On being a victim

This post has a trigger and TMI warning for childhood sexual abuse.

Keep reading after the jump if you want to.

I would like to warn any friends who read this that this contains some very personal information that you might have preferred not to have found out.

I wrote this over a period from June 2012-now, which is why it's so long.

The things society lets us get away with

Yesterday I got to help out at a science fair as one of the judges. It was a pretty cool experience, ranging from seeing the kids who really didn't give a shit (as was to be expected) to the kids who had done awesome experiments and obviously put a lot of effort into their data and its presentation.

The highlight for me was a poster detailing one student's quest to find out how to store coke to prevent it going flat; refrigerated or not and with the lid on or not. As a heavy drinker of pepsi (I am trying to cut back, I swear!) I could really relate to this. Other honourable mentions include comparing different types of diet drink in how they react to mentos and the really dedicated group that grew three plants, feeding them monster energy drink, powerade (it's got electrolytes! they're what plants crave!), or water and measuring the plant height every day.

After the judging was over, the school invited us into the staff room for a cup of tea and a biscuit. I walked in, all smiles, and was greeted by a middle-aged teacher who was sitting at the table eating his lunch.

The following exchange occurs:

Him: You can't be an engineer! (smiling, joking way)
Me: Why? (expecting a comment about my age, funnily enough)
Him: You're a woman! Women are meant to be at home cooking dinner. (again, clearly a joke and meaning nothing by it)
Me: Dude, that's not funny, not even as a joke.

I am really proud of myself for saying something back, even if he got a little bit offended by my reaction. He made some justificationy comments like "I'm not a sexist, my sister in law is an engineer and when she was presenting to some businessmen in Dubai they mistook her for the tea lady and asked her to bring them coffee".

But seriously, you might think my reaction was a bit much, but imagine someone saying something like that to a black man. Doesn't that just horrify you and make you super uncomfortable, thinking about someone joking that a black engineer shouldn't be engineering but shining shoes or picking cotton or whatever the racism is?

Why the hell does our society let people make comments like that about women?

Oh, and the best thing? He was the home economics teacher.

New World of Darkness... IN SPACE!

I recently GMed a session of New World of Darkness... IN SPACE!

It was for a bunch of new friends and one old friend who I'd never GMed for before. I love GMing, I've run a couple of games, but being human I'm often doubting my abilities.

I'd been building this session up and talking about it a bit - mentioning it, saying it was fun, trying to organise a time for it to occur, etc. I was worried it wouldn't live up to the expectations. In fact, right beforehand, I was super nervous that nobody would enjoy it because there wouldn't be enough direction, it would stall, and I'd make a bad impression.

Strangely enough, when you're GMing, it's really easy to read a room and know whether your players are having a good time or not. It stalls when people aren't quite sure what to do, aren't attached to their characters, aren't attached to the story, too busy redditing or playing LoL to pay attention, whatever.

But sometimes, it works well and everyone is like a well-oiled machine. You can see people having fun, making quips, and getting into the story. This was one of those times - even though the characters were pre-made.

Here's what I learned:

• The story really doesn't have to be complicated. It was a simple storyline, which made it easier because the players didn't have to keep track of much.
• You can have tension/horror (cannibalism) and humour (everybody's dead, dave) in the same story and it can still work. 
• In past games, when players got distracted on their laptops, I should have both been firmer with them and made a better effort to entertain them.
• I'm better at improvising than I thought (and, being arrogant, I thought I was pretty good before).
• Corollary: I come up with lots of ideas (space manatees!) DURING sessions. As such, re-running games with a fresh set of players is something I should do more often.
• Given there were two NPCs I really should have spent 10 minutes making each of them a full character sheet.
• It's important to accelerate things so that way the game can be finished before it's time for everyone to go home.
• Players will often help with this.

After that experience I'm seriously considering running a new campaign of my own, perhaps a short one (say, 6 sessions) with some clear goals. Based on what I've learned, I'm also considering streamlining and re-running an old campaign (or at least reusing its premise). 

Moving out of a small mental apartment

When you live in a tiny apartment, you get used to it and you don't notice how cramped and restricted you are when you don't have much space to move in.

When you move into a bigger house, or go into a huge room, you get this feeling of expansion and freedom.

I think my head may have been like that. It was all small and cramped but I didn't notice. Now all of a sudden, I feel like it's a big, open room.

And I wonder how I didn't notice how small and cramped it was earlier.

A Modest Proposal §2

For some reason, I was in a bad mood that night. Like, a really shitty mood. I was yelling and angry for no reason, bailed out on attending a party at the last minute, and all-around acted like a shitty girlfriend thanks, in no small part, to Mr Wrong deciding to get a kebab.

Yes, really. (Mr Wrong says: "To be fair, that was an awesome kebab").

All of a sudden, at the McDonald's in Innaloo, I realised that Mr Wrong puts up with bullshit like that from me far more often than he should, and far more patiently than he should. Again, things crystallised in my mind. I texted Mr Oldman and Miss Prism to let them know my plan - they both freaked out - and all of a sudden I was in a good mood.

I told Mr Wrong that we should take a walk together instead of going to the party. Went to Hillarys Marina. We went there a lot when we first started dating - in fact, our first date was held at a stall selling magnetic jewellery that we wanted to ask questions about. A fitting start to a skeptical powercouple, I guess?

I parked the car near a park and we sat on some swings and talked and hung out. Then we walked up the hill to a lookout.

The view from the lookout during the day. 

It has a nice view during the day, and it was on that very lookout that we kissed for the first time. I was super nervous at the time and couldn't stop giggling. This time, I was nervous but not giggling.

We sat on the table and Mr Wrong, ever the musician, started experimenting with the noises that the table made when he punched it. I started talking about the story Miss Prism told me about her breakup and it made me think about how much I need him in my life, and how I felt about him, and all the rest. I told him I loved him. And then I said those fateful words: "I guess what I'm trying to say is," (gets down on one knee, grabs his hands) "Will you marry me?"

An imperceptible pause and he says yes, professes his disbelief, and hugs and kisses follow. A bit of giggling too, I'd bet. 

Then we walked down that dark, twisty path and I slipped on some gravel. I got right back up and more giggling was had. We held hands and hugged like the little schoolgirls we are.

The path to the lookout! Much scarier at night, much darker! ooooo, spooky!

Then, Mr Wrong says "we should go to that party we skipped and tell everyone!" and I respond with a wholehearted "HELLS YES" and off we go for a 30 minute drive back to that party. We play some romantic music, including our song - Chloroform Girl by Polkadot Cadaver.

A Modest Proposal §1

On the 12th of May, 2012 at about 8pm I proposed to Mr Wrong.

He said yes. In fact, as I got down on one knee and held his hands, he gushed in surprise and delight and gave me a big hug.

But let me take you back a few months to when I made the decision to propose. I was talking to a friend who had recently gone through a breakup. She was telling me about how it felt (apparently: not very good!), and everything sort of fell into place in my mind and at that moment I realised what I needed to do.

The feeling that really sticks with me is when Mr Wrong is up in Perth studying, and I'm at home on my own. When I'm in bed reading, I'll sometimes hear a noise and I'll look to the door of the bedroom hoping he's coming to join me. The feeling of disappointment when I remember he's in Perth is really awful. It's to the point where I've stopped sleeping in our bedroom when he's not home, instead watching Project Runway on our fold out couch.

That feeling - that need to be with him - is what made me decide to do it. The feeling I get when I look at him. The way he smiles. How we've both grown and changed as people, but that we've grown together. The fact that, even after all this time, we still love spending time together.

As a couple, we knew we were going to be together forever from very early on - at about the one year mark. It just worked. We clicked right from the start like with nobody before or since. Our goals align. Our attitudes align.

We're perfect together.

So we're getting married :)

Friends with Benefits

NOTE: I wrote this post on 30th of October 2011. I've set this to automatically be posted in a few months, at which point there may be updates to this about how spectacularly it failed, or it could be going well still. Who knows, I might make more posts in this theme and schedule them to all be released one day after another. But at the time it was written, it seemed too personal to share with the internet, yet I do want it to be shared eventually, so here it is.

~~~~~~~~~

People say friends with benefits can't work.

I have no fucking clue whether this is true; all I know is I have a very sexy friend (3, as I shall call him) who has completely complementary sexual desires to me.


I went to his place for what was going to be an entirely platonic sleepover, or so I assumed. I was, of course, secretly hoping there'd be more to it - and there was a reasonable chance of that, since we'd made a conscious decision to make our friendship more physical and even gone so far as to set a date for the sex. There's a facebook event for it (really!).

So, after a sexual tension filled night of Skyping with a friend of ours (in his bedroom and in fact in his bed for most of the time), both of us secretly hoping something would happen, longing glances shared before self-consciously looking away.

We moved onto google hangout, and after a while it borked and he handed me his phone and said "see if you can get it working again" when that was the last thing on my mind. Then all of a sudden he kissed me and it was the sweet feeling of release.

Then, of course, my mobile rang; out of reflex I ceased the kissing and answered it but immediately regretted it. It was the friend we were Skyping with wanting to know what happened. I answered the phone with a very annoyed "do you know what you just interrupted?!".


Nerves and self-consciousness meant the kissing wasn't going to restart any time soon; we just lay cuddled together in bed, talking about who knows what.

It was interesting how different the vibe of the relationship was when compared with the one I have with my boyfriends. The sexcapades were done in a very platonic way that was yet rather lustful. The compliments we made to one another's bodies or sexual techniques were friendly and not in the least bit romantic.

Of course, the hormones make you feel things and have attitudes of affection that aren't normal for a friendship, but as long as you're aware of them and appreciate the feelings are a natural byproduct of endorphins and whatnot you can enjoy them "responsibly".

The new relationship energy has now made me fixated on 3, which is good as it's taking away from the pain of not being able to see N more than once a week while he works on his thesis. I'm mostly fixated on 3 from the sexual conquest angle, though - I was pursuing this guy for several months to get to this point, and it seems to be working out.

However, I'm going to end up way too exhausted from all of this. I'm going to look forward to the time when the NRE wears off and hopefully only the sexual things will remain. Because handling three regular sex partners - let alone three regular activity partners who I need to go on dates with etc - is going to be difficult.

Fortunately, me and 3 have agreed that we want to stabilise in a "once every month or so" sexual frequency which will be far easier to manage.

Now, we just need to begin by having sex once....