I'm not quite ready to delete my LJ. But after this post, I will no longer be cross-posting there; if you want to read me, you'll have to come to DW.

/PSA

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The really short version: Morgan, my dad, and I went to Waikiki for a week and had an absolutely incredible time, and now we're back to reality.

( the longer version, with a few picsCollapse )

( images belowCollapse )

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A bunch of stuff has happened this week so:

1. We had the tech out to service the heat pump and discovered the blower motor had broken something and had to be replaced. $1200 later, it's working fine, but, um, ouch?

2. After weeks, I finally have my damn antibiotics. ( lemme explainCollapse )

3. I did a thing and I'm proud of myself for it. A local yoga studio was offering a six-week intro course, for people who hadn't done yoga before or were out of practice. I am years out of practice so I signed up for the intro. The first class was Wednesday and despite social anxiety and depression and blah blah I actually freaking went and I'm very glad I went. Now I just have to go back next week.

4. Still proud I finished WC. I'm not exactly surprised I did it, because I knew I was going to finish it, but I'm still amazed it actually happened if that makes sense.

5. I'm ahead of my GYWO goal for the year so far (not hard since we're just a month in) but I'm a lot less fussed about completing it this year because I did complete the thing that meant the most. I'll have a breakdown post of WC numbers later, because I want to combine all my disparate WC files and see what Word says my total is as compared to AO3.

6. Politics continues to be a nightmare (dear international friends: we are so very sorry. he lost the popular vote by 3 million votes. we think russian operatives put him in office. he represents the worst of us and we're doing what we can. please send good thoughts and stay away from our country until it stops setting itself on fire) and I am frustrated that the next mass protest day will be when Morgan and I are in Hawaii so we can't go. We'll have to see if there's anything in Hawaii. ( More hereCollapse )

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Wild Card, chap 1/89

587,330 words posted, so I definitely wrote over 600k. I started writing/posting this story around October 2013 and have been working on it ever since. There were some breaks for other projects, or for writing brain not working, but if you figure I had roughly 90 chapters and 3 years, that's 30 chapters a year. Slightly more than one every two weeks. It didn't always go that smoothly. Obviously.

This sprawling, messy, giant epic probably needs a massive editing hack, but you know what? I love it and I've posted this as is and no one's hated me except someone who somehow missed the wingfic tag and got grumpy because wings.

Also. I said this over on AO3 and it deserves saying again. This story is dedicated to, and in some ways exists because of, my darling tigertale7. It would not exist as it is without her, and whatever did exist would be a much lesser story. The flaws are wholly mine, though.

I'm ahead of my GYWO goal for the year but there's suddenly so much less pressure. Nothing else I've got in progress is being posted, so I have the luxury of writing whatever the hell I want and I'll post something when I finish it. I'm glad I did WC as a WIP because I might not have finished it otherwise but I don't think I want to do that again.

I'm...gonna sit here for a bit.

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Morgan and I went to our local "sister march" yesterday, which was locally being called Womxn's March on Seattle. It was...incredible. So, so many people. So much pink. So many determined, fierce, brave people who will not take this administration's intentions lying down.

The organizers for Seattle expected maybe 50,000 people but the last estimates I heard were 100,000 at the low end and up to 175,000. I don't think they've finished counting yet; not sure. But every single march had higher participation than people expected. As of last night I heard somewhere between 3.3 and 4.2 million people marched yesterday--and that's in the US alone. There were marches on all SEVEN continents (yes, even Antarctica had a demonstration; can you blame them? They know better than a lot of people the dangers of climate change).

This isn't the start of the fight but it feels like the start of something big. Because that's what we have to remember--this is going to be a long fight. We have a lot of battles to wage over legislation and Cabinet appointees, and we have to prepare for the 2018 midterms if we're to stand a chance of salvaging this country from the disaster Trump will make it.

I'm really, really glad we went. I went in large part because Morgan really wanted to go and didn't want to go alone, but as we both thought I was happier once I was there. It really was amazing to be there, to see everyone from someone with a pin from the 1970 NY pride parade to little kids being carried by their parents. (The kids were the best, really, and so many of them were SO HAPPY to be there.)

We've learned a couple lessons for next time--one, bring a lightweight backpack, because I just had my purse and next time I want something I can put on both shoulders. Two, bring sunglasses even if it's not supposed to be sunny. Three, stay hydrated although I did that mostly. They were giving out water and I grabbed a couple bottles. Four, make signs. I think mine will be like "So bad this introvert is marching".

There were some great signs we saw yesterday, including a bunch of "This Pussy Grabs Back" and "Stronger Together" and the like. There was a little boy whose sign said "I'm not allowed to talk about women like the President". Someone with Trump quotes on index cards pinned all over her jacket, and man, he's revolting. A bunch of "I can't believe we still have to protest this shit", and I saw at least one "Another Pissed Off Grandma" that was awesome.

Online I saw a dog wearing a shirt that said "Good boys don't grab" and another dog wearing a sign that said "Even I know NO means NO". Morgan and I had thought--very, very briefly--about taking Buddy to the march but decided almost immediately that would be a Bad Idea. It'd be too many people and too much stimulation and he'd go nuts, or get scared, and either way we wouldn't really have had a good time at the march. (Many thanks to my dad who came over and hung out with Buddy and walked him so we could go.)

We took the bus into Seattle, because there's a park and ride seven minutes away from the house with a bus that goes right to downtown. By the time the bus got into Seattle it was full, almost entirely with marchers. But we had to connect to a city bus to get to the start of the march and they kept passing us because they were full. Literally about six went by. Then someone else had the bright idea to call Uber and I said "You know what? I'm doing that too" so I downloaded an app and within five minutes we were in the car headed to the park.

I know Uber is evil but there were no taxis around and we had to get there, and no, it wasn't walkable especially if we were walking the full 3+ mile route.

Morgan and I did bail before the end of the march though. It started at Judkins Park (not the best starting location tbh) and walked to Seattle Center, and we got somewhere between 2/3 and 3/4 done and when we got to Westlake I asked if we could bail because my head was starting to twinge and I was reaching my limit of crowd people. So we waited for half an hour or something to use the bathrooms and then got the bus home...

...and then we got home and I discovered my wallet was missing. I am hopeful it just fell out of my purse on the bus. I know I had it before we went to the march because I bought a pussyhat, but it was not in there when I looked in Morgan's car (we had gone for lunch and I'd gone to get my wallet out to pay and hey, no wallet). I have canceled my debit card and my credit card, and I have a bunch of other cards that need to get canceled but I'm holding on those until I can call Sound Transit and find out if they have my wallet. If they do, no cancelations necessary. If they don't, well, fuck me and then I have to remember all the other cards in my wallet to cancel them.

(Lost & Found opens tomorrow at 7. Hope with me my wallet is in Lynnwood.)

But. Overall, a really great day. It's just--this isn't enough. This is a first step. We have a long two years til the midterms and we have to be ready to take back what we can. Tomorrow I will call both my senators to ask them to vote against Sessions for AG and Tillerson for State, and find out if a PP center near me needs volunteers. What are you doing?

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Last night was both the first night of Hanukkah and Christmas Eve, so I decided I wanted to have a Hanukkah latke party. So we did, although Morgan, my dad and I were the only actual Jewish people there.

( about the food because damn I was goodCollapse )

In other news, politics continues to be terrifying and I'm still on a fairly high news moratorium--I see headlines, I decide "I can't even" and move on. Sanders and I are talking about starting a political blog, just so we have somewhere to vent properly.

( migraine stuffCollapse )

Homeowner stuff: We had to replace our downstairs toilet Thursday. It's been kind of problematic for a while--you had to work the handle just right to keep it from running. But Wednesday it started running and wouldn't stop until I jury-rigged the tank to keep the float high enough it wouldn't. I called the plumber and they came out first thing Thursday morning, and told me either I needed to rebuild the tank mechanism or replace the toilet.

But these are the original toilets with the house and they're not old but they're also not great toilets. So rather than pay to fix a crappy toilet we might have to fix again soon, I opted to just replace the whole thing with a much better toilet. So now we have a Toto toilet downstairs.

However that was more expensive than I had planned on. I am certain, as is my dad, that a toilet can be replaced much more cheaply than what we paid for it, but we were kind of in a time crunch and I bit the bullet. I do want to replace the toilet in my bathroom once I'm working again, so when that happens we'll figure it out.

I have a post on books coming but today is not the day for it.

Happy Holidays, everyone, regardless of what you observe.

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I honestly feel like I'm living in a nightmare right now, like this can't possibly be real and surely I'll wake up tomorrow and this won't have happened.

And then I remember that reality is the nightmare right now and I just crash into either terror or despair. I'm kind of alternating between those two and anger, depending on whether I've been skimming the news. I haven't actually read the news since the election. I can't. I just can't read the terrible people he's picking for his *gag* transition team and his meetings with President Obama and I just can't do it. So I'm on a mostly news hiatus except (and you can laugh at me) what I see on FB or Twitter.

However, I have my FB and Twitter feeds set up so that what I see is left-leaning in nature and if it's not I just scroll by.

My personal FB has gotten a lot more political since the election and there have been a few arguments and just...no. If you voted for Trump, you voted for hatred, and I do not have to respect or compromise with that. There can be no negotiation if one side's premise is that certain people are worth less, are less human and American than others. I figure anyone who doesn't want to see it can unfollow me or unfriend me, but again: anger is one of the ones and yeah.

I heard somewhere that there's a petition on my college campus to make it a safe haven. Not sure what's involved with that or what it might entail but I do love my college, so much, and we've come together to support each other this week and I cling to that.

But I'm terrified. Intellectually, I know that I'm a cis white woman in a hetero marriage with financial resources. I live in a blue area of a blue state (Go West Coast progressives) and my personal life is less in danger than some.

But I'm Jewish, and I'm seeing swastikas and Sieg Heil spray-painted on the mountain local to my college, and it's the 78th anniversary of Kristallnacht and I'm terrified we're going to have another one before we get to 80. I'm kind of glad we never put up our mezuzzah (note, I haven't actually seen any Trump signs around my neighborhood, and didn't before the election) because I don't know what's out there anymore.

This is not the country I recognize and I don't know if I belong in it. Last time it started with the Jews; this time is it starting with the Muslims? With the immigrants?

I'm scared.

If you're on Twitter, I'm over there somewhat sporadically but likely more now. Username, as always, is blueraccoon.

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I am devastated. I am heartbroken, honestly; I feel like this is not the country I grew up in, the one I want to belong to. I'm terrified of the future. I'm scared for my iWife, who has insurance through Medicaid and will likely lose it in the spring. She's scared for her life, because she says open season has just been declared on people who look like her, or look like immigrants.

I'm queer. I'm Jewish. I'm female. And half my country thinks I'm a lesser person because of those things, that I don't deserve the same rights as they do.

This is a really good response: http://the-orbit.net/brutereason/author/brutereason/

If you voted for Trump, please remove me from your friends list. I can't be friends with someone who voted for a sexual predator and racist misogynist. If you voted third party and live in a swing state, please do the same.

It's the 78th anniversary of Kristallnacht and I feel like before we get to the 80th there's going to be another one, aimed at Muslims. Or Mexicans, or anyone of color. I've never been so selfishly glad I'm white and upper middle class, and I hate that I have to rely on privilege to feel even the tiniest bit safe in my country. That's the biggest load of bullshit ever and yet I don't know what else I can do.

I'm terrified. I don't know where we go next. But I could really use a few hugs.

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