Sleepless Nights

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  • Blocked IP addresses and Conspiracy theories.

    I noticed an odd referring URL today when I was checking my stats.

    So, as you do, I clicked to follow it back, to find out where people were clicking from.

    I wasn’t expecting to find this though:

    The web server you are attempting to reach has a list of IP addresses that are NOT allowed to access this site and your IP address is on this list.

    Maybe poking at the Premier gets you blacklisted.

    Heh.

    ***

    Actually, I was under no illusions I would be allowed to check out where the visitor had been referred from, due to the Admin part of the URL. I bet if *you* click over to the site, you will get the same blocked message.

    And of course it’s probably just a wording issue that SHOULD say ‘IP addresses of ALLOWED computers have been logged and unfortunately, you aren’t on the safe list. Go away.

    But what if it’s not?

    According to my stats, they clicked over to me a bit earlier from Bleeter’s blog – Bleeter the Serial Government Botherer – so it *could* be a blacklist.

    Things like this amuse me.

    Thoughts?

    ***

    Please don’t forget I have that amazing competition running. Feel free to enter your blog, no obligations asked after the month. Your ad will be seen by around 12,000 people over the course of the month, give or take. Entries are open for another few days, until the 1st of March, so send me an entry!

  • Facebook and Ehlers Danlos

    There is a copy paste status going around on Facebook that makes me want to gouge my eyes out.

    Paraphrasing:

    I love my body even though it’s changed through child birth, every mark, every scar, it’s a sign of my children and etc etc etc. Copy paste this if you’ve had children etc etc etc.

    Lovely sentiment and I can totally understand why women are copy pasting it to their status. Affirmation that even though childbirth has changed your body, you are an amazing woman for it.

    And you ARE. My GOD you are. You’re amazing, you created another human being. That right there is amazing and you should be proud. If I see the copy/paste thingy on your status, I promise, I won’t even be tempted to throw stones at you.

    But reading that status makes me bitter.

    Maybe because after 2 children, I’m not all that changed? I don’t think childbearing has taken it’s toll on my body all that much – except for how much bendier I got.

    And yet, I am broken and battered still.

    If my war wounds were a result of my children, I would bear them proudly, I would stand up and I would shout from the roof tops how proud I was of my body.

    Yet, my elastic skin that tears at the drop of a hat, that wasn’t childbirth. The stretchmarks on my stomach, while exacerbated by pregnancy, weren’t caused by pregnancy.

    The bruising on my legs, the livedo reticularis that means I can’t wear skirts, my battered broken bits –

    Not a one of them I attribute to pregnancy and child birth.

    Every. Single. One. of the things I dislike about my body is caused by Ehlers Danlos Syndrome and that makes me bitter.

    I can forgive the visual changes – really, I don’t mind how my body looks, even though it’s different. It would have been different anyway, no matter what.

    I dislike my body, often, even though I don’t have body image issues (in fact – 2 children later, I am quite proud of how I look).

    But.

    I hate how I can’t bounce out of bed without checking that all of my joints are in place.

    I hate that I can’t walk across the room without tripping over, or walking into a wall, or having to think about every step and judge where everything is by sight, because my feet are stupid and don’t work very well.

    I dislike that I have to think consciously about how I move.

    I hate that pouring the milk for my cup of tea this morning dislocated my wrist.

    I hate the fact that my ribs won’t stay attached to my spine like they should.

    I don’t like the way my skin tears, just because it feels like it and then takes weeks to heal. I dislike the bruising that makes me look like a victim of domestic violence (although, am grateful, my face rarely bruises unless I actually walk into a door).

    I hate that I am 21 and move like I am so much older – feel like I am so much older. I hate the pain and the exhaustion. My word the pain. My joints slide around like butter and while my smaller joints don’t leave me screaming, it doesn’t mean they don’t hurt. We won’t even talk about how my teeth hurt from the clenching.

    I am bitter about how the EDS has changed my body and I dislike that I can’t love myself in it’s entirety, when really, I’d just like a trade in. It can look exactly the same, just someone replace my fucked up genetics and collagen PLEASE.

    Bleh.

    I’m just feeling crappy and wishing my only issues were visual ones caused by childbirth.

    [Again I state that if you copy pasted that status to your Facebook, I am not having a go at you. You are amazing, you created a human being and you should be proud of every single mark it caused. I am just bitter that I am broken and hurting.]

  • Please –

    I’d like if you could go and offer some support to Fern and Dan Treacy, their daughter, Robyn Jade was stillborn.

    I’m heartbroken for them and don’t know what to do or say, except I am so so sorry and I am sending peace and strength their way.

    Photo by Alesa Dam

  • How I Met Nathan Part II

    Part One here.

    I organised to meet up with a friend -A- who was visiting from up north. She met me after work and then Nathan drove us back to where I was living. We arranged to have drinks at Nat’s new place and I went home and grabbed a change of clothes. I talked to my boyfriend, while A listened.

    Her comments after I finished talking to him? ‘He treats you like shit Ron’. It’s not that my boyfriend treated me like shit, he didn’t really, it’s that we were 16 and we’d been together for well over 2 years. Familarity and everything. He was a nice boy.

    And so, we went and got drunk. All together, Nathan and I, his older brother, a housemate, and my two friends, A and K. After a few drinks, I stopped drinking and instead, watched everyone else get drunker. Eventually everyone passed out or went home except for Nathan, his housemate and me.

    We didn’t do much of anything except talk.

    Nathan snuggled me, he looked into my eyes and talked to me, he kissed my fingertips. He made me melt.

    His housemate left in disgust.

    The morning came and I was sober. I had had no sleep, I needed a shower and I started work at 2pm. I also realised I couldn’t keep going the way I was going and that it wasn’t fair to my boyfriend. I talked to A, I talked to Nat’s housemate, I talked to thin air. I begged Nat’s housemate to give Nat my number. She was reluctant, but said she would. She didn’t.

    9am that morning found me back at my boyfriend’s house, sitting on his bed, telling him that I wasn’t ‘in’ love with him anymore and crying.

    I regret how I told him. We had been together for 2 and a half years and I didn’t have the decency to let him wake up properly before dropping the bombshell. I regret that.

    I showered and cried and got ready for work. Before I left, I packed a bag and my now ex and I talked, a lot. As I left for work, we parted with a hug and a kiss, on sort of good terms.

    I walked to the bus stop, hung over and exhasted. That night at work was the longest shift I have ever worked.

    I crashed the night at Ex’s grandmothers house. She was lovely enough to let me stay (my shifts all started at 6am that week and she lived close to work) for a night or two and to hand me tissues as I silently cried.

    Then, I spoke to my mother about everything and I went home, on her orders. Back to my grandmother’s where I was living, except when I was staying at my boyfriends house.

    It was the smartest thing I have ever done.

    A few days later, Nathan and I met up for coffee before I started work and spent 3 hours talking about nothing. The next day, he picked me up from work and drove me home. He didn’t go home that night, or any night afterwards.

    And that was that.

    We moved into his house not long afterwards, and from there, back to my parents after a large falling out with his housemate.

    We rented our first flat and suddenly, here we are, 5 years later.

    It’s been a rollercoaster these last few years. We’ve now got a mortgage, two babies, two dogs, two horses and two cats. And for all that happened to get us to this point, for how ill I still feel when I think of some of it, for how unproud I am of some things, I wouldn’t change a moment. Because here we are, and I am happy.

  • Win Free Advertising on Sleepless Nights

    I was over at Problogger the other day, reading a post from Josh at Worlds Strongest Librarian – both good blogs to read through if you’ve got some time – and he was talking about how he got sponsors for WSL.

    He ran a competition, asked people to submit an application to him and at the end of a month, he had sponsors.

    The deal:

    I ask for an application – you provide it, along with a 125×125 px image to use as your ad.

    You get a month’s free advertising on Sleepless Nights, in the left sidebar over there, just above the No Clean Feed graphic.

    At the end of a month, you can either choose to pay for another month’s advertising, or walk away from this whole deal with nothing lost, hopefully still sticking around to read me.

    If everybody walks at the end of a month, I will run the same competition again, with new applicants and new ads, for another month long free advertising stint.

    The Application:

    Here is what I want from you.

    I want you to email me with:

    A 125×125 px graphic that will be used to link your blog.

    Answers to these questions:

    Who are you?

    What makes you happy?

    Why do you want to advertise on Sleepless Nights? (correct answers include – because I like Sleepless Nights – incorrect answers include – because it’s free stupid.)

    Why is your blog/business special?

    ***

    I will be accepting applications up until the 1st of March and I will announce the winners on the 14th of March.

    When I say ‘month long’ I meant from the 10th to the 10th or the 20th to the 20th, regardless of how many days in the month. February is out of the running, so you’re not getting short changed.

    ***

    Fine Print, that isn’t actually fine at all, because it’s the same size as everything else.

    There will be 6 ad spots available.

    I will be judging the applications myself, with some help from Frogpondsrock – who will also be running the same competition on her blog. I will be as impartial as I can.  Our decisions will be based on your application – it will not be based on the size of your blog or business.

    You don’t have to be selling something; you can advertise your blog.

    I will not advertise for drugs, illegal activities or propaganda. I reserve the right to make that decision.

    Everyone will be charged the same amount at the end of the month, no special deals, or more expensive ads for big businesses. I reserve the right to not tell you how much I’m charging in this blog post, but I will disclose it within emails.

    My email address is veronica@somedaywewillsleep.com and please include the words ‘Advertising Competition’ in the subject line.

    I’ve been thinking about how best to monetise Sleepless Nights for a while. It’s no secret that we’d all like to make some money from our blogs and I’m no exception. Personally I’d be happy if the blog would cover the cost of some chocolate now and again and that’s what I’m working towards.