closet as punishment. She has to sit there for several hours because he forgets all about her.
And of course he chews her out for asking if she can play. Because Horace being nice would probably mean a heart attack or something.
Then she asks him why she can't play.
"Then you had no right to think so. That was one reason, but not the only one. I have heard it said that that play enlarges the knuckles, and I don't choose to have these little hands of mine robbed of their beauty," he added, playfully raising them to his lips.
Yep. GOD FORBID a girl do something that might make her less of a sex object for a man.
ALSO: YES. YES LET US BLAME A DEBILITATING DISEASE ON FUCKING GAMES THAT WILL FIX EVERYTHING. Arthritus runs in my family. My grandmother's got it, my mom's getting it, and the other day I had somebody ask me if it's in the family because my knuckles are getting "that look". It's a hereditary disease that has nothing to do with popping knuckles or overworking your hands and EVERYTHING to do with immune systems and genetics.
The chapter ends with Elsie being stressed to the point of tears.
This book. This fucking book.
January 2, 2015
Stroke of Midnight chapter 17, Elsie chapters 14-15
I don't understand how I can have read so much of this woman's writing and still forget how much it sucks.
Merry makes Penis #9949 glow like a neon sign, then she starts playing with his penis. No, of course she doesn't say penis. What'd you think this was, actual erotica?
Then we borrow from fucking John Norman's playbook:
So the dude--I've forgotten his name, sue me--tells her that if he fucks up (heh) this time he'll never get sex again and Merry is all like "I give everybody a chance to practice" and somehow this concept of having sex twice with the same dude is a revelation and wonderful.
And then we are reminded that we're having sex on the astral plane in a desert, only LKH forgets that "Desert" and "Dessert" are not the same thing:
They decide to get the soft, wonderful dirt everywhere because it's not going to hurt, right? And that is the end of the chapter.
Meanwhile, back over at Elsie...
The prose is somewhat better, but I'm immediately struck by the "Daddy knows best" attitude. Elsie needs to eat before taking walks because Daddy says so. Also:
Pretty much the same cycle happens. Elsie wants something, Dad says no. Elsie says okay and does things that the author probably thought were cute. And I have to say, when Elsie is happy the book gets booooooring. There's no secondary plot. At all. The nearest we get is "Non-Christian People are Bad." Horace is not SAVED (tm) yet so he gets to be bad once in a while. Elsie's non Christian friends are bad because...Horace. And their suggestions that Horace is a child-abusing dick (spoiler alert: Horace is a child abusing dick). We also get long soliloquies on the bible--inaccurate, unbiblical, and fairly heretical soliloquies that have about as much to do with the actual book as the Twilight novels do with Dracula.
It's Christmas. Elsie buys everyone presents. We get descriptions of all the presents. Horace is extravagant and gives Elsie a twenty-dollar gold piece, which is about six hundred fucking dollars today. DAMN. Elsie shows everything off and gets tired. Horace tells her she can't sleep until she's recorded every single cent spent in her book because Horace is an asshole.
This happens:
Translation: Any self-love is bad and we have to beat it out of you. SERIOUSLY THIS IS WHAT PEOPLE USE AS JUSTIFICATION.
In chapter fourteen, Elsie and her friends play. Elsie gives one of them her favorite doll because her cousin is being greedy with her blocks. Horace orders Elsie upstairs and everybody goes on and on and on about how Horace is awful and strict and probably shouldn't be allowed near children.
(Spoiler alert: Horace is awful and strict and probably shouldn't be allowed near children)
This punishment--being made to sit upstairs all alone--is because Elsie was sitting on the floor with her friends, and several months ago Horace told Elsie not to sit on the floor.
Elsie goes back downstairs and defends Horace to everybody, refusing to even explain what he was punishing her for.
This is another massive aspect of child abuse, and one that is constantly drilled into kids in these enviroments: you have to defend your parents. Child Protective Services are evil (Seriously, I remember running from cars because somebody would call CPS and take us away from Mom.) and your parents are the only good thing in your life. I was very, VERY fortunate that physical abuse in my household was minimal because holy fucking shit is this a textbook tactic.
And then a woman starts flirting with Horace by flattering Elsie. Her name is Miss Stephens and she is the Designated Worldy Woman for this little episode. Elsie counters her flattery with bible verses that have absolutely nothing to do with the subject at hand and basically give the impression that thinking you are pretty is wrong.
Everybody opens presents. Elsie gives Horace a small picture of herself (AKA a miniature) and Horace gives his daughter--who is still fucking eight--a diamond ring. Because this is not at all creepy or inappropriate.
Elsie gets candy. Horace takes the candy away.
Miss Stephens gives Elsie a book. Horace takes the book away.
And then Edward Travilla shows up, and randomly picks up and kisses Elsie because this is not at all creepy and inapproprete either. He occupies her attention for the rest of the afternoon, because this is totally not grooming an eight year old.
(Spoiler alert: Edward Travilla is totally grooming an eight year old)
THESE ARE EIGHT YEAR OLD CHILDREN AND HE IS IN HIS LATE TWENTIES WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK MARY FINLEY WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK.
Elsie gets very upset that Miss Stephens is flirting with her father and goes to bed early. Horace overreacts...and that's the end of the first book.
Seriously. The first book in the Elsie Dinsmore series ends with Horace overreacting to Elsie's reasonable assumption that he's gonna get hitched again.
The next book, my lovelies, will make everything we've read so far look like an episode of The Osborne Family.
OUR CLOTHES FELL TO THE EARTH LIKE THE RAIN THAT HAD FORGOTTEN THIS LAND.It actually reminds me an awful, awful lot of L. Ron Hubbard's writing style: Lots and lots and lots of words that say absolutely fucking nothing. Everything is jewels and color--over and over and over again, as if the longer we describe something the longer we can put off advancing anything.
I wondered what he would do if I touched less neutral places.Penis. Dong. Love stick. Joy stick. Bird. Loins. Dick.You are a grown fucking polyamourous woman. Use your fucking words.
Merry makes Penis #9949 glow like a neon sign, then she starts playing with his penis. No, of course she doesn't say penis. What'd you think this was, actual erotica?
Then we borrow from fucking John Norman's playbook:
“Oh, don’t, don’t do that, Merry-girl, or I won’t last.” “So hard,” I said, and my voice sounded breathy and hoarse. “I know,” he whispered, “too hard. I will not last.” “Then don’t last,” I said. He frowned at me, eyes still wild. “What?”“Then don’t last, for this first time, meet your need. You can prove your stamina next time.”Yep, we're down to Put me in the Zoo levels of literature again. Also...is it just me or are we sexualizing premature ejaculation?
So the dude--I've forgotten his name, sue me--tells her that if he fucks up (heh) this time he'll never get sex again and Merry is all like "I give everybody a chance to practice" and somehow this concept of having sex twice with the same dude is a revelation and wonderful.
And then we are reminded that we're having sex on the astral plane in a desert, only LKH forgets that "Desert" and "Dessert" are not the same thing:
His back was covered in the dry, powdery dirt . I expected it to be rough, but it wasn’t. It was smooth and fine like the softest talcum powder. It did not distract from the warm smoothness of his skin but seemed to add texture like icing spread over warm, rich cake.EAT FIRST, THEN WRITE.
They decide to get the soft, wonderful dirt everywhere because it's not going to hurt, right? And that is the end of the chapter.
Meanwhile, back over at Elsie...
The prose is somewhat better, but I'm immediately struck by the "Daddy knows best" attitude. Elsie needs to eat before taking walks because Daddy says so. Also:
"You are very careful of me, dear papa," she said, laying her head on his breast, "and oh! it is so nice to have a papa to love me and take care of me." "And it is so nice to have a dear little daughter to love and to take care of," he answered, pressing her closer to him.Why is the relationship so very squicky? I get that it was a different time and all, but let me remind you once more: This shit got reproduced for modern girls to read as a good role model. As in it's a good idea to have exactly this relationship with your dad.
Pretty much the same cycle happens. Elsie wants something, Dad says no. Elsie says okay and does things that the author probably thought were cute. And I have to say, when Elsie is happy the book gets booooooring. There's no secondary plot. At all. The nearest we get is "Non-Christian People are Bad." Horace is not SAVED (tm) yet so he gets to be bad once in a while. Elsie's non Christian friends are bad because...Horace. And their suggestions that Horace is a child-abusing dick (spoiler alert: Horace is a child abusing dick). We also get long soliloquies on the bible--inaccurate, unbiblical, and fairly heretical soliloquies that have about as much to do with the actual book as the Twilight novels do with Dracula.
It's Christmas. Elsie buys everyone presents. We get descriptions of all the presents. Horace is extravagant and gives Elsie a twenty-dollar gold piece, which is about six hundred fucking dollars today. DAMN. Elsie shows everything off and gets tired. Horace tells her she can't sleep until she's recorded every single cent spent in her book because Horace is an asshole.
This happens:
"Dear papa, I love you so much!" she replied, twining her arms around his neck, "I love you all the better for never letting me have my own way, but always making me obey and keep to rules."
"I don't doubt it, daughter," he said, "for I have often noticed that spoiled, petted children, usually have very little love for their parents, or indeed for any one but themselves. But I must put you in your bed, or you will be in danger of taking cold."
Translation: Any self-love is bad and we have to beat it out of you. SERIOUSLY THIS IS WHAT PEOPLE USE AS JUSTIFICATION.
In chapter fourteen, Elsie and her friends play. Elsie gives one of them her favorite doll because her cousin is being greedy with her blocks. Horace orders Elsie upstairs and everybody goes on and on and on about how Horace is awful and strict and probably shouldn't be allowed near children.
(Spoiler alert: Horace is awful and strict and probably shouldn't be allowed near children)
This punishment--being made to sit upstairs all alone--is because Elsie was sitting on the floor with her friends, and several months ago Horace told Elsie not to sit on the floor.
Elsie goes back downstairs and defends Horace to everybody, refusing to even explain what he was punishing her for.
This is another massive aspect of child abuse, and one that is constantly drilled into kids in these enviroments: you have to defend your parents. Child Protective Services are evil (Seriously, I remember running from cars because somebody would call CPS and take us away from Mom.) and your parents are the only good thing in your life. I was very, VERY fortunate that physical abuse in my household was minimal because holy fucking shit is this a textbook tactic.
And then a woman starts flirting with Horace by flattering Elsie. Her name is Miss Stephens and she is the Designated Worldy Woman for this little episode. Elsie counters her flattery with bible verses that have absolutely nothing to do with the subject at hand and basically give the impression that thinking you are pretty is wrong.
Everybody opens presents. Elsie gives Horace a small picture of herself (AKA a miniature) and Horace gives his daughter--who is still fucking eight--a diamond ring. Because this is not at all creepy or inappropriate.
Elsie gets candy. Horace takes the candy away.
Miss Stephens gives Elsie a book. Horace takes the book away.
And then Edward Travilla shows up, and randomly picks up and kisses Elsie because this is not at all creepy and inapproprete either. He occupies her attention for the rest of the afternoon, because this is totally not grooming an eight year old.
(Spoiler alert: Edward Travilla is totally grooming an eight year old)
They had a very merry time, for Mr. Travilla quite laid himself out for their entertainment, and no one knew better than he how to amuse ladies of their age.
THESE ARE EIGHT YEAR OLD CHILDREN AND HE IS IN HIS LATE TWENTIES WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK MARY FINLEY WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK.
Elsie gets very upset that Miss Stephens is flirting with her father and goes to bed early. Horace overreacts...and that's the end of the first book.
Seriously. The first book in the Elsie Dinsmore series ends with Horace overreacting to Elsie's reasonable assumption that he's gonna get hitched again.
The next book, my lovelies, will make everything we've read so far look like an episode of The Osborne Family.
Stroke of Midnight chapter 7, Elsie chapters 14-15
I don't understand how I can have read so much of this woman's writing and still forget how much it sucks.
Merry makes Penis #9949 glow like a neon sign, then she starts playing with his penis. No, of course she doesn't say penis. What'd you think this was, actual erotica?
Then we borrow from fucking John Norman's playbook:
So the dude--I've forgotten his name, sue me--tells her that if he fucks up (heh) this time he'll never get sex again and Merry is all like "I give everybody a chance to practice" and somehow this concept of having sex twice with the same dude is a revelation and wonderful.
And then we are reminded that we're having sex on the astral plane in a desert, only LKH forgets that "Desert" and "Dessert" are not the same thing:
They decide to get the soft, wonderful dirt everywhere because it's not going to hurt, right? And that is the end of the chapter.
Meanwhile, back over at Elsie...
The prose is somewhat better, but I'm immediately struck by the "Daddy knows best" attitude. Elsie needs to eat before taking walks because Daddy says so. Also:
Pretty much the same cycle happens. Elsie wants something, Dad says no. Elsie says okay and does things that the author probably thought were cute. And I have to say, when Elsie is happy the book gets booooooring. There's no secondary plot. At all. The nearest we get is "Non-Christian People are Bad." Horace is not SAVED (tm) yet so he gets to be bad once in a while. Elsie's non Christian friends are bad because...Horace. And their suggestions that Horace is a child-abusing dick (spoiler alert: Horace is a child abusing dick). We also get long soliloquies on the bible--inaccurate, unbiblical, and fairly heretical soliloquies that have about as much to do with the actual book as the Twilight novels do with Dracula.
It's Christmas. Elsie buys everyone presents. We get descriptions of all the presents. Horace is extravagant and gives Elsie a twenty-dollar gold piece, which is about six hundred fucking dollars today. DAMN. Elsie shows everything off and gets tired. Horace tells her she can't sleep until she's recorded every single cent spent in her book because Horace is an asshole.
This happens:
Translation: Any self-love is bad and we have to beat it out of you. SERIOUSLY THIS IS WHAT PEOPLE USE AS JUSTIFICATION.
In chapter fourteen, Elsie and her friends play. Elsie gives one of them her favorite doll because her cousin is being greedy with her blocks. Horace orders Elsie upstairs and everybody goes on and on and on about how Horace is awful and strict and probably shouldn't be allowed near children.
(Spoiler alert: Horace is awful and strict and probably shouldn't be allowed near children)
This punishment--being made to sit upstairs all alone--is because Elsie was sitting on the floor with her friends, and several months ago Horace told Elsie not to sit on the floor.
Elsie goes back downstairs and defends Horace to everybody, refusing to even explain what he was punishing her for.
This is another massive aspect of child abuse, and one that is constantly drilled into kids in these enviroments: you have to defend your parents. Child Protective Services are evil (Seriously, I remember running from cars because somebody would call CPS and take us away from Mom.) and your parents are the only good thing in your life. I was very, VERY fortunate that physical abuse in my household was minimal because holy fucking shit is this a textbook tactic.
And then a woman starts flirting with Horace by flattering Elsie. Her name is Miss Stephens and she is the Designated Worldy Woman for this little episode. Elsie counters her flattery with bible verses that have absolutely nothing to do with the subject at hand and basically give the impression that thinking you are pretty is wrong.
Everybody opens presents. Elsie gives Horace a small picture of herself (AKA a miniature) and Horace gives his daughter--who is still fucking eight--a diamond ring. Because this is not at all creepy or inappropriate.
Elsie gets candy. Horace takes the candy away.
Miss Stephens gives Elsie a book. Horace takes the book away.
And then Edward Travilla shows up, and randomly picks up and kisses Elsie because this is not at all creepy and inapproprete either. He occupies her attention for the rest of the afternoon, because this is totally not grooming an eight year old.
(Spoiler alert: Edward Travilla is totally grooming an eight year old)
THESE ARE EIGHT YEAR OLD CHILDREN AND HE IS IN HIS LATE TWENTIES WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK MARY FINLEY WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK.
Elsie gets very upset that Miss Stephens is flirting with her father and goes to bed early. Horace overreacts...and that's the end of the first book.
Seriously. The first book in the Elsie Dinsmore series ends with Horace overreacting to Elsie's reasonable assumption that he's gonna get hitched again.
The next book, my lovelies, will make everything we've read so far look like an episode of The Osborne Family.
OUR CLOTHES FELL TO THE EARTH LIKE THE RAIN THAT HAD FORGOTTEN THIS LAND.It actually reminds me an awful, awful lot of L. Ron Hubbard's writing style: Lots and lots and lots of words that say absolutely fucking nothing. Everything is jewels and color--over and over and over again, as if the longer we describe something the longer we can put off advancing anything.
I wondered what he would do if I touched less neutral places.Penis. Dong. Love stick. Joy stick. Bird. Loins. Dick.You are a grown fucking polyamourous woman. Use your fucking words.
Merry makes Penis #9949 glow like a neon sign, then she starts playing with his penis. No, of course she doesn't say penis. What'd you think this was, actual erotica?
Then we borrow from fucking John Norman's playbook:
“Oh, don’t, don’t do that, Merry-girl, or I won’t last.” “So hard,” I said, and my voice sounded breathy and hoarse. “I know,” he whispered, “too hard. I will not last.” “Then don’t last,” I said. He frowned at me, eyes still wild. “What?”“Then don’t last, for this first time, meet your need. You can prove your stamina next time.”Yep, we're down to Put me in the Zoo levels of literature again. Also...is it just me or are we sexualizing premature ejaculation?
So the dude--I've forgotten his name, sue me--tells her that if he fucks up (heh) this time he'll never get sex again and Merry is all like "I give everybody a chance to practice" and somehow this concept of having sex twice with the same dude is a revelation and wonderful.
And then we are reminded that we're having sex on the astral plane in a desert, only LKH forgets that "Desert" and "Dessert" are not the same thing:
His back was covered in the dry, powdery dirt . I expected it to be rough, but it wasn’t. It was smooth and fine like the softest talcum powder. It did not distract from the warm smoothness of his skin but seemed to add texture like icing spread over warm, rich cake.EAT FIRST, THEN WRITE.
They decide to get the soft, wonderful dirt everywhere because it's not going to hurt, right? And that is the end of the chapter.
Meanwhile, back over at Elsie...
The prose is somewhat better, but I'm immediately struck by the "Daddy knows best" attitude. Elsie needs to eat before taking walks because Daddy says so. Also:
"You are very careful of me, dear papa," she said, laying her head on his breast, "and oh! it is so nice to have a papa to love me and take care of me." "And it is so nice to have a dear little daughter to love and to take care of," he answered, pressing her closer to him.Why is the relationship so very squicky? I get that it was a different time and all, but let me remind you once more: This shit got reproduced for modern girls to read as a good role model. As in it's a good idea to have exactly this relationship with your dad.
Pretty much the same cycle happens. Elsie wants something, Dad says no. Elsie says okay and does things that the author probably thought were cute. And I have to say, when Elsie is happy the book gets booooooring. There's no secondary plot. At all. The nearest we get is "Non-Christian People are Bad." Horace is not SAVED (tm) yet so he gets to be bad once in a while. Elsie's non Christian friends are bad because...Horace. And their suggestions that Horace is a child-abusing dick (spoiler alert: Horace is a child abusing dick). We also get long soliloquies on the bible--inaccurate, unbiblical, and fairly heretical soliloquies that have about as much to do with the actual book as the Twilight novels do with Dracula.
It's Christmas. Elsie buys everyone presents. We get descriptions of all the presents. Horace is extravagant and gives Elsie a twenty-dollar gold piece, which is about six hundred fucking dollars today. DAMN. Elsie shows everything off and gets tired. Horace tells her she can't sleep until she's recorded every single cent spent in her book because Horace is an asshole.
This happens:
"Dear papa, I love you so much!" she replied, twining her arms around his neck, "I love you all the better for never letting me have my own way, but always making me obey and keep to rules."
"I don't doubt it, daughter," he said, "for I have often noticed that spoiled, petted children, usually have very little love for their parents, or indeed for any one but themselves. But I must put you in your bed, or you will be in danger of taking cold."
Translation: Any self-love is bad and we have to beat it out of you. SERIOUSLY THIS IS WHAT PEOPLE USE AS JUSTIFICATION.
In chapter fourteen, Elsie and her friends play. Elsie gives one of them her favorite doll because her cousin is being greedy with her blocks. Horace orders Elsie upstairs and everybody goes on and on and on about how Horace is awful and strict and probably shouldn't be allowed near children.
(Spoiler alert: Horace is awful and strict and probably shouldn't be allowed near children)
This punishment--being made to sit upstairs all alone--is because Elsie was sitting on the floor with her friends, and several months ago Horace told Elsie not to sit on the floor.
Elsie goes back downstairs and defends Horace to everybody, refusing to even explain what he was punishing her for.
This is another massive aspect of child abuse, and one that is constantly drilled into kids in these enviroments: you have to defend your parents. Child Protective Services are evil (Seriously, I remember running from cars because somebody would call CPS and take us away from Mom.) and your parents are the only good thing in your life. I was very, VERY fortunate that physical abuse in my household was minimal because holy fucking shit is this a textbook tactic.
And then a woman starts flirting with Horace by flattering Elsie. Her name is Miss Stephens and she is the Designated Worldy Woman for this little episode. Elsie counters her flattery with bible verses that have absolutely nothing to do with the subject at hand and basically give the impression that thinking you are pretty is wrong.
Everybody opens presents. Elsie gives Horace a small picture of herself (AKA a miniature) and Horace gives his daughter--who is still fucking eight--a diamond ring. Because this is not at all creepy or inappropriate.
Elsie gets candy. Horace takes the candy away.
Miss Stephens gives Elsie a book. Horace takes the book away.
And then Edward Travilla shows up, and randomly picks up and kisses Elsie because this is not at all creepy and inapproprete either. He occupies her attention for the rest of the afternoon, because this is totally not grooming an eight year old.
(Spoiler alert: Edward Travilla is totally grooming an eight year old)
They had a very merry time, for Mr. Travilla quite laid himself out for their entertainment, and no one knew better than he how to amuse ladies of their age.
THESE ARE EIGHT YEAR OLD CHILDREN AND HE IS IN HIS LATE TWENTIES WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK MARY FINLEY WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK.
Elsie gets very upset that Miss Stephens is flirting with her father and goes to bed early. Horace overreacts...and that's the end of the first book.
Seriously. The first book in the Elsie Dinsmore series ends with Horace overreacting to Elsie's reasonable assumption that he's gonna get hitched again.
The next book, my lovelies, will make everything we've read so far look like an episode of The Osborne Family.
December 29, 2014
State of the CW AKA Where the fuck have I been
Short story: I fell off my meds.
Which is why I hate being on medication in the first place, reguardless of how much I need it or not. Staying on medication is very, very, VERY hard for me. Especially since the problem (memory+motivation+attention span) is tied directly to the depression. And there's been stress. Lots of it. Work stress (Note: Half the shit I do at work is not and was never in my job description, and nobody else can understand it, let alone do any of it. That is not an exaggeration. That's actually part of the stress.) financial stress. Moving stress, as we have to downsize and we've been packing boxes. Oh, and I've discovered that moving and packing is yet another massive trigger.
Which I experienced off meds. Which lead to a very spectacular meltdown and several days of Not Wanting To Touch Shit. Because I had a feeling (in part due to not being on meds) that if I touched anything, it would fall apart. Whereas if I sat very still and played stupid shit on the computer, things would be okay. It's like trying to hold a bomb together with string and spit. It doesn't work.
I am still trying to get the book out. All that's left is minor editing and formatting and finishing the cover. Which is about halfway done or more.
I really, really, really do not like being sick. Especially not mentally sick, and especially not chronically sick. I want to feel better and have it be done, and I know that's never going to happen.Or if it is, it won't happen for a very, very long time.
There is no more accurate description of dealing with depression than "fighting". It's a fight. Every day. Every hour. Every minute. When it's not suicidal ideation it's just this gray meaningless fog. Or it's anxiety strong enough to immobilize. Funny, that. I used to think of that as being something so intense you couldn't breathe. Now I understand it's just moderate, but you want it to stop so you hedge yourself in and then you just. don't. move. Because if you move, you have to feel and when you're anxious, feeling is bad.
Yes. I have an anti-anxiety drug.
In short, my lovelies: This year sucked. Hard. For a lot of people, not just me. The wheels of my wagon came off in January and have yet to get screwed back on. So many of you have been wonderful helps, I can't even begin to say how much gratitude I have for ya'll. You are one of the things that has gotten me through this year.
I'm going to reassemble my plans for things on the other side of the year, so to speak. Try to work out where to go from here. Be happy, my lovelies, and even if you can't, be well.
Which is why I hate being on medication in the first place, reguardless of how much I need it or not. Staying on medication is very, very, VERY hard for me. Especially since the problem (memory+motivation+attention span) is tied directly to the depression. And there's been stress. Lots of it. Work stress (Note: Half the shit I do at work is not and was never in my job description, and nobody else can understand it, let alone do any of it. That is not an exaggeration. That's actually part of the stress.) financial stress. Moving stress, as we have to downsize and we've been packing boxes. Oh, and I've discovered that moving and packing is yet another massive trigger.
Which I experienced off meds. Which lead to a very spectacular meltdown and several days of Not Wanting To Touch Shit. Because I had a feeling (in part due to not being on meds) that if I touched anything, it would fall apart. Whereas if I sat very still and played stupid shit on the computer, things would be okay. It's like trying to hold a bomb together with string and spit. It doesn't work.
I am still trying to get the book out. All that's left is minor editing and formatting and finishing the cover. Which is about halfway done or more.
I really, really, really do not like being sick. Especially not mentally sick, and especially not chronically sick. I want to feel better and have it be done, and I know that's never going to happen.Or if it is, it won't happen for a very, very long time.
There is no more accurate description of dealing with depression than "fighting". It's a fight. Every day. Every hour. Every minute. When it's not suicidal ideation it's just this gray meaningless fog. Or it's anxiety strong enough to immobilize. Funny, that. I used to think of that as being something so intense you couldn't breathe. Now I understand it's just moderate, but you want it to stop so you hedge yourself in and then you just. don't. move. Because if you move, you have to feel and when you're anxious, feeling is bad.
Yes. I have an anti-anxiety drug.
In short, my lovelies: This year sucked. Hard. For a lot of people, not just me. The wheels of my wagon came off in January and have yet to get screwed back on. So many of you have been wonderful helps, I can't even begin to say how much gratitude I have for ya'll. You are one of the things that has gotten me through this year.
I'm going to reassemble my plans for things on the other side of the year, so to speak. Try to work out where to go from here. Be happy, my lovelies, and even if you can't, be well.
November 17, 2014
Stroke of Midnight 16
What's this? Has a random countdown appeared? Yes. I am committing to a date, and that means lots of energy and work and all sorts of other wonderful things.
Taking a brief break from Elsie to work on other projects, but I figured we might as well keep LKH going.
Meanwhile, we've managed to have a full blown sex scene and a lot of making out. So at least we know where the author's priorities lie.
Meanwhile, Random Boy Toy A has eyes that are...special.
Everybody smells apples, and Merry brings the chalice out where everyone can see it, just as if we hadn't spent the last several chapters discussing how ABSOLUTELY IMPORTANT it is to keep the goddamn thing hidden. Everybody gasps. Ivy says that they should be making Merry queen and not "playing copper" even though I think he's about three hundred years too old for that slang to come casually. The cup pulsates again. Then this happens:
LKH's special brand of slut shaming. It's slutty clothes, unless the main character is wearing them, or its dating multiple men, unless the main character is dating them, and generally any kind of sex at all, unless the main character is having it. It's less double standard and more "I have no self awareness whatsoever, pass the condoms".
NO. NO YOU SHOULD NOT. SOLVE THE DOUBLE HOMICIDE PLEASE IT WOULD BE SO MUCH MORE INTERESTING.
Everyone talks about how much they want to have sex. And whose desire to have sex is strongest. It's like a philosophical dick measuring contest. Then Amatheon and a couple of the others start down-talking Merry's mortal heritage because Prejudice Allegory, which is now incredibly squicky for me because this series is set in fucking St. Louis. So Merry gives Amatheon a hug, aaaaand we're having sex now.
One of the bizzare side-effects of LKH's unwillingness to use either "penis" or "vagina" in her writing is I have no idea if this is actual sex or not. Merry becomes the stand-in for the Goddess again, and starts telling Amatheon that she (the Goddess) has never left them--even though they're making out in the middle of a barren plain, which doesn't exactly scream "Divine Blessings."
You have no idea how much dread this one sentence filled me with. Then it became clear that Amatheon wants to give his blood to the land, and not his semen.
...Dude. The cops are RIGHT THERE. Okay, they're upstairs, but they are here on campus, they'll be back real soon, and you are offering to let your princess take your blood. THIS IS NOT A SMART THING.
And then the Goddess tries to talk Merry into killing Amatheon.
He's not motherfucking John Barleycorn. This is a bad idea. This is a very, very, very bad idea.
YOU GOT THE FUCKING CUP IN A DREAM DREAMS IN THIS UNIVERSE CAN BE VERY REAL. DO NOT DO THIS THING.
And then the Goddess begins chewing Merry out for trying to investigate the murders instead of having sex.
Laurel, this is YOUR PLOT. Do you know what you do when you do not like your plot? THROW IT OUT AND START OVER. YOU are the writer. YOU get to make the plot be what you want it to be. Oh, and by the way? Airing out your issues over your writing IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FUCKING BOOK is not a very smart thing to do. You hate plot. Great. Write porn. Admit that you like writing porn and write fucking porn. You will not die. Bolts of lightening will not rain down from heaven and incinerate you. You can be honest with yourself and your audience. It's not gonna hurt you.
But DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT promise us a murder investigation plot a la early Anita and then bitch your character out for trying to follow through with it. If I want a bait and switch I'll go to a mega church during fundraiser week.
WE HAD A PLOT GODDAMN IT. IT WOULD HAVE BEEN FUN. WHY ARE YOU TAKING THAT AWAY FROM US.
And then the Goddess sighs happily, because it was all a dream test.
On the one hand, YAY THE POLICE PLOT IS BACK ON THE TABLE.
On the other hand
That means that all of this--the tree shit, the stuff with the cup, the conversation with Amatheon and the Goddess--is a motherfucking non-event, and LKH has, once again, wasted our time.
Meanwhile, it's time for our dose of quasi-pagan pretentiousness! Courtesy of 20+ Kindle Highlighters, here we go:
Either LKH is talking about the unnamed Wiccan Lady (which is Oathbound material and not something you can easily find, which shows how seriously Wiccans take their Oathbound shit) in which case DAMN the Wiccan Lady is an awful lot like Protestant Jesus, or she's talking about that general, quasi-Celtic-and-Greek-with-a-pinch-of-Native-Culture, all-encompassing Goddess figure that certain brands of paganism (coughfluffybunnycough) like to embrace. In which case WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK.
Even the Christian God "turns his face away", albeit from really awful bad shit. If you believe in religion than Deity is something that gets to decide shit. And your respective Gods are fully capable of deciding that you've screwed the pooch and they don't want to play anymore. In other words, this is dehumanizing Deity.
And for the record, NO. "Goddess" is not an all-encompassing figure. Athena is not Diana is not Kali is not Pele is not the Virgin Mary. Grow up.
This chapter is not done yet. Why is this chapter not done yet?
Right. More sex.
Every time she does this I keep thinking of that (albeit problematic) scene in American Gods where the Indian goddess-figure swallows a man with her vagina. THERE IS A REASON WE HAVE THE WORD PENIS.
The chapter ends with them taking off their clothes.
Taking a brief break from Elsie to work on other projects, but I figured we might as well keep LKH going.
WE WAITED FOR THE POLICE TO RETURN TO US AFTER ESCORTING their befuddled colleague away.We have yet to have a single law enforcement officer see the body of the dead human. We are sixteen chapters into this book.
Meanwhile, we've managed to have a full blown sex scene and a lot of making out. So at least we know where the author's priorities lie.
It was almost as if the chalice didn’t want to leave me alone to solve the murders. The cup pulsed so hard that it made me gasp.So apparently the cup is a lot like a penis. It's tumescent and it keeps getting in the way of the plot. The cup keeps sending orgasmic little thrills through Merry, and the guards who didn't see the cup are all like "WTF IS WRONG WITH HER" and the ones who did are like "NOTHING TO SEE HERE MOVE ALONG"
Meanwhile, Random Boy Toy A has eyes that are...special.
His eyes were not the three rings of color common among the sidhe, but a spiral painted in lines of color, with his pupil at the heart of the design. As a child I’d once asked him how he could see out of them, and he had smiled and replied that he did not know.The same way you can see out of a spiral contact lens. In fact, probably better. 'cause his iris can contract and a colored contact can't. Also, I swear to god the first time I read that I went "he has heart shaped pupils" and I threw up in my mouth a little.
Everybody smells apples, and Merry brings the chalice out where everyone can see it, just as if we hadn't spent the last several chapters discussing how ABSOLUTELY IMPORTANT it is to keep the goddamn thing hidden. Everybody gasps. Ivy says that they should be making Merry queen and not "playing copper" even though I think he's about three hundred years too old for that slang to come casually. The cup pulsates again. Then this happens:
“You just want to fuck her ,” Dogmaela said, and she made it sound like a dirty thing. An unusual attitude among any fey.
LKH's special brand of slut shaming. It's slutty clothes, unless the main character is wearing them, or its dating multiple men, unless the main character is dating them, and generally any kind of sex at all, unless the main character is having it. It's less double standard and more "I have no self awareness whatsoever, pass the condoms".
I looked up at his face, so carefully arrogant. “Are you saying I should take time out of solving a double homicide to have sex?”
NO. NO YOU SHOULD NOT. SOLVE THE DOUBLE HOMICIDE PLEASE IT WOULD BE SO MUCH MORE INTERESTING.
Everyone talks about how much they want to have sex. And whose desire to have sex is strongest. It's like a philosophical dick measuring contest. Then Amatheon and a couple of the others start down-talking Merry's mortal heritage because Prejudice Allegory, which is now incredibly squicky for me because this series is set in fucking St. Louis. So Merry gives Amatheon a hug, aaaaand we're having sex now.
I stood in the middle of a huge, barren plain. Amatheon was still pressed to my waist, his head buried against my body. I wasn’t certain that he knew anything had changed.
One of the bizzare side-effects of LKH's unwillingness to use either "penis" or "vagina" in her writing is I have no idea if this is actual sex or not. Merry becomes the stand-in for the Goddess again, and starts telling Amatheon that she (the Goddess) has never left them--even though they're making out in the middle of a barren plain, which doesn't exactly scream "Divine Blessings."
I understood then that if one tear felt so good to the land, then other body fluids would feel even better.
You have no idea how much dread this one sentence filled me with. Then it became clear that Amatheon wants to give his blood to the land, and not his semen.
...Dude. The cops are RIGHT THERE. Okay, they're upstairs, but they are here on campus, they'll be back real soon, and you are offering to let your princess take your blood. THIS IS NOT A SMART THING.
And then the Goddess tries to talk Merry into killing Amatheon.
Her voice came from my lips again. “He will not die as men die, but as the corn dies. To rise again, and feed his people.”
He's not motherfucking John Barleycorn. This is a bad idea. This is a very, very, very bad idea.
“But this is not real death. This is vision and dream.
YOU GOT THE FUCKING CUP IN A DREAM DREAMS IN THIS UNIVERSE CAN BE VERY REAL. DO NOT DO THIS THING.
“Will you leave the land barren?” the voice said, out of my mouth.The bizzare thing about LKH's writing is she keeps having scenes like this, where the heroine knows that there's something wrong with this shit. Merry knows that human sacrifice isn't the smartest thing to do right now. Anita knows it's a bad idea to screw London/Richard/All the wereswans ever because the consent is iffy and it'll probably be a rape. But some higher power--Jean Claude, the Goddess, the MOAD--then talks the main character into it because Laurel K. Hamilton wants this to happen and screw anybody who says "UH HELLO, THERE ARE COPS UPSTAIRS."
And then the Goddess begins chewing Merry out for trying to investigate the murders instead of having sex.
Laurel, this is YOUR PLOT. Do you know what you do when you do not like your plot? THROW IT OUT AND START OVER. YOU are the writer. YOU get to make the plot be what you want it to be. Oh, and by the way? Airing out your issues over your writing IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FUCKING BOOK is not a very smart thing to do. You hate plot. Great. Write porn. Admit that you like writing porn and write fucking porn. You will not die. Bolts of lightening will not rain down from heaven and incinerate you. You can be honest with yourself and your audience. It's not gonna hurt you.But DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT promise us a murder investigation plot a la early Anita and then bitch your character out for trying to follow through with it. If I want a bait and switch I'll go to a mega church during fundraiser week.
“I do not mean Cromm Cruach’s true name, I mean these deaths. They will be reborn, Child. Why do you mourn them so? Even true death is not an ending. Others can find your murderers and clues, but there are duties that only you can perform, Meredith, only you..” “And what exactly would those duties be?” She motioned at Amatheon . “Make my land live.”
WE HAD A PLOT GODDAMN IT. IT WOULD HAVE BEEN FUN. WHY ARE YOU TAKING THAT AWAY FROM US.
“He is a willing sacrifice, Meredith . There is no evil here.”I'd draw connections with "you can't rape the willing" and how utterly fucking stupid both these statements are, but I think I'd get eviscerated.
And then the Goddess sighs happily, because it was all a dream test.
On the one hand, YAY THE POLICE PLOT IS BACK ON THE TABLE.On the other hand
That means that all of this--the tree shit, the stuff with the cup, the conversation with Amatheon and the Goddess--is a motherfucking non-event, and LKH has, once again, wasted our time.Meanwhile, it's time for our dose of quasi-pagan pretentiousness! Courtesy of 20+ Kindle Highlighters, here we go:
Yes, folks. Goddess doesn't leave you, you leave Goddess.
“I did not stop speaking to my people, they stopped listening to me, and after a time, they could no longer hear my voice. But I never stopped speaking to them. In dreams, or that moment between waking and sleep, there is my voice. In a song, the touch of another’s hand in theirs, I am there. I am Goddess, I am everywhere, and in everything. I cannot leave, nor can you lose me. But you can leave me, and you can turn your back on me.”
Either LKH is talking about the unnamed Wiccan Lady (which is Oathbound material and not something you can easily find, which shows how seriously Wiccans take their Oathbound shit) in which case DAMN the Wiccan Lady is an awful lot like Protestant Jesus, or she's talking about that general, quasi-Celtic-and-Greek-with-a-pinch-of-Native-Culture, all-encompassing Goddess figure that certain brands of paganism (coughfluffybunnycough) like to embrace. In which case WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK.
Even the Christian God "turns his face away", albeit from really awful bad shit. If you believe in religion than Deity is something that gets to decide shit. And your respective Gods are fully capable of deciding that you've screwed the pooch and they don't want to play anymore. In other words, this is dehumanizing Deity.
And for the record, NO. "Goddess" is not an all-encompassing figure. Athena is not Diana is not Kali is not Pele is not the Virgin Mary. Grow up.
“Goddess,” he said. Her voice floated to us. “Yes, Child.” “Will I see you again?” Just her voice now, young and old at the same time. “In the face of every woman you meet.” And she was gone.I need an "Even for Dummies" book because I have forgotten how to Even. I haven't been this flabberghasted since I accidentally watched the 700 Club.
This chapter is not done yet. Why is this chapter not done yet?
He smiled, a quick flash of real humor, that made his face less perfectly handsome, but more real, more precious to my sight. “My honor was never gone, because no one can take your honor from you, not without your letting it go. I was going to say that you have given me back my honor, but I understand now.” I smiled at him. “No one can take your honor, but you can give it away.” The smile wilted around the edges. “Yes. I let fear take my honor from me.”Ah, because we have to get even more pretension out of the way. Okay. You did it. Can we get back to the plot now?
Right. More sex.
. “I want you to ride me, to press my naked body into the dirt. I want to watch your breasts dance above me. I want to feel your body slipped over mine like a sheath to a sword.
Every time she does this I keep thinking of that (albeit problematic) scene in American Gods where the Indian goddess-figure swallows a man with her vagina. THERE IS A REASON WE HAVE THE WORD PENIS.
I put my finger on his lips and stopped him. “Let’s make the grass grow.”It's not quite "Ride the Storm" but it'll do.
I sat up and pressed my most intimate parts against his most intimate parts, and even through all our clothes, the sensation was amazing.What? Did you suddenly forget how a thesaurus works? Did it die? It died, didn't it. You used the poor thing so much that when you finally needed it, it had shriveled up and died. Also, am I the only one having My Immortal-esque flashbacks? "He put his thing into my you-know-what and we did it for the first time."
The chapter ends with them taking off their clothes.
November 10, 2014
On Homeschooling and Growing Up: Real School
I kept getting in trouble for skipping school.
It's funny that I'm going to open this possible series about homeschooling by talking about the one time I did go to a normal school. But it set a standard in my mind. As I grew up and gained more autonomy, the episode with real school became more and more important. It's what turned Homeschooling into my choice, into something that I owned and defended every chance I got.
In retrospect that school probably wasn't normal. I had a very small class--7th and 8th grade put together, 13 students--and the curriculum was A Beka. A Beka is primarily aimed at conservative homeschooling groups; I was very familiar with the materials. I'd been using things like them for as long as I can remember. The American History books, for example, used the same photographs and paintings on the same pages in both the 4th grade and 6th grade textbooks. The most we ever learned about Native American cultures were the evangelical attempts of David Brainerd. George Whitfield got more space than George Washington. Civil rights were a footnote; Billy Graham was a chapter.
World History did not exist.
Paddles did.
Of course, the parents had to sign a permission slip. Most of them did. This was a very tight knit community. Most of them went to the same church I did, until that church had a doctrinal falling out and split up. Most of these kids had gone to this same school from first grade on up. Most of the parents agreed that the world might end the next election if we didn't get a Republican into the White House, but they disagreed on wheither or not the End of the World would be good or bad. Clinton was still president. I overheard several adults once have a serious conversation about how he fit all the criteria for the Antichrist.
Every morning we would gather in the gymasium--which doubled as a church sanctuary on Sundays--and sing worship songs after the Pledge of Allegiance...and the Pledge to the Christian Flag, and the Pledge to the Bible. I was familiar with all three; I'd been doing Awanas AKA Christian Girl Scouts for as long as I could remember. A different class would get to come up to the front and hold up the big, hand-lettered song lyric cards up so that everyone could read them. These were songs that most of us knew by heart. Amazing Grace. Go tell it on the Mountain. As the Deer. I thought everyone knew these songs, because everyone I knew did. Contemporary Christian music was edgy. Pop music like Madonna and N'Sync was unheard of. Literally. No one listened to it. When we were allowed to bring outside novels to school they were the Left Behind series. C.S. Lewis was risky because there were talking animals and magic in them. My class memorized the entire book of James, one chapter at a time. When it came time to learn about evolution, our science teacher gave us a big speech about how this was a state mandated course and we didn't really need to pay attention. He followed it up with a special on how Mt. St. Helens disproved the whole thing because of petrified trees.
We got tested on that.
My brother and I were enrolled there because my mother wanted to have a job. Our homelife was chaotic and financially unpredictable, and Mom's tactic for solving this was to get a job. She did this several times that I can remember. Sometimes she would try to homeschool us while working. I'd be the one taking care of my brother and supervising both his lessons and my own. Mom would grade our work when she got home. But this was difficult and stressful and more often than not I'd wind up playing dolls upstairs, or digging in the side yard with my brother, or up the nearest tree with a science fiction novel. Sometimes I'd even get my brother wrapped up in a video game, then get on my bike and take off for the library. Then, bookbag balanced on the handlebars, I'd go down to the city park, hide my bike in the bushes and walk down to the riverbank. This time around, she decided to place us in school. I was very excited. It felt like a special treat. I'd get to be with other kids. I'd have all these great new books to read. But because her job started earlier than my dad's, it became his job to get me and my brother to school.
We were never on time. NEVER. I would be outside, sitting in the car fifteen minutes before we were supposed to leave; my father would come out ten minutes after. Then the rush to my classroom, hoping and praying to God that I'd get there and the class would still be there, that this time Assembly was a few minutes late. No luck. Shove the coat and lunch box into the cubby--everybody brought their lunch, the school served no food--and race down the hall. If I was lucky and Dad were quicker I'd make it in time for the Pledge to the Christian Flag or the Pledge to the Bible. More often than not we were on the third or fourth song, and I had to make my way to my class with my head down in shame. I was so awfully, horribly late. It was my fault for not making Dad get out to the car sooner. I'd have to be better tomorrow.
After a few months, though, Dad decided to stop taking us to school.
It wasn't an every day thing. He had a job, after all. But at least once a week, on Tuesday or Wednesday, sometimes on Friday, he'd decide we didn't need to go to school that day. We'd get in the car--I'd be nerviously drumming my fingers on the armrest, worried about being late--and when we got to the highway he'd turn left instead of right and we'd start driving. We'd end up in Weatherbury, or Grandbury, or Dublin, and he'd go to garage sales while we sat in the car. When our grades began to suffer, he'd take my brother to school and keep me out, and we'd be driving, driving, driving all day until it was time to pick my brother up and take us home. We'd go to lunch. He'd tell me how special I was. He'd introduce me to all his friends. I learned to bring books with me because I knew I'd get very bored. I'd ask nicely to listen to Christian radio; more often than not, we just played Rush Limbaugh.
By this time I hated school. I hated how boring the materials were. I hated that we were allowed to use calculators during math, that I wasn't allowed to learn how to calculate square roots longhand, that we spent two weeks on "practical" math, like learning how to read electric meters and how to divide recipes, but only spent one day on pi. I hated that we traded World History--something I'd never gotten to study--for Texas Government. I hated, hated, hated the bible study period. I hated the materials we had to study in language arts. The english teacher had an obsession with Spain, so when it came time to do research reports we were each assigned a different Provence. Some of the books we had to study were good--Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry and Shiloh stand out as high points--but some of them were just teeth-grittingly awful. Johnny Tremaine should never be inflicted on an adult, much less a thirteen year old. Each day we had to read an assigned chapter, summerize what we'd just read, and then identify the parts of the sentences in our summery. This is a noun, this is a verb, this is an adjective. I'd been diagramming sentences since I was eight, so this was completely uninteresting. Finally, I stopped copying down the lessons altogether. I already knew this and I was sick of all of it. I just wanted to go back home to my homemade yarn dolls and the epic fantasy adventure we were having beneath my bed.
At that point, the English teacher pulled me out of class, sat me down, and gave me a long lecture on everything I was doing wrong. And the thing he focused on wasn't that I had stopped participating in the lessons, but that I was skipping school. And I sat there feeling deeply betrayed. I had not understood that Dad was pulling us out without permission from the school. I believed that a parent had every right to simply call in and say "So and so is sick today" and then just...not take us. I sat there, staring back at my teacher, and feeling like I'd just been tricked by all these adults. I'd been told my whole life the world worked a certain way. Now they were telling me it worked differently and that it was my fault I wasn't playing by the rules.
The next day, Dad wanted to keep me home again. I begged and pleaded no. I didn't explain about the talking to I'd gotten--I didn't want to get in trouble with him--so I just said that I really, really wanted to go to school that day. Please. I didn't want to skip it anymore.
He was very hurt. He didn't understand why I did not want to have fun with him anymore.
Now, as an adult, I understand: my brother and I existed for our parents, not for us. They saw school as warehousing kids, a place to get them out of their parent's hair for a few hours so they could go have jobs and whatnot. School was not a place for children. Education was something we got because the government said we had to do it, and because it'd be useful in some far off distant land where we'd be adults and our own people. When Dad decided that he didn't want to put his toys in the School box, he'd keep us out and spend the day amusing himself. When he didn't want to play with us, well, that's what school was for. And of course it all got dressed up in God's Will. We weren't going to evil public school--no hyperbole there, the public school system was the literal tool of Satan and my brother and I were so blessed not to be in it. No matter how bad things got at home, public school would be worse.
There is a part of me that understands how insane all of that sounds. There's another part that still thinks it is normal, that still cannot see what the problem was.
He cut down on the absenteeism, but he'd still do it. And now I'd sit in the car with high anxiety, knowing that the next day I'd be going to school and I'd probably get in trouble again. By then I wasn't allowed to go to recess anymore. I had to sit in class and do additional work to make up for the amount of school I'd skipped. I didn't care; the class had decided that they wanted to play basketball in the gym instead of going outside, and I was sick to death of basketball. I'd much rather sit in the classroom. When I finally got caught up, I still begged off. I didn't want to touch that goddamn ball ever again. I'd memorize bible verses until the class left, then sneak over to the bookcase and snag something interesting, like The Invisible Man or The Dark is Rising.
That's the only good thing I got out of that year of school: it introduced me to Susan Cooper.
When school ended, we moved. We'd been living up north near Dallas, and now we moved back south to just outside of Corpus Christi; that was when the wheels on the family bus really fell off. We went back to homeschooling. We'd learn out of old, battered college textbooks. I'd do research reports on whatever I wanted. I'd read the encyclopedia for fun. I never had to learn to spell. For maybe a year, things were stable. The one thing I knew, though, was that I did not ever want to go back to school. Mom was right--it was just a place to warehouse kids, where learning was limited by the slowest person in class, and where you were not allowed to study anything you wanted, but only what the teacher had assigned you.
After that, some years my mother would ask me if we wanted to enroll in real school or stay at home. I was always adamant. Homeschooling. Real school, I knew, would just be misery all over again.
A few weeks ago my mother and I were talking about the past, and my growing up and homeschooling, and I brought up how abysmal my lone experience with "real" school was. How I was often driven to frustrated tears in Math Class because I didn't understand, and I wanted to, and the rest of the class was just using their calculators when there was this whole wonderful thing we could have been learning about. How much I loathed reading the assigned books. And I mentioned how I got in trouble for absenteeism because Dad kept pulling us out of school.
She stared at me, amazed, because she never knew.
November 9, 2014
Stroke of Midnight chapter 15, Elsie chapter 12
So Frost makes a door into Fairie, and LKH forgets how sentences work.
The police immediately get rolled by fairy magic even though the press didn't, so now Merry and Co. have to oil up the cops.
NO. REALLY.
I am sure this is absolutely necessary to the narrative.
So they grease up the cops. One at a time. In detail. There's a point where one cop asks Merry for a cross instead of whatever sigil Merry intends to use, and Merry says a cross won't work because the faeries aren't evil.
Yeah, but a blizzard doesn't decide to threaten your life, decieve all your senses and potentially abuse you because it would find it entertaining. Also: turning your jacket inside out apparently works better than prayer.
So now the freshly oiled cops start lusting after the fairy men because this makes totally sense. All the men show off, and it takes three pages for them to get back to the plot. Then Galen heads off on his own and Merry has a premonition, so she sends a couple of other guys off with him. Doyle headed off on his own quite a while ago. Then the magic cup appears because why not, it's not like we wanted to actually GET TO THE GODDAMN PLOT.
One of the cops is still making cow-eyes at the men, and Merry has to explain what being elf-struck is to the cops. Who have to deal with them fairly regularly. Eventually they send that person back up topside, because that's the easiest way to resolve the problem. It's also implied that this episode fucked up that woman's life forever, but that's less important than making sure we all understand, Merry's men are PRETTY.
The chapter ends with one of them making the poor bewitched girl cry.
Meanwhile, in Elsie...We finally have a chapter that isn't completely worthless. Christmas is coming up, and Horace gives Elsie extra money so she can buy Christmas presents...after instructing her to keep track of every penny she spends, because "his little girl must not be lazy". He leaves. presents are bought. He comes back. This happens:
You know, a funny thing about growing up in an abusive situation is how quickly we normalize the adult's behaviors. It's a survival mechanism--we are dependant on our parents. They HAVE to be perfect in our eyes because otherwise the world might fall apart. It's the logic of a child. A couple weeks ago a child from one of homeschooling's superstar families came forward with her story. One of the things she said hit very, VERY close to home:
I've got some pretty out there variations in my version of Christianity--tarot cards, new agey things. This last week I finally understood why. It's because a part of getting positive attention from my parents, especially my father, was to repeat exactly what they believed exactly the way it was taught to me. I believe I took a more-than-slightly heretical path because it took my spirituality out of a toxic framework and put it into a place where I couldn't use it in my relationships with my parents. It made it into something that was mine.
Abusive situations are never a continual, ongoing ocean of misery. They do have positive moments. If they didn't, it wouldn't be so very hard to leave. Elsie is getting positive feedback now that she's conformed perfectly to her father's wishes. She's getting presents and affection. She's also gotten the message that if she wishes these things to continue, she is not allowed to have her own thoughts. The only reason her faith has a greater stranglehold on her than her father is that her version of God is exactly the same as her version of Dad, and she doesn't want God angry at her.
When you live with abuse you live for the sake of your abuser. In the process, you forget who you are. And if you're a child, you never get to learn.
It was the door to faerie, all humans go through smiling, but they don’t always come out that way.Ah, the commas that die to provide LKH with run on sentences.
The police immediately get rolled by fairy magic even though the press didn't, so now Merry and Co. have to oil up the cops.
NO. REALLY.
“The queen gave vials of oil to the guard as a precaution in case the reporters became befuddled by the magic that is intrinsic to the sithen, but it was merely a precaution. The main hallways of the sithen have not affected humans in this way for more than fifty years.”And of course it's Merry bringing magic back. Also, there's a random guard who is tattooed with fur all over his body.
I am sure this is absolutely necessary to the narrative.
So they grease up the cops. One at a time. In detail. There's a point where one cop asks Merry for a cross instead of whatever sigil Merry intends to use, and Merry says a cross won't work because the faeries aren't evil.
“We aren’t evil, Carmichael, just other. Contrary to popular myth, holy symbols won’t stop our magic, any more than holding up a cross would stop a blizzard from harming you.”
Yeah, but a blizzard doesn't decide to threaten your life, decieve all your senses and potentially abuse you because it would find it entertaining. Also: turning your jacket inside out apparently works better than prayer.
So now the freshly oiled cops start lusting after the fairy men because this makes totally sense. All the men show off, and it takes three pages for them to get back to the plot. Then Galen heads off on his own and Merry has a premonition, so she sends a couple of other guys off with him. Doyle headed off on his own quite a while ago. Then the magic cup appears because why not, it's not like we wanted to actually GET TO THE GODDAMN PLOT.
One of the cops is still making cow-eyes at the men, and Merry has to explain what being elf-struck is to the cops. Who have to deal with them fairly regularly. Eventually they send that person back up topside, because that's the easiest way to resolve the problem. It's also implied that this episode fucked up that woman's life forever, but that's less important than making sure we all understand, Merry's men are PRETTY.
The chapter ends with one of them making the poor bewitched girl cry.
Meanwhile, in Elsie...We finally have a chapter that isn't completely worthless. Christmas is coming up, and Horace gives Elsie extra money so she can buy Christmas presents...after instructing her to keep track of every penny she spends, because "his little girl must not be lazy". He leaves. presents are bought. He comes back. This happens:
"Well, daughter," he said, passing his hand caressingly over her curls, "papa has brought you a present; will you have it now, or shall it be kept for Christmas?" "Keep it for Christmas, papa," she answered gayly. "Christmas is almost here, and besides, I don't want to look at anything but you to-night."And then Elsie spends most of the rest of the chapter evangelizing to her father.
You know, a funny thing about growing up in an abusive situation is how quickly we normalize the adult's behaviors. It's a survival mechanism--we are dependant on our parents. They HAVE to be perfect in our eyes because otherwise the world might fall apart. It's the logic of a child. A couple weeks ago a child from one of homeschooling's superstar families came forward with her story. One of the things she said hit very, VERY close to home:
The life of abuse isn’t full of anger, getting thrown and smacked and bruised, and being yelled at and torn down. That’s only part of it. You also feel special and needed. You don’t feel like life is hell, even if it is, because you know how to force a smile. It feels good to damage your own health and wellbeing for your abusers, because you’re told that you’re doing what is right. You fight for acceptance and admonition, because you’re always getting small tastes of it, and it’s always just out of reach.I don't know who Cynthia Jeub is, but that paragraph right there is something I've always wanted to say. People who are abused as children are often unaware of just how deep and profound the damage really is. We internalize it and repeat it and perpetuate it because we do not want to lose something we've always seen as a foundation. We do not want to face how shaky that foundation really is.
I've got some pretty out there variations in my version of Christianity--tarot cards, new agey things. This last week I finally understood why. It's because a part of getting positive attention from my parents, especially my father, was to repeat exactly what they believed exactly the way it was taught to me. I believe I took a more-than-slightly heretical path because it took my spirituality out of a toxic framework and put it into a place where I couldn't use it in my relationships with my parents. It made it into something that was mine.
Abusive situations are never a continual, ongoing ocean of misery. They do have positive moments. If they didn't, it wouldn't be so very hard to leave. Elsie is getting positive feedback now that she's conformed perfectly to her father's wishes. She's getting presents and affection. She's also gotten the message that if she wishes these things to continue, she is not allowed to have her own thoughts. The only reason her faith has a greater stranglehold on her than her father is that her version of God is exactly the same as her version of Dad, and she doesn't want God angry at her.
When you live with abuse you live for the sake of your abuser. In the process, you forget who you are. And if you're a child, you never get to learn.
October 23, 2014
Stroke of Midnight chapter 14, Elsie chapter 11
THE POLICE, ALL FLAVORS, STOOD IN THE DECEMBER COLD.POLICE. ARE NOT. POPSICLES.
Well, these guys are because Merry's kept them waiting for-fucking-ever. Oh, she blames the brass, but she's the one who had to investigate brownies going boggart and protest being wrapped in troll fur.
Merry tries to sort through the dick-measuring contest between the local boys and the feds. Apparently the Fairy reservations fall under the same rules as the Native American reservations.
...and that means it falls under fed jurisdiction....which is probably correct (comparison between Shiny Sparklepoo fairies and a demographic that sometimes doesn't even get running water aside) but that would mean we wouldn't have to deal with the BULLSHIT pissing contest. So somehow an overworked St. Louis crime lab is better equipped to handle an investigation than the FBI.
RIGHT.
LKH elects to make the FBI total morons.
Marquez argued , as I’d expected him to. “You are not an officer of any kind, Princess. No offense, but this investigation needs more than just a private detective in charge of it.”
...and yet he somehow manages to score a valid point. The FBI have more resources to focus than St. Louis PD. They don't have to deal with crack-house murders. They don't have to work traffic stops. And also? Given the way cops in the St. Louis area have behaved over the last couple months? They're probably not nearly that fucking racist.
Merry reminds Marquez that she's a goddamn princess.
He asks her if he hurt her feelings.
Merry calls the goddamn wife of the president of the goddamn United States I am not making that up I swear to fucking God.
The First Lady chews Marquez out. He agrees to co-operate.
...I have to admit, that's kind of fucking cool.
The First Lady then gushes over Merry for a few minutes, and then we move on to the rest of the chapter.
...which ends shortly after the lead cop laughs his ass off over the feds getting shown the door by the First Lady.
I really do hate this book.
On to Elsie.
This was published as a series. The version I read originally cut out very large chunks of the next part because it concerns Elsie being happy, and there's nothing to be gained from watching Elsie being happy...at least from the POV of the IDIOTS who decided this should be given to modern children.
There is a LONG, LONG passage about how Horace doesn't really love Jesus. Now, anybody with two braincells to rub together would notice that Horace is a horrible fuck of a human being and that Jesus probably doesn't want to have much to do with him. But Elsie's big concern is that Horace isn't Saved. Her evidence that he isn't Saved? He doesn't give two shits about the Sabbath.
There are many, many theological arguements I can bring concerning that. Suffice to say that Paul addressed it (Romans 14) and the jist of that is that you have to live according to your conscience, but that God is big enough to work with you and if you need to reschedule to Wednesday, he'll be cool with that.
But that kind of flexibility is anathema to these idiots, so Elsie decides her dad isn't saved because her theological teaching doesn't allow for one single fucking mistake, EVER. Great
And thus it was with Elsie. She knew now that her father was not a Christian; that he had no real love for Jesus, none of the true fear of God before his eyes. She saw that if he permitted her to read to him from God's word, as he sometimes did, it was not that he felt any pleasure in listening, but only to please her; she had no reason to suppose he ever prayed, and though he went regularly to church, it was because he considered it proper and respectable to do so, and not that he cared to worship God, or to learn His will.
I have been on the receiving end of this attitude multiple times. I've also handed it out, but in my defense that shit stopped when I was eighteen and smart enough to know better. So we don't all worship God the same way. My way happens to involve self-created rituals and lots of cool incense. Other people use old rituals and lots of cool incense. Other people use neither of those. You know what? The Faith is bigger than having to adhere to a code of conduct. According to basic theology, that was the entire point of the Cross. It's that you DON'T have to play these stupid games anymore. It's that you're able to minister to people on your holy days because they NEED it. You're able to break out of the mold and do what you need to do for others. Not by works but by faith means that you don't need to worry about the nitty gritty legalism of your conduct, and you just need to focus on wheither or not what you do is helpful to the faith or helpful to others. You know that God's got you covered if you fuck up, so it's perfectly alright to jump off the cliff, so to speak, to catch somebody else.
"He could see no necessity for a change of heart; he did not believe in the doctrine of total depravity, not he; no indeed, he thought the world much better than many people would have us believe."Yes. The legalistic religion of an 18th century Calvinist would go that route.
Elsie lifted her eyes timidly to the gentleman's face as she replied, "I was just thinking, sir, of what our Saviour said to Nicodemus: 'Verily, verily I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.' 'Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.'"1. STOP GIVING CHILDREN THE KJV1611 THEY DO NOT HAVE THE EDUCATION TO READ THE FUCKING THING.
2. The conversation between Christ and Nicodemus is really, really complicated, and it's not the kind of thing you trot out during an ANTEBELLUM SOUTH DINNER PARTY.
And of course Elsie "Saves" a random stranger at Daddy's party, but she doesn't manage to save Horace because Plot.
Elsie finally manages to go to bed, and then this happens:
Her questioner followed her with an admiring glance, then turning to her father, exclaimed warmly, "She is a remarkably intelligent child, Dinsmore! one that any father might be proud of. I was astonished at her answers."I wish I didn't know this.
In the 1980s there was a man named Joel Steinberg. His common law wife was named Hedda Nusbaum. Depending on who you talked to they either had an intense S/m relationship OR he was an abusive shithead who abused her on a regular basis (Either case left Hedda horribly disfigured by the abuse she received.) They (Illegally)adopted a kid named Lisa. Lisa was known for being intelligant and rather un-child-like. She was that way because nobody around her was willing to tolerate a child. Lisa Steinberg existed to be an accessory and an emotional crutch for her "parents". She was never allowed to be a child.
Childhood is a very important thing for children to have. All the things that annoy us adults are actually a child practicing things that will be very necessary to adult life. Sabotaging that process by demanding that a child show "wisdom beyond their years" means that they won't learn the very basic building blocks we all need to ensure our social survival.
Elsie is a BADLY neglected child who is expected to pass up her developmental years for the pleasure of the adults around her.
Also, Lisa Steinberg? Died. She was beaten to death by her "father", and then left alone on the floor of a bathroom by her "mother".
So no. I find nothing adorable or admirable about precious Elsie Dinsmore. I see something very sad, very dangerous, and very VERY troubling.
She opened at the third chapter of John's Gospel and read it through. At the sixteenth verse, "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life," she paused, and asked, "Was not that a wonderful gift, papa? and wonderful love that prompted it?"
I had that verse memorized by the time I was six. With exactly that language, because the Sunday Schools, Vacation Bible Schools, homeschooling curriculum AND motherfucking private schools ALL used the KJV 1611 version of the bible.You wanna know what this is like to Christian audiences? You really want to know? If this novel were erotica? This? This is missionary position sex. This is something that everybody could do with their eyes closed through a hole in the sheets. This is a key stop on the goddamn Roman Road. This is not new information to ANYBODY who would still be reading this series.
Don't get me wrong. I like that verse. I'd like it a lot better if I didn't see it a MINIMUM of once a day. I see it so much that it has lost ALL MEANING to me. There is a lovely, beautiful idea encapuslated in those words and I can't see it anymore because it gets shoved in my face EVERY. SINGLE. FUCKING. MINUTE.
The chapter ends with Elsie sobbing because Horace doesn't understand she's trying to SAVE HIS SOUL.
Editing, Free Books, and Other things
First up: Free Book.
This Found Thing
. Get it. Read it. Enjoy it (if possible)
Second: I'm beginning to understand why people don't talk about it when other people abuse them. You have the fear of reprisal, which sucks...and then you get the people who won't stop talking about the thing. EVER. Guys, I am not and do not want to be "That writer that RH stalked" or "That rape victim" ect ect. It's a thing that happened, but it's not my identity. And that is the part that is getting very, very exhausting.
One thing that I dislike is when a victim's story becomes a part of their aggressor's narrative. It erases the identity of the victim, while simultaneously hooking everything about their life to their abuser, forever. I strongly admire people like Malala Yusafzai and Elizabeth Smart, because they both managed to rip their stories out of their abuser's hands and make it about them, their recovery, and about building up other girls like them so that shit like that never happens again. And that's what the point of stuff like this ought to be. It shouldn't be about how terrible Person X is--that should be a part of the story, dear GOD yes, but that shouldn't be the point of the story. The point should be this is what this behavior does, this is how people survive, and this is what we need to stop.
It's not about them, guys. It's not about the people that hurt us. It's about us, and making ourselves and our lives have value above and beyond what other people do to us. There's a line in James Alan Gardner's Vigilant, "Live in the Real and name the lies". I believe a big lie is that the people who harm us have power over us. They don't. They can hurt us, but hurting isn't power. They only get power if we surrender it.
Don't let them get away with it, by all means, but don't let them and what they've done become so much of your life that you don't have room for anything else.
Meanwhile, I am editing books. I am back on the horse, somewhat. Should be able to start talking release dates for the next part of Ivory Scars, Iron Bars very soon. Like, within the next week soon.
So be well, my lovelies. Have a great weekend.
...and, uh, buy books. Mine. If you like. :D
Second: I'm beginning to understand why people don't talk about it when other people abuse them. You have the fear of reprisal, which sucks...and then you get the people who won't stop talking about the thing. EVER. Guys, I am not and do not want to be "That writer that RH stalked" or "That rape victim" ect ect. It's a thing that happened, but it's not my identity. And that is the part that is getting very, very exhausting.
One thing that I dislike is when a victim's story becomes a part of their aggressor's narrative. It erases the identity of the victim, while simultaneously hooking everything about their life to their abuser, forever. I strongly admire people like Malala Yusafzai and Elizabeth Smart, because they both managed to rip their stories out of their abuser's hands and make it about them, their recovery, and about building up other girls like them so that shit like that never happens again. And that's what the point of stuff like this ought to be. It shouldn't be about how terrible Person X is--that should be a part of the story, dear GOD yes, but that shouldn't be the point of the story. The point should be this is what this behavior does, this is how people survive, and this is what we need to stop.
It's not about them, guys. It's not about the people that hurt us. It's about us, and making ourselves and our lives have value above and beyond what other people do to us. There's a line in James Alan Gardner's Vigilant, "Live in the Real and name the lies". I believe a big lie is that the people who harm us have power over us. They don't. They can hurt us, but hurting isn't power. They only get power if we surrender it.
Don't let them get away with it, by all means, but don't let them and what they've done become so much of your life that you don't have room for anything else.
Meanwhile, I am editing books. I am back on the horse, somewhat. Should be able to start talking release dates for the next part of Ivory Scars, Iron Bars very soon. Like, within the next week soon.
So be well, my lovelies. Have a great weekend.
...and, uh, buy books. Mine. If you like. :D
