So just an update: a week ago, I had to make the decision to have Susie put to sleep. She was getting really, really sick, and the medicine didn’t seem to be effectively treating her symptoms (and treating her symptoms, trying to keep her blood sugar under control, was the only thing we could do — she was too sick to have the tumor/s removed). This has been really difficult for me and I don’t really feel like working on this site much right now. (Which is not to say I haven’t been working on anything — I’ve been painting a lot.)

I know some people think that the death of a pet isn’t a huge deal, and would find it strange that for me it’s so devastating. I think those people are stupid. But anyway, I think you can all at least somewhat understand where I’m coming from here.

Not only am I still pretty sad about this (doing better than I was), I also have to find a way to earn some money to pay my dad back for vet bills because of all this. (In addition to website costs which I already needed to earn some money for.) I’m not terribly motivated but the motivation I can muster is definitely going towards potentially paying work. It’s not too bad; I’ve gotten a few leads and I think I can get some artwork in a couple of galleries, I think at least some of it will sell, although if I didn’t really need some money, I probably would never pursue the idea of selling art professionally. I might be house-sitting for a little extra cash and I’ve got a huge editing job that should help a little. But that’s my focus for now and all I have energy for.

It’s not that if I really felt inspired I couldn’t find the time for this blog, but…I just really can’t do it right now. I haven’t been able to for weeks now but it’s just been getting worse and worse and circumstances haven’t improved. I can’t keep up with other blogs either, so I’ve got no idea what’s been going down in most of feminist blog-land for the past month. It’s not just burnout — but that’s big part of it.

Anyway, there you have it. Keep me on your RSS feeds or whatever; I know I’ll be back around eventually. I get too pissed off about the world and too worked up over theory for it to be any other way. Keep an eye out: even if I’m not writing here I’ll post information about any other projects I work on.

So, if you don’t know, my ferret who’s been ill for the last month (causing me not to post much for my guest period on Alas–sorry, Amp!) was just diagnosed with insulinoma, which is basically a form of pancreatic cancer that affects insulin production. She’s been put on medication which seems to be helping a lot, though I’m not sure how long she’ll live. Sometimes ferrets can live for years with cancer and be perfectly happy and sometimes it can get really bad or invade other parts of the body and kill them pretty fast. It all depends. For now, she seems to be doing better and seems to be happy. I know it will probably get worse and eventually her condition will probably deteriorate, but for the moment, it’s under control.

Anyway, that’s what’s up and that’s what’s keeping me stressed out and busy right now.

Have a picture:

That’s it, baby. Tell that smiley face who’s boss!

Still dealing with a sick animal who suddenly seems to be getting sicker. Occasionally sick siblings. Avoiding water gun fights (okay, that was the highlight of last week, actually :). Store moving, leaving my job. The best laid plans of mice and men and other various mammals gone awry. Trying to find a vet that’s open on a Sunday. In other words: stressed out, worried, occasionally breaking down.

It’s not really all bad, though. I’m okay, really. I’m alive, I’ll be fine. I just really don’t feel like posting anything lately, even when I have ideas for what to write about. When I do feel like writing it’s my fiction, which is really my top priority anyway. Just dropping a line so you all know I’m still around and I plan to keep posting, I just don’t know when.

I need to upload a bunch of art onto the main site; maybe I’ll just do a post about that for lack of better content. Besides, my pictures are pretty.

On AlterNet: Hating the Hate Mail. It’s all good, so you should just go read it now. But if you want to know what it’s about, an excerpt:

The psychic impact of hate mail is something female writers don’t often talk about in fear of appearing vulnerable in the male world of opinion writing. I believe women can take the heat of opinion journalism as well as any man; the problem is that the heat we take and the reasons why are very different.

Maureen Dowd of The New York Times discussed reactions to female opinion in her column last year. “While a man writing a column taking on the powerful may be seen as authoritative, a woman doing the same thing may be seen as castrating.” She went on to say she called Alan Dundes, a renowned folklorist, to ask about it. “Women are supposed to take it, not dish it out,” Dundes told her.

Any woman who writes or blogs on political (not even necessarily feminist!) issues can tell you all about this. I doubt men are as often targeted with threats of violence just for being men. Hate mail I’ve gotten when presumed to be male has been bad too, but not nearly on the same level as I get when I make my sex clear.

I think this relates to the article on women being disproportionately harassed online. It’s the same attitude, coming from the same place. Just being a woman is enough to make you an appropriate victim (after all, how many female rape victims are presumed to be “asking for it” simply for wearing certain clothes or being friendly, things which are simultaneously promoted as somehow intrinsically”feminine”?), but if you’re a woman and you dare to have an opinion… WELL.