JB and I like to go to a Chinese buffet in town.  There are two main ones, but this one’s a little less expensive, and has the garlic green beans I like.

It’s the little things, truly.

The past couple of times we’ve gone, including tonight, the gentleman who always seats us has waved to us to a back booth, close to the desserts, and has automatically gone to get us a couple of sweet teas.

Not that we eat desserts all the time, but that booth is usually open, and we always want a booth.

It’s so weird to have someone not only recognize you and wave you in, but just have everything waiting for you.

It’s a very small step toward feeling at home here, too.

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What sort of things make you feel at home when you’re out and about?  Do you have any local restaurants where the staff knows you and takes good care of you?

…but I have to write SOMEthing in here, right?

My left ring finger is infected again.  Now it’s the left side of the nail, rather than the right.  I can’t blame poor circulation, because my fingers have been too large for me to wear my wedding set for several months.  I haven’t bitten my fingernails in a while, so that just means that the nail is growing incorrectly.  Awesome.  I only mention this first because it’s annoying as fuck.

Oh, and I have purple hair.  I’ll take a photo once the large splotches on my forehead fade a bit more.  I had to sit on my shower seat (new acquisition – it helps a lot, thankfully) and lean forward to apply the color, and it just kind of spread downward before I could get at it with a shampoo-soaked washcloth.

I have the entire series of House (i.e. I FREAKIN’ LOVE PIRATE BAY), and am nearly through the first season.  I’ve been watching the day-long marathons on Wednesdays (Sleuth channel) and Sundays (Bravo), and it’s actually surprising how random the shows are in terms of the order played.  I don’t watch ALL day, of course.  But man, I love that show.  If I were to be addicted to a “story”/soap, this is it.

I also have the entire series of Rugrats, along with two of the movies, so…um…there’s may also be something wrong with my taste in television.

I am now going to eat leftover spaghetti with freshly baked biscuits.  Nomtastic.

I’m out of town this week, with shoddy internet access, so I’ll catch you guys when I return.

<3

On tonight’s show, things got serious, and I shared something about myself that will probably reach many more people than it did here on my blog when I wrote about it.

I know I’ve gained some new readers in the past year, and there are some who were shocked/surprised at what I revealed.  Others may have just missed the admission.  Either way, here’s some insight into why I carry.

In 2005, I was a victim of rape.  I didn’t listen to my gut, and ended up in a horrible relationship.

In 2006, I started this blog, albeit at another location, to basically bitch about victimization of the population, as well as all of the stupid stuff I was seeing government employees do.

Due to the former rapist stalking me, and the police in my area being very unhelpful about it, I decided to read up on gunny blogs and see what I needed to do in order to acquire a gun, and a carry permit.  At this time, I was terrified of my ex, but my terror seemed larger to me than necessary, because I seriously didn’t remember the rape at that point.

I bought my first gun, began practicing, and began exploring carry options.

In 2008, it finally HIT me that I’d been raped.  I can’t explain it any better than “repression”…I guess with everything else that was going on at the time, my brain decided that I didn’t need to try to deal with that stress in 2005?

That was a bad school semester, and that was the point where my fibromyalgia began to come out.  The stress of dealing with the rape memories/flashbacks (i.e. torture at random times during the day), school, the end of one relationship and the beginning of another, moving, etc., caused my body to freak out.  I am now unable to do really simple things, and some of those are necessary for my self-defense.

As such, I’m very sensitive about the subject, and really, really hate it when people say that some women who get raped deserve it.

I also resent being told that my body and my life are not an important enough reason to NOT post my information in a public forum on the internet by a NYT-wannabe newspaper.

Not only did being raped teach me to trust my gut when it came to guys I was with, it also helped me to realize that the only person who could have prevented it was ME.

I put myself in an awful spot, and was so far between a rock and a hard place by the time I realized it that I couldn’t go anywhere.  I was trapped by my own inattention to very obvious signs that I’d had yet to identify.

I became a victim.

As I mentioned in one of the linked posts, these past couple of years, I’ve been a victim who is learning.  A friend told me she hoped that I would one day become a survivor.

I believe that now, in the face of everything else that has been going on, I can finally say that I am a rape survivor, rather than a rape victim.  I will always have that past of having been victimized, but I’ve moved on with my life.  I’m married to a wonderful man, I no longer live in a city where I feel vulnerable, and – this is the most important part – I have too much other shit to worry about, and I don’t have time any more to dwell on the past.  The present is all I have, and I intend to live in that present as much as possible.

How can I begin to heal if I’m constantly picking at scabs and scars?

How can my body begin to de-stress (and hopefully begin to feel better) if I’m always remembering the times when I was weak?

I won’t lie – I appreciate words of encouragement, and the offers to “off” the offender are taken in the spirit in which they are given.

But I don’t want anyone to feel sorry for me.

I want you to learn from my mistake, and NEVER let yourself be in a position where you invite someone to victimize you.  There are things and situations we can’t control, but if you do everything in your power to avoid coming across as a victim (either externally or internally – the power of thought is not to be under-rated), then you are not only less likely to actually become a victim, but you’re less likely to FEEL like a victim if something happens.

Hell – someone most of us know had to throw a cup of hot coffee at someone to keep from being robbed.  The distraction of the coffee was enough to distract the would-be robber so that a gun could be drawn.

The greatest weapon you have is your mind.

The greatest defense is your ability to reason.

The greatest real-life tool for defense is improvisation.

When all that fails, having a gun or knife on you can save your life.

The thing is, though, that you have to be willing to use it.

Please don’t wait until you’re in my shoes to make a decision to protect yourself.

You’re the only you there is, and you’re worth saving.

I ordered a pair of these shoes last week (photo is linked to product page):

I received them yesterday.

Some initial notes, since I haven’t actually worn them out anywhere, yet, but have instead aimlessly wandered around my very small house in them for a short period of time:

• I have very long toes.  I’m a long-time wearer of toe socks in the winter, but those stretch to cover your toes, and the bottoms of the toe-sleeve things actually hit the spaces between where my toes meet my foot.  These?  Don’t.  It makes it a bit hard to balance, having control of your toes, yet not being able to really use them.  Perhaps this will improve over time.
• I’m used to buying shoes with wiggle room for my toes, in the event of a foot cramp (like when my middle toe tries to hide under my second toe…holy shit, does that suck).  My big toe is RIGHT up against the front of this shoe.  It’s not uncomfortable (I’m not getting any fancy pedicures any time soon, though), but it feels really, really, really, really weird.  Again…I’m sure I’ll get used to it.
• My foot looks like an anatomical re-creation made for a robot.  JB pointed this out, and now I can’t stop thinking of “I, Robot.”
• Apparently I’ve been developing flat feet since I gained weight – these are forcing me to balance on my entire foot, which is good…but again, will take getting used to.

It remains to be seen whether these were worth the $85 I spent on them, but I’m always more comfortable wandering around in socks than I am shoes, so these may prove to help my joints where the MBT shoes have sort of failed.

Be sure to tune in tonight at 7pm EST to hear Breda and me talk to JayG and Lissa about not only the AWESOME that is the NE Bloggershoot, but also to hear about Lissa’s transformation from “guns go bang?” to “wanna borrow my pistol?” – it’s pretty damned inspiring.

See you all there!

Check the left sidebar, y’all.

Sportsman’s Guide asked me to post a link to their ammunition page.

I’m definitely no stranger to this sort of thing, and I like Sportsman’s Guide.  So there you go.

If you’re interested in finding good ammo at a reasonable price, they’re a good option.

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(FTC disclaimer:  Take a wild guess why I’m posting the link.)

Even though I’m turning 27, I still have just enough excitement about my birthdays left in me that I wake up really early and can’t get back to sleep.

It’s not like there’s anything waiting for me, like on Christmas.  Incidentally, I can sleep late on Christmas morning.  Discuss amongst yourselves.

On Saturday, my local family (two sisters, nephew, dad, stepmom) took JB and me out to eat at Crepe Maker (NOMNOMNOM), then we went home and had cupcakes (with strawberry AND chocolate icing), and I got some presents.  I got the newest “Alice in Wonderland” DVD, got a bunch of colorful socks (if you know me, you know how excited I was), and a $25 Mastercard gift card.

THEN, to make a long story short, I got the money to buy myself a recumbent bike.

Which is now sitting in my living room, awaiting the 4 D-sized batteries it requires to do things like amuse me and check my heart rate.

Today, I’m going to see “Salt” with some friends, then I’ll spend the evening alone, hanging out quietly with my hubby while he decompresses from his first day of teaching (!!!!).

It’s only 7:30am, but my birthday, so far this year, has been pretty amazing.