her royal highness, the queen of everything
i’m making the familial rounds this week, visiting both my folks and paul’s. my grandmother is here as well, which is a treat for us all since no one can tell a dirty joke quite like her.
gigi is my last remaining grandparent, so one would think we consider her to be the matriarch of our family… and one would be incorrect. the true matriarch is my mom’s dog, pepper, who rests her precious paws upon the above afghan gigi knit for her.
spoiled bitch.
wherein i write another post about sexual assault
UPDATED 3-1: in an effort to continue promoting awareness of the texas rape story, i wanted to post about the incredible efforts people have made to petition at change.org, demanding the New York Times apologize for victim blaming. over 38,000 of your voices have been heard. thank you! if you have not yet signed the petition, you can do so by scrolling to the bottom of my sidebar or click here. the Huffington Post has given attention to campaign for an apology as well. you can read about that here. lastly, the Associated Press has (in my opinion) stated it best,
All that matters is that she is 11.
UPDATED 3-10: with the help of change.org, there is a petition you can sign by clicking here or by scrolling to the bottom of my sidebar. unfortunately the New York Times, while attempting damage control, is remaining unapologetically loyal to the story posted yesterday please support change.sign the petition. the victim is never to blame.
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i consider the work i did as a rape victim advocate years ago, and the work i continue to do with my writing, to end domestic and sexual violence, very seriously… and having this space on the internet has given me the opportunity to do this work very publicly as well.
a few weeks ago, a friend, who is aware of my blog, emailed me a link to a story. in his email, he told me,
If you haven’t already seen it, I thought you might be interested in reading this Washington Post article from yesterday about a class action (15 women and 2 men) lawsuit against the Pentagon/DoD, citing a culture of ignoring rape victims in the military / sweeping rape under the rug. Troubling stuff.
(it should be noted that this article can no longer be found on the Washington Post website. the original text can be found here. and additional information can be found here.)
receiving emails like the one above are quite common for me. i consider this to be both a blessing and a curse. while i am grateful that my readers and friends feel comfortable enough to confide in me with such disturbing stories and situations, i am also heartbroken with each one that i read, as it confirms some of my worst fears… raising my son and the possibility of more children in a world filled with such ugliness and hate.
so it should come to no surprise to me that today, as i signed on to twitter, my direct message column had blown up with stories of sexual assault and rape allegations.
but it did.
i clicked and read this story about 4 young men who allegedly raped an 11 year old girl in texas. i continued to click on my next link and read this story found on Jezebel, a continuation of the first with additional commentary… which then linked me to the NY Times coverage of this story.
according to the piece that ran in the New York Times,
The affidavit said the assault started after a 19-year-old boy invited the victim to ride around in his car. He took her to a house on Travis Street where one of the other men charged, also 19, lived. There the girl was ordered to disrobe and was sexually assaulted by several boys in the bedroom and bathroom. She was told she would be beaten if she did not comply, the affidavit said.
A relative of one of the suspects arrived, and the group fled through a back window. They then went to the abandoned mobile home, where the assaults continued. Some of those present recorded the sexual acts on their telephones, and these later were shown among students.
the New York Times continued…
Residents in the neighborhood where the abandoned trailer stands — known as the Quarters — said the victim had been visiting various friends there for months. They said she dressed older than her age, wearing makeup and fashions more appropriate to a woman in her 20s. She would hang out with teenage boys at a playground, some said.
“Where was her mother? What was her mother thinking?” said Ms. Harrison, one of a handful of neighbors who would speak on the record. “How can you have an 11-year-old child missing down in the Quarters?”
i then found myself on the website for the Houston Chronicle, and my eyes widened as i read the 5 words that titled the piece, “Girl’s sexual assault rocks Cleveland.”
i’m assuming you can see where i’m going with this… the bile in my throat rises seeing the title alone.
i am no journalist. i have not conducted interviews with regards to this story, nor do i intend to. but i am a rape survivor, one who was not as strong as this 11 year old girl is, as i chose not to come forward after i had been victimized. i can only hope that her strength is unwavering as this battle has only just begun for her.
when it comes down to it, i stand with Margaret Hartmann, author of the Jezebel piece,
the only thing we need to know is that she’s an 11-year-old girl, and there’s absolutely no justification or rational explanation for a crime this heinous.
no, there is not. and there never will be. please stop promoting justifications, excuses, and explanations. start promoting awareness.
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should you find yourself or someone you know in need of resources concerning domestic and/or sexual violence, please visit Violence Unsilenced.com’s resources page. i also strongly encourage you to visit RAINN (Rape, Assault & Incest, National Network).
i think the spanish are on to something
last week, i took jackson to the playground and caught up with a couple of moms while our kids played.
it’s weird here. because you’re in military housing, you know all the people who live around you. you know when they arrived, when they’re leaving, who is deployed, who is returning home… but you only really interact with these neighbors through your kids and the time they spend on the playground… and then you hibernate for like 5 months because it’s butt ugly cold out and you’re snowed in.
then all of a sudden, unless you’ve been relocated, you come out of your hole of an apartment, approach the playground hesitantly as you notice some new faces, you recognize the familiar faces and then say “HOLY SHIT, YOU’RE KID IS GOING TO BE 3?!?!”
so that’s what happened last week, and what will continue to happen in the coming weeks as (hopefully) spring approaches. and it’s all well and good and whatever… but a tad bit awkward. for me, it is.
amongst my neighbors here is a lovely spanish family with 4 children. yes, 4 children! and these kids are beautiful and kind and polite to one another AND BILINGUAL and and and… so we’re on the playground with them and i’m catching up with their mother who i hadn’t seen in about 6 months. her husband is deployed right now. left in january, should be back in july.
happy fucking new year.
her eldest comes running up to her after the school bus drops her off. she says hello to me, high-fives jackson, and talks about her spelling homework that she doesn’t want to do. then she scampers off to go to a friend’s apartment and play.
i’m learning that there’s kind of an open door policy when you are in military housing and you have kids of similar age with your neighbors.
“mom, can i go to so and so’s house…”
“um, is there a parent home?”
“uh… YEAH MOM.”
“yes, you can go.”
and the door is unlocked, if not ajar and life goes on.
when we arrived here, jackson was 9 months old. we moved into our apartment in january, which lemme tell ya, was just splendid. jackson was feeding tube less, but still battling his cyclic vomiting syndrome like a beast. so no one, and i mean NO ONE, even knew we were here until late march/early april of that year. no blame placed. not their fault, not ours. it just was.
jackson will be 3 next month. it goes without saying that he’s grown a lot during our time here.
we’re supposedly leaving this joint in june… i dunno… something about a budget that has not yet been approved and the government going back and forth… and a 2 week suspension of budgeting for the military therefore no one knows anything… i don’t quite recall, but something like that.
back to the playground… so my spanish neighbor’s eldest daughter saunters off to go play and the wind kicks up like a beast and i wonder what time it is and then i realize i have no idea what i’m doing for dinner nor did i defrost anything today.
we ordered chinese.
i tell jackson we have a couple of more minutes until we needed to go upstairs.
he loses his shit. tantrum shit. shit tantrum.
i roll my eyes and feel sheepish for a moment. a couple of minutes of screaming and then he’s playing in the dirt again for his couple of more minutes that i granted him.
so i ask my spanish friend about the tantrums. her second from the youngest is a little boy near jackson’s age. apparently his tantrums are rocking her world right now too. little boy tantrums + 3 other children + deployed husband…
you win. i bow to thee. teach me your ways.
so she did.
she said, “i want my kids to fear me.” but she says it in her spanish accent that makes it sound even more exotic and wonderful because the “r” at the end of “fear” is purring and it reminds me how desperately i want to visit spain.
my eyes widen and i’m like, “you are so damn right.”
she goes on about how else are they going to respect you? alpha parenting? yada yada… i dunno because all i do is listen to her accent…
point is, i’m not going all tiger mom on jackson. (the smartest thing i think i did when all that tiger mom bullshit was all over the internet and the today show and whateverelse was to not read it.)
but in terms of these tantrums he’s throwing lately, which are aplenty and increasing by the hour, i’m ignoring him. so long as we’re not in a public place where glass or ceramic objects can be thrown, i’m ignoring him.
ya know why???
because he has no idea what the hell to do once he has ceased his tantrum.
and thus a bit of fear has been inflicted upon my tantrum-toddler…
example: jackson threw a tantrum just now after coming home from school because he didn’t want me to take his muddy shoes off. i tried to remove said muddy shoes, he screamed, cried, laid on the floor and kicked his feet at me.
so i walked away. i started doing things around the apartment, emptied the dishwasher, bla bla bla… the screaming and kicking continued for a while. so then i came back to the master bedroom, plugged my laptop back in, peed IN PRIVATE.
then i sat down at my desk, checked my inbox and out of the corner of my eye, i see jackson walking down the hall. shoeless. quiet. walking slowly. sniffling. softly approaching his matador of a mother.
FEAR MY PEOPLE. FEAR.
thanks mom
my mom has this habit of sending packages of stuff to our house whenever she feels like it.
we’ve received pants for jackson in a padded envelope (along with jury duty notifications for me for the state of georgia)… we’ve received books, a belt (to keep jackson’s pants up), and our latest package included a harmonica.
because of this harmonica, jackson takes it upon himself to wake me up like this EVERY SINGLE MORNING.
really mom??? REALLY???
if you can’t view the above video, click here.
deep thoughts on the commode
shhhh!!! he’s watching shaun the sheep. go quick!
quick, i said… QUICKER!!!
steps. little steps. little person steps.
dammit.
shhh… don’t breathe. he can hear you breathing.
this tile needs to be cleaned, again.
what IS THAT in the trash can?
never mind, i don’t wanna know.
if i bend myself in half, maybe i won’t have to pee again in 45 minutes.
does my iphone work in here?
check twitter…
i need to call mom later.
“NO BABY, MOMMY’S IN THE POTTY.”
how come HE gets to take 25 minutes of uninterrupted time with his ipad to take a dump?
i want 25 minutes of uninterrupted time… PERIOD.
oh what i could do with 25 minutes…
“yes, you can give mommy the paper.”
“no, mommy doesn’t need THAT MUCH paper.”
“red pees outside in the grass, right mommy?”
“yes baby, animals pee outside in the grass. you are right.”
shit, that’s not right. cats pee indoors.
and hamsters… and turtles…
at least this week i don’t have to worry about him asking about my tampon string.
does medication ever truly expire?
nyquil says it expires.
i bet it doesn’t expire… they just want you to buy more.
money grubbers.
“yes baby, you can wear mommy’s flip flops.”
new tooth brush is needed… asap.
“it’s under the sink. yes, you can build a tower.”
“sure hun, i guess you can flush.”
DON’T DROP THE TRUCK IN.
DON’T DROP YOUR ERNIE IN.
“try again… push the lever ALL THE WAY DOWN.”
my god, what must he think when he looks in the toilet?!?
he’ll need therapy one day.
which reminds me… i need to call my therapist today.
where did i put that number?
::FLUSH::
“let’s wash our hands.”
“more later mom?”
yup. more later.
Have a Sip
