allow me to retort... and defend myself a bit

personal vs private.


lighthearted vs serious.


political vs social.

why is there so much guilt and pressure with combining these elements on blogs? i've stressed over and over about how much to conceal and reveal about myself when purporting to promote a blog that deals with gender and sexuality issues, rights, freedoms, and injustices. i feel guilty when i express feelings and musings on my personal life here. similarly, i feel sterile and cold when i simply link to articles and world issues. i mean, writing about passions should be relatable, non?


so then why do we feel badly about combining the two? isn't that how are lives work anyway? can you have one without the other? (successfully and honestly, of course.) i think not.


i've gotten feedback from RL friends (whatever that means, anyway, lol) that make statements regarding the hinges i've swayed to my past and present conditions and situations. conversations always progress to effect of:
'wow, i never knew you had __________ or that you've dealt with __________. why didn't you tell me before? are you okay? i'm really sorry, etc. etc. ...'


to which i reply (and please, count this as an official response in the here and now) :



how would you know that? i never told you, and honestly, i probably would never tell you, as it's my life, and not necessarily your business. it's not that i'm attempting to hide anything, it's just that, on a day to day basis it's not quite appropriate, or the situation rarely arises to talk about such personal things. i mean, how often do you walk up to acquaintances and begin spilling your guts about family members passing away, how privileged you were (or weren't) growing up, or times you've spent in the hospital? if i've given you a link to my blog, i'm comfortable enough to share these things with you there. that doesn't necessarily mean i want to have some huge heart-to-heart about it. that's what the blog entry is, and you should treat it as such. if you want to begin discourse, there's a comment section at the end of every entry. use it, please. don't wait until we're hanging out and make a comfortable situation awkward. i love you. i promise. if stories result organically, they will, and that's fine. bringing up bs in person is just that: bs.


so now that i've ranted a bit regarding RL vs OL communication, let me take this entry back full circle:


i'm happy with the amalgamation this little insignificant blog has become. life is a mixture of the personal and political, and i refuse to apologize for toeing that line, and i'm no longer going to feel guilty for double dutching over it. if i want to spend three weeks discussing the type of heels i wanna wear, then sobeit. and by a turn of the screw, if i prefer to simply post links and discuss nothing but NPR discourse for the same amount of time, then i'm gonna do it. mix and match, messied all together in a boulliabaisse of blog. because that's how my life tends to be. i won't have it any other way. amen.

into you like a train

if i had a dollar for every time i thought i could fall in love...

i'd still be poor.

but maybe i'd have enough for bus fare to get me the fuck out of here.

how much for a smile?

i've been giggling more in the past week than in the last year.

i melt for your smile and touch

that irrepressible flush that so often floods your cheeks

belieing your age.

i can't believe it's for me.

on second thought:

fuck the dollars...

i only need one.

apology and a tentative promise...

i've been dealing with that interesting little quirk called life lately.


alas, i've severely neglected my blog.


it seems like every day i sign onto the internet and see my blogger homepage, i sigh and think 'later, later....'


well, now it's MUCH later, and as i straighten out as much of the fiasco that's my world maintenant, i figured this is as good as any other place to start.


so i'm going to make a serious effort to post more frequently in the upcoming days, even as my life spitfires me forward.


toward what? it's anyone's guess...

an appropriate critique of the surge of pregnancy movies out there...

FINALLY, someone took the words out of my mouth!



Susie Bright at (appropriately enough, lol) Susie Bright's Journal did an amazing piece on the influx of 'unwanted yet at the last minute i just have to experience the miracle of life' movies here.



i've been super irritated for a while at the idea that all of these women would just 'see the light' and everything would miraculously work out in the end. not to mention the fathers just fall into place and have their own little epiphanies as well. abortion is never a truly viable option, because these heroines could NEVER GO THROUGH WITH IT. (gasp!) and i thought i was the only one who felt this way... go read it!

top ten friday

heavy past couple of weeks, folks. for that, here are my friday top ten random tracks:

1.) battle for britain (the letter) ~ david bowie
2.) start wearing purple ~ gogol bordello
3.) frank sinatra ~ miss kittin & the hacker
4.) under a honeymoon ~ the good life
5.) fairest of the seasons ~ nico
6.) girl from nyc (named julia) ~ of montreal
7.) in our bedroom after the war ~ stars
8.) 15 step ~ radiohead
9.) little amber bottles ~ blanche
10.) foundations ~ kate nash

now i wanna get drunk! xoxoxo

shout out quick question friday...

hey all. just had a big long discussion with a friend on this subject, and i figured that i'd open it to the blogging world. okay, so here's the question at hand...

which is worse: the reality of an actual dramatic situation, or the worrying/anxiety surrounding the dramatic situation?

for me, it seems lately to be the getting worked up about a potential drama, rather than the actual situation itself. for instance: yesterday, a friend told me a very interesting story. she goes to see this non-traditional therapist that deals with auras and helps her manage her anxiety. most of the focus is on taking control of your environment and managing your senses so that you can recognize your fear and remove yourself from it, rather than dwelling in it. her therapist told her of an instance where she was able to successfully achieve this:



the therapist, we'll call her jen, is hearing impaired. jen is in a parking garage talking to a friend. a driver in a car behind them begins to back out of her spot, not noticing the chatting duo. unable to hear the car approaching, the therapist continues to talk. several people walking by begin to shout at her and wave their hands in the air to warn about the car. jen finally sees hands waving, looks up, and sidesteps right into the path of the car. the driver at last sees her and stops ~ right on her foot. now jen could've freaked out, but instead she closes her eyes, breathes deeply, and calms herself before telling the woman to pull forward. she does, and jen's foot is freed. she is rushed to the hospital, where, after an examination and x-rays and such, the doctors tell her her foot is fine, because it was relaxed. if jen had tensed her foot at all, she'd've broken virtually every bone in her foot! and all because she was able to remove herself from the situation and calmly deal with it. it's all very buddhistic, isn't it?



anyway, with all my anxiety and irritations with the world lately, that story just really helped me, and being able to deal with things as they come, rather than worry about the potential negativity in what could come. how do you guys feel about that? do you find actual situations to be worse than your perception of them? or do you have any cool stories of being able to remove yourself from your fear or worry?


i can't help but picture john cameron mitchell as the immortal hedwig saying "i feel so optimistic."

mitt romney is SUCH a sweetheart...oops, i mean homophobe

pink news has published this little gem about republican presidential candidate mitt romney. apparently, he's so against gay adoption that he'd rather have a child with deceased parents than gay ones. wtf?! romney says:

And even where one member of the partnership may pass away, the memory and the characteristics of that gender, of that partner influence the development of a child. I'm in favour of promoting, as a society, the marriage of men and women and the development of children in that kind of setting.


how sweet. so two, healthy, attentive, and loving parents of the same sex is WORSE for a child than dealing with the trauma of dead ones? riiiiiighht.

i can't wait for his hypocritical mormon ass to get beaten out of the primary, even if it is by some idiot like rudy giuliani...

i'm so tired of hatred being flaunted under the guise of religion. religion and faith have nothing to do with hatred, yet they're inexplicably bound. people seem to feel that faith can explain away any kind of bigotry. newsflash: your religion doesn't hate or condemn people, YOU do. stop misappropriating your discrimination, intolerance, and ignorance. i realize that it's easier to blindly follow a faith that gives you hope. but when it starts preaching mistrust and condemnation of others for simply being different than you, why do you not question it?

i don't normally do this, but...

my last post, which now is sitting in limbo in drafts, just wasn't sitting well with me. i chose to take it off the viewable page, and if anyone still wants to read it, please just let me know and i'll be glad to email it to you. it was bothering me, and i don't think it accurately represented what i wanted to say. i was asking for advice re: dating a trans person as a cisgendered lesbian. so if anyone has advice, i'll just keep it simple ~ lemme know in comments or via email, and we can go from there :)

if you haven't already...

i'm just gonna assume that you already know about this case, and that it would be redundant to rehash all of its painful details. click on the picture to sign a petition urging a fair and detailed civil rights investigation into the case.

blogebrity & christenings of several types ~ welcome!

inspiration

so a big fattie thanks are in order to mrb for getting me prepped to stop basking in my 'i'm such a loser and not doing anything viable for the world at large' whining and actually start taking action. the other night we discussed various feminist issues and websites to which he frequents, as well as his new blog. it's going great, sir! i adore the fact that the biggest feminist i know is a tall, heterosexual, middle class, white male (in no particular order.) *grin* i need an outlet as well. and while i don't really care either way whether or not people read this, i do need to get it all out. maybe for self-justification, maybe to stroke my ego, but definitely to keep me (perhaps?!) a little more sane.



and so, this morning, at work, instead of actually getting shit done (as i should also be doing now, lol,) i went to feministing to check out what the blogebrity (my newly created word of the day!) jessica valenti had to report. and is there a hot plate today! the article in question , is one that i had no idea people felt so strongly about. silly me!



i was truly unaware that women are being required to jump through so many hoops about taking or not taking a surname. i really don't believe that my name should be in legal question, decided by the courts. if one partner wants to take the other's name, or combine them somehow, or keep their birth names, who cares?!? names are a very personal thing, and individuals have every right, just as they have the right to choose first names, to keep or discard them at will. signing paperwork and making things official should not be more or less depending on your gender.



the idea here is to GIVE PEOPLE THEIR OWN RIGHT TO CHOOSE. the commentary on valenti's relatively short post astounded me. i was amazed at the amount of people getting so touchy about being expected to side permanently either way. (ie to change or not to change)



here's how i see it:

if you tell women they should change their names out of respect to their spouse, that's not right. similarly, if you tell women they should keep their names out of respect to themselves, that's not right either. decisions are personal. and although they affect us all, they must be made. it's your RIGHT to choose whatever name you would like. and you shouldn't be made to go through extra bullshit or criticized, whichever way you lean, to make that decision, as long as it's not expressly hurting yourself or anyone else.



(how's that for the definition of liberal , lol.)

and just because i REALLY need to get back to work, i won't even start on the fact that as a queer woman, i don't even quite factor into this debate, as i don't even receive the right (thanks, dear government) to marry and worry about taking (or not taking/adjusting) my surname.