Random raves

Hi all, I've been very quiet on here the last couple of years - it's been one thing after another, frankly. Back in NZ for 19 months, lots of good stuff going on there, but back to Oz in the end because the commuting got a bit much. Got my job-before-last at my old work back, and it's been challenging - work politics have gotten worse, if anything, but at least I'm in a purely technical role.

I'm enjoying Canberra a lot more this time round, due to a settled relationship (plus some other lovely people in my life), and the joys of air-conditioning when needed.

Still doing my grad dip in Information Design, very slowly. Hoped to finish this year, but the 2nd-to-last course I need to do isn't till the second half of this year. Couldn't do it last semester due to a nutcase work schedule. Oh well, at least my plans for an alternate career are still progressing.

[A bit of 101 cross-posted from Fetlife]

I'm really sick of some individuals bitching about the term "rape culture". I realise it's confronting and in-your-face. It's intended to be.

It doesn't mean that women are labelling all or even most men as rapists. It certainly doesn't mean they are labelling YOU as a rapist - if that's the case, and they are speaking up, they won't be faffing around with that term - they would just say that "you're a rapist/abuser/creep". Simple.

But here is a nice concise definition to help explain the concept:

["Rape culture" is] referring to the culture that makes rape incredibly common, blames the victims for putting themselves in a position where they could be raped, and teaches women to avoid, at all costs, making a fuss over things that make them feel threatened, because they won’t be taken seriously anyway. It’s the culture that lets men get away with doing the things that make women feel threatened, because their feelings are so much more important than the women’s feelings.

To add to that, it's not just women (and trans* and gender-ambiguous people) who are subjected to the fallout of rape culture. It's the men who are supposed to believe they "can't help themselves". It's men being told that women have amazing skills at reading body language that men can't attain [1]. It's the decent guys who are supposed to yuk along with their mates making the shitty unwanted sexualised jokes and remarks [2]. It's being tarred with the same brush as that minority of men who go beyond the jokes and skeevy behaviour to actual sexual assault. As Kate Harding says:

...You and the guys you hang out with may not really mean anything by it when you talk about crazy bitches and dumb sluts and heh-heh-I’d-hit-that and you just can’t reason with them and you can’t live with ‘em can’t shoot ‘em and she’s obviously only dressed like that because she wants to get laid and if they can’t stand the heat they should get out of the kitchen and if they can’t play by the rules they don’t belong here and if they can’t take a little teasing they should quit and heh heh they’re only good for fucking and cleaning and they’re not fit to be leaders and they’re too emotional to run a business and they just want to get their hands on our money and if they’d just stop overreacting and telling themselves they’re victims they’d realize they actually have all the power in this society and white men aren’t even allowed to do anything anymore and and and…

I get that you don’t really mean that shit. I get that you’re just talking out your ass.

But please listen, and please trust me on this one: you have probably, at some point in your life, engaged in that kind of talk with a man who really, truly hates women–to the extent of having beaten and/or raped at least one. And you probably didn’t know which one he was.

And that guy? Thought you were on his side.

And that is rape culture - the guys who do this shit thinking you and society in general [3] ARE on their side, implicitly. That "most guys" would do the same thing if they weren't too "pussywhipped" by "PC" or fear of the law.

Actually, most men don't rape, not because they are afraid of the law, but because they are decent. It's very simple. But given the constant harassment of women and other marginalised groups on the street, on public transport, at parties, at clubs, in the work place (if it's one of those work places), the low-level crap is part of the culture.

And that culture helps enable the men who do actually do the rapes and assaults because of the reluctance of us in society to follow up on the small shit and "have each other's backs". How many times have you laughed off some obviously-unwanted shitty remark or grab that a mate made? Every one of those occasions was when you had his back, not hers. It adds up.

And for the guys who get all up in arms and say "I'm not like that wah wah wah", well, if you're NOT like that, then any post on the internet discussing the problem is not about YOU. Really and truly. Does that help you focus on the actual problem now?
 

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[1] Actually, men read body language with no problem pretty damn well constantly - you know when some dick at the pub is starting up the "are you looking at me?" routine, without him saying a word. You can walk into an office or a building site and spot who the bosses are. Etc etc.

[2] Sure, sometimes it's not unwanted, but there's a time and a place and the right jokes and right people.

[3] Yeah yeah, some few get prosecuted for rape - a minuscule proportion of the actual offenders.

So, here is my wee guide to letting us use the data plan we want after having purchased a USB modem - with actual money - but no longer wanting to use Telecom NZ's data services. I feel that if I've bought the hardware, I should be able to do what I like with it.

This describes setting up a connection to 2degrees Mobile Broadband in NZ, using Telecom GPRS USB modem (ZTE is the hardware brand) on a Windows 7 computer. You will probably need to run the following with Administrator rights on the PC.

( Read more... )

So, the last few weeks have been a real rollercoaster for me - mostly sailing way up on the fast switchbacks, but there maybe some swooping down low coming along imminently.

The thing with The Artist (performance, sculpture, textiles, print, paint, you name it...) has in fact turned into a THING. It's gone beyond kinky funtimes and sexy funtimes into something else quite serious, quite fast. In fact, very fast. I'm not sure whether it's because of the compressed timeframe - certainly, the quantity of the time we've been spending together and the actual content of that time spent is due to that - or whether it's because we seem to be very compatible in a still-surprising number of ways. Or a combination of the two things. But I don't normally get so emotionally engaged with someone quite so quickly - in fact, I can only think of one other example when I did.

I'm surprisingly unfreaked-out by this turn of events, because we both seem to be sane people who are trying to do the best we can in this slightly insane situation. If you're both bright, and rational, and trying to do your best, even if it doesn't work out, you haven't fucked each other around. Because of that, the good stuff will always be a pleasant memory even if you can't make it work due to whatever circumstances - I don't think I'd let it get this far if I didn't think that would be the case. In addition, The Artist's partner, The Scientist, is completely fabulous and very tolerant of the general air of sane-insanity that is going on at the present, which, frankly, I'm incredibly grateful for.

So, there's a 2-3 weeks to go. This is a VERY SHORT time. We've agreed that something will continue after my return to NZ, but as to what form that will take, who knows. I do know I'm going to crash a bit when I get there, although I hope that the focus I'll have on getting to grips with my new job and finding somewhere to live will be in the nature of an interesting way to keep my mind off things rather than adding to a difficult burden. Here's hoping.

As it is, I think peeps should be expecting to see me on this side of the ditch much more frequently than I originally anticipated, leave permitting and all (one annoying about a new job - you lose all your leave reserves). And I'm feeling surprisingly optimistic, although these next few weeks are going to be hard. I need to balance the sense of realism with not getting bogged down in unnecessary - at this stage - sadness. I do, however, expect some random outbreaks of SAD in the general way of things, but it'd be frigging odd if that didn't happen.

In the meantime, must finish packing. I'm getting a bit stressed about stuff I need to get rid of/pack - including my car, fuck it - and my energies are very much going in the wrong kind of direction for good organisation in that area. I'm sure I'll get there in the end, though.

Apparently - for "Butch Appreciation Day" - we only define ourselves by femmes. Because we're butch so we can run around protecting those delicate little ladies and wear big stompy boots that make our feet hurt.

Too bad if you're into butch-on-butch, eh? Or somehow manage to retain your butch identity without a femme hanging off your arm?

Note: SURE I get dressed up in spiffy outfits if there is someone I want to impress. Even with stompy COMFY boots. But, FFS, my entire life and style is not a performance on the off-chance I'll catch the eye of some random femme.

Seriously, what the fuck is all this about? It's not 1955, where if you didn't conform madly to gender- or role-identity, you'd never get laid. I think we're a little beyond rigid notions of what butch-femme is about. I was glad when feminism relaxed enough that b/f wasn't instantly problematic; I don't want things swinging back into stupid sexist territory.

I'm butch because I'm gender nonconformist, and there are some aspects of the standard butch definition I relate to a lot. But I'm uncomfortable with such labelling as "female masculinity" - for reasons I can't quite enunciate. While it's cool to ID with a label, it doesn't mean have to buy into a whole lot of baggage that may or may not be relevant. Same applies to gender stereotyping (not all men like sport, of any description).

Some good news finally: someone I've been online-friends with has finally kink-propositioned me (after a few months of build-up), so I've got something to look forward to there.

This is good, because my other two regular kink partners are both unavailable (for different but kind of similar reasons) and I was feeling a bit despondent about that. And my usual inability to go out and chat up random people doesn't help - I attended a BDSM event a couple of weekends back and was basically unable to speak to anyone other than the bar staff. Still, it was good to check out a really well-done bondage scene. The drawbacks of attending events where I know NO-ONE.

Anyways, yay good news - we had an excellent chat over coffee for a few hours yesterday, and it seems that our various needs and goals are very compatible. I'm still not really going there with d/s, but that doesn't appear to be the most crucial thing required on the menu in any case.

In other news, I've had follow-ups with two more jobs, with a video conference interview on Thursday, but I'm not going to get too excited about that. I've had 3 sets of meaningful contact from recruiters and none of them have panned out. Well, I'm assuming not - if they ring for a half-hour's conversation and then I don't hear from them for a few weeks, it's not looking great.

Also, while I expect to take a big pay drop returning to NZ, there is a lower limit I'm not keen to go below (because I think even a decent desktop support person would earn it). It also doesn't help that I'm not up with the very latest Exchange stuff, nor do I know much about server virtualisation (well, I do know how to create basic virtual machines and so on, but I'm hardly a guru, nor have I done formal training in it). I had one job knock me back because I'd get "bored" with my experience. Frankly, I'd be happy with a bit of boredom right now. Sure, it may mean I won't stay in a boring job forever, but if you expect most people to stick around in a particular role in this industry for more than 3-5 years by default, you're going to be sadly disillusioned.

Have kind of just realised that I'm not very good at dealing with emotional stuff. I mean, I was ROTTEN at it up until my early 20s, but after having my butt kicked by one of my girlfriends, kind of got myself to the point where I thought I was at least average. Actually no.

In summary:

• Quite often, it takes a long time to realise I'm feeling unsettled about something.
• When I do realise, I often don't know WHY I'm feeling that way
• If I figure out WHY I'm feeling that way, I often have no idea whether my interpretation of the other person's actions or words has any basis in reality, or if I'm projecting crap.
• It's difficult to ask, because then it's like I'm potentially accusing them of something I'm probably completely mistaken about.
• I find it almost impossible to express myself verbally when it's important (and yes, both negatively and positively).
• I'm not at all good at "calm and rational" discussion (I am not a calm person), but I have an absolute abhorrence of screaming fights - this doesn't leave much in the way of mechanisms for resolving things.
• My first (and second and third) reaction, on feeling guilt or shame or embarrassment or stupid, is to hide. And quite often I do feel stupid and embarrassed, with emotional matters.
• I'm useless at devising strategies for fixing emotional issues.

I'm nearly 43 - I wish I could get my shit together.

Here is a pic of them today, with the surgical tape off. The lighting isn't that great, so you can't tell that the left areola in particular is quite discoloured, but that was the side that had the top layer of skin come off the nipple. The areolas themselves are at least half of their previous size as well.

The ridge marks in the lower part of my breasts are just the imprint of the compression garment. You can see a little bit of the swelling to the side of my breast on the left of the pic that hasn't gone down yet after the lipo.

Obviously, NSFW and not great if you're squicked by naked breasts and/or healing incisions (no blood, gore or stitches at all though): http://flickr.com/gp/-trixtah/4r59hU