Some Forms of Suicide Can Be Humorous...(Read before you judge!)

My first example, before anyone jumps down my throat, is political suicide.

But there's also the option of...hmm...I think I'll call this publishing suicide.  I'm currently suffering from lack of sleep again so I'm trying to keep busy.  While glancing through Twitter, I saw that Neil Gaiman had posted the following tweet:

If you ever have dreams of being a writer, please trust me & DON'T DO THIS: http://bit.ly/hEp5LI Just don't. Just.... don't. #CantLookAway

I've had self-publishing mentioned to me several times before but I'd actually need to finish writing whatever project I was working on to actually give it a serious consideration.  However, after reading the link my dear Mr. Gaiman posted, I realized that I'm extremely lucky.  I honestly love critique.  I don't get offended by it whatsoever.  Sure, I don't always agree with the critique I receive but I'm not going to rip someone's head off after hearing them out.

Then again, comments like "u suk" or "zomg, ur french is sooo bad, i took it for high school 3 years ago for liek a week and..." tend to not get much of a response from me, but hey...it's cute when they try.

(Side note: I actually did have someone who spoke English criticize a French poem of mine.  He claimed my sentence wasn't structured properly.  However, quite a few other people kinda went "Wtf?!" at him and...well, you can imagine how that went.)


Anyhow, I digress...

It shouldn't surprise me anymore but I can't help it: that review was not insulting in the slightest and I am still amazed that some people can get so freakin' butt-hurt over something like that.  That silly author has definitely committed publishing suicide with her reaction.

I tend not to ask for proofreading, mostly because I'm not writing to impress anyone, I'm just doing it for my own enjoyment, so I don't feel obligated to ask for it.  Though I'm quite aware that I do make occasional mistakes when I go back and read stuff, so if I did end up taking it completely seriously and consider publishing, I sure as hell will ask for someone to look it over.

Oh, and before I forget...no, I don't think actual suicide (the kind that kills) is funny in any way, shape or form.  I'm very anti-suicide and wouldn't wish it on anyone.  In this case, the butt-hurt author shot herself in the foot by reacting the way she did, thus damaging her career possibly beyond repair.  So if her writing career was symbolized as her life, well...she just killed herself.

Reviews don't become gospel.  Silly girl...

p.s.  Do note that both pictures posted here were swiped from http://icanhascheezburger.com.  Gotta love the lolcats!

And the Oscar for Biggest Drama Queen Goes To...

It's not very often that I feel the need to go on a serious rant over how silly people can be.  However, this past weekend, I feel, is noteworthy.

After months of being away, I've finally returned to Canada.  I lived in California for almost 11 years and after quite a few complications, I've managed to get back here.  I flew from Sacramento, California to Syracuse, New York, via Los Angeles and Chicago.  My oldest sister (a.k.a. OldSis in a previous entry) lives near Syracuse.  She offered to pick me up from the airport and drive me across the border into Canada, so we could go spend the weekend at TwinSis's house.  During the weekend, we all got to reunite with my MidSis.  The last time I saw my MidSis was almost 11 years ago.  So this reunion--all four of us under the same roof--was long overdue.

The main drawback about this weekend circled around OldSis and her new boyfriend.

OldSis's new boyfriend is 18 years younger than her.  She also has three kids who are 18, 14 and 10.  OldSis has been married twice now and is newly separated.  Without even waiting for things to cool off, she leaped into this young punk's arms and during the past few days I got a front-row seat to a relationship that is heading towards being a complete disaster.

I don't ever plan on having children, but I am very protective of my nieces and nephews and after having seen how OldSis handles her relationship, I decided to say something.  Due to the fact we were visiting TwinSis and because I didn't want to start a war, I held my tongue all weekend to avoid an outright confrontation.

But now that the weekend is over, I did the only thing I thought was acceptable and sent OldSis a Facebook message and I was not gentle about it.  When she and her boyfriend argue, they do it in front of her kids.  The problem is that OldSis treats her boyfriend more like a mother telling off her son.  And when she doesn't get her way, she cries and storms off, but the worst thing she does is she lashes out at her kids when it's not even their fault.  If her boyfriend won't kiss her, she yells at her kids because he won't kiss her in front of them.  There were many other instances where she lashed out at them, but that's the only one I'll mention.

So I sent her that message.  It was long, it was blunt.  And as expected, it was not well received (which is pathetic, because she actually did ask for my honest opinion).  But I don't care.  I saw how miserable her kids were this past week.  I saw how scared her little boy was from getting yelled at for something that wasn't even his fault.  I saw how her youngest daughter cried because her mother yelled at her for something ridiculously childish and because her boyfriend wasn't letting her have her way.  OldSis can think whatever she wants of me, I don't care, but I'll be damned if I let her go on treating my nieces and nephew that way.  They deserve better than this bullshit.

I'll weather this storm, because it's worth it.  I don't regret speaking my mind about this.  OldSis has been making too many mistakes up until now and I have no reservations about pointing out what an idiot she's being over this new boyfriend of hers.

She moved way too quickly.  Again.  I've known for a long time that she has Daddy issues and I didn't go so far as to point that out to her, but she needed to hear how fucked up it is to drag her kids into her relationship by blaming them when something goes wrong.

However, in conclusion, I'll change the subject by saying that I got to meet an online friend of mine, today.  And I had a great time! Also, I met up with some more relatives I haven't seen in a while and it was great fun.  It's nice to be back among close family again.  Let's just hope that the next few months only get better for me.

/end rant

Sisters Say the Darnedest Things...

"If you don't understand how a woman could both love her sister dearly and want to wring her neck at the same time, then you were probably an only child."

~Linda Sunshine


I have three sisters.  Two of them are older than me and they were born a year apart from each other.  One of them, as you should know if you read my last blog entry, is my identical twin.  There's approximately an eight year age difference between the two oldest and my twin and I.  Still, it was pretty nifty having them as teenagers during the 80s.


I thought so, anyway.

(From hereon, I'll be referring to them as OldSis, MidSis and TwinSis.)


For the past eleven years, I've lived mostly in California, so I haven't really had a chance to see my sisters that often.  Recently, I've had a rather stressful time.  To the point where I pretty much need to be "rescued" by my family.  They've made arrangements to have me come back to Canada, which is pretty awesome.  I'll be heading to Syracuse, New York, on the 16th and OldSis will be taking me up to Ottawa.  I'll get to see MidSis (whom I haven't seen in about ten years) and TwinSis.


We haven't been in the same room since MidSis's wedding, back in 2000.  I'm looking forward to it, but at the same time I'm dreading it, mostly for the fact that there will be MUCH teasing.  And to be honest...the war has already begun.

When we were kids, our parents were part of the local figure skating club.  For one of their shows, they had built these huge robots out of boxes.  TwinSis and I were probably 3 years old at the time and those things, quite honestly, terrified me.


Unfortunately, our older sisters were babysitting us that day.  I actually still remember this incident, surprisingly.  What my older sisters did (to me, anyway) was take me down to the basement where the robots were located...and they stuck me under one of them (more like they stuck me under a box).


This event has traumatized me throughout my life.  I hate robots.  I can't fucking stand them.  When I got The Burning Crusade expansion for World of Warcraft and leveled up in Outland, I would freak out whenever I got caught by the fucking Fel Reaver.  I hate that goddamn thing.  I hate robots!

And my sisters know this! So yes...the war has already begun because when I logged onto my Facebook this morning, I found that the following message had been posted by OldSis on my wall:

"Only ONE MORE WEEK til I pick you up from the airport!!! I'm so excited, I have my robot balloon picked out from the party store to tie in the backseat, I have a CD with Beastie Boys - Intergalactic and Gladios - Still Alive to play in the car on the way back!! I am ready! That balloon is awesome too....it makes robot noises and it has eyes that light up! TwinSis helped me pick it out."

There will be blood, I think.  My one comfort to this horrible "threat" made itself known when I turned on MSN to see if any family members needed to contact me.  An offline message popped up from TwinSis and I took malicious delight at what it said:

OldSis says:  ONE MORE WEEK TIL I SEE MY PARTNER!!!!!
 
TwinSis says:  Heh heh heh.  You poor bastard.  X3
 
OldSis says:  bah she loves me!
 
TwinSis says:  I don't know if I would call that love.  I don't [know] that it's even capable of love.  All I know [is] that it hates us less than it does other people.
 
OldSis says: ROFL
 
TwinSis says: I'm totally sending her that conversation...  She'll lol!
 
OldSis says: you mean IT will laugh?
 
TwinSis says: That's just for show.  I mean, if she's an it, what does that make me???


Thanks to TwinSis being so observant, I decided to be gracious and corrected some of her spelling errors.  Mostly, she forgot to include a few words.  You can see the corrections I made by noting the square brackets.  Once again, her mistakes will be seen by all.

So I'll be seeing all of my sisters on the 19th of March.  I do believe I'm going to enjoy this...


~Fel

p.s.  I am aware that the font might seem different throughout this entry.  Ignore it.  I can't be bothered to fix it.