Moody Springs

A Sweet Video

2010-06-09T01:15:00.005-04:00

Found it off this tumblr...genderrific.

But do you realize what you have to DO???

2010-06-07T00:42:00.003-04:00

Okay, so...Al and Tipper Gore are getting a SHOCKING divorce. Why is it so shocking? I don't know; I suppose just because it's in the news, and everything in the news is SHOCKING! (Even when it's not.) So, Joy Behar decided to cover the story on her HLN show. A cursory Google search did not turn up a transcript or video, so you'll have to take my word for what transpired.

Okay, of course, they went through the whole being-shocked-about-the-Gores-splitting up thing, and then started speculating on "WHY????" Because, Al and Tipper say they just want to be not married anymore, and there isn't "someone else" for either of them, and...people are having an unbelievably hard time just believing them; there must be something more. Anyway, so they were speculating about who is "really" cheating...and Judy Gold, (a lesbian comedienne; yeah, it's relevant), said, "You know, I think it's Tipper cheating! I think she's cheating with a woman!"

The other people followed with disgruntled "nah"s, and the like, and when they settled down, another [presumably] straight woman on the panel besides Joy, (and I didn't recognize her, and the cursory search turns up nothing, so I can't find her name, sorry,) said something to the effect of, "Oh, I'd leave my husband for a woman, sure, if I was sick of him. I'd just say, 'Screw it.' Why not?"

Behar's reply was, "But do you realize what you have to DO???"

It was really a rather homophobic thing to say. Not because I think Behar was trying to be malicious...just because, well, our society is homophobic and I don't think people realize what they are saying when they say, "Ew, I could never do that," or some variation. It's like the equivalent of a straight person saying, "Yeah, my husband/wife and I, we've been together x years and have y kids," to a gay person, who then says, "Ew...I could never do the whole PIV thing, sorry..." Even though that might be true, it's still uncalled for. And besides, I was a little put out that a straight couple splitting up has fuck all to do with lesbians, (so far as we know right now,) but you know, there go lesbians, as a demograph, across the coals...for um, laughs, on a very important "news" (gossip) show...and a lesbian was the one who hung the lesbian piñata, by accusing a presumably straight woman of being a lesbian...believe it or else, y'all! Even if Gold's suspicions are genuine...especially if her suspicions are genuine...give your sisters a little respect, all right? Let them have some dignity. Have you not been in this world long enough to know what happens when gay people get jokingly brought into a conversation? They get made fun of...and some of us just don't appreciate it, even when it's "good natured." (Yeah...)

But all that aside, there is another reason I wanted to have this post. There's more than homophobia in the joking comment that Behar made; there's another dark undercurrent. Do you realize what you have to DO?

Of course, the panelists didn't venture into any discussion or explanation of what you have to do; they just abandoned it after some laughs. I guess there was really no reason for any of us to wonder what you have to do...we already know, don't we? Hahahahahaha. Ha. Ha. But I do wonder. What do you have to do? Honestly, I want to know....what do you have to do?

Do you have to be sexual with a woman to have a relationship with her? Is that the implication? Why? Not that the other woman even said that she didn't...Behar just assumed she didn't, because, of course, "Ew," but I'll just follow her lead and also assume (argument's sake, and such) that the other woman didn't want sex with women. Why would that preclude her from a relationship with another woman? If one woman can want a relationship with a woman without sex, why can't two women? And why can't those two women have a relationship with each other when they find each other? Where does the obligation come in? Where does the expectation come in? Sure, some women will not consider having relationships with women unless there will be sex. But some women would be willing...even pleased or relieved.

I don't like this way we, as a society in general, treat sex like it is inevitable; like it's an obligation, like it is ever something that someone can legitimately owe someone else. But yet, we do. You can't really be free to give sexual attention to someone purely because you want to if you're not equally free not to give it purely because you don't want to.

I have been researching asexuality, because I realized that I didn't know anything about it, and I wanted to know more. I am indebted to the asexual bloggers that have taught me so much about freedom and consent. I mean, I have been reading about feminism, and rape, and consent for years now, but reading the asexual blogs made me realize just how bad our culture is about associating sex and obligation, and further associating them both with love. "If you really loved me, you would pay the toll." Is love really like that? Is sex really like that? Really? Why? It doesn't have to be. It shouldn't be.

If you don't realize what you have to do, let me tell you: nothing. You have to do nothing. Freedom is a fundamental human right. No matter what any government says; no matter what any society says. If you don't have freedom, then your rights are being violated. You don't relinquish your right to freedom when you are in a relationship; if your partner is ignoring your right to freedom, then your partner is violating your rights. They have the freedom to keep walking up the road if they don't like your freedom, but they don't have the right to make you do anything you don't want to do.

You have to do nothing. That's what you have to do.

Controlling your feelings

2010-06-03T11:41:00.002-04:00

There are several trains of homophobic thought among people who are anti-gay, particularly religious people who are anti-gay. One is that gay people are just plain evil; they do bad because they are bad, and so on. Another is that they are misguided; something happened along the way that fucked them up and made them think that they feel this way, but of course, they don't really, because God would never design someone to feel this way on purpose. Then there is another theory that, yes, romantic feelings toward people of the same sex are natural, but rather than something to be embraced, they are put there as a hurdle...you know, like a test from God, to see if you have the willpower to overcome them and live a morally upright life, (ie, tie yourself up in an "opposite marriage" and make babies with your opposite-sex partner). Of course, there may be other anti-gay theories that I'm not identifying right now, but these seem to be the ones that I see recurring a lot. I've also made the observation that Evil Theory might be older, (although it is alive and well,) Fucked-Up Theory is like a historical connector between Evil Theory and Control-Your-Feelings Theory, but Control-Your-Feelings Theory is gaining a lot of momentum with the conservatives, (like Ted and Gayle Haggard, for example.) I suspect that the reason is that gay folk are visible enough now that haters have a hard time convincing people that they are the wanton murderers that they alleged in Days of Yore, and that they come from many diverse backgrounds of varying levels of fucked-upness, that it's even hard to blame their environments anymore. The only theory left for anti-gay conservatives is Control-Your-Feelings Theory.

When the anti-gay family member of a gay person learns of their relative's gayness, they sometimes have to muddle their way upward through all these theories on the way toward acceptance. Let's say there is this (hypothetical, of course) lesbian, whose parents generally think that gay folk are evil. Maybe not extremely evil, but evil enough to go to Hell when they die, just the same. They have a hard time believing that their own offspring could be evil, (which isn't surprising; even people with truly evil offspring have a hard time believing that little Teddy or little Jeff could actually kill all those people and chop them to bits.) Evil theory doesn't hold up long for the lesbian's parents, so they move on to Fucked-Up Theory. Was it because of all that simultaneous sexual harassment and rejection from boys at school? Was it because we signed the waiver to keep her out of Comprehensive Health Day? (and so on.) Eventually, they move on to Control-Your-Feelings Theory. Perhaps God did instill lesbian inclinations in their daughter, so that she could valiantly defeat them, because God believed in her. A lot. And let's say that her parents spent the longest time in this mindset, and spent the next several years trying to convince her to kill these feelings and replace them with others.

Not only do anti-gay family members harm their gay relatives in the obvious ways when they speak and act toward them out of Control-Your-Feelings Theory, but there is a more subtle, yet possibly just as damaging way they affect their gay relatives.

The gay relatives, out of resistance, never learn how to control their feelings and kill off their love when it is appropriate to.

I suppose, in ways, they are not any worse off than straight people, whose impulses have been honored, nurtured, upheld, and celebrated as normal, natural, beautiful all their lives. I don't guess a person like that would have much cause to learn to control their feelings or kill off their love when it is appropriate to, either.

But I do think that after you've been actively instructed to change your feelings, ignore them, force yourself to feel some other way...that you might be more likely to allow whatever romantic feelings you have overtake you and overpower you with little thought to the consequences it could have for you and the people who care about you. I think you might be more likely NOT to realize when the LORD has put a hurdle in your way and challenged you to overcome it.

Suppose Hypothetical Lesbian gets involved in an abusive relationship. Suppose her now-accepting parents try to warn her that this woman is bad business, and she should stay away. "But I love her; you can't help who you love!" / "Yes, we know, but she's bad for you." / "I don't care; I love her, those are my feelings; I can't do away with them." / "You have to."

Controlling your feelings is not a bad idea all the time. While I think it's unproductive and abusive to insist that someone change their orientation, I think the art of controlling your feelings is one that gay and straight folk should both be skilled in. Sometimes love, natural though it might be, has to die in order for you to live. Killing your love for one woman who is bad business is not the same as killing your love for women, but I can see how a person might mistake them for being the same.

Book "Review"

2010-05-09T14:03:00.002-04:00

I just finished reading Reverberations Across the Shimmering Cascadas by Jeffner Allen. She presents, as part of her philosophy, this idea that grammar conventions limit expression by defining the boundaries of expression, and therefore, they limit even what can be communicated. They don't always present us with words for concepts that we want to communicate, and they virtually forbid us from inventing our own words, and so if you are to follow their rules, there are things that you can't even talk about. It's not a notion that was completely new to me when I started reading her, but I think it may have been the first time I witnessed this principle in action.

Often, the biggest argument for standardized language is that if everyone were just allowed to do it in her/his own way, comprehension would be too difficult. Standardization provides universality and uniformity and makes most language most accessible to the most people. We have to agree to abide by a set of rules or else there won't be any structure. There'll be chaos! Sure, people of color will get marginalized. Sure, rural people will get marginalized. Sure, ESL people will get marginalized. Sure, queers will get marginalized. Sure, disabled people will get marginalized. Sure, every person who is not a standard person will get marginalized, but at least standardized language will be most accessible to most everyone. Standard language for standard people.

It took a moment to learn Jeffner's language, but once I did, I did not have any trouble comprehending what she was saying, and she was able to communicate with me more directly, and more intensely, and more immediately, and with considerably more emotion than is usual. It felt like a very smooth, effortless transmission from the text to my understanding.

I don't know her, and I didn't come to the book with any familiarity with her manner of writing, but that didn't matter. Her language is not my language, but it didn't matter. Her language served the purpose of language, and did a better job than standardized language does most of the time. So, the main argument that language works better when there are rules doesn't really hold up. Not really. She does a great job of demonstrating that, and also of telling a beautiful story (or stories) about the tenderness between women in lesbian relationships.

Wednesday Night God Bless

2010-05-05T20:42:00.008-04:00

Tonight is Wednesday...isn't it? *Sigh.* (This is what happens to you when you don't go to school or work for a long time.)

Anyway, this Wednesday night, God bless* Chely Wright.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Saw her in concert a few years ago with Brad Paisley. When I say a few years ago, I mean, it must've been, like...ten or so. That was around the time that I was trying to snag her videos on VHS off of CMT, (told you this was a while ago). All that while, she was in pain, and has been since she was in third grade, praying for God to let her not be gay, as she explains in the video above. My favorite part of the video is when she says that she feels like it is her birthday because she is finally out, and doesn't have to fear being exposed anymore. It's odd when the thing you fear most brings the most relief. (But I gotta disagree with the text at the bottom of that video box before you click it; she did not want to end her life over her sexuality. She wanted to end her life because our world is full of homophobic assholes. Her sexuality is not at fault for all of those tortured years.)

God also bless* Ceara Sturgis, whose senior picture got dropped out of the yearbook---not because she is gay and wore a tux, as many sources say, but because people hate queers, and because separate modes of dress for men and women are part of maintaining the (hetero)sexist status quo. Her gayness and tuxedo are NOT responsible for her exclusion.

(Photo credit, and additional article.)

You know, I think she may just have the most adorable senior picture anywhere in the world ever. And I'm about sure that neither Principal Ronald Greer, nor Superintendent Rickey Clopton, ever rocked their senior photo tuxes with such style and grace, despite all their very illustrious manly manliness. God bless Ceara for standing up for herself, and her mother, for standing beside her.

*God also bless everyone else in the world everywhere.

Bahahahahahaha....

2010-02-21T23:17:00.001-05:00

This is from MySpace's home page today...

New Law Would Ban Marriages Between People Who Don't Love ...

The Onion | MySpace Video

Inner beauty is important....

2010-02-08T17:46:00.000-05:00

...outer skinniness, turns out...? Not so much.

"Self-Respecting Turkey"

2010-01-30T23:35:00.004-05:00

Any self-respecting turkey is going to be jealous that you'd rather have wine and cheese for Thanksgiving than his/her roasted flesh. You know, turkeys go to so very much trouble to make sure that their bodies are delicious to you.

I guess Facebook's ad bot missed the part of my profile that said "vegetarian"...

I meant to capture a screenshot of it the first time I saw it; it was too funny...well, funny and sad...the ad straight above it then was a plee to "virtually foster real cats" and "help them find homes." The juxtaposition of those two ads...I tell ya...

Lab-Grown Pork

2010-01-20T15:01:00.002-05:00

Well, scientists have figured out how to grow some mushy pork in the lab. It could end world hunger! That's something that grains, vegetables, fruits, and especially actual slaughtered animals have not been able to do thus far. But lab grown pork? Will end the world's troubles, it seems.

You see, animals won't have to suffer! (Except the ones that the original cells are taken from...we don't know how they feel about this budding innovation.) Vegetarians, well...they won't have to feel all those inconvenient feelings they feel about meat-eating anymore. Just ask PETA...they are among the ones that have been pushing for this new technology, (as is the Humane Society.)

And...hell, they can even control the amounts of fat and shit in the pork, making it better for you than natural pork! (I'm sure with a little more practice, they can impart the pork with all the nutrients you'd get from plant sources, too.)

I suppose that this new super food will be so perfect for the animals, for the environment, and for us, that I will be seen as a wasteful, ecosystem-murdering, selfish, old-school vegetarian for continuing to eat crops that take acres and acres of land to cultivate than simply eating pork grown from air and magic....as early as 2014, y'all...after all, once it's invented, I'm sure it's the ONLY thing people will eat...except maybe for some lab-grown chicken now and then. Some say that's been going on for years now.

I am trying to put my finger on exactly what part of the lab-grown pork news is giving me such a queasy feeling; why I feel the need to make fun of it so. Yes, the world hunger thing...that is a big part of it. That's a huge part of it. It's as though they believe that it's a shortage of food that causes world hunger...and not money and class and all that stuff that it's more comfortable for not-starving people not to think about. Other than that, I suppose I should be celebrating the idea that in the future, meat-eaters can have their meat without killing animals.

I guess it's because I know, as a vegetarian, that the deaths of the animals is part of the reason for meat-eating in the first place; if an animal has got to die for a human to eat, then that human...no matter what their own circumstances as far as oppression, or lack of it...gets to be the oppressor while they consume that food. If you're eating an animal's flesh, then you are a conqueror...even if you're typically the conquered. Even if you're poor, you're eating something that, until recently, only the wealthy could afford. When you're eating meat, there is someone lower than you, no matter how low you are on the interhuman "food-chain." I don't expect all meat-eaters to consider this; I suspect that it would disturb most to dwell on it too long, but that underlying social structure is there. It keeps animals "just animals," and that makes it all the more easy to buy all the other "just _______"s. Humans acquire a taste for meat because they eat meat; those things that you don't eat, you can't appreciate the taste of, and they eat meat because they kill animals. Maybe meat does taste good to people, but that's an effect of meat-eating, and not the cause of it.

Lab-grown pork operates under these principles: Humans will eat meat. Animals must die for meat to exist, unless we can produce it without the use of animals. Therefore, it is necessary to grow meat in a lab.

Vegetarianism operates under these principles: Humans don't need meat to live. Animals must die for meat to exist. So give up the meat.

For some reason, I think the second alternative is a bit simpler and more logical.

On editing my "Interested In", and other things...

2010-01-17T00:03:00.005-05:00

Okay, so...with her last post, Daisy made me curious enough about this FarmVille on Facebook stuff I've been seeing around that I decided to check it out.

So CUTE! The cuteness, it overwhelms me! Strawberries, and rice, and soybeans, and squash, and pumpkins, and raspberries, and...and...you can pick them...and horses, and cows, and trees! And you can make your avatar have a purple mohawk! And you can even have a house, when you get a couple more thousand coins than I have now...hehe. But, anyway....

I noticed that two of my neighbors, especially, have become seriously successful at FarmVille, so you know, I decided...why don't I look at their friend lists and see if there is anyone else I know? Obviously, they got like a zillion neighbors, and so they must have other FarmVille players...? So, I started looking at their lists, and damn....so many new profiles of high school people! I didn't realize there were that many people that I knew that weren't already on my list.

Among them was my best friend from seventh grade. She accepted my request almost immediately, and we started messaging/texting. She has two kids and a husband now. The discussion started turning in that direction, and then she was asking me if I'm married and/or have kids.

Well...see, I, just this week, edited my profile to take off that I was "Interested in: Women", that I was "Liberal," that I was "religious mutt," and the url to this blog. It's not that I mind my friends seeing; indeed, I had that stuff up there so they could check me out. But since I need to start working soon, I needed to clean some of that stuff off and delete some particularly controversial wall posts and notes, so that you know...when prospective employers look, they won't see any of that and be negatively influenced. It ain't fair, but it's life. I hate it, but it's life. I'm still thinking of changing my name to "Moody Springs" so they can't find me, ha!

Well, there was something very liberating about having my real information up there. Not omissions, but the truth. Especially "Interested in: Women." I waited till I was graduated from university to put it up there, and liked having it up there. In a way, it saved me the talking. No weird confrontation; no awkward moment where you finally go for it and just fucking tell them you're gay already...just a simple line of text on a web page. Let em read it, if they are curious enough about you to read all that stuff on the page. Let em ask you about it, if they are comfortable enough to do it and respectful enough when they do. It's not like I don't drop enough hints IRL.

Well, so now that's down, and the old anxiety is back. If I'd only had it up there, my seventh grade friend would know now. She would have seen it on her first view of my page. She'd be rejecting my friend request for it because she's so bothered by it, or rushing to tell me how okay it is, or any response between those, but she'd know, in any case. I tried to explain away the husbandandkids thing by saying that I don't really feel like a mother, and I'll leave it to the women like she who really feel that it is their path to do it. And all the while, that awful spiritual heartburn bubbling up...so familiar, but I haven't felt it in so long that it's strange. Horrid, I tell you. I don't know how I managed to live with it every day when I was young. Even with my parents! Even in the house here, where I live! I don't miss it.

I could put it back up there, but that would be stupid now. I would just have to take it back down later. Right now we've been texting a lot the past couple of hours, and if I start talking to her a lot, like in school, I'll end up having to tell her at some point. If it calms down, and she just stays one of the people on my list who I just type to once in awhile, then it ain't such a big deal. I guess I'll cross that bridge when I get there...and in the meantime, try to take the winding route that avoids that bridge. Ah...just like the good old days.

When I was in seventh grade, I barely knew I was queer myself. I'd be lying to say I didn't have any knowledge at all. Well, okay, I had quite a bit, but I refused to call myself queer. There would be a husband and kids one day, cuz that's how it was. I would just "experiment" as they say, while I was young, and then at the moment when I absolutely had to do the husbandandkids thing, I would do it. No one would be the wiser. Things would work out. I would be a normal woman, and good at it. God would love me, and everything would be all right.

God does love me, and everything will be all right...and better. I still think coming out sucks, though...

Sacred cow

2010-01-14T20:32:00.001-05:00

This article discusses the difference between the way Americans (Christians) and Indians (Hindus) view cows.

Do you know what is brilliant?

2010-01-13T18:32:00.004-05:00

This woman. And her bingo cards.

I decided to Google "anti-vegetarian bingo cards," because I have seen some funny ones for other topics around the 'net, and I thought surely that anti-veg ones must exist already. And they do. And they are great.

Especially the Speciesist Feminist one. This is my favorite block: "Considers veganism an eating disorder. Thinks you’re a misogynist for even suggesting it!" I've been thinking about this a lot since reading this post, which I found in a link from Shakesville. The post is titled, "It's not a diet, it's lifestyle activism," and lumps guilt over not eating vegan in the same category as guilt over eating too much/being too fat/drinking soda...(I suppose it is not too much a surprise that people would categorize veganism that way, considering the work of PETA.)

I had tried to write about this a few days ago, before I found the bingo cards, but it was all coming out angry and rantish. But after I read the bingo card, I pondered it some more, and I think I realize what pisses me off so bad about it.

You see, there are two reasons in the world why women, (or men, for that matter,) feel guilty:

1. Society burdens us from the moment we are born with a bunch of unnecessary guilt over things that we should not feel guilty about.

2. We have done something wrong, and damned ought to feel guilty for doing it.

I thoroughly believe that it's wrong that women are made to feel "guilty" because their bodies don't fit a socially constructed ideal, or because they don't want to go without food in oft-futile effort to achieve that ideal, but you know what? Meat is manufactured because meat-eaters provide a market for it, therefore, if you are a meat-eater, then yeah, you contribute to the reason why animals die. Impoverished people don't die because you ate or didn't eat,* but animals do die because you eat them. That cause-effect relationship is not merely an abstract or philosophical one. Lacto-ovo vegetarians like myself...we eat dairy and eggs, and we do contribute to the suffering and deaths of animals exploited for dairy and eggs. I feel bad about that, and not because maintainers of the misogynist status quo, (or the "green" subset of them,) are imploring me to feel that way. Sometimes guilt is genuine, and does come from inside, because it is warranted. Because our actions can have consequences that do reach beyond ourselves.

*Although it is true that people who are "have-nots" are so because others of us are "haves," a starving child is never going to be affected one iota specifically because you passed up the sweet or because you didn't clean your plate. There are things you can do to help them out, but your own eating or not eating is beside the point.

EDIT: After I think about it, I want to add that it is possible that a nonvegan isn't really responsible for the deaths of animals by consuming "animal products"...I mean, if you eat steak and wash it down with a big glass of milk, sure...but if you use soap with beef tallow in it, not so much. The original post did not make that distinction, so I wanted to at least mention it.

EDIT 2: A great example from the brilliant bingo woman, I found, as I'm reading her previous posts, to the point I was trying to make about our own starving not helping actual starving people.

Painting

2010-01-06T23:19:00.003-05:00

What happens (among other things) in the life of your narrator while blogging slows down...

Speaking of Ellen....

2010-01-06T17:29:00.004-05:00

I went to the Charter.net homepage so I could send my Pa an email. So far as I know, that is the only email I can email from that he has in his contacts, because whenever I email him from my "real" emails, he doesn't get them. Anyway, while I was on the home page, I saw this...

I mean...I suppose that is supposed to be Ellen; she's mentioned in the stories by the side, there. She's got a mic, and that goes with "Idol" I suppose...it looked like her till I focused on the picture...

Because it is the way most passers-through find my blog...

2010-01-06T00:41:00.001-05:00

I've added the popular quote from Ellen DeGeneres in my banner.

Yes...Yes...

2010-01-04T21:02:00.002-05:00

Via Shapely Prose: A repost at Racialicious of an excellent comment on this page (it's buried too far down; I gave up after hitting "Earlier discussions" a few times and getting down into the reactions to said comment from various whiners, uh, I mean, other commenters who didn't agree.) It's about people whining over the critical analysis of Avatar, a movie which I am not aiming to see...in fact it's one of those things likely to get on my nerves a bit. Anyway, the commenter makes a really good point: that if people don't want to analyze Avatar, or other works of art, they don't have to, but that doesn't mean other people can't or shouldn't. Anyway, I would recommend reading it, because a lot of these ~~buggers~~ trolls are saying "you analyze too much" around the Internet, especially surrounding this new movie coming out...and also cuz I think lots of us know someone like that IRL, and they are quite infuriating...so here is a concise rebuttal to their claim...

"Almost veggie"

2009-12-25T19:59:00.008-05:00

So, I ordered three of Linda McCartney's cookbooks secondhand off the 'Net. One is coming from England, so it will take a bit longer, but two are already here. As I was leafing through Linda McCartney's Home Cooking, I noticed in the introductory section there that she was giving her take on fish-eaters. She said that people who eat fish but are "almost veggie" remind her of the phrase "a little bit pregnant"...something which she refutes the existence of.

I was "almost veggie" for awhile, (gasp!) I'd had my epiphany already, and seen the light. Never could I go back to murdering in order to nourish my body; how could someone who knew what was involved in making meat and had already lived a good many marvelous, bountiful months without it? Surely a person like that would be armed with enough knowledge never to eat an animal again! I had heard that some people do go back to meat, but never would I do such a thing, and I couldn't really understand why they had, either.

I worked at Golden Corral for a week, but you won't be seeing Rachel putting it down on her job apps here in a few weeks when she gathers up the courage to do so. That's because it was a horrible experience. They treated me horribly, and I did a horrible job, and I decided it wasn't worth having a good cry in my car before I could drive home every night. So I quit. Anyway, when I started, I had cut meat, eggs, and dairy out of my diet. I was working on the salad bar, so I knew this would involve some preparation of dairy and eggs. When I found out I had to cut strips of ham, steak, and chicken for the salad bar, well...that grossed me out a good bit. I felt like I was a...fucking, I think I wrote a Facebook poem called "I'm a traitor..." right after I had to do that. But, anyway...I had to shove down my opposition to doing it and do it anyway, without saying anything. Funny...those pharmacists and doctors whining cuz they don't want to do scripts for birth control, but do people in other industries get the same privilege to object to shit that offends them? NO. Any old way, one of the women who worked there sneaked over to the other bar, where the chefs were cooking meat, and stole me a piece of steak. She brought it back to me and plopped it down on the counter there.

"There's you a piece of steak," she said.

I got really nervous. "Um, thank you...that's very nice, but I don't eat meat."

"DON'T EAT MEAT????"

She disappeared awhile later and came back from the other bar where they were making desserts. She plopped a cookie down on the counter. Chocolate chip.

"Well, there's you a cookie," she said.

Now, things are sticky. If I reject her cookie, too, she's going to think I'm a prick. If I accept her cookie, then I bring to an end six very successful months of veganism. But I was already chopping up the dead animal bodies, despite the fact I still didn't want to eat them. How much milk in a cookie, a few drops? How many eggs in a cookie, a quarter of an egg? Damn, it looked good; the chocolate chips were still gooey and melty. I ate the cookie, and it was good.

I rather quickly after that became a regular lacto-ovo vegetarian. My reasoning went like this: if I have enough consideration not to hurt a coworker's feelings by rejecting milk and eggs, what about my own poor mother? I'd been rejecting her breads, potatoes, sides, sweets, etc. because they contained eggs and dairy. It's not as though I was saving animals by doing it, either; she always had plenty of leftovers, and some invariably got thrown away. Whether I partook in them made very little difference.

I moved on from that job to the one at the buffet place. While I was working there, I began typing to a woman on the Internet. I typed to several people on the Internet, but this one was different. I fell in love with her. She was half-heartedly trying to leave her partner. (Yeah, yeah...this is the kind of thing that would never happen now, but I can only say that now because it did happen then, and some things you just have to do once before you learn that you never want to do that again.) She led me on. When she found out I didn't eat meat, and didn't like purchase anything with milk and eggs that my mom wasn't going to buy anyway, she seemed alarmed by it.

"Well...like, how much meat will you tolerate?" she asked me one day on the phone.

"None," I said. "I don't want meat grease in my beans; I don't want chicken stock in my rice." I quickly added, "I can cook meat for you if you want me to, I guess."

"Well, I don't eat a lot of meat, but I'm not going vegetarian all the way! No way! Not going to happen!" she said. I felt rather puzzled; I hadn't asked her to. I didn't really see why it mattered much anyway; she lived 600 miles from me, and though I hoped I would meet her someday, I had no idea whether it was actually going to happen. We weren't girlfriends, even though I hoped. I really couldn't understand why she was so threatened, but I didn't like that she was threatened.

At some other point, we were talking about vegetarianism, and I told her that I'm fine without pork, beef, and chicken, (which used to be my favorite; I continually had dreams about sneaking to eat chicken when I first gave up meat,) but I did miss fish. I missed it quite a lot. And although there's no fairness in making a creature die for your own purposes, I didn't feel as sorry for the fishes, I told her. I imagined them being caught in the net, gasping for breath for a moment, and then not gasping anymore. Not pleasant, merciful, or loving by any stretch of the imagination, but not quite the same as being kept in a tiny cage covered in your own feces your whole life. "So, why don't you eat the fish?" she said. "It's good for you; it's got iron. You need that cuz you're a girl, especially when you have your period."

A few days later, my parents were planning on going to Red Lobster, and I told her that I supposed I would eat cheese biscuits and a baked potato. She said, "Well, you were craving fish the other day; why don't you get some?" And, I did...I'll admit that it was partly because of my own desire for fishmeat. I think I could have resisted that, though, if I hadn't wanted to show her that I wasn't a threat to the way she wanted to eat. I was up against someone else for her attention, and on the losing side. When it came right down to it, I cared more about having a chance of being with her than I cared about any animal. I wasn't proud that I felt that way.

When she was down here visiting me, and we became romantic that week, she sent me over to the Burger King to buy her some Whoppers and some chicken sandwiches. As I was standing in line, my blissful dizziness was interrupted by a troublesome thought. I realized just what I was doing. I was exchanging my money for dead animal parts. Something I had decided I was never going to do again. I was a dead-animal-eater myself, something I had decided I was never going to be again. I got my purchase and went back to the motel. Choked down my awareness. It wasn't ideal, but I was getting what I wanting. She unwrapped the chicken sandwich and it was the wrong kind; it was the round one, and she had wanted the rectangle...

To make a long story short, I lost that fight, and stupidly hung on longer than I should have. When I finally got lost once and for all, one of the first things that happened was that fishes on my plate started to look exactly like fishes, not fish. I hadn't been eating fish everyday, more like once every week or every other week. That's not an insignificant amount of animals' lives, though. If there are 52 weeks in a year, and I ate fish for two years, then that's 104 times that I ate fish; depending on the size of the fish, some meals with fish equaled a whole fish.

I must say, I do have more humility now than I did. I'm not as judgmental about people who experience life as a vegetarian and then go back. (Except this loser; I'll judge her all day long. And just so we're clear, I'm talking about the subject of the article, not the author; I agree with the author.)

Linda was right, though. You can't really eat fish and think you deserve a star in your crown for not eating beef. Oh, and it's also worth sharing (this post is choppy...sorry...I'm feeling the choppiness as I'm writing it, but I'm just trying to get it out...) that the fish sometimes don't just die of "drowning" on the deck. I watched my dad clean a fish when I was in high school, and he made two slits, one close to each gill, and then grabbed the head of the still-moving fish and stripped the skin off. Then he cut the head off. I said, "But why don't you cut the head off first? It suffers!" He said, "If I did that, I wouldn't have anything to grab ahold of so I could pull the skin off."

Earlier this year, when I was still eating fish-meat, we visited the fish hatchery up in the mountains. (We went by the Stumptunnel Cave, and by Moody Springs, too, which my blog is named after...if you're wondering, it's a little small brick thing on the side of the road up SC-107 with a natural spring in it. When there's not a drought, you can get water out of it, and it is delicious water, too...I drank some. Naturally purified, not like this bottle crap you get in the stores.) Anyway, the fish that live at the hatchery are trout, grown there until they are, I guess, adolescents, and then they are released into the waterways around here to replenish the rivers because people fish them all out. Their living quarters are so close that their tails thrash against each others' backs and their backs have these bald, white spots on them. A little sign hanging there explains this, and assures us that these spots return to normal, and that "This is not painful" to the fish. I felt a little sad looking at some of the white spots, though...some were so raw that they leaked blood, and I have a feeling that the assurance that "This is not painful" is a load of crap. I felt glad that most of the fish don't spend their whole lives this way; just the big ones that they keep as breeding stock, as well as the old ones they keep as specimens to show the public how these trout look when they get to be old men and women. They have permanent white spots on their backs.

Some of the smaller fish flip so high that they fall on the concrete outside of the water. I saw at least three gasping for air and threw them back. It takes them as long to "drown" as it does a human being, and if that were "all" that they had to go through to become our food, that would be reason enough for us not to demand that. My mind-picture I had of fish being caught on the net and gasping on the deck wasn't exactly accurate, either. Most fish we eat are farm raised, and I'd venture to think they are raised in tight spaces like the hatchery fish, and they have little personal space with white spots on their backs. Really, it is sort of like being a pig or chicken that will be used for meat.

Bigotry/social injustice as a mental illness

2009-12-23T12:16:00.007-05:00

This is a common motif that really irks the hell out of me. Your favorite "news" anchor and mine, Jane Velez-Mitchell (NOT!) declares on a regular basis that, "in [her] humble opinion, racism is a form of mental illness!" Since I read a lot on the Internet about gay rights, I see it in that context as well. One message board I used to post on, (and I won't link to it, but I don't imagine it is hard to find,) was full of lesbians ready to declare anything anti-gay "crazy" or "insane" or "in need of help." Today, from my Facebook, More Light Presbyterians posted this link to an article called "Hug an Evangelical". Of course, in the comments, (and comments on anything tend to be vile to some extent or another,) people go on about how this won't make a difference, this is not the answer...and all that, and of course it's everyone's own decision how they want to respond to hatred that's directed at them.

I was understanding completely where this one commenter was coming from, and agreeing with him, (among others,) to a point. Sometimes the hate just gets so hateful, that for your own sake, you have to remove yourself from it, rather than try to reform it with hugs. But then when he got to the last sentence...well...

"No matter how many "hugs" you give evangelicals, they will still view us as pitiable creatures destined for the mythological fires of hell. I agree with Scott. I am 52 years old and remember the shameless response of these people to the burgeoning AIDS crisis. Thier response to the deaths of thousands was summed up by the late Jerry Falwell " the poor homosexual has declared war on nature and now nature exacts it's horrible retribution". You want me to hug that???? If you turn your cheek to this type of hate, what does that say about how you view YOURSELF. These people danced on the graves of thousands of gay men in the early 80's and used our deaths as a propoganda tool for their ridiculous mythology. Talking bushes, men sleeping in a whales mouth, boats holding two of everything, they don't need our hugs, they need mental health professionals and a good dose of anti-psychotic medication!!!"

Yeah, really. These aren't ignorant, misinformed, or even just complete privileged arseholes that we're dealing with here...these are certifiable loons! Someone get the doctor in! These people need pills!

Hate is not a "mental illness." Hate is a social illness. That's not to say that hate doesn't have mental health consequences for the people who harbor them, as well as for the people who have hate directed toward them. That's not the same as someone being legitimately unwell and needing the help of mental professionals or pills. Not to mention that people who are unwell have no lesser chance of being an accepting, open-minded person than a person who we would categorize as "sane." Because, you see, the two groups of people are independent; membership in one really has nothing to do with membership in another. The only connection mental illness might possibly have to gay acceptance is that being on the receiving end of oppression sometimes, (not always,) prompts a person to examine their own prejudices and work to understand "others."

Although I shouldn't be, I really am amazed at the way people tend to insist on their own rights as full human beings while having no qualms about trampling on other marginalized people within the same rant. (Permutations on this include all sorts of different marginalized groups in the roles.) Years ago, the bigots said that queers were mentally ill. Now the queers are saying that the bigots are mentally ill. And somewhere in the middle of that, human beings, both gay and straight, get erased out of the equation. People who have their own legacy of maltreatment and oppression. It's like they don't really exist, but are fairy creatures that might exist abstractly in some other plane, and so their lives become metaphorical.

That's not all that bothers me; another thing that bothers me is that this appeared in the comments of an article written by a Christian minister. "Talking bushes, men sleeping in a whales mouth, boats holding two of everything..." The commenter presents these examples from Christian mythology as evidence of the "lunacy" of what anti-gays believe. Mind you, these myths have absolutely nothing to do with homophobia; but since some Christians are so hell-bent (pardon the pun) on condemning gay people, then that must mean that gay people should condemn all Christian beliefs. You can't really do that without insulting Janet Edwards, (the author of the piece), a pro-gay minister who is working hard toward gay rights, and....marrying gay people. Which gay people have been very vocal of late about wanting the right to do, right? Now, I don't know whether she believes literally in these myths or not, but either way, she has spent her life studying them, analyzing them, writing about them, and speaking about them. They are likely close to her heart as part of a tradition that she belongs to.

Also, it's worth noting that this commenter makes clear his disdain for sincere belief in myth, and all the while, he puts forth his own equally unreasonable belief: that somehow, magically, pills will cure the hatred right out of a hater! The answer to anti-gay sentiment, and subsequent behavior, is really so simple! Just give them a prescription. Wow. You really have to wonder why gay people still have any problems at all...that being the case...

Indiana Sugar Cream Pie

2009-12-23T11:35:00.002-05:00

1 c sugar
2 c heavy cream
4 T flour (all-purpose)
1 t vanilla
1 T butter (melted)
1/4 t salt
2 unbaked 9" deep dish pie shells

Preheat oven to 410 F.

In a large mixing bowl, mix together sugar, salt, and cream. Add the vanilla and butter. Add the flour a little at a time, stirring to incorporate each new dusting of flour with minimal clumping. When all the flour is in, stir for a bit, until you feel confident that the ingredients are mixed well.

It's a good idea to use two cookie sheets, one underneath each pie shell. If you use deep dish shells, then the mixture shouldn't bubble up over the edges and spill out, but better safe, right...? Pour one cup of the mixture from the mixing bowl into a small measuring cup and pour it into one of the pie shells. Pour another cup into the measuring cup and pour it into the second pie shell. Pour a third of a cup into the measuring cup and put in one of the pie shells. Then a third of a cup into the other. At this point, you should be left with very little mixture in the mixing bowl; a little less than half a cup. So put about another quarter of a cup in each pie shell. Decide which pie shell seems a little less full, and rake out the mixing bowl and measuring cup into that one.

Put the pies in the oven, and bake for 10 min at 410 F. (Set a timer if you have to; there's no shame in it. I use one to make sure I don't forget.) Then turn the temperature down to 325 and bake for another thirty minutes.

It's useful to start looking at the pies at about 15 minutes in. Here, you will see the mixture bubbling to the top of the shells. You can grab the cookie sheet and shake it gently to make the foam settle down a bit.

When the pies are done, the mixture will have gone back down to the level it was before they were put in the oven. Since these are deep dish crusts, the pies will look half-full, but that's okay. That's better than the mess you'll have if you use regular crusts and have to clean up after the spill, and I can't provide any better answer to the threat of the filling bubbling over than the use of deep pie shells...

(If you're using ready-made pie shells from the grocery store, read the ingredients to make sure it contains no lard, or get the one marked "all vegetable." I mean, I realize that no one kills a pig just to get lard to make a pie shell, but seriously...if you're the kind of person who feels a little queasy at the thought of accidentally consuming pigmeat, study up on your ready-made pie shells...)

Now, I did take some photos, but I'm not going to post one, because for some reason the photos have a dingy green tint to them. My Photoshop is on my other computer, so I can't brighten them up or take any of the green out, and they look very unappetizing in their current state. Maybe later...

Brittany Murphy

2009-12-23T00:54:00.001-05:00

I'm not a fan...I didn't think I had seen any of her movies except Girl Interrupted. I really didn't know enough about her to have any more than a neutral opinion. I did think it was sad that she is so young; and some of the rumors going around are very sad. But then i saw a clip on the news where they showed her singing in a studio, and then in a little inset box in the corner of the screen was a scene from Happy Feet with the penguin singing, and my heart sank immediately. We watched Happy Feet on television just a few days ago, and it was so sweet and so funny; we loved it. I didn't know that was her. Steve Irwin played a little minor character in it, and when I did the research on the Internet, I found out that it came out the same year he died. Now I learn that one of the penguins has died...and when I researched that, i learned that she was supposed to, here soon, go back in the studio and sing some more parts for the sequel. That got me, right there. People get torn right away from their work. Death doesn't care what you've done, or what you have plans of doing.

'Em hogs they raise in the South, they're prize pork*, I tell ye what...

2009-12-15T18:26:00.004-05:00

So...I'm from the South, as you probably know. And like a lot of people, my Facebook page is full of mostly people who I know from school, (although I do have a few Internet friends on there.) I couldn't help but notice that a lot of my friends have joined a group called, "If you love Southern girls, raise your glasses. If not, raise your standards."

Well, the name of that group has bothered me since I first read it. I think if it had just been named, "If you love Southern girls, raise your glasses," I would have been fine with it. But it's the second sentence that bothers me. "Raise your standards"? The implication is not just that Southern women are better than non-Southern women, but that non-Southern women are sub-"standard." That proposition can't be made unless the person making it sets a "standard" by which women are measured. Some measure up; others don't.

I had never clicked on the link to the group's page, so at last, I did. It's one of those things that non-feminist people wouldn't blink an eye at. Real subtle, like. Some might laugh. Some might agree with the sentiments presented. None would see the problems. In fact, if they had the problems pointed out to them, they would likely say that the pointer was hallucinating, or some such, as is typical of non-feminists to say.

This alleged quote from Kenny Chesney, included in the page, is the most puke-invoking:

"Southern girls are God's gift to the entire male population. There is absolutely no woman finer than one raised below the Mason-Dixon line. And once you go southern, may the Lord help you, you never go back."

I don't think I really need to elaborate on what I find puke-invoking about this. And if he really said this, may the Lord help him, I don't wonder why Renee Zellweger ditched him after only a couple of months.

*Yes, I'm aware of what I'm doing here.

Stolen

2009-12-08T19:37:00.002-05:00

...from Amy Ray Rocks's flickr stream...

I was reviewing the section on major and minor scales..

2009-12-08T15:51:00.002-05:00

in The Complete Idiot's Guide to Music Theory, and that thing I saw in the key signatures about one-up-from-the-last-sharp? Well, it was IN THE BOOK in one of those aside boxes that I typically ignore. (Yeah, I know, I used to get points deducted all the time when I was in school for paying attention so poorly.) Anyway, the author there said for the flats to go the next to last and it will land on whatever line or space the key is, and then just to memorize F major as having one flat, because it is only one, (48).

Miller, Michael. The Complete Idiot's Guide to Music Theory. New York: Penguin Group, Inc; 2005.

Another way of reading key signatures...

2009-12-07T15:49:00.008-05:00

If your key signature has sharps in it, just go to the last sharp and see what line or space it's on, then whatever note is one line or space above that is the tonic of the scale that it's in. For instance, if you look at the key signature that has one sharp...

...you'll see that the last sharp (in this case, the only sharp) falls on "F". You go up one space above that F and have G. It's in the key of G (or Em, right?) Or take the one with four sharps in the key signature...

The last sharp falls on D. You go one space up from D and you have E. So it's E, (or C#m.)

(Hey, in fact, y'know, if it's a minor chord, then the tonic will be the line or space underneath the last sharp...now that I look at it that way...)

When you look at the line or space above (or below, for minor keys,) all you do is follow the line or space over and see if there is a sharp on it, as well. If there is, it is sharp; if there's not, it's natural. Easy, easy.

For flats, it is a little more difficult, but not much so. You look three lines or spaces down from the last flat, and that is the tonic. For example, F major...

Three lines and spaces down from the last flat is F. (And two lines/spaces up from the last flat is D, for Dm.)

For three flats in the key signature,

The last flat is on A. Three lines and spaces down from that is E, and since there is a flat on E (not this particular E, but the one above it,) E is flat. So it's E flat major. (Or, C minor. You can go two lines/spaces up from A, and end up on C. C is not flatted in the key sig, so it's C natural minor.)

(graphics from Wikipedia.org)

Tofu Stir-Fry Casserole

2009-12-06T17:05:00.003-05:00

1/2 of (16-oz) pkg firm or extra firm tofu
1 cup frozen cauliflower, thawed
2 or 3 white button mushrooms
1 cup cream sherry
1 t cayenne pepper
1/2 t paprika
1/2 t white pepper
1/2 t black pepper
1 t garlic salt
2 T agave nectar
1/2 t Accent (can be omitted if you're avoiding MSG)
1 t parsley flakes
saltines
oil

1. Begin by unwrapping the tofu. Place it on a folded clean dish towel to drain. Preheat the oven on bake at 350 Fahrenheit.

2. (To thaw the cauliflower quickly, put it in a stoneware bowl and heat it for 2 minutes in the microwave, then drain the water off.) Chop the cauliflower florets in half and place in the bottom of a small saucepan. Pour the sherry over the florets and put them on the stovetop over medium heat until the sherry boils. Allow the mixture to boil for a few minutes, stirring the cauliflower to make sure that each piece is adequately covered. Drain the sherry off the cauliflower and discard; return the cauliflower to the stoneware bowl and set aside.

3. Hold the mushrooms briefly under running water, then quickly and gently wipe dry with a cloth. Chop them into pieces that are comparable in size to the cut cauliflower pieces; (an easy way is to cut the mushroom in half, leaving a circular top and circular bottom, then slicing the circles from each direction to end up with cubes.)

4. Cut the tofu block in half. Place one block in the refrigerator for another time; bring the other half to the cutting board, and cut it into chunks, like the mushrooms. When all three main ingredients are ready, place a skillet (8, 9, 10 inches...) on the stove on medium-high and and coat the bottom with oil. Put the tofu, mushrooms, and cauliflower in the pan and turn with a spatula to cover them evenly in oil. Put the spices, EXCEPT the parsley, in the pan and turn once again with a spatula. Cook about ten minutes, stirring occasionally; (the tofu will be browner where it touched the pan, but not at all crisp). Drizzle agave nectar over the stir fry, crumble 4-5 saltines into the skillet, and stir with the spatula again.

5. Transfer the stir fry to a small casserole pan and even out the top of the mixture with a fork. Crumble additional saltines over the top as desired. Top the crumbs with a few drops of seasoned oil from the skillet, then sprinkle the parsley flakes over the top.

6. Cover and bake for about twenty minutes.

(I didn't have any soy sauce on me at the time, but I would think that a little in the stir-fry mixture would only improve it.)

Well, I'll Be Damned...

2009-12-06T13:36:00.002-05:00

Green cheese is real! I decided I better look it up after my Sitemeter said someone got here by searching for it...

So then, ""Crêpe Fillings B♭ecome E♭dible A♭fter D♭ipping in G♭reen C♭heese," is slightly less nonsensical than I thought...but only slightly so.

Circle of Fifths

2009-12-05T21:22:00.014-05:00

Okay, so...I'm currently reading The Complete Idiot's Guide to Music Theory.* For the second time. (Still in the process of reading Neither Man Nor Beast, but I'm just plunking along slowly on it.) The first time I read it, I didn't absorb much. I just sort of went, "Wha huh?" and skimmed over much of it. Pitches are named after letters, yeah, and there are different sorts of notes, and these are they...yeah, yeah. I skipped the exercises at the ends of the chapters the first time through and just read. Um, that doesn't work, I found...it is the exercises at the back that force you to learn it, then the understanding just floods...

What stopped me last time was that it became time to pull out the keyboard and listen to the pitches and intervals. I got scared and stopped. Well, because...it was just so much. If I got out the old keyboard and used it to apply some of these rules and listen, then I would want to know how to play, and the task of learning seemed, really, too much at the time.

But since I'm really going to have to get up off my ass and go to work here soon, why not waste the last of bum days on music? So I pulled that book back out, along with a few others.

I got to the part about key signatures, and remembered my struggling to memorize them the last time. I had flash cards. I was going to stare at them until they became part of my brain. It didn't work, to say the least. They all started looking the same, and all I could do was guess, and I was always wrong. I got frustrated and gave up on that part, deciding that, should I ever dive into this music thing properly, I would just practice them until they stuck.

There was a thing included in the book called the circle of fifths. The author claims this is a good way to learn key signatures, but I was doubtful; it just looked more confusing and troubling than memorizing the key sigs straight up.

This time, I decided that the memorization thing really doesn't work, so why not try to learn the circle of fifths? I mean, it couldn't be any harder than learning to sight-read the key sigs. After a bit of time trying to remember the order of the letters around the circle, I was starting to feel like this was too daunting for me, too. I tried to fill in a blank one by counting seven half steps from each previous letter in my mind, but that was too much math, and I was getting the "answers" wrong. How was I ever going to manage?

Let me be clear: I generally think that mnemonic devices are just silly. How hard is it, really, to just remember shit? Since I wasn't having any luck just remembering, I decided to try my hand at creating one that would make it impossible for me to forget the circle of fifths. Because I have to admit, as dumb as I think "Every good boy does fine" and "Good boys do fine always" sound, they helped me be able to figure out the grand staff until I just counted so many lines up so many times that my brain started automatically naming the lines and spaces what they are, skipping the mnemonic devices entirely. I knew that whatever I came up with for the circle of fifths could eventually be abandoned, but in the meantime, I needed something.

I started at the top, with C, of course; because it is the beginning, I guess. I went around clockwise and looked at the sharps first: C, G, D, A, E, B, F#, C#, with C having no sharps, and C# having the most sharps of all. Okay. "C" starting word. Hmmmm...cat.

"Cats Go Down Alleys Even Backward. F# C#."

Or, if you'd rather,

"Cats Go Down Alleys, Even Backward! F# C#."

So, yeah; I realize my sentence still leaves F# and C# there on the end, unused in the sentence. Well, I figured I already had a complete sentence, and F# and C# are totally easier to remember than C, G, D, A, E, B, F#, C#, which is what I was facing before.

I turned my attention to the flats. Not wanting to make two sentences both based on cats, I came up with another C-starting word. Well, I've been reading about crêpes alot, and tried to make them a few times, with considerable success for a beginner. So, I came up with a sentence about crêpes. (Brace yourselfs, because it really is sillier than the last one.)

"Crêpe Fillings B♭ecome E♭dible A♭fter D♭ipping in G♭reen C♭heese."

Yeah, so, I know you don't really dip crêpe fillings in anything; hell, they are practically dips themselves, much of the time, and "green cheese" is somewhat like "cream cheese," but I needed a G and then a C, not two C's, so...

And of course, you'll have to remember that every letter after F is followed by a flat, but again...remembering a few flats, for me, was easier than memorizing all of it.

Now, that's not all; I soon realized after I made up these things that, oh yeah, that's right...for every major scale, there is a corresponding minor scale that shares the key signature. Yeah, bummer. Well, if you'll notice in the diagram; they are a little harder to come up with sentences for, so instead, I just learned which minors go with which majors. Then, say, if I want to know, which minor scale has 3 flats in the key sig, I would say, "Crêpe (0) Fillings (1) B♭ecome (2) E♭dible (3)..." E♭ is the major that has three flats, so, its minor, (which is Cm,) has 3 flats.

But to learn which minors go with which majors...yes, more silly-sounding mnemonic devices.

These following major-minor pairs, whether they are sharp, flat, or natural, are both sharp, flat or natural. For example, Am is the minor of C, and A#m is the minor of C#m. These are easy in that way. So, that cut down the number of things to learn.

C - Am (C# - A#m; C♭ - A♭) ("Communication Arts")
D - Bm (and etc) ("Dirty Blonde")
F - Dm (and etc) ("Franklin Delano")
G - Em (and etc) ("General Electric")

The other major-minor pairs looked more complicated to me, but the closer I looked, the more I realized that they weren't really hard. For the remaining pairs, whatever the major is, the minor is one degree sharper. (If the major is flat, the minor will be natural, and if the major is natural, the minor is sharp.)

A - F#m
A♭ - Fm ("Aw, fuck!")

B - G#m
B♭ - Gm ("Bad Girls")

E - C#m
E♭ - C ("Extra Credit")

So, that's that. Next, I'm going to try to learn what time signatures sound like. I understand academically what they mean and how to rope off measures in the right places, but I can't, for the life of me, hear the differences between them when I listen to music. Sometimes I can hear groups of 3, if a song has a time sig of 3/4 or 6/8, but not always...it has to be obvious and jump out at me. (Such as in "Baby's In Black." That one jumped way out at me...and sure enough, The Complete Scores confirmed that it's 6/8.)

* The Complete Idiot's Guide to... books are generally really good books; it's truly lamentable that the title is ableist.

Songs of the Day: Kansas City/Hey-Hey-Hey-Hey, Roll Over Beethoven

2009-12-03T16:01:00.017-05:00

Yep, I realize the old bloggie has been neglected. Sorry about that, all. Between Thanksgiving happening and Christmas making its way, I have been putting together a cookbook from magazines that I found in the storage building. My mom's (former) friend from the days when I was in high school gave me a box of magazines she didn't want anymore all those years ago. They are things that I would not have subscribed to myself, (namely Southern Living, Cooking Light, and Martha Stewart Living,) but that nonetheless contained lots of recipes and beautiful photos of the resulting dishes. Since I am experiencing my own personal wave of interest in cooking lately, I decided to rip the relevant pages and toss the rest of the magazines. I had imagined clipping them all and putting them in my recipe box. But they were such odd shapes, and on flimsy gloss paper, that I didn't really want to do that. I ended up making a book from the recipe sections. This took me an inordinate amount of time, and I asked myself several times if it was worth it. Still, it was just so fun and addicting; I had to pull myself away from the project each night and make myself sleep. Scary stuff, huh? Almost like there's a latent scrapbooker inside me...(shivers). All the pages are put together, and part of the table of contents. When the contents is finished, I will make an index. Because without an index, then I can't use it like a real cookbook, and if I can't use it, then, yeah...making it was a waste of time. (Again, scary stuff, I know...)

Anyway, anyway...since I finally got my box of Beatles, I've been listening to them quite a bit; they've been the background music for my recipe project the past few days. A lot of those songs are up tempo, happy, dance-able, etc, and good music to use for the purpose of just having fun. One night, I was listening to the songs and decided to play a game in my mind. Assuming that all songs have that deeper meaning, (I'm sure some don't, but as part of the rules, I assumed they did,) I tried to figure out what that deeper meaning was to some of these fun songs.

The first song I tried this on was "Kansas City/Hey-Hey-Hey-Hey;" ( Kansas City, written by Leiber and Stoller, was adapted further by Little Richard, at which point it became "Kansas City/Hey-Hey-Hey-Hey"; the Little Richard version is the one that the Beatles covered, sez Wikipedia.) I had never tried to examine the lyrics of it, before. It was a bit of a surprise. (From Metrolyrics.com)

Ah Kansas City
Going to get my baby back home
I'm going to Kansas City
Going to get my baby back home
Well its a long long time too
My baby's been gone

Ah, Kansas City
Going get my baby one time
I'm going to Kansas City
Going get my baby one time
Its a just a 1-2-3-4,
5-6-7-8-9

Hey hey hey hey
(hey hey hey hey)
Hey, baby
(hey, baby)
Ooh now girl
(yeah, yeah)
I said yeah now, huh
(girl, girl)
Now now now now tell me baby
What's been wrong with you

Hey hey hey hey
(hey hey hey hey)
Hey now baby
(hey baby)
Ooh now girl
(yeah, yeah)
I said yeah now, huh
(girl, girl)
Now now now now tell me baby
What's been wrong with you

I said bye
(bye bye bye bye)
Bye bye baby bye bye
(bye bye bye bye)
So long
(so long so long)
Bye bye baby I'm gone
(bye bye bye bye)
I said bye bye baby
Bye, bye, bye, bye

Bye now bye
(bye bye bye bye)
Bye now baby bye
(bye bye bye bye)

Well...I'm going to Kansas City to get my baby; bring him/her home. Going to give one opportunity. One time. One. Count 'em. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. That's followed by, "Baby, what's wrong with you?" That, in turn, is followed by a profuse series of goodbyes.

Well, I think that's pretty cool. It's a song about that tiresome cycle that folk get stuck in so often; wasting their time...going back up there to Kansas City, (figuratively or literally), and pretty accurately communicates that in a sparse, few lyrics. We're left not knowing whether this is the last "bye bye," or whether the speaker/narrator will later be pulled in again and go back to Kansas City. ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen...it doesn't fit the music as well as one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine...but it happens, sadly...

So, the next song I had picked out on my quick list was "Roll Over Beethoven," written by Chuck Berry. (From lyricsfreak.com.)

I'm gonna write a little letter,
Gonna mail it to my local DJ.
Yeah an' it's a jumpin' little record
I want my jockey to play.
Roll Over Beethoven, I gotta hear it again today.

You know, my temperature's risin'
The jukebox's blowin' a fuse.
My heart's beatin' rhythm
And my soul keeps a-singin' the blues.
Roll Over Beethoven and tell Tschaikowsky the news.

I got the rockin' pneumonia,
I need a shot of rhythm and blues.
I caught the rollin' arthiritis
Sittin' down at a rhythm review.
Roll Over Beethoven they're rockin' in two by two.

Well, if you feelin' like it
Go get your lover, then reel and rock it.
Roll it over and move on up just
A trifle further and reel and rock with it,
Roll it over,
Roll Over Beethoven, dig these rhythm and blues.

Well, early in the mornin' I'm a-givin' you a warnin'
Don't you step on my blue suede shoes.
Hey diddle diddle, I am playin' my fiddle,
Ain't got nothin' to lose.
Roll Over Beethoven and tell Tschaikowsky the news.

You know she wiggles like a glow worm,
Dance like a spinnin' top.
She got a crazy partner,
Ya oughta see 'em reel and rock.
Long as she got a dime the music wont never stop.

Roll Over Beethoven,
Roll Over Beethoven,
Roll Over Beethoven,
Roll Over Beethoven,
Roll Over Beethoven, dig these rhythm and blues.

I knew, from a formal criticism standpoint what that song was about; it's about classical music being displaced by contemporary music, and Wikipedia sez that I'm pretty much right. However, when you consider history, and the biographical information about the author, a slightly more profound meaning starts to emerge from the lyrics. Here are some pictures to better illustrate what I mean...

So...aside from the kidz just digging those new rhythm and blues sounds, contemporary music offered something that classical music had not offered...the opportunity for musical masters who did not happen to be white to share their art with the world. Chuck Berry and Little Richard are only two examples. Whether or not Berry was consciously thinking about this when he wrote it, I can't say, of course, but it is certainly true.

The Pardoned Turkey

2009-11-25T17:09:00.006-05:00

Every year, the United States President, (in the case of this year, it's President Obama,) "pardons" a turkey; that is, the President grants the...privilege? right? what?...of not being killed for meat to one "lucky" turkey. This year's "lucky" turkey's name was Courage. Really, how sweet. (NOT...)

Anyway, while watching Unwrapped on Food Network last night, (or at least, I think that's what it was,) I found out something that I didn't know about the "pardoned" turkey. It was something that irked me quite a bit. Call me naive, call me ignorant, call me whatever, but I didn't know that the "pardoned" turkey actually is not getting pardoned for shit...

You know, when a human convict, (that is, a person who has committed a crime, and a jury of their peers has convicted them,) is pardoned, that means that their sentence has been waived...whether it's a couple years, life, or death, (no, I don't believe in the death penalty, but that's another topic). Not only is it irritating enough that turkeys do nothing other than be turkeys to get sentenced to death (and life and prison), but this is the part that gets me: the turkey that gets pardoned? was. never. going. to. be. killed. The "lucky" turkey was bred...especially bred!...to be pardoned by the President!

Now, more than one is bred for this purpose, but only one is needed, so I would venture to assume that the 2,499 who don't end up as the "lucky" bird do get slaughtered, so I guess they are not completely lying about the fact that "lucky" bird is "spared," but really, the turkey that ends up getting pardoned was not intended for slaughter; he (always a he) was intended for pardoning.

This turkey's life progresses completely unlike those of turkeys raised for slaughter. The "pardoned" turkey is brought up in a manner similar to a pet, always petted, fed, and surrounded by human beings. As the Nat Geo article states, they have to be taught to be calm around people so that they don't freak out during the absurdity that is the turkey-pardoning ceremony.

I'm surprised that the turkey-"pardoning" ceremony even exists, despite its merely figurative and abstract connection to actual slaughterhouse turkeys. People who eat meat typically don't like reminders that their "food" used to be an animal's body, and the Presidential "pardon" certainly is such a reminder.

Of course, perhaps no one has ever done such a good job at reminding folks that meat is made from animals than did Sarah Palin last year up in Wasilla, Alaska...and, I must say, it does appear that the turkey she pardoned seems to be a run-of-the-mill slaughterhouse turkey.

(If you would like to actually "pardon" a turkey, you can adopt a turkey through Farm Sanctuary, an organization that rescues slaughterhouse animals and places them with human adopters.)

Check out PETA's ad, while I'm on the topic of turkeys dying for Thanksgiving. While, yes, everything they say is true, I'm not sure that such an ad would make turkey-eaters think about anything other than how boorish, mean, and stupid vegetarians are. I'm glad it won't be played during the Thanksgiving parade, as they had hoped. If it were, it would potentially cause a lot of vegetarians to catch hell at the dinner table later that day...

Right-Wing Women

2009-11-20T12:59:00.005-05:00

I have just finished reading Right-Wing Women by Andrea Dworkin. It only scared me a little worse than the other book of hers that I have read, Intercourse. The most interesting part of the book for me was the chapter titled "Abortion," which revealed the sexual abuse that many hippie women endured at the hands of their "brother-lovers" in the free love of the sixties. She says that these women saw free love as an alternative to the unhappy marriages of their mothers, but then found undercurrents of the same exploitations of women in this new counter-culture. When the rash of subsequent pregnancies caused the hippie women to become more sexually cautious, it became in the best interests of men for abortion to become legal, and that is the only reason why it became legal, albeit in a strictly limited form. According to her, the legalization of abortion was not the result of feminist activism, but the result of activism by liberal men who were having their supply of sex cut off by women who didn't wish to have babies.

Also in the "Abortion" chapter, she gives her take on the real reasoning behind the "except in cases of rape or incest" defense of some abortions; it seems to be a quite popular one, and I'm not really sure why; it makes little sense, aside from the fact that it's legally impractical. If someone loved the babies, then they'd love them all; if someone thought that a woman shouldn't be subjected to a pregnancy she didn't ask for, then they would never think a woman should be subjected to a pregnancy she didn't ask for. Of course, Andrea provides a logical reason for adopting this opinion: if a rapist (not her husband,) rapes a married woman, and she becomes pregnant, then it is in her husband's best interest to terminate the pregnancy so he does not have to live with another man's child, not to mention, the reminder that his goods were tampered with by someone else. Also, if a man rapes his daughter, and she becomes pregnant, then it would be in his best interest to terminate the pregnancy, so that he doesn't have to live with a child that is simultaneously his child and his grandchild.

Even though this a logical explanation, (and this position on abortion typically lacks those,) I wonder how many people, all along the right-left continuum, examine the "except in cases of rape or incest" closely enough to realize the potential benefits of this viewpoint for men and rapists. Indeed, I had to have her point it out to me before I became conscious of it.

The main idea of the whole book is that right-wing women have come to the conclusion that the best way to survive in the world is to submit as much as possible to the patriarchy in hopes that those disobedient women will be more likely targets of male violence and that they themselves might be spared.

Whenever I read Andrea, on one hand, I think, "It's not really that bad; she's exaggerating to make a point," but on the other, I think, "Yeah, it prolly is that bad." All this, while keeping in mind that feminism, despite the work it has yet to accomplish, has made some gains between the time she wrote and the time I'm reading, and while it might not be "that bad" now, it certainly could have been then.

front cover photo found at Amazon.

Racism...Facebook Style

2009-11-18T13:16:00.004-05:00

I was checking the old FB, and saw in the News Feed that one of my friends had taken a quiz called "Are you asian?" I knew, I just knew, that this had to be bad, but I guess I can't leave well enough alone...so, I took the quiz. Here are the questions, word for word:

What do you have for dinner?

-Bok Choy
-Rice
-Mcdonalds

Do you have a bowl cut?

-Nope
-Yes
-OF COURSE! IM ASIAN!

Which is an asian phrase?

-U buy dvd?
-i ashun and i proud
-Yea Boii

Whats Every Asian family habit?

-Shoes at the door!
-pick our nose!
-Wash our hands before dinner

What does a typical asian family eat?

-beef
-BigMacs
-Rice

Where can you find illegal dvds?

-Chinatown, Manhattan
-Stores
-Everywhere

Um...yeah. Exactly. Anyway, here is my result:

"STRUT YOUR ASIAN MOVES! DRINK YOUR BUBBLE TEA!"

If you're curious, here is the alternative to being "101% asian!":

"Ehhh Not yellow at all... ."

Vegetarians and Pet Food

2009-11-17T12:04:00.004-05:00

So, that thread on the Vortex, the one I referenced when I wrote my "Bearing the Vegetarian Word" post, went on to bring up another issue that I want to write about.

What do vegetarian and vegan humans feed their carnivorous/omnivorous animals?

There are two options. You can give them traditional cat/dog food that contains the flesh of other animals, or you can feed them a vegetarian diet, (while of course, making sure that they get their taurine requirements from other sources.)

If you choose to feed your animals traditional pet food, there are a couple of benefits to this. You will find suitable food for your pet at any grocery store; inexpensive and readily available. You also won't have to worry about your animals getting all the nutrients that meat provides them.

If you choose to feed your animals vegetarian food, you can do so with the knowledge that their diet, like yours, lessens the amount of suffering in the world. With some careful planning, and a willingness to expend more resources, (time to prepare their food yourself; money to search out vegetarian brands,) your cat or dog can be just as well-nourished as any meat-eating dog or cat, and without cruelty to other animals. Consider the fact that most pet food contains mostly grains and only enough meat to get meat-eating pets by, as people who simultaneously uphold meat consumption as essential to (even human) health, yet also believe in organic/environmentally pure foods, (weird lot they are, actually,) are always quick to remind, suggesting that you're poisoning your pets by not giving them pure meat-food. (Incidentally, dogs are omnivorous, and would eat both plants and animals in the wild.)

But whatever you choose, being a vegetarian, you are going to have to justify your choice of what to feed your pets; and you're going to have to do it to a bunch of people who aren't asked to justify their own choice. It's true: the best vegetarian/vegan cops are not vegetarians and vegans, but meat-eaters who have no interest in following the law that they are only to happy to criticize you for breaking. If you feed your dogs and cats meat-containing food, then...what about the animals used to make the food? You can't forget about them. You're a hypocrite for not eating meat yourself, but allowing your pets to do it! If you feed your dogs and cats vegetarian food, then...dogs and cats are supposed to eat meat! They can't be vegetarians! They need meat to be healthy; you're committing animal abuse! How can you say you care about animal rights when you are abusing your own animals?

Of course, when they say this, there is no actual concern for your animals, or farm animals, or any animals behind their charges. Their purpose is to offer "proof" of the silliness, the triviality, the pointlessness, and the ineffectiveness of your own vegetarianism. They want to assert their own meat-eating as right, justified, logical, and appropriate.

I didn't have gorgeous cats that stole my heart at the time I was a vegan; I always said back then that when I had my own house I could keep vegetarian animals: cows, chickens, rabbits, and I'd avoid the whole dilemma of how to feed little meat-eaters. But when my cats came into my life, I wasn't vegan at the time (more on this, later,) in fact, I was a fish-eater, and I thought, "Well, at least I'm not a vegan anymore; I don't have to struggle with how to feed these little fuckers." So, I acquired cats, and fed them traditional cat food.

So, now that I'm vegetarian again, I think sometimes about this. But in the time being, I'll tell you what my cats eat: Purina. Yep, middle-of-the-line cat food; not complete shite, but not premium, all-meat, close-to-nature food. Maybe that does make me a hypocrite. But my cats' eating meat doesn't cancel out the meat that I don't eat; and since eradicating suffering is impossible, lessening the suffering as much as possible does help. Is this a rationalization for feeding my cats meat? Maybe it is.

Homosexual

2009-11-16T11:52:00.009-05:00

I hate this word. Can people ever stop using this word? I know conservatives won't; I know they're adamant about using it. It's what we are to them, and so that is what they call us, and all the while, they mourn the loss of the word gay to mean happy; lighthearted. But do liberals have to keep saying homosexual, though?

Here is what is wrong with the word homosexual: it does not describe human love or sexual attraction, much less the cultural aspect of this marginalized community of people. It describes a psychosexual disease, in which a person is afflicted by sexual attraction to his or her own sex; a disease which can, and must, be treated. See the difference, there? When conservatives use it, they use it to mean exactly what it means.

Homosexual is not merely the opposite of heterosexual, contrary to popular belief; people have never been diagnosed medically as heterosexual and then subjected to imprisonment and/or painful, dehumanizing mutilation of their bodies in effort to render them no longer heterosexual.

I know some queers will say, "Well, it's fine as an adjective, as long as people don't use it as a noun." This does not work for a couple of good reasons. For one, I'm not sure enough people know about parts of speech, or how words' strength can vary just based on what part of speech they take. (I don't say that to be elitist; the fact of the matter is, most people just use grammar without being aware of its inner workings, unless they be a language-freak as I, and for some reason, think it's cool and started observing the patterns. You can tell by my typing that I value grammar more by admiring its inner workings than I do by following standardized rules.) For a second thing, I'd just as soon be called a female homosexual as a homosexual female, and I'd just as soon be called a homosexual as to have my love, desire, relationship, or sexual activity described as homosexual...which means, yeah...I don't want that word in any part of speech used to describe myself, or my loved ones, or my people, or my anything.

I was talking to another lesbian (yes, her) once who was telling me the words that she will not accept people calling her. Among these were dyke, fag, and queer. "If anybody calls me a dyke, I fucking punch them," she bragged. I said that I didn't mind dyke, but I sure didn't like homosexual. "But, I mean, that's what gay people are," she said. "You can't get around that, I mean, that's what you are..."

Now, it only stands to reason that if one can refuse to accept dyke as a label for herself, then she should also be able to refuse to accept homosexual, but for some reason, homosexual hangs on as a "legitimate" word. I think this is because dyke has always been intended as an insult or slur, while homosexual was the technical word, for, y'know, the disease; nevermind that neither are neutral terms...nor positive terms.

I think it's safe to say that most of the people who post comments on Sociological Images are liberal, with the exception of the trolls, and yet, these same people use homosexual to describe, you know, gay people. Cuz, y'know, gay is so much longer and harder to type out than homosexual. (I pick on this thread, and on these few people, just because it's the most recent example, and the one that spurred me* to write this post. It's not especially unique.)

*yes, the horse that has pain inflicted on its sides with sharp metal is the absent referent.

Breakfast/Dessert Cinnamon Apple Quesadillas

2009-11-11T11:49:00.002-05:00

2 large apples
2 T cinnamon
1/2 c brown sugar
4 wheat tortillas
butter or oil
1 additional apple

To prepare the apple filling:

Cut the two large apples in half and scoop out the cores. Place the apple halves face up in a baking dish. Sprinkle brown sugar on the tops, splitting the 1/2 cup equally among them, as well as the two tablespoons of cinnamon. Top each apple with a pat of butter or drizzle of oil. Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for about 20 minutes, or until fork tender.

Peel apples and chop into small chunks. In a medium skillet over medium heat, add a few tablespoons of butter or oil. Dump in the apple chunks and add the cinnamon and brown sugar. Stir with a spatula to mix the ingredients. Cook until the apples are soft.

(The difference is that the skillet method is faster and easier, but when baked with the peel on, the natural pink dye from the peel seeps into the apple flesh and makes it really pretty.)

If you baked the apples, scoop out one of the halves, mash with a spoon or fork, and spear over one side of a tortilla. It you fried the apples, scoop an estimated 1/4 of the apples onto the tortilla. Close the tortilla over the apples. Make four quesadillas.

In a large skillet over medium high heat, warm a little oil or butter. Place two of the quesadillas in the the pan and let the sides brown, then flip the quesadillas and let the other sides brown. Remove these and place the other two quesadillas in the pan to brown, replacing the oil and butter first if you desire. (The already cooked quesadillas can be placed on a cookie sheet and put in the oven at 200 degrees Fahrenheit to keep them warm as the others cook.)

When the quesadillas are finished, carve an additional apple into slices, drizzle the quesadilla tops with honey, maple syrup, or agave nectar, and garnish with apple slices.

Leafy Green Salad with Apple, Carrot, and Lime

2009-11-09T14:33:00.003-05:00

2 medium apples
1 lime
1-2 carrots
1 T turbinado sugar (evaporated cane juice)
1 bag ready-made spring mix, (10-16 oz) or 2 chopped romaine hearts
Italian dressing, raspberry vinaigrette, or other tangy, sweet dressing

Using a manual juicer, extract the juice of the lime. Chop the apples away from their core, then dice them into small chunks. As soon as possible, put them in a bowl and cover with the lime juice, stirring to coat each one. (Aside from adding flavor, the lime juice slows down oxidization.) Put the turbinado sugar in the bowl and stir again; (this will counter the sourness of the lime.) Pile plates or bowls with a nice helping of greens, then grate carrot over the plates in accordance with your liking. Top liberally with apple chunks. Drizzle dressing over the top. Makes at least four.

(I'm doing you a disservice by having dead camera batteries and thus being unable to show you a picture, because this is really pretty...)

Old Stuff...and a Recipe

2009-11-08T19:23:00.006-05:00

I wrote these on 06 December 2007, in several emails to my (Melissa-researching) friend. Before I deleted the thread out of my email, I saved it in a WordPerfect file on the computer, because I wanted to keep some of my descriptions about what I was thinking at the time. After searching a bit for the file, and doubting whether I would find it, I did find it. Here, I am going to share bits. It's amusing to me that the things going on in my mind were exactly the same fears that Carol J. talks about meat-eaters having in Living Among Meat-Eaters. Here they are, peeps, for your entertainment, (and mine):

"Last night, I came out to my dad that I am contemplating vegetarianism. We were riding in the car together. I didn't tell him who gave me the idea. Of course, he tried to talk me out of it. And I'm like, 'Yeah, I'm just thinking of making a personal decision about myself. I'm not trying to force everybody else to do it.' But then we talked about like, how there's hidden meat, as I call it, in everything. I don't want to have to freak out about making a mistake and eating hidden meat, you know, and I told him how I was worried about causing trouble in my family when they cook steak and meat and stuff, and then say things to me like, 'You're such a troublemaker, doing whatever you can to ruin what we try to do!' And I pointed out that meat's not really good for folk, and how folk can live without meat, and he agreed with me. Although he tried to convince me that humans aren't hurting animals by breeding them to keep in jail till its slaughtertime. But still, he was surprisingly open about it. More than I woulda thought. I made him promise not to mention it to my mother. Then when I can home I ate some Ramen noodles with powdered chicken in it. It made me feel bad. Somedays, i feel like I'm getting very close to it. My guilt is getting worser every time."

* * *

"I don't judge other people who don't feel the way I am feeling more and more every day, but I feel it's something that's coming in my life. I can't say that it wasn't Amy who brought it to the forefront of my thinking, but it seems that it's been a pretty common theme in my life. It's somethin I always return to in my thinking and it's always been. It's a question of when, not if I will do it. That's just how I feel about it. A funny part I forgot to tell you earlier about it was that the way the subject came up with me and my dad was that Paul McCartney was singing a Christmas song on the radio. And I said, 'Hey, Dad, that sounds like Paul McCartney. He's a vegetarian, you know. Sometimes I wonder if that's something I might be one day.' And when he was trying to talk me out of it, he said, 'Think of it this way. The animals that get raised for food don't live long naturally anyway, and they wouldn't even exist if they weren't raised to eat. So people are just giving them life.' And I said, 'What is a life, if you spend all of it in a cage just to get killed?' Then he said the most horrible thing. He said, 'Is your house a cage?' And I almost said 'Yes,' jokingly of course. And he kept talking, you know... 'Your house is for protection, and that's what it's like for the animals. It's to keep em safe. The sheep and everything...' And I said, 'No it isn't. It's to keep em from getting away and being free so when the humans come to kill em, they're right there. People don't care about their safety if they're just going to kill em anyway.' But it don't do no good to try to contest my parents with things that make sense. My mother said one time that a woman being in love with another woman is like stealing your neighbor's car and driving off with it because you think your'e entitled to it. I didn't even bother to remind her that women are not cars (property) and love is not stealing, because it don't do no good to say things like that to them."
* * *

"Today my mom bought some KFC chicken. And I ate some. So I'm not veg yet. But I wish I were. I felt so bad about it. It don't really taste like chicken no more. It tastes like cardboard. That's all I can taste when I eat meat anymore. I don't enjoy it. I used to, but I don't think I ever can again. Not much longer, and it will start to disgust me. I won't be able to eat it. I'm so scared!!!!!What do I do? I can't go through another identity crisis! I'm too old!!!!!!!! I'm scared of what will happen to me. Being gay was hard enough. Being gay and veg...there'll be no peace for me. Why does it matter so myck to other folk what I eat? My family will be so mad and make fun of me. I don't want to get made fun of anymore. They make fun of everybody who does something different. And it's so unfair. All of life is unfair!!!!!!

I'm really very upset by all this. I think about it in my stomach. In my teeth. What's wrong with me? I sort of wish I could go back to the good old days when I didn't think about it. People tell me, 'God created the Earth and gave people dominion over all the creatures.' And i think, well, this is the same 'God' that gave men dominion over women, and...have you ever heard the quote by Alice Walker, I believe it is? I can't remember how it goes. But it was good stuff."

(Alice Walker said, "The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for white, or women created for men.")

I'm embarrassed somewhat for the tone of these emails. I want to acknowledge the spoiled-brattitude coming out, because I see it there; I know you can, too. I was a poor, persecuted gay princess...boo hoo...!

(...yeah. Sorry about that.)

Aside from that, I did a pretty good job of directly articulating what was bothering me. I like knowing that it wasn't too bad; that I wasn't too clunky and graceless about it. I was just normal and ordinary about it, and for what it's worth, knowing that makes me feel better now.

Now...a recipe. This is what I made last night.

Lasagna

1/2 box (1/2 lb) lasagna pasta
1 jar (2 lb) spaghetti sauce
4 T textured vegetable protein
1/4 c nutritional yeast
1 T oregano flakes
3 minced cloves of garlic
1 (14 oz) package of firm or extra firm tofu
vegetable, canola, or olive oil

Boil lasagna till soft. (Sheets can be broken in half if needed to fit into a smaller pot.) As lasagna cooks, coat the bottom of a medium-sized skillet with oil of some sort, drain the tofu, and crumble into the oil. Add oregano and garlic to the tofu. Cook it on medium high, stirring occasionally with a spatula. While these cook, pour the spaghetti sauce into a mixing bowl, add the nutritional yeast and textured vegetable protein, and stir together. Set them aside.

When the pasta is done, drain it; when the tofu is brown to your liking, remove it from the heat. Rub a bit of oil onto the sides of a (not-too large) baking dish; (I used a disposable loaf pan that was about 10 inches; there was plenty of room. Put down a layer of lasagna in the bottom. With a serving spoon, spread several spoonfuls of the sauce mixture onto the lasagna layer. Follow this with a hearty sprinkling of tofu crumbles. Put down another layer of lasagna, sauce mixture, tofu, and repeat until you run out of something. If all your noodles are used up, and you still have tofu and sauce, dump what is left on top; if you have a few too many noodles, discard them, (or put a little salt on them and eat them for a snack.)

Cover the dish with aluminum foil and bake for 35 minutes or so at 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Bearing the Vegetarian Word

2009-11-07T02:20:00.016-05:00

On p. 105 of The Sexual Politics of Meat, Adams begins a discussion that she continues throughout the rest of the book, and that is of vegetarian writers through the ages "Bearing the Vegetarian Word." (It is a subheading on that page...105. Continuum, 1991. It's in the last few pages of Chapter 5.) Because we are virtually all raised as meat-eaters, excepting a few children of vegetarian parents, we often learn of vegetarianism from the recorded words of vegetarians, and not through in-person dialogue with vegetarians. The book contains a lot of history about a network of interconnected literary and political figures over the past few centuries who practiced vegetarianism and the way they influenced each other, including Percy and Mary Shelley; she includes an entire chapter (Chapter 6) titled "Frankenstein's Vegetarian Monster."

Since my last post was about all the opportunities to hear the vegetarian word which I passed up, I thought maybe I would talk a little about the one who finally came bearing the vegetarian word for me. (Besides, y'know, I'll use any excuse to post a pic, because I do have it that bad...)

I was 17 while I had my internship at the newspaper. I started college the next fall. It was October/November of that year, 2005, that I started listening to the Indigo Girls. You know how that is, with an artist. There's a song here or there that you like immediately, then the rest grow on you, and search out all the albums, ordering them if you can't get them in the store, and so on, and so forth. I had to learn everything about them, much like Melissa. I had my own Internet this time around, so I read about them. Somewhere in this studying, I found out that Amy, the one with the brown hair, was a vegetarian. A vegan, to be exact. I don't remember finding out this information, I just know that I must have acquired it, somewhere between all the online articles, because I remember having the knowledge early on in my learning about them. I didn't pay it a lot of attention, just thought that it was cool that Amy did her own thing; I didn't take it personally, the way I had with Melissa. I suppose maturity can do that to a person...

Anyway, toward the end of 2006, I started to change. I was in the first semester of my second year. I was edgy all the time, and it didn't take a lot to anger or discourage me. I felt heartbroken, and I couldn't pinpoint why. The closer I got to the holidays, the worse it got. I don't remember Thanksgiving at all, but I assume it happened...? Anyway, it was nearing exam week. I was finishing up things, turning in things, and putting off things, too, to be honest. During one of these sessions of putting things off, I was browsing the section of this old Indigo fansite, lifeblood.net, which is down, now, (but it's on the Internet Archive,) called "socs" for the "stream of consciousness." It's Amy's talkings from mid-song, transcribed from bootlegs, (which alas, are not in the Internet Archive, though I did manage to snag a few while they were up.)

Most of the "socs" are from various performances of "Chickenman." It's one of those songs that doesn't seem to make much sense until you hear it explained. Here were paragraphs and paragraphs of explanations, explaining more than just the song. There is too much to repost here, or even quote from, because I tried that, and I got a got a little copy-paste-happy with it, because there was so much good, but I shall try to summarize:

The Girls were on an early tour through the US and Canada. They were eating a lot of fast food. When it was Amy's turn to drive the vehicle, she was always surprised and saddened by how many animals she hit with the vehicle, and how many animals she saw lying around that others had hit with their vehicles. She started to see her pets, her food, and even her own mortal self in the animals killed on the road, (including the bugs). She talked about going for a run in Toronto and seeing a woman who someone had beated up; a crowd of spectators stood around her, but Amy didn't stop; she kept running. She and Emily played at a bar in Houston, and the owner let them stay the night there. Amy described it as a "brothel" where people were doing drugs. She felt pretty bad about life in general, a feeling that had been haunting her while they were on the road. The next morning, when she was driving, she found a yard sale and decided to see if she could buy something and cheer up. A very dirty man came up to her and she kept asking him how much various items costed, only to have him say each time, "Not for sale." Finally, he told her, "Nothing's for sale; this is my front yard!" She felt embarrassed, realizing that she was not entitled to the things she had assumed she was entitled to. She wondered about the individuality and life of this man, but didn't ask him any questions. She saw a sign nearby that said "Chickenman," and took this as the sign she had been looking for.

(I find it interesting after reading The Sexual Politics of Meat to revisit these passages that I read those years ago and see that, out of the events that influenced Amy to give up meat, one was running past a battered woman, and another was spending a night in a "brothel" where women had sex for drugs and money.)

I had to admit to myself, all these rich stories were compelling. I had never thought about there being a story to why Amy had become a vegetarian, (or anyone, for that matter.) It only makes sense that there would be, of course, but I had never considered it before, (the way I had not considered a lot of things.) She had to start off "just like the rest of us," a meat-eater, and go through a metamorphosis to become a vegetarian.

Since my interest was piqued, I started researching. I read plenty about it. I even watched a few videos, (yes, those "We snuck into the slaugherhouse and this is what we found!" videos.) I was not one who needed much convincing at all; the research I was doing soon became about how to go about being who I was going to be, and not so much about, "Oh yeah? Why should I?"

Things happened so quickly after that. On the Tuesday of exam week, I was in the car with my dad, and I brought the subject up with him, just to test the waters. It didn't seem so bad. On Wednesday, my mom brought KFC home. I ate a piece, even though I didn't want to. On Thursday, she made S.O.S. for supper, and I purposely made sure I was occupied deeply in doing something else, (I forget what, now,) to eat when they ate. I went in the kitchen when everyone else was gone and ate the toast without gravy on it. On Friday, I was freaking out on the way to the pizza place where we were going out to eat, and I finally worked up the courage to ask them if they could get a cheese pizza instead of pepperoni, because I wanted to not eat meat anymore. I wasn't sure how I felt about cheese yet, but I was sure how I felt about meat.

I was really sensitive about Amy being the one who started the chain reaction of thoughts going in my mind. I was wary that there would be accusations that, "You're just doing this because she does it, and you think she's cool," so I didn't talk about her, I just said that it was something I had been thinking about for a long time, which was true. My thoughts and feelings were mine, she just turned the switch. Besides, it's always nice to have a role model who makes you feel like you're not so strange, even if the rest of the world says you are.

Incidentally enough, hehe...there's a thread over on the IndigoVortex right now where some people talk about Amy onstage telling a story of putting a dead bird that she found in her freezer. (With minimal detective skills, it will be easy to deduce who I am.) Some comments include, "Don't eat ice cream at Amy's!" (as though she would have that,) "Amy off a little," and "Amy was trying to connect to the bird or something; I think she needs armchair time!" It was all I could do not to post and remind these peeps, "Um, a dead bird in the freezer is weird? Well, a lot of people are weird, then, because most people have dead birds in their freezer, right beside their ice cream, and then, they eat them. At least Amy wasn't going to eat the dead bird." I knew I'd get flamed though, so I just sat on it and sort of laughed to myself. I could already see the replies. "Yeah, but that's different!" Or "Yeah, but it's unsanitary to put a dead bird in your freezer that you found outside, when it comes sealed from the factory, that's all right!" (because Lord knows, those chickens come from the factory sanitized and sterile...that's why you'll get salmonella from them.)

Well, this was to be the Megapost to end all Vegetarian Megaposts, but it's not. I found some of my words I saved from that time period, and because I think they're valid, and because this is my blog, I'm going to post them and comment on them in a future post.

I'll proof this in the morning; right now I'm desperate for sleep. Later.

Vegetarian Impulses

2009-11-03T01:30:00.010-05:00

Before I even thought about seriously becoming a vegetarian, I had vegetarian impulses. For years. I guess they began when I was 12- or 13-ish. Carol J. Adams writes about how vegetarians can trigger meat-eaters who are already struggling to accept meat eating; my trigger was a vegetarian in my immediate surroundings—my friend at school. Her mother had started learning about vegetarianism and started eating that way, feeding her daughter that way, and teaching her daughter everything that she was learning about the animals and eating more ethically. They were learning together and supporting each other. I admit, I was quite the IRL troll toward her when she started becoming vocal about being vegetarian.

"But eggs! They are babies. You are eating babies! What about milk? You are eating babies' food! What about plants? They are alive, too! You have to kill them to eat!"

I think on several occasions, she got quite frustrated with my trolling. I did my best to offer good, strong, sturdy arguments as to why, "Mitigating the amount of suffering you cause in the world: UR DOIN IT WRONG!" Inwardly, though, as she was praising vegetarianism, and I was trying to shoot it down,* I was thinking to myself that this vegetarian idea...well, it wasn't half-bad...

That same school year...7th grade?...a fly got into my bedroom. She wasn't a mere housefly, either, she was one of those big-ass flies that, fucking, will bite you if she sees fit. So, applying the typical, inordinate amount of freak-out toward "OMG bug in the house!" that people tend to do, I chased the fly into the bathroom and shut the door. I had a wad of toilet paper in my hand so that when I smashed the fucker, her dirty bug-blood wouldn't get on my fingers. She zipped so fast; I could never outsmart/outrun her; I was growing tired, bored and frustrated with the damn thing.

I remembered shortly before that at school, when we had been outside in the grass, running around after a standardized test session, and my vegetarian friend tried to rescue a cricket that was to become the lunch of some lizard or something in one of the science teachers' rooms. The science teacher quickly shooed her away and said, "Lizards cannot be vegetarian!" Then, she gave the cricket to the lizard as my vegetarian friend watched.

So; I was in my bathroom with this fly, having already wasted a lot of time hunting her. She made me think of the cricket. That cricket had been eaten by the lizard—a lizard that lived in a cage in a science room—against the protests of my friend. This fly, though—this fly did not have to die. So, being a kid, with all of a kid's ways, I said to the fly, "Please, I don't want you in my bathroom. Not really. If you let me catch you in the toilet paper, I'll take you outside and let you free. I promise."

The fly sat down on the mirror. I wearily lifted my hand to her. She didn't move. I cupped my palm around her, touching the glass. She didn't move. I collected her up in the toilet paper. She didn't move. I went outside and opened the toilet paper. Without wasting any time, she took off.

I wanted to be a vegetarian.

I told my mom about the event. She said with a laugh that whenever another fly got in the house, she was going to blame me and say that it was either that fly or one of its grandchildren, and I should have killed the fly when I had the chance. I explained that I had promised the fly, and I wanted to be a woman of my word. She said that it was just a fly; who cares about keeping your word with a fly? I don't remember the exact language I used to expand on my reasoning, but she picked up enough on what I was actually saying behind the words, (which was, "Can I become a vegetarian?") to tell me, "Be careful, now. Don't let that Paul McCartney way of thinking get to you."

So down went the impulses, back down deep. We had a King Arthur party in English class to celebrate the end of our study of King Arthur. We were going to watch the movie while snacking on foods that everyone bought/made. I baked the cake; homemade (out of the box.) My vegetarian friend had some, and while she was complimenting me on how good it was, the voice was saying in the back of my head, "You can still eat cake; you can still eat cake—it's true—you can still eat cake..."

When I was in ninth grade, about 2001-2002, I had to learn everything about Melissa Etheridge. She was the only bridge between Queers Suck, SC and happy self-acceptance for me, and I felt lucky to know (of) her and have her to look up to. Unfortunately, I did not have Internet at my house at the time, and even if I had, I still could not read about her, because Melissa was...well, there was a Prohibition of sorts against Melissa in my house at the time...so I had my best friend look her up on his computer and tell me stuff about her on the phone. One day, during such a Melissa Facts session, he informed me that she was a vegetarian.

WHAT? Oh. So Melissa, who has never let me down, who has declared it okay to love yourself even if you don't love the dick, she is...criticizing me for eating meat? She's judging me? (Mind you, now, I had heard nothing at all of her judging anyone, I just assumed, as meat-eaters do, that her vegetarianism was an automatic judgment against my meat eating.) I became a bit frustrated. I mean, I had already seen the "I'd rather go naked than wear fur" pic of her and Julie, but still. Melissa...Melissa. Oh, how could you? I want to know I'm okay. You've told me I was okay before. Tell me I'm okay again, dammit! You can see the inherent silliness in this line of thinking, especially directed at a public figure who doesn't know you exist, but that was my emotion; she thought I was doing something wrong. In all truth, I was the one who thought I was doing something wrong, but since I hadn't been thinking about it before hearing this tidbit about someone else's eating habits, then it was this knowledge about them that was upsetting me—not my own knowledge about me. It makes sense now that I've read Adams, but before that...

I'll never forget the tremendous sense of relief that came with smuggling the Live and Alone DVD into the house and watching the bonus materials and seeing her order chicken at a hotel. Chicken! It was all dirty rumors; nothing more! Melissa didn't hate meat-eaters. Fuck, she was one! And I was free to stuff all the unpleasantness back down, where it belonged...

(Actually, as I learned later, she had been a vegetarian, and worked with PETA, but then she got into a situation where people were playing devil's advocate with her and asking, "Yeah, but what about animal testing for cures for cancer/AIDS?" and when she agreed that this was sometimes a necessary evil, but fur was not a necessary evil, PETA got all upset and came after her, so she basically said, "Fuck it," and quit trying at all. I read about it on the Internet a couple of years ago; I can't find it now; believe me, I'd cite my sources if I could...)

I can remember one other time in high school...I guess it was eleventh grade or something? It was either tenth grade, or eleventh grade, pre-leg break. We had this program at my school to where if you GPA was yea high, you would get a goodie of marginal value during lunch one day each nine weeks. Not to pride myself too much, but I was a pretty clever kid and managed to be on the list EVERY nine weeks, (ha!) although sometimes, I was on the red list, not the gold or platinum. Hum. Anyway, this goodie was sometimes an object, like a water bottle, a foam mitten to take to the football game, etc. Sometimes it was special sandwiches from Subway or Wendy's. On one particular occasion, they happened to be burgers from Wendy's. So, I was sitting there at the lunch table with my burger. My vegetarian friend, the one from a few years back, she came into my mind. I thought that these sandwiches weren't a very good reward for a vegetarian's good grades, I mean, fuck...it was like not getting anything at all! You can't eat em. In all honestly, you'd probably wish that they didn't exist and weren't all over the cafeteria. I mentioned her to my friend, the one who looked up Melissa on the Internet for me. Then I said, "I think I want to be a vegetarian." Then, I continued eating the cow-meat like it were nothing. My Melissa-researcher friend laughed.

"You're in the middle of eating a burger, and you just said you wanted to be a vegetarian?" he asked.

I shrugged. "What better time to think about these things, than when I'm eating a piece of meat?"

In the summer following HS, I had an internship at the newspaper. My vegetarian friend's vegetarian mom worked there. One day, we were sitting at the computers together, clicking away, and she started talking about food and vegetarianism.

"Do you eat a lot of meat?" she asked.

I wanted to say no, but I couldn't. I ate meat every damned day. I decided to avoid the question with bullshit. "Um, I don't like chili; I can't eat meat that way, because I can't tell what's in it. And I don't like 'salad,' I mean, I like 'salad' as in green stuff, but i don't like potato salad, seafood salad, or macaroni salad, or anything that I can't tell what is. I like being able to see all the ingredients."

She didn't press me any further about my meat consumption; I suppose my bullshit indicated that i didn't want to talk about it. I know she didn't mistake it for a legitimate answer.

Yes, I still eat meat. No, I don't want to. I'm going to be a vegetarian. One day. It's in my future. I know it is. I want it. I'm just not there yet, okay? I like what you're doing. I want to do it, too. But I can't yet. Not yet, I wanted to tell her.

I went out to lunch with another woman who worked there on a different day later that summer. We went to a buffet-style pizza place. She had an assortment of pizza slices on her plate. I had only cheese. She leaned in close.

"Are you a vegetarian, like x?" she asked me.

"No," I admitted. "I mean...I love the animals and everything, but...I still think we need bacon."

She laughed. I had lifted that line directly from a younger version of myself; at some point during my childhood/teenage years, I had been watching the movie Babe with my mom and granny. While we were watching the opening scene, of the mom and babies in the factory farm, I said, decidedly, "They are trying to make us feel sorry for the animals. But we need bacon!" It had my mom and granny quite amused. I said it with a lighthearted tone, but all the while, I was wondering in my heart of hearts whether I really needed bacon that much...

so, that's about it, up until the part where I decided finally to try it, which I will tell; feels good to get it out there, actually, but I'm tired tonight, so...

*Yes, "shoot it down," exactly like a wild bird. Exactly.

Blocked Vegetarians

2009-11-02T19:39:00.005-05:00

One of Carol J. Adam's central themes in the book Living Among Meat Eaters is that meat eaters are all "blocked vegetarians," or more specifically, to be fair, vegetarians should look at meat-eaters that way. They are all vegetarians who were taught to eat meat from early childhood, and at various points in their lives, have had the knowledge bubble to the forefront of their thoughts that their "food" is actually slain animals, and where "you" (the presumed vegetarian audience) examined these feelings and made the decision not to eat meat, the meat eaters have chosen to repress those thoughts and rationalize and not think about it. Then when you show up to dinner, all those conflicted feelings about how much they love meat but know it's wrong come back, and because you are the trigger, they take it out on you. The more fiercely they attack you, the more conflicted they are about their own meat-eating.

Her advice, generally, is not to troll them back, or inundate them with information, or talk bluntly about the way meat is made, or any of those things, which it will be instinctual for one to do. Instead, she suggests that you stay out of their way and let them sort through their feelings, then do your best to be there for them when they need resources.

I mean, it seems so completely simple, and makes so much sense, and yet, it seems so revolutionary for me to think about it this way. My parents think about their own meat-eating? Their resistance to my vegetarianism was in effort to stop me from being a reminder of it for them? I had been practicing vegetarianism for a few weeks toward the end of 2006/beginning of 2007* when my dad said, "I'll give you $300 if you come back over to our side." I was profoundly offended. "Am I not on your side?" was my general reaction. In a way, I figured he had just bought so far into the "we need meat to live" conspiracy that he was concerned for my wellbeing, but mostly, I figured he just wanted to control me in the same way that all parents just want to control their children. Because they can; because they said so. It never occurred to me that he was bribing me to shut up; giving me hush money. If I ate meat again, then he could see that I had been "wrong" about all this vegetarian ráiméis before, meaning he was right about it all along; meaning that he couldn't be wrong about his own meat-eating. Even though I understood that it was about him, I didn't realize that it could be about his own feelings about the meat he continued to eat.

Today, my mother and I dropped Cappy off at the animal hospital. They said it would be 4:30 before he was ready to pick up. He is not always the most trusting around humans, and puts up a fight when he feels threatened, so she decided to have him sedated before he got his shave to get rid of the pervasive mats in his fur. (His lack of trust in humans is the reason we haven't managed to keep him brushed all along.) I'm sure it made it much easier for the groomer, but I don't think my mom was concerned in the least for the groomer; she was concerned for Pappy, wanting him to have as few traumatic memories as possible. While we were on our way back home in the afternoon after getting him, she teared up in the car.

"He has feelings. I know he's just an animal, but he still has feelings."

I remembered Adams's theory of blocked vegetarians, and thought about what she was saying. My mother, who said once in the past, (in reference to me not eating meat anymore,) "You make me feel like I'm being judged in my own home; like I'm doing something wrong!" felt empathy for her cat; an animal. (Adams cites the "You make me feel guilty/judged" as one of the most common criticisms meat-eaters have of vegetarians.) For the past few days, she's been talking out loud to herself, "He's just a cat, [Mom], get over it. He's not a child; he's not a person." She's been thinking a lot about this the past few days.

And here she was, explicitly asserting that her cat had feelings, and she realized exactly what she was saying: one did not need to be a human in order to be a unique individual. I was turning this over in my mind, marveling at it. There were so many things I wanted to say in response, but I didn't say anything. I just stood out of the way, as Adams suggests. Just stand out of their way and let them work it out.

"But cats and dogs are a cut above chickens and cows!" she added.

Wow. And I hadn't said anything. Cows have feelings, too, just like cats. Chickens have feelings, too, just like cats. It was there, for sure. Perhaps she was picking up my vibes with her ESP. Perhaps she just assumed that I was having these thoughts and had to preemptively counter them, lest I start believing I'm really onto something. But maybe, just maybe, she had been sitting there having the thought on her own, and had to do what she could to try to convince herself...

Not only that, but she stuck an "absent referent" in there, to boot: Cats and dogs are a cut above chickens and cows. "A cut above"...the "higher up" the cow or hog toward the shoulder, the higher quality the cut of meat. Cats and dogs are more expensive "cuts" than are cows and chickens; she implicitly reminds herself that cats, for all their individuality and feelings, are still animals. Not children, [Mom]. Not people.

I never would have believed it. I had trouble believing it when it when I read it. Now, I see evidence of it in my immediate life. Meat-eaters are blocked vegetarians. Damn.

*I would never want to mislead my fans. For this reason, I am going to (soon) include a post about my two-year detour from the vegetarian path into fish-eating, and why I did that. You're so going to want to slap me when you find out what made me do it.)

I had in my brain...

2009-11-02T14:32:00.003-05:00

...the thought to write a post on anti-vegetarian trolls, but between contemplating writing it and actually doing it, I started reading two other books by Carol J. Adams: Living Among Meat Eaters, which is a whole book about how to deal with IRL trolls, and also The Pornography of Meat, which deals with the specific sexualized way that women's oppression and animals' oppression are linked. So I'm holding off on that post for awhile.

Also, our cat Cappy is currently at the groomer's getting him-furry-self shaved, and I will do my best to *sneak* a picture for my fans...hehe...

Big and Chunky

2009-10-29T20:17:00.002-04:00

So, on this message board I post on sometimes, someone posted a link to the below video. I didn't post what I thought of it, because I had already gotten all fat acceptance on them earlier in the thread, and I didn't want to push my luck by letting my humorless feminism show. Instead, I posted a row of "shocked" and "laughing" smileys, and erased the question I had typed, "Is this porn?"

These are hippopotamuses, right? Well...They're walking upright like humans, and they are very humanoid. The naked buttocks look like naked buttocks to me. And...okay, I get that it's a movie about animals; if I'm not mistaken it's a movie about zoo animals who escape and make their exodus back to the jungle, is that right? Madagascar/Madagascar 2? Still...I can't help but get the feeling that, well, these aren't exactly white hippopotamuses, and that makes the sexualized humanoid quality all the more troublesome. But, in any case, this is a kid's movie, right? Call me a prude, but I don't think I could endorse this kind of entertainment for my hypothetical children.

They say...

2009-10-29T17:48:00.002-04:00

...that when your wisdom teeth start coming in, your life is half over. I can feel my top ones tight against the inside of my skin; they haven't broken through yet. It's just a superstition, but if it be true, then I will live to be 44. A very early 44, as I've just had my birthday.

If my bottom ones decide to come in as well, I might have to get them removed. I have space for *one* tooth on each side...but I don't think I have room for *two.*

Hair and feathers

2009-10-27T15:52:00.008-04:00

At the buffet restaurant where I worked as a cashier in 2007, (the same one where I decided not to "fat talk" anymore,) they had country, Southern food. The menu changed a little day-to-day, not unusual for a buffet restaurant, and most days, they had chicken in some form or another. On one particular day, they had barbecue chicken wings. One of the customers, an elderly white man, came up to the cash register with a bowl, heaping full of barbecue chicken wings. He slammed it down on the counter.

"There's a feather on that chicken!" he stated.

I didn't understand at first that he was yelling at me about the chicken feather. (I know, I know...I should have known this; even though I knew that a feather being on the chicken that I didn't cook and had nothing to do with at all was not in any way my fault, when you work behind a counter anywhere, you are a visible representative of the establishment that the customer has an issue with, so, symbolically, and actually in their mind, it is your fault. I was young, though, and hadn't been working there long enough to realize that.) I simply read his statement as surprise. I looked at the chicken and laughed.

"Oh, wow, there is a feather on there, that's pretty funny!" (I know, I know, let me say it again: I WAS YOUNG.) This is the train of thoughts I had: A feather; a blatantly obvious feather on a chicken wing. It's not unreasonable that a chicken feather might possibly escape intact from the chicken factory. Those things are heavily automated and mechanized; so many chickens come through that surely a feather or two is to be missed. But my coworkers in the back back there? Had they missed the feather, or just ignored it? Because a lot of days, I came in to work and didn't really give a shit about my job...hey, it happens sometimes, you know. I was amused at the thought that they had seen the feather and said "fuck it." Unless, you know, the chicken came in a bag with the sauce already on it and they heated it that way. Then, it would be entirely possible for everyone along the line in the chicken-production process to miss this feather, right from the slaughterhouse workers up to my coworkers who ultimately prepared the chicken. Once pointed out, though, that white feather was impossible not to see against the white flesh, under all that red-brown sauce. My customer just happened to be the unfortunate one to get this imperfect piece of a chicken, with a single feather still intact, but it's just one of those things that happens when you eat an animal that used to have feathers, right? You might wind up looking at one of those feathers at some point; it's life.

He became angry. "No, it ain't funny! It's disgusting! I ain't eating that!"

Offended at my callousness; at my failure to apologize profusely at my restaurant's collective failure to provide him with feather-free chicken, (and probably also at my failure to refund him his money,) he glared at me and stormed back to his table.

I was deeply puzzled. Disgusting? You're willing to chomp down on the dead muscles of a slain animal, an animal which did have feathers during its short lifetime, but you're disgusted at the sight of a feather? Okay, well, then...One chicken wing has a feather. One chicken wing out of your bowl of...twenty chicken wings? I'm not sure I ever was that kind of chicken-eater. Had the same thing happened to me when I was a chicken-eater, I would have simply discarded the flawed chicken wing and reached for the next one in the bowl. Or, more likely, I would pull out the feather and keep eating that chicken wing. Why waste perfectly good chicken because of a feather? It's not like there's any germs in the feather; it's been cooked.

Since I wasn't a chicken-eater at the time, it angered me somewhat that someone would be so put off by a feather, which chickens naturally have, being included with their piece of slain chicken. In my mind, I found it perfectly understandable that a feather might be on a piece of chicken, because chicken comes from chickens, and I knew how chicken is manufactured. It wasn't gross, indecent, careless, unhygienic, or "disgusting"...unless the very eating of chicken is any or all of those things, and since people who eat chicken don't think of it that way, what's the problem with a feather?

Carol J. Adams writes in The Sexual Politics of Meat:

"Through butchering, animals become absent referents. Animals in name and body are made absent as animals for meat to exist. Animals' lives precede and enable the existence of meat. If animals are alive, then they cannot be meat. Thus a dead body replaces the live animal. Without animals there would be no meat eating, yet they are absent from the act of eating meat because they have been transformed into food, (40)"

Living chickens are supposed to have feathers. Dead chickens are not. It's not simply that feathers aren't tasty and delectable, it's that a feather on a dead chicken reminds the chicken-eater that what they are eating, in fact, is a dead chicken, which used to be a live chicken. Why is this such a revelation to chicken-eaters? And such a "disgusting" revelation, at that?

I don't think it's so much that the man found the feather disgusting, as that the "absent referent," the very chicken whose body produced the tissue that he was aiming to eat, became present, right before him. That's not what people want—to be sitting there, trying to enjoy their meal, and have the animals that they are eating come to the front of their minds as animals, although that does happen from time to time. It calls to mind the process of meat-making, and everything that entails. Even though most people are not intimately aware of the process, they are vaguely aware of it. Who really wants to think about that while they are eating? Of course, it's disgusting. An animal's showing up unwelcome at a dinner can happen spontaneously, that is sure enough, but a remnant feather from that animal increases the probability that the meat eater will think about the animal.

Because Adams' purpose in the book is to show the parallels between meat and women, and the consumption of both, a few pages later, she provides this criticism (both literary and literal) to a sentence from Marabel Morgan's Total Joy. (God bless her, and Andrea Dworkin, and all the other braver women who have dared to wade through writings by Marabel Morgan, and other anti-woman bullshit, and interpret it for me, so that I don't have to wade through it myself.) Anyway, here's the quote:

In Total Joy, Marabel Morgan unites women and animals through the use of the metaphor of hamburger. Morgan fosters her own Shmoo syndrome in advising women to consider themselves like hamburger in serving their husbands needs: "but like hamburger you may have to prepare yourself in a variety of ways now and then."⁵⁰Her sentence structure—"like hamburger you may"—implies that hamburger prepares itself in a variety of ways, and so must you. But hamburger, long before arriving in the kitchen of the total woman, has been denied all agency and can do no preparing. "You," woman/wife, refers to and stands in for hamburger. Women stand in relationship to the "total woman" as they do to "hamburger," as something that is objectified, without agency, that must be prepared, reshaped, acculturated to be made consumable in a patriarchal world. Though the referent is absent, women cannot escape recognizing themselves in it. And just as animals do not desire to be eaten, Morgan's sentence structure subverts her attempt to convince women that they do, (55)."

Emphasis mine, and the bolded parts indicate what I underlined in my copy of the book. This passage really got to me. I knew already that women exist as objects in our society, and that the easier it is for society to objectify an individual woman, the better society will "like" that woman. I also knew that "women" as our society conceives of them are not the way "women" actually are. I knew that society mandates, or at the very least, encourages, women to alter themselves from their natural appearance. This includes styling your hair, putting on makeup, removing your body hair, losing weight, deodorizing your vagina, wearing perfume, etc. I knew that society expects these things of women, but what I didn't understand was why.

In order to be consumed, women, like dead animals, must be "transformed." It's not just that women are expected to have one sort of appearance, and men are expected to have another. It's not as though women apply makeup one way to reflect their womanhood, and men apply makeup in a different way to reflect their manhood; it's that women wear makeup, and men don't at all. It's not that women remove their body hair in a certain way to indicate that they are female, and men remove their body hair in another way to indicate that they are male; it's that women remove their body hair and men don't at all.* It's that men typically exist the way they naturally are, and women typically don't, or can't. Human beings biologically exist with full body hair, and no makeup. Men socially exist with full body hair and no makeup. Women don't.

A common reaction to a makeup-less woman is that she looks masculine, or manly, not that she looks like a woman without makeup. She has failed at presenting herself as a woman. A common reaction to a woman with full body hair is, much like the buffet customer's reaction to that feather, "disgusting!" If a human being must be transformed into a "woman" so that others can consume and objectify her, and if an animal must be transformed into "meat" so that others can consume and objectify her,** then the sight of body hair on a woman causes the same reaction in woman-consumers as the chicken feather caused in the chicken-eater. It disrupts their happy eating time. It reminds them that, really, women/chickens are not for their consumption, and they should not be consuming them. When men see hairy women without makeup, they see themselves in the women. When women see hairy women without makeup, they see men in the women. It really has nothing to do with beauty. Men are human animals. And so are women. Feminists recognize women as fully human beings, and don't have a problem with women who choose to keep their body hair and ditch the makeup; even feminists that choose to engage in these traditional behaviors object to it being a requirement for women. Some people are feminists, but I'm afeared that most aren't.

So, this is it—all the "beautification" rituals that society expects us to go to through, and gets downright indignant most of the time when we don't—it's all for the comfort and reassurance of those who objectify us; a little salt, a little pepper, a marinade bath, an hour of cooking, a complicated and painstaking slaughter and dissembly process—so that by the time they consume us, they don't see any pesky reminders of the animals that we used to be before the "transformation."

*Facial hair doesn't count. "But men shave their faces!" is another version of, "But women rape men, too!"

**When Adams doesn't know the sex of an animal, she uses "she" as the indefinite.

Adams, Carol J. The Sexual Politics of Meat. The Continuum Publishing Company. New York City, NY. 1991.

Jesse Jackson on Sesame Street

2009-10-23T15:46:00.001-04:00

LOVE THIS.

(from Sociological Images.)

WAR ON WOMEN!!!!

2009-10-19T19:57:00.012-04:00

I can't think clearly enough to write a coherent post about Jane Velez-Mitchell, and the way she makes my brain cry tears of sorrow...

So I'll just list out a bunch of quotes/paraphrases from her that are floating around in my brain. They'll all have quotes around them...but just to contain each and set it off. So get over it, if it bothers you that paraphrases will be in quotes...

"I'm against rape! But you know what I'm equally against? False rape reports!" (emphasis mine, and yes...she said "equally.") "You know what's sad? People like her who make false police reports make it SO MUCH HARDER for REAL victims!" (alkdlajd lkfjlkrtoirj lkmfdlkamlf'.....*sigh*)

"PETA took down the billboard after backlash against it, but let's face it, OBESITY KILLS!!! AND MEAT IS MAKING PEOPLE OBESE!!!!" (uh, yeah, which is precisely why 2/3 of the population that are not obese are all vegetarians, and obese vegetarians don't exist.)

"This is about the WAR ON WOMEN!" (Which, um, Jane Velez-Mitchell couldn't possibly be part of, huh?)

"We need a new wave of feminism to address this war on women!" (Just...just...I have no words...)

"Violence against women is an epidemic!" (Actually, J V-M, if you want to medicalize a social problem, which is a bad idea anyway, but if you're hell-bent on doing it, the correct way to do it would be to say that violence against women is endemic, because it's not an outbreak of something new, y'know...)

"This is another example of something that's been going on since the dawn of time, and that's the subjugation of women!" (Oh, and you was around back then, at the dawn of time, and knew how it was, huh? And...huh? you say violence against women has been around? Like I said...endemic...?)

"Swine flu is the result of factory farming!" (Just...no. Even if true, even if true...oh fuck it, that's a separate post...)

"They're letting rapists and murderers go free! It's the WAR ON WOMEN! It makes me want to pull my hair out in tufts!" (I know the feeling, J V-M...)

"If only someone would have helped Philip Garrido with his LSD addiction in high school, then we wouldn't be having this conversation now! He wouldn't have become a rapist and murderer!" (Causation fail) "Because addiction is bad and leads to every social evil! You should read my book, iWant, and learn about it!"

"...Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs!" (ableist, and probably infringing on copyright.)

"Mackenzie Phillips...who has a BEST SELLER right now!" [face contorted in disgust] "....poor man isn't here to defend himself!!! She's a druggie and druggies lie! I used to be one, so I know! Read my book..." (War on women!)

"Octomom...!" (War on women!)

"...my new book, iWant..." (DO NOT WANT)

"How dare the Malawian government not just graciously hand over the children of their country to Our Lord and Savior, Madonna!? She can give them a better life than they ever can!!!" (War on non-white people!)

"The women in this country are forced to wear a PSYCHOLOGICAL BURKHA everyday! Women can't go outside at night!" (War on non-white/-Christian people!)

"I've been sober 14 years!" (Good for you. I'd give you a cookie, but, hehe, they're special cookies, and I wouldn't want to be interfering with your long-lived sobriety.)

I'll add more to this post later if I happen to remember more things...

NEW: "This woman has lost her most precious possession!" (In reference to the woman's child, who someone murdered and likely raped. Yep...pretty sure the view of children as "possessions" is one of the problems leading to violence against them...)

NEW: "Richard Heene is devastatingly handsome!"

NEW: (In reference to the bouncer and bar owner who won't allow people of color into the bar under the guise of "no saggy pants") "These students are doing everything they need to, and filing everything they can...but I think the big issue here is that it is the individuals, the bouncer and the owner, who are the problem. Someone has to have really low self-esteem to try to put themselves above someone else in this way." (That was where I started my eye-rolling.) "Racism is a mental illness!!!" (And THAT's where I had to leave the room. But before I could get sufficiently out of earshot of the tv, I heard her add,) "I am APPALLED that in this day in age, there's this kind of blatant racism!"

NEW: She repeatedly refers to the house where Anthony Sowell (aka "The Cleveland Strangler") raped and tortured women to death, and then stored their decomposing bodies, as the "House of Horrors." Oooooooohhhh.....spooky! Like a fun Halloween party! (on a related not, check out Nine Deuce's post...)

NEW (10 December 2009): Velez-Mitchell refers to the incident where the woman under the influence of pot and alcohol drove the opposite way up the interstate, killing herself and others, and her husband subsequently denied that she was a smoker/drinker, as an "ongoing war." Just a bit earlier, she suggested that the MTV show Jersey Shore might be "overly racist." She never explained how something can be overly racist, as opposed to, you know, just slightly and pleasantly racist, if you will...

Fat Talk

2009-10-19T16:50:00.005-04:00

Fat talk is all over the feminists blogs today. (Here's the official site for Fat Talk Free Week.) I think our collective social habit of openly criticizing our bodies is a damaging one, and this is a good idea, to take a week and examine the habit of "fat talk."

I try not to engage in "fat talk," but even I (yes, adoring fans, I know you are shocked to learn) fall into the old habit now and then. I've been aware since 2007 that the way women speak negatively of their bodies only perpetuates women's unhappiness with our bodies. At the time I was working as a cashier in a buffet restaurant, and another cashier/waiter was telling a group of us gathered in a corner behind the bar, "My butt is big. I need to lose some weight." I sort of scoffed at her and said, "Your butt is big? If anyone's butt is too big, it's mine." It just came out. Just the same way someone would say, "How are you?" and you would reply, "Fine, thanks. And you?" I'd done it. I'd taken the bait.* Not that she was trying to lay a trap* for the rest of us standing there with her. She just said it as naturally as she would say, "I'm about ready to get out of here. This night is long!" And like a comment such as that one, it got a chorus of, "Yes, indeed!" which is to be expected when you make a comment like that. But I felt it was wrong, immediately after I had chimed in. I heard what I said. I've tried to make an effort since then not to speak in "fat talk." I don't think it was bad to try to reassure my coworker, in fact, as Rachel pointed out in the comments on her blog, sometimes women are looking to be reassured that their bodies are okay when they assert that they are not, but there's no reason that this reassurance should come at the expense of the person doing the reassuring and her own body.

Even though that conversation made me start paying attention to what I say in response to other women's fat talk...things get a little sticky when you are in a same-sex relationship with another woman who likes to fat talk. Sometimes they can be more successful at getting you to engage in fat talk than mere acquaintances.

(At this point, I was about to present to you all a string of personal anecdotes, but between deciding that they got too tangential, and the nagging voice in my brain that says, "She will find this blog...oooooooooooo-ooooooohh! And be madder at you than she already is!!!" I think I will keep those anecdotes to myself, even though the post ending is not going to be abrupt and choppy, and instead just make this general statement:)

When you're a queer woman, you can wind up with a relationship that is a hybrid of "the boyfriend/husband** who doesn't find your female body sufficiently pornorific" archetype, and the "best friend who wants reassurance about her own female body archetype." That's some depressing shit when you do, too...

(*This is what Carol J. Adams calls the "absent referent"...when you make an implicit comparison between the treatment of animals and your own experience. Someday, hopefully soon, I'm going to finally finish The Sexual Politics of Meat, and when I do I will write some of my thoughts about it. Be patient with me, my fans.)

(**Not everyone who exemplifies this archetype is a man, and likewise, not everyone who exemplifies the other archetype is female; I acknowledge that.)

Birthday Post

2009-10-16T11:40:00.016-04:00

Ok, so Wednesday, 14 October was my birthday. I am 22. Happy Birthday to me! Here are a few pictures.

This is the food that we ate...I chopped up a big old salad and wanted to use a separate plate for each thing and take up the whole table, so I did! They had steaks and I had mushrooms. Also baked potatoes, but I think they were still in the oven. Don't know why I didn't think to turn the light on over the bar, but I didn't, so it's dark.

This is the big cookie that my mom bought me for my birthday. It was a choice between this one, or a white one that had yellow icing roses on it that were so pretty...but this one had plastic shiny leaves and acorns that I could take off as a souvenir, and they would be pretty forever, so the yellow roses lost.

And of course, I've been planning on posting some picture of my growing babies to show how big they are now. Even though it was rainy and overcast and the ground was soggy, I went out to take at least a few pictures. (More later when it gets sunny again.) These are the collards:

Baby turnip and mustard greens. These are actually infant plants. They've only been germinated a few days.

This is a red cabbage.

So, after I had snapped a few pictures, I headed back to the house. When I was just at the porch, I slipped on the muddy damned ground, twisted my ankle, and landed on my knees. I was pretty sure my ankle wasn't broken, because the time five years ago when the other ankle was broken, I was in shock and felt almost no pain. The other night, I felt lots of pain. I just stayed there on the ground for a minute, sort of laughing at the unpredictability of life (but not too hard,) and just chanting, "Fuck. Oh fuck. Oh fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!" Then I got my camera off the ground and slowly pulled myself to my feet and hobbled into the house....but no worries, because I'm mostly back to normal now. Just a little sore. I let myself have that glass of sherry that I wanted for my birthday, though, that night. I filled the glass on up further than usual and it tasted delicious. Then I slept.

Oh, and this isn't really a birthday picture, but here is some vegan gravy that I made on 13 October. I found this recipe on the Internet, for portabellas and gravy, but I thought the gravy sounded a lot like the gravy that my mom used to make for S.O.S., so I wanted to cut up some Smart Deli meat slices in it and see how closely I could approximate it, because it is one of the dishes that I miss. I think that unsweetened soymilk might go better, because regular added a good bit of sweetness, but overall. It was great. And aside from being a little thick, (the flour looked like it was disappearing into the oil, so I kept adding more until I *thought* it was enough, then poured the soymilk in there and it expanded,) I was pleased that it came out so smooth with so few lumps! So, I took a picture...

And turning 22 reminded me of this poem I love, so I wanted to include it in the birthday post:

One-and-Twenty
AE Housman

When I was one-and-twenty,
I heard a wise man say,
"Give crowns and pounds and guineas
But not your heart away;
Give pearls away, and rubies
But keep your fancy free."
But I was one-and-twenty;
No use to talk to me.

When I was one-and-twenty,
I heard him say again,
"The heart out of the bosom
Was never given in vain;
'Tis paid with sighs a plenty
And sold for endless rue."
And I am two-and-twenty,
And oh, 'tis true, 'tis true.

Also...

2009-10-16T00:03:00.002-04:00

Yesterday was my birthday, and I had planned on writing a post about it tonight, but the pictures are on the other computer; I had to mess with them and shrink them and everything, and then never got around to actually writing about it, so...tomorrow...

Indigo Guys

2009-10-15T23:51:00.003-04:00

So, I really wanted to hear "Chickenman" by the Indigo Girls before I went to bed, and I remembered that there was a clip from a video of "Chickenman" on the Watershed DVD. (I know; I link to Amazon a lot, what of it?) So, I pulled up YouTube and did a search for "Chickenman Indigo" to see if it would come up in the results. I didn't find it, but I found this, the first result. It is a cover of "Chickenman" by the Indigo Guys. I think it's pretty cool.

I didn't have to watch many seconds of it to figure out that they are doing this mostly in jest, and the genre in the side panel is "comedy," which confirmed that, but the joke is for other fans; if you haven't listened to "Chickenman" hundreds of times, you don't get it, but if you have, then it is hilarious, and also pretty impressive that they paid attention to every sound in the whole song. They have other songs on their channel.

Fried Green Tomatoes

2009-10-15T13:51:00.007-04:00

(Now, I realize they are not fried. But bear with me peeps; the only pics I have of green tomatoes are ones that are still on the vine.)

While I was emailing with a friend yesterday, (hi, if you're reading!) we started talking about the movie Fried Green Tomatoes, which of course was made after the book Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistlestop Cafe by Fannie Flagg. We were discussing how the movie glossed over the fact that Ruth and Idgie are a lesbian couple to the point that it is very easy to view the movie and not pick up on it at all, or to interpret it differently.

It made me remember once when I was a little girl, well, not terribly little, about elevenish, and was in the Walmart with my mom. We were looking at DVDs, and this random woman was standing there, looking at them, too. She and my mom started talking, and they were discussing how much they loved movies, and which movies they really liked, and so on. My mom said that she liked Fried Green Tomatoes. At this point, the woman had to stop agreeing with her about the wonderfulness of her movie choices and inform her, "Oh, you know, I liked that movie, too, until I found out they were lezbians!" My mom expressed her lack of knowledge about the characters' sexual identities, although she didn't contort her face in horror the way the other woman did. "Yeah!" the woman continued. "I saw that movie and just thought they were good friends, you know. I didn't have any idea that there was anything dirty in that movie! But I'll tell you one cute little movie; it has nothing dirty in it and it is just a sweet little movie, and that is Hope Floats."

I had remembered watching Fried Green Tomatoes when I was younger, but I didn't remember much about it. I remembered that I worried a lot about that woman hitting that VW Beetle and then not going to jail. I thought that was wrong; I thought when you hit someone's car on purpose you should go to jail, and it worried me that the cops didn't take her to jail. That was all I remembered about it. Anyway, now that I heard that there were lesbians in the movie, I was curious about seeing it again. Obviously there wasn't going to be any sex, but that wasn't the point. I wanted to see lesbians.

Awhile after that, I noticed that it was going to be coming on tv, so I watched it in my room, by myself. I couldn't really figure out what was so dirty about the movie; the only remotely romantic thing that it showed between Ruth and Idgie was drunk Ruth kissing drunk Idgie's cheek. It seemed like if anyone had any objection to the sexual content of the movie, it had to be the simple fact that they were lesbians. Sure enough, the movie contained domestic abuse, racism, murder...but the woman at the Walmart hadn't been objected to any of those things, just the lezbians.

Then some time after that, a couple years, I guess, I caught Hope Floats on tv. I only watched the opening of it; I didn't finish. It struck me as quite boring. But I did watch enough of it to be equally as puzzled as to why the Walmart woman had found this movie to be clean and sweet and Fried Green Tomatoes to be dirty. Hope Floats started off with a man taking his wife on a talk show to reveal that he was having an affair on her with another woman. I was confused. Wasn't opposite-sex fornication just as bad as lesbianism? Wasn't this overtly sexual content? I mean, I didn't take Hope Floats to be a porno or anything; even though I was young, I had seen worse. But since the bar for "dirty" was so low for the Walmart woman, I was surprised she heaped such praise on Hope Floats. Not to mention, there was some Ugly Hate going on with that little girl. And didn't the grandma have slain animal skins hanging in the house? And didn't it seem like she blamed her daughter for getting dumped? Eh...no, it's not really a sweet, clean little movie. But it's 100% heterosexual, I reckon...and that's what counts.

Photo from Radio Times.

Women's "Natural State"

2009-10-14T13:20:00.008-04:00

On Feministe, there's a post about how some anti-choice, anti-birth control, anti-woman, anti-gay, (etc, etc,) woman has her panties in a wad because women eating BC pills makes them choose male partners who eat quiche rather than beat the hell out of them. Clearly, she's not cooking with a full bag of noodles, and that was the point of the post.

But what interested me was the comments. Several people wanted to say it is women's "natural state" to be pregnant and/or lactating all the time, not menstruating, and therefor being on birth control more closely matches women's "natural state." I guess the theory is that, when women lived in the wild, they didn't have any birth control, didn't have abortions, were being fucked senseless by a man or men at every turn, whether they liked it or not, and therefor got pregnant at every turn. Huh...sounds a lot like the way women live in captivity...

Anyway, after reading the thread, I decided to write a post that's been tumbling in my head for quite some time, and that's a post about how things were for the Cavewomen.

Now, you'll see a lot of anti-women peddling ideas about how rape is the result of an evolutionary desire to spread your seed to women whether they want it or not, how men need more than one sex partner and women don't, how women are instinctively drawn to pink, how men are sexy till they die of old age, but women have an expiration date of about 40, because they can't provide a baby for a man's DNA anymore, but a man of any age can still provide his DNA...blah blah blah...but the thing is, most of these theories hinge on the "fact" that the perpetuation of the species, and most especially, passing on one's own genes, is the Most Important Thing in the life of any organism.

Just think about it: we have sex in order to reproduce. (Unless you're queer, or sterile, or past menopause, or only have heterosexual outercourse, or only have sex by yourself—which doesn't count anyway—or any other reason that would cause sex never to result in procreation.) And sex feels good (unless for some reason, it is uncomfortable or painful, which never happens, right?) because it's evolution's (or God's) way of enticing us to do it, or else we wouldn't, and then that all-important procreation wouldn't happen, and the species might not go on. And that would really, really be a huge tragedy to each of us as individuals after we're dead and long gone...

And I just got to wonder, you know, why we assume there were no queer cavepeople. True enough, queer as an identity didn't exist, or at the least, wasn't given any acknowledgement, till the past several decades, but surely there were queer cavewomen who had sex with other cavewomen, and couldn't care less about cavemen, and the obvious result is that she never made any cavebabies. And surely there were queer cavemen, who had sex with other cavemen, and couldn't care less about cavewomen, and therefor never passed on their DNA.

The existence of the queer cavepeople is not the only problem for this procreation-is-the-most-important-thing-in-life theory of the way things wuz and iz. Another big consideration is birth control. Throughout recorded history, people have devised ways to have heterosexual PIV intercourse without that intercourse resulting in unwanted babies. They've also devised ways of terminating unwanted pregnancies. It has only been through government abolition of these grievances against the all-important procreation, and/or the barring of access to resources, that people came to be unable to avoid unwanted procreation. Back in cavepeople days, government was small. I mean, it was really small. It was probably the closest thing to true anarchy (no laws, therefor no legal oppression) and true libertarianism (all the cavepeople had it, not just the rich white ones) as any humans have ever experienced. People were probably too concerned about working together to get food on the metaphorical table, (since actual tables probably hadn't been invented yet, and would've been a ~~bitch~~* pain to travel nomadically with,) and staying vigilant for predators, to worry that you were a queer cavewoman who rejected the cavedick, and even if they did kick you out their tribe for it, you could go off in the woods by yourself and live alone and pick your own damn berries and say "fuck 'em!" So, nothing could be better for reproductive rights than the small government that I'm imagining they had.

But even if I go ahead and assume that procreation was of the utmost importance to the cavepeople, it still doesn't make any sense to me why it would be better to have 8-10 cavekids as opposed to 1-3. Surely, with limited resources, it would be better to raise a few healthy, strong cavekids than a dozen weaklings. None of the dozen weaklings might make it, while all of the strong cavekids might, and wouldn't this be a better way of ensuring the future of the species? It's also worth noting the ban on birth control by the governments of recorded history have worked to make the poor spread their limited resources out thinner over more offspring. This accomplishes two things: it dilutes the already limited resources even further, and it compromises the health of each individual poor person, and thus the collective health of the poor as a socioeconomic class. Therefor if these cavepeople were smart, and I don't doubt that they were considerably smarter than most modern people think, they would have planned their families well, with their individual wellbeing and the wellbeing of their tribe in mind. If someone didn't have children, rather than being a useless a burden to the cavesociety, she might've been valued for being able to spend more time doing non-reproductive work, or being able to spend more time helping out with others' kids; after all, it takes a cavevillage to raise a cavechild.

And I'm not even going to entertain the notion that cavepeople didn't understand how you get pregnant, because that is a little bit too far-fetched. I mean, perhaps they didn't have science, but they had experience, and it doesn't take much intricate experimentation to deduce that the correlation between heterosexual intercourse and pregnancy is, in fact, a cause-effect relationship.

But seriously, if the reason why we're all here is to reproduce, then...what is the point, you know? We have kids so they can reproduce and then their kids can reproduce and then their kids can reproduce? How and why is this so important if no one accomplishes anything else outside of reproduction? The idea that we're all here to pass on our genes and nothing more invalidates the reality of a lot of people, and I can't figure out why we assume cavepeople were so different than we are now; they were people, too. And why do we assume that birth control is not a part of nature? It seems to me like the suppression of birth control is the thing that's not "natural."

*Even though I wasn't using it to refer to a person, I should fix it...

Men's Spaces

2009-10-10T20:26:00.003-04:00

So, yesterday I was out with my parents after we went to dinner, and we went to this store that carries supplies for hunters, fisherman, campers, and etc. They had been advertising the clearance sale of summer merchandise, so my mom wanted to go and check out the shoes to see if they had any flip flops she would want. We started up the sidewalk, around the side of the building, and there, right in front of the door, they were having a little gun expo under a tent. I slid along behind them on the sidewalk and was about to go in the door when one of the gun dealers yelled over his shoulder, "Hey [insert generic man's name here], take him inside and show him the [number] size of the [style] bullets!" or whatever; (I'm not a gun connoisseur, so I didn't pick up on the subtleties.) So, the man he was addressing led the two men customers inside. They looked past me and almost through me, like I was a ghost, and rushed into the store. I had to step back to get out of their way. One of the customers, the last man in the line of them, saw me. He looked very young, like he was in his late teens.

"Ooh! Sorry," he said, and jumped back a few paces to let my mom and I go inside. My dad was a little ways behind us, because he was locking up the van and such.

At first I cracked up their behavior to their preoccupation with the gun they were selling/buying; I mean, I guess they are gun people and get excited by that kind of thing, but once I got inside the store, it seemed like every other man than my father exhibited this same behavior. Their aisles are narrow, and it became somewhat of a task to keep moving my body so that it was out of the way of a man coming from this direction or that who didn't even seem to pick up on the fact that someone was already standing in the space that they were charging to in big strides. Their eyes just stared straight ahead; right over my head, like the glass eyes of a mounted deer-head nearby. I counted one other female shopper besides myself and my mother. Both the cashiers at the checkout were female, though, I did notice.

I guess I never understood just how much women protect and support each other simply by being in the same space with each other. Most times, when I go out in public, I can count on at least 50%, sometimes more, of the people around me to be female, but I wasn't explicitly aware that I counted on this safety of numbers to feel secure, valid, comfortable, etc, in my surroundings. My anxiety started to rapidly build in that space for men, however, when I realized exactly how little I mattered to the other customers of the store. One saw me. Only one.

Now, truly enough, there are women who dig the "outdoor sports" and go to the store. (In fact back in March 2008, I went in the store with S and we bought some things off the clearance table at the front. They were within a few minutes of closing, so we couldn't check out the rest of the store.) But overall, this is a "man's" store. In women dominated spaces, like Michael's Arts and Crafts, or well-mixed spaces, like the supermarket, men don't treat women in this way, (and women don't treat men this way.) In fact, I can't say I've ever been in any space in which I got treated that way until yesterday evening. I felt like I had fallen into another universe. Nope . . . same universe, except without any (or at least, many) other women to be witnesses to these non-interactions. The other men can't act as witnesses, because they don't betray each other in this space. The consensus in this space was that I didn't matter; my existence didn't need acknowledgement. They usually have to smile, say "excuse me," be patient, move to one side, look in my eyes, or at least in my direction, not leave it up to me to hear their quick and heavy footsteps from yards away and find a nook to flee to or be stepped on. But in this space? That was part of what this space was about for them: a haven, a retreat from that day-to-day task of being literally forced to see women. In an environment where it is not expected or required, they won't.

Except one. Maybe he was too young to understand that he was "free" here. Then again, he could have just been a good apple.

I told my mom what I noticed about the men's behavior, and she told me that she had noticed it, too.

Vegetable Soup

2009-10-08T21:34:00.003-04:00

Ingredients:

1/2 c. dried lentils
1 potato
3 carrots
1 onion
1 tomato
2 cloves garlic
1 jalapeño (if you like it hot)
1 c. frozen cauliflower
1 c. frozen broccoli
1 c. frozen green peas
1 or 2 T. oregano
2 T. soybean, canola, or olive oil
2 c. tomato juice
2 qt. water

Method:

Rinse lentils and soak in water for at least an hour. Drain and rinse again, then place in a large cooking pot with 2 quarts of water. Bring to a boil and let boil about 30 minutes, adding water along as needed to maintain the amount of water. Cut into cubes and add the potato, as well as the 2 cups of tomato juice and 2 tablespoons of oil. Let cook ten more minutes. Slice or grate the two garlic cloves and jalapeño, chop the carrots and onion, then add these things, along with the oregano and the tomato, peeled and chopped. Allow these to cook approximately ten more minutes, then add the frozen cauliflower, broccoli, and peas. Cook at least long enough to heat the frozen vegetables, but not too long, (unless you like them very done.)

Newsflash!

2009-10-06T17:53:00.007-04:00

So, while I was finishing up my last post, WSPA News Channel 7 was playing in the background. This story came on about how "the healthiest foods are the most likely to make you sick." GASP! I facetiously said, "Apples!" you know, because of the old apple marketing campaign that says, "An apple a day keeps the doctor away!" And I'll be damned if the first shot they went to when they cut away from the reporter's face wasn't a damn display of apples and a consumer choosing from them. That was funny. My mom and I laughed about that. But seriously...this is why healthy foods are SO dangerous OOOOOOOOOOOOH......you ready for it?

Ok, here is the deal: produce sits out in the open at the grocery store! Not in its own container! And it's never been heated and sterilized! And you can eat it raw if you want to, and some people do! So it is more likely to carry infectious diseases! Oh, and sometimes there are germs in cheese, icecream, and oysters, too. Oh, and there might also be germs in chicken and beef, but they weren't included in this study.

Yes, this shit was on the news, as though it were news, as if food poisoning were something that no one has ever heard of before, and if you don't believe me, here is a link. I tried to find it on the WSPA website, but their website is so impossible to navigate that I've never been able to find any story I've seen on the tv on there, so i did a Google search and found it on a different website. I just can't, for the life of me, figure out why it is newsworthy that apples have more germs on them than Vienna sausages.

(ghost clip art credit)

Glamour girls

2009-10-06T15:43:00.014-04:00

I saw the new photo of fat women for Glamour magazine* on The F Word: Food, Fat, Feminism (please check it out, if you haven't already). I thought about commenting on it, but decided to write about it myself here, since slobbering over the naked girls in someone else's space might not be a very polite thing to do. besides, I had more to say than just a comment.

This is the wave of the future: models who look like they could be any one of us!. In fact, they look just like me! Well...no, I guess they don't, really. But I used to look like this! In the ninth grade! Seriously, I did. But I don't think I would be welcomed into their fold these days. Not without a diet and lot of hot wax, hehehehe! Which I'm sure they didn't need to use. I'm sure they are just blessed to be naturally as hairless as a Thanksgiving turkey.** ...Oh, the luck of some women, to be so normal...and so average...and...huh, what's that? They still don't accept shorties in the modeling community? Well, blast.

A lot of people see this as a positive move. Magazine after magazine displaying highly-edited pictures of very thin women create a reality in which an infinitesimally small number of women's bodies are "good enough," and those that are good enough belong to women who, much of the time, do dangerous things to maintain that look, which means no woman anywhere is granted the right to simply exist as she is...not even the "super-skinny models," the ones who actually do the deed of performing the ideal that everyone is held to, but who are among the least responsible for the ideal; in fact, they are typically victimized more by this ideal than are the "ordinary women" in the target audience. While ordinary women may feel dismay that they don't look that way, or strive in vain to look that way, the models themselves have no choice but to look that way, (or find work in another field.)

While I don't doubt that many "ordinary" women do look at the falsified images of already extremely small women and long to resemble them, many women also realize what is going on. They understand that maintaining such an appearance is unrealistic for virtually all women. When the membership to modelhood opens up a little wider, to encompass size 8's, 12's, 14's...this understanding about reality starts to get shaky. "Beauty" becomes all the closer to women's reach, but that doesn't necessarily mean that beauty is now within women's reach; it just means that the ache of not having beauty is all the stronger...because it should be so much easier...

What happens, (as some people mentioned on The F Word,) when women look at these women and still don't "measure up"? Be ye assured; these are very beautiful women, (hence me, wiping up all the slobber.) What if you're still not anywhere near as skinny as that? What if you have veins all over your legs? What if your skin is thinner and saggier than that? What if you're much, much older than those women? As one commenter said, (in fact, I think all these issues were brought up in the comments over there,) there is only one woman of color in the photo.

Even if all beauty magazines began to use models like these, rather than "super-skinny" ones, that would still mean that the road to beauty is narrow...only less narrow than it used to be. When a road is narrow enough, many people simply choose not to go down it; there's no point. But if it is conceivable that ordinary, average women (just like you and me!) can, and sometimes do, make it down that road, then it is conceivable that we all could (should) do it...right?

See, what is dangerous about this, is that the magazines would no longer be imploring women, however implicitly, to compare themselves with a select few women; they would be imploring "average" women to compare themselves to other "average" women. That doesn't relax the competition; it makes it more intense.

Which brings me to my main point of the post, okay...and that is to ask why in the world women are looking to "women's" magazines for encouragement to be themselves? I do agree that "women's" magazines have the great potential for such, and there are magazines out there that seek to empower women, but that's not what "women's" magazines are manufactured for. Women who do not feel confident are much better for a free market economy than women who do. If women didn't think they needed to lose weight, wear makeup, remove their body hair, get rid of wrinkles, have bigger breasts, on and on, forever and ever, etc, etc...then they wouldn't try, and many of the products that sponsor the magazines and are in turn profiled in the magazines would not even exist. Indeed, the magazines themselves would not exist. But the magazines serve a greater purpose than simply stimulating revenue for a bunch of companies that produce useless, and even harmful, crap: they encourage their readers to more eagerly turn all their displeasure on themselves. Not only does this provide an object to receive the rage of so many women, averting it away from its cause, but it ensures that women spend up their energy and resources in vain, so that there is none leftover to challenge the status quo with. It's been said over and over, and yet, so many women still don't see this, because they are so preoccupied with what is wrong with them. It is not the aim of "women's" magazines to lessen women's anxieties about their bodies, and so it is not really about which models appear in the magazines, or what topics are covered in the magazines, or any other aspect about the content or presentation of the magazines. It's about letting the fuckers rot on the newsstand.

* (follow the link for the picture of the naked girls; i've deleted it off this site cause it was making me anxious to have to scroll past it so fast to get to my links without my parents seeing it and my mom did see part of it and said, "Oh, good Lord." So, hehe :) picture is down.)

**More about this later; I'm planning another post in my mind.

Muscadine Jelly

2009-10-06T00:05:00.013-04:00

We have some beautiful young muscadine vines in the yard, only a few years old, but they are starting to make a substantial amount of grapes. My mother likes to eat them straight up, but there were too many for her (and the rest of us) to eat straight up. bowls of them were ripening deeper on the kitchen countertops, and the vines were still loaded down. I thought it sure would be a shame to let those grapes waste, so I decided to try my hand at making jelly out of them. Usually, everything I cook turns to dust, but my successful pickles made me a little more confident. besides...they were just going to spoil anyway; at the worst it would mean a waste of sugar.

The first step was, of course, picking all the grapes. below are a few images of them hanging on the vine.

After I collected them all up, I washed them and got the stems and dirt off them.

The next, and most painstaking step was to poke with a knife and then pop out each individual grape's insides, then toss both the skins and the pulps into a large cooking pot. (This is not anywhere ALL of the grapes; pictured in the below image is about a fourth of the amount.)

After that, I added a little water and fruit juice to them (not to much extra liquid, though,) and boiled them just long enough for the seeds and skins to loosen from the meat of the grapes. After that, I used a potato masher and/or a large serving spoon to press them through a large colander. (The leftover seeds and skins are good for the compost pile.) Below is the process of mashing them.

If I ever do this again, I am going to use a cheesecloth or the like to squeeze the grapes; using this thing still allowed the stray smaller seed to escape through.

When all the grapes had been mashed and strained, (I spread the process over two days, and it took about two hours each time I worked on it. I collected up all the cooked juice with pulp in the refrigerator to keep myself from becoming overly frustrated with the process,) I put them in a larger pot with equal amounts fruit and sugar. I stirred this and let it come to a gentle boil. (Not pictured: while this pot was heating up, I mixed one package of fruit pectin and enough water to cover the bottom of a small saucepan, brought that to a boil, then poured and stirred it evenly into this big pot as it slowly heated.)

The pectin causes a foam to form along the top of the hot jelly; the directions warned this could happen, and said it needs to be skimmed off the top before you jar the jellies.

Here is an awesomely gross picture of the skimmed-off foam! It looks very ugly, but it tastes like (yeah, I couldn't resist,) it tastes like sugary fruit, and the texture varies from light and frothy to pencil-eraser-rubbery. But it looked so cool, i had to snap a picture before dumping it...

I prepared my jars by running them through the dishwasher with water only. I took them out mid cycle, while they were still too hot to touch, ran hot water over the lids to soften the seals, poured the jelly in the still-hot jars and then put the hot seals on. This is the same process I used to make pickles; I know you're supposed to bathe the sealed jars in boiling water for so long to make sure they are sterile, and if someone has the capabilities and the know-how to do that, that is great; but I don't, so I'm thinking this way is just right for my purposes.

When it was all over, I ended up with a whole 12 case of 12 oz. jelly jars full, plus 2 full pints and 1 incomplete pint.

Check it out. It shall be eaten first.

It was a pain in the ass to do. It took a cumulative six hours over the course of three days. I'm glad I did it, and I hope they gel nicely and turn out successfully, and I'm glad I put the grapes to use, but it was work. Some folks put themselves out like this and then part with these things for five dollars a pop at the farmer's market. Can you believe that? I just don't think I could do it!

"Healthy Living"

2009-10-03T16:53:00.004-04:00

Women are fat, women eat bad foods (ie, pizza), and men look great!

Now, you might be thinking I'm just picky; that this ad simply contains women, and to a lesser extent, men, because diet scams are typically marketed to women...the ones who fret the most about their muffin tops and abominable food-sins, but they didn't want to leave out the men! Ok, ok, so...maybe you're right, but I can't help but notice that the "bad body" pic is of a woman's body, that the "bad eating" pic is of a woman's eating, and the "good/better body" pic (transformed by this "weightloss product") is of a man's body...nor can I just brush it off as coincidence.

Mariah Carey...as an ugly, UGLY social worker!

2009-10-01T00:30:00.005-04:00

Ok, so when I was checking my Yahoo!Mail, I saw this story. I've already heard a little about the new Tyler Perry movie about a fat girl titled Precious, right? But I did NOT know that Mariah Carey was cast to play one bag of a hideous, ugly, wretched, unsightly, unbelievably hard to even look at, nasty, disgusting...did I mention ugly? yes, I probably did, because I can't even find words to describe what an ugly social worker Mariah Carey plays in this movie. Have you seen her? Huh? Have you? Cause you're not going to believe your eyes. I couldn't believe mine. I had never seen a human being so ugly in all my life. You ready for it??? Huh???

...Uh, yeah...exactly. And there's a movie trailer if you follow the link; you can watch the ugly social worker in action a little. This is what Mariah had to say about the ugliness of her character:

"That was such a freeing experience for me. By making me look so bad he brought out the ability to never be self-conscious again, and that was a gift that he gave me."

After that, the article abandons the topic of how she felt to be uglied-down for the camera, in favor of the topic of her married life.

On one hand, I feel sorry for Mariah. How horrible that a human being could not sit there looking like this perfectly normal, lovely person in the photographs and be okay with it, and I am happy for her that she overcame her anxiety at having to appear onscreen looking the way she does in these photographs. But what about the audience of this article, made up largely of people who are at least as "ugly" as Mariah's character in the movie? I feel a little sorry for them (us), too....

Babies

2009-09-30T19:55:00.001-04:00

The collard babies are in the ground. The cabbage, cauliflower, and broccoli babies will get planted tomorrow. The sun goes down at 7:30 instead of 9:00 like it did in the summer, haha...and I sort of misjudged how late to start. Pictures coming.

I hope they do well.

Eating Fire

2009-09-30T15:19:00.013-04:00

The other night, I was tired, but unable to settle down and sleep. I thought maybe some reading would help me fall asleep. Due to my tiredness, I didn't want to try to read from the Sexual Politics of Meat, because I wanted to be able to devote more of my cognitive power to comprehending it when I was more awake. I decided to pull from the drawer Best Lesbian Erotica 2007. (It hasn't come out of the drawer since 2007.) I remembered having been in the middle of it somewhere when it went in the drawer and didn't make it back out. I flipped through the stories and sort of vaguely remembered them, until I came to the first completely unfamiliar one. It was "On Fire," by Rachel Kramer Bussel, (who is my friend on MySpace! :))

To shortly summarize the story, a lesbian or bisexual woman has a crush on a self-identified straight woman (named Brenda) who is reluctant to pay her any attention in return. One day Brenda tells her that if she really wants to date her, she will have to learn how to swallow fire and do it in front of everybody in the amateur burlesque show that is coming up. The narrator doesn't want to do it at first, but then she changes her mind and starts training for it. She does the show, swallows the fire, Brenda is pleased, they go home and engage in light S&M. The end.

I can't say I didn't like the story, because I like good art, and as long as art makes you feel something, then the art is successful; it's not the responsibility of the art (or artist) to make you feel good. I can say, though, that I didn't like the way the story made me feel when I read it. For a minute, I couldn't understand why. The writing style appealed to me; I particularly liked the way she styled a passage that mentioned the narrator's childhood friendship with her pet snake to reveal the tenderness that she felt for her pet. Perhaps I just couldn't relate to the characters, you know...it happens when lace doesn't do a thing for you, whether it's on you or someone else. No, this was worse than just not "getting it;" this was discomfort. By the time I got to the sex part, I could hardly focus on it; I wasn't comprehending the words and they couldn't hold my interest well. Spinning through my mind was the fear that there will always be the request to eat fire.

I've eaten enough figurative fire in enough metaphorical amateur burlesque shows to last me the rest of my life. So much that I don't think I could ever do it again, or want to, and I can count the people I've slept with on one hand. More specifically, on one finger.

You say you love me? Prove it. Very seldom are the ultimatums so blunt (and relatively benign) as, "Baby, you want to sleep with me? Eat fire!" Very seldom do they travel in packs of one, and very seldom do they actually function as the currency that you are assured they will—do it and they will love you. Just do it, and then they will let you in. Finally.

The story is a work of fiction; I understand that, and at the end, Brenda acknowledges that she would have let the narrator in, even had she not gone through with the challenge.

Nonetheless, the fear that I stirred in myself by reading the story kept me up all night. I didn't get to sleep until 6 am. I'm usually okay with the idea that the choice we must make is not whether to love or not, but whether to eat fire or not, and I'm usually okay with the idea that I can choose not eating fire and not having love, if that is the only way not to be asked to eat fire, but that night/morning, I was not okay with it. I want love. I will go to the ends of the Earth for it. But I also am of the belief that when someone loves you, and is willing to go to the ends of the Earth for you, you have a certain responsibility to make sure that they don't when it's not necessary; that you shouldn't make them do it just for your amusement. I wouldn't do that to someone. I'll just about be damned if I'll let anyone do it to me again.

I'll have to see what I think of the next story or so and decide whether 2007 goes back in the drawer for awhile...

What I would do if I had consensual sex with four men

2009-09-28T11:24:00.021-04:00

Well, I've heard there was this Lying Whore™ at Hofstra University who tried to ruin the lives of four innocent men by saying that they tied her up and raped her, (and I been meaning to write about it, but just now getting to it, so I know it's old, but I do want to write about it.) The cops repeatedly questioned her, you know, because sometimes when people first go into the cop station and start telling what happened, you know, they are a little confused and need the cops to help them clear everything up and get the truth out. In this case, they told her that there was a cell phone video (link goes to a news story, not the video) of what she was erroneously calling rape that showed that she was not being raped, despite the fact that even the boys' attorneys admit that the video didn't even show everything that went down; only a fraction of it.

I'm not even going to bother saying, as some feminists are, "What she did was horrible, but..." because I'm not convinced that what she did was horrible. She lied about being tied...there were at least six minutes of the "sex" in which she wasn't tied, (and even if she had been tied, that wouldn't really disprove that it was consensual, right? Cause some bitches like even that, right? *wink, wink*) And I can understand how someone with 18 years of experience living in the world we live in would be smart enough to know that the police wouldn't believe she was raped if she just said, "I was standing there petrified; I couldn't move, I was scared of what they might do to me if I didn't listen to them," and I can see how a young person such as this might think that if she said she were tied up, then the police might better understand that she couldn't move, because some cops (as well as people in general) have an inability to see invisible ropes. Invisible ropes aren't always imaginary ropes. But seriously, I've heard enough about what people would do if it happened to them, and how this doesn't match up with what they would do if they were raped, so instead, I'll write about how I would act if I had consensual sex with four men*, and how my behavior would differ from that of the Lying Whore™ in this case.

If I had consensual sex with four men, first of all, I wouldn't be having it in the men's public bathroom of the dorm. I would demand a nice bed in a private room, even if it were just a cheapie motel for crying out loud. I'm sure between the five of us we'd be able to each come up with $10 for a motel room. Even if we were too broke to afford that, those dorms also have bedrooms in them, too, you know, not just showers and toilets. Now, I respect the rights of others to choose the bathroom over the bedroom, but this is, after all, a paragraph about what I would do if it were me having consensual sex with four men. If someone took out a cell phone and started taping me, well, I wouldn't appreciate that so much. You see, it's not the fact of being filmed itself that would upset me, but the fact that, for me, I like my sex to stay private, between/(among) me and the other participant(s), and a cell phone video doesn't just stay on one cell phone, don't you know.

"Oops, sorry about your phone," I would say to the amateur filmographer as his lip quivered with sadness over his broken phone, "but I did not tell you to tape me, and you didn't ask." If, however, I was just so into the consensual group sex that I didn't notice that one of the men took out a cell phone and started taping me, and that tape did show up later for whatever reason, I don't doubt that anyone would have to wonder whether it was consensual or not. Still and quiet and complacent? Me? Of course not. Does an unconsenting woman buck and howl and smile and participate in sex? Of course they don't, because they don't want it. Are some consenting women still and quiet? I'm sure they are, but a nonconsenting woman never genuinely** throws herself into her rape with all of her heart.

And finally, if I had consensual sex with four men, I would not go to the police and file a false police report. I would be grinning and dizzy for the rest of the day, high off the adrenaline and oxytocin and etc. Why on Earth would I file a false police report on my fuck buddies? It would pretty much spoil my chances of ever reliving my consensual sex with them. Even if one or all of them said something to piss me off the next day, there are more efficient ways, much more efficient ways, of getting back at a man/men than filing a false police report accusing them of rape. Why would I put myself through all that shit when I could just slash their tires? Let them file a report on me, huh. Let them prove I did it; I defy them to prove I did it. Besides, even if they could prove it, if I had to choose between getting in trouble with the cops for cutting their tires or filing a false report on them, I'd choose tires.

That Pandagon article that I cited as an example of "What she did was wrong, but..." said she was probably calling sex rape to "clear her name;" to make herself not implicit in the group sex, since women who have group sex are bad, calling it a "Stupid idea, of course, but she’s 18 years old. There’s a lot of stupid at that age." Oh, yeah? Well, I'm most nearly 22; I'm just on the other side of that college degree from her. Have I accumulated a bit more crystalized knowledge than she? Perhaps, but I doubt that I have entirely better reasoning skills; I mean, it's only four years. If you don't want to look like a slut, then it really is a stupid idea to take private sexual activity and publicize it for everyone to know. Because no one would have known if you hadn't told them. Maybe if she thought there was video that would leak out, then she needed to go ahead and declare that she was raped to make her an unwilling participant, in hopes people would view her less harshly, but that couldn't be the case here, because it was that very tape that made her recant. Honestly, if one has consensual sex with four men, and is afraid people will think she is a slut, then the most illogical thing to do would be to tell people about it. I wouldn't. (Ok, I would probably brag about it on an anonymous blog, but...hehe, that's not really shame, is it?) Now, I did say that this is me talking about what I would do if I had the consensual sex with four men, and I do maintain that I can't speak for everyone, but for someone to have such a "stupid idea" would have to mean that the person was less smart than I am, and that would be a completely unfair assessment for me to make of a young woman who I don't even know, only heard of from her "false rape" report in the news, so I am going to give her the benefit of the doubt and assume that she is at least as smart as I am.

I know there are people who would say my view of what I would do if I had consensual sex with four men is farfetched; I mean, what if it were not as pleasurable as I envisioned it would be? What if one/some of them tried to pull some shit that was not cool with me? What if they started to hurt me? What if I changed my mind and didn't want it to continue? I know there are those women who place their desire to please above their own pleasure, and who will sacrifice their comfort for the boys, but I just don't think that if it were me, I would do that. Well, since it is consensual sex, then I should be able to halt all of it with a minimum amount of communication, right?

Bullshit, you say? Good luck finding four wonderful, compassionate boys who would listen to "no" and "stop" and "that hurts" and "I don't want that," especially when they synergistically compound each other's manliness, gathered around one woman, you say? That's not the way it works, you say? In my dreams, you say?

Well, you don't say...

Now, I'm not saying right out that the girl truly was raped, and for some reason or other, was railroaded into recanting her accusations, but I will say that her behavior doesn't at all resemble what mine would be if I had consensual sex with four men, but you know, that's just me.

*It's unlikely to happen, but on the off-chance it did happen, this is the way it would happen.
** I say "genuinely" here, because a single knife or gun off camera is all it would take to make most people be talked into acting in whatever way they were told.

Another Indigo Post...

2009-09-25T22:24:00.007-04:00

This is a poem attributed to Amy during a performance of "Chickenman."

i asked my love what will breathe eternally?
i asked my love what will breathe eternally?
i said love
would you know these hands lying unforgiven, immobile
in the bottom of a desperate hole?
would you know these eyes if they were on fire on a funeral pyre
floating down a river side?
would you know this chest sunken and depleted
reaching to be filled by you?
would you know these arms, stretching up to the trees
past the moon?
would you know this soul reaching vilely explaining waiting
for some further fascination?
i said love
would you know me?
would you know my mouth if it wasn't on you?
would you know my feet lying dead in the middle of the wood
growing up like trillion on the forest floor
mushrooms flying all around?
i said love what will breathe eternally?
what can i leave you?
what part of me?
what will breathe eternally?
and love will you know my body stretched out like so many skins
along this carcass highway?
love

i was on the road to austin...

Indigo Setlists

2009-09-21T15:18:00.009-04:00

17 September 2009 - The Orange Peel, Asheville, NC

Love of Our Lives
Sugar Tongue
Least Complicated
Reunion
Power of Two
Driver Education
What Are You Like
Yield
Love's Recovery
Three County Highway
Get Out the Map
Shame on You
Digging For a Dream
Heartache For Everyone
Fleet of Hope
Second Time Around
The Wood Song
Land of Canaan
I'll Change
Ozilline
Closer to Fine
Starkville
Galileo

18 September 2009 - The Fillmore, Charlotte, NC*

Love of Our Lives
Sugar Tongue
Fill It Up Again
Heartache For Everyone
What Are You Like
Ghost of the Gang
Power of Two
Become You
Fleet of Hope
Gone Again
Get Out the Map
Go
I'll Change
Driver Education
Fly AwayKid Fears
Johnny Rottentail
Virginia Woolf
Shame On You
Closer to Fine
Second Time Around
Galileo

*(The order may be a little off on the second set, and I suspect I'm missing an Emily song.)

First of My Two Concerts Tonight...

2009-09-17T14:37:00.002-04:00

Time to go out and Windex the windshield, (lol, I'm serious.)

Do You Have To Be...?

2009-09-16T15:52:00.004-04:00

*Sigh*...poor scared kids...damn...

"I'm not a feminist, but..."

2009-09-10T12:15:00.002-04:00

Aunt B's post at Feministe about the women of country music, and how they, as well as ordinary women in the South, sometimes said and did feminist-like things, but always disavowing their interest in the women's rights movement.

The phrase "I am not a feminist, but..." is a disclaimer phrase; a phrase that exempts its speaker from being critiqued for being a feminist, while they proceed to make a feminist comment.

"I'm not a feminist, but there is no reason why any woman should be raped, ever. Even if she takes a walk down the street nude. It's not her fault."

"I'm not a feminist, but it seems like women still don't earn as much money as men, and that is just wrong."

"I'm not a feminist, but I think that children ought to take their mothers' names when they are born. She's the one who had them, after all!"

It's a disclaimer phrase, for sure...there's no doubt about that. What intrigues me, and bothers me, is how it differs from your other disclaimer phrases. Usually, speakers use disclaimer phrases to distance themselves from the negative comments they are about to make.

"I'm not a racist, but I think affirmative action is wrong. No one should have things handed to them just because of race."

"I'm not a sexist, but it's a proven fact; women are physically inferior to men."

"I got no problem with gay people; I just don't think they ought to be allowed to get married."

People generally don't insist on their opposition to something so that they can then agree with people they don't want to be associated with.

You hardly hear anyone say things like, "I don't believe in affirmative action, but it is easier for white people to get jobs/go to college, and that's not fair." Or, "I believe that homosexuality is a sin, but Americans are still Americans and they need their tax breaks and insurance benefits." (The closest I've heard to this one is, "I personally believe it's wrong, but it's not my place to say.")

However, "I'm not a feminist, but..." is not an unusual creature at all. So sad that the backlash, to an extent, worked quite well.

Baptism and a Steak Dinner

2009-09-09T16:12:00.005-04:00

A high school coach in Kentucky took his team on a field trip to a church. Well, that's when things got a little serious and "nearly half the kids were baptized."

OK, this strikes me as really wrong. Aside from the whole violation of Church and State separation thing, (cause let's get real, people violate that all the time,) the school did not send out a permission form for this field trip. Well, back when I was in school, we had to have permission slips signed, so that the parents would be informed, and the school couldn't be held legally responsible if something happened to the child during the field trip. It also allows the school to explicitly spell out where the child will be taken, and for what purpose. Hell, I had to get a permission slip signed in order read The Color Purple by Alice Walker and Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg. (I had a very cautious teacher who gave the utmost respect to parents' somewhat paranoid wishes.) So...just why did anyone, no matter how religious, decide that it was a good idea not to seek out parents' written permission?

If they genuinely felt there was nothing wrong with it, why deceive the parents in the first place? Why not proudly send the kiddies home with permission slips? Oh...that's right; because it's "not a school-sponsored event," despite the presence of school officials, and the fact that they took a school bus. Is that the reason we have permission slips, now? Again, I thought that it was in order to protect the school from lawsuits. The secrecy confirms that the school officials involved did not think that it was appropriate, or else they wouldn't have hidden it. Although some parents had knowledge of the church service, since, as the article points out, they were present at the time, at least one parent didn't...the one that started squawking, Michelle Ammons, who is painted as a lone stick-in-the-mud parent who had her head in the sand, (although I wouldn't doubt if there were other uninformed parents who simply didn't come forth, either because they didn't disapprove, or because they didn't see the point.) Her son told her that the trip was "to go see a motivational speaker and have a free steak dinner." Other sons told their parents that the field trip was religious in nature.

Not even all the players went on the field trip, and of the ones who went, not even all got baptized. The superintendent said that, "They didn't get anything for attending. They didn't get anything for not attending." Because it is very important for the school to maintain that this was a free-will type thing, and keep up the veneer of "Church and State," of course they would say that. But when a coach is encouraging the players on his team to attend the church service, where they will ultimately be urged to get baptized, exactly how easy is it to resist? The ABC article touches on this, but only briefly. Depending on the personality of the coach, it could be relatively easy, or extremely difficult. The half of players or so that didn't go indicate that resistance was not necessarily difficult, but it's still the responsibility of adults to avoid situations that make it look like they could have compelled children to do things that they otherwise would not have done.

This controversy popping up at about the same time that some parents are opposing the socialist, Nazified indoctrination of their children by President Obama.

Vitamin Water...It's easier than exercise!

2009-09-09T14:02:00.003-04:00

Ok, so I check my Facebook home page, and in the panel to the right, there, is a "Sponsored" post from Vitamin Water. Here's a picture of it from a screenshot that I took. ("Alt"+"Print Screen" keys simultaneously, open a Paint document, paste it, crop it, and save it.)

What, exactly, is the audience supposed to garner from this ad? That you get vitamins from exercising? Or maybe that you get healthy muscles from Vitamin Water? Is it that if you drink Vitamin Water, you don't need to exercise? How could that be?

Drinking a beverage is easier than exercising? I suppose so; it takes less effort, and is much easier to fit into your schedule. Hell, I'm drinking a beverage just now as I type on the computer! Mind you, it's coffee, not Vitamin Water, but still...

Anyway, many things are easier than exercising. Sleeping, for instance, is easier than exercising. Reading is easier than exercising. Masturbation is easier than exercising, (no, it doesn't count as exercise.) But one thing can be said about each of those declarations: even though it may be true, doing any of those things does not mean that your body doesn't need exercise because you did them, even though each might also benefit you in its own way.

If they had said, "Vitamin Water: Easier than eating a vast array of different-colored vegetables," it would have made more sense. Because vitamins are vitamins, and while some people might argue that food is a better way get vitamins than supplements, (yes, Vitamin Water is a supplement, not a food,) getting vitamins whatever way you do is better than not getting them at all, I'll agree. But that's not the claim that was made. It said, "Easier than exercise."

If they had said, "Vitamin Water: Keeping you hydrated while you exercise," that would have made sense, too. It's not unusual for "sports beverages," so named, anyway, because of their association with replacing the fluid lost during exercise, to be promoted as even better alternatives to plain water for that purpose, (no matter how untrue that may be). But that also wasn't the claim that was made.

So...Vitamin Water is easier than exercise. If exercise doesn't give you vitamins, and Vitamin Water does not help keep your muscles strong and accustomed to use...then...what connection are we supposed to make...?

Gee...could it be that exercise has a more crucial role in life than just maintaining our muscles? Could it be that people exercise to get rid of fat and lose weight? Could it be that, for some people, if not most, the loss of that weight is more important to them than whether their body has strength and endurance and the opportunity to move?

I'm afraid that's the implication, going by the answers we can choose in the "poll," "Are you in shape?" "Yeah, for a sumo wrestler." (Dude, they are WRESTLERS. They could kick your ass. Oh, but yeah, they are really fat.) "I'm in excellent shape." (What does that mean?) "Is a pear a good shape?" (Obviously, the person who would choose this needs to lose that big old ass [she] is carrying around there...)

But, not to worry. The people who are not in "good shape," and invariably should be, need not think that their problem is that they need to exercise that weight off. Oh, no, there is an easier way. Vitamin water will make you skinny. "More fun than the gym, and no monthly fee." (Other than the money you spend on the Vitamin Water.)

I've also got to wonder, you know...just why someone who is trying to lose weight would need Vitamin Water more than someone who is not. Unless we're supposed to believe that Vitamin Water plays an active role in burning fat, which isn't even mentioned in the ad, it makes no sense why Vitamin Water would make a good weight-loss aid. Of course, you can also drink plain water throughout your day as much as you want without the worry that it will hinder your weight loss. But, plain water doesn't have vitamins in it. But food does...as well as "calories"...many more calories than Vitamin Water has...

Do you see what I'm getting at? I don't think Vitamin Water is being promoted as an alternative to "exercise"; I think it's being promoted as an alternative to food. That scares me a lot.

Hate is a very strong word...

2009-09-07T22:11:00.001-04:00

But I feel confident in saying that I hate Orson Scott Card. If I believed in Hell I would say he is going to Hell. I'm very glad I never wasted a second of my life reading any one of his books back when the people in high school were saying how great he was.

via Hoyden About Town.

The Internet.

2009-09-04T15:34:00.009-04:00

It makes me do things I wouldn't otherwise. Like to stay up till 3 am for no good reason three nights in a row, and to watch, of all things, Bill O'Reilly.

Now...I won't watch his show. I don't really care to hear anything that he has to say, because I don't really care to work myself up into frustration on more occasions than are necessary. But I must admit a few "Fuck it!"s set to music is quite funny.

And I'm usually opposed to the incessant use of the word "homo," but this version had me lmao...

The original, I must say, is not as funny as either of the edited ones, but I might have been more amused by it if I had seen it first.

Now, for the handful of you who haven't seen these yet, you're quite welcome. For those of you rolling your eyes at the fact that someone still finds this amusing...well, I'm afraid they are new for me.

In fact, I became aware of many internet traditions (hehe) for the first time while surfing this website.

My amusement extends beyond these individual "memes" to the idea of "memes" in general. Huge inside jokes that have many others besides me laughing, (and most of them started laughing before I did.) It helps create the sense of community. Some "memes" are relatively* harmless, such as recut movie trailers, my very favorite of which is Sleepless in Seattle.

But most, on the other hand, deal with making fun of ordinary people who probably don't really deserve it.**

In 2008...I think?...2007, I was first made aware of the Grape Lady from Atlanta. Although the person who sent the link to me (hi, if you're reading!) was expecting me to find the video funny, I instead felt awful for the Grape Lady (she is smushing grapes with her feet, trips on the side of her grape tub, and falls off a fairly high platform, in case you haven't seen it and don't want to follow the link.***) The sounds she made as she struggled to recover from the fall sounded very animal-like, and as the news reported noted at the end, her pain was very obviously real.

Sometimes I'm a bit hypocritical in my objection to the ridicule of others. Because, unfortunately, it's not always so easy not to find it funny. Chris Crocker (leave Britney alone!) managed to elicit a snicker out of me when it made its rounds on the news channels, even though I get equally defensive and hurt when someone says anything about any one of my girls. And I wonder just how much of the widespread "humor" came not from the pain he felt for Britney Spears, but from the fact that Chris is a male who presents himself in a way that is more expected of females.

In the "Stop Calling Bill O'Reilly A Homo" video from above, the audio, as well as the superimposed mouth, comes from another video, uploaded by a twelve year old. I watched the O'Reilly version before I saw the original, and I thought it was hilarious. I thought the original was funny, as well, but not quite as much. As I started watching the "related videos," though, I started to feel bad about laughing at the kid. As Know Your Meme points out, previous to the apparent deluge of comments calling him a homo that prompted him to make this video, he had released another video in which he explained why he believes that gay marriage is wrong, and that he "used to be gay, but decided that it's wrong." In another video, he said that God made the world perfect, but people have messed it up, and people will have to fix it, in part by not being violent. (The last two links come from CynthiaThyme, a person who obviously has even less to do than I, who named their channel "The Homo Kid's Archive." It contains videos from the original kid, as well as a few from who I guess are his YouTube friends, and several remixes.) I can't feel okay about laughing at this kid,**** who is obviously just a young person, trying to decide where he stands and how he feels about things, who made the somewhat unwise decision to post these videos. He is a twelve-year-old, after all, with all the wisdom a twelve-year-old has, no more, no less; the Know Your Meme page says that he "did not completely understand what he was saying." Other videos (I don't remember which ones; they are in the "Archive") show him becoming very upset that other people can download and repost his videos, (indeed, closing his account could not get rid of them,) and that they post comments using "bad words." He implores the viewers to stop making fun of him, reminding them that he is a just a kid. I think he seems scared in some of the videos, because he realized how little control he had over his own material that he had uploaded. Perhaps he had expected the online community to respect each other's ownership of material, because he didn't know any better and assumed that other people would do so because he would do so.

I think maybe he is not so different from Atlanta Grape Lady.

*I say the movie trailers are relatively harmless, although the Mrs. Doubtfire one doesn't strike me as funny.

**But Bill O'Reilly does deserve it.

***I'm linking to these videos rather than embedding, because since I'm writing about them, I want to provide a reference, in case you want to see what I'm talking about, but I don't want them on my page, necessarily.

****Does it count if I still laugh at his mouth superimposed over Bill O'Reilly's?

Song of the Day

2009-09-03T00:19:00.003-04:00

One of These Days
written by Earl Montgomery
performed by Emmylou Harris

When I was in high school, I thought this song was about the desire to one day be able to break free of all the crap that other people generally have heaped on you. It makes sense to me that I would've interpretted it that way then, because that desire was something that I felt very strongly at the time. Our perceptions of the information we come in contact with not only depend on our identity, but also on where we happen to be as far as state of mind when we receive the information.

Now, the actual lyrics of this song, (or the music, for that matter,) have not changed one iota since I was in high school, and there is nothing there to prove or disprove that my interpretation from back then was "right." But when I listen to this song now, the circle of the speaker's critics has closed in. I no longer hear the lamenting of a speaker who wants to be rid of the limits put on her socially, but of a speaker who really, really, really needs to get away from an individual who is toxic. I hear this because I understand well the meaning of, "Somewhere, for me, I know there's peace of mind." But then again, I knew the meaning of that line when I was in high school, too.

I love art because of that very phenomenon.

Ponderings on the Pothole

2009-09-02T17:23:00.008-04:00

Would the commercial "work" (assuming that it does) if the pothole spoke with a Midwest (or any other regional) accent, or is the Southern accent key to our understanding that the pothole is a ditz?

Would the commercial "work" if the pothole were male? Would a male pothole have offered to change the tire, rather than just offering to use the cell phone to call someone, before remembering that "he" is merely a pothole?

Is the pothole a yonic symbol, and would that support and contribute to the notion that the pothole fucks up the (presumably) male driver's day?

Exactly why do I (and if I do it, I know others do, too,) presume that the driver is male? Because the pothole is female? Because of the way "she" speaks to the driver? Because the car is too angular looking for a woman to drive? Because cars in general are thought of as masculine? Or just because everyone is presumed male until we know otherwise?

New Babies

2009-09-01T17:59:00.015-04:00

(I apologize that some of these pics are sideways. Blogger has decided not to post them right-side up. I even tried saving them sideways and uploading them, but when I did that, it *did* upload them the way they were...which made them still sideways...anyway....)

This one big old collard below is the biggest plant so far. Due to being in a larger cup than some, as well as not being initially chewed down by a big-ass grasshopper and having to be replaced, like most of its other siblings, it is taking off.

Here are what most of the collards look like. Most of these are younger, due to earlier ones being eaten and me having to replant in the cups. But they are catching up to the others.

Cabbages

Red cabbages.

Broccoli and cauliflower.

Cauliflower. This one happens to be an Early Snowball X Cultivar. It used to be in a peat pot, but I was watering it and the bottom broke and it started being swept away in the water, so i scooped it up and put it in a different cup. Looks to be doing fine. It didn't have it's little true leaf at the time I replanted it, and now it does!

They all look about the same to you at this point? Me, too. Even their seeds look the same. That's why I labeled them very thoroughly.

It's official. I'm going.

2009-08-31T21:31:00.003-04:00

I bought my tickets for the two North Carolina Indigo Girls shows on 17 and 18 September. (I don't know why the whole tour widget doesn't show...I guess it's just too wide for Blogger's CSS.) I'm dragging my poor father (again) because I don't want to go by myself. :)

2009-08-28T22:42:00.002-04:00

This post over at Feministe has me thinking...

It's about how sex ed under the Obama administration, and how um...how it's the same old shit we've been seeing from conservatives for years and years.

Basically, it's better to wait till you're married to have sex. (If you're queer, it's better for you to never have sex, ever...I mean, by extension, that is the conclusion that you inevitably come to.) AND...it's better for kids who grow up in a household with a married mom and dad. You know, they just do better.

Huh. Yes, I suppose they DO do better. I mean, well...it's sort of hard to socialize kids to believe that in order for a woman to be a successful parent (and successful person), that she must get married to a man, (while she's still a virgin, of course,) when these kids watched their own single mother raise them and do just fine. And I suppose it is hard to socialize kids to believe that men are supposed to be void of nurturing ability when their single dad raised them and did just fine. And I suppose it is hard to socialize kids to be intolerant of gay peeps when their two moms or two dads did just fine. It's hard to make kids believe the crap we are "supposed" to believe when they grow up with first hand proof that, no, it's not necessary to do these things in order to be a decent person or belong to a "real" family. Not to mention...all those "truths" we know about how men and women are start to fall away as well.

So, if by, kids do "better" in a nuclear family with married heterosexual parents, one means that they learn to see this norm as the only way...then yes, by all means, they do much better. I'm doubtful of all the claims that they put forth about married people being richer and happier, although the fact that people still are ostracized for not following this social model might contribute to all manner of negative things affecting their health and/or opportunities in life.

And like they point out at Feministe, parents are encouraged not to talk about "the parts"---if it's "embarrassing" to be "explicit" about it, as they say in the commercial. So here, we have the proud tradition of another cultural norm: bodies are shameful and sex is shameful.

Yes, I guess they are pretty much covering it all in this sex ed.

Books

2009-08-28T13:30:00.002-04:00

Women, Sex, and the Law by Rosemarie Tong came in the mail today. So excited. Intercourse and Woman Hating by Andrea Dworkin still in transit somewhere. I've also found quite a few poetry and literature books, as well as novels, quite cheap from thrift stores, and my little library is growing even bigger.

I've been reading some on other blogs, commenting, and reading from books, but haven't felt much like writing anything. Mostly because of my sinus infection that's kept me on my ass, lol, and thankfully, it is almost better. I certainly do have thoughts in my brain that I would like to share soon.

Kissing Mistakes to Avoid

2009-08-26T22:30:00.002-04:00

So, MSN got this story from Marie Claire...obviously from what I see, a panel of three people with screen names decided there are four kissing mistakes that, if you do them, will cause you to be ostracized from society for the rest of your life, or something like that. I just thought it was somewhat amusing.

http://lifestyle.msn.com/relationships/articlemcmatch.aspx?cp-documentid=20968511>1=32023

Why it...you know...might be a good idea to...read the book...before you, you know...depict the main character on the cover (!?)

2009-08-13T17:48:00.014-04:00

I have seen several posts on this story on various websites around, such as "The F Word: Contemporary UK Feminism". Justine Larbalestier's book Liar features a lead character, Micah, who is a pathological liar. OK. So here is the American version of the cover that someone came up with.

Well...I suppose on some level that the people responsible for this thought it was quite clever...get it? get it? she's a liar, and her hair is folded over her mouth. Oh, yes. I see in my post-cognitive mind's eye...someone pumped, excited, thrilled, relieved...living on a natural high for the rest of the day, and perhaps, all of the next day...because they solved the problem! In a clever, clever way! A sort of clever that doesn't have too much subtlety to it, but sort of a little clever, all the same. Yea!

Hmmm, hmmm....hmmm, hmmmm....yeah, that would all be great and everything, you know...IF the lead character had been a long-haired white girl.

But...she's a black girl with short hair.

"But-but-but..." I can hear someone, a [white] designer, mutter defensively in my post-cognitive mind's eye, "How was I supposed to know she was black? I didn't read the book. I'm a designer; not an editor!!! I had the synopsis: Girl who is a pathological liar. Besides, that pic they sent me of the author to use for the About the Author showed a white girl. White people usually ... write ... about ... white ... people ... don't ... they...?" I can almost feel their heart pounding as they realize what they've done; the gravity of the "oops!" I see that little bottom lip quivering; the furrowed brow, the alarmed eyes.

I sort of feel for 'em, but, uh...then again, I sort of don't.

Look, I understand that you're not going to be able to read a book every time you do a book cover. I mean, you get busy...besides, there is more to life than work. But if you don't KNOW what the lead character(s) look like...it is NEVER, EVER, EVER, EVER a good idea to guess, and hope for the best. Because you're not likely to get the best. There are ways to be clever and solve the problem...without revealing the fact that you don't really know what the book is about.

The title is Liar, and the girl is a pathological liar. From here, you explore the idea of "lies"; the concepts that can shoot off the idea of a "liar." How might it feel to be compelled to tell lies, even when you don't wish to? You think about it, and think about it, and think about it some more, and you work your way past a point where this cover above stops...the somewhat clever, but also somewhat obvious and predictable.

Perhaps, you explore the word "liar" itself. What does that word feel like? What sort of font should it have? How do you communicate the meaning of "lies" through your presentation of the word "liar"?

That is what the Australian version of the cover does.

BUT. There's more.

After someone didn't read the book, but decided to design as though they had...someone else did an even bigger "oops" in the publishing company...someone, somewhere, at Bloomsbury, KNEW that the lead character does not resemble the person on the cover of the book, and somehow the cover got approved anyway.

Justine was obviously upset about this. But the publishing director over at Bloomsbury, Melanie Cecka, suggested that the cover works. After all, Micah lies about everything else...isn't it quite possible that she's actually a white girl claiming to be a black girl? She does add, however, that this interpretation won't make everyone happy.

Um, no...understandably it won't make everyone happy...least of all the author. The company also gave some crap about how the cover is symbolic. But really...why are you going to show a random allegorical girl on the cover who is not even a character in the book? Sometimes, these things just DON'T make sense...

Not surprisingly, the real reason the cover passed is that, well, you see, [white] folks just don't buy books with black folk on the cover. The publishing companies, well...they are out to make money, and you just don't make money off covers with black people. (I wonder how you could make money off black covers, when...uh...they don't seem to be out there.)

Well, as ye are aware if you've clicked many of the links thusfar, the "but maybe the photograph is just symbolic/maybe she's just lying about her race, too" argument has lost out to Justine's wishes, (thank God!), and now the image of Micah more closely reflects the description of her in the text.

And so...at the end of the day, the moral of the story is, even if they try to run you over, DO NOT shut up, keep fighting; keep pushing; keep speaking up. BE angry. It just might work. And even if they win out, there's no reason you have to pretend you don't mind the mistreatment.

Well, that's one moral of the story. The second is that, dammit, if you haven't read the book and don't know what the protagonist looks like, then design around it. Because I know that is how this started.

Breck's

2009-08-03T20:45:00.003-04:00

Check out the website for Breck's. These are candy cane sorrel in the photo, one of the varieties of bulbs I ordered.

50 Things

2009-07-30T17:17:00.004-04:00

1. What time did you get up this morning?

About 10:30 (I answered this one when I decided to do the survey YESTERDAY. Today I got up at about 7. Or was AWAKENED about 7. and never could get back to sleep, despite trying.)

2. How do you like your steak?

I don't.

3. What was the last film you saw at the cinema?

Superman Returns

4. What is your favorite TV show?

Golden Girls (at the moment)

5. If you could live anywhere in the world where would it be?

Here is fine for now. I do hope to relocate to Heaven someday.

6. What did you have for breakfast?

A little Cap'n Crunch and 2 minibiscuits

7. What is your favorite cuisine?

Familiar foods

8. What foods do you dislike?

Lots

9. Favorite Place to Eat?

Here is fine.

10. Favorite dressing?

Ranch

11.What kind of vehicle do you drive?

Honda

12. What are your favorite clothes?

Jeans

13. Where would you visit if you had the chance?

Visit...damn...ask me later. I'd rather shoot myself than travel today. Even though I do love it. Not right now. You know how sometimes when you don't feel well the mention of food makes you feel sick, even though you usually love to eat? Well, that's me and travel today...

14. Cup 1/2 empty or 1/2 full?

There's no such thing. Either the cup is full or it's empty.

15. Where would you want to retire?

Look...remember how I said I feel about travel today? Well, I feel the same way about retirement. Or even WORK for that matter. Fuck I might die before I get old anyway, so who cares? (Yeah...that bad today...) OK, OK...I'll stop being an asshole long enough to answer the question: South Carolina. It's a fine place for retirement.

16. Favorite time of day?

Night.

17. Where were you born?

Here. Well, not in the house...in town.

18. What is your favorite sport to watch?

Please, I'm a girl. LOL. Now that you've had a laugh...I don't like sports and watch none.

19. Who do you think will not tag you back?

Tag...what? who cares.

20. Person you expect to tag you back first?

These are COP OUT questions. I mean...for real.

21. Who are you most curious about their responses to this?

I'll find out when I read theirs, i guess. I liked Daisy's answers, she's who I stole this from. But right now this survey is about ME! Don't you, survey writer, want to learn any new facts about ME???

22. Bird watcher?

no.

23. Are you a morning person or a night person?

night person

24. Do you have any pets?

yes, cats

25. Any new and exciting news you’d like to share?

I threw up this morning. Yep. And it was before breakfast so it was just stomach acid. How's that?

26. What did you want to be when you were little?

A country and western singer, a writer, an actress...

27. What is your best childhood memory?

Childhood...? I don't remember. It was too long ago.

28. Are you a cat or dog person?

Cat.

29. Are you married?

No.

30. Always wear your seat belt?

ALMOST always... (insert devil smiley)

31. Been in a car accident?

No, not really. just bumper taps. I should've got out and given that careless woman a piece of my mind...but i didn't. OH...hindsight...

32. Any pet peeves?

Everything and anything today...

33. Favorite Pizza Toppings?

Cheese. Maybe mushrooms and/or olives if I'm in the mood.

34. Favorite Flower?

Cyclamen, I guess...I like many

35. Favorite ice cream?

Those Blue Bell Buttered Pecan bars are nice...same problem as with all Buttered Pecan brands though...the pecans are irritating. Plain butter icecream without the chunks would be better.

36. Favorite fast food restaurant?

Taco Bell.

37. How many times did you fail your driver’s test?

Zero. After having a permit for three years, and NEEDING your license to drive yourself to the university in a few weeks?...you don't fail...

38. From whom did you get your last email?

My high school friend.

39. Which store would you choose to max out your credit card?

I wouldn't. That's the caliber of shit that caused the Great Depression...

40. Do anything spontaneous lately?

Um, i read a book. Start to finish, like normal. Well...I admit, it was nonfiction. But-but...it was about how NOT to write non-fiction, AND it might be one of the funniest books I've ever read.

41. Like your job?

I'm not working right now.

42. Broccoli?

Raw broccoli with salt. Dressing too if it's in a salad. Don't give me steamed broccoli, though. You'll steam it too long and I won't want it...Cauliflower is better steamed. Broccoli, no...

43. What was your favorite vacation?

Like I said earlier...I don't have much of an appetite for travel right now, thank you.

44. Last person you went out to dinner with?

My parents

45. What are you listening to right now?

Waltons

46. What is your favorite color?

Whichever is appropriate for the task at hand...

47. How many tattoos do you have?

Zero.

48. How many are you tagging for this quiz?

Cop out question.

49. What time did you finish this quiz?

Cop out question. 2:03 pm.

50. Coffee Drinker?

Yes. I just finished a cup of coffee. can't tell you the exact time on that one though...

Rorsharch Cheat Sheet!

2009-07-30T16:23:00.015-04:00

So, through the cyber grapevine, I heard the news that *some* psychologists have their figurative panties in a wad because a "cheat sheet" for the Rorcharch Test (that's those famous ink blots) has been posted on Wikipedia. The "cheat sheet" consists of the images, as well as some of the most-given answers for "What does this look like?" These answers are used to devise a "normative" standard...and thus abnormal responses. The argument is that, I suppose...all the crazies can now go to Wikipedia and memorize the answers, and that will make it impossible for doctors to discern whether or not someone is "normative" from the results. Hmmmm. This article from the New York Times, (I kid you not...click the link if you don't believe me,) says that, "For them," (meaning the psychologists,) "the Wikipedia page is the equivalent of posting an answer sheet to next year’s SAT." Yeah...

So, in case it is not obvious by the tone of my writing, I think that the ink blot tests, and the subsequent "normative responses", are all hogwash. I also question the randomness of the ink blots. And I also think that, in order to fake "normal"...many deviants do not need a cheat sheet...for real...

But, just for fun, I am going to repost the "cheat sheet"...as well as share with you my responses for what each image looks like to me. Please do not continue reading if you do not wish to be influenced by my suggestions, or the "right" answers.

Plate 1:
normative answers: bat, moth, butterfly
my answer: Two small elephant/fox/rabbit hybrid monsters attacking a headless woman in an old-fashioned dress.

Plate 2:
normative answer: Two humans
my answer: two twin garden gnomes kissing as a butterfly watches from underneath.

Plate 3:
normative answer: Two humans
my answer: Two naked bird/women hybrids fighting over a crab as a butterfly watches from between their breasts.

Plate 4:
normative answers: animal skin, massive animal
my answer: Lord, I don't know...a dust mite? A dog? a dragon?

Plate 5:
normative answers: bat, butterfly, moth
my answer: winged rabbit

Plate 6:
normative answers: animal hide, skin, rug
my answer: Something with two long eyelashes on each side...a fur coat with a high collar...caterpillaresque limbs...or maybe the way a bed post looks while you are hallucinating.

Plate 7:
normative answer: human heads/faces
my answer: Tiger Lily from Disney's Peter Pan, about to kiss her own reflection.

Plate 8:
normative answers: pink: animal
my answer: spine, pelvis, organs, and all that good jazz...

Plate 9:
normative answer: orange: human
my answer: fallopian tubes, uterus, vagina, and all that good stuff...(wait...when it indicates a color...are we supposed to look only at that color? well then why the f*ck did they put the other colors on there then...?)

Plate 10:
normative answer: blue: crab, lobster, spider
my answer: a penis-shaped rocket being propelled into outer space as fireworks go off all around it. Oh, and a pair of needle-nosed pliers at the bottom. And two warthogs hanging onto the pink smoke.

Peace and love, folks. <3

Daisy has a post up...

2009-07-20T17:36:00.002-04:00

...about how elitism within the feminist movement potentially caused Norma McCorvey (Roe of Roe vs. Wade)to become pro-life. I found the information quite shocking.

I Love this Book...Just...I Love It...

2009-07-19T17:26:00.003-04:00

I picked it up at the Book Exchange just yesterday. It is a very fast read. I saw over at Amazon there are more in the series. I don't agree with everything Ruiz says, but ironically, that is one of the points he makes in the book, that each of us individuals have the power to believe or not believe whatever we choose. He talks about the negative ways we are socialized, and once that fear gets set into place, we continue the oppression in our own minds. He calls this backward, self-destructive manner of thinking a parasite, and proposes ways to replace everything negative we have been taught with new "agreements" that we make with ourselves, this way the fear and negativity gets displaced and nowhere to grow within us. A very tall order, but a simple one; one that gives you a sense of, "yes, that's it," as you read. Fortunately, he prescribes that you never expect perfection of yourself; this way, when you fail at thinking positively, just try again, and keep trying. Check out his website.

Awesome picture

2009-07-15T13:03:00.004-04:00

This shit is too funny not to repost. Sarah Palin just has such a way with children.

From Feministe.

Corningware

2009-07-14T21:41:00.004-04:00

Today was a lucky day for me. I went to the Goodwill with my mom, and someone had donated a sluagh of Butterfly Gold pattern Corning mugs! I almost could not believe my eyes. There was also a Pyrex mug with the Butterfly Gold pattern, and another Pyrex mug with a black and white pattern on it. I found four Corelle dinner plates, one bowl, and one salad plate, a Four Season's salad plate, and a Anchor brown glass small bakeware. Awesome.

Then, I was helping my mom clean out the kitchen cupboards, and she decided that there was no reason for the multitude of Corning bakeware that she had to be under there taking up space. So she gave me the set with flowers on the side that I've been saying I was going to steal someday when I move anyway, as well as the white, round set. Cool. She decided to just keep her Blue Cornflower ones in the house to use. I kept one of the small flower ones she gave me in the house, too, in case I need it to cook something small in.

Pickles

2009-07-10T14:54:00.010-04:00

From my own recipe...nah, it's really stolen off the back of Mrs. Wages Pickling Lime, lol. I halved the amounts and tweaked the details; seems to be a very malleable recipe to do that with. I put dill in mine to make them dill pickles. The single most important step is the first one...to soak your cucumbers (or cucumber pieces) in the lime solution overnight. It's like salt, but better than salt for this. you know...osmosis and what not. Makes them crispy. Without it they would be shriveled and awful. Anyway, I am very happy that mine turned out well, since my cooking usually disappoints. Anyway, here are pictures, plus two sky ones and two bee ones...

We won't have any of that gay shit in Tennessee!

2009-07-09T18:28:00.002-04:00

http://www.wspa.com/spa/news/local/article/inappropriate_emails/23129/

Ok, ok...you can follow the link and watch the vid if you want. But if you don't: basically, a cop forwarded a junk email that made a "funny" about queers and homophobia. The basic idea: a kid sees two granddaddy longlegs mating. The kid says, "Mom, what are those spiders doing?" She says, "Mating." At some point the kid realizes they are both granddaddy longlegs, and starts stomping them, and says, "That might be all right in California, but we won't have any of that gay shit in Tennessee!"

Hardee fucking har har, I know, right? The video goes on to show randomly chosen peeps off the street, some who didn't think it was so funny...as well as some (who are obviously not gay,) chuckling about it, regardless of what their personal views are on whether gay spiders should or shouldn't be stomped, if you know what I mean......then they get shocked when the reporter reveals to them...GASP!...a cop was using your tax dollars to fuck around and send this email to friends using work email on a work computer. Since they are still deciding what to do to this officer as a result of his "funny," here's hoping he loses his job and truly understands how little gay shit they will put up with in Tennessee!*

*(Actually, it was North Carolina)

2009-07-09T17:02:00.002-04:00

I wrote a sestina. Then I made pickles. Pictures coming.

I'm about done with PostSecret

2009-07-05T17:13:00.007-04:00

For realz. The novelty and edginess has worn off. Besides. . . you get shitz such as these that are pretty much puke-inducing.

So. . . either way, whether men are saints or assholes, they are responsible for lesbianism. Good to know. Maybe they are also responsible for male heterosexuality as well. . . ? I mean, it's just a thought. If little Timmy doesn't like how Daddy (or other man) treated Mommy, maybe that is why he grew up attracted to women instead of men. Or maybe if little Johnny's dad and grandpa were so great, maybe that's why he turned to women. . . cause no man could ever be like his dad or grandpa.

Uh-huh . . .

Poem of the Day

2009-07-03T12:24:00.002-04:00

One-and-Twenty
A.E. Housman

When I was one-and-twenty
I heard a wise man say,
"Give crowns and pounds and guineas
But not your heart away;
Give pearls away and rubies
But keep your fancy free."
But I was one-and-twenty,
No use to talk to me.

When I was one-and-twenty
I heard him say again,
'The heart out of the bosom
Was never given in vain;
"Tis paid with sighs a plenty
And sold for endless rue."
And I am two-and-twenty,
And oh, 'tis true, 'tis true.

Poem of the Night

2009-07-01T02:05:00.006-04:00

The Addict
by Anne Sexton

Sleepmonger,
deathmonger,
with capsules in my palms each night,
eight at a time from sweet pharmaceutical bottles
I make arrangements for a pint-sized journey.
I'm the queen of this condition.
I'm an expert on making the trip
and now they say I'm an addict.
Now they ask why.
WHY!

Don't they know
that I promised to die!
I'm keeping in practice.
I'm merely staying in shape.
The pills are a mother, but better,
every color and as good as sour balls.
I'm on a diet from death.

Yes, I admit
it has gotten to be a bit of a habit---
blows eight at a time, socked in the eye,
hauled away by the pink, the orange,
the green and the white goodnights.
I'm becoming something of a chemical
mixture.
that's it!

My supply
of tablets
has got to last for years and years.
I like them more than I like me.
It's a kind of marriage.
It's a kind of war where I plant bombs inside
of myself.

Yes
I try
to kill myself in small amounts,
an innocuous occupation.
Actually I'm hung up on it.
But remember I don't make too much noise.
And frankly no one has to lug me out
and I don't stand there in my winding sheet.
I'm a little buttercup in my yellow nightie
eating my eight loaves in a row
and in a certain order as in
the laying on of hands
or the black sacrament.

It's a ceremony
but like any other sport
it's full of rules.
It's like a musical tennis match where
my mouth keeps catching the ball.
Then I lie on my altar
elevated by the eight chemical kisses.

What a lay me down this is
with two pink, two orange,
two green, two white goodnights.
Fee-fi-fo-fum---
Now I'm borrowed.
Now I'm numb.
1966

A smart cover

2009-06-28T22:31:00.002-04:00

I laughed out loud when I saw it at the book store the other day. It is so perfectly brilliant and immediate.

Amazon listing

June Pictures

2009-06-23T18:35:00.016-04:00

Dill in a planter on the porch; I started them from seeds.

Basil growing in a planter on the porch; the big one came from the nursery; the little ones came up from the seeds of last year's.

I took this pic after a thunderstorm with huge gale winds that damaged things. This is what one of my tomatoes looked like. If you look at the pole you can see that I had tied it once; but that was when it was significantly smaller, and it wouldn't have hurt it to have had my attention before the storm...

This is what my squash plants looked like...

This is a male crookneck flower. (Both male and female flowers on the same plant; you can tell by whether there is an ovary, (or small, undeveloped fruit,) at the base, and this one didn't have one.)

A small white bush scallop (pattypan) squash...this was taken a few days ago, and I just picked it today; it is sitting on the counter and much bigger. They don't take long once they get going.

Yes, I still have a couple...well, 3...babies this small. They might not have time to make anything this season but I went ahead and set them out anyway. This particular plant is a mystery tomato; I started it from a seed that I got from a generic grocery store tomato.

I had to repair a couple of minor stalks after the storm. Here is one of them. I put paper tape around the cut and put tape around the main stalk and the broken stalk. Then I tied the damaged stalks up with more yarn pieces. So if they don't mend; they weren't going to, but I think they are. They look a little more wilty in the midday heat than the other branches, but they haven't shriveled yet and are still quite green.

This is the first time my father's young pear tree has ever bore fruit...and thus we are just now discovering that it is, in fact, an apple tree. oops.

my mom saw this turtle trying to lay her eggs so we grabbed the camera and got some pics. Of course, once she was discovered she decided not to lay her eggs there and she soon left to search out a new place to dig a hole for them.

Right now there are lots of mushrooms across the yard. They start out like this, then bloom open to almost flat, then turn brown, then bend their stems and curl up and die. All in the process of about 2 days. I turned on the macro setting and got down and shot it from ground level. I love this picture. A little tweaking in Photoshop and this will make a fine Windows desktop. :)

This is my first cucumber this year. I put a lemon beside it to show how small it is; it is a pickling cucumber, so they are not supposed to get really big. My family and I all split it four ways and ate it with some salt. It was so sweet and crisp. There have since been two more; but not enough to make pickles yet.

(BTW, if anyone knows of a sweet dill pickle recipe that works, please pass it along. :))

Hot out there today; I'm waiting about 15 more minutes then I'm going out there, yes, to hoe those damn little grasses you see in my garden. They're entirely too big. Time to nip it in the bud...

2007 Story

2009-06-23T00:50:00.004-04:00

So...I followed a link from Feministing to a site called Top Hot Butches. Turns out the definition of butch according to these peeps is pretty broad, which is fine. Looking at all the different types of people included in the list, it made me think in shame on a memory from when I was working at the little buffet place back in summer of 2007.

These people came into the restaurant, you know, and up there to the front where I was cashiering. I proceeded to make a fool out of myself by mistaking a woman for a boy, and mistaking her partner's child for her older sister. I felt so awful when they corrected my misconceptions. Damn, you'd think I'd be more sensitive to the queerness of other folks; being that I myself am queer. I tried to apologise; the woman's daughter smiled at me. "It's fine!" she reassured me, but I couldn't fight the heat in my cheeks and my pounding heart, even after they had left. I felt so bad.

From then on while I worked there, I tried my best not to assume anything about anyone who came in. Causing straight couples to chuckle when I asked if this was on one bill or two was better than hurting any more gay people.

Hmmm...that was two years ago. It happened on the same day that I talked to S on the phone for the first time. I was so excited. Got off work that night, dialed her number, and she answered, and I talked to her. I had it written on a scrap piece of paper but I already had it memorized in my head; her number. Long time ago. Damn.

(08 September 2009 - the creator of the Top Hot Butches list has edited it to take out the trans men who do not wish to be included in the list.)

The Time I Got a Check From Amy Ray

2009-06-21T00:56:00.005-04:00

Well, it was in August 2008. I know that because Didn't It Feel Kinder had just come out. So, I did my thing there at Daemon Records and ordered it. While I was on the page, I saw chilling there a 45 rpm called Careless Youth. Now, I don't even have a turntable anymore; I couldn't have listened to it, but I loved the cover of it, which showed her holding a cat. Besides, it was only $5. So I ordered one of those, too, while I was doing my ordering.

Well, between the time that I placed my order and the time that they got the money over at Daemon Records, the Careless Youth sold out. So when I received my package with Didn't It Feel Kinder, there was a note inside of it, printed on an inkjet printer, that said that they at Daemon Records were sorry to inform me that Careless Youth was sold out, but they would give my money back. Underneath the typed words there was Amy Ray's signature. Wrapped inside the paper was a check for the $5 that Amy Ray had made out and signed. I had to have a little laugh to myself. Why on Earth would I cash a check from Amy Ray? It was too cool. I still have it in my closet.

Fish

2009-06-18T23:45:00.000-04:00

I adjusted the levels and brightness/contrast

I adjusted the levels, brightness/contrast, and hue/saturation

I adjusted levels and added a gradient.

gradient 2

gradient 3

Don't you hate...

2009-06-18T22:14:00.006-04:00

how you have to open a Word (or other) document and type your letters with grave and acute accents, then paste them in your blog if you want them to show up? well...you don't.

You can post these in the html code, and they *should* (but no promises, eh?) show up as the characters. It's an ASCII/Unicode translation thing...that's all I know...

&eacute = é
&aacute = á
&iacute = í
&oacute = ó
&uacute = ú

&egrave = è
&agrave = à
&igrave = ì
&ograve = ò
&ugrave = ù

Here is a link to some others.

The Problem With So-Called Inner Beauty and Outer Beauty

2009-06-18T21:17:00.004-04:00

Our tradition tells us that the soul and the body, because one expires*, are separate critters. Common sense should tell us that this is not true; I sit here in my entirety typing this, and you...you sit there in your entirety reading it. We've both been in physical pain. We've both been in spiritual pain. Can you really say that your soul's sickness stays confined to your soul? And what about your bodily sickness? Does it really stay contained in your body? I didn't think so. There is no City of God and City of Man.**

Now, although this dichotomy is obviously flawed, popular belief has us breaking ourselves into different realms***; splitting ourselves into fragments of ourselves. One result is the cliché "inner beauty/outer beauty," (as well as the equally cliché "Don't judge a book by its cover.")

It wasn't until recently that I realized just what is wrong with remarking on someone's "inner beauty." There seems to be a cultural belief that to do so is actually NOT to be incredibly superficial, but when you say that someone is a beautiful on the inside, what you are actually saying is that they are ugly outside, and that you noticed.

Think about it. What would be wrong with just remarking that someone is beautiful? The only reason for not doing so is to make it perfectly clear that the speaker does not think the person to whom they refer has outer beauty. I've also heard, "You're beautiful inside and out," which is definitely better than professing someone's inner beauty alone, but still makes the point that the "beautiful" person can't be viewed as a whole entity, but a separate body and soul.

If you're still not convinced, consider this: reflect back on some point in your life in which you felt, for whatever reason, like your body wasn't adequate. Where did you take that painful blow? In your "body"? Or in your "soul"? Yeah. That's what I thought.

You can't have inner beauty without outer beauty. And you can't have outer beauty without inner beauty. Because beauty is beauty. You give me an example of someone who has one but not the other, and I'll give you an example of someone who isn't looking at people closely enough.

*That is a matter of debate; however, it's my blog, and I believe the soul is eternal, so it won't be debated here.

**same here.

***though other realms may exist, you and I don't inhabit but this one at this time; at least not in this waking state where we sit here, in this moment.

Moody Springs...Now with links you can see before you mouse over them!

2009-06-18T12:52:00.002-04:00

Check

out.

Inner beauty is important, but not nearly as important as outer beauty

2009-06-18T12:01:00.006-04:00

I saw this commercial for the first time this morning. I was lying in bed, knowing that I should get up already, but procrastinating. The tv was on but my back was to it. I heard the opening line of this commercial. Sounded like Ellen DeGeneres's voice.

"Inner beauty is important, but not nearly as important as outer beauty."

It's funny, I guess. Or...supposed to be. See, because she is a comedienne, and she makes jokes. And she uses verbal irony here...everyone knows that inner beauty actually is more important than outer beauty, but it doesn't hurt to enhance one's outer beauty. But instead of saying that, she says the opposite of what we all know to be true....

Or do we?

Actually, what she is saying is very "true." Outer beauty is more important than inner beauty. Or rather, that one must do everything she* can to hide her outer ugliness. Or in other words, her wrinkles; the fact she is old...or the fact that she didn't die young and is still alive. Oh, the situational irony is just as rich as the verbal irony...the fact that you have the vitality in you to live long, and that you have been blessed for many years with the good luck to not have been involved in some circumstance that resulted in your death, makes you ugly. So if you use this makeup, it will lie flat over those wrinkles. Hide them. Your potent life force that led you to be wrinkled will be your secret.

I'd like to say that if I were presented with the opportunity that she had to make this ad, and make the resulting money, I would not have; but the truth is, I would probably ~~prostitute myself out just as quickly~~ do the same thing.*** So I'm not jumping too fast to judge her personally. She has done a lot of good in this world, for the gay community and for others. It just seems such a shame for someone who does have so much beauty** to be warning people of the perils of exhibiting outer ugliness.

*Yes, I used "she" exclusively on purpose.

**I don't like to make the distinction between inner beauty and outer beauty; more on why later...

***I wanted to edit this because I realised my previous wording is insensitive.