Ok, just submitted the site for the W&CF Affiliate program. Guess I could have been totally obnoxious and done some name-dropping about authors who've read/posted here. . .
It's been a year and a week since I posted about meeting Heather and Hanne, but the reading/signing at DreamHaven was actually back on October 5th of last year.
I would write about this, but again, coffee. Not enough.
And W&CF has a huge display of Buffy-related books, magazines and GNs up now. Makes me want to get a camera to record the thing and share it, it does. And since Atrios was able to get a laptop out of a public call for support, maybe I could just. . .
Nah.
Update: Well, reading that entry and (mostly) the comments in there made me realize that, despite the fact that there's still raw feelings on both sides and doing so runs the risk of re-opening old wounds, that after a year I really should finally write something about the D*rr*n M*d*g*n invasion.
Main problem I had was, the guy wasn't a troll.
Just someone utterly lacking in social skills who showed up, uninvited, at a party where he didn't know anyone and proceeded to dominate the conversation.
One of the things I like about this place is that we can talk about politics without getting too wonky, or comics or computer stuff or Buffy without getting too geeky. And he just pushed things over the edge.
And, bluntly, started making the site someplace I wouldn't want to hang out.
Rather than telling him that flat-out, I (truthfully) said instead that some of the women visiting here were getting a Bad Vibe from him, and asked if he could tone it down a bit.
In retrospect, I realize I should have just told him that he was alternately annoying or boring the fuck out of me, and to shut the hell up.
Which I eventually did do, yes, but clearly I took too long to get around to it.
Don't really want to delete his old comments, but I don't want to either read them or pay for others to do so either. A continuing annoyance, that.
Anyway, this is the source of the running gag between me and VASpider; I asked her to be Christlike towards him.
Realized what a mistake that had been shortly afterwards. She has full rights to tell me to shut the hell up and get my shit together, by the bye.
Well, so does Ginger. And Laura. And Garrity. And Michelle. And. . . ok, pretty much any regular poster here can call me on my shit if required. I hope it ain't required often, but that's probably wishful thinking on my part.
Because what really, really scared me about the guy is that I kept thinking, "There but for the grace of God go I."
I get to call out your shit? Wheeee!
Then ok, you have never ever ever been in the same universe as the aforementioned D.M., and there's something a hell of a lot more substantial than the Grace of God that differentiates between the two of you: basic interpersonal respect. (Or, maybe that IS the Grace of God. Listen to the UU waffle about theology! what fun!)
See, I went to his new blog. I read what he had to say about his expereince of being shown the door. And I read what he's said since. It had the sick fascination of a really bad accident for me, and I felt I *had* to nail down why this guy was such a problem before I washed my hands of him. After all, he was actually quite intelligent and well-written.
He's a black hole of emotional need. Every damn thing he says or does is aimed ONLY, SOLELY at getting a certian kind of feedback, upon which his entire state of happiness rests. He has no internal strength of any kind. And he has rationalized that pattern to the point where he thinks it is reasonable and acceptable. Furthermore, he overlays it with the most appalling assumptions about the female gender this side of Ann Coulter and Trent Lott.
He recently suggested, 'in jest,' that giving women perfrontal lobotomies would be a handy way of keeping them in his personal space for sexual purposes.
Um????
He does not respect himself. He does not, therefore, have the capacity to really respect others. He's very good at cloaking that in clever, cute rhetoric, but there it is.
You, on the other hand, have profound respect for the people around you, or at least those who are TYRING to struggle towards a better world. And you don't maintain this site up specifically to feed your craving for anyone else's respect. You're acutely observant, and that's what you do here: post observations. And then we talk about them. ADn D.M. rambled too much and too clumsily because he needed to be the center of the action, so he could feel loved. This behavior ruins the conversation. Buh-bye.
Thank you very much for being so observant. Thank you for your posts. Thank you for being another voice in the chorus that chants, incessantly, rhytmically, lyrically, about the absolute necessity of interpersonal respect.
XOXO
Man, that was a year ago already?
Time fucking flies.