Christ. I get more hits and followers than like ever, and meanwhile my body is slowly melting into a light slurry. I currently have a temperature of 103.2, tonsils like softballs, pain pain pain pain pain, thirteen pounds lost since this started, and my widdle nosie has the sniffoos, too.
So for the moment, I'm going to just use this blog as a platform to say: if you care about rape, here's a no-effort way to do something about it. The Classy Awards are an event that awards large cash prizes to charities, and you can vote for the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center by clicking here. They're in the running in several categories: Charity Of The Year, Most Effective Awareness Campaign, and Most Innovative Use Of Social Media. Peace Over Violence, which is also in the running for Most Effective Awareness Campaign, is another charity combating sexual and domestic violence.
This is the ultimate slacktivism opportunity: just click! (Remember to click "submit my ballot," too. And then it wants to glom onto your Facebook or else you have to enter some stuff. So it's actually click, click, type, click, so I guess I'm asking for some serious commitment here after all.)
I personally know some of the people behind the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center and I can vouch that they do good work that they really believe in. They run a 24-hour hotline and provide advocacy, legal assistance, counseling, and other services to victims of sexual violence.
If you care enough to get in a highfalutin theoretical argument about skirt lengths and proximate causes and cultural influences blah de blah, then you should care enough to offer your support to people on the front lines, people who aren't just supporting rape victims with Internet blustering, but by getting off their asses and driving to the ER at 3 AM. At a minimum you can give your clicks, but it makes even more of a difference when you directly donate or, if you're in the Boston area, volunteer.
Changing attitudes about rape is important. I never want to diminish that. But it's also important not to forget that there are people out there doing something about it.
Done, now look after yourself and drink the soup of your choice.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I have to point out at this point that *everyone knows weight lost is always healthy! right!*
/no it really isn't, good luck on getting better.
Hmm. Are these extended-duration symptoms normal, or should you be hieing yourself back to the doctor's?
ReplyDeleteI don't think we've ever talked about this -- do you (not this week, I mean in general when you're healthy, etc.) volunteer for BARCC, or donate to them, etc.? I don't remember you mentioning them before.
Huh. That post should have shown up with my name, but didn't. Odd.
ReplyDeleteI voted for almost all Boston stuff (yeah, I'm a homer), other than a couple categories where the Boston charity wasn't one that overly interested me and was 'up against' one involving breast cancer (my mom's a survivor, so those tend to capture my awareness a bit more).
Cheshire - My mother once said she envied AIDS patients because they lose all that weight. She wasn't even kidding. (My mother is crazy. Me, I'm kind of glad I'm fat right now, because I have reserves.)
ReplyDeleteJack - I've spoken with the doctor and it basically comes down to "if you can't drink enough water or you have trouble breathing, go to the ER... otherwise, Motrin and water and good luck, kid."
I donated to BARCC when I made this post and I'm going to see about volunteering although that may be sort of difficult with my night schedule.
By the time you have trouble breathing, going to the ER might be a bit beyond your capabilities...
ReplyDeleteI donated to BARCC when I made this post and I'm going to see about volunteering although that may be sort of difficult with my night schedule.
Hell, don't they need people during the day too? For the 24-hour hotline or whatever?
Yes, but that's when I sleep. (Perennial night-worker gripe: people who think "so you're free all day then!" No, I'm not at work all day. If I sleep 'til 5pm and have to leave for work at 10pm, I can't do a five-hour volunteer shift and still get my activities of daily living done.)
ReplyDeleteHowever, they mention needing people to write for the website, and I could certainly do that, or I could volunteer to help with community outreach and fundraising, or whatnot. I'm not sure, I need to ask the BARCC people once I'm less-dead.
Huh. I've never worked a rape hotline before, I don't know if you have to do certain minimum-duration shifts or what. I was thinking more 'days off' time anyway.
ReplyDeleteJack, I would guess (based on prior experiences) that places like BARCC tend to be more picky about who they let volunteer because they put a lot of training time/money into their volunteers, in a way that say, a local food bank doesn't need to. (After all, when you post about food banks on a website, you don't get 100+ comments debating the finer points of letting people starve/the importance of not making people feel bad about people starving). Thus, if you aren't a good time investment for them (like they have to train you 30 some odd hours or whatever but you'll only be able to volunteer sporadically and rarely), then they aren't going to want to put that time in.
ReplyDeleteI mean, ultimately this is a *bit* of conjecture, I just know that when I wanted to apply to volunteer for Planned Parenthood they were pretty "uhhhhh we'll have to vet you" about it, which food banks/habitat for humanity, not so much.
Voted! Can't volunteer, due to obvious restrictions of being more than halfway across the country, but I'll see about donating when I get paid.
ReplyDeleteDone, and feel better :)
ReplyDeleteAlso, I hope you feel better soon. :( Being sick is the worst.
ReplyDeleteMatzo ball soup. It is hereby prescribed. Find yourself a Jew to make you some!
ReplyDelete[Note: This comment is tongue-in-cheek.]
Voted! Is currently in completely wrong area of country to volunteer, but does help at local college anti-rape group.
ReplyDeleteYay! I started reading your blog last month, and I love it so. I'm one of those folks who drives to the ER at 3 in the morning to hang out with folks undergoing so much trauma, and it is so nice when someone else knows that role exists! It is a pretty isolating job to fill. Thanks for the shout.
ReplyDeleteI hope your health starts returning soon.
YAY thanks Holly. :)
ReplyDeleteAbout volunteering! Our website has all the details and the info (http://barcc.org/join/volunteer-intern/volunteer), but basically, it's a 40-hour training to become a hotline counselor, a medical advocate, or a community awareness & prevention volunteer... all of those gigs and the time commitments thereof are on our site, but essentially, hotline and med ad are regular-scheduled shifts once a week and CAPS is random, because we have all different sorts of things at all different sorts of times. There is an interview process, and prospective volunteers need to pass a CORI (which I'm sure Holly already has for her job), but you don't need prior experience - the training is really comprehensive.
As for guest blogging YES PLEASE! :)
Thanks, Holly, for putting this up. BARCC always needs cash, and getting more volunteers is super, super helpful, too.
ReplyDeleteAnd remember folks - the hotline is 24 hours, which means that if you have a weird schedule, but can at least block out 4 hours a week or so when you can HAVE A PHONE NEAR YOU (it's not like you can't do other things during that time), you can volunteer for the hotline. It's anti-rapey good times!