Chinese Trauma Stuff.

I linked the title to something, but just in case none of you is savvy enough to realize it, here is the link as well.

Basically it's a news story about Chinese Mother #1.

I think it's awesome, personally.

I have no title!

I had to post on blackboard yesterday, and I forgot. I woke up early, went to the press office and worked my butt off, then I went to see Indiana Jones. Yay! I love Shia Lebouf, by the way. He's awesome.

My friend is on a drawing kick and drew my Veronica for me.



Veronica by *WinterRose31 on deviantART

She is getting a lot better. See?

One of her first drawings of her daughter, Boogie:

Boogie Drawing by *WinterRose31 on deviantART

A recent drawing of Boogie:

Boogie Drawing 2 by *WinterRose31 on deviantART

I'm envious. I want nothing more than to be able to paint or draw or do something arty. I can't though. The closest I can come is digital art, and that--not so good.

I'm pretty excited though, I'm going to be taking Digital Art in the fall. :)

Cheese Pie

Girl in Pony Tails by *damina on deviantART

Please?

Please? by *damina on deviantART

This is Veronica. She is very spoiled. Do you know why?

She'll be four in June. It's crazy. I'm tired, but hungry.

Awesomeness!

Here is the prize donation page so far: prizes

Notice that first one there? He's sending them to me. I don't know how I will part with them all. It will be difficult.

Anyone who donates (even if it's a dollar) is entered into these drawings. So, yeah. Donate a dollar in June, guys. I know you are college students, and poor, but so am I! I can afford a dollar. I see you people with coffees that I know cost at least three or four dollars. What's one more?

Just think, for the price of a coffee, you could be the lucky winner of an autographed copy of something.

A Sample of My Stupidity

I was reading Waterland by Graham Swift for ENGL 445. It was the fourth or fifth book we'd read, and I wondered why they all had British punctuation. You know, apostrophes instead of quotes and things like that. And the British spelling--colour and behaviour, things like that. I thought, "Does he have a hard on for British writers or what?"

Then I remembered it was British Literature and I was a spaz.

My Head is Full

I can no longer retain information about books. I can no longer recall something I read a week ago in class. Something is broken up there. I hope it gets fixed this summer.

I am supposed to write a final paper in Brit Lit and I have no idea what it will be. I wish Dr. Flinn would just point at me and say, "Dawn, your topic is this.... discuss!" Then, maybe I'd have a chance. As it is, I just can't think of anything. Critical analysis isn't fun anyway, and it isn't something I care about, at all. I just hope I pass.

The final will be a few questions chosen randomly out of the study questions. I never read those, because they are confusing, and make me feel stupid most of the time. Well, not never, but I don't read them while I'm reading the book. I can't remember so many things, I don't know how I will do on this final. I am sad.

When I started college in 2004 (pregnant with number 3) I was excited. I wanted to do SO well. I wanted 4.0's in everything. That first quarter, that's what I got. I had the baby on June 19th, right after school was out and started summer quarter on the 21st. All of my classes were online. I received a 4.0 in English 201 and a bit lower in the other two, which I think were history and psychology 101. Still, I thought, this is good.

Then I had to take math. So, my gpa went down a bit, but I was still above a 3.7 cumulative gpa and I was happy with that. I joined Phi Theta Kappa mostly so I could get a scholarship to eastern. The first year I went here, I was in honors. My GPA dripped down to a 3.6 and I was booted from honors. No more scholarship.

I've decided I don't care about GPA anyway. I mean, no one has ever interviewed me and asked, "What grade did you get in this class?" They've never asked to see my transcripts, and never have I been asked for proof that I graduated from High School. I'm almost sure that if I say I have a bachelor's degree, they'll ask to see it, but it doesn't matter either. I mean, they hire people with degrees all the time, degrees that were bought on the internet and never do they check that school out, to see if it's legit. Not until some poor kid is running around saying this like, "That's unportant, and unnapropriate."

Teachers make mistakes... but nearly every week I sent my daughter's fifth grade word list back with corrections. Don't test my kid on words and spell them wrong! Jeez. The next year she had the same teacher and she had her in a special group that was given greek roots and they had to do a bunch of stuff with them. I don't remember what.

That's why I hate Spokane schools. They are like, "it's really important that our kids are coddled during Elementary School. Our classes should have less than 20 kids each. They should have the same teacher as often as possible. But after grade school, who gives a shit? Let's throw them in these four middle schools full of thousands of kids, with teachers who say things like, '265 kids come through my class every day, your daughter doesn't look familiar, so I'm guessing she's not failing' when asked how a certain child is doing in their class." He was wrong, by the way, she was failing.

"Then," they say, "let's just go ahead and toss who ever is left into these other four high schools. We have the poor high school (North Central), the rich high school (Ferris), the mix of both (Shadle), and that one downtown (LC). The last one is the best one. What a great location for a high school. Hey, there are hospitals nearby, and mcdonalds. The freeway. That really nice parking area under the freeway--it's so safe. No one slings drugs there."

Everyone called Jance, "Last Chance Jance" I don't know if I'm spelling it right, and I don't care. I think places like that are great. You have more one on one with teachers and students. You work at your own pace. Ect. My cousin went to a place like that, but she didn't graduate. She just wasn't the type.

I'm homeschooling my daughter next year. She's insanely shy and starting new, large schools is extremely painful for her. But, mostly, it's because I'm pretty sure I could teach her better.

I really went off in a different direction on this, didn't I? I guess my point is that I hate Spokane schools and I no longer care about my GPA, only care if I pass. It's a sickness. I'm done. I'm tired. I'm sick of it.

I hate stuff

My title making skillz are top notch. I know. W00t!

So.... I play everquest 2 from time to time. My account is supposed to be free. I went to log in, and it isn't free anymore. I could understand if they had a reason for it... or something, but I didn't even get an email. Of course, that means they will lose the other two accounts this family pays for, plus any money we may have spent on adventure packs or expansion packs. Of course, it IS Sony, so it isn't like that's going to hurt them.

That's ok though, I'm sick of SOE. I was going to rant about them, but I don't feel like giving them that kind of energy.

I never have time to play, anyway.

I'm No Lady

A couple years ago or three, my second daughter, Cassandra, was hanging around my husband and me while we were playing WoW or EQ2, I don't remember which. I said something snarky to him, and he said, "Listen, Lady!" In a bitchy, Jerry Lewis-voice.

I said, "Hey! Don't you talk to me like that!"

And Cassandra said, "Yeah! Mommy's not a lady!"

Oh donations!

So, this person here will be donating a signed print of her work to our cause (strangehorizons) and I emailed Patrick Rothfuss, who will be sending me some books for the raffle, and I'm super excited.

If you don't know who that is, run to the bookstore and buy, "The Name of the Wind," because it is super awesome. If you don't, I will shoot you in the leg.

Strange Horizons

I'm the development coordinator for Strangehorizons.com, which is a super awesome paying speculative fiction and art market. It is recognized by SFWA.org, as a paying market. Many of the pieces submitted to the online magazine have been nominated for outstanding awards, like the Hugo award.

We are run completely on donations. We do not get paid, only our writers do! Go to [link] to check it out. Every year we have a fund drive and you get fantabulous prizes for donating at that time. DO IT! (but not until June).

If we reach a certain limit (haven't decided how much yet) Kelly Link will write a short story exclusively for us to publish. I'm super excited about it.

If you have a book or work of art and would like to donate a copy to a winner, let me know! It will be put on our list of donated items, and your name will be there for a whole year! What a way to make it seen (your name and your work).

So I applied for the managing editor job, but I didn't get it. From the looks of it though, I'm far more busy now then I would have been. ;)

I used a lot of exclamation points! I wonder if Dave and Scott are at the party tonight at Claire's house!? I am using stream-of-consciousness indiscriminately!

The Ease (and horrible consequences) of Internet Posting

In 1995 my husband went to NYC for a week, taking our daughter with him. He was going to come home without her, and she was to stay there for three months. She was two. It was not the best decision I have ever made, and whenever I bring it up, I tend to go off on a rant about it. Let's cut it short and just say they didn't return her until six months later and that was at my insistence. I haven't been away from any of my kids for that long, again. So, he left for NYC, it was the first time we'd been apart for any amount of time in two years. I was sleepless, I was lonely, I was smoking a ton of pot. It was my early twenties, and I worked at hastings. Everyone smoked pot at hastings. I had more connections for pot than I'd had in high school. Though, in high school I never had to pay for it.

It was late, maybe four in the morning, and once more I couldn't sleep. I decided to write. I took out my notebook, or maybe I turned on my pentium, I can't remember. I am not The Woman Who Can't Forget, so cut me a little slack. Suddenly, my mind expanded and I wrote the best poem I'd ever written in my life! It was so great, I couldn't wait to share it. I think I'd posted it on a bulletin board I frequented.

In November of that year I was reading Speculations (Which OMG is no longer in the business, it breaks my heart.) and found a magazine that fit my poem, plus I could email it. Sooner than I expected I received an acceptance letter. It was my first one and I was so proud. Payment was a contributor's copy, and that was OK with me. When I received the magazine, I opened immediately to my poem. I was angry, it was split into two columns and wasn't supposed to be. Plus, it was surrounded with other poems that were no where near as good.

In 1999, I learnt me how to make webpages on Angelfire.com. My first website was born: Damina's First. I posted all of my writing that I could. Including the aforementioned poem. Black Moon Magazine (the one who printed it) had since gone out of business. I found sffworld.com and swiftly became a member, posting some of my writing there, including that damn poem.

I have since deleted Damina's First (mostly for personal reasons, if you ever find my angelfire webpage, you will see that :P) and moved on. However, that poem, and another on sffworld, have haunted me. They are still there, you see, and I can no longer log in to delete them. They changed the way people submit stuff, and my conversation with the webmaster regarding this was cut off mid-sentence. He dropped the ball somewhere, or died.

Every now and then I get bored and google certain phrases in the poem, and I find it everywhere. The kids really like it. They like to say they wrote it, or to use parts of it (and the other one on sffworld) and seem like mediocre writers.

It's not a poem I am proud of. Actually, I now hate it, but it's mine damn it, and I don't want their grubby little emo hands all over it. This is a warning for you, any of you, thinking of posting you poetry online. Remember it, dread it.

Did I learn my lesson? No. haha. I suck.

For those of you interested, it's The Vampire, by Dawn Rusho (my maiden name. I was going to use that as my pseudonym.) and it reeks. I posted it in 2002, so obviously it took me a while to find sffworld. It's missing an apostrophe, and sidhe is pronounced "Shee." Look it up.

Huge Soaking Wet Pee-Ness (this will be a small one)

So, last night and yesterday were hellish. The children were still sick, but not as sick. However, diapers and diarrhea equals diaper rash. So everytime the child peed last night, she cried and woke up. Finally, around four a.m., drop-dead tired, I picked her up and put her in bed with me. Dee goes to work at two a.m. so she slept on his side.

Anyway, in the morning, she woke up for good around ten-thirty, and I brought her downstairs, threw her at my mother-in-law, and ran back upstairs to sleep more. Once I went up, I realized I had a huge wet spot on my jammies--her diaper had leaked. She'd also managed to pee all over Dee's side of the bed. (yay).

I was telling Yvonne about it just now. I said, "Anyway, after I went upstairs, I saw a wet spot on my jammies and realized it was a huge, soaking wet pee-ness." In my head, I saw pee-ness. She tells me that at first, that spelling also flashed in her head.

Suddenly, however, a different form of pee-ness flashed through her head, and Beavis and Butthead style she said, pointing, "You said penis!"

After the laughter had calmed down a bit on both our parts, I said, "The things that come out of her diaper!"

Ciao

Blogs and Babies

Blogs

Chris has a good point. A lot of people write blogs to exorcise their demons and what not. I've never done that.

I have friends who are constantly writing private blogs on Myspace (and then I'm notified they posted one and I can't read it. That pisses me off.) Because they want to write something that no one can read. Yet, they want us all to know they did so. So, in a way, it isn't private. As with Chris's way of writing blogs to exorcise demons, anonymously, they are still there, are they not? For the world to stumbleupon?

I write to get out my angst. I do so either on paper, or on word. If I don't want anyone to read it, I burn it or delete it. There have been two times I posted private blogs on myspace. One was a bad poem I needed to get out and the other was a tirade against my husband, who was in full jerk form that day. I kept it, because I figured one of these days, I'll take it out and like a sword, brandish it at him. That's right, I did it on purpose. For the purpose of one day showing him how he hurt me. Silly, I know, but I hardly ever do that. Truly.

I guess my point is this: Most people who write blogs do so to be seen, but not all. Fine.


Babies

A little bit of education for those of you who have yet to produce tiny, evil images of yourselves. For those of you who have, I'm sure you'll remember these times fondly.

My youngest two are sick. Again. It feels like they've been sick for a month and a half. Whenever they get over a sickness, another one moves in. I'm sick of all the boogers.

I realized last night that the reason teens go to parties and drink until they puke isn't because they are rebelling. Nope, nor is it because it's fun and the thing to do when you're bored. It's to help you become accustomed to being puked on. It's a mechanism to teach us how to deal with that situation once it arises, and it does arise quite often. Last night, I was holding my baby. I was going to post a picture of her new cheesy smile, but my oldest daughter absconded with the camera, so I won't. Lucky you. About an hour after capturing this cheesy smile (it is really the cutest thing ever) she started getting really fussy and I noticed she was warm. She had pooped a lot, and I knew she was getting sick, so I decided to give her some baby Tylenol. I did and she repaid me by spewing the contents of her stomach all over me, again and again. Once I finally got her to go to sleep, I went upstairs to check on the three year old, who had a fever as well, and gave her a drink o water. She then vomited all over her bed.

There is one thing they never tell you when you are becoming a parent, and that is this: You will talk about poop, a lot. My husband will walk into the house, receive his kiss and hello, and promptly be told, "The baby pooped a ton today, it was disgusting, and ran down her leg." We even talk about the poop of our six year old, who poops logs. We can not understand how such large items come out of such a little behind. They stop up the toilet, they don't want to go down. It's like they are little people, desperately clinging to the sides of the bowl in a last attempt at life. I almost feel bad for them. One time, my mother-in-law had to grab an old hanger to break them apart so they could die peacefully.

Now, both girls are vomitous and diarreous (I know these are not words, but they are now.) and feverous as well. They are hot, sticky, stinky balls of ewww.

I love being a mom... but it cuts into my being a student quite often.

Untitled Randomness

This is the reason I don't blog, I don't get comments. I don't get comments, why write? I mean, isn't that what blogging is about? Isn't blogging the, "Hello World! Here I am, read what I write, and thrive upon it!" thing? It's like a forum that is dedicated to you and only you can start the topics. If I don't have people replying to my topics, then I don't see why I should start them. That, my friends, is why I hate blogging. Because you are all a bunch of assholes. That's right. I said it. There's no holding back here. This is the internet. Of course, when I see you in class, I'll make sure you know I didn't mean you.

I don't blog because assholes don't comment.

As for the ones I don't mean, and you know who you are:

I don't blog because I thrive on the knowledge that I'm being read. If I am not being read, then I may as well go buy a journal and start scribbling my nonsense in it. I don't blog to log a diary, I blog to be seen. It's my red carpet, so to speak, and you photographers are not doing your jobs.

I was watching Nanny 911 on CMT yesterday. This is odd, because I usually don't watch CMT and I can count on 2 fingers how many times I've seen Nanny 911. It was my husband's fault. He is secretly addicted to reality television. It isn't as secret as he thinks, though, I've already figured it out. He wanted to watch it, and wouldn't turn it to SNL when I told him to. Anyway, this episode had three nannies at once, taking over a house where a woman adopted 23 special needs kids. I have all sorts of problems with this.

1. I understand the heartache of knowing that child (any one of them) needs a loving home. It is much the same as when I visit Spokanimal. I want nothing more than to adopt every dog I see.
• They do not allow you to adopt that many animals. You can not give each animal the amount of attention it needs and deserves. This is why you see those animal cops on Animal Planet (tm) taking the animals away from the crazy cat ladies of the world.
2. The woman was the only one taking care of the kids. The husband was paraplegic, this means that all he did was run around on his wheelchair yelling at kids, or giving hugs now and then. Most of the show, you didn't see him.
3. These kids were really special needs. They need much more attention than one woman can give.
4. Daycare workers can not watch more than a certain amount of kids per adult (I'm not a worker, I don't know how many, but I do know it is less than 23) because they are not able to give the attention necessary.

So, yeah, it pisses me off. What the hell, man? THE HELL?

Now I will eat shrimp and watch i robot. I like i robot, so shut up. I also like AI, which everyone and their mother hates. I don't care. That's just how I roll.

I may have the wrong number

So, interesting things happen from time to time. I received a text message last night, "Hey girl, how you doin?" I replied with, "Who is this?" because the phone number was not one I'd seen before. Where is 812 anyway? Around four in the morning he replied. "This is dan."

I know no one who goes by "Dan." At least, not well enough to be giving him my phone number.

He later said, "I probably have the wrong number. What's your name?" I said, "Dawn, and again, I know no one named dan." He then replied with, "I may have the wrong number, how old are you?"

I said, "There is no "may" about it. But, I'm 33."

"True. Yes i do have the wrong number. Sorry about that. Any way i can get a picture of you?"

I'm contemplating sending him a picture of my husband. But, we are on the way to the movie. The aforementioned one.

Is there some weird thing going around where people randomly text phone numbers? Do I have a stalker? Should I reply?

Find out later on... "Slappy Jones's Locker!"

Happy Mother's Day

Today, my husband said, "I didn't just marry you, I married Dawn and her crazy-bitch-twin alter ego." Don't worry, he usually isn't this sweet. Why? You want to know, well, I'll tell you, I guess, since I'm being forced to write daily. It's because we are going to go watch Ironman tomorrow, and I suggested we go watch it tonight instead. He said no and my day continued.

Later, my daughter, the ever-beautiful fourteen-year-old Yvonne, asked, "Why not tonight?"

And I said, "Because Daddy doesn't want to go tonight."

This is when he decided to say I'd been harping on it all day long. Personally, I think he was being a bit unfair, but my opinion doesn't matter. He doesn't even believe that this is homework. Ass.

I was going to talk about two inventions I've been dreaming of since I've had memories, but I'll save that for later I guess--for tomorrow maybe, unless he utters some other love-strewn words of bliss at me that I will then feel the need to share.

Hot off the press!

While reading prize entries for the Blue Lynx Poetry Contest sponsored by the Eastern Washington University Press today, I couldn't help but wonder where everyone gets all these poems they send out. I also wondered why anyone would send in money for a contest. I never have money to send anywhere, just for the off-chance that I may win. It seems like a waste of 25 dollars to me, but we have a lot of entries, so obviously I am the only one who feels this way.

I also noticed that a lot of the entries included poetry that was already published. A lot. It is crazy how many of the manuscripts included poetry that was already published. Crazy. I thought, when I first heard about it, that it would mostly be new writers.

Of course, I have a lot of poetry I've written, but not enough to fill a book, and if I did have enough to fill a book, they aren't good enough for a whole book. I have maybe 2 or 3 that I think are OK and could be good enough for a book.

I'm just not satisfied with them.

There is one that was first called, "Odd" then, "The New Toy," and then, "Pennies From Heaven," which I didn't really think fit, but I used it anyway. I've rewritten this poem about thirty bazillion times, and I hate it. I don't know why I still have it and keep working on it. It was created from a weird dream, and the way it is reworked keeps it being a weird thing, but I still hate it. I can't even remember what it's called now, but something like, "The Bone Factory" would work. Oh, hold on, let me look. I have three computers that I use on a daily basis, and I can't remember where I saved it, so nevermind.

I am 98% sure that I saved it on my desktop, but I don't see it. How annoying.

I blame Jeff.

Super Happy Fun Post!

Thanks to Jeff Garr, I am being forced to post a blog daily. I decided to take this blog out and dust it off. This will be the most attention it has ever received. It is all a quiver with anticipation. This blog will feel caressed by my words, teased by my softly spoken phrases, and forever grateful for my presence. Then, I will leave it. As I have left it before, destitute and bereft.

It will wonder, why? What is wrong with me? And I'll say, "It's not me. It's you. I don't like you as much as I pretended. I was only using you, because you are so easy.

"Slut."