Fatshadow

Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and learn to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. ~Rainer Maria Rilke

I know I talked before I said Rabbit Rabbit today. I was muttering to myself about random stuff. Drat! I'm writing myself a tibbar tibbar note, right now.

I love the coloring contest! I'm not really adept with Photo Shop. But, I love playing.

I'm sad about Rosemary Clooney. She has always reminded me of my Mother. My Mom has a wonderful voice, but never thought it was good enough. I talked to my Mom about it last night. Mom said something about Rosemary's weight. I said, " Mom, she died of lung cancer." " Yes, but I'm sure being fat didn't help her any."

I was tired I decide to watch TV. I watched Mama Flora's Family. And parts of a film about the holocaust. I tried to avoid the commercials for all the new "reality" shows. So, lets see...racism, anti-semitism and people in compromising situations. Yeah. TV is so relaxing.

Kell did some straight up writing about NAAFA and the feeder thing. If you were curious about my oblique feeder reference to the feeder thing the other day, she breaks it down. And I agree with her conclusions. But I'm struggling with not wanting to see NAAFA die. I've done a lot of thinking about this but I can't seem to arrive at a conclusion.

When Paul writes up a post on Big Fat Blog he usually says something astute and sardonic. He's pointing to this article in this post.

It seems like the bad press Southwest has gotten over all this would have an impact on their bank account, but it's summer, people are traveling, it's cheap. I dunno.

I had lunch with the lovely Jennifer yesterday. Doncha think she needs to make a video?

So, I'm feeling kinda virtuous. All that could fade quickly today. Because I need to do more work on the BSWP (for those of you who don't remember, that's my Big Summer Writing Project ) and I need to do a pile of laundry. Makes me tired just thinking about it.

I had thought I might not write about my little blog addiction. It seems that the people who read me don't really follow the antics of my blog buddies. (See long list of links to the right.) I always feel a bit peripheral to the blog cluster/ Kinda like I arrived late and tried to stick my self onto the side.

But there are things that blow my mind. Elaine's son is b!x. They were having this family ...uh...conversation the other day. It was/is none of my business. I have no opinion about the issue. But I was blown away by the directness of the language and the fact that it was going on ... in comments!

I feel the need to keep my eye on and thoughts with Mike and bobbi. There was a blogger spat that I wrote about a while back. I was watching it unfold and get worked through in real time. Clicking and reloading and fretting.

Another Mike hasn't been posting. Which meant that I wasn't hearing about Henry. I checked every day. Today, when I saw the page, I was so relieved.

And Willa. I've been reading her for a few years now. It's like having an old friend ...except... we've never met.

I wonder if it's the distance that keeps me involved in these relationships. Many of these folks don't read me. I do feel competitive and jealous sometimes. I've had days where I thought about deleting my blog roll and never going back. I feel like I'm not getting enough attention.

But my heart aches when I read people putting their lives on a page. Voicing their opinion, showing their art, loving their kids and their cats. And, generally, they aren't famous. They don't have to get approval from a publisher. They just do it the way they want to do it.

So when I go back to working on my BSWP I feel a little looser. It's just about talking story.

What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. - Frederick Douglass

If you let your laundry pile up, to the point where you have five big loads, then you have to spend the whole day going up and down the three flights of stairs to the laundry room. Sigh.

But I did it. I was still folding laundry at 11:00. And there's more to do. And I worked on the BSWP but didn't finish it in time to mail off to my advisor. So, my virtue is in tack, but maybe a little tarnished. Oh well.

I remember when I saw the movie Independence Day. Big space ships. Start blowing stuff up all over the world. America leads the charge. And it's the geeks and the losers who win the battle. And that is the American notion of itself.

Big monarchy. Taxing group of folks who are trying to make something new. Tea vandalism. Raggedy army of geeks and losers triumphs over larger more organized army of the big monarchy. And the rockets red glare...

But. Those folks, who thought they were making something new, ignored the fact that they were making it in the same manner that the big monarchy did things. In other words, they ignored the rights of the people who already lived here. They ignored the contradictions in declaring all men created equal and allowing slavery. They assumed their entitlement.

Now, you could say that the acceptance of slavery was a compromise. And in Democracy you will always have compromise. But, I think it's that kind of reasoning that has gotten us into so much trouble.

So we won our independence from taxation and rule. I get teary when the guy in the movie flies his jet into the big space ship and makes all the other space ships crash. I love stories of the people fighting against tyranny. But with freedom comes responsibility.

We're never really independent from each other. We live in semi permeable boundaries. We effect one another. Sometimes we fuck it up and have to make amends.

So eat barbecue. Visit your family. Watch the sparkles in the sky. But think about it all.

OK. I admit defeat. My perma links are borked. I do not know why. They never really worked the way I wanted them to anyway. I may try again. But not today.

Cheryl took me out for a birthday lunch. (I know. My birthday seems to go and on. I'm a lucky grrrl.) An amazing birthday lunch. Thank you Cheryl! Then we had to go the City Lights. But I was good. I only bought one book. And we talked and talked and talked.

Marie and Neal came over to watch the fireworks from my roof. It really is a great place, because you can see the two sets at the same time. One set is near Crissy Field and the other near the ferry buildings. Pretty spectacular.

I woke up in this crinked position, dreaming about kissing Prince. Sorry. The artist formally know as ...

My shoulder was hurting. I put on some of the magic Chinese medicine ointment that Lynn gave me for me knees and went back to bed. And I feel a little better. But I'm

I did it again! I pushed myself into a hornked position while I slept with my shoulder jammed into the pillows. I woke up a few times and straightened out but then I'd do it again. I don't generally move around much in my sleep, so this is ... odd. And I had more Eros dreams. No George Clooney, but some guy (who I did not recognize) who was doing barbecue and we started to flirt and talk. What ever.

The dreams feel great. Even kissing the-artist-formally-known-as felt great. But I wake up in a knot. I think my hormones are having a festival.

I stayed in a pissy mood most of yesterday. My stepfather sent me a new mouse. I had to take ALL the books out of the hutch above the desk and move the desk out to plug it in. Which of course meant dusting. Lots of dusting. And reorganizing of books. And swearing. And listening. The new mouse is cool enough.

My thinking has been all over the map. In part because I was thinking about a much linked bit from Burning Bird. When I first began to read it I flinched at the notion of learned helplessness. It's not that I don't think the idea has some merit but I just tense up around the notion of tracking the cause of helplessness to the helpless. In other words - tell it to the folks in Jenin. But, it can be said that people who can elevate their situation often can't see how. I just want to turn to the folks who are creating the environment, the mystification, the oppression, and say knock it off.

Which is what I think Shelly is ultimately saying. Sooner or later people get pissed off. And they stand up and say no more.

I have long been an advocate for anger. Beth says anger is fluid. Yeah. She goes on to say that resentment is hardened. (I am paraphrasing.)

I saw something about commercials that pop up on subway walls now. It's like a video thing. So we are bombarded with mystification. We lose track of ourselves.

Well, lets turn around and track the power. And lets get pissed. And for those of who aren't in the direct fray of what is possible in terms of human misery, lets speak out.

But, listen. I spent yesterday being pissed off at dust. I'm blaming hormones. There's a macro and micro thing going on here.

And, in part, writing this little blah, blah, blah every day helps me to locate myself. Which clearly, given my recent spate of night tension, I need to do.

I went swimming. AriAsha and Leslie were there. It was great to see them. Then Marilyn and I went out for great Mexican food.

I watched Promises, which I can't recommend highly enough. It was very moving and painful. Hopeful and hopeless at the same time.

Then I watched a show on CNN about weight loss success stories. There were two. It was three quarters about how these two people lost weight and kept it off. And then one little bit of stuff about health at any size. Joanne Ikeda and Lynn Macafee (I'm pretty sure I'm spelling that wrong.) were on to talk about the fit and fat community.

I have much to say about this, but I need to run out the door. Stay tuned for long winded rant about media mystification.

It's a relief to hear someone untangle the fat mythology but Gaesser did feel the need to say that he WAS NOT saying that fat was OK.

Yeah. Ya wouldn't want to start that kind of thinking. All those fat folks might start feeling feisty and storming Southwest.

But he was great. I'd like to have copies of his book on me at all times. Then when people say they just can't belive people can be fat and healthy, I could just hand them the book. Of course they wouldn't read it. People want to continue to hate fat and fat people.

One of the stories he told was about a quack diet doctor who gave his patients weed killer in an attempt to get them to lose weight. He caused some serious health problems for some folks and there were charges brought against him. He was acquitted because ... it's so important to fight fat that it's understandable that he would try anything.

It is good to have solid info. It was good to be with Marilyn and there were other fat community members there. Marilyn, Sondra and I went out for lunch. It was good to be with fat, awake women.

I remember my post cocaine days. I lost 100 pounds and didn't notice it was happening. People kept saying, "Are you loseing weight?" And I really didn't know. Or care.

Then one day I pulled on a pair of jeans that hadn't fit in quite a while. I went to a doctor who had weighed me in the early post coke days and, in fact, I had lost a bunch of weight.

My therory was that, during the coke daze, my body knew it couldn't count on me for much. So, it held on. Stopped processing. After, I began eating regularly, not dieting, eating regularly and my body relaxed. I was also getting acupuncture and massage.

But I was still fat. I remember walking down a street one day, in my jeans that hadn't fit and now did, feeling pretty fine. And some guys yelled "fat cow" at me from a car.

So, it always confuses people when I say I was very fat during the time when I did cocaine. But Gaesser explains why in his book.

Gaesser is a doctor and a scientist. He is not a fat activist. He deals with data.

I met with my advisor on the BSWP. She's so cool. She likes what I'm doing and has suggestions that put my brain into overdrive. I came home and wrote for a few hours. Talked to Suzanne and then wrote until 2:00 AM.

I've always talked. Talking was like sex for me and still is sometimes. I like talking deep. I'm not past talking trash but it never feels satisfying. Talking is confession, dissection, work. And deep relief.

But when I get dark, talking leaves me. Words. No use. Nothing sounds right. Nothing feels right.

One of the reasons I like writing here is because I just do what I want. I ignore the rules. It makes it easier for me to go off, the way I do when I talk.

So I'm working on the BSWP. Sending Elaine positive thoughts for a quick recovery. Wishing Jo Ann a Happy Birthday. And listening to Pattie and Carl. Climbing out of the pit.

This book was written in response to that creeping enemy of self-expression: entropy. If you've ever set out to create something, you know what I'm talking about, for sooner or later, no matter how well it's going, the whole damn system breaks down." -Suzanne Falter-Barns

My writing surge continued yesterday, but I was slower. I actually wrote all day, but with lots of breaks to talk on the phone, do the dishes, check e-mail, go down the street and buy green beans and beef in black bean sauce. So, the BSWP is creeping along.

I think I'm mourning. Maybe. Or something like mourning. I'm mourning my sex life, not having a child, not having a rock n roll band. Mourning the loss of all the things I thought might be true by now. And aren't. I'm not sure.

The BSWP is a memoir, so I'm immersed in memory. I'd like to finish it so I can stop thinking about the past.

It is useful to muse deeply about your past. There is a way in which unpacking old boxes, full of things you thought were true, gives you clarity.

Coz some of the sad stuff is always going to be sad. And some of the anger is still easy to spark. And some times I have a sense of irreparable damage. Which is, in some ways, true. I am damaged.

But, I am also ... I'm not sure. I'm resistant to words like lucky and privileged. I mean, I am lucky and privileged, in so many ways. But it isn't like the one things offsets the other.

It all weaves together. The sad, mad, luck, joy, peace, war, stuff. It all weaves together and I sit and study it for loose threads and missed meaning.

Kell. Good gawd. Kell is writing up a storm. A STORM!!! Such good stuff that I had to cut and paste.

There's this gulf, between the thin world and the fat world. We're not visible, as people, anywhere except in little spots of light, like Radiance or Fat?So!, or Pinkwater's stuff. But the mainstream is the Shallow Hals and Friends, where we don't even get to play the fat people any more. And, then, at the other end of the extreme, which has gone so far, it's back at the bigot beginning, is the endless stream of fat women as porn freaks. Even what for fat women is just normal everyday desire is filed under fetish, and when we try to just be human women, we get ridiculed back into our place as deviant-by-definition. Spoiled identity, and then some.
(there's more)

I'm still struggling with the NAAFA thing. I haven't been involved so I don't have any history. I've always been wary. It has always been a social club with a limited understanding of political will. And I think that's owing to fat psychology. We just don't believe that we deserve dignity. Why should we? Summarily ridiculed or ignored.

So NAAFA has a token amount of fat politics but it's couched in something. Something I can't quite name. But Kell names it. And, still, I can't get off the fence. I want NAAFA to get it to get fierce. Because NAAFA has some power. They linked with David Horowitz to fight Southwest. The are called upon to do press.

Meanwhile, I'm still in a writing frenzy. Although, it has slowed way down. Way down.

Well, I wouldn't really give up ... but in my cycling depressive state I've been spending less time looking around. I readily admit that I'm a whacky chick, but I feel like I'm not totally connected to the blog cluster ( I read them ... do they read me? Does it matter? ) and I'm feeling too tense about things political to even start writing.

But, this morning, while I was reading around, I saw that Bobbi is doing this cool day long project. So cool! Now, I'm going to be on line all day. Well .... except for when I'm swimming. Uh ... and writing. Heh.

Yesterday, I hit a wall. I planned to write. After I went to the grocery store and bought real food. But I started playing with ... my Sims. I ordered pizza. The day went by. How old am I?

I've been thinking about sex. And pornography. And representation. In part because of a discussion in the cafe about this site. In which Kell and Pattie, two of my favorite thinkers, take slightly different positions. And partly because of a show I half watched on MSNBC. And mostly because I keep hoping I will get to have sex. Just once more. At least.

I am not anti pornography. But most pornography is just stupid. I could say I prefer erotica, but that's not accurate. I'm often surprised by what turns me on. And it's rarely the same. What turns me on depends on stuff. My mood. How much I trust the source of what I'm looking at, or reading, or listening to.

But there is an idea that women need to have romance and foreplay and want graphics that reflect all that. That may be true for many woman and it is often true for me. But in a certain mood ... I'm just about getting to it.

Which brings me to the MSNBC thing. (I wish they would have detailed the show on the site ... but no.) There was a woman who had breast cancer and had two mastectomies. She has a tattoo all over her chest. It's like a halter top and it's beautiful. MSNBC showed it. So, here's this woman on television ... topless. And I was thinking ...why is this OK? How can they show this, but they put the fuzzy thing on women when they're naked and they have their breasts? Is it really just the tits? Are they really separate? Is it only sexually explicit if she has nipples?

Cat has herself categorized in separate parts. And she's playing to men. And she may be playing to feeders. But she is making the images. She lives in a sexist world. She has internalized the idea of body as product. She's bold enough to demand that her body be included in the market place. Is it offensive? Sometimes. And it's sad. Sometimes. It makes me sad when women imagine their bodies to be divisible by tits, ass, legs, whatever. But I also kinda like that she makes the demand.

I'm interested in being whole. Heart. Mind. Body. I'm interested in a relationship that is whole. Heart. Mind. Body. I'm still thinking that love is the arbiter of beauty. And I want someone to want me. ALL of me.

And then there's the issue of ... is it art? Having struggled in Photoshop I often admire what Cat pulls off. And sometimes she does things that are kinda beautifu l. And sometimes she is pornographic.

She also does this project. which is very moving. Not an equivocation. Just a thing I think is cool.

So, I'm thinking about this stupid thing that we do. Dividing bodies into parts. And then being afraid of those parts. And I'm thinking of my own sense of my own sexual ... marketability.

And I'd like it all to ... be different. Be whole. But until it is ... I think we'll go through some awkward experimental phases. And Cat's fat girl porn may be one of the stops along the way.

The question is ... if Cat were thin would those pictures be erotic? And why isn't the woman's chest, covered with beautiful tattoo art, erotic? And why aren't all breasts erotic? All the breasts longing to be cupped in the hand of the one who they want. The thrill of the hand that communicates the longing to connect. To breach the separateness. To connect the parts.

Not related to the whole sex and body parts thing but ... if you didn't follow the link to Bobbi yesterday you really ought to check it out today. In fact the whole project is worth spending some time with. Life. Ordinary life. Is pretty sexy.

I woke up having a dream that some friends and I were on some kind of journey. And we were in a mountain town. We looked up and saw some small tornados in the air and realized that there was a bigger one coming. We weren't sure what to do and I said well, lets sit against this wall. Which we did. And a really big tornado passed by us. In the dream I thought it was a monster. I felt this electricity in my spine. And then it was gone and we were all fine.

The pornography discussion goes on. Pattie took it to Fatty Patties and Kell did more on her blog.

I was thinking abut the etymology of the word. It's Greek, porne (whore) and graphien (to write). But I remember reading some where that the porne was not just a whore, the porne was the "worst" whore. In other words, in patriarchy, where men have the money and the power, all women are whores. Wives exchange their sexuality for financial security. Maybe a guy has a mistress who is very beautiful and he pays her a lot of money. And then there's the woman at the edge of town who you can act out all your silliness on and pay what ever you want. She's so poor she'll accept it all.

I think there's an intersection here with fat psychology. If fat women accept the idea that they are not sexually desirable, or only sexually desirable by guys with loopy agendas, they are living at the edge of town.

I don't want to live at the edge of town and I don't want to live in the big house. I want to live in mutuality with someone.

Here's a thing. Some of us are born on the edge of town. And I'm not going to critique what happens on the edge of town. I want the whole planet to make the shift. No one is served by acted out sexual silliness. Not ultimately. Mutuality in commerce and sex and life might be a more workable way to be.

I remember seeing a Victoria's Secret commercial on TV around Christmas. There were women in bras and thongs with wings, all shiny and flawless. And I started to cry. because none of us are shiny and flawless. And many of the little boys watching that commercial are going to want those shiny, flawless angels. And many of the little girls watching that commercial will do crazy shit to themselves in a futile attempt to grow wings.

I ate a vegetable dinner, got a chiropractic adjustment (Thank you Barbara!) and went to therapy. How's that for self care?

The amazing conversation in my comments yesterday (continuing today) and thoughts on pornography and representation are still moving around in my brain. And this morning I noticed this question on We Have Brains.

I am startled when people say they aren't feminist. I always wonder if they think women should vote. It really hasn't been that long. 1920. It took 100 years to there. Judging by voter turn out in this country maybe no one cares. Equal pay for equal work? Sound good? What's the resistance to feminism?

But then we find ourselves in a conversation about whether or not an image is pornographic and what I feel is the waves of emotion coming from a variety of life experiences. And feminism starts to sound like the disembodied rhetoric of a privileged few. By which I mean, if you've had to do some kind of sex work to feed your kids, you don't want to hear about internalized oppression. You want to hear about how you're going to pay the rent. It's a cart and a horse.

But feminism, for me, has always been about seeing the ways in which power is not balanced between men and women and trying to get things into a state that I describe as mutuality. I don't think men are served by the imbalance and I do think that they need to do the work of letting go of privilege. I think the rewards will be great.

The boys who long for the flawless, shiny angels in thongs are suffering. They're in a trance. They've forgotten how it feels to love someone in a way that includes the full life of a body. The full life of a body includes changes. Tits and asses succumb to the pull of gravity, but they are still beautiful. Bellies are marked by childbirth. Eyes and lips crinkle in the corners from the daily expression of emotion. Variety is beautiful. Do you really want to stay stuck in a twelve year old wet dream for your whole life?

I keep having an image of a little girl spinning in new dress. She's saying "Look at me, look at me, look at me." And she should. She should want the attention. She should feel happy about her beauty. And if she climbs to the top of the monkeybars she should be proud of her strength and agility. And if she solves the math problem that no one else could solve she should be proud and she should be happy to have the praise. Praise is good.

A mutual plum is not a plum. I was too respectful to take the pulp and do not like a stone. Send no union letters. The soul must go by Death alone, so, it must by life, if it is a soul. If a committee - no matter... Emily Dickenson

I was supposed to meet with my advisor for the BSWP and so I printed it out. It's 118 pages so it has some bulk. When you look at a thing like that on the screen, scrolling back and forth, it doesn't seem like that much. But then you click on print. There is something very satisfying about the weight of 118 pages.

Sadly, my advisor is unwell and she forgot our appointment. So I was sitting there, drinking coffee and eating a bagel with cream cheese for an hour. Kinda sad huh? She was very apologetic. It didn't seem like it should be a big deal, but I got a little manic. Might a been coz I was hopped up on caffeine and carbs.

I was reading Small Pieces Loosely Joined, the whole time, which is a nice enough book. I think one of the bloggers referred to reading it as drinking the purple Koolade. But ... ya know ... I'm already on the bus.

The key word in the title, for me, is loosely. About a month ago I realized that my experience of the blog cluster was the same experience I had of the school yard. I'm kind of hanging around in the corner hoping for attention. Some very nice girls visit my corner once in a while and I feel like maybe ... someday ... the others will like me too. Sigh.

But my friends read me. Many of whom don't even blog or have a site. And I realized I was wringing my hands and flipping my skirts trying to get the attention of ... some other kids. Meanwhile I know some of the coolest, smartest kids in the yard. (As evidenced in my comments.)

Yesterday, Kerykes commented, mentioned me on her blog (we fat kids do gotta stick together) and we exchanged a couple of e-mails. This morning I got e-mail from Leigh, who read Kerykes and then linked to me on her site. Ollie, who hosts the Fight Fat Phobia list added me. There are many yards converging. Which is part of what Mr. Weinberger is saying.

I still thrill when I see my name on a blog roll!! Once Mike mentioned me in his blog and I was high for ... well I still get high thinking about it. Why? Because Mike is cool!! AND ... he read me. He got me. He talked back to me.

118 pages. A mention by a blogger who I read and admire. My name on a list at the side of someone's page. Loosely bound. But it means so much.

There is a guy who did this amazing graphic thing. It was a 3D man who moved when you moved your mouse. Everyone was blogging it. It was on Day Pop. I blogged it and sent e-mails to people about it. Then one day he took it down and left a note saying that he was starting to care too much about what other people were thinking.

Me. I was freaking coz YACCS was on and off all day yesterday and my comments weren't there and there's been so much fun stuff in my comments lately. And I check for comments twenty times a day! Little girl. Spinning. See me. See me. See me. Sigh.

Adrienne and I had dinner at Da Flora. Adrienne is one of my friends who gives good talk. And we did talk and talk and talk. And I had some risotto with bay shrimp and raddichio which ... was ... oh ... so ... good.

We were talking about the whole women/representation/beauty/esteem thing. My theme of the month.

I remembered a time when I was thirteen or so. And I was a hottie. No doubt. We went on a tour of a glass blowing factory and we were on a cat walk above where the men worked. One of the men was staring at me. Relentlessly. I got it that something about the way I looked made me a target. He felt no compunction about staring. Even when it was obvious that I was uncomfortable.

I used to think that maybe I was fat to keep men from staring at me like that. I don't think that any more.

A few years ago I was picked up by a cab driver who told me I could sit up front. He was a fat guy with an Eastern European accent. He was just looking me up and down and telling me how he like girls like me. And did I know about such and such a magazine? (Fat porn) He liked the girls in that magazine. He gave me his card and told me to call.

I wasn't scared. But it was so icky. And it didn't have much to do with me. Any fat body woulda been good for him.

This image that I have of the spinning girl is about the great joy and power a person feels when they believe they look good. And I believe we all ought to feel that way ... often.

I've been stared at by people who were making jokes about weight. Again, there was a sense that, in their minds, they had every right to stare at me, unabashed. I've been started at by children. I saw a little boy staring at me yesterday. He may have been thinking that I was fat but there was no judgement in his stare. He was just taking it in.

It's not the staring, it's the intent. And then it's the way I receive it. As a young girl I felt too vulnerable when the guy in glass factory stared. I felt responsible somehow. In the cab, with the guy, I felt a little slimed, but I shook it off quickly.

I just think there's a lot of shorting we need to do. I think we marry things in our head. Things that have nothing to do with one another. Or maybe that's just me.

But I also think that the culture enjoins certain kinds of staring and the attitudes that go with the staring. Which brings me all the way back to Miss Cat. There is part of me that appreciates her demand for equal access to the dubious world of objectification.

More importantly, it's the thing I ask of people all the time. When you look at a fat body ... really look. Ignore the first wave of fat=ugly, fat=unhealthy, fat=whatever. Look the way the child looked. Just for a minute.

Google! DayPop! This is my blogchalk: English, United States, San Francisco, North Beach, Tish, Female, 46-50!

I admire web designers. I am not a web designer. Anyone who is a designer knows that. Especially if they look under the hood and see all the junk code. Every once in a while I do battle with my web editor trying to get control of it all. I lose.

I do not want to be a web designer. I mean, I actually like much of the parts of design. I like playing with the colors and figuring out how to add things. And I like learning new things. But I have big limitations, as evidenced by my permalink failure.

Twice this week something has gone wrong with my site. First I added the blogsnob thing and ... I dunno ... I fucked something up. I had to redo my entire page, slowly adding things until it came out right. And yesterday I realized that something was going wrong on the Before page and the July page. It was a problem with the YACCS code. I still don't know what the problem was but I did finally fix it. It took hours of adding and subtracting code until I got it to work.

Ironically, I have been doing some design for friends. I'm OK as long as there are no fancy requests. But I know things take me longer than they would if I had more HTML literacy. I spent the day fussing with web projects. The day. By 8:00 I was OVER IT!!! I grabbed my book and went to bed.

This book is a hunk of reading and too heavy to carry on the bus. so, I keep reading other books as well. Between the heft of the read and getting caught up in the other books it seems to be taking me all summer to read about Emily. Not that that's a bad thing.

Usually, if I go to wood s lot I spend hours doing the kind of reading that make my eyebrows knit. Not that that's a bad thing. But yesterday I followed a link from there to this great poster and then something there took me to this blog. And there were all these tests.

Heh. So ... what does that all mean? Just don't nobody start callin me ibis head.

Anarchy: You have two cows. Your neighbors kill you and take your cows.
Feudalism: You have two cows. Your lord takes some of the milk.
Marxism: You have two cows. You put them in a barn with everyone else's cows and you get as much milk as you need.
Socialism: You have two cows. You keep one and give the other to your neighbor.
Pure Communism: You have two cows. Your neighbors help you take care of them and you all share the milk.
Communism: You have two cows. The Party takes both and shares the milk with you and your neighbor.
Russian Communism: You have two cows. You have to take care of them, and the Party takes all the milk.
Dictatorship: You have two cows. The government takes both and shoots you.
Totalitarianism: You have two cows. The government takes both and denies they ever existed. Milk is banned.
Fascism: You have two cows. You give the milk to the State and they sell it back to you.
Capitalism: You have two cows. The Corporation buys your cows, gives one to the CEO, and promises you milk for the rest of your life just before going bankrupt, leaving you with no cows or milk.
Enron Capitalism: You have two cows. You sell stock options in three cows, then execute a debt/equity swap so that you can get all four cows back, with a tax deduction for keeping five cows. The milk rights of six cows are transferred via a fully-owned subsidiary to a special purpose entity secretly owned by the Corporation's top executives, who sell the rights to all seven cows' milk back to the Corporation. The annual report approved by Arthur Andersen says the Corporation owns eight cows with an option on one more.
Militarism: You have two cows. The government takes both and drafts you.
Pure Democracy: You have two cows. Your neighbors decide who gets the milk.
Representative Democracy: You have two cows. Your neighbors elect someone to tell you who gets the milk.
British Democracy: You have two cows. You feed them sheep brains and they go mad. The government doesn't do anything.
European Union Bureaucracy: You have two cows. At first the bureaucracy regulates what you can feed them and when you can milk them. Then it pays you not to milk them. After that it takes both, loses one, milks the other and pours the milk down the drain. Then it requires you to fill out forms accounting for the missing cows.
American Democracy: The government promises to give you two cows if you vote for them. After the election the President is impeached for speculating in cow futures. The press christens the affair 'Cowgate'.
Politically Correct Democracy: You are associated with (the concept of 'ownership' being symbolic of a phallocentric and patriarchal past) two differently-aged (but no less valuable to society) bovines of non-specified gender.

But after the day of fussing with HTML and all the BSWP writing I was sick of my computer. I started cleaning stuff around the apartment. I cooked two big beets in too small a pot. Then I cleaned up beet splatter.

At some point I started playing with the music on my computer and making little CD's.

And ... I just don't seem to be able to stay away from the computer. At least I don't take it with me when I swim. (Yet.)

A good thing about seeing your advisor, on your writing project, at 7:00 PM is that when you get hopped up on carbs and caffeine that late you can come home and write it off.

I even bought a pack of smokes on the way home. I like to smoke after really great meals or if I'm hanging out with a smoking friend. But I also buy smokes when I'm in a mood. In a certain mood I want to pour a glass o bourbon and sink in to the knowledge that love is a fable, life is a trial and the whole mess being over sooner than later might not be a bad thing. I spent years in the smoking and drinking mood. But I wasn't in that kind of mood. I'm working really hard to stay out of that kind of mood.

But this BSWP writing is a moody business. And I thought a smoke might help me stay in it. I had a ton of stuff spinning in my head from the meeting with my advisor. At 7:00. Did I mention that I had a meeting with my advisor at 7:00?

I went swimming, had lunch with Marilyn, did a conference call about some work I'm doing and then went to meet my advisor. She sure does get me thinking. She gets my project. She said the writing makes connections for her. She said, " I never thought of it that way."

Which is about the nicest thing anyone can say to me about a thing that I write.

I hear way too much talk about the reader in conversations about writing. Infantalizing, underestimating talk about the reader. I don't really write toward a reader. I write in an attempt to say something. I write in an attempt to say something really well. When some one talks to me about how the writing makes them feel, or what the writing made them think about ... I get wound up. More stuff starts popping in my head. And then I write more.

There certainly are craft issues to discuss. I guess. All I know is that working with this advisor has been great and I had my meeting with her, had the second double cap of the day and thought I was wound up enough to come home and write it off.

But. I was too wound up. I watched Mike Myers on the Actors Studio. I don't actually like much of his humor. I mean I have laughed at some stuff, but I usually feel a little bored by it. But he is a really smart guy and I was loving listening to him. Until.

Kell watched it as well. I always have the same reaction to folks who I think are smart and kind and who make fat jokes, or use fat ( an attribute of physicality) as metaphor for something creepy. Like Barbara Kingsolver and the fat brother bit in Small Wonder. And Mike and James Lipton. I want to have a long talk with them. I want to believe that I can talk to them about fat in a way that might shift their thinking. Lipton, who does seem like a, sweet enough guy, was soooo quick to say how gross some naked scene with Fat Bastard was. Fat bastard, fat brother. Always about over consumption. I understand the metaphor. But it's so tired. And so hurtful.

So, I didn't, in fact, write it off. But I will be writing today. I'll be trying to say things in a way that makes my experience clear. And hoping.

I was half watching Michael J Fox on Oprah yesterday. Half watching because I was getting ready to leave and talking on the phone but I kinda wanted to hear about how he was feeling. It is funny how these television people get into your heart.

People were all about how great he is for finding a positive way to deal with his illness. He talked about a time when he was spending a lot of time in the bathtub feeling sorry for himself. And then he had the turn around moment and now he's got this great attitude.

So, I think he's great. And I think having a good positive attitude is great. But I think the time he spent in the bathtub was great too. And if he had not gotten out of the bathtub ... then so what. He had/has a right to some grief and the time to feel it.

I just think we move too quickly to a celebration of the positive. I really really really feel like we need to celebrate the dark.

I mean I am working on having a positive attitude. That's not exactly right. I am working on being full involved in my life. I'm trying not to sit in my chair, smoking and drinking and feeling the pain of existence. I'm working on holding my center and having some hope. Vague concepts. The things to be depressed about are less vague. But I want to be able to do some work. So I work on my attitude.

But when the sadness, or the rage becomes overwhelming, I lay down in it for a while. I let it have its say. I listen and I watch. Then I get up.

There is a reason to get up. There are many people getting up. I want to stand with them. So I work on my attitude.

Of course, many of the 400 or more advertisers named each year by the FTC are small fish, and some of their violations may be trivial, but the reader must remember that were it not for this policeman the manufacturers and their agent, the press, would, for example, still be poisoning infants with opium drops they called soothing syrups _ just as they still kill off annually via lung cancer and other diseases scores of thousands of Americans who are lured and brainwashed by cigarette advertising. - George Seldes in 1968

I woke up late. Actually, I woke up really early and then went back to bed. And it isn't even that late. It's just later than it usually is when I wake up.

I'm just trying to think on the page. Sometimes, when I make a particularly ~~agregious~~ egregious spelling error, I fix it and repost the page. Am I still cool?

It's cold in South Africa. I don't know why that surprises me. I just don't think of South Africa as being cold. It struck me yesterday that blogging wakes you up. Or it can. Because I just didn't know that it ever got cold in South Africa until I read Mike.

Of course I have heard about the latest missing child, the stock market and the all the political corruption that's fit to print. But I don't hear much about the wars and the rumors of wars. Well, I do because of the mighty, mighty Amy Goodman.

I was in a class with a teacher who wrote a book about Ronald Reagan. it was a psychoanalytical book, out of print now, I haven't read it. But I remember thinking that the whole time Reagan was in office I ignored the political world. It was just too hard to look at him.

Well... guess what? The tension I feel when I see Bush on the TV is ... beyond my ability to articulate.

For those Americans opposed to the administration's arrogant unilateralism and simplistic worldview, this failure to learn from a national tragedy is immensely disappointing, and the manipulation of that tragedy feels like a cynical defilement.

The one thing I did get it together to do during the Reagan time was vote but I know there's low voter turn out in America. I also know that the guy in the White House was not elected, does not have a mandate and even my mother, who voted for him, is not happy with him.

I haven't been remembering to watch Donahue. But last night I turned it on and Molly Ivins and Ralph Nader were on and they were in Houston talking to former Enron employees. I missed too much of it but what I saw was just great. Molly and Ralph encouraging public participation to many nodding heads and loud applause. Hard to believe that the President-select's approval rating is high in Houston. Poles, like elections, aren't always counted correctly. How do you radicalize a group of people? Fuck with their lively hood.

Molly Ivins and Ralph Nader. On national television. What's next? Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn?

Meanwhile, I'm just working on the BSWP and eatin watermelon. Cryin and typin and spittin out seeds.

I dreamed they had put an elevator in my building and I was in it, making out with a guy. Heh. What would Freud say?

Deb took me to see Def Poetry Jam for my birthday. (Thank you Deb.) It was VERY fun and cool. The poets were jammin. We met up with John and Michael, had dinner with them and went to the show. There is a web site but you have to spend money to read much of it. Odd. There is a hyper-produced feel to the show, but the poetry is very political and tuff.

There was a lot of the N word. I don't really feel like I have a right to say much about people of color using the word. I understand the reasons people use it. And it's odd for me to have a word that I just can't bring myself to utter and wish would go away. But. I do not like the word.

While I was looking for one of the poets whose name is Lemon, I found this. Please. Somebody. Buy me that. Please. Please. Please.

Speaking of chalk....Willa, who has a lovely new site design, blogged this. Very cool.

I've been otious all week. Slept late. Played with my dolls. A lot. Did a little something (mop the kitchen floor, straighten the back room) every day but mostly stayed checked out.

Memoir writing is such a narcissistic activity and I get sick of myself. I get sick of my endless inquiry into why the fuck I'm so depressed. I get sick of being depressed.

So. Today I'm going to try and ... check back in. I'll let you know how it goes.

They began with Andrew Solomon talking about his book The Noonday Demon. He talked about his increased detachment. He said something that stayed with me. He knew he was in trouble when putting on his socks became overwhelming.

And he does get on meds and writes a book and well...maybe I should read the book. But, I thought to myself ... oh, I should get on meds, or at least take Gotu Kola.

The next section of the show talked about money and happiness. Some study that looked at people who got large sums of money making them happier. What they seemed to conclude was that folks with money had agency and that agency made them happier.

Uh. Yeah. I get the agency part. I think you can have agency with out money. But it is a worry when you don't have a cash flow in a state with increased unemployment.

And they talked to Jonathan Haidt about something he studied and dubbed elevation. he talked about folks being moved by stories of great humanity. Like Mandela coming out of prison and talking about forgiveness or Mother Teresa, folks who seem to grow beyond the limits of their humanity. Haidt thinks that we are elevated by the actions of these people.

I listened to all this and then I went swimming with Deb and Ari Asha was there and we three went out to lunch. During lunch we talked about the problems of maintaining some kind of fat positive consciousness.

I think meds are useful, although given my resistance to doctors (not to mention my lack of insurance and cash) I'm more likely to do herbs. But I've used the search for elevation as a way out of the dark. And I've done a lot of that on blogs lately.

Mike blogged this article on Zachie Akmat. I got that teary, inspired, heart wrenched open feeling as I read it. I got the same feeling when I read about the miners. Elevation.

I become frustrated trying to parse the fat stuff. I read people who think they are body positive but don't get that all fat bodies are not the same. And that many fat people do not spend the day eating donuts and watching TV. I am never saying that food and movement have nothing to do with the way one's body looks or feels. I am simply saying that a number of very fat people eat good healthy food and do exercise. Are healthy. Healthier than thin folks who do neither. And yet still deal with the perception of themselves (both externally and internally) as gluttons and slobs. Struggle to establish some sense of self that stands firm while being battered with stupid jokes and well meaning but uninformed people who question health solely in terms of the fat.

But I just spent a few days checked out. Too tired to talk, or write, or read, or look for elevation, or cry, or care.

And now it's Monday. I will begin again. I am healed from the blue water of the pool and the perfect mango in lime juice at lunch and the vivid, alive, conversation with smart, awake women. I have some Black Cohash. I'm going to therapy tonight. I will begin again.

Any way Alice is on KPFA talking about food. Chez Panisse is one of the coolest restaurants ever. I love the way Alice thinks and talks about food. I've always been afraid to meet her because I don't want to not like her in ANY way. She's one of those people who I just want to admire. You hear so much about kids and obesity and bad fast food. Alice has a plan. Teach them about food at school. I've known about the program for a while. It's just so great.

It seems odd. There was a time when, there are places now where folks raise their own food. But now we have to deal with how far away from that process we are. Now it becomes curriculum.

If you go to the KPFA site you see this photo. It's a photo of a series of banners currently hanging on the front of City Lights. The banners are big and very cool.

Mingus died in Mexico City when he was 56. He was cremated the next day. 56 sperm whales beached themselves on the Mexico coast line that day. They were removed by fire.

Do I think the whales beached themselves because of Charlie? No. Yes. It's just one of those things that makes me feel like the universe is always talking to us in a complex language. And it makes me wonder about the whales in Massachusetts.

Since the strandings began Monday on Cape Cod, 56 whales have died or been euthanized.

I heard Helen Caldicott interview Julia Butterfly Hill the other day. Two righteous babes. I was thinking about the interview yesterday while I was defrosting my refrigerator and worrying because I was using some paper towels. I keep a cloth towel and use it often but some times ... I just want to use paper towels.

I carry my own coffee cup, most of the time. I recycle. But, it does always seem that I could do a bit better.

I did laundry, cleaned the bathtub, cooked Dover sole and ate it with yellow heirloom tomatoes and penne.

I've been writing a summery for the BSWP. It seems like writing memoir might feel like deep sea diving. The deeper you dive into memory the more stuff you see. If you surface too fast you get the bends. So, you (I) get into this deep murky place and you need to linger there. And it doesn't totally suck but it is dark.