(I decided I didn’t really want the last entry to live forever at Google. It felt more private than usual. By my strange standards of what passes as my own privacy anyway. The password is just “password.”)
Archive for October, 2008
Tuesday, October 28th, 2008
Tuesday, October 28th, 2008
Tuesday, October 21st, 2008
This guy is certainly not the first person to say this stuff, and alas, it’s unlikely he’ll be the last.
But sweet Jaysis, could someone, anyone at all, explain to me HOW — exactly — same-sex relationships threaten, or make less strong, opposite-sex relationships? Have straight relationships, because they’re allowed to exist and be recognized, made my same-sex relationships lesser in my experience without my even knowing it? Because I’ve no interest in participating in marriage, but want my relationships to have import, does that mean that I should feel that married people are a threat to me? Do friendships make romantic relationships less meaningful? Do strong and stated-to-be-important parent-child relationships do that to romances or sexual relationships, or vice-versa? Does my love for my dog undermine or negate your love for your cat? Does my love of biking render your love of running meaningless? How can one person’s traditions, somehow dismantle someone else’s when both are allowed and can exist simultaneously?
HOW, for the love of gawd, HOW?
I know: I’m asking the wrong crowd. I’m just so endlessly tired of hearing this sentiment but even more so, tired of never once hearing it actually explained with that funny thing we call logic.
(And for the record, do people like Rep. Hayes just conveniently forget that it’s pretty likely, by his standards, that those wacky guys who founded the nation in the first place would be anti-American? Yeah, probably.)
Wednesday, October 15th, 2008
Just another quickie from me before I forget.
Heath (Mark’s best friend who has become my good friend as well over the years) and I went to see Blindness on Sunday.
…and it blew my brain right out of my head. It was one of the more compelling pieces of art I’ve seen in a good, long while, to the degree that it was incredibly humbling. I love pieces of work that make me feel like I just don’t even rate as an artist. I also — and I know there is a good deal of disagreement on this — think it’s one of the more feminist films I’ve seen in a long time.
And as a visual artist? Bloody hell, was it a feast for the eyes, and I’m so glad I saw it on a huge screen in a dark theater. There’s a gorgeous still in nearly every freaking frame. If I didn’t know firsthand from being around sets on mark that I cannot stand the dynamic of film sets and the process of filmmaking, it’d make me want to be a filmmaker.
A few caveats: first and foremost, there is a rape scene in the movie which could be incredibly triggering. Oddly, it wasn’t triggering for me — for a few minutes there, I was on the edge of my seat figuring I should be ready to step out if I needed to — and I’m not sure why, save that I tend to be triggered less by scenes of rape which were not meant to be triggering. But it is very potently real in many ways, particularly if your triggers are about words and sounds. But at the same time, I appreciated that scene a lot, because I didn’t perceive any diminishment in it or around it: it was in no way made sexy, and in no way felt contrived. It was ugly, ugly business.
And that’s part of what really got me with this film: it had this range of humanity from the most ugly to the most beautiful that I found really rare.
I should also mention that I do, and have always, have a love for apocalypse films. Demented as it is, they comfort me. I like seeing the reset button on existence hit. I also tend to go a little dark in my tastes and like going there. Has anyone else seen it? I’d love to gab about it.
That’s it from me: I just knew I’d space. I am FINALLY done with that freaking mailing, and also finally finished a big, personal piece for RH Reality Check that wore me the heck out. The last big thing on my desk before I can get back to my usual level of mania is the voting guide, so I am hoping I can get that done by the time the weekend is over. I should know by now that sustaining my usual degree of overwork and overextension has me at my limit as it is, and be able to see when I’m trying to push past it, but alas. Someday I’ll learn my lesson.
Sunday, October 12th, 2008
I really, really love what John Lewis has said. That is all.
P.S. When someone you say you really respect makes that kind of criticism? A critique that, given who they are and what they have done, you can pretty well know they are not going to throw around casually? You don’t get defensive, you don’t puff up and knee-jerk deny. You freaking well listen.
Wednesday, October 8th, 2008
Silence for a week, and then two from me in one day. Go figure.
The magazine-shillers sent someone else to my door today, someone who clearly intended to work the scam like a pro, rather than easily accept but one no from me for an answer then wind up getting free, drop-in pregnancy options and birth control counseling.
But I don’t think he worked it very well, and I’m wondering how long it took this guy to figure that out.
If this was a hustle, it clearly was mine, even though I had no intent on hustling anyone. All I intended to do was answer the door.
So, the doorbell buzzes, in the obnoxious way that it does when I’m living under the illusion that working from home means a lack of interruption, and I go to the door. A man I’d guess to be in his mid-twenties is standing there, in some version of suit. He introduces himself, tells me he’s not from here and is working on getting a new accent (I don’t know why he says this), informs me he’s trying to better himself by selling these magazines. I see that he has an identical folder in his hand that the girl from last week did, and I let him know then and there that I won’t be buying any magazines, nor will I be supporting these kinds of enterprises. I make clear that I fully support him in doing whatever he feels he needs to to improve his life, but that my impression is that this ain’t it.
He doesn’t like this answer. He starts to go into the whole spiel about the magazines from the start, how he gets a commission, how I need to do my research. So, I explain that, as a point of fact, I did quite a bit of it on these very groups not even two weeks ago, when I was very distressed about the state of another “employee” who showed up at my door. I explain that what I found were BBB reports that were not at all good, a few police reports that were really creepy, some ooky self-reporting, and a few youth advocacy organizations and writers which made clear that not only does his employer scam consumers, the biggest victims are the people who work for them. I then tell him that while I would be glad to grab him a few bucks and just give them to him directly, I would not be giving this company anything. He says okay when I offer the bucks.
I go inside, get a five, and when I go to hand it to him, he then immediately plays an “I’m so offended” schtick. I want to tell him that given United States politics over the last month, he couldn’t possibly be more offended than I am of late, but I suspect this will fall on deaf ears.
“Why would you give me money?” he asks.
“Ummm, because you came to my door asking for it, and told me how down and out you are?” I reply, as if asked why it was raining in Seattle. Is this a trick question? I suddenly feel certain I didn’t get enough coffee today, but that there might not be enough for me to make sense of this if I drank the whole continent of South America.
“I don’t want your handouts,” he says, and I wonder if he’ll get so in character as to spit on it, but he disappoints. “I’m trying to make a respectable living.”
“Okay, then, don’t take it” I say, “but I think to do that you’re going to need to work for someone besides outfits like this.”
“This is a good company,” he says, and we go back and forth a little more about how I’m just not down with that, and how much this could help him out. He states that other neighbors have said similar, and we all just don’t understand the truth about this wonderful endeavor.
I reiterate that I am fine with helping him personally, just not the sham business, though I have little to give since Rockefeller never lived here and wouldn’t have enjoyed even a visit very much. I mention that if the amount insults him, he should be aware that the fact that that’s all I have in my wallet insults me, too.
He asks how I would feel if I lived on donations. I say that’s pretty much exactly what I do since I’ve worked in the non-profit sector for almost all of my life, and have been scraping the bottom of the barrel since I was born, and I feel as fine as can be expected about it. Hell, if it’s okay for the Pope, why shouldn’t it be okay for him or me?
I don’t think I was supposed to answer that way.
He then pulls out a fat wad of money and shoves a ten dollar bill into my hand. “There,” he says, “take that.” He says this in the way one suggests that a person meet them at dawn with a pistol and a prayer.
I explain that I don’t want it, but he won’t take it back. We do this dance for a little while. He does not know what “Oy gavalt,” means and accuses me of calling him names on top of trying to make him take my dirty money when he wants nothing to do with it.
He also won’t leave.
I then state that I’d appreciate it if he’d take his ten dollars back and be on his way, as I am not going to buy anything from him, nor am I going to stand outside all day arguing about it. He patently refuses to take back the ten dollars. He huffs, much in the way my little dog does, though I find her more believable.
“How does it feel getting a handout?!?” he asks, indignantly.
“Umm… fine?” I say. “I’m ten bucks richer than I was before I answered my door.”
We both stand there silent, unmoveable, for a very long minute, until I figure there’s really nothing left for me to do, say thank you and close the door. he makes a point of whistling very, very loudly as he’s walking away from the house, but I couldn’t begin to tell you why or what he was whistling. But I know it wasn’t Dixie.
The temptation to knock on the doors of all of my neighbors and tell them that if they handed this guy money, they’d get double back was great, but I resisted, mostly because I don’t know my neighbors any better than they know this guy.
Instead, I headed out to pick up my printing and on the way home, bought myself a shiny new pack of cigarettes and a coffee with my handout I was supposed to feel so bad about.
I’m still waiting to feel bad. Mostly I just feel adequately caffeinated, which is a relief.
Wednesday, October 8th, 2008
I don’t mean to be such a stranger.
I’m nearly finished with organizing, making and getting out the big mailing to nearly 200 organizations in Washington State for CONNECT. It’s crazy how hard some of this has seemed: I’ve clearly gotten spoiled over the years by new media. The funny thing is that way back in the day in the early 90’s, when I ran my little alternative school, I was the queen of all things paper: I refused to use any kind of computer at all, even a basic word processor for the first year. For several of those years, I produced a pretty involved alternative ECE newsletter and doing that and I don’t remember getting it out being this big of a deal.
However, it’s looking shiny and awesome and once it’s off my desk, I will be one very happy chick.
I’ve also been overwhelmed with just trying to run two programs at once, getting the voting guide done for Scarleteen, and trying to keep up with all the usual work there. I’ve been distracted — though that’s likely not the best word — with the elections, national and local. And per usual, I’m still just not feeling well. I don’t think I have ever had a stretch of time where I’ve gotten so much sleep every night (I’ve been managing to get 7 or 8 hours a night), and yet, I feel like I could sleep all day, every day, and it still wouldn’t be enough.
I keep thinking that I should be very personally concerned about the current financial crisis, but then I realize that a) I own nothing, b) most of the contributions to Scarleteen aren’t even from the U.S., and c) I don’t make shit now and don’t know how much worse it could really get. I also remind myself that I have enough to worry about already. I guess sometimes freedom really is just another word for nothing left to lose.
My Dad is coming up here in a couple of weeks, and staying for a couple of weeks. He’s been in a really bad way lately, which at times means my having to have one or more long phone conversations with him in a day, where his moods and what he is saying are just all over the place, which is really tough to deal with. One of the most recent several-day conversations involved me patently refusing to cancel his plane ticket simply because he was certain that the dreams he has been having about plane crashes were prophetic and that he would die on the way here (which is a strange concern for someone with a long history of being suicidal to have, but so be it). Unfortunately, this dream stuff has gone on before, and it’s tough to expect him not to believe them: his mother, my grandmother, stated she was going to die to everyone mere hours before she and half his family were in the truck accident that killed them when I was young.
I’ve had times in my life where I’ve gone through phases of this with him, but it just feels like it’s happening more frequently lately, to the point that I feel like I might need to start looking into what exactly someone in my income bracket can do to find residential care for a parent. Him living with us just isn’t an option: he would never agree to it, and even though we’ve lived well together before — more harmoniously than I live with most people, to be truthful — I don’t see it being a good answer.
How on earth, if I could find something, I could convince my father to even consider such a thing, I don’t know. In so many ways, he’s so progressive, but there always remains some very prototypical Italian pride my father clings to. I honestly don’t even know how I’d bring this up to him, and explain why I feel we need to consider it without hurting his pride and also triggering his guilt: he expresses guilt constantly (always has, but more of late) that I’m the only person he has in the world to lean on and that I have no other help or support when it comes to him. But I’m just getting really worried, and I just feel like I have lived long enough with my parent living like this. It’s breaking my heart, and I just can’t stand it anymore.
The place he stays at is still in one of the worst parts of the city, worse than it was when we lived in that neighborhood, and it’s just really vile. Last week, he had this major freakout — validly — because in his dank little room the size of your average bathroom, four huge rats had gotten in. He was so scared and wigged out that he wound up blowing his disability check to sleep in a motel for a couple of nights. More then once while I have been talking to him, I can hear freaking gunshots. Given how he is mentally, as well, the isolation that he has very clearly just is not healthy for him: he’s so much better when he’s here, around people, somewhere safe.
I don’t suppose there’s any of you out there around my age who have been in a similar situation with any idea of where I’d even start when it came to looking for this kind of care?
Anyway, that’s most of my stuff. Things at home here are totally fine, including that my boyfriend found a way to turn bacon into flowers last week, his new brag of late.
Apparently, if you’re at the farmer’s market, and you indulge your carnivore-sweetie’s longing for good bacon by giving him five bucks to buy some from the butcher, and he buys it, but then turns around and buys you a $5 bouquet, bacon has been turned into flowers. Now you know.
I’m very lucky, dead pigs notwithstanding, to have his whimsy around. I was just remarking to him the other day that it’s one of the things I appreciate most about him, and a quality I find it pretty rare with a lot of people: I need creativity around me, I need silliness, I need to be whimsical with someone. I can go without a lot of things in my life, or in a given week or day, but if a day or two passes and I haven’t laughed my arse off, I just can’t deal. While now and then that means that sex gets shelved — because we tend to take a left turn at silly, to the point that there is just no turning back — I’ll take it.
And on that note, I leave you with something I begged him to let me have a while back, which he penned during a meeting he was clearly very interested in at his day job. I don’t think his boss would be particularly delighted, but I’m fairly certain I don’t care.
