Now that I’m 40, I’ve decided there is something important I should do as I enter what is likely the second half of my life. In a word, I think it might be helpful if I warn people in advance about some things other people over 40 seem inclined to do, things I would not be at all surprised to see myself doing. Heck, I already started doing some of them before I turned 40.

Knowing in advance may or may not make any of them more pleasant or tolerable for others, but at the very least I can issue an apology in advance, and you can prepare yourself in any way you feel you’d like to for the likely inevitable.  So, with no further adieu, I present…

10 Things That May Make You Wish I Hadn’t Lived Past 40
1) I will discuss the failings and delicacy of my digestive system in increasingly greater detail.  People around me, including people who may not even know me, will be told more and more about what I can and cannot eat, explicitly how eating this thing or that one impacts my digestive system and my whole body, and may even be informed of the exact moment when something has gone terribly amiss with little concern for their own desire to finish a meal while not thinking their food to have some sort of diabolical agenda.

2) I will take up some sort of hobby or collection which I decide has more value and import than anything else I have done with my life or you have done or are doing with yours.  I will refuse to call it a hobby, and instead will present it as my lifestyle, my calling, or that one thing which has the capacity to create world peace when all else has failed, and will be astounded that, for example, no one else has figured out that the secret to universal happiness lives in Precious Moments figurines or in weekly fern foraging.

3) In the case I ever knew your last name, I’ll forget it or mix it up with someone else’s.  I may also do this with your first name. And my own.
4) If not a track suit by design, I will slowly (and have already begun this process) come up with my own version of the track suit because a) nothing else will be deemed comfortable enough, b) I simply will not want to have to devote more than two seconds of thought to dressing myself and c) I will feel the track suit is inevitably less painful to the eyes of others than what I will come up with otherwise. However, I cannot promise not to pair said-tracksuit with some very bizarre hats.  Because if you can’t be female getting older and not at least have hats, life just isn’t worth living.  And yes, a “When I’m an Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple” poster will be displayed somewhere of prominence in my home, and you can’t fucking stop me, you sexist, ageist fascist.

5) I will try and convince you to do things or eat things I am certain are our shared secret to longevity, even if the actual process of eating or doing those things makes either of us wish life would end sooner, rather than later.

6) If you thought I talked too much already, I must warn you, it’s only going to get worse.  And whether or not my hearing actually goes, I’m going to pretend that it has. I’m sorry, what?  I couldn’t hear you (say that thing I have absolutely no interest in listening to). My hearing isn’t what it used to be, you know.

7) I will begin sending everyone cutesy-pie mail forwards I decide in my delusion contain the secrets of the universe, completely forgetting how much it has annoyed the living hell out of me.  I will also ignore any requests you make of me to stop sending them to you.

8) Appearing to revert back to the mindset of my childhood and adolescence, I will relegate all pop culture from my youth and adolescence to the level of religious iconography. If yours is different, it will never be able to be as good or as valuable as mine.  Because you just don’t get it, you know.

9) I will, at least once, be one of those feminists who says something so completely out of touch, out of line or otherwise patently offensive and ignorant that you will feel embarrassed both for me, and for yourself for ever having thought I had anything of value to say or do.  When I do this, I will also be blissfully unaware that with one mere mouthful, I may have potentially undone or jeopardized everything constructive I have said or done in the past.

10) Thought you knew too much about my digestive system? Just wait until I tell you all about my hormones.

posted in Heather Corinna, Auntie Heather's Helpful Hints, because sometimes I'm an asshole | permalink | comments (4) »

Consider this a bookmark.

In the last month, we’ve had two computer deaths. One of these meant getting a new system, a new system I haven’t even had a chance to get familiar with yet, though it’s been here for a couple weeks now. That new system meant that most of what I used to do most of this site and another couple was now obsolete, and I now have to migrate everything into Dreamweaver. Like, the ten years of site kind of everything. More accurately, the ten years of site kind of everything from someone who seriously talks too freaking much. Let’s remember that I learn any kind of tech by the seat of my freaking pants: it’s insane that someone who makes so much of their living on computers has such a tiny skillset with them. I can’t tell you how many times in my life I have nearly wept with a longing for the manual typewriters I used until the mid-90’s. I want them back. I understood them. They understood me. We had a much healthier relationship than computers and I have.

On the computer FAIL theme, we also needed to upgrade the Drupal at Scarleteen, which broke about eighty million things myself and my tech developer for that site have been driving ourselves crazy to find and fix.

I’ve had to do the HUGE deal that was the fundraiser (which I still have to sit down and do all the accounting for), Scarleteen traffic has been insane and I’ve been busy as heck trying to keep up. I am drowning in teenage crises, to the point that I may feel more stressed out about their crises than they do. I had pieces that needed finishing there that have been taxing. I’ve had phone meetings on various things coming out of my ears.  I have people sending me input on things, ideas on things in such a huge way that I’m dizzy, and can’t keep track of a good, goddamn thing anymore. An internet drama turned into people or groups being at risk that I was also dealing with and trying to help do all I could with. I have an amount of planning for both Scarleteen and the in-person program I direct here in Seattle that boggles my half-crazed little mind.  Money, as usual, is stressful as hell and I want to kill it until it is dead.

I actually made some new year’s resolutions this year, but they are only half-blogged.  I also have photo updates to add, but I have to deal with all the computer stuff and figure out how the hell it all works in order to do that.

In other words, I’m here but I’m not here. I will get things up as soon as I possibly can, but I have no idea when that will happen and if I’ll have any hair left on my head I haven’t pulled out by the time that it does.

posted in Heather Corinna, online life, workworkwork, wah, because sometimes I'm an asshole | permalink | comments (2) »

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.

posted in Heather Corinna, Ballard, because sometimes I'm an asshole | permalink | comments (5) »

So, the other day at RH Reality Check — a fantastic place I love and am so glad to have a column at, but the fundies do tend to seriously abound there — I was discussing what kinds of sex education programs exactly Obama supported for young children which the McCain campaign purposefully misrepresented.  In a word, it’s good touch-bad touch stuff, about personal safety and boundaries, the kinds of things ECE and elementary educators and community educators have addressed for an age. Nothing new here to see, kids.

When someone suggested parents could opt out of this, I had to ask why anyone would, really, and how, exactly, one was supposed to teach that age without ever addressing these issues with children since they tend to come up just among children themselves with some frequency.  I got a response which read,

Here we see why all this “opt-out” business is a sham. If Ms. Corinna’s mentality is pervasive among public school educators, then as a parent, “opting-out” of sex ed for your child is tantamount to entering yourself in the school’s sex offender database.

There is more (fairly fruitless) discussion there, but when I read that, all I could do on this end of the connection was silently mouth, “The fuck?!?”

(And not just because I’ve never worked at a school with a sexual offender database, nor can I imagine that I’d ever, as an educator, finding myself looking to use a child as any kind of weapon, retaliate against a parent or presume that a parent who objected must be abusing their child.)

It wasn’t progressives who have been at the root of, or in support of, sexual abuse panics.  It’s not progressives or educators (or both) who would do children and their families harm by false smears because we couldn’t have things go our way.  It’s not been progressives who look to annihilate, execute, terrorize, slander or otherwise go nuts harming or killing people to weed out “the (invisible) enemy.” The Patriot Act? Vietnam? The Rosenbergs? Lynchings and whites-only swimming pools?  The Salem Witch Trials?  Our current immigration laws? Not us, dude.

And then it struck me: I keep seeing this common theme over the years where it appears that neocons and fundies aren’t so much worried about us making OUR mistakes, or doing things the way we tend to do them.  Rather, they seem much more concerned that we are going to make THEIR mistakes, or use the tools and tricks they have tended to wield (and we have tended to strongly protest) against them.  I also feel like a certain sector of that population is so drawn to the idea of a fearful, omnipotent god simply because they don’t trust themselves without one.  What keeps them “in line,” or behaving in the way they feel they should, is driven strongly by a potential punishment if they behave differently.  In other words, I am seeing a whole lot of projection.

This is but a theory, and it may or may not be apt.  If it is apt, it’s going to be mighty tough to convince a group of people who don’t trust themselves without a certain structure — I’m not entirely sure real esteem can even happen in hierarchy — why some of us can be trusted without it and don’t feel we need it, or even if we share it, see it differently, incorporate it differently in our lives, and don’t feel that those without it are automatically untrustworthy.  In terms of hysterical panics — like the red scare, like the ritual child sexual abuse panics, like terrorist panic — if they see them as valid (and they tend to) and not as grave errors and abuses, it’s going to be tough to get them to see why we disagree, and why for those of us who do disagree, we are incredibly vigilant about NOT doing anything remotely like that as part and parcel of who we are and what our own ethics are all about.   If it is apt theory on my part, what is this really about?  Is it as basic as being about low self-esteem (when it isn’t megalomania), or is that totally simplistic and ridiculous?  If it is that basic, how, exactly, do we help raise their esteem, particularly if it’s trapped in power-over/power-under, and particularly when so often we’re the -under in that equation?

I have an aunt-by-marriage on my mother’s side who is one of my favorite people in that family.  She’s a longtime born-again Christian in a family of Irish Catholics, and I can assure you she wouldn’t be saying the kinds of ridiculous things I keep hearing from people who say they are like her. When we have a conversation, now and then she injects some scripture in, but in the way you have a conversation — it’s an inclusion, with room left for everyone else’s inclusions as well. She voices what she does because she is expressing something for herself, making a connection, looking for her thoughts to be one part of the whole quilt of the discussion.  She’s also always been massively supportive of me and what I do, is a big fan of the book, and is a very potent but gentle caller-outer of bullshit and hypocrisy.  Maybe I need to ask her about this.  I feel like she’d get what I’m saying (or tell me I’m being totally bizarre) and have some interesting perspective.

This stuff hurts my freaking head, man.  Not because I’m an idiot, but just because I’m so tired of thinking about it and trying to figure it out, especially when I’m trying to do so at the same time I’m trying to discuss things reasonably rather than giving it all the hell up, calling them a big doodyhead and heading off to enjoy my rights while I still have them.

Speaking of interesting perspective, I FINALLY came into touch with someone who is pro-life, and who is also feminist, vegetarian, antiwar, antioppression and against the death penalty.   I have been trying to find someone like this for YEARS, because I felt like the ONLY productive discussion I could ever have with someone who was pro-life was with someone who wasn’t kidding around when they talk about valuing “life.”  So far we’ve had some amazing exchanges, even though we’re really just getting started, and while I don’t expect either of us to agree with the other when all is said and done, it so far seems pretty enlightening and awesome for us both.  Cool stuff.

* * * * * * * * *

Over the last couple weeks, I have, at last, met a goal I set last fall of having 10-mile rides here be not only something I can do, but my average ride, having accepted that the 20-mile rides on flat land that were the mainstay in Minneapolis and Chicago cannot happen on the hills here.  I’m peeved it took me so damn long to get there, but 10 is now not easy, but doable, and I can exceed that distance on a good day, too.  Friday morning I actually just spaced out for a while on a trail and wound up doing 13 by accident.  Didn’t space what distance I’d done by the time I had to pedal the long grade up to get home, and my pubic bone still feels like a dart shooting straight up my coochie everytime I sit down or try and do something more pleasant with that location, mind you, but still.

* * * * * * * * *

By the by, we’re starting a new guest-blog series at Scarleteen written entirely by people of color on all things sexuality and sexual health.  I have a nice handful of cool people on board who are going to get started, but I would love to have even more.  Anyone interested? We’re also getting started on our election materials, so if anyone wants to help there, that’d also be fantastic.

* * * * * * * * *

In other news, it came up during a hangout with friends at the house that I’ve had more than one editor make clear that if I were willing to write a memoir about my adolescence, I’d probably have a contract in three seconds or less.

While it’s entirely possible I’ll do that at some point in my life, a) that point isn’t now, b) there’s no way I’d do that unless most of my family were dead, just because the worst offenders would make my life a hell yet again otherwise, and c) I can’t figure how I’d write something that’d mostly make someone want to off themselves while reading it, since so much of it would be about plain old awfulness.

But then it occurred to me that what I could do is simply write nothing but the GOOD moments that occurred during that occurred for me between the ages of 10 and 16.  Given the number of them, you’d have a clear understanding of how awful most of it was for me.  The extra bonus is that it’d also be a very, very short book to have to write.

I’m calling it 57 Minutes of Joy.

posted in Heather Corinna, because sometimes I'm an asshole, burning questions, the god squad | permalink | comments (4) »

I just got back from a night and a day in oh-so-not-at-all-beautiful Yakima, Washington.

I was teaching the staff of the clinic there self-defense today, and had to try very hard, when telling them how best to keep safe and feel secure, not to simply say “First?  Get the hell out of this town.”

I am relying on Washington natives here to know I need say no more.

posted in Heather Corinna, Auntie Heather's Helpful Hints, workworkwork, because sometimes I'm an asshole | permalink | comments (3) »

Yeah, I’m pissed off. I have had a seriously rotten day. And this entry will likely last a day at most before I make it go poofie, because I know it’s an incoherent, resentful vent. I have had to fight off a handful of people either asking me to expose myself in ways that are more about them and being provocative than about me or actually helping anyone, and then beg others to not freaking use my face without my permission just so they could have a pretty graphic for their own ventures or a poster child just because (or just because they didn’t want to be one). I have had to read — okay, I didn’t have to — comments out and about with some of the most ignorant crap I have seen in a very long time.

Here’s the thing that gets me the most: what the FUCK is it going to take for people to realize that NOTHING is an invitation to rape, and nothing, other than being able to be raped — something which is the case for any one of us — is going to “spur” a rapist on?

The comments about and around which have gotten under my skin most today is that a rape survivor or someone else (though I’m not sure why someone else would wear it) wearing the shirt would be “asking for” or “inviting” predators to do something. What the hell? Wearing a t-shirt which says, and means “I was raped,” is an invitation to rape? Is going to let a rapist know you’re who they should choose to rape? Why?

More to the point, it might be worth asking, for those this clueless, what they could do to NOT fall under the scope of someone predatory. I’ve talked about it before, but I will say it again: my 76-year-old great-grandmother was raped and murdered in her own home when she was just sitting, watching the tube. What the hell did SHE do, besides be home, be female, and be vulnerable? The first time I was assaulted I just went in to get a freaking haircut, feeling — obviously, stupidly — like, at the age of 11, a neighborhood hair salon was a perfectly safe place for me to be alone, and feeling like, when the guy who cut our hair asked me to walk back with him to the shampoo room, there was no reason I couldn’t walk back there with him where we’d been before. In fact, the whole time he had me up against the wall, his hands all over me, even in that very moment I could not, for the life of me, figure out what on earth was going on and what exactly I did — of course, what I did — to incite such a thing. What the hell did I do? If I had walked in there wearing this shirt, would I somehow have been inviting it more? As in “I was raped, so you may as well do it again?”

Perhaps more to the point, how stupid are these people to think that choosing to wear anything at all (or not) makes any damn difference in protecting them or anyone else? One of the reasons it is so damn hard for survivors to heal is that eventually, we have to deal with the knowledge that most of the time, unless we’re on guard 24/7 (and even then, that’s hardly a guarantee of safety) or stay locked in a panic room alone, there isn’t shit we can do to prevent someone from trying to rape us. That it could happen almost anywhere, at anytime, with anyone we know. That everything we thought we knew about how safe we were in the world was wrong. And that even in cultivating that terrible awareness, there will always be loads of people utterly convinced that being raped is something we can somehow control or even prevent with something as flippant as simple as what bloody t-shirt we wear.

Last year, a friend of mine asked me if I thought it was out of order to tell her five-year-old daughter that most people were stupid. I thought about it, and then told her that, actually, it seemed like a good idea. After all, that way her kid would either have her expectations met or be pleasantly surprised.

I really, truly wish that someone had told me that when I was five, too. I might get this angry and be this disappointed a whole lot less often.

posted in Heather Corinna, surviving abuse, seattle, because sometimes I'm an asshole | permalink | comments (4) »

Today at the protester corner outside the day job there sat a couple signs. One was an illustration of a baby seal, holding a sign itself that said “Save the Humans.” I’m so not kidding.

I looked once, then again, then turned to Mark (who was driving me in) to express that I had strong doubts that seals would want more people around just so we can continue to club them to death, poison their environment or, on a good day, take them far away from home and lock them up in claustrophobic living spaces at no pay for our own amusement.

I mean, if a seal was going to hold up a protest sign that had anything to do with human beings in front of an abortion clinic, I’m inclined it’d read something like “YOU.S. OFF MY BODY!” or “At least they won’t skin THEIR babies alive,” or “Good Choice! Less People = More Seals.” (Or maybe they’d be protesting the protesters, with a sign that said, “I’M the seal of God, not you!”)  And they’d probably be clapping.

posted in Heather Corinna, reproductive rights, workworkwork, because sometimes I'm an asshole | permalink | comments (5) »