like the fool i am and i'll always be

ohhhhhhhhhhhkay, i'm going to start with my to-do list from yesterday and cross off the stuff i did.

- straighten up bedroom
- read my history chapters and take notes
- tune up/grease/clean bike
- straighten up the kitchen and livingroom
- go back to trader joe's for some frozen crap
- catsit hoolie !
- brush my own cat and clip her toenails

not too much progress there, and i'm actually cheating a little because i decided not to go to trader joe's this week ! haha. oooops.

i stopped by after work to visit hoolie. she was doing well but was very very lonely, so i petted her and let her show me her toy mice and let her roll over a bunch for me. i also cleaned her water bowls and gave her fresh water and made sure she had enough food (this is what catsitting is if you didn't know). here she is, hanging out:





i also noticed that jon is weird:



i ended up taking a cab home after that because i'm an adult (and also because it was rush hour and i didn't want to be jammed into a trolley or bus with a bunch of assholes). i came home and tried to go to bed really early because i was feeling really anxious, but i ended up waking back up around 9:30 and killing zombies with ken. this is coach, the character i usually play:



i usually prefer an axe or a chainsaw as my melee weapon, but i feel guilty because a coach should probably use a baseball bat. oh, one way i've noticed that i am at a clear disadvantage when playing some video games is that i do not know anything about weapons. i know a lot about history and wars, but i know very little about guns and grenades and shit ! i think it has a lot to do with the fact that male childrens' toys come with weapons and weapon details and most female childrens' toys come with like, makeup you can also wear. fucked by society !

i decided that my favorite gun is the M16. did you know that the name stands for model 16? i looked at wikipedia.



it's frustrating though because the dudes i'm playing with will be like, "grab the submachine gun ! use your sniper rifle !" and i'm like, "lol?". like, i'm an intelligent person and i would like to learn more about it (i guess i'm more interested in the history of weaponry and how it relates to warfare than like, HEYYY TOTALLY SWEET SHOTGUN BRAH, though) and i find it frustrating that nothing in my childhood prepared me for this. you dropped the ball, ann m. martin ! my brain is full of impractical babysitting tips !



(all joking aside, i think it's a bummer that even as like, a gross nerdy tomboy with a cool older brother and cool mom, gender branding in toys/play/products/books/other media was so intense that i have gaps in knowledge as an adult)

my main plan for this evening is to clean my room and read some chapters for history. i have to meet online with my german professor tonight to test out my internet connection and headset for our class. i'm getting kind of nervous because my history professor said we'd be doing something like that "at the end of the month" but hasn't written again to make appointments, and she comes across as kind of coarse so i don't want to bug her.


viola swamp !

okay. if i post here tomorrow and my room is messy and i haven't done my reading, i want you guys to punch me into little pieces.

p.s. ughhh i just realized i should clean up tonight too cause mike and jeanne are coming over tomorrow ughhhh. maybe i just won't let them in the kitchen?

i don't give a damn about my reputation

okay the most exciting thing that happened yesterday was that i cut down the yarn trip wires all over my bedroom. i am working on this cowl for jeanne, which i'm double stranding, and the two balls of yarn fell off of my bed and got progressively more tangled as the weeks went on. like, pizza tried to run away with one of the balls and left it across the room, and it got tangled around my chair. the other one got tangled around my computer cords and my phone cord (yes, i have a landline, and yes, my phone has a cord !). i've sort of been gingerly stepping over it and getting tangled in it, but last night i cut it down !


last year i won a "garfie" for laziness !

i really thought that this whole thing would end with me tripping over the yarn and breaking my laptop, but i actually took care of it before that happened ! i'm super proud of myself, like i always am when i do the bare minimum to function on earth.

really, i got nothing. last night was a raid night. we've had a problem lately with raid attendance, since it's nice out, and our recruiting was kind of a disaster because a few guild chumps invited other chumps who love rape jokes and ardently defend their right to use them, etc., but my friend ibrahim invited a big group of cool people who are also good players (the rape dudes were not good players). so we formed the raid on time and made good progress with no wipes because of the 15% buff in icc !



being a girl who plays a video game is weird, especially playing an mmorpg. because of the nature of the game, i have to constantly interact with a mostly male population who are not the type of people i hang out with in real life, which can be both awesome and terrible. i play with a lot of friends and friends of friends who are all mostly old punk dudes, but since 25-man raids take 25 people, there's still a mishmash of random people in every raid.

my experience has been pretty weird. i've been on the receiving end of both extremes of sexism- getting special treatment and attention and opportunities for being female, and at the receiving end of extreme ire and unfair double standards and pretty vicious misogynist language (slut, bitch, cunt, insults to my appearance, worth based on who wants to fuck me, implications that i'm a bad player cause i'm a girl, rape jokes, etc.) for being female. the guys that know i know act normal and never disappoint me as far as being allies, making me do my own shit, etc. goes and they make the game worth playing for me. the other dudes are a mixed bag. i meant to write some kind of analysis of this but the best i can come up with is, "a lot of dudes are sexist and oblivious to their sexism."

also i just tried to find an image to put here but every single search related to women and video games was

1) naked or half naked women
2) naked or half naked female video game characters
3) motivational posters about how women suck at video games

here is the one with the smallest amount of nudity:



i have to work a little late tonight (and probably like, every night forever until after my event) but after that i think i'm going to get coffee with mouse. this weekend should also be exciting because kristen is coming to visit christina and diana is coming to visit us and i'll probably do something with mouse and/or mike ! everyone ! how can i get jeanne in on this !

p.s. yesterday i didn't even get to see christina because i took a laziness nap and when i woke up she was taking an allergy nap (though i think that was actually bedtime so that was allergy sleep), but she did make something that made the whole house smell fucking good !