Blue Checkmark Blues

Oh, Twitter. You’re so funny.

Remember the Twitter impersonator incident from 2014? Since then, every once in a while, I report harassment or impersonation of me on Twitter just to see what will happen. (Yes, there are impersonators. Which somewhat mystifies me, but at least one of them is a stalker, so…yeah. Anyway.) When I report harassment, exactly nothing beyond a form reply rejecting my complaint happens.

When reporting impersonation, however, the form letter comes with a demand for something very specific: a readable picture of my driver’s license or passport.

Twitter’s insistence on this particular piece of information–state-issued photo ID–is perplexing in more ways than one. Ever since 2014, they’ve been asking me for it. I write back explaining why I won’t be sending one, and giving links to my website, my official FB, my verified Amazon Author pages, my Goodreads page, all clearly sporting links to my Twitter account. Since I wouldn’t turn over a scan or fax of my sensitive personal information because their implied handling of such data in 2014 was questionable at best and they have not actively sought to regain my trust since, they issue a form rejection of my complaint, and when I respond to the form rejection with another explanation, I get back a form letter saying the support case is closed and further replies will be sent to to an unmonitored address.

Charming, isn’t it?

Now, when they opened up verification a little while ago, I figured I’d try it out, just to see if the horrendous parts of the process had been fixed. I figured I’d play at least part of the game, however, and sent in the links to my website, my Amazon Author pages, my Goodreads author page and Facebook fan page–you get the idea–all with clear links to my Twitter profile, and, bonus, a scan of my driver’s license with the number, my birthdate, and my address blacked out. I held out no great hope.

Well, on August 8th I received a form letter rejection, and when I wrote back asking how my profile/bio didn’t meet the requirements for verification, the email bounced. It wasn’t quite as classy as the unmonitored email address ploy, but perhaps they were losing patience with my gadfly self.

Imagine my surprise when, after a very clear rejection, this landed in my inbox earlier today:

FROM: Twitter Support
TO: contact@lilithsaintcrow.com
Case#*REDACTED* RE: Verification Request for @lilithsaintcrow

.
Hello,

We received your request to verify @lilithsaintcrow.

We need to confirm the identity of the account owner in order to further investigate this request. Please provide a copy of their valid photo ID (e.g. driver’s license or passport) within 48 hours of receiving this email.

If the legal name does not match the stage/artist name, please include a letter from the management company stating the following:

The legal name stated on the official identification provided is the authorized account holder of @lilithsaintcrow.
Please scan and upload the required documentation using the following link:
*LINK REDACTED*

We must be able to see the full name and photo, so please try to send a legible copy. This information will be kept confidential, and will be deleted once we have used it to confirm their identity.

Reply to this email to let us know once you’ve uploaded the documentation. We appreciate your patience and cooperation in this matter.

Thanks,

Twitter Support

Reference *REDACTED*
Help
Twitter, Inc. 1355 Market Street, Suite 900 San Francisco, CA 94103

I’ve redacted the link, case number, and reference number above for obvious reasons.

So, just to get this straight, they rejected my verification request outright, bounced my request for further explanation, and are STILL, after all this, determined to get their hands on my driver’s license. They do say the information will be kept confidential, yet how can I trust their policies won’t be changed in the future? “Will be deleted” once you’ve used it to confirm? Why not just spend the two seconds to google me or for God’s sake, READ THE REPLIES AND THE APPLICATION I SENT YOU? Wouldn’t that be easier than me sending personal, sensitive information to a company that exists to sell user’s eyeballs to the highest bidder?

I mean, yes, Twitter is convenient as all get-out and it’s really great for interacting with fans, and it’s ubiquitous right now, but let’s not think this service is offered out of the goodness of any Silicon Valley bro’s heart, okay?

However, being just enough of a contrarian, and being just irritated enough, to try again for the purposes of blogging about the whole damn thing, I sent a reply. Here it is:

Dear Sir/Madam,

As I have told Twitter multiple times, this is unnecessary and somewhat insulting, especially after I was impersonated on Twitter in back in 2014. (I wrote about it here: Then, I was told that harassers and impersonators could gain access to whatever information I gave Twitter. Your assurance that the data will be deleted is not sufficient for me to risk my safety or the safety of my family.

I am a New York Times Bestselling author. Here are (a few of the many) places where my official Twitter account is referenced and linked to:

My website: http://www.lilithsaintcrow.com

My Facebook and Facebook fan page: https://www.facebook.com/lilithsaintcrow https://www.facebook.com/pages/Lilith-Saintcrow/172118402032

My Goodreads page: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/131208.Lilith_Saintcrow

My Amazon Author Pages: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B002BLOSOU http://www.amazon.com/Lili-St.-Crow/e/B002TN3418/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1

However, I am fully expecting to receive another form letter rejecting me for verification, like the one I received a few weeks ago (on August 8, to be precise) when I initially requested verification. I have no idea why you are asking for sensitive personal information again after initially rejecting me and ignoring my request for further information about said rejection.

Best,

Lilith Saintcrow

I added the NYT Bestselling thing because my agent tells me it shows I’m Serious.

Now, why am I bothering, especially since I might not even take verification when offered? Because this has irritated the bejesus out of me. Twitter is a complete and utter mess when it comes to dealing with harassment, despite Randi Lee Harper’s clear, cheap, and effective fixes, which she’s offered for free. Also, their insistence on getting hold of critical personal information about me is thought-provoking, to say the least. Why are they so set on gaining this information? What happens to it when their policies change?

Someone remarked to me that the company Just Doesn’t Get It, “it” being harassment. I don’t think that’s strictly true. I think they get it, but it’s not profitable to care. So, Twitter doesn’t.

*gets out the popcorn* I’ll probably get another form letter in response.

I can hardly wait.

ETA: Well, I didn’t have to wait long. Another form email, exactly the same as the one above, landed in my inbox at 5:23pm. *gets more popcorn*

ETA 8/25/16: I just received this email back from Twitter Support.

FROM: Twitter Support
TO: contact@lilithsaintcrow.com
Case#*REDACTED* RE: Verification Request for @lilithsaintcrow

Hi,

Thanks for the followup email. Unfortunately, we are unable to verify you if you are unable to provide the required documentation. Thank you for understanding.

Thanks,

Twitter Support

http://support.twitter.com
@Support

Reference *REDACTED*

WELL. THERE IT IS THEN. *melts more butter* *screeches with laughter* I wrote back. Of course I did.

Dear Sir/Madam,

So, you mean to say that despite my concerns about stalking, harassment, and impersonation, and despite the fact that you can verify that @lilithsaintcrow is my official Twitter account by a few moments spent on my website, my verified Amazon Author page, and my official Facebook, despite the fact that this email address is clearly my official one, you cannot “verify” me unless I hand over sensitive personal data I cannot trust you to guard responsibly due to your track record? This is what you’re saying. If there’s another explanation, please, enlighten me.

Best,

Lilith Saintcrow

I see two options here. Either Twitter wants my driver’s license information because they plan to monetize it in some fashion later down the line, OR they don’t have the staff to run verification properly, which means they don’t have enough staff to handle the data properly. What happens when they’re hacked? They say they delete the information just after they use it, but really? Once it’s on their servers, I’m just supposed to trust them? Especially when they were very clear back in 2014 that they reserved the right to share a scan of my driver’s license with someone I had reason to believe was a stalker who had already threatened me? Neither of these options induce me to a great deal of confidence.

So. No blue ticky-check for me. I’m not even sure I’d take it, were they to suddenly pay attention and offer one. Marginalized folks, and people at risk of harassment, or people who are ALREADY being harassed, are not served well by this, and I would caution them to reconsider verification. Either it’s a data grab, or they don’t have the staff to keep that sensitive data safe. I don’t want to risk it, I won’t give out information that can possibly impact the safety of my family, and I really, really urge everyone considering verification to think about this.

‘Nuff said.

Squirl Overheat 3: Squirl Beshat

bugsyipe So there I was, watering can in hand, watching the poo and the squirrel and the Aussie fly. Miss B landed with a yelp, though it was more of surprise than pain–thank goodness, because I don’t think she could take another few weeks of enforced idleness while a muscle healed. Or, God forbid, a bone.

Kowalski!Squirl, still screaming for Stella, landed too. Only he did not hit the ground. No. That would have been too damn simple.

Instead, I watched, clutching the empty watering can, as the heat-crazed, screaming squirrel landed directly on a poop-spewing, very excited Odd Trundles. What resulted was, in Cleolinda Jones’s memorable parlance, a FURSPLOSION.

Kowalski!Squirl: STELLAAAAAAAAAUGH!
Odd Trundles: NEWFRIEND? *snortfartshartwhistlegaspbark* NEWFRIEND WHERE IS YOU?
Miss B: WHAT THE HELL? HERD? BITE? BARK? WHAT?
Me: *horrified gasp*

Now, even though Odd must have sensed, dimly, on some level, that the sudden weight on his back was his new, exciting buddy, and though Odd is so sweet he would no doubt do his best to be a trusty steed ridden into the chaos of battle, there was just one problem.

Object permanence.

Now, I know Odd is not the only dog who has trouble with the concept. Miss B, of course, understands that when I put the treat under something, her job is to knock it over and collect the sweet, crunchy food reward. Odd, however, just looks mystified, sad, and awestruck. Mystified because, well, where did it go, sad because the treat is Obviously Gone Forever, and awestruck because hoomins are MAGIC and can make things vanish at will.

So, Odd had just crapped himself and his new friend had vanished, and there was a sudden weight on his back. There’s another aspect to this, of course. Poor Odd is so corkscrewed that his hind end only exists for him because he has working legs back there. He can’t see his own ass, or lick it, like other dogs. His back might as well be Shangri-La, for all he’s ever seen it. This creates a number of strange behaviors, the most interesting of which is when he has gas and is frightened into thinking some form of stenchful whistling beast is RIGHT BEHIND HIM and READY TO POUNCE.

Normally, when Odd is frightened, he makes a beeline for my ankles. However, I was up on the deck, which meant there were stairs between him and that precarious safety. So, every synapse in his doggy brain fused, and he decided the best thing to do was just to…run away, as fast as his stubby, blurring little legs could carry him. His immediate lurch to put this plan into motion, as it were, dislodged Kowalski!Squirl, who thankfully had not landed claws-down. No, the tree-rat was shaken away, and landed in the streak of digested extrusion his appearance had called forth from Odd Trundles’s capacious bowels.

In other words, my friends, the squirrel ended up in the shit.

Odd: HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALP! *barkbarksnortwhistlefartbarkscrabble*
Kowalski!Squirl: STELLLLLLLLAAAAAAUGHEWWWWWWWWW!
Miss B: *staggering, cocking her head* WAIT, HOLD UP, I AM SUPPOSED TO DO SOMETHING, I KNOW I AM, LET ME THINK…

Odd blundered into the shade-garden boxes, uphill on the north end of the yard. Kowalski!Squirl, besmeared and bespattered, took off for the vegetable garden at the south end. I reeled towards the stairs, though I don’t know what I could have done at that point unless it was just to wait for events to reach their natural and fully inevitable conclusion.

My poor, sweet, silly bulldog made it to the other side of the shade garden at high speed and dug in his claws, digging a furrow across an astilbe that will never be the same. Kowalski!Squirl extended in a full running lunge and hit the ground a few feet away from the Cesspool of Despair, throwing up a pine cone in his haste. He was so rattled, I guess, he didn’t make for the fir in the middle of the yard. He zoomed right past it, and (as I said) straight for the vegetable garden. I mention this again only because, to understand what happened next, it bears repeating.

Miss B, bright as she is, finally took complete stock of the situation she was enmeshed in. There were two objects moving at high speed, but she was pointed toward the southerly one, and not only that, the southerly one was a small arboreal rodent, making a lot of noise and powerfully fragrant. Can you guess what happened next? Can you, my dear Reader?

I’ll tell you.

The Australian shepherd bellowed “HEEEEEEEEEEEERD IT!”

And the Chase for the Beshitted Squirl was on.

To Be Continued…

Squirl Overheat 2: HEY STELLA

I knew the squirrel was out there in the blinding heat. The dogs were mostly oblivious, since DINNER eclipses most if not all of their brainspace whenever it rolls around. I did not relish the thought of taking them outside, but I relished the thought of their eventual bowel-emptying on carpet even less. Besides, I reasoned, it was too damn hot for the squirrel to make mischief.

A little voice in the back of my head did pipe up to tell me those little fuckers could cause mischief on the surface of the sun, for Christ’s sake, and who did I think I was kidding? So I checked and rechecked my footwear, said a small prayer to whatever gods protect one from arboreal rodents, and thought long and hard about going outside armed. The Sekrit Weapon was downstairs, but I am never more than arm’s length away from anything that can be used to wallop an intruder. I fretted over whether to grab a broom, a bokken, a shinai, one of the katanas…well, there were shovels out in the shed, maybe…you get the idea.

Miss B pushed at the back of my knees, insistently, and Odd Trundles did not understand why I wasn’t opening the door so he could prance outside and Do His Business. He began making a noise somewhere between a whine and a groan, his very own I-gotta-go cry. So I cautiously opened the door, stepped out into heat that smelled (and felt) like the inside of a feverish hobo’s mouth, and followed the dogs as they scrambled for the stairs. I tried to look everywhere at once, and though I had just about talked myself out of the need to be armed I still grabbed the (empty) watering can from the table. A fuzzy idea of splashing a squirrel to dissuade it drifted through my head and away, because that was when the noise started.

Kowalski!Squirl: STELLA! HEEEEEEY STELLA!
Miss B: WHAT THE–
Odd Trundles: NEWFRIEND? NEWFRIEND?

I can only surmise the damn squirrel was heat-crazed. Because it darted down from the tree near the deck, yelling for Stella, and boomed across the yard, straight for B and Odd, who had begun snuffling just downhill of the shade-garden boxes. Miss B froze, perplexed for a few split seconds. While she is perfectly comfortable attempting to herd a whole battalion of tree-rats, having one attempt to herd her is Not Quite The Thing, as we used to say. Especially since she had been looking forward to a nice leisurely evacuation of her lower intestine. Dogs are creatures of habit, and first comes the dinner, then comes the clearing of space for said dinner to digest, world without end, amen. So, Miss B stood, head cocked, looking down the barrel of a one-squirrel banzai charge.

Odd, for once, was quicker on the uptake. Or maybe he just wasn’t troubled by any thoughts of role reversal or manners. All he knew was that there was a NEW FRIEND coming to greet him, and the pressure in his abdomen could be ignored for a bit while he attended to this marvelous, wonderful development.

I love that dog, but he does not make good decisions.

Kowalski!Squirl: STELLAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
Miss B: *still staring, mildly perplexed*
Odd Trundles: NEWFRIEND! *snortwhistle* NEWFRIEND NEWFRIEND! *snortwhistleshart*

Yes, friends and neighbors, Odd was so excited his wriggle turned into a scamper directly for the NEWFRIEND, a scamper that squeezed his peristalsis into overdrive, a scamper that had a brown streak at one end. It exploded forth, impelled by Odd’s sheer glee.

The problem, alas, was that Miss B was right behind him. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a leap quite like the one she performed to avoid the, erm, blowback. Straight up, her limbs splaying, almost catlike in its fluid authority. Unfortunately, her landing was a bit less than graceful, and she yelped.

Miss B: YIIIIIPE!
Kowalski!Squirl: STELLAAAAA!
Odd Trundles: NEWFRIEND! *shartwhistlesnortbark*

And what, you may ask, was I doing during this? Simple: I was on the deck, staring, with my mouth slightly agape, an empty, green, plastic watering can dangling from my hand. I hadn’t even made it to the stairs.

This takes much longer to tell than the event needed to transpire. So, just to set the scene: there was an airborne squirrel, airborne poo, and an airborne Australian shepherd all at once. I was inhaling, about to yell something stupid (like “OH MY GOD *Odd Trundles’s full name* YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING…”) when time sped up with a snap. Miss B staggered sideways. Kowalski!Squirl hung in the air over Odd’s back for slightly longer, but when he touched down, well, that was when the real fun began.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Squirl Overheat

[SCENE: Ninety-plus degrees outside, but relatively cool inside. At the dinner table, chez Saintcrow. Behind the Little Prince is the French door to the deck. Our view out said French door is captured above.]

Me: [checks to make sure I’m wearing shoes] What the…
Princess: Uh…is that normal?
Little Prince: What? [turns around in chair] Oh, wow. Is it dead?
Princess: I don’t know.
Me: I can’t see if it’s breathing.
Princess: So, um, we’re just going to eat dinner with that right there?
Me: God protect us.
Miss B: [under the table] What? Food for the dog?
Odd Trundles: [sitting on our side of the French door, blissfully oblivious] Food for the dog? Food?

[Overheated Squirrel twitches.]

Me: JESUS CHRIST.
Little Prince: [dropping fork] WHAT?
Princess: It moved! It moved!
Dogs: FOOD? FOOD FOR THE DOGS?
Me: Everyone just stay calm. Are we all wearing shoes?
Princess: Mom, it’s outside.
Me: THAT MEANS NOTHING.

The squirrel was alive. After a little while, as if it could hear us, it leapt to its feet and regarded us, sideways-baleful in that way only prey animals can manage. The kids were delighted. I was definitely NOT. Why, you ask?

Because I had to take the dogs out after dinner. And chances were, the squirrel was going to be there.

Waiting.

TO BE CONTINUED…

War and Euphemism

I took a break from reading Foote on the Civil War to read a few books on Marines in the Pacific during WWII. I’ve since finished Eugene Sledge’s With the Old Breed, and last night started Robert Leckie’s Helmet For My Pillow. Very early on in the latter, I came across probably the greatest paragraph I’ve ever read in a military memoir.

Always there was the word. Always there was that four-letter ugly sound that men in uniform have expanded into the single substance of the linguistic world. It was a handle, a hyphen, a hyperbole; verb, noun, modifier; yes, even conjunction. It described food, fatigue, metaphysics. It stood for everything and meant nothing; an insulting word, it was never used to insult; crudely descriptive of the sexual act, it was never used to describe it; base, it meant the best; ugly, it modified beauty; it was the name and nomenclature of the voice of emptiness, but one heard it from chaplains and captains, from Pfc.’s and Ph.D.’s—until, finally, one could only surmise that if a visitor unacquainted with English were to overhear our conversations he would, in the way of Higher Criticism, demonstrate by measurement and numerical incidence that this little word must assuredly be the thing for which we were fighting. (Robert Leckie, Helmet For My Pillow)

It reminds me of “The Proper Use of English Word Fuck“. Sledge, bless him, could not bring himself to write about the military habit of blasphemy, and Leckie had to content himself with euphemism to describe it. But what euphemism! The structure alone of the marvelous paragraph above delights me, with its call and response, its tension of opposites resolved in a single blaring call of hilarity.

I plan on reading some James Jones too, even though novels are not quite good for me to read while writing one. Reading fiction feels like work when you’re writing it, and it can exhaust one’s slender leftover resources after a day of chipping words free of the cranium. I feel like reaching for a red pen if I read too much fiction during my writing stage or when revisions heat up. I read a lot more nonfiction because I don’t feel the urge to edit or dissect the prose inside my head. (Unless, of course, it’s egregiously bad.) The memoirs kind of straddle that line, but they’re what the Muse wants right now, and what that bitch wants she gets.

I had to put the Foote Civil War books down after reading about a raider pulling up to a Yankee whaling ship that had just killed a whale and was harvesting the fat. The raider took the crew prisoner and fired the ship and the whale’s carcass, which made my stomach turn. A useless death of a beautiful, noble creature, murdered and set afire on the sea. It’s to Foote’s credit that his description of such things is so powerful, but it turned my stomach and I had to take a break. Reading about the waves of horses dying in battle or ridden to pieces on raids is difficult, too. War is a brutal fucking waste.

Anyway, I’m deep in the first flush of honeymoon writing, working on a book that will never be sold. I should be concentrating on a paying project, but I’m stealing time to write something for my beloved agent, and enjoying the hell out of it. I love the books that grow organically from a single hallucinatory scene best, but a close second are the books I do for my writing partner or my agent because I love them and want them happy. It feels good to give a gift.

Now, after a lunch of triple-ginger gingersnaps and very cold milk, it’s back to work.

Canine Cocoanut Chew

chew crow

I generally put a mat down for my office door, more as a threshold reminder that here is where the work is than to clean off anyone’s shoes. Odd Trundles has this…habit, I suppose you’d call it?–of chewing them up. He tore my old skull-and-crossbones mat right in half, then tried to consume its replacement as well. I thought a cocoanut-fibre mat would dissuade him, but he just thinks it’s a colon cleanse, when he’s not using it to scratch his paws. (Read: tearing at it with all four feet as if it’s personally offended him.)

Miss B will watch him attempting to disassemble and consume the mat with the air of a woman watching a man too old for a skateboard attempt a steep hill. I scold when I catch him at it, and pick the saliva-dripping bits of none-edible cocoanut parts from his slavering jaws. He, of course, thinks it’s petting time and a great game. Much happy, many slobber.

All things considered, the mat is holding up well. But I’m thinking I should pick it up and put it somewhere out of Odd’s reach when I leave the house. He might run out of paper bags.

*sigh*

Something Solid

My agent wants me to write her a YA. It’s one of the more fun ways to write a book, either for said agent or for my writing partner. It fees me up to do a lot of things I wouldn’t normally, since I’m not writing for anything but their happiness. Given my druthers, I’d probably work half on the projects that sink their teeth in my head and need to be popped and drained like an access (what a mixed metaphor, ew) and half on personally tailored books that make my writing partner or agent happy. I’m lucky that I’ve been able to do both to the extent that I have. Most of them end up selling, though no YA publishers will take Rattlesnake Wind because it’s “too brutal”. I keep telling them it’s not a YA, it’s a book with a teenage protagonist and that doesn’t automatically make it YA, but they don’t listen. Which is fine, it would kill me to have that particular book edited by committee, and I would not be graceful to suggestions like “give her another love interest!” or “make her more LIKABLE”.

Fuck that noise.

So I gave my agent a choice: Robin Hood with werewolves, or a cult–both books I have scaffolding in my head for, ready to be built upon. She picked the cult. All yesterday I was tooling around with it, turning it this way and that, and now I know where the book actually starts (which was not anything I’d written yet) and where it finishes. The things in the middle are hazy, but that’s always the way. Getting there is most of the fun.

This morning, absorbing coffee and scheduling the day out, I suddenly had the first scene. It burst upon me in hallucinatory detail, tied to a very specific sound: car tires on a long, unpaved country driveway.

When you think about it, tires crunching on gravel is one of the worst sounds in the world. It sounds like thousands of little teeth grinding away at each other, a real headache right through the ears. With the windows—even the cracked ones—open for a little bit to air the farmhouse out, it reverberated through plain rooms and rattled in my head in the kitchen, where I stood in front of the balky old stove trying to convince it to boil a pot of water. You had to watch it and not let the element go for too long, or it would blow a fuse and you’d have to troop into the cellar, past dusty shelves with non-dusty jars of preserves and pickled beets—ugh—to flip it. Well, there were other things pickled besides beets down there, to be honest. For once we hadn’t worked through all the string beans or the pickled garlic. The woodstove in the living room was hot, and I’d have to close everything up and sheet the windows before too much longer, or it wouldn’t warm up in there and I’d shiver all through the night.

*peruses paragraph above* Not bad. It needs work, of course, but there’s a definite voice in there. She’s speaking loud and clear. Next she’ll look out one of those cracked windows they have to block with towels in the winter, and see what’s coming down the drive. It won’t be pleasant, of course. It never is.

So that’s today’s work all laid out for me, a tiny feast. It’s nice to be back in the engines of creation again, after so much revising. For all its frustrations (oh, and there are plenty of those) that’s the part I like best. The heart-trembling-in-throat sense of breaking new ground, stringing together the words, uncovering the new set of people in my head and their various joys and tragedies. All this, and best of all, I can wear pyjamas while I forge a whole new world. Though today I probably won’t, since there’s other things to be accomplished.

But for most of the day, I’ll be at the forge, hearing the music of hammer and anvil, and making something solid where before was only air. Best job in the world.