So there's a girl on one of my friend's f-lists. Well, she's my age, so I can't rightfully call her a girl. I would have to call her a woman.

This woman is facing a really horrible life situation. Her father died of sepsis, and her mother is close to dying of the same thing. She's having money problems, like a lot of people, and enduring just a general run of really bad luck in addition.

My friend, who sort of just skims her F-list, hadn't noticed any of this, but did notice when this woman announced she would be giving away all of her manga and artbooks. That's when she looked closer and realized that something was not right.

She pointed out some journal posts this woman had been making recently to me, and they are textbook cries for help, and not the half-assed emo kind. The kind of things that someone says and does if they are legitimately planning to kill themselves.

Giving away all of your most important possessions is one of the biggest red flags. So is peppering your posts with phrases like "when I'm gone", "before it's too late", "I just want to sleep" and tagging your entries "the end".

So I look at the comments to her posts, expecting her friends to be rallying to buoy her. Wouldn't you?

On the first post where she mentions ending it all, her dipshit friends are sort of like "Hurkle! ^_^ Sorry you are having a bad day!" One of her friends agrees with her, comments that she's in the same place and can't see anything good about this fucked up world and can't stop her if she chooses to do it.

Things get worse.

a case of 'it got worse'
October 28th, 17:21
You'll know what I mean if you visit tvtropes.com
'It got worse' is basically my existence now.
Sorry I haven't responded to anyone from my last entry but still just too raw, will do so soon.
I want to give away my stuff, I need the room and I don't want or need possessions anymore. I'll be posting a list soon and if you want stuff, I just need you to pay for postage. When I'm gone my sister will just throw everything away anyway--I mean, hell, she threw away some of my good figures and I'm still alive. Stuff will mainly be gaming related, or anime and manga and doujinshi, even some clothes and more if people are interested. Keep watching for the post.
2 days back from the hospital and things still not going right. I can't think about it because when I do I just can't anymore, I just can't anything.


After that, the references escalate as things get worse, and people say avoidant platitudes, never acknowledging the fact that this person is talking about killing herself.

Then comes the post where she says she's giving away all her manga. Does anyone say "Don't kill yourself"? No! It's "Me, me, me". People actually are eagerly lining up to take the worldly possessions of a suicidal person.

http://wounded-melody.livejournal.com/34933.html

Now maybe they're not paying attention. Maybe they just skim entries, like my friend. But jesus fucking christ, am I alone in thinking it's sick that someone should be that alone in the world? When people don't pay attention to you, when they don't listen to you, when they don't hear you, that's what makes people want to die!

So my friend commented, and I commented. We're not friends or anything. I don't care if she's offended, I don't care if I'm a stranger. None of that matters in issues of life and death.

And now I'm putting it out there. If you care about this woman, and you feel comfortable saying something in her journal, do it. I don't expect anyone to; it's hard-wired and ingrained in us to huddle round and protect our own, and shun the dis-eases of strangers. Hell, for most of us, it's unnatural to smile at people on the street or speak kindly or compliment people you don't know.

But if you've been there, if you know how it feels to be this woman, or if you just feel compassion for her, it may be your only chance to let her know it.

ETA: unlocked, because it's everyone's damn business.

So in addition to _dahne_'s and my recent ill-advised foray into simultaneous remote Amish potato candy making (we barely escaped with our teeth), I have another culinary buddy--my beloved alko_naft, who is quite the chef in his own right.

Since he wants to eventually go to Cordon Bleu school, he is studying as much as he can on his own, and of course I offered to keep him company in his endeavors.

So we've decided to do periodic remote cooking projects where we each pick a recipe or two and plan a dinner or dish, which we will both then attempt: he in Moscow and I here in Seattle.

Results will, of course, be documented.

This time around he picked a main course, veal with wine and mustard sauce, and I picked fondant potatoes as an accompaniment.

(Our first roadblock: since we both are morally opposed to veal, we had to make an adjustment and decided to go with beef instead.)

I chose Spencer steak medallions and pounded them to a veal-like thinness.





( Documentation! )

Knowing the current economic state, most people don't have a lot of disposible income to spare.

However, I wanted to repost this link on behalf of my friend Nicole, a journalism student who was born with spina-bifida and lives in a small college town called Pullman in Eastern Washington, which is considered the rural half of our state.

Nicole is self-sufficient, resourceful and courageous, but as she is partially paralyzed, must rely on a heavy-duty scooter to get around town and to live an independent life.

The problem is that her old scooter finally broke down for the last time in February, and was deemed unfixable. Since then she has struggled to take care of basic necessities like running errands, buying groceries, getting around campus and getting to and from the library.

Eventually her plight trickled through the medicare system, and a new machine was prescribed for her through Deacon's Medical, which is great, but there was one major problem:

While medicare is contributing 2000 dollars toward the prescribed scooter, coming up with the remaining 2200 dollars is left up to Nicole- an almost impossible task, considering that like many disabled individuals, Nicole is on a tightly fixed income.

Amazingly, through a human interest newspaper article written by a friend in October, she has recieved the lion's share of the money already, which she is ecstatic over- but donations have stagnated now, and she is left a tantalizing 600 dollars away from her new scooter.

If she can raise the rest of the money within the next few weeks, she could still get her new scooter by Christmas, which would make her holiday travels vastly safer and less arduous.

I'm posting this because, though it's cliché, every little bit helps, and Nicole is an awesome human being with a phenomenally warm soul.

Often I will read through my f-list and find most everyone having an emotional crisis of some kind, but Nicole is always unfailingly happy to be alive. Even her darkest posts- about things like having been gone from LJ for a few days because of being hospitalized after unwittingly picking up a dangerous drug-resistant nosocomial staph infection in a foot she cannot feel pain in- are imbued with an optimistic humor.

She never feels sorry for herself, she never gives in, and she is always buoyant. I guess she was born with that too.

At the risk of sounding like an Afterschool Special:

She inspires me to always remember how charmed my life really is, and I want her life to be better and easier in return.

Here's a link to her LJ and the paypal button that Deacon's Medical has set up. Any amount donated goes directly into her scooter fund.

Any amount helps!

http://eveningscribe.livejournal.com/812455.html?mode=reply&style=mine


Thanks for letting me pimp my cause. <3

I'm not a slavering Heath Ledger fan, but I always thought he was a great actor, and frankly, I am shell-shocked that he's dead.

That is just too fucking senseless and a goddamned shame.