I
enjoyed reading Maria's
tales from Bloghercon.
It was unlikely that I would have gone given that it
was costly and I am a social phobe. There may have been
a free event. There should have been. But, again, even
if there had been I have that social phobe thing.
It's
odd since I spent a serious portion of my life in a
rock-n-roll band, hanging out in bars and clubs, running
a small cafe, working in restaurants, all of which were
highly social. And if you put me in the middle of a room full
of people you would not know I was feeling shy. I can
chat it up with almost anyone. I just prefer one on
one time.
Maria
wrote something that made me smile. A side ways
kinda smile.
A few people milling about the lobby. I am drawn to the group closer
to my age, instead of the young things wearing fuzzy bunny-eared-hats
or sporting fierce tattoos. Not that they scare me or that their looks
put me off. It's that they are young and my age is what will put them
off. Even if they could see me, which they probably don't. It's that
seemingly inevitable thing about women of a certain age: the turn
invisible to almost all in the world but themselves. So I head for the
group of women who, at first seem almost as old and almost as lost as I
am.
Turns out, this crowd is to be reckoned with. All of them successful
businesswomen or women with successful books, and most of them from the
East Coast. Wow. Then, there is me, with my rambling blog, my slim book
of poems and no job to speak of...
I
guess I would hope that in a group of women that age-invisible
thing wouldn't happen but I know it does. And successful
people. What is that? I guess I would hope that in a
group of women the poets would be as valued as the business
types. But ... the whole convention had a corporate
feel to it. Now, the feel I got was from some scant reading
and not as a result of being there so my critique is
from that far away perspective. Having said that, on
the schedule the welcome session included a tabulation
of a survey and "what we challenge you to accomplish".
Huh?
Obviously
I'm low on the will to accomplish spectrum but really.
What is that about? Maybe it's a conference thing and
I don't understand.
And
there is a chicken and an egg thing. Was Maria invisible
to the younger women? Probably not. Here is a
lovely picture of Maria taken by a woman who seemed
to have worked hard in support of the event. If I were
in a lobby I would have veered toward the bunny earred
and tattooed. Which may say something about my level
of maturity. Or not. My sense of the whole thing was
that it was a networking frenzy and I should certainly
be more interested in networking. I'm just not.
What
I learned from what Maria learned was that I am an identity
blogger. It came at no surprise. The personal is political was
a plank of the feminist movement in the sixties. And,
as Maria said much better than I could have...
Of course, somewhere between the strict confines of the ego and the
vast steppes of the political there is a way to loosen those bonds on
the self and also to make the inhospitable and impersonal fields of the
political more personal. Blogging is not the only, nor the first tool
of transformation. Blogging didn't create "identity bloggers." Those
who blog to make sense of the world through their own senses would do
this in another form, had blogs not come about.
Whenever
one of those - where are all the women blogger - things
pops up I always have the same reaction. They are every
where. Doing lots of things. That question comes from
the expert society. The bastard child of academic life
in which publish or perish establishes credibility and
hierarchy. I don't read the pundit blogs very often.
I don't know who the superstars are but I could guess.
And none of them are very compelling to me. Even when
I agree with their politics.
When
I first started reading blogs I was most attracted to
the "mommy" blogs. I thought it was a great
way for moms to break out of the isolation that can
occur when you are home with the kids. But why is it
that when women write about their kids they are mommy
blogs and when men write about their kids it's an interesting
post? I like art blogs and literary blogs and knitting
blogs and mostly I like identity blogs. That's where
the real sedition of culture is taking place. I don't
really care which movie star is dating which other movie
star. I care about Dru's
sassy new hair cut. I like that I can see the making
of quilt and never hafta do it. I like knowing what
Susan is wearing on Saturday morning.Andallthosepets.
And babies.
Was
the central question of the bloghercon about how to
get the perspective of women noticed? Then what is the
perspective of women? Are bloggers journalists? Yes.
And no. Are blogs diaries? Yes. And no. Is blogging
about community? Yes. and no.
More often than not, I can't find that old feeling of enthusiasm for
blogging any more. I recall the days when I viewed my life through the
lens of "will that make for a good blog post?", and the daily return
drives from work, during which I mentally composed the evening's post.
Now I forget that I even have a weblog a lot of the time, and if I
begin thinking about the way to frame an experience into an entry, I
generally end up determining that it's not worth the trouble.
But
then she writes about a meet-up with another blogger.
Yeah. I didn't start my blog to meet people but I have
and I have been happy about it.
Maria
says:
I learned that I am an "identity blogger." My blog has no focus -- or
rather, it's all about me. My blog is only as interesting as my
character is...
Gulp.
I feel like my blogging has been weak for awhile. I
was in the big depression and it got really bad. I am
feeling much better. And, although some people think
this is a sign of pathology, it is largely due do to
the love and support of my friends. I am still hanging
from a financial cliff. I am still struggling to
write and publish. I am still a moody mid life grrrl.
But I am feeling more grounded and centered and all
those words that don't have much meaning in a corporate
culture value grid.
Sometimes
this is an issue blog. There are twoother
bloggers who blog the issue. Both MEN! Of course there
are women
blogging about fat politics. I was just being pesky.
I
want to keep writing and linking but it's time for me
to get ready for the pool. Links are the means of exchange
in the blogging world. Links and comments. And I'm not
great at either. But I try. Blogging for me at this
point is a way to keep pushing myself to write.
I
have my own version of sexism in which women don't buy
into that whole make a place where the people who can
afford to go can meet up and build a network. One in
which two women who have a long standing issue can sit
down and at least pay one another the respect of allowing
for the feeling of what happened and not just dismiss
a reaction as unfounded, or unclear. What I love about
blogging is that you can do it for free. And you don't
hafta be a good writer. And you don't even hafta be
interesting. Oddly enough there are birds of your feather
who find you and give you the great gift of reading
what you write. And. That's way more than enough.
Someone
forwarded this
article to a list serve I read. I've seen the Dove ads
scattered around the city. Perhaps I'm prudish but I
can't get totally happy about any ad in which women
are standing around in their underwear even when it
is basic white underwear. And I always have the same
problem of wondering why women who seem to be a pretty
average size are so controversial.
The
fellow who wrote the article says some sort of nice
things. He confesses to having a crush on one of the
women. He also calls them husky and imperfect. Huh?
He makes the point that the ads are for firming creme,
which seems less that supportive of what women really
look like. He gives the ads a short term grade of A
because everyone is talking about them. Really? Everyone?
But he gives them a long term grade of D because ...
Sadly, this is not a winning play for the long haul.
If Dove keeps running ads like this, women will get bored with the
feel-good, politically correct message. Eventually (though perhaps only
subconsciously), they'll come to think of Dove as the brand for fat
girls. Talk about "real beauty" all you want—once you're the brand for
fat girls, you're toast.
Shoop.
There it is.
There
is a commercial on which Susan Sarandon and another
actress are using age defying make-up. I like Susan
Sarandon. I like her acting and her politics. And every
time I see that ad I want to ask her how she imagines
real change will happen in terms of how older women
are seen when she is promoting the need for age defiance.
Before
I started this I jumped to BFB to see if Paul had blogged
about the ad and he
had. Wendy can have the last word if you read this
after you read my post. Heh.
The
same divisions exist. Some people are happy to see "normal"
people represented and other people are hateful. There's
a full spectrum of response in between. I think most
people are walking past the ads thinking about what
is going on in their own lives. But these images get
into our brains where they do the work of narrowing
the sense of what a body is supposed to look like and
making us wonder how we measure up.
In
a relatively short time I have seen twomovies
in which there was footage, quite a bit of footage,
of turtles. Just turtles. Walking in their slow way.
And so the other day when I looked up and saw a turtle
on a PSA for public power on the TV I began to wonder.
About
what?
I
don't know. Exactly. Just. What's with all the turtles?
In
my perfect world I would get out of bed, walk out the
door and jump right into a pool. Naked. I have some
experience of this.
For
a short while I lived in a new age retreat center and
(of course) ran the kitchen. In the very early morning
I would make bread dough and set it to rise while I
took a swim in a pool that was fed by natural hot springs.
(There are pictures
of the place.
It's owned by new new age people now.) Then I put the
bread into bread pans and set them to rise while I soaked
in the hot tub. I was naked a lot. I wore draw string
skirts and t-shirts with a variety of new age slogans
and images and a necklace with an Om sign. The necklace
was the only thing I never took off.
And,
in case anyone is wondering, I was fat.
Then
the bread went in the oven and I made what ever
else I was going to make for breakfast. People followed
their noses to the table.
The
schedule at the
pool is going to change in the fall. There will
be two mornings when it is open at 6:15. I am SO happy
about this. I will hafta wear a suit but otherwise it's
pretty close to my dream come true.
I
got to have coffee with Keryx (who
I have been reading
for a few years) and Miss
Meridian (who I have not read). It was very, very
fun.
I
do like meeting people who I've been reading. I like
talking to smart women who have lots of stuff to say.
I wanted to attach myself to them for the rest of their
vacation but they were trying to swallow the Bay Area
in one big bite and I knew I couldn't keep up.
At
some point in the conversation we were talking about
the joys of biscuits. I woke up this morning with a
mad craving. I've made them a zillion times but
not very often just for me. Usually as a part of some
southern themed meal. But this morning I had my hands
in the flour pinching the butter into pea sized chunks.
No buttermilk but they'll be good enough. They are in
the oven even as I type.
My
Internet provider was off line all morning yesterday.
This is the second time recently I couldn't go
on line first thing, the first being when the electricity
was off the other day. It's almost shocking how thrown
off I get. I spent some time trying to figure out what
was going on and Kristina
called. We had to talk about As I Lay Dying, which I
finished over the weekend and needed help to parse.
I will be rereading it now. Then I went swimming and
Miriam took me out to lunch so we could talk about something
she wants me to write for her. By the time I could get
on line I forgot what I was going to post.
All
weekend I listened to different reports commemorating
the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
I can't remember if I really did duck and cover or if
I think I did because I've heard about it. I do remember
walking around in our basement imagining how we would
all live there. It was our bomb shelter. The naivete
of all that is almost frightening. But, of course, we
were not
informed and we didn't read The
New Yorker. We thought we'd just sit in the basement
for awhile and then go on with life as usual. Or maybe
that was just me. As a kid the idea of us all in the
basement seemed like an adventure.
I
also remember conversations when I was a teen about
how the knowledge of the bomb created nihilism in the
world view of my generation. I hadn't really thought
about it. I just thought about family survival adventures
in the basement. And. I did not think about the people
of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Not for many years.
I
don't really write about the president other than the
occasional offhanded reference. He's just too horrible.
I reach a shrill level of vitriol internally every time
I think about him. I don't feel too bad about that but
it doesn't seem like I wanna put it out in the world.
But watching this
thing with Cindy Sheehan unfold I just feel this
very flat contempt.
It
would take so little. All he has to do is face
her. There is just something so fundamentally
disrespectful in almost everything this man does. But
this is the problem I have when I try to write a post
about him. I feel like I'm saying the obvious.
I
should focus on Cindy.
Her courage. Her will. Her loss. Her dignity. If I had
the money I would fly down to Texas right now. Just
to stand with her.
I've
been reading books lately in which there have been words
I don't know. I love when that happens. I marvel at
writers who have such words in their head.
In
something I read there was the word unassailable. I
did know what that meant but I'm sure I've never used
it in a sentence. It stuck in my head yesterday, which
gives me some hope that I may some day use it in a sentence.
(Other than a sentence about not using it.) I kept wondering
who is unassailable. People have taken shots at Gandhi
and Mother Teresa. I may have read the word in one of
things I linked about Cindy. Who I just heard on
Democracy Now this morning. Smart. Strong. So
cool! And I would say it is a perfect word for her.
Well.
It's a weird thing having my own personal troll. It
is kinda getting to me. Not in a big way. But it's making
it a little hard to post. When April
was here she said
something about the way I write my life on-line. Not
as a criticism. We were just talking about the different
forms writing takes in Live Journal, or Blogger, or
what ever. I hadn't really thought about my writing
as being so, so personal. There is a lot that goes on
in my life that I don't write.
In
the
book I've been reading, one of the characters says
that disinterest is the opposite of love. That feels
right. So when someone who says they work sixty hours
a week to get by makes the time to read me knowing that
they won't like what I have to say, or the way that
I say it, and makes more time to leave me a fairly long
all over the place comment, it's not about love and
it's not about indifference. Is it about hate? Maybe.
But it's not about hating me. It's about hating an idea
of who I am. So it would seem easy enough for me to
ignore.
I've
read people on line who I didn't like. Sometimes I end
up back at their site because someone I do know links
to them. It doesn't occur to me to leave a comment telling
the person how dopey I think they are. I might argue
an idea but I try to be respectful. And I always use
my own name. (Fake names. Yet another reason to ignore
dumb comments.) There is a part of me that wants to
understand what makes another person do stuff like that.
I know from experience that I can't have a reasonable
conversation with my little troll. I tried.
It's
interesting. Sort of.
There
is only one thing that ever made me feel like a victim
and I never write about it. I know too well how much
work it is to keep it from taking up central residency
in my sense of self. I was hit by a truck once and I
guess I was a victim then but I don't feel it that way.
There is a difference between identifying as a victim
and understanding yourself to be a member of a group
that experiences oppression. I am a woman. I am fat.
And I am middle aged. I understand oppression. And even
in all of that I don't feel like a victim. I feel like
a person on a path less traveled. Or a path of resistance.
Or a path that leads to a dead end. Or not. It's just
my life. Talking about the oppression isn't complaining.
In a world full of snappy narratives in which it all
works out and in which it all working out is measured
in terms of product, my life may never measure up. On
a path where value is measured in terms of human exchange
and expanding view, my life is rich.
It
might be nice if seventy percent of my posts were about
food but I challenge anyone to do the math on that.
I don't think I have ever written about a pear coz I
don't love pears that much. I do love peaches. I'm sure
I have written about peaches. I am obsessed with peaches
in the summer. I have one in my yoghurt almost every
day. The season is winding down and my obsession is
shifting to tomatoes. Tomato and feta salad. SO good.
If I were a thin, or average sized person it would
just be a post about something I ate. Apparently, for
some people, my thoughts about food prove that I am
obsessed with food. OK. Guilty. I love food.
Obsession
can be problematic. I know fat people who are obsessed
with food. In fact one of my concerns with the fat revolution
is that in our effort to show that not ALL fat people
are obsessed with food we exclude the people who are
struggling with compulsion. One peach in my yogurt probably
won't hurt me but I know fat people who struggle with
food issues. None of them have ever been served by focusing
on their size.
So
this is all a response to a dumb comment. I get so many
more positive comments. It's just nuts to put any energy
into responding to a comment that reflects such an unwillingness
to see me. But I haven't been able to think about the
blog and not think about the comment. I thought maybe
writing about it might help me to shake it off. We'll
see.
I
don't really need encouragement. I do know that there
are people who read me because they like what I'm writing
and/or how I write. I am grateful. I want to be able
to keep writing on my blog. It keeps me from caving
inward. I'm just shaking off some drudge.
I
woke up from a dream about my first roommate. I was
crossing a street and she was crossing from the other
side. She had a baby in one a snuggly on her chest.
It took me a minute to recognize her. The baby was so
beautiful. We went back to her house to talk. It was
a warm, loving dream and I didn't want to wake up but
there's some construction going on in my hood so sleeping
isn't easy.
That's
always such a strange feeling. Finding someone in your
dream and wanting to stay with them.
I've
been doing little writing jobs. I like the work because
I have no investment in the writing other than it be
good. I have no personal need driving the language.
Danelle
is using some sections from my book in her new piece.
And I did some new writing for it. That has been terrifically
fun. One of her board members put me on the payroll.
It's a bit of a joke because it's a small non profit
dance company. There is no real payroll. But I am going
to get a little cash.
I
have been reconnecting to old friends lately. Danelle,
Jeane's visit, Jane is coming at the end of the month,
Jo Ann sent me a copy of her
book, in which I am acknowledged. Quite a thrill!
And Bobbie showed up in my dream. It feels like a gathering
up of something. Something old and new at the same time.
I
had just gotten into bed with my book when I heard a
a young man on the hill in front of my apartment sing
DON'T LET ME DOWN at the top of his lungs. He sang it
the requisite four times as he moved down the hill,
passed my apartment, so it had a slow Doppler quality.
I don't know if he sang the rest of the song.
One
of the restaurants I worked in had an open kitchen. People
were dining a few feet in front of us. One day my friend
Allison and I were cooking and some young women at a
table were smiling at us. As they got up to leave one
of them came to the counter and said, "It's nice
to see women in the kitchen."
Hmmm.
Now
we knew she meant the professional kitchen but still.
It was a moment of cognitive dissonance. I remembered
it the other day when news of the new
chef came out and I thought of it again when I was
reading through Maria'sposts
about the dust up over Mena's
CNN interview.
I
agree with Maria when she says:
By looking at this interview in its full text and context, couldn't one
also make the case that Mena is telling knitters who blog that what
they are doing is blogging and that they are just much part of that
technological revolution as are the "men" whose voices drown them out
in the media ... but not in the middle of their own lives, where
speaking matters and technology is just a tool.
Perhaps
because I've thought about knitting blogs when the oh
so reductive where-are-all-the-women bloggers question
gets asked. And I'm sort of amazed that women being
associated with "traditional" women's activities
like knitting and motherhood is a lesser thing.
Why is being a political pundit or a technology maven
better? Maria addresses all these things with great
eloquence and verve.
I
don't like conversations about
gender in boy/girl terms. Because they ignore the
third sex and polarize. And I resent the woman bloggers
who don't often link other women and talk about women
being marginalized. What they are really saying is that
women are marginalized in technology and politics. And
that's true. I support them in their battle for more
voice but they don't define the world of women on the
web.
The
most offensive thing in the CNN piece to me was the
opening paragraph.
Mena Trott's personal Web log isn't exactly
the stuff of headlines. She writes mostly about her daily life -- what
she did over the weekend, what's she's reading, what she ate for
dinner. Chances are, if she weren't the co-founder of a successful Web
log publishing company (Six Apart), her Web log probably wouldn't get
much press.
That
characterizes what attracted me to blogging so why isn't
it the stuff of headlines? I think blogging subverts
the famous and expert culture. I'm way more interested
in the lives of bloggers than I am in the lives of people
who make movies. Using a blog as a platform for ascension
into the ranks of the called upon for opinion is only
one part of what goes on.
But
it's really the way sexism gets talked about that bugs
me. Because the complaints come from the values established
in a sexist culture. There are these funny moment when
a women in the kitchen is an act of revolution.
When
we were in India Jeane turned me onto the use of hankies.
It's funny to say that since my grandmother used one.
But it was Jeane who talked about how great it was to
have something that you could wash and reuse and suddenly
it made sense.
I
was reminded of this on Saturday when I was watching
Helen
Caldicott on Book TV. She pulled out her cloth hankie
(Actually it was a big orange piece of cloth. Somehow
more than a hankie.) and talked about the need to reduce
things.
It's
something I think about a lot when I watch commercials
for use and toss everything. Clean your toilet bowl
with this and flush it. Cut your chicken on this and
toss it. Quicker picker uppers. And the land fill builds.
I saw something about a woman who runs her family restaurant.
There are these things you can put in pots to cook soup
with and then you pull them out, pour out the soup and
you can toss them. They looked like plastic bags but
I guess they're some kind of new something. She thought
they were great because her dishwashers weren't scrubbing
pots.
I
have cloth towel in the kitchen and a cloth napkin.
And I also have paper towels. I probably use more paper
towels than I should. I only buy Kleenex when I have
a really bad cold but that doesn't happen often. I do
use toilet paper to blow my nose now and then.
I
have a stack of hankies. Some were my grandmom's. Some
my mom's. I haven't wanted to use them because they
are keepsakes. But after listening to Helen I pulled
one out.
Karen
has started a new
business the main product of which is the P-Mate.
If you are a woman who goes camping, or to out
door festivals, a P-Mate could come in handy.
I
haven't done much camping. But when I first moved to
NYC I lived in a residential hotel. The bathroom was
so dirty that I often waited until I got to Grand Central
before I used the bathroom. I might have used a P-Mate then.
This
is a family business. So there's also a page for Mark's
music. I just love it!!
I
have a stack of bookmarks. They come from Amazon, most
book stores, some decorative ones. I'm always trying
to put them somewhere easy to find and I can never find
them when I need one. Right now they are in the corner
of a shelf above my desk. Easy arm reach. And yet.
I couldn't find them.
I
needed one because Kristina
sent me a couple books and I started reading one
right away. I just finished Light In August,
which I decided to read after I read As I Lay Dying,
which I read because Kristina
read it and needed someone to talk to about it and
yes, it was somewhat because Oprah has them up for summer
reading but it doesn't take much for us to read a book.
There's
this clip of Oprah pitching the book club in which shows
the three Faulkner's in their new box set and says in
her most ebullient voice, "It's gonna be FUN!!"
Fun?
Reading
Faulkner?
Uh.
Sometimes,
when I was reading I was in a swoon. The language. The
depth of the characters. The plot inside a plot inside
a plot. Sometimes I get frustrated and want him to get
on with it. Just tell me what happens!!! But more than
either of those reactions the racism is hard to take.
I get that he was writing about a time and place. I
get that. It's just hard to take. It's not even close
to fun.
My
Faulkner is in a
volume from LOA. They always have these burgundy
cloth bookmarks attached. So I didn't need one
for that. I have one in the Leonard,which
I'm still reading. I started reading before I looked
for them and, despite the fact that they're in a pretty
obvious place, it took me awhile to find them.
The
other
book she sent is by a man who is credited with inspiring
Faulkner. It's good that I know where the bookmarks
are.
I
really enjoyed Knitting
Heaven and Earth.It was like having a conversation
with a friends. Lots of shared experience and cultural
reference. She writes, in part, about knitting
while her father was dying.
I
learned to crochet while I was in the hospital but after
about four afghans I stopped in the middle of one. I
picked it up when my dad was dying. There was something
comforting about the feel of yarn moving though my fingers.
Maybe I should have worked on being better at crochet
but I wanted to learn how to knit. I can't do much.
I just knit row after row. And I've been content to
that. I know I need to take the next step. Maybe even
try to follow a pattern.
She
writes about an unexpected and failed romance, the passing
of friends, her relationship with her godson, having
breast cancer. Toward the end of the book I sensed that
she was still working to understand something. She writes
about writing.
She
mentions lots of knitting and yarn resources so I found
my self at the computer more than a few times looking
for people. She mentions this
guy. Looking around his site I was reminded of something
I read in a
book by M.C.Richards years ago. She thought everyone should
make their own dish
ware
and sheets
and clothes.
He does.
I'm
never gonna be a big crafter. I don't think. But I like
having something that I'm working on. Cooking was my
craft. Still is. I just don't do it as much. And writing.
She
struggled with a heath decision in the book. As have
I been. And she struggled in much the same way.
The weird thing about a book like this is that you feel
like you've gotten to know someone but of course, you
haven't. If I saw her somewhere I would want to talk.
But there would be this odd feeling of knowing her when
I don't really. I dunno.
Of
course I do feel the need to marvel about him saying
she would outlive her spouse and not be able to find
a new relationship because men don't like fat women.
Since she is married we can assume one man liked her.
And if the doctor is so sure she'll out live her husband
then he must think she's pretty healthy. Why does he
assume that she would want to meet anyone else? Maybe
she would enjoy having some solitude. Is being
in a partnership now on the list of things a person
needs to be healthy? And maybe if she couldn't find
a man she could find a woman.
And
I really wonder if people think a fat person needs a
doctor to tell them that they are fat. I'm just gonna
bet that the woman knew she was fat and took offense
at the WAY the doctor lectured her. I would never have
an issue with a doctor talking to me about food and
exercise. Of course, a doctor just apologized to me
for his Dorito breathe while examining my eyes.
Some time later in our conversation he said he had a
very rigid diet and had lost a bunch of weight. I didn't
know Doritos for breakfast was part of a healthy diet.
But it's his business. He gets to eat Doritos. I wouldn't.
I don't like them. But he can. I wouldn't even mind
if a doctor mentioned my weight as part of a list of
risk factors. But that's not what this guy did.
Clearly,
I can go on and on. I wasn't going to but yesterday
I was listening to Eugene Robinson on CSPAN talking
about a
column he wrote about the obsessive reporting of
missing white women. During the show he was taking call-in
questions and one woman said something about being over
weight and sure that no one would look for her if she
went missing. Mr. Robinson and Mr. Lamb both had a look
of bemusement. Not in a crude way but as if to agree.
I
was overcome with a feeling of deep sadness.
The
issue with what the doctor said was not that he told
a patient that they were engaged in a behavior that
might ultimately cause their demise (like eating junk
food for breakfast) but that he told her weight made
her unlovable. In what world is that about health? And
it contributes to a culture of fat hatred in which a
fat woman imagines that if she went missing no one would
bother to look for her.
Matt
was guest hosting Sunday
Salon yesterday. He interviewed a couple people about
Burning Man.
It was interesting.
The
conversation became one about race after a few callers
said they didn't feel Burning Man was an event that
connected to people of color. The guests and a few other
callers were extremely defensive about that idea. They
think they have a utopia of sorts. It just annoys
me when white people deny racism. The callers were
speaking from their truth. Instead of talking about
how the event could move toward some inclusion the guest
went into denial.
I
have a mild interest in going. Very mild. There was
a guy getting his car ready a few blocks from me one
year. He was painting and then adding glitter. It was
SO cool!
But.
I'm not really a camp in the desert kinda grrrl.
I
used to love to dream about utopia and communities.
But it can be so insular. I need the grist of life in
a city. Burning Man seems like an art project/party.
Cool enough.
This
is from an e-mail I sent to Erica in response to her
comment on yesterdays
post.
Thank
you for stopping by. It's doubtful that I would ever
send a member your
way. Not because I don't support your work. Helping
people find one another is a good thing. There are a
number of on (and off) line dating services. If they
work for people then I'm happy for them.
I
have some issues with the idea of someone wanting to
be with me because I am fat. It's always seemed like
the opposite of someone not wanting to be with me because
I am fat. I understand that people have physical preferences
and that preferences aren't always the only reason people
connect romantically. I tend to like men with long hair
but that didn't stop me from falling for a balding man.
Still, a preference for fat people in terms of romance
is as valid as any other. I just always hope that love
is the arbiter of beauty. But love may be hypnotized
by popular culture in which fat people have little representation.
I
have some issue with the commercialization of romance.
I know that creating and maintaining a site can be costly
but I also know that the web is a place where people
can connect with members of affinity groups for no cost.
It hurts me to imagine how many hopeful fat people
pay money in hopes of finding true love. I know thin
and average sized people have their own clubs and I
feel the same sadness for them.
And
yet, the market exists. It is a service. So, good luck
with your project.