I know it's been forever, but Real Life can be a Bitch
It's been forever, hasn't it? I haven't fallen off the face of the earth, it just feels like it.
So I'm going to be putting a bunch of things up for sale soon. Fandom things, mostly. Autographed photos/banners/calenders, art, manga, etc. Items I know I'll be selling - a calender autographed by Jared Padelecki and Jensen Ackles, a photo print autographed by Patrick Stewart, a photo print autographed by Karl Urban, a large vinyl banner autographed by Tyler Hoechlin, 2 non-autographed large vinyl banners of Tyler Posey, a bunch of KPop posters/cds, 15 volumes of Full Metal Alchemist, 11 volumes of Fruits Basket, 6 volumes of Negumi, 7 volumes of FAKE, 8 volumes of Descendents of Darkness (yami no matsui), 12 volumes of Gravitation, 2 volumes of Wolf's Rain, 5 volumes of Revolutionary Girl Utena, 5 volumes of Sakura Taisen, a few dozen doujinshi from Yu Yu Hakusho and Gundam Wing, 2 yu yu hakusho cloth wall scrolls, 1 dragonball z wall scroll, 1 copy of Beast is the B2st autographed by Junhyung/Dongwoon/Hyunseung, a handful of Gackt photobooks, a L'Arc~en~Ciel photobook, 1 fruits basket artbook, and a handful of other assorted things. I'd probably sell all my autographed things, but most of them are personalized to me because I never really thought there'd come a time when I'd need to sell my memories.
Why has it come to this, you ask? Or maybe you don't care, but I'm going to tell you anyways. It's been a stressful day and I'm still wound up about it all.
Something some of you don't know about me. I have two children. I love them both more than anything in the world.
I love them so much that when their father and I split and all the doctors and counselors and teachers were saying that the stable family unit and general security that my ex and his new wife could provide would be better for them than the instability that I was stuck in, I stopped fighting and let my ex have primary custody.
I was in a bad place physically, mentally, emotionally, financially. I knew that my kids needed things that I didn't have the ability to provide at that time. I wanted what was best for them, even if it killed something inside me to take a step back and accept that my place in their life was largely usurped by a newcomer and that I would become someone they'd see only occasionally, a voice on the other end of a phone.
I trusted that despite our differences, my ex and I could both put our children's welfare above our own.
He them proceeded to move them about as far away in the USA as you could possibly get. I live in Washington state, they live in Pennsylvania.
My daughter handled this separation reasonably well. She was always 'Daddy's little girl' and her own interests align better with her step-mother's than they ever have with mine. It aches to hear her call someone else 'mom', but I'm happy that she's happy and our own relationship has never turned sour despite the distance.
My son is a different matter entirely. If my daughter was Daddy's girl, my son was definitely Mama's best boy. He never bonded particularly well with his father even before the separation and he was definitely old enough to remember how messy things got. Things started off bad and have only gotten worse in the years since.
I won't go into all the dirty details, but needless to say, I've been trying to get my ex to be reasonable and reassess the custody arrangement. The so-called 'stable' environment is not helping our son at all. He's absolutely miserable and just wants his Mom.
I'm sorted out emotionally and physically and I've been working on the financial although a few real messes have landed in my lap over the last couple of months. I do have a stable job, though, and a stable home. I've also come to terms with the fact that I'm just really not that into people on a physical level, so no one can accuse me of bringing a string of men or women into our lives. I've had maybe 5 dates in almost 8 years and I don't think one of those actually counted as a 'date' to anyone but me. Apparently once the idea of sex is tabled to somewhere between 'maybe in a few months when I'm really comfortable with you' and 'indefinitely', most people don't stick around for a second or third date.
My ex will pay lip service to the idea that he's considering it - makes our son promise to bring his grades up and then says 'maybe next year' each time, says that maybe when my job schedule changes (it did), maybe when this happens or that happens. Then he tells his wife (who is now a friend of mine after all these years of mediating between us) that it'll only happen over his dead body. Or throws it into our son's face for any little mistake "you did this wrong so now you can't go live with your mom".
And now his latest justification for refusing to allow our son to come live with me for the next school year - even as just a trial run to see if things get better - is that since I haven't dumped the entire mess into a court and sued for full custody, I obviously don't care what happens at all.
Apparently expecting someone to put their child's welfare above their own pettiness is just stupid.
So, as much as I've wanted to avoid the expense of lawyers and the mess of dragging this through court, it seems like that's what I'm going to have to do.
Of course, this is all coming to a head right now, just after I loaned all my savings and most of my credit card space to my dad to replace his car engine (he's handicapped and the car was his only way back and forth to the doctor as I drive a scooter and we live in the middle of nowhere without easy access to buses/cabs). Also after I committed to volunteering at Evolution Expo in Oakland at the end of June and Star Trek Las Vegas at the end of July. Transportation and stuffs for those are already done and paid for so I can't exactly cancel at this point, but after that, I'm done with the Con circuit for a while even as a volunteer. Which really sucks since I'd been planning on using the experience I was getting as a Con volunteer as a leg up to a position inside my current place of employment with better pay and less grease.
Hence the having to part with things that I don't really want to part with.
But hey, they're just things. I can probably replace most of them eventually.
We're all in one jam or another down here on Earth, but once I get the stuff up, I hope some of you will consider buying some of it or pass the links along to anyone you know who might be interested. I have to take pictures and stuff.
I've considered offering up my writing like some fandom auctions do and my brother has made noise about being willing to art, but I don't really know how well that would work. I'm okay, but I'm not all that and he's actually pretty good, but his access to the internet is spotty. I don't know. Maybe that's something we'll consider later (although if anyone is actually interested, please PM me and let me know.)
For those rare people who aren't as financially constrained as most of us, I'm not too proud to ask for donations. Not when it comes to my son.
My paypal address is j.renee.raines@gmail.com Any gift would be appreciated and I will send all the good karma back that I can.
I'd set up a donation button on my livejournal/tumblr page/etc, but... I fail at technology. Like. Really badly. I might manage one on my profile page, but I don't know. We'll see how dummied down paypal's instructions are.
So yeah. There's my sob story.
So I'm going to be putting a bunch of things up for sale soon. Fandom things, mostly. Autographed photos/banners/calenders, art, manga, etc. Items I know I'll be selling - a calender autographed by Jared Padelecki and Jensen Ackles, a photo print autographed by Patrick Stewart, a photo print autographed by Karl Urban, a large vinyl banner autographed by Tyler Hoechlin, 2 non-autographed large vinyl banners of Tyler Posey, a bunch of KPop posters/cds, 15 volumes of Full Metal Alchemist, 11 volumes of Fruits Basket, 6 volumes of Negumi, 7 volumes of FAKE, 8 volumes of Descendents of Darkness (yami no matsui), 12 volumes of Gravitation, 2 volumes of Wolf's Rain, 5 volumes of Revolutionary Girl Utena, 5 volumes of Sakura Taisen, a few dozen doujinshi from Yu Yu Hakusho and Gundam Wing, 2 yu yu hakusho cloth wall scrolls, 1 dragonball z wall scroll, 1 copy of Beast is the B2st autographed by Junhyung/Dongwoon/Hyunseung, a handful of Gackt photobooks, a L'Arc~en~Ciel photobook, 1 fruits basket artbook, and a handful of other assorted things. I'd probably sell all my autographed things, but most of them are personalized to me because I never really thought there'd come a time when I'd need to sell my memories.
Why has it come to this, you ask? Or maybe you don't care, but I'm going to tell you anyways. It's been a stressful day and I'm still wound up about it all.
Something some of you don't know about me. I have two children. I love them both more than anything in the world.
I love them so much that when their father and I split and all the doctors and counselors and teachers were saying that the stable family unit and general security that my ex and his new wife could provide would be better for them than the instability that I was stuck in, I stopped fighting and let my ex have primary custody.
I was in a bad place physically, mentally, emotionally, financially. I knew that my kids needed things that I didn't have the ability to provide at that time. I wanted what was best for them, even if it killed something inside me to take a step back and accept that my place in their life was largely usurped by a newcomer and that I would become someone they'd see only occasionally, a voice on the other end of a phone.
I trusted that despite our differences, my ex and I could both put our children's welfare above our own.
He them proceeded to move them about as far away in the USA as you could possibly get. I live in Washington state, they live in Pennsylvania.
My daughter handled this separation reasonably well. She was always 'Daddy's little girl' and her own interests align better with her step-mother's than they ever have with mine. It aches to hear her call someone else 'mom', but I'm happy that she's happy and our own relationship has never turned sour despite the distance.
My son is a different matter entirely. If my daughter was Daddy's girl, my son was definitely Mama's best boy. He never bonded particularly well with his father even before the separation and he was definitely old enough to remember how messy things got. Things started off bad and have only gotten worse in the years since.
I won't go into all the dirty details, but needless to say, I've been trying to get my ex to be reasonable and reassess the custody arrangement. The so-called 'stable' environment is not helping our son at all. He's absolutely miserable and just wants his Mom.
I'm sorted out emotionally and physically and I've been working on the financial although a few real messes have landed in my lap over the last couple of months. I do have a stable job, though, and a stable home. I've also come to terms with the fact that I'm just really not that into people on a physical level, so no one can accuse me of bringing a string of men or women into our lives. I've had maybe 5 dates in almost 8 years and I don't think one of those actually counted as a 'date' to anyone but me. Apparently once the idea of sex is tabled to somewhere between 'maybe in a few months when I'm really comfortable with you' and 'indefinitely', most people don't stick around for a second or third date.
My ex will pay lip service to the idea that he's considering it - makes our son promise to bring his grades up and then says 'maybe next year' each time, says that maybe when my job schedule changes (it did), maybe when this happens or that happens. Then he tells his wife (who is now a friend of mine after all these years of mediating between us) that it'll only happen over his dead body. Or throws it into our son's face for any little mistake "you did this wrong so now you can't go live with your mom".
And now his latest justification for refusing to allow our son to come live with me for the next school year - even as just a trial run to see if things get better - is that since I haven't dumped the entire mess into a court and sued for full custody, I obviously don't care what happens at all.
Apparently expecting someone to put their child's welfare above their own pettiness is just stupid.
So, as much as I've wanted to avoid the expense of lawyers and the mess of dragging this through court, it seems like that's what I'm going to have to do.
Of course, this is all coming to a head right now, just after I loaned all my savings and most of my credit card space to my dad to replace his car engine (he's handicapped and the car was his only way back and forth to the doctor as I drive a scooter and we live in the middle of nowhere without easy access to buses/cabs). Also after I committed to volunteering at Evolution Expo in Oakland at the end of June and Star Trek Las Vegas at the end of July. Transportation and stuffs for those are already done and paid for so I can't exactly cancel at this point, but after that, I'm done with the Con circuit for a while even as a volunteer. Which really sucks since I'd been planning on using the experience I was getting as a Con volunteer as a leg up to a position inside my current place of employment with better pay and less grease.
Hence the having to part with things that I don't really want to part with.
But hey, they're just things. I can probably replace most of them eventually.
We're all in one jam or another down here on Earth, but once I get the stuff up, I hope some of you will consider buying some of it or pass the links along to anyone you know who might be interested. I have to take pictures and stuff.
I've considered offering up my writing like some fandom auctions do and my brother has made noise about being willing to art, but I don't really know how well that would work. I'm okay, but I'm not all that and he's actually pretty good, but his access to the internet is spotty. I don't know. Maybe that's something we'll consider later (although if anyone is actually interested, please PM me and let me know.)
For those rare people who aren't as financially constrained as most of us, I'm not too proud to ask for donations. Not when it comes to my son.
My paypal address is j.renee.raines@gmail.com Any gift would be appreciated and I will send all the good karma back that I can.
I'd set up a donation button on my livejournal/tumblr page/etc, but... I fail at technology. Like. Really badly. I might manage one on my profile page, but I don't know. We'll see how dummied down paypal's instructions are.
So yeah. There's my sob story.