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Showing posts from May, 2014

Re-Visioning Experience: A Librarian's Aside on Gendered Violence

Changing lanes and speaking as a woman-librarian, and not just a librarian: I feel I can take care of myself. Years of working in customer service have honed my skills of talking folks down from anger and frustration. I'm not a small woman, and I consider myself more aggressive than most. I've taken numerous RAD classes for self-defense, and succeeded in defending myself again one attacker, then two. I went to the 54th largest high school in America  in an area still riddled with gang violence, drugs and crime, and managed to stay clean. I worked the second and third shift for a number of years, walking home in the dark, dodging requests for a light, and for other less savory things. I pack a mean right hook and I've got a nasty mouth learned from growing up in NY with a former sailor for a dad. I'm heavy and solid, you probably can't carry me away unless you've got some serious towing power. It takes a lot to rattle me. But I have been rattled. Years ago, I rep

Re-Visioning Experience: A Librarian's Aside on Gendered Violence

Changing lanes and speaking as a woman-librarian, and not just a librarian: I feel I can take care of myself. Years of working in customer service have honed my skills of talking folks down from anger and frustration. I'm not a small woman, and I consider myself more aggressive than most. I've taken numerous RAD classes for self-defense, and succeeded in defending myself again one attacker, then two. I went to the 54th largest high school in America  in an area still riddled with gang violence, drugs and crime, and managed to stay clean. I worked the second and third shift for a number of years, walking home in the dark, dodging requests for a light, and for other less savory things. I pack a mean right hook and I've got a nasty mouth learned from growing up in NY with a former sailor for a dad. I'm heavy and solid, you probably can't carry me away unless you've got some serious towing power. It takes a lot to rattle me. But I have been rattled. Years ago,