Player's Piece

I had a nightmare last night. The kind that makes me yell. The kind Ive got my husband trained to wake me out of. It’s been a while. There have been a few years where sleep just has not been safe. There is something lurking in my darkness and that’s what makes me scream.

I was abused as a 3 year old. I’ve been traumatized while I was young enough to build that into my identity. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I have a book on it and the funny thing is, I match up with almost everything in the first chapter and I can’t bring myself to read the book…..and the book even tells me that too.

My Father got PTSD from Vietnam. I got PTSD from him. Both he and my grandfather helped mold me into the woman I am today. So now I have to worry about eyes looking back at me from dark places. What creeps me out is that those eyes won’t just stay there. They will come closer and closer to safe places as the nightmares escalate till there is a man in shadow leaning over me while I’m in my bed.

I hate feeling stalked and helpless and I hate that I’m going through this at 39 because of being tormented at 3. I hate so much about all of this. But hate doesn’t help.

Whether it’s because I was born this way or because I was made this way I have trouble letting anything go. My life is like a vice grip. I grab words and looks and keep them. I keep everything. I no longer want to. I want to be free. I want have people say things and look at me and be pleasantly detached. Enjoy the moment. I don’t know how many years I have left but when I die I want to have been free.

I think that I need to stop hating my father and my grandfather for what they did to me. I need to stop hating in general. I need to just let what they did amount to the same as falling off my bike when I was 12 and scarring up my knee. The scar has become a part of my body but I have no emotion over the incident. It happened. Its over.

I have a scar on my hand where I opened a can of spam wrong and the key uncoiled and whipped at me. I have one where I broke a glass tube into my hand in chemistry class in high school…and when I was three I have scars where my father and then later my Grandfather abused me….

Do I need to forgive them? Probably. I want to be free.

“Eyes in the darkness.” Everyone has darkness. Everyone makes their own darkness. Those are MY EYES. I made them. I am the one looking back at me. Ive been the one hurting me and I am going to stop…somehow I’m going to figure this out and stop hurting myself.

I want to be free.

This past weekend Kat and I traveled south of the Mason-Dixon for a little get-together called Cleavercon. Dave Cleaver's birthday is coming up, so he threw himself a game day. It was a good day, and I like the gameday/birthday party idea. Hmmm, I have a birthday coming up in the fall...

( We played Mist-Robed Gate and Serial Homicide Unit )

In other news, I just finished editing Bill White's amazing Ganakagok. This is a game I've been anticipating for a long time. The text is in good shape, and I'm glad I can help get it ready to release.

lebaneselove
A wealth of resources for fans of the Lebanese entertainment world.

scenebyscene
This collaborative screenwriting community will accomplish an entire film script--each scene by a different writer--over the course of one year. It's destined to be crazy. Along the way, a slew of smaller challenges will be offered.

add_foreign_ljs
Looking to practice your language skills? add_foreign_ljs offers users a way to find journals written in a language other than their own.

It was cool this morning when I took my walk. The east was still orange with sunrise, and a flock of Canadian geese flew overhead. They were low enough that in between their joyous honks, I could hear their feathers slicing through the morning breeze. It sounded like a whisper of profound secrets in a foreign tongue.

Development Goals and Basic Accounts

Last week we updated our development goals for 2008. Generally we noted a number of cool enhancements and investments to LiveJournal that we are working on, including improved search, usability, and site development.

We also wanted to let you know how we hope to accomplish all these things, and how we plan on paying for them. In order to accomplish our stated goals for this year and beyond, we need to increase the revenue gained from both groups of LiveJournal accounts: paid subscription accounts and ad-supported accounts.

As of August 28th, all users will be able to choose to downgrade their account to Basic through their Manage Account page. Additionally, we will start showing advertising to visitors who are not logged in to LiveJournal when they are looking at Basic Account journals and communities.

Basic Account users themselves will not see ads on any Basic journal or community while they are logged in to their account. If you want more information about this, take a look at our new post on lj_2008 where we outline our reasoning.

Indian Flash Fiction Contest

In other news, we are excited to tell you we've launched "Quick Tales" LiveJournal's first initiative for users in India, in celebration of India Independence day, August 15th. "Quick Tales" is a flash fiction writing contest in which we're partnering with Caferati.com, one of India's largest online literary communites. The contest's winners will receive some great prizes and it is open to anyone with a mailing address in India. We hope that users with an interest in Indian writing or just India will watch LiveJournal's india_writing community. That's where the finalists and winners will be announced, so keep an eye on it towards the end of September! If you're in India then enter the contest - if your story is slick and quick (under 500 words) then you could be the lucky winner!

Meanwhile, back at LiveJournal Inc.

We have updated and redesigned our corporate site. The goal of the redesign was twofold: first, to update the look and feel (Dystopia users will appreciate it!); second, we want to provide a destination for prospective employees, partners, and members of the press where they can access important information about the company. Kudos to our design team.