I am sooooooooooooooo close to the goal and it’s all because of you peeps.

Right now the official count is $1210.54, or less than $300 to go.

You peeps are rad, you are my sunshines, etc.

Big lip smacky smooches to each and every one of you!

On my way to work everyday I pass by a tent city, what we are calling Nicholsvilles here in Seattle. From the bus it almost looks like a cheerful thing with all the bright pink and blue tents donated by some outdoor company. It isn’t until you start looking at the people that populate it that you become aware of the sad reality.

And all I can think of is how much easier I have it. Sure the Kid and I have been without a place to collect mail for the last few months. We’ve had to tread lightly to avoid annoying our generous friends in any way that might make them reconsider their generosity. We’ve had to share a small room and lost all our furniture. We’ve had to master cooking on a hot plate and keeping the kid from having asthma attacks while staying in damp basements.

But we are inside, warm, safe, and surrounded by people who love us. We are not targets for derision or scorn or violence from the public and the police. We do not have to fight everyday to prove that homeless does not equal worthless. We are so close to being like the tent people, but even in poverty there is a hierarchy. We are at the lucky top.

One of my problems is that I have enough eduction to see the systemic nature of the challenges (blockages) that have kept me in poverty. I know the trap of pink collar work that looks respectable on the outside but never pays enough to bring actual respectability. I know that drugs and alcohol are just ways of masking the sad perpetual hopelessness of life lived on the edges. What I don’t have is enough education (the on paper, can put it on a resume kind) to be able to fix it, for me or anyone else.

But this week has taught me that since I cannot do it alone, I am the luckiest girl in the world because people, awesome, faceless people, will help me.

And the truth is that all human advancement has been because of those kind of actions. We think that it is competition that pushed us to the top of the food chain, or the independent nature of a few lone geniuses through time who have launched us into our present state. But the most radical human advancement ever, more radical even than opposable thumbs and upright walking, is language.

And language is a cooperative, social thing. Language only works when people agree that certain sounds or symbols mean the same thing. It only works when there is a mutual cooperation to understand something outside of either party.

Because of language I can sit here in a basement in Seattle and bunch of people who I have never met are helping me to get one of the most basic human requirements.

I want to use the same language skills that have made me so very lucky to help those down the pole. I’m not sure how yet.

(This is a long meandering post which wasn’t/isn’t very clear in my head. You peeps are getting the raw babbles again- sorry).

So I am currently at $999.43 in the house fund. You peeps are so amazing, I’ve been teary eyed for almost 2 days straight.

There is so much anger, so much to be righteously pissed off about, that it is sometimes easy to forget that there are also some incredibly kind and generous people in the world that make society worthwhile. And you peeps are those people.

I’ll be dropping thank yous via email and sorting out who needs a Ruby story or whatever else their heart desires in the next few days. But right now I fell like the luckiest girl in the world. And I can’t see the keyboard cause my eyes have gone all drippy.

You all get Gossip Videos

(Note- I am sticking this post to the top for reasons of shameless self interest)

So the Kid and I have found a home, if I can come up with first, last and deposit by November 1st.

Even with my super shitty recent rental history (see the eviction of Summer 08) we have found a safe home that we can share with friends who are willing to cut us some slack on the rent. What they can’t do is come up with the cash I need to get into the place.

So my dear friends and readers, you can take direct action to help the homeless in these horrible economic times. I need donations like Bush needs a soul and a clue.

I am not without some means of barter though. Anyone who donates $100 will get a personally hand crafted story featuring themselves and Ruby the Hamster. $200 and I will design a custom blog masthead for you. More than that and I’ll donate an egg (seriously, you just have to look at my ovaries hard enough and the eggs start magically dividing).

Got something else you want or need and think I might be able to provide it- just ask and I’ll do it!

UPDATE: So the little timer thingy on the donation box seems to not work quite right. Right now I need $1275 $1085 more. I’ll keep updating here when stuff changes.

Blue Lyon has a post up with snippets from Andrew Sullivan about why he blogs.

Why I blog is simple.

In this world there are lots of rich, white, overeducated men who get their voices heard. Blogging is a way for me as a poor, undereducated woman to get mine heard.

That’s it in a nutshell

I was having a conversation with a boy about rape. He told me a horrible story about a girl he knows who was drugged at a bar and then dragged off with a broken limb so that some asswipe could rape her.

This lead to the “rape prevention” conversation (note that dude is not an asshole, he’s just a victim of the patriarchy, but he’s trying so I try to be gentle).

Here’s the thing- women CANNOT prevent rape.

Say it again.

Women CANNOT prevent rape.

Women are not raped because they are in the wrong place, or wearing the wrong clothes, or behaving badly. Rape is not a punishment for societal infractions. Rape is a crime committed by a rapist. The only difference between a drunk naked girl passed out at a frat party and a rape victim is the presence of a rapist. Rapists do not spring forth magically from a mixture of beer foam and female pheromones and vulnerability.

Dude and I started talking about how we can stop rape. I am of the adamant opinion that women have done everything they can in that regard. Women cannot prevent rape. Women cannot stop rape from happening. We have spent the last 100,000 years or so trying to prevent it, and yet it still happens.

Because in the end, rape has very little to do with women. We are victims of it. And being raped feels incredibly personal, but it has little to do with us. It is about men and power and we are the objects they destroy to reinforce their place in the universe.

And when we are objects, we have no power to change our status. A toaster or a broom cannot complain when someone uses it against its will.

The only people who can stop rape are men because men are the rapists.

Dude thinks that everyone needs to work to change it, that women need to work just as much as men do to stop rape.

Except, we aren’t the rapists. And we have been working on preventing rape since forever. And I for one am tired of tailoring my behavior out of fear that some rapist will see me coming like a bright shiny beacon of potential cum dumpster status.

Dude thinks, however, that women need to quit with the slut shaming (agreed) and victim blaming (doubly agreed. And that is where we come to the chicken or the egg question. Does ending slut shaming/ victim blaming actually end rape?

I think not. I think that ending rape ends rape. If there is no rape, there is no victim blaming. Period.

Not only are you the origin of some of the most beautiful people on the planet (huhmmm hot Indian boys) but lately people in your country keep committing acts of violence that I agree with.

First, a bunch of laid off temps went ballistic and killed a CEO.

Then an Indian woman who had been stalked for months beheads the asshole when he tried to rape her.

I know, violence not the answer, blah blah blah (you all know I wanted to be a revolutionary as a kid, is it sooooo hard to imagine that I’d be supportive of these kinds of things.)