OKCupid is a pain in the butt. How am I supposed to answer this question? Screw it--this is what we have social networking for.

For those of you who have met me in person: What are the first things you notice about me?

My dreams just spent a morning trying to convince me that:

1. As a girl, Maleficent had green skin and red hair, and would sneak out of her parents' house to visit other houses and buy the things she needed to run away.
2. This connects her to the goddess Persephone, who had similar characteristics.
3. Modern girls and women worship Maleficent/Persephone as a symbol of freedom from the family home. They either identify with her, and pray to her for help in collecting what they need and escaping home, or they pray to her to visit them in the here and now, because she will "buy anything" and take away whatever is bothering them or keeping them trapped--like their children.

It was all very Golden Bough. The dream was so real, so detailed, and so insistent that I had to check that there wasn't some Disney canon in which the young Maleficent had green skin and red hair. (She does cover up and wear an inch of makeup. It's totally possible.) The weirdest part was when I woke part of the way up early on, before the dream had named the character, and thought, "Wait, which Disney character are they talking about?" Oh, but of course--Maleficent. Not, say, Fiona, who would have been a non-psycho choice for a patroness of girls who need to escape.*

So there you have it: Maleficent, patroness of oppressed girls, modern-day incarnation of Persephone. Devotees, tell me how you worship her!


* Yes, my waking self knows she's not from Disney. My dreaming self isn't that scrupulous about distinctions. Obviously.

It's great that my LJ is prominent enough to attract people with a Very Serious Need to tell me why I shouldn't be doing/thinking/saying whatever it is I'm verbing at the moment, but it would be even better if I could figure out a way to make cash off the Very Seriously Needy people.

This is a guest post by a reader who wishes to remain anonymous. She writes, "I need more feedback than the stuff I'm getting from the people around me, which is mostly uncomprehending. [....] I've read the responses of the people who follow you and I was thinking they would understand and might have some reasonable and compassionate feedback."

I'm turning anonymous commenting back on for the next several days, both for the author and for anyone who wants to share their own experiences and give advice anonymously. Thanks to spammers, anonymous comments are screened, but I'll be checking a few times a day and unscreening all genuine comments.

The basics:
When I was a kid, my family lived on a dairy farm. By the time I was 12, my single sibling and I were doing all the chores in the barn. We were waking up at 4am to milk the cows and feed the young stock. We were coming home from school and going straight out to the barn to do the same chores at night. Homework came second to farmwork.

We shoveled cowshit, milked 30-50 cows, fed calves, fed the adult cattle, removed the soiled bedding and replaced with fresh bales of straw, swept the floors and re-limed them. Twice a day, 365 days a year.

My mother used to tell us that she had enough to do keeping house for the two of us and our father. However, there were no hot meals. We made sandwiches, heated up leftovers or soup. She washed laundry and vacuumed. On weekends, we were responsible for dusting and for putting everyone's laundry away. As an adult, I don't really know what the hell she did with all that time because I know how long it actually takes to do that stuff.

When we were disobedient, because kids will be, we were struck. My mother's choice was a leather belt with metal studs in it. If she didn't feel like taking the belt off, she would grab our heads or hair and steer us to what she wanted us to do, and then kick us in the ass. As we were on a farm, she wore leather workboots.

Her dialogue with us was loving when we were obedient and quiet. When we were disobedient, it was:
"Nobody with half a brain would do it that way."
"The skinny kid is MySibling'sName, and the other one is MyName."
"If you're so smart, why didn't you..."
"You wouldn't get off your fat ass to walk until you were three. Nothing's changed."
"Don't be stupid."

For the last two years, I've dropped her out of my life. Talking to her was a litany of how we didn't appreciate all she did for us when we were kids, how hard it was for her to pay her bills, the stuff she bought at rummage sales, why didn't I call her more often, nasty things about Muslims, more plaints about how broke she was while she bought a new motorcycle, etc.

We've already been disinherited--she made sure to tell us a few years ago that her will is made out to her motorcycle club--we won't even be able to get the family pictures without having to buy them from the estate.

Now, she's in the terminal stages of cancer. The doctor told my sib (who's stationed abroad in the US Armed Forces) to come home.

We're torn. It goes back and forth:
"What if she dies and you feel horrible?"
"How is that different than she's made me feel my whole life?"
"But she's your *mother*!!!"
"She abused you!"

For the record, I have a therapist. She's extremely supportive of whatever I choose to do. And she's the one who pointed out that my childhood was abusive. Because to me, it was normal. I thought I was just weak and stupid, wanting to kill myself.

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So, I was wondering if the folks on your flist had any feedback?

Uveitis is... steroid-and-coffee breath in the morning. Fortunately, it seems to be going away. The uveitis. Not the steroid breath. I'm going to have steroid breath for the next two months, courtesy of my eyedrop-tapering plan.

Meanwhile, it's been almost a week since my last atropine drop, and my eye is STILL dilated. Fucking atropine. I don't see how ladies of yore used the stuff to give themselves wide, dewy eyes, because it makes you blind. It's mighty difficult to turn out letters full of fine, flowery phrases in an elegant, swoopy hand when your best vision is 20/100.

For those who weren't around during the great eyeball scare of '08, I have an autoimmune disorder that announced itself by attempting to evict my iris from my eyeball on grounds that it was a foreign body. After massive steroid-bombing at a world-class clinic, the disorder--uveitis--subsided, and I took low-grade chemo for a year and a half to prevent it from ever coming back. It worked for four years, which isn't prevention but is definitely beating the odds. This go-round has been considerably less fraught than last time. I've been able to work through it, unlike '08, when I had days where I could use my eyes for an hour a day, and then I had to lie in bed in a darkened room for the rest of the day, watching movies with my knees drawn up to block the screen because the light of the movie through my closed lids was too painful. (How did I change the DVDs and work the remote? In pain.) At the moment, driving is unnecessarily exciting on sunny days and at night, thanks to the atropine, but my underlying vision is back to normal and my eye isn't red or painful any more.

Yay.

I wonder if I can use this as an excuse for not even starting my Christmas shopping yet...?

My coworker John told me that his cat was seriously ill--throwing up, lethargic, refusing food, dropping weight. The previously healthy 6-year-old, 15-pound cat had lost a third of her body weight over the last few months. The vet couldn't find anything wrong with her. Blood tests were clean, and she didn't have any known illnesses. Yet she was a few days from organ failure.

That was a week ago. She's fine now. The solution was... to stop feeding her Purina cat food.

When John told me that, and said that friends of his had the same problem with their cats and Purina cat food, I looked into it. Holy shit. Take a look at the consumer complaints about Purina cat and dog food. This exact same problem has been an issue with Purina pet foods since 2007, but since this summer, the rate of complaints has picked up drastically. People who previously had no problems with Purina are reporting issues. Comment after comment sounds the same:

I've been feeding my three cats Fancy Feast canned food Chopped Grill Feast for many years. They have always devoured their meal and licked the plates clean. Last week, I noticed they did not want to eat much and went from plate to plate, ate a little. Next day, none of them would eat it. I kept trying new cans. What they did eat made them vomit and one cat was lethargic for days. I refuse to buy any more of this food. It's very scary. I don't know what is wrong with the food, but I fear it has toxins in it. I switched to another brand and the cats are fine now. Did anyone else experience this?

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My dogs have been eating Purina Dog Chow (green bag) for about four years. They used to eat only Iams, but due to financial issues, we had to go with a cheaper brand. The last bag I purchased was about a week and a half ago. My 14 years old Labrador has vomited about 5-6 times and my German Shepherd has vomited about 4 times. Something is wrong with this food! The food has a kind of metallic smell to it. It just does not smell right. I'm taking it back to the pet store. I am changing my dogs' food, it's just not worth taking the chance to save a few dollars.

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We purchased a large bag of Purina One Salmon dry cat food to give to a needy pet owner. She emailed us a couple of days later ,to say that there were maggots, lots of them with what looked to be like strands or webs with more dead gnats or flies, pieces of web in the food and "shells" of gnats or flies in the bag. Cats would not eat much of the food and, fortunately, they did not get sick. The store had noticed this problem in other bags and was willing to swap out.

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I purchased a 34 lb bag of Purina One Smartblend dog food every three to four weeks for my two Labradors. The last bag I purchased seemed fine until I noticed a new infestation of little black bugs. Upon further inspection through the contents of the bag, I noticed clusters of white "eggs" adhered to quite a bit of the food. Some of these clusters contained larvae in the process of hatching. I immediately threw out the remaining contents of the bag but did save samples for my vet.

We went out of town last weekend and had friends dog sit for us. We originally attributed their lethargy and random vomiting to separation anxiety. Although they are doing better, I am still concerned and will be watching them closely. As stated, I saved samples of the infested dog food for our vet in the event that anything results from this issue.

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I recently switched to the Friskies Poultry Variety pack (32 cans) that says it must be used by August 2013 (12281789 09:31 lo61237) sku (050000454242). I have 5 cats and feeding them this food, I noticed some of them throwing up. There's nothing in it but liquids, no hair ball, no food, nothing. My cats range from 8 weeks to 13 years old.

I switched my own cats to Purina a couple of months ago, and their coats look so much better than they did on the old brand of cat food... but Buffy has started vomiting stomach liquids. Purina and Fancy Feast are off the menu. Permanently.

I have no idea why this isn't news. But if you're feeding your pets any Purina brand, please don't wait for media confirmation that something is going on. Stop feeding your pets Purina immediately.

For several years now, I've followed blogs about narcissists and other abusers, written by victims of abuse. They're powerful tools for recovery, and powerful testimonials to the impact of emotional abusers on other people's lives. What's been missing is the abusers' perspective on the abuse. The narcissists I follow online don't write about their relationships with their children and close friends; they hardly write about their own partners, except as props in the narcissist's ongoing drama. I assumed that there was no way to get the abusers' side of the story, that abusers are smart enough to not incriminate themselves in their own blogs, and like hell would they get together with other abusers to discuss abuse.

I was wrong.( The keywords to find abusers' support communities are estranged parents and grandparents' rights. )
I'll be writing more about estranged parent communities. Until then, if you're interested in them, here are some of the most active or prominent communities:

Parents of Estranged Adult Children Everywhere (PEACE)

Haven of Peace for Estranged Parents (HOPE)

When Parents Hurt: Dealing with Parental Alienation

Grandparent Visitation Rights

Two brothers are raised by a vile, abusive man. When they grow up, one brother goes as far away as he can--on acceptable grounds, of course, work or schooling or his health--and returns only for short duty visits with his father. The other brother stays in the area and becomes his father's caretaker. The brother who stays spends more time caring for his father than for his own family, and for his pains is taken for granted. His father tells him and anyone else who will listen that his son doesn't do anything right and doesn't do what he's told. Meanwhile, the brother who left gets some meager respect from his father, because during his visits, he does repairs on his father's house.

When the father dies, the son who stayed has a simmering resentment for the son who left. The son who stayed made the heavy sacrifices, and in the end, the son who left got an equal share of the inheritance, the lion's share of the respect, and a life that wasn't tied to his father's side. Meanwhile, the son who left... Well, he carries on with life and doesn't think much about his brother, because after all, he has a life of his own.

Is the one who stayed correct--his brother should have done more for their father and taken some of the burden from his shoulders, because it was their mutual duty to care for their father?

Is the one who left correct--he got away from his father's abuse, and his brother had the option to do the same?

I side with the one who left. If other grown adults refuse to save themselves, it isn't your duty to get drawn back into the abuse and help them carry the load they refuse to set down.

But what do you do when the situation is a fait accompli? One brother has indeed sacrificed, the other has indirectly benefited by the sacrifice, the chance to straighten things out with the abuser is gone, one brother has a full life and the other brother has half a life. How do you handle this?

A year and a half ago, I took up jewelrymaking. I concentrated on beads because I don't do representational, or wirework, or anything else that requires manual precision, and beads do the color coordination and basic graphic design for you.


A few months later, I had learned to pair beads with wirework. But I only made chains; pendants and focal beads were a mystery that I hoped to erect an artistic SEP field around.


Now I make pendants--solely out of wire. And am put out that I'll have to add beads to some of them, because the beaded pendants lack the pure, sculptural intensity of the wire pendants.


Spff. Score one for artistic development. But self, please pander a little. Otherwise you'll end up like those artists who only paint gray swoops on a black background, because anything else would be a dilution of their artistic vision.


(But first, I'ma make a few dozen of these winter Trees of Life. Representational art is awesome.)

People suck. I hate everything. Especially you. And it's spring.

Cheer me up. If you read this, you are compelled BY THE POWER OF THE INTERNETS to scrub out your refrigerator while wearing a French maid's outfit, or your nearest approximation thereto. Take a video of it. Post it for me to see.

Then launder the outfit, 'cos you'll need it for tomorrow, too.