Salty Winter Adult

It's great that Terry Karney/pecunium, as a member of the Arisia concom, is apparently speaking out on Noel Rosenberg's behaviour and I have no particular reason to feel that he is less than sincere in his condemnation of Noel Rosenberg's stalking of Crystal Huff.

I do have reason to believe that if he has strong feelings about the wrongness of having intercourse with someone without a condom without asking for or getting consent when all previous agreements said that condoms would always be used, that would be a conclusion that he came to sometime after 2009.

That reason being, for the avoidance of doubt, that he did that precise thing to me in the autumn of that year. When I asked him, later, why he had done it, he said he had felt like it. I accepted that explanation at the time. His life was very difficult just then; I guess I felt like that was a generally acceptable reason for doing shitty things. I don't accept this now.

In the course of our relationship I introduced him to a fair number of people, a lot of them women, and, further, introduced him as a safe person and one of the good ones. He met his now-wife at my wedding, so, you know, I guess there's a through-line to Arisia from there. I now regret many of those introductions quite a lot, and recommend women and organizations exercise caution with him in the future.

As far as Noel Rosenberg, I have known him slightly for a decade or so. I know his now ex-girlfriend and her spouse very well. I don't know Crystal, but I believe them, and I support them. I didn't know anything concrete to Noel's discredit before this but I can't say I was surprised, either.

I don't know Maura, either, but I believe them, too.

The reason I am posting this now is that I can't face the thought of Crystal having to deal, after their tremendously brave statement, with a ConCom -- which I guess is now supposed to be doing the right things and trying to make amends -- containing at least one other person who has done some of the same things, without speaking up.

If Arisia is serious about addressing their problems and moving forward, this is information they require. If they are not, this is information that potential future attendees and volunteers require.

I have not contacted Arisia and have no plans to. Having read Crystal and Maura's accounts of attempting to handle things privately and through established channels with Arisia I am entirely disinclined to go that route myself. There appear to be dangerously sharp rocks in those channels, and nowhere safe to land at the end.

It is okay to link or otherwise share this post.

ETA from Cat/fairestcat: this post is currently set to screen all comments from people not on Marna’s (small) access list. I will be checking this post throughout the day and unscreening/deleting comments as necessary.

I will be getting into Toronto this Saturday evening, staying with mycrazyhair until the afternoon of Tuesday the 9th, vanishing into the convent until the morning of Friday the 12th, returning to mycrazyhair's for one night, and taking the 2:20 home on Saturday the 13th.

I miss my Toronto people very much and wish to see something of you all. Please comment if it's mutual.

(Dear graydon I know you very much enjoy exactness and clarity so, yes, this means you. Decidedly.)

If there's enough interest in Brunch, I have not eaten The Meal Of My Toronto People in awhile and we could do that.

The convent is at Yonge and Finch and I would be willing to emerge briefly for a coffee if that's the only thing we can make work, but in general I'm planning to be solitary and quiet while there.

Christmas was quiet and fairly good, except that over the course of the afternoon it became obvious that I have a FILTHY cold.

I am now lying resentfully in bed drinking mint tea I cannot taste and being grumpy about missing Christmas II: This Time Someone Else Is Cooking with the inlaws and feeling guilty because I cannot help with getting Bogart his required amount of outdoors time when it is -20 and I have a fever. At least I can get him dressed for walks, which as I am The One Who Can Get His Boots On is quite useful.

I feel too crap to want to a) watch Dr Who or b) check out Yuletide, which is to say, very crap indeed.

But I have an electric blanket and a snoring dog and the awesome fairestcat made me tea and is heroically dealing with the dishes from last night's Roast Beast and trimmings.

Also I had allsorts and winegums for Boxing Day breakfast, washed down with Tylenol Sinus Cold and Flu.
I am happy with this choice.

Actually I'm catching a train out West this Saturday to say goodbye to my Mom. Bogart is staying home.

If you live somewhere the Canadian stops and would like to see me on my trip back drop me a comment?

No condolences yet, please. I need to keep my shit together for awhile longer here.

<3 you all.

On this day in 1867, the Articles of Confederation were signed and the Dominion of Canada created.



On this day in 1916, nearly eight hundred soldiers of the First Newfoundland went into battle at Beamont-Hamel.
On July 2, sixty-eight soldiers of the First Newfoundland answered at roll call. 324 were known to have been killed or were missing, presumed dead. 386 were wounded.



On this day in 2017, there is a tipi on the unceded Algonquin Anishinaabe territory of Parliament Hill.

Since I'm half-packed and we're leaving in less than 24 hours it's probably time to announce that I am coming to WisCon. (Now watch me wake up tomorrow with Lorayne's cold or something.)

I'm not signed up for any panels, I'm not volunteering this year. I'm not 100 percent sure that this isn't going to end in disaster again. Depending on how I react to the various allergens in Madison I may be very low-energy, I may be sneezy and stuffed-up, I may be spending a lot of time asleep, I may be slow and forgetful due to being low oxygen, I may recuse myself rapidly from controversy or trouble if I don't see an immediate way to be useful.

I may have to leave panels abruptly due to coughing fits. We may be leaving town abruptly to get me back to Canada for treatment. (My out-of-province insurance isn't going to cover me for another serious asthma event in the same damn' city as the last one. That's kind of the definition of 'pre-existing'). We have a plan for this. It's as solid as we can make it.

Or we may have trouble at the border and not get there at all.

Or it all may be just fine. I really don't know. There's no way to tell.

But I'm on a new med (Singulair), and taking ALL the other ones, religiously, and so far my lungs seem to be willing to stay fairly functional. I'm bringing my bike. I'm hoping to stay an extra week and see friends. I'm cautiously optomistic.

A small request: if you see me, and we're friends, and you possibly can, grab me for coffee or food or a quick chat? This is almost certainly my last WisCon for some time, and if I do have a dangerous reaction, it's my last WisCon, period.

I know that I've lost touch with a lot of you due to missing the con and generally being offline and preoccupied trying to get my health under control. I'm sorry about it, and I'd really like to connect this weekend if we can, because you all are one of the communities of my heart, and to be honest I'm coming much more for y'all than for the "official" con.

If you or someone near you is wearing scent, I may have to back away rapidly. I'm sorry.

I'm not really accustomed to being a fragile little flower, you know? I'm still working out how to handle it.

Also, if there's a volunteer task I can do, something you need help with, that you can grab me for on the spot, please do. It's hard to contribute meaningfully when you can't make any promises, and I'll appreciate any chances to do so.

I was discussing this with fairestcat and she suggested I write a blog post about it. I'm grateful to her and to staranise and yatima for moral, intellectual, and practical support in writing it and, indeed, in general.

So, many years ago I was a member of alt.support.step-parents, and I made some amazing friends, many of whom I still have today (you know who you are; I love you all), and I learned a truly vast number of useful things about relationships. This may possibly be the most universally useful: how to bootstrap a relationship that's become angry and despairing and combative, or just grimly resentful, with or without the active co-operation of the other person — that last being especially relevant because I learned it in the context of parenting, where it is frequently incumbent on the part of the adult to make unilateral decisions.

staranise and yatima both recognised it, when I started talking about this, as coming originally from Dr John Gottman, which was news to me. I learned a much simpler, third-hand version of it, freely modified for parental situations, and then modified it back on my own, so I think it's fair to say the exact phrasing and ratios he discusses are optional.

I can honestly say that it's been instrumental in saving two of my current relationships, and has improved all of them.

It's simple, if not always easy, but a bit counter-intuitive: don't worry about the conflicts. Don't worry about fighting less, or "more fairly", or whatever. Don't try to minimize the negative or difficult aspects of your relationship. When things are going badly, it's natural to focus on those things, but the more we focus on them the more overwhelming they can become.

Instead: focus on maximising the number and quality of your positive interactions, however you can.

Say "thank you." Say "I love you." Hug. Go for walks. Send each other silly pictures. Admire their shirt. Pat their ass, if they like that sort of thing. Give small silly gifts - quantity beats quality, here. Flowers on your birthday is nice, but coffee every weekend morning or cocoa at night or a cup of tea when they're exhausted are way more to the point.

Whatever you can think of and make happen. You'll still fight. Try not to fret too much about it. Fit the positive stuff in around the fights. Wedge it in with a mallet if you have to, in the ten minutes a day when you quite like or at least don't much mind each other, which I swear is very nearly where we started.

Your conflicts won't vanish, but the number of times they drive you to waves of overwhelming despair will diminish rapidly. The fights will get shorter, less damaging, more productive. Next thing you know you'll be discussing things respectfully and with obvious affection, and having valuable insights into each other's mental and emotional processes and stuff.

What you're doing, basically, is building strength and resilience into the relationship. That strength and resilience, in turn, generate trust and comfort, which will give you more energy and more will to use to address the conflicts, and more motivation to keep conflict from becoming combat. Plus, it becomes a pleasant habit very quickly: I cannot actually count the number of rituals and habits and kindnesses and silly in-jokes that have built up in well over a decade of this, and every single one of them both makes me, personally, happier, and makes my relationships stronger.

Ideally, in a peer-to-peer relationship, you want to discuss this and get everyone onside, as soon as possible, but I confess that I'm fairly certain that my husband is finding out, um, nowish that this was a conscious, planned thing I did. (Edit: I ran this past him before posting it, as one does: would it surprise you all to hear that I am not nearly as subtle as I like to think I am?) So, it's ideal but it's not absolutely vital. If you're trying to repair your relationship with your kid (or stepkid) or if you're at the point in your relationship where you really can't talk about anything at all without it potentially turning into a battle, or you're trying to repair a professional or collegial rather than a personal relationship and discussing it isn't on the table, it really does still work. It takes longer, but it still does work. They'll start doing it back, just because it's enjoyable, and it's really not that hard to get people to do enjoyable things. You won't always end up with a great relationship, but you'll get the best one it's possible for you to have with that person. Sometimes that's still not good enough, but usually it is.

I'm finding this surprisingly hard to write because it sounds too "one weird trick" to be true, but amazingly, it actually is that simple. See, we tend to think that we treat people badly because we dislike them, so we try to address the emotions so that the behaviour will change, but actually, we tend to dislike people who we treat badly, and like people who we treat well. Nobody wants to be the sort of person who treats their friends and family badly for no damned reason but habit, so we tend to invent reasons. We don't mean to. It's unconscious.

There are only a couple of caveats, but they're important: firstly, it's important not to try to use this to try to make someone else feel badly about how they're acting or to derail or shortcut conflicts. The goal is not to persuade the other person that things aren't that bad, or to praise them for things you actually hate. Equally, the goal is not to convince them that your behaviour is kinder and more loving than it is. That's gaslighting. The goal is to do more kind and loving things and appreciate the kind loving things they do, and so make things actually better.

The second is, if you know or strongly suspect that you're in an abusive relationship, exercise extreme caution in trying this approach. If you're doing this unilaterally the other person may not reciprocate right away, but they shouldn't respond to your efforts by becoming more angry, hostile, or demanding (as opposed to more clear and open about what's already bothering them.) If you're working to lower the bar and they respond by raising the stakes, you've moved out of the area of problems you can both take an equal hand in solving and into problems that require outside intervention and fundamental change on the part of one person before anything is going to get better.

Is for people to leave me their contact info in the aftermath of the latest and probably last Great Fannish LJ Exodus.

Anon is on; comments are screened.

She's even hotter and totally a trophy after nearly 15 years, and always will be, however much time, chance, and friction do to the "young" and "American" parts.

Happy Birthday, Darling.

Like a lot of people who grew up in, well, straightened and difficult circumstances, not to mention having had a fair amount of experience of institutional food, I've spent years roundly despising the entire notion of "mixed vegetables", especially frozen mixed vegetables.

Which is a bit odd, when you consider that I'll cheerfully buy and cook with unmixed frozen vegetables: frozen peas, frozen corn, frozen spinach, frozen brussel sprouts, you name it. I live in Ottawa and I have health issues that reduce my energy a lot and I try to shop local and feed my family a lot of green (and red, and yellow) stuff, and that means we eat a fair number of frozen and canned vegetables in winter.

But until recently the very sight of one of these:

was enough to inspire a faint but definite desire to never eat anything, ever, again, except possibly buttered toast. "Sans Nom", indeed.

Friends, I was wrong. So wrong. Despite having learned decades ago not to boil things to death in heavily-salted water and wonder why they don't taste good, I had never until recently applied this knowledge to mixed frozen vegetables. I just assumed they tasted of nothing in particular, yet at the same time unpleasant, no matter what.

Last fall, with soup season closing in on me, I tentatively bought a small bag of mixed frozen carrots and green beans. I never seem to have cooking carrots handy exactly when I want them, and anyway if they're fresh I'd rather roast them, and using the baby-cut ones for cooking is, though handy as heck, kind of extravagant (or at least it makes me feel faintly guilty). And apparently frozen sliced carrots, alone, is no longer a thing you can buy, so I thought "well, we do like green beans," and went with the mixed. At worst, I figured, I could separate the two and use them in different things.

And it was awesome, and I started making vegetable soup oftener. And it was good.

So yesterday I was in The Store Formerly Known As Hartmans (btw, everyone local, they're having a VAST sale on boxed and canned staples. I brought home so many cans we had to reorganize the pantry. Beans! Baked beans! Beets! Seasoned green beans! Soup! Average outlay= $1 CDN/can.)

And I bought a huge bag of the aforementioned mixed vegetables (the exact bag pictured above) and today I spent ten minutes putting supper together and this is what we're having:

1 litre carton of beef broth (vegetable broth would obviously work as well, but we accidentally bought six-packs of beef broth twice running at Costco and with the price of beef I'm not making a lot of beef dishes, so it needs using.)
1 litre water
1 C pearl barley
1 C dry beans (Rancho Gordo Vallarta because I really need to use up my Rancho Gordos, but Great Northern or Navy would be good too. Beans are good, I tend to feel. Canned would also be good, and had I less time for the soup to simmer I'd've gone with a can of black beans or chick peas or six bean mixture —they sell it for bean salad, but I use it to liven up soups and stews— or whatever)
1/4 C dried onion flakes
2 stalks celery, chopped
2 C mixed frozen veg

About 1 Tablespoon each:
Thyme
Marjoram
Dill
Penzeys's Northwood seasoning
2 bay leaves

I bunged it all into the pot and turned the heat to halfway between low and medium. It's simmering away cheerfully now and should be perfect by suppertime, which will be about four hours from now.

ETA: a-heh-heh-heh I now recommend using a HALF cup of beans and the same of barley, unless you, like me, want to end up a) hastily adding a second carton of broth and b) racking your brains for people to invite to supper so you're not eating this all week.