Several small tantrums make one big one waiting to explode
1. I don't think I'm going to do bigbangblackout after all. I feel bad about this, especially as I've been excited about it since it was first announced. But it feels like this massive stressor hanging over me, and has done for a couple of weeks. Over the past few days my writing's come to a complete stop - even taking myself off to a cafe with a notebook hasn't helped. And basically, I need to be working on writing, not avoiding it.
I'm not going to decide for definite now. I'll have a look over my writing commitments and the current story (what there is of it), and make a decision tomorrow. The art is a big temptation, especially considering the artists who have signed up. But I'm not sure that's a good enough reason to write 20,000 words. :P
2. I was ill this weekend - either mild food poisoning or a chill I caught while out running in the rain. Unfortunately, the boyfriend was more ill, so I ended up running around after him, doing lots of cooking and so on. He is properly ill, he doesn't have man-flu or anything, but...I've gradually been changing things so that we share the shopping, cleaning and cooking more equally, and now it all goes out of the window again. Also, he's sitting in the sunshine on the balcony, playing godawful funk music which is driving me insane. Funk actively irritates me. Argh.
3. I'm on the wrong side of the world from Wimbledon. :(
4. I have been landed with organising a book club which seems to be composed solely of oldbies who can't be arsed to turn up (fine, we all go through phases, and I know they'll be back soon, but do they all have to choose the same time?) and newbies who keep suggesting really obscure books (again, fine if you don't want anyone to actually read them) and 1000-page epics.
5. Some very serious accusations have been made concerning a guy who is very active in a couple of vegan communities that I frequent. From what I can gather, a couple of posts were made to a huge (4000+ members) vegan community accusing a prominent member of being a rapist and serial harasser of women whom he had met through the activist community. They were deleted before I saw them, but a mod note was put up asking people please not to repost the information, as it wasn't appropriate to the community. Cue a shitstorm, with a few people declaring that they knew the accusations were true and a lot of people going, wtf, surely we need to have this information? The mod responded that sure, if the info was true it should be out there, but at the moment there was no solid proof. There was also a discussion on the merits of the guy being dealt with "within the activist community" versus through the police. If the accusations are true, this bloke has moved from one city to another, pulling the same crap each time, without anyone ever going to the police about him.
Four days later, the mods put up another post containing the information from the activist group with a few rebuttals from the accused (with the idea, I think, that the information should at least be out there).
It all makes me extremely uncomfortable. I do believe that people should be considered innocent until proven guilty, but I'm equally aware that rape can be a very difficult crime to 1) report and 2) prove.
If it's true that this guy is a serial rapist and harasser, he's been allowed to get away with it for far too long. And yet, even now that the accusations have been made public, the police are not involved.
On the other hand, if you follow the information trail back, it doesn't really lead anywhere. All you have is the same details copied on three blogs, two of which are on LJ. The other blog is someone with a known grudge against the accused. Googling doesn't help. It therefore remains a possibility that this is a really horrible hoax.
And on the other other hand, the vegan comm in which this has taken place is often frequented by teenagers asking for advice with veganism. As I said, the accused is a high-profile, outspoken member, clearly looked up to in some quarters. He could easily use the comm to identify potential victims; one member has already come forward to say that she asked him to stop contacting her a while back because he was making her uncomfortable.
Gah. ETA: this post provides a bit of info about what's been going on.
There must be some happy stuff?
1. The sun is shining, although it's officially winter now.
2. Britain has a strong contender for the men's Wimbledon title for the first time in god knows how long.
3. I may have fewer words to go on the first draft of my novel than I realised, if only because there's not much more of the story left in my head. (It'll need a LOT of fleshing out in future drafts, in other words.)
4. I ran 5 km on Saturday, five minutes faster than I'd run the same route on Monday.
5. I'm going to a vegan meet-up tomorrow night. I don't know any vegans in real life, and I really need to change that, so fingers crossed on this one.
6. The Broken Records album and new Jarvis Cocker! How could I forget?
I'm not going to decide for definite now. I'll have a look over my writing commitments and the current story (what there is of it), and make a decision tomorrow. The art is a big temptation, especially considering the artists who have signed up. But I'm not sure that's a good enough reason to write 20,000 words. :P
2. I was ill this weekend - either mild food poisoning or a chill I caught while out running in the rain. Unfortunately, the boyfriend was more ill, so I ended up running around after him, doing lots of cooking and so on. He is properly ill, he doesn't have man-flu or anything, but...I've gradually been changing things so that we share the shopping, cleaning and cooking more equally, and now it all goes out of the window again. Also, he's sitting in the sunshine on the balcony, playing godawful funk music which is driving me insane. Funk actively irritates me. Argh.
3. I'm on the wrong side of the world from Wimbledon. :(
4. I have been landed with organising a book club which seems to be composed solely of oldbies who can't be arsed to turn up (fine, we all go through phases, and I know they'll be back soon, but do they all have to choose the same time?) and newbies who keep suggesting really obscure books (again, fine if you don't want anyone to actually read them) and 1000-page epics.
5. Some very serious accusations have been made concerning a guy who is very active in a couple of vegan communities that I frequent. From what I can gather, a couple of posts were made to a huge (4000+ members) vegan community accusing a prominent member of being a rapist and serial harasser of women whom he had met through the activist community. They were deleted before I saw them, but a mod note was put up asking people please not to repost the information, as it wasn't appropriate to the community. Cue a shitstorm, with a few people declaring that they knew the accusations were true and a lot of people going, wtf, surely we need to have this information? The mod responded that sure, if the info was true it should be out there, but at the moment there was no solid proof. There was also a discussion on the merits of the guy being dealt with "within the activist community" versus through the police. If the accusations are true, this bloke has moved from one city to another, pulling the same crap each time, without anyone ever going to the police about him.
Four days later, the mods put up another post containing the information from the activist group with a few rebuttals from the accused (with the idea, I think, that the information should at least be out there).
It all makes me extremely uncomfortable. I do believe that people should be considered innocent until proven guilty, but I'm equally aware that rape can be a very difficult crime to 1) report and 2) prove.
If it's true that this guy is a serial rapist and harasser, he's been allowed to get away with it for far too long. And yet, even now that the accusations have been made public, the police are not involved.
On the other hand, if you follow the information trail back, it doesn't really lead anywhere. All you have is the same details copied on three blogs, two of which are on LJ. The other blog is someone with a known grudge against the accused. Googling doesn't help. It therefore remains a possibility that this is a really horrible hoax.
And on the other other hand, the vegan comm in which this has taken place is often frequented by teenagers asking for advice with veganism. As I said, the accused is a high-profile, outspoken member, clearly looked up to in some quarters. He could easily use the comm to identify potential victims; one member has already come forward to say that she asked him to stop contacting her a while back because he was making her uncomfortable.
Gah. ETA: this post provides a bit of info about what's been going on.
There must be some happy stuff?
1. The sun is shining, although it's officially winter now.
2. Britain has a strong contender for the men's Wimbledon title for the first time in god knows how long.
3. I may have fewer words to go on the first draft of my novel than I realised, if only because there's not much more of the story left in my head. (It'll need a LOT of fleshing out in future drafts, in other words.)
4. I ran 5 km on Saturday, five minutes faster than I'd run the same route on Monday.
5. I'm going to a vegan meet-up tomorrow night. I don't know any vegans in real life, and I really need to change that, so fingers crossed on this one.
6. The Broken Records album and new Jarvis Cocker! How could I forget?