done done done! i'm sorry for the delay, really.

Title: The little thickness of the coin.
Author: furies/another_juxtaposition@hotmail.com
Recipient: semirose
Fandom: House MD
Pairing: Amber/Thirteen.
Rating: R.
Word count: ~2100
Disclaimer: Not mine. Never were, never will be. Forever and ever, amen.
Notes: many many thanks to fox1013 and girlboymusic for everything. All mistakes are mine. I wanted this to be a story more about Thirteen, but man, Amber really is a bitch. Title borrowed from e.e. cummings.

Summary: She kissed a girl, and she liked it.

(  'I was a little tied up.'  )

okay people.

i know there are loads of boston fans on my flist. i acknowledge it. i do.

and hey! congrats on that basketball thing! seriously!

so. there's two weeks left in the online voting for the all-star game.

right now, five boston players are winning their positions. which - okay. EXCEPT this is in YANKEE STADIUM. i love big papi, and i vote for him (almost) every year. but guys! this is not . . .

LET'S SHOW SOME DIVERSITY HERE! where's minnesota? where are all those crazy rally-monkeys from anaheim? where's the hope for the underdog? the player that is pulling a dead team along?

i mean, they are not having this problem with the national league. votes are scattered all over there, team-wise.

so. i beg of you, if you love baseball, even if you are a die-hard member of red sox nation, wander over to the ballot box at mlb.com and vote. not just for your favorite players, but for the players you think are really standing out this year. (like little mark ellis of oakland! and to show i'm not biased, this is the first year i'm not voting for chavez at third.) just . . . let's make this interesting, yeah? there are tons of us!

and if you don't know anything about baseball, vote for your favorite town! or who has a funny name! or . . . i don't know! SOMETHING. i just think it would really sad to see half the AL or NL team be from ONE SINGLE team.

::still thinks it's unfair we can't vote for pitchers::

anyway, my pathetic little team creamed the d'backs and brandon webb last night, and tonight they face harden. former star of my darling little team, haren.

hey people -

TOLL FREE NUMBER.

call and demand mental health parity! the first step is so close!

(granted it's a small step, but that's better than nothing, and sets the stage for comprehensive parity.)

go here: Network Information/How to Call for Free

call, and spread the word! this affects more people than you think, and reaches across demographics and race and class.

i know it's friday and it's the weekend, but if you have a minute, please check this out and pass it along to anyone you know who might be interested as well.

you all know i'm not a big believer in letter-writing campaigns, but i'm trying to be hopeful. also - this is something that is very important to me - i can attest to how stigmatization and embarrassment and frankly WRONG material can happen when hospitals obtain mental health information that is out of date, or not relevant any longer - and is really a violation of my privacy rights. (different hospitals, no written consent, etc. where's HIPPA when you need it?)

the thought of this information being at the hands of future employers, etc. is probably me catastrophizing. but even the idea that a doctor i could see might be able to pull up a record from someone random who gave me a diagnosis i don't believe - and that my every-day doctors don't agree with - is mildly upsetting, especially because different diagnoses are stigmatized within the medical community itself.

please take a minute to read the information, and if you want to, send an e-mail/letter to your senator. feel free to link back here or post in your own journal. the concept behind HIT should be applauded, but it should err on the side of caution before being put into practice.

( S.1693 - Wired for Health Care Quality Act )

guys. oh dear. i am setting up a spoiler-cut, but i have a spoiler request that's under there (i don't know what is safe and what isn't anymore) so even if you don't watch the show but you read a crapload of spoilers or something, maybe you want to click and keep my request in mind?

( he wasn't afraid of dying. )

post: public - please send anyone over who you think might be able to explain this to me.

how is bipolar II, especially bipolar II with mixed episodes, categorized as an axis I disorder instead of an axis II disorder, especially when looking at it, borderline personality disorder seems more "manageable" by therapy and meds than bipolar II? (or, at least, the same type of thing.)

i understand the DSM is deeply flawed. (oh, yes i do.)

but this i can't even reason out.

note: reason number 784 why i should not be reading non-fiction past 9 pm.

question number two: i find the sound of rain deeply and refreshingly calming. it is raining now. are there sound machines that make rain noises? i don't want the ocean, or the jungle or crickets or whatnot. i want RAIN. lots and lots of rain. i think that might help my sleep. (i say as i sit here awake.)

please, interwebs, don't let me down!

so i'm super late, but i finished it! first in treatment fic, first thing officially finished in 2008. so that's something, yeah? oh, pre-series entirely, so it's not necessary to have watched the show, though if you are not iamsab, why aren't you?



a way to keep you close.
author: furies.
fandom: in treatment.
character: sophie, pre-series.
rating: g.
notes: late, but finally here, for round 6 of picfor1000. picture found here. thanks to amy and leigh for being enthusiastic.

summary: ( sophie is perceptive, she knows. )

this will be about the l word. because the season finale killed me, and i still love bette, and i've never been able to write a love poem, anyway.

01.	You were right about me.	02.	I was wrong about you.	03.	This cancels out the hurt.
04.	I need to want you.	05.	You can be like me.	06.	I want to need you.
07.	Prove it.	08.	I'm cruel.	09.	Always wondered what this'd be like.
10.	I'm broken.	11.	Thought I needed this.	12.	I'm drunk.
13.	I want to hurt you.	14.	I'm awake and you're breathing.	15.	This is my desperation in action.
16.	I want to break you.	17.	Wish I didn't love you.	18.	I pity you.
19.	This isn't about you at all.	20.	I hate you, you bitch.	21.	You'll do.
22.	I hate myself.	23.	You remind me of me.	24.	I want you to hate me.
25.	You remind me of someone.	26.	I can be like you.	27.	Author's Choice.
28.	Author's Choice.	29.	Author's Choice.	30.	Author's Choice.

YOU GUYS.

the hillary i know .

seriously. even if you think you're supporting obama. just.

hi people!

I NEED YOUR HELP.

songs that you listen to when you are in an ANGRY mood. the songs can be angry, the music can be angry, it can be an antidote to your anger - ANYTHING I'M DROWNING HERE PEOPLE.

the mix is entitled: instead of flipping someone off in a preschool parking lot.

thank you cordially.

and ask your friends! the more the better!

in response to everything and nothing all at once:

first of all, i want to thank everyone for the discussion, because it answered my question and prompted more and made me think of things differently and shaded other things and generally woke me up.

i would never want anyone’s identity to change based on MY presumptions of identity - especially since honestly, i believe my identity, as a person, is still being created in a fundamental way. yes, i can put myself in politically correct categorical frames, but i don’t think of that as my identity - but i’ve never been good with identity politics (really) so please forgive my ignorance on the subject, as i am trying to get better about it. and maybe this doesn’t reflect well on me, but this is who i am right now, and the things i am dealing with/thinking about. i’m okay with that, because i think more than anything, i have been forced to believe fundamentally that people continue to grow and learn throughout life, for better or worse, but that change is always, always possible.

i probably made a mistake in using the word “claim”. i was largely thinking about how elie weisel (and i very much realize that he is not the spokesperson for the holocaust, nor the spokesperson for the holocaust jews, much less jews on a whole - because i never and do not claim that the jews are a homogenous people) walked out of genocide conferences when some people brought up the idea that a) the holocaust was not unique, and b) the holocaust did not “belong” to the jewish people only. i find weisel highly problematic in historical terms, which is kind of what i was trying to address.

anyway. there’s also the issue that i realized i didn’t mention when i made the original post, though i hinted at it - the hungarian jews were chosen for a reason, other than say, the bulgarian jews, and it wasn’t just proximity. austria likes to claim it was “hitler’s first victim” and that’s largely the story that has been told. however, vienna was the hot-seat of european anti-semitism. they congregated there. and in fin-de-siecle europe, the dual monarchy existed. the really “intelligent” people were sent to vienna to study, where they encountered truly horrid levels of discrimination (if you can put degrees on discrimination), and a lot of them chose then to leave for england and the us. the truth is that austria was largely in favor of anschluss, and hungary was always the secondary, inferior, partner.

hungary’s case is interesting because of the execution of the evacuation. eichmann had plenty of time to perfect his plan by 1944, and that’s when he hit hungary. when i said that the hungarian police played a large part, i was telling the truth - and yes, they were christian. but the arrow cross existed for a reason outside of anti-semitism, at least in the beginning - they were a magyar nationalist party. when the round-ups occurred, they used old records from the synagogues, and if they suspected people were hiding people, or were sympathetic, they just threw them in the cattle cars as well. i am not saying that the non-jews captured were potential heroes. i am just saying that it wasn’t all the neighbor turning in neighbor or killing neighbor that was more common in poland - largely because they just took everyone. hungarians were mostly peasant farmers outside of budapest, there were looked upon as decendents of the “huns”, and so getting rid of them all benefitted humanity. of course, it wasn’t a hungarian genocide - they didn’t round up everyone and kill them all, but it was specific in the way it was executed to the hungarian people.

i do understand that this is an incredibly emotional issue. i was not trying to say otherwise. i was 10 when my great-grandmother, who went basically insane from her brother’s death in auschwitz, finally died in a special “home”. she was sent to america because she was “mad” and her family was afraid she would be killed in the aftermath. because of what happened to the mentally ill in hungary. and the holocaust impacted MY perception of myself, of the world, of history. yet i feel guilty for thinking of the holocaust as part of “my history” because i worry i will offend someone, while someone who might be jewish but lost no one in the holocaust can “relate” to it somehow better. does it matter if you were a ugandan jew? an indian jew? the holocaust is so tied to the belief in israel now that i think it’s hard - but that’s a cynical political view. and i manage to feel guilty for many things that i have, in a way, no right to feel guilty about. so this really is a personal thing, and i brought it up as a personal question really asked out of not knowing.

and yes, i can watch documentaries with the detached air of an “objective” historian and focus on political language and such instead of being disgusted by the footage. yes, sometimes, i watch documentaries on genocides, including holocaust-related ones, to CALM myself down.

because they remind me that someone is remembering. that someone is caring enough to make this, to share this, to try to get across whatever message. because it means, to me, that someone is NOT forgetting.

i honestly truly believe in the power of collective memory. i honestly truly believe that world peace will not be possibly until we can have a collective history of humanity, where we all acknowlege our own responsibility for everything that has happened, that will happen, that is happening. until we, for lack of a better term, acknowledge our interrelatedness - the way what i say affects the world around me, in ways i might not even know.

and i think girlboymusic has a valid point when she talks about the “rights” of the generally-identifying american jewish population and the “rights” of the other persecuted people in the holocaust - the mentally ill being the most relevant to me. i had someone tell me today that all psychiatric illnesses were invented to bleed the government of money, i had another tell me that anti-depressants were the reason behind the school killings at places like columbine. in today’s society, disclosing the fact you were in a mental hospital largely has the same sort of stigma as saying you were arrested. which isn’t to say that anti-semitism does not exist - that is not what i am saying at all. just that in terms of rights, jewish people can marry and get government tax deductions the same way a christian couple could, while gays cannot, and then mentally ill are disciminated in so many subtle, complex ways. as are the jews. again, i am not saying that erases ANY of the stigma and badness and anything that goes along with being jewish (or any non-christian religion) in america today (which i do believe exists). i am just saying, when we forget - purposefully or not - we lose a chance to learn.

i take responsibility for rwanda, for darfur. i take responsibility for culture that allowed the holocaust. i take responsibility for the increase in adolescent suicide rates, for the implicit racism in america, for the explicit ignorance of my government. i take responsibility because i believe that what happens to one of us happens to us all.

i am a constant questioner in the line between history and memory. people mentioned that there are still holocaust survivors alive - in my experience, these people do not want to talk about it. they are quiet. but i wonder if it’s a generational thing, because their grandchildren are talking about all the family they lost. (again, generalizing, i know.) but the memory of my great-grandmother and the memory of her jewish neighbor - or the memory of a member of the arrow cross - if they contradict, which is correct? can one be correct? is there such a thing as “correct memory”? if not, what then is “correct history”? how do we write history with so many exceptions to the rules? how do we not forget the people in the gray areas while still teaching the importance of those in the black and white? how to do we not diminish one people while telling a story of victimization and persecution, or of struggle and triumph?

as i said at the end of my last post, i think that perhaps the hope for a collective world history is naive. because it does largely ignore identity politics and ideologies. i guess i would like our identity to be as “human” rather than “christian” and “american” and “female”, but we have always defined things by what we don’t have, rather than what we do, as so perhaps we will always be tied to an exclusionary identity.

i largely apologize for the creation of yet another steaming pot of . . . ignorance on the internet. it was not meant in such a way at all, it was asked in an honest (and perhaps simplistic) questioning of the way history is told, created, passed along, and developed to a well-educated audience. i asked an emotional question without considering the emotional context, only the academic/intellectual by-product. i am not screening any comments, because i think this was eye-opening, but i do sincerely apologize to anyone who was offended by this, and to girlboymusic, and to anyone wrongly (or rightly) inflamed by this.

i think these are conversations that need to be held, not just by intelligent, rational academic-types, but by all people. and everything that happened here just serves to reinforce that idea.

here is a question, i am asking honestly and openly, wondering about history and memory and who "owns" what.

i am in the middle of yet another documentary about the holocaust - "auschwitz: inside the nazi state" - done by the BBC in 2005. i got it from the library. i am at the summer of 1944 (roughly).

you know that iconic image of the train arriving in auschwitz-birkenau? you know all the photos from the infamous "auschwitz album", which are basically the only photos of the selection process that are so reproduced again and again?

the train was built to implement Eichmann's plan for the hungarian jews. the photos are of one of the countless transports of hungarians. the country was systematically emptied of its jews, the only surviving ones really in budapest, largely due to the fact that they just ran out of time.

earlier, they spoke of denmark. denmark managed to save roughly 95% of its jewish population, shuttling them to sweden, hiding them. they speculate on why, but largely the danish people simply say that they did not see a difference between them and the jews, that they did not see why one group was being singled out from the rest where there was nothing to separate. that it wasn't really a sense of saving another people, but simply being fair.

while hungary was an axis ally from early on (buying into the belief that the germans would return the land they lost at the end of WWI), they did not evacuate their jews the way the nazi powers would have liked. (italy is similar here.) so, they took over themselves.

the germans had help from the hungarian police - it would not have been possible without them. but it's important to remember, also, the history of the hungarian people - always second to the austrians, but always linked - and therefore linked to germany. the aristocracy, the country, spoke german, especially on the borders, which were only really created after 1914. the romanians were given all of translyvania - and while you may think of dracula, that territory is also some of the richest farmland in europe. after 1914, hungary was reduced in size by roughly 64%. and even the name "hungary" was derogatory. and let's not forget where most of the gypsies came from.

so i ask this - as i watch this documentary, as i see these photos that i have seen so many times before, i think, these are my people. and yes, my great-grandmother's brother died at auschwitz, though not for being jewish.

am i allowed to "claim" part of this history? as part of my history? or is the holocaust really just a jewish memory? would your answer be different if i did not have a family member who died there? can the holocaust belong also to the people of europe, who did not want to lose their neighbors and friends, who lost their sons and daughters, not for being part of a religion, but for other reasons? i know the systematic extermination of a certain people makes it a genocide. i am not trying to claim that this was a hungarian genocide - far from it. i am just wondering if it would be offensive, if what i am saying is offensive? because these ARE my people, in a very real way. except for the fact that they aren't - that my family went to church while they went to the synagogue.

and i wonder how this all relates to the latest discussion about anti-semitism. and i think about how we did this diversity "game" in my class the other week, and everyone starts on a straight line. you move forward or backward depending on a yes or no answer to the specific questions. when asked, "you had family that was forced to move to the us" most of the class stepped backward. later, when we were debriefing, someone said, i was surprised so many people stepped backward at that question. because you think, "slavery," of course, but you don't think about the holocaust, or famine, or economic conditions. and those that think "holocaust" put it on the same level as "slavery" and. it's just eye-opening.

i suppose what i mean to ask is, in the wake of all the posts on "hidden histories" and such, does it really matter? do we need to divide the lines so clearly? yes, i would love it if everyone could tell me what happened in 1956. what the Peteofi Circle was, even who Peteofi was. the two bridges that divide the city of budapest - that buda is on the hill, and pest is the "city". that the parliament building is one of the most beautiful works of architecture in eastern europe. what st. stephen's day is, how old the country is, why so many hungarians left, the divisions of the land, the racism that went into calling them "hungarian", what the hungarian people call themselves. what the double occupation was, what the spring time of the peoples was, and five famous hungarians. there are so many, but they were all exiled, you wouldn't know. did you know the person that first realized germ theory, and said, "physicians, wash your hands," was hungarian? that oliver wendell holmes read a translated hungarian paper when he brought it to the us? does it matter, if it affects us all?

is there such thing as collective history? and can collective history exist in concert with personal history, with group history, or is it all or nothing? must we fight over who owns the history of the bombing of hiroshima - america, japan, the american soldiers, the historians, the victims, the politicians? the political is personal, and the personal political, but can't there be a point where we can all stand and say, yes.

i know it's probably just a naive wish. but i wonder sometimes if i could continue to work in world where i didn't think that collective history could one day be possible, in concordance with personal history, personal memory. i don't want to take anything away from the holocaust by looking at the auschwitz album and saying, "those are my people," but am i? de facto?

(this is what happens when a) my computer dies, and b) i've managed to stay away from "stimulating" media for three days. i overdose a bit.)

note to world: yesterday began national mental illness awareness week.

spread the word. start talking. educate yourselves. discover what bi-polar actually means. learn where twin studies started, and why. question the kennedys and their lobotomies and yet their push to talk about mental illness in a time when you didn't. think about the fact that roughly 30% of america is on some type of psychiatric med. read how much money is lost to depression every year. remember that suicide is the number 2 killer among all teens after car accidents. ask yourself how you are today, and if there's anything you can do to make yourself better. consider creating a self-soothing kit. if you have something hard to do, make sure you reward yourself after. watch your favorite movie starring a "crazy" person. think about writing the white house regarding mental health parity. start talking about how forced sterilization for the mentally ill is still constitutionally upheld by a supreme court opinion written by oliver wendell holmes, jr.

if i wasn't so damn tired, this post would contain links. i promise to do my best to post every day this week on the topic, especially since today in my session i was soooo damn animated and passionate and christine said, "i don't think i've ever been this quiet in a session with you before." hahahah.

i plan on suing the state. no, seriously. i honest-to-god want to sue eliot spitzer and andrew cuomo's collective asses for allowing discriminatory health care. i mean, really, if we are going to make this an economic argument (which you know it is), you actually LOSE money not giving people their psychiatric meds. i mean, i know i probably couldn't be a tax-paying-contributing member of society without the meds i'm on, at least right at the moment. everyone remembers me, hell, this time last year, right? or a few months ago, when i had to drop out of school? yeah. thought so.

so you know, you'll actually ALLOW people to be physically able to work. get the damn schizophrenics off the street and give them the ability to work. clothes are nice, but if your brain is telling you the man in the corner is going to kill you, you ain't lasting long no matter what you're wearing. i'm not saying "free meds! free meds!" though that would be nice. i'm just saying, treat me the same as the person with diabetes. as the person with cancer.

i mean, it's a scientific fact that some people's brains change after trauma. and the definition of trauma varies for every person. does that make it impossible to make a law? i should hope not, in a country that claims to value individualism.

so anyway, i am planning on suing the state of new york for discrimination in their healthy ny plan (even dependents aren't covered. if my kid has ADHD, and i'm so damn poor i qualify for this program, i can't buy my KID the meds it needs because remember? I'M POOR.) and i feel remarkably good about that. just awful fucking tired.

ummm.

i may have just watched the first episode of friday night lights.

i may have said about 15 minutes through, "i wonder which one is tyra and which one is lyla and if i'll actually think they are slashy. oh, that must be tyra. yep."

i may have had to take a break after about 34 minutes because i may have been getting a little emotional.

i may have cried. maybe a lot. maybe the kind of crying that involves sobbing noises.

maybe. perhaps.

(i cry at EVERY DAMN SPORTING MOVIE/TV THING EVER MADE. seriously. remember the titans? sobbed. friday night lights the movie? sobbed. THE REPLACEMENTS? cried in the damn theater. THE LITTLE GIANTS? yep, sniffly nose was right there. how many times did sports night make me cry?? i've cried at SPORTSCENTER. dude, i can't even make it through the opening ceremonies of the olympics for heaven's sake. i am the montage-maker's bitch. i don't know if this show is a good thing for me or not. then again, at least i'll have something else to fall back on when i need something to spur emotion. then again, i might want to be happy sometimes. then again, THAT VOICE-OVER. ::knives to the heart:: i am so damn predictable.)

i will post later, more extensively, because today, today is why i love baseball. it didn't matter who won, really, (though it was awful fun that the yankees swept them - gotta love the heckling that causes), but the banter and the beer and the baseball and the fans and the fact that my sister got a baseball and everything, everything.

seriously, it was one of the best games i've ever seen, and how could it have been better, yankees against the red sox, schilling and wang, everyone agreeing johnny damon is a traitor to every team he plays for?

on days like today, i really really love sports. and rivalries. and fans who know their shit.

however, i must go to bed, because tomorrow i somehow got roped into rushing "spring awakening". catherine insists you have to start lining up at 7. for a box office that opens at 10. i am not a happy camper.

and i am suddenly terrified to try restarting/redoing my computer. what if i forgot to copy something? what if, what if . . . ahhhhhh!!

(also, i had to skip=125 today. what the heck got into everyone??)

i would just like to state for the record that tomorrow, i, stephanie, will be sitting in yankee stadium, watching the best rivalry in the history of baseball.

i am so excited, it's kind of ridiculous.

i mean, i had a totally crappy day (mostly), i'm tired and cranky and pissy (my sisters will attest), but tomorrow i am going to the bronx to buy expensive beer.

i am also going to be wearing my brand new posada shirt, which i am both insanely happy and insanely embarrassed to own. but THE WEASEL. i love the weasel. man, the weasel is total class. (and he can hit the crap out of the a's, and always does, so you know this love is transcendent.)

i think i need some alcohol as i continue to back up everything on my computer in hopes of a clean slate . . .

(also, why the hell does "the hills" pull on EVERY HEART STRING I HAVE?! seriously. this whole lauren/heidi thing is driving me insane. make up! be friends again! i am so sad.)

the puppy is asleep on the couch and refused to make eye contact. “Hope it hurt,” she couldn’t resist replying. The Six that she’d killed stood behind Kara on the couch. i am listening to "love is a battlefield", wearing my new glasses that i adore because you can't tell how thick the lenses are, and they are actually super light. i need a haircut though.

i feel like watching 13 going on 30. i know, i know, i'm beyond a dork.

i was tagged by likethesun2 to list my five favorite fics (not best fics) and since we have been talking about a ficathon related to new york FOREVER. we've decided to get it there. and then i really really need to finish my crazy ass fic, get it read, and post before the next episode ruins everything.

plus, i'm hoping to sleep. since last night was destroyed by the frakking jackhammer of DOOM outside our windows.

hi all,

back in new york. am happy, sunburnt, and exhausted.

have a question - i need to basically restart my computer from the very beginning. i need to reset it to factory settings and stuff. i have the start-up discs, but i don't know how to start the process. i'm running windows xp.

anyone have any thoughts?

more to come, after sleep.

love!

i have been reading some of the stuff linked by people in the ibarw stuff, and . . . it's interesting.

i took project implicit's IAT test on multi-culturalism vs. uni-culturalism. and i came out with no preference either way. honestly? while i do think this pretty much reflects my views on the situation, i also think it has to do with the fact that i've done IAT testing before, that i know the theory behind it, so the test was very, very familiar (even if the words necessarily weren't).

for those unfamiliar with IAT testing, the idea is pretty simple. it basically uses stereotypes to see if there are deeper feelings behind the immediate. it relies on simple memory tricks, and then times you when you are faced with different positions. so for example, in an IAT test on gender, you might start off with five words that go with "feminine" and five words that go with "masculine" (the big debate is always which words to pick, otherwise IAT testing is pretty darn uniform. words eventually picked are chosen usually do to sociological research) so you might get say, "giggly" and "strong". (okay, so those are bad words, but it's 4 in the morning, and you get the idea.) they are words that aren't REALLY about one or the other, but are usually associated with one stereotype or the other. then there are two other categories, which are "bad" and "good". these often don't require any real debate.

in the first round you match the feminine and masculine. in the second, you match the good and the bad. this establishes a kind of baseline. then you start working with them paired up. so feminine and good are put together, and you have ten words that then fall under the left category, and masculine and bad are together with the other ten words. you again have to match them up. the next step is to switch the "good" and the "bad" - so now masculine is good, and feminine is bad.

the idea is, because you are trying to go quickly and stuff, your implicit associations will reveal themselves - especially because you've been "trained" to answer in a certain way. so the longer it takes you to put things in the "bad and masculine" category compared to the "good and masculine" category are compared, and biases are drawn from it.

(often the sides are mixed up too, so that feminine is then on the left instead of the right, and that's to counter the effect of being left-or-right handed, as well as trying to break the "training" they've put you through.)

there are of course problems with IAT testing, but it's one of the better measures of implicit prejudices and things that social psychology has come up. the things it reveals in gender studies are pretty amazing. the problem with IAT testing, i've found, is once you have done a couple, you start to get really good at them, and so any implicit stuff is kind of ruled out, because you've become good at the "game". especially when they tell you what the words are up front and what categories they belong in - i think the better IAT studies come when the person taking the test isn't sure which category they belong in initially, and then "learn" that through the first two rounds of the study. otherwise, memorization can become key - which is running counter, really, to the idea of trying to gather your implicit, underneath, unconscious, associations.

the second thing i noticed today was the discussion of sundown towns. i looked at the list of suspected sundown towns in california, and was a bit perplexed. from what i understand, sundown towns basically keep people of another race out - however, nothing was mentioned about keeping whites out of the towns (jews, chinese, other ethnic minorities, yes). but then why would inglewood be on the list? it's predominately african-american. perhaps because of the other ethnic minorities? but then i think, east palo alto? seriously? there's more hispanics in east palo alto than whites or blacks, and i think the white to black ratio is really close.

a closer look at the site reveals that in fact, these towns are "surely not" sundown towns now. the evidence that they are providing for east palo alto, for example, though seems to be a little too . . . easy. (is this racist on my part?) i'm surprised, then, though that places like san francisco and san diego and sacramento aren't on the list, if this is "historically" places of sundown towns. (berkeley makes the list, which i find fascinating - i mean, the black panthers were based in berkeley/oakland, but. i suppose this is earlier in history.) while there might not have been signs in san fran against, say, the chinese immigrants, there was the 1881 chinese exclusion act, which made it illegal for anyone of chinese descent to move to california. there is a reason places like chinatown became so prominent in the cities - because they couldn't live elsewhere. maybe they were okay with blacks, but west coast racism has always been a little different, historically. also, i think smaller towns are a lot closer to sundown towns that people would like to think . . . i wonder about carmel, i wonder about the beach towns, i wonder about santa barbara, i wonder about davis. if realtors can be the method of exclusion, then i would think that most of these places would qualify - especially today, and especially against hispanics.

it's just always interesting to me that when people talk about racism, they focus almost primarily on the black-african-american experience. and with good reason, but i think that blinds us to other prejudices - a lot of people i know are prejudiced against asian people, for example.

anyway. i should go to sleep again. i was just thinking.

i understand that like, everyone except me has seen season five of alias. as i've mentioned before, i bought it as soon as it was released on DVD (after deciding i couldn't take the drama watching it live-time) and the dvds have been moving around with me ever since. i take them on vacation (california, pennsylvania, north carolina), i bring them babysitting when i have a night job - these are well traveled s5 dvds.

i can't really explain why i couldn't bring myself to watch it. i developed quickly a deep affection for rachel, i thought renee was kick-ass, and peyton was the best thing to hit the small screen in female villains since irina herself.

i've been thinking about all this stuff between jack and sydney, i've even written early!jack and syd, without what is revealed in the final episodes. hell, i was spoiled for the season anyway, so i really didn't think it would matter.

except, of course, i didn't read everything. i didn't remember all the small details. i wasn't prepared to start crying when jack stood up as syd drove away in mongolia (of course) and i was surprised at how hard it was for me to say goodbye to a character i loved.

all in all, i was impressed with the season, (though i wish it were longer) especially since most people panned it. i'm glad it ended when it did, because i don't have to deal with the decline of the series. i also have set canon to work with now.

but part of me feels really sad, like i could keep something alive as long as i didn't watch the final episodes. because they would be new to me, it was almost like they were actually new.

the bonus is now i feel i can participate in the the_retelling fully now, because i know everything that happens. the sad thing is there will never be new alias for me again. and i have to say, alias is a great emotion regulation tool for someone like me. there's drama, there's suspense, there are cool gadgets and complicated relationships, explosions, an epic love story (or two), twists and turns, betrayals, assassinations, family, kids, holidays and loss. but most of all, they all - all of them, really - in spite of everything they saw, and all the horrors they faced, they kept going. they stayed alive. they tried to be happy and make lives even outside of work. they are archetypal in that way, and nadia's presence in the last episodes just drove home how different sloane was from everyone else - and why that mattered.

yes, it was a show about spies. yes, there were tight clothes and cheesy lines and scenarios that would never be feasible in the real world. but that allowed an escape from this mess of a real world, and it never took itself too seriously. in doing so, it reminded me what i love most about being who i am, where i am, trying to find a job that i feel is in my blood. it's the people around me, and the passion i feel. and so i think that my five seasons of alias are safe from any purging even catherine undergoes, which means it will remain, along with sports night and joan of arcadia, the only series i have as a whole. which somehow seems fitting, for a person like me.

i wrote a back-up story for twicetoldfandom. i don't think it's up at the archive yet, but i just want to post the damn story because it took me a long time to write, and i want it out there! hah.

so it's really three stories in one, three fandoms, and all related to picture 15. (the picture is actually kind of important to the story, so click! it will only take a second.)

title: Your Imagination is a Deep, Blue Sea (or, three memories that refuse to fade).
fandom: bsg, alias, the office.
characters: roslin, jack, karen.
spoilers: 3.01 & 3.02 for bsg, s1 for alias, s3 for the office.
rating: pg.
notes: many thanks to everyone who offered advice and helped me with canon issues, and of course, to fox for running this awesome challenge that actually got me to finish something! any mistakes are my own darn fault.

summary: “The window is bright and blue, and possibly not there at all.”

( I. (bsg). )

( II. (alias). )

( III. (the office). )

in case you aren't on any of the communities i just pimped this out to:

so there's this ficathon being run. totally easy - just sign up for a prompt, and write a story! no exchange, no stress over having to write a pairing you aren't sure of . . .

it's the Altered Mind States fication, found here: hawkfromhandsaw.

it's totally brilliant. pimp it out wherever you feel mental illness/health/issues can be used in fic form! ever wanted to really explore PTSD? wanted to have a character go to therapy? needed an excuse to kill off someone? here's your chance! of paranoia? of thinking you're hallucinating? bad parental issues? purposefully thwarting your own happiness? unrequited love? anxiety disorders? phobias? depression? substance abuse? insomnia? amnesia? alzheimer's? eating disorders? erectile dysfunction? TOURETTE'S???

YOU CAN DO IT ALL!

seriously, it's a brilliant idea, and there will be some awesome people participating in tons of different fandoms. but i think it would be awesome to have sports night represented. over 60 prompts to choose from already, so get those crazy ideas rolling!

(btw, just to note, this is awful tongue-in-cheek - serious psychological issues will probably be dealt with (yeah, i'm the one that signed up for the sexton suicide prompt!) but there's also the ability to have fun with it. soon, maybe, there will be a helpful FAQ for technical definitions of different illnesses, but even so, as someone who both suffers from and works in the mental health world, this is really just for fun. it's also a chance to raise awareness, if you think fic can do that sort of thing, which, yeah, i'm guilty of that too.)

the twicetoldfandom archive is up and running! it's quite lovely, especially to see what came from other folk's interpretations of the same picture.

so the first thing i wrote was my very first bones story, which is linked to picture 16. it's much prettier to read on the site than on here, but take your pick.

title: faith from further off
for: twicetoldfandom. (archive is here).
fandom: bones
spoilers: s1 (esp. "the woman in limbo".)
rating: g
notes: many, many thanks to ainsley for the rockin’ beta, my artist for the inspiration, and fox for running this whole thing. this is my first bones story, so we’ll see how i do.

summary: "there are no answers here, but she looks all the same."

( answers and questions and things we never meant to know. )

attention all new yorkers:

i have done some research. i have found trivia on monday on the LES, tuesday on the UES, and wednesday in brooklyn.

now, i LOVE trivia. unfortunately, my regular trivia team has moved away. (sob.) so, umm, anyone want to trivia with me? it could be awesome!

now i have to get back to my chores. sigh.

how is it almost 4 already? moan, groan.