Hey folks. I'm in SF now. I'm actuallly staying at the hotel where we're having the F2F.

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So you should have time to switch rooms if its a tiny little closet!

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Well, the internet works. So that's good.

Took about 20 minutes to drive here from the Oakland airport.

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The thing with going to bed super early? You wake up. And instead of it being 3 or 4 and obviously time to be asleep so you lie in bed awake for a while until hopefully going back to sleep? Well, I'm posting...

I'm afraid to say, my daughter would probably say the same thing about me, for I am your mother, Teppy. She despairs of me.

This possibly describes mine as well. But I adore her far more than I despair of her.

There is a place in LA that has a bacon, peanut butter and swiss burger called the menage a trois.

I'm sorry, but peanut butter on a hamburger just sounds like ten kinds of wrong.

I'd actually ordered it to be what I thought to be saucy (I was barely 18, what did I know?) but it was good. The peanut butter was served in a little container on the side, or maybe I had asked for it that way, like ranch or something and as I dabbed bits on it on the burger? Teh yum. And thus I converted from ordering something to seem "daring" to just having a damn good burger. Which is not to convert others.

Still, it does bother me. Because I don't think knowing how to defend yourself ensures you won't be abused.

I don't think women, or men, that are abused are all unable to physically defend themselves. Which means that even strong people can be abused. So it would be nice if someone asked the, "You okay?" in a real way. Unless people like my doctor are looking for other signs than just the fearsome bruises and we just don't show one of those. It's certainly not shame cause sometimes I am loathe to admit how I managed to mangle myself so well.

In what is actually other news, the last round with the creepy stalker woman made me realize that some self-defense training is something I want to try. I just have to get over my fear that I am so badly coordinated that I will fail and actually try. Because even my fears realize that I can learn the self-defensey part. I am just not sure how well I would do if I then wanted to get into actually learning it as an art. A smarter person would just go to a class and find out.

A smarter person would also be asleep though. It is pretty well established that I am not that smarter person.

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A smarter person would also be asleep though.

Just because its five o'clock in the morning? P'shaw.

My great "take a five day weekend and clean the fuck out of the house" plan worked -- I was just off by about half a day. Which I am doing now. OK, half a night. Or a whole night -- which is like half a day. No, I'm not getting punchy. I AM glad that Cabil is coming or I'd have given up and gone to bed. And then the house wouldn't be done. And that would be sad. So in another couple of hours I'm going to take a nice Lushy shower and go to work and make this a true blue all-nighter because that's just the gal I am (and its silly to get two hours sleep anyway and everybody knows that).

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I'm watching this thing on Reconstruction. This one guy, Whatever Morston III is entirely too smug and proud of his ancestors' various crimes.

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Still, it does bother me. Because I don't think knowing how to defend yourself ensures you won't be abused.

I don't think its a matter of physical ability at all (well, other than in the immediate sense during a particular attack). It's very much a mental place that tolerates ongoing abuse. I don't mean "tolerates" as in "oh, this is ok, honest"... hmm... this is not coming out well. I mean some people would simply never stay in that situation and Cass is one of them. Most adult people, even, would not stay in that situation. The vast majority of people I would think. I'm just babbling now. I'll go spray some bubbles.

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So in another couple of hours I'm going to take a nice Lushy shower and go to work and make this a true blue all-nighter because that's just the gal I am (and its silly to get two hours sleep anyway and everybody knows that).

Enjoy the Lushness and your very clean house.

I slammed some Benedryl because I am obviously allergic to breathing. It might lead to sleeping again. Not as a side effect of the Benedryl so much as a side effect of breathing without dripping.

Actual wolverines? Look nothing like I expected them to look. Or like Hugh Jackman for that matter.

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I mean some people would simply never stay in that situation and Cass is one of them.

When I was 16/17, I had a boyfriend who was verbally abusive. Actually abusive.

And it wasn't the obvious thing to walk away. I mean, it was once I got my head around it and then I got the hell out of there fast but it wasn't just a gut reaction the first time it happened.

He didn't hit me but I don't know if I would have reacted any faster if he had.

I know that *now* I would be out the door immediately though. And that is good knowledge to have.

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I know that *now* I would be out the door immediately though. And that is good knowledge to have.

I think it has a learning curve to it, in lots of ways we hopefully aren't the same people we were at 17.

At 19 I was hit once and told him if it happened a second time he'd never see me again. A few months later it did and I was true to my word. At the time "it was an argument, we were really going at it" seemed sufficient for me to give him a second chance -- now I doubt it would. I've learned lots of things since learning that being back-handed involves looking up at the ceiling and thinking "holy shit, he just back-handed me" and THEN "shit, that hurts."

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