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.

saying goodbye, or death is only a heartbeat away

i was just told that my grandmother passed away. she was 80, i believe. a very strong and determined woman, she raised 5 children, only to outlive three of them. she eloped at the age of 16, marrying my grandfather who was about to enter the navy during world war II. both parents disapproved of their relationship, so he came to her window and she ran away. they remained married for more than 50 years before he passed away a couple of years ago.



i'll never forget her telling me the story of their first meeting. she was playing softball, and my grandfather saw her playing, and ran up, spun her around, and kissed her, right in front of everyone. she punched him in the face. it was love.



most of my earliest and fondest memories involve them. they did the typical grandparent-y things, such as feed me lots of treats and take me shopping. but they were much more than just the typical holidays and special visit relatives.




to say i had a tough childhood would be an understatement, but i'm going to leave it at that. when i was 13, the summer before i was to enter high school, i was kicked out of my house. my grandparents generously took me in, caring for me and supporting me, eventually obtaining guardianship over me. i lived with them through high school, and seasonally during college. i felt so fortunate. my grandmother had diabetes and osteoporosis, which caused her to continually break her hips and legs until finally she was moved to a hospice/nursing home to receive better care. she fought bouts of depression and the eventual onset of alzheimer's before passing away.



her strict and devout baptist faith often caused the two of us to have heated discussions regarding religion and lifestyles. when i was six weeks old, she started taking me to church, and i regularly attended through a good portion of middle school, until puberty hit, and i became questioning and resentful toward a very close-minded faith. my grandmother loved jerry falwell and anita bryant, and i distinctly remember her sitting me down and asking me if i knew what homosexuality was and how it was evil. i never told her i'm gay. she once told me she wanted to live long enough to see me graduate from college and marry a nice boy. i told her that she shouldn't hold her breath, lol.




regardless of our political and personal differences, i admired her greatly. she was a strong woman, and basically raised her children on her own, as my grandfather owned a trucking company and was rarely home. she got a job at a time when women were supposed to stay at home, as a secretary and bookkeeper, and later worked part time at a grocery store, just because she loved to work. she watched one child die of crohn's disease, and buried another in the horrors of vietnam. a third died of alcoholism-induced diabetes, followed shortly by her husband, the single love of her life besides god. she's seen more tragedy and hardship than seems possible.



yet the woman was unshakable, and when angered, angels feared to tread. she was 5'2", and though my grandfather was 6'4" and a tough tattooed naval officer, he stayed out of her way. she was also charitable, loving, generous, and forgiving. i love her very much, and she'll be sorely missed. RIP

pop quiz: what do anorexia and ecstasy have in common?

apparently, a protein called 5-HT4R. this is really great news for scientists, as it solidifies the claim that anorexia is a disease, and gives them a substantial way to look for a cure. basically, research has found that people become addicted to not eating, and get a sort of seratonin high or rewarded feeling from refraining from food, in the same way as ecstasy users. as an anorexia survivor, i relate very solidly to this information. further information is discussed here, from reuters, and earlier in the year from the telegraph.

what does this mean to those suffering from the disease? well, if scientists can find ways to block the 5-HT4R receptors in the brain, then theoretically, anorexics would no longer get that addictive high from not eating (and conversely, the punishment and depressive feelings that result from ingesting food.)

this is most certainly not to say that if a suitable pill is manufactured that those afflicted would be miraculously cured. therapy is an essential aspect to successful treatment. i can't emphasize that enough. without being able to get to the root of your problems, you can never escape them. i truly believe that we are a society of quick-fixes and cure-all elixirs, obsessed with harder, bigger, faster, more. recovery takes time. that's why, almost ten years cured from my disease, i still fight it everyday. each bite of food that goes into my mouth, i have to work not to calculate calories, fat grams, look at what's on my plate. when i dress in the morning, i have to repeat mantras over and over again that i'm not fat, that the dress WASN'T looser on me the last time i wore it, etc. i'm at a healthy weight, even if i look in the mirror and don't see it. i enjoy food now, instead of obsessing over it. and i owe so much of that to the doctors that helped me what seems like a lifetime ago.

but just like alcoholism, you have to take things one day at a time. eating disorders are more serious, imho, though, because you can remove alcohol from your diet and place yourself in situations where it's not present. no one can just remove food from their diet ~ that's the basis of the problem! without it, you die. with it, you obsess. not to minimize the seriousness of alcoholism, but that's my stance. so hopefully, 5-HT4 will become a positive supplement to anorexia, and many more people can get help.

...and in the about effing time category...

Mychal Bell was finally released on bail today. finally. it's unfortunate that it took a media frenzy to make the racist f-wads actually get shamed into doing something right. so a big woo hoo is not perfect, but will suffice maintentant. he's out on $45,000 bail.

now if we can only drum up the same sort of media attention for the new jersey 4
read up. get involved. please.

T-G-I...well, you get the gist...

so it's friday! dirty americans are playing downtown, which is always exciting, and i wanna post something fun. if i could only figure out what i want that to be...hmm...

okay. how's this: i've been kinda down for the last week, and hunting for reasons to be happy. (though seeing chrissy hynde rockin' with the pretenders WAS pretty rad...) i can feel the blanket of depression about to swoop over me, and i'm really not looking forward to it. (duh!) so i've been trying to console myself in non-destructive ways for once. this blog is one of them *grin*

so i'm gonna insert something that makes me laugh, something for which i'm grateful:

my dog in a ponytail. it makes me laugh, every time. so smile everyone, at my pink mulleted phineas with his summer hairdo:

this is when he was rockin' a 'hawk... we were bored.

and this is my phinney when i first got him... what he normally looks like, shiny long mullet and all :) for him, i am grateful.