May

May 1, 2001

Yesterday the board of supes voted to include medical benefits for transgendered and transexual folks that work for the city and county of San Francisco. During the pre vote debates one of the supes was listing other kinds of surgeries that should be considered. He said that surgery for people who were fat - not by choice - should be included. I would have been more comfortable if he had said improved health care for fat people that does not include trying to make them thin.

And then, in this book that I am reading, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, the guy says: "Oh these fat kids. Look at these kids these little porkers. Is this a genetic thing? Disgusting the existence of fat kids." Now, this follows writing in which he and his friends do a thing for their magazine to strike out against the image of body perfection that we are bombarded with in magazines. And there had been an earlier scene in which he sees a school mate of his eight year old brother, a girl who is taller and larger than all the others and he wants his brother to be her friend and make her happy. The whole book is almost like Dave Eggers is saying look at all this dumb stuff I think, so when I read that line about the fat kids I tried to remind myself that people think dumb stuff but the hostility is so painful. I was a fat kid, treated with disgust.

Happy May day.

 May 2, 2001

My mother & stepfather bought me a new computer, printer & scanner. It's like Christmas. I'm waiting for UPS. I tracked the stuff on line so I know it's in SF. These are graduation/getting in to grad school presents. It's pretty amazing. I am blessed. As a result of this abundance I am  thinking of little else. This, despite our president commiting to "star wars", all the wonderful may day events and a great e-mail that I got from Michael Moore, all things I might other wise blab about. The letter from Michael is on his site. It's great! I'm too busy running to the back door to see if the UPS truck has pulled up to write more.

May 3, 2001

This is just amazing. UPS brought four boxes yesterday. Because I had been manically tracking via the UPS web site I knew there were five due. I went back to the web site and checked and one was not due till today. WHY?  I'm sure there is some UPS reason but I just can't imagine. I mean they all left Dell on the same day but one of them took a side trip to San Bruno. AND ... it was the monitor. So, I have everything set up waiting for the monitor. It means another day of being a prisoner of UPS, waiting for the buzzer. They came at 2:00 yesterday. They've come as late as 5:00. My back is out again, no doubt a result of moving furniture and computer equipment. I know there are bigger problems in the world and I know I am very lucky to be getting all this but I'm feeling very cranky. Maybe it's just coz my back hurts and I watched the UPS guy roll my computer end over end up the stairs. That just didn't seem good. I woke up dreaming about the computer. Kooky.

May 4, 2001

OK. It's all here and it is amazing! everything installed with out much effort. The scanner gave me a moment of misery but one call to tech support and it's working. I still have to put my web publishing software in but I'll do that this weekend. The first thing I did was download Netscape. I just can't stand the everything Microsoft thing. They even have a program that is like Quiken, called Microsoft Money. When I got my first computer there was a little bit of everything on it, a variety of software. My laptop was all Microsoft and this new one is the same. It's so annoying. SO, my little rebellion is to get Netscape, which by the way is kinda buggy. Oh well. My apartment looks like there has been an earthquake.

I got another rejection. I had sent my SIMS piece to Salon and, after a month wrote back to say thanks but no thanks. If I wasn't so wound up about the computer I'd be more bummed.

May 5, 2001

On Thursday, in the morning, while I was waiting for my monitor, I listened to Democracy Now, as is my habit. Amy played some tapes that have recently surfaced of Georgia state executions. They were overwhelming. We tend to debate the merit of the death penalty in relation to the person being executed. We seldom think about the impact on the folks that carry out the executions. Listening to these voices tell what is happening as a man is seated in the electric chair and what happens to the body after the switch is flipped is surreal. I can't imagine that people involved in this aren't struck with such cognitive dissonance that they inevitably implode. Last year I remember there were some tapes of people who worked in the prison industry in Texas talking about their jobs. They all expressed some degree of conflict. After Democracy Now I heard the tapes again on CNN and MSNBC. The difference was dramatic. Amy just played the tapes in all their stark misery. But on television there were pictures and commentary. For example when listening to sections of a few executions strung together you could see pictures of the person and read what crime they committed. The effect was ... well ... don't feel too bad that this guy is being killed because he did these terrible things. This is what Chomsky calls manufacturing consent. The person that brought these tapes to the public was saying that we are going to have the death penalty we ought to know what we're doing. Of course there is also the danger of things like this enflaming the public need for vengeance. Listening to a call in show about the tapes on MSNC demonstrated that there is such a need. But my question is do we have the need by nature or by culturalization?

 May 7, 2001

I'm happy. It doesn't happen that often so I'm enjoying it. I don't really think that you can construct happiness. I mean I think you can lean toward it but, if you aren't happy - you aren't happy. And today I am. Certainly having a new computer and going to grad school ... I mean there are good things happening. But it just seems more random somehow. And I'm just gonna enjoy it.

May 8, 2001

I donated blood yesterday. And today I am tired. That's what happens to me when I donate, I get really tired for a few days. So, I'm just eating green leafy food and taking it easy. My apartment is still in recovery from the arrival of the computer but it is coming back together. And today I'm going to install the web software into the new computer. Won't that be fun?! Yesterday I was making a card for my mom and I printed it eight times before I got it right. I'm blaming the blood loss. It is hot here these days and the heat adds to my need to lay down.

May 10, 2001

It feels like I donated brain cells. I have no concentration. I think it's a combination of the blood donation, the heat, unemployment, the moon, and who knows what all. I'm hopein I snap out of it soon.

May 14, 2001

I've been tucked in. It's like this for me. If I'm not clear on what I'm feeling I dive inside. It's hard for me to interact. And I'm still not clear about the use of this space. I've been using it as a sort of column writing practice space. It could be a place where I work my process but I'm not sure how. To some extent that's because there are people in my life, actively or not, and some of what I'm feeling has to do with them. But, my feelings are more global than any one particular situation. And my feelings are unclear. So, if it seems like I'm not writing about anything here -- I'm not. I'm awash in confused and unfocused thinking and feeling and have been for about a week. This morning I thought I was getting clear on some stuff to write and now it's gone.

May 16, 2001

My emotional process can be so convoluted. This occurred to me last night as I lay in bed contemplating a tangled mass of feelings. I was the only child of a single mother. So, I was THE ONE. But my father and mother divorced when I was three months old and I didn't meet him until I was twelve. So I was NO ONE. So, as an adult I suffer relationship. It's rare that I feel truly connected to anyone. Well, that's an exaggeration. I often feel connected to people. See how this works? One minute I'm feeling one thing the next I'm feeling the opposite. It's exhausting and aggravated by being a double Gemini with a Libra moon. But the point is that when I having trouble in a specific relationship my feelings get global really fast. And I have been having some problems. And then there's hormones. It's hard to say what all is at play but I am feeling dark and nonverbal and pointless. I think school will help but that's a month a way. I got accupuncture on Monday and I'm taking some herbs. I kinda think that rather than trying to stay buoyant I should buy a pack of cigarettes and a bottle of bourbon and just go for the dive. Maybe I'd resurface faster. But I figured out the software for the new computer and so I'm now publishing from that computer.

May 17, 2001

When I was a kid I spent a lot of time playing alone, usually with dolls, making up little stories. So this kind of spaced out revelry comforts me. Now I have the SIMS. I play with their little houses and tell myself stories about them. this morning I was getting ready to write about a few random things and instead of clicking on the web editor I clicked on the SIMS. And of course I had to play for awhile. I played with my Goth family. I got the adults raises and the kids new friends and got everyone new furniture. Kooky but true.

I had been thinking about a friend who is trying to have a baby. And then I started thinking about how much I use to baby sit. I love kids. And I loved hanging out with them and for a while that little bit of babysitting money kept me going. I would whisper in their ears, "you're so beautiful, you're so smart, you're so strong" and on and on. I don't know if the kids actually listened to what I was saying or if they just like the air tickling their ears.

May 18, 2001

 During this stupor that I've been in lately I have done two things, play SIMS and read DTWOF comics. It really is like a regression to childhood except I usually have KPFA on the radio or the board of supervisors on the TV. Imagine the paradox. Suzanne turned me on to DTWOF and a book about Alison Bechdel the artist. I was reading it yesterday and Alison talks about not being gender identified until she was in college and not knowing that she was a lesbian until then. She writes about not wanting to be a girl and then realizing that she was a woman. It's pretty interesting and made me think about how subtle all this identity and preference stuff is. There has never been a time when I didn't want to be a woman but there has never been a time when I felt like I, literally, fit into the culture standard of woman. So, I only wore makeup when I was on stage and I've always been wary of too much lace and pink. somehow because I was fat I formed an idea that I would look foolish trying to look too feminine. I was suppose to look capable and serious. I think this also came from being father less and feeling that I could not depend on men to take care of me. My "style" was gathered together from all these influences. And from a very young age I had crushes on boys. Boys were the mysterious and longed for unknown. The easily read signs of boy/girl straight/gay are not actually that easy to read.

May 19, 2001

 Yesterday, I had a fat field trip day. Marilyn and I went to Making It Big because they were having a sale. Shopping was such a drag for me for so many years so I am still like a kid in a candy store when it comes to a store full of cloths which actually fit! I got a couple of pair of pants, a jumper, a dress and some socks. And then we went to Peggy Lutz's show room. Her cloths are fantastic but a bit more expensive than I can bear. And this goes back to that stuff I was writing yesterday. There is a way in which I don't feel as if I'm allowed glamour. And I sometimes think that when I, or any other fat woman gets all dolled up, it's a positive thing because we take back that right, that kind of womanhood. And that butts up against my sense that make up, high heels, unwieldy dresses are a way of keeping woman as dolls. So, it's a bit context dependent for me. On her site there is a section in which Patti, of Tuck & Patti, models some Diva wear. Very cool. And then we went to see a performance of fat dancers, Big Moves.  There were three companies performing, Kendra Kimbrough, Fat Chance Belly Dance and Big Dance. Big Dance was interesting. I've seen a lot of modern dance and this had moments of brilliance. It was challenging to watch fat bodies dance. One dancer was a really good mover and did a fantastic solo. And I feel like she could have done more and was, perhaps, under choreographed. One dancer was not a good mover, not in her body, not committed. There are often better and worse dancers in any company and I was mindful of this while being troubled by her lack. We hadn't eaten dinner, I was starving and it was late so we ate at a Jack in the Box. I don't eat fast food and now I remember why.

May 21, 2001

 I saw Memento last night. It's a movie in which a man has lost his short term memory. He remembers things from the past but not from one minute to another. It could have been a commentary on how memory creates identity. Maybe it was but it just kind of annoyed me. It kept circling back on itself. And you were trying to figure out who to trust and became annoying. Whether or not memory is trustworthy is an interesting notion and I think the movie was interesting and well done. but at the end of the movie I was wondering if there was an intended larger meaning. It seemed long on fancy technique and short on humanity.

May 22, 2001

 Barbara Ehrenreich was on Oprah yesterday. Every once in a while Oprah does something almost radical. Ehrenreich was talking abut her book Nickel and Dimed. It is a book that talks about a year in which she worked as a maid and a house cleaner. And Oprah had women on talking about how they live on minimum wage. I got a call in the middle of it so I missed a lot of it so I can't really comment on the over all tone. But there was this one point when I looked at the screen and Ehrenreich and a woman who lived on very little money were sitting there with O, who looked fabulous but also a bit overdressed, almost regal. I kept wondering if they were going to help the poor woman financially. It was a show that challenged the notion that we are an affluent country. And, sadly because of this appearance thing, the class division was literally modeled. Clearly Oprah does great things with her money and she desearves enourmous success but the disparity between that kind of wealth and how too many people live seems vulgar.

May 23, 2001

 KPFA is playing a tape of the discussion on race and jazz that I went to in March. One of the panelists, a European American man, who had written a book about white musicians in jazz, more or less took the position that we should focus on the music and forget or ignore all that race stuff. That's exactly the kind of white liberal denial that limits any real discourse about race. Hearing it again this morning pissed me off. Also in the discussion there was a confusion that occurred when one of the panelists quoted someone who said something like jazz musicians had elevated black experience from the individual to the universal. But it was said differently and used the word human rather than universal and another panelist took umbrage and said blacks are human. It is exactly this kind of semantical glitch that keeps the discussion at odds. In other words things weren't said well, or clearly, and then an understandable confusion arises. I remember that there was something about the conversation that night that seemed fragmented. People didn't seem to be getting each other in ways. The discussion on race is so important and fraught with emotion and perspective.

May 25, 2001

 A friend of mine is getting involved with a spiritual community. It actually  seems OK to me. I'm even a bit envious. I had a conversation with another friend the other day in which I made the mistake of using the word god. Everything got semantic and miserable. The very word seems to dredge up fear of assimilation into a Borg of followers. I hung up the phone and had a little temper tantrum. Of course I was alone in my apartment so it was really between God and me, which by my theology means I was talking to myself. It is important to me to respect people's beliefs even if I don't agree with them. That doesn't mean silence but it does mean a quality of respect in any conversation and a position of allowance. In other words I want to allow for all possibilities even as I forge my own sense of things. But a community of consensus can be an enormous relief.

May 28, 2001

  Marilyn Wann took me to my first NAAFA event this weekend. We spent the day wandering around the Westin Hotel, with a fair number of fat people, shopping in rooms full of venders selling cloths, jewelry, fat statues and books on size acceptance. There was also a pool part and a dinner/dance. There were a few things that I found curious. People kept saying things to me like, well, “we fat people eat a lot” or “if you told any fat person that if they took a pill they could be thin they would take the pill.” Neither of these statements is true for me and both are dubious assumptions in terms of size acceptance. Most curious was a workshop on the choice to have gastrointestinal surgery for the purpose of weight loss. Marilyn and I arrived late to the seminar so I spent a while listening. There were two sisters sitting in front, one who had had the surgery and one who had not. There were other people in the room who had had the surgery or were thinking about the surgery. There was an effort to make sure they felt “safe” and  "un-judged”. Their advocacy for the surgery was built on the platform of health and a professed inability to change their relationship with their bodies. NAAFA, on thier website, takes a well stated position against the surgery but in this room there was an unspoken injunction from the people who were making the choice to have the surgery –  "don’t make us feel bad about our choice.” Actually it was spoken but the momentum of the conversation seemed to build on this vibe. It was more than a bit ironic, to me, since they can get support for their choice in most other communities in the general culture, like the medical community and the weight loss industry. It would seem as if a NAAFA convention might make a bit more space for debunking the underlying notions of the value of this surgery. There was some. My thoughts and feelings on the surgery are framed by my own feminism and personal politic when thinking about the body.  And my reactions are much the same as the ones I have to breast implants or even nose jobs because there is a way in which we are all trying to fit into a Madison Avenue standard of beauty. A difference is that these people are saying that having the surgery is about health and mobility.I’ve always been fat but I haven’t had mobility issues until my forties. Of course most of the people I know in their forties are talking about mobility issues and some of them exercise regularly. I have to work to maintain mobility in ways I did not have to work for it when I was younger.  Another factor, for me, is that I left a very physical career, cooking, and went to a more sedentary endeavor, college. My mobility might be enhanced by weighing loss but it is definitely enhanced by … movement. And because I have always used alternative methods to improve my health I have found herbs and vitamins that have improved my mobility at my current weight. The surgery in and of itself does nothing to improve mobility.

May 29, 2001

If I could take a pill and be thin I would not. The very notion makes me think of that bit in The Matrix where the guy is offered two pills, one which will cause him to go back to sleep and forget what he has learned and one will wake him ALL THE WAY UP. And of course, in the movie, being awake means to know that the general population is in a form of unconscious slavery to another life form that lives off their energy. To be awake means to know that one has to fight this other life form to achieve and sustain this knowledge and to help other people to wake up. It was a pretty good critique of capitalism. But to use it as a metaphor for the size acceptance community one needs to define why size acceptance is important. What defines us as an oppressed group? What cultural mystification have we internalized? We have internalized a central and wrong idea that being fat is wrong and ugly and it is our fault and we could change it if we wanted to. The leaders in this community have asked the questions and have debunked some mystification. There is more than one reason why a person is fat but it certainly begins with genetics. And that isn't as simple as it sounds because there is not just A fat gene. There is a variety of gene combos that describe the proclivity for fatness. Fatness can be mediated by eating less and exercising more but how much less and how much more is rarely the same for any two individuals. There are people who are attracted to fatness. To be fat is to be sexually attractive. And fat people can look great in clothes that are made to fit them. So those leaders have given us the pill, in the form of these truths, that can wake us up to the battle that we have before us. Knowing that if you ask me, do you want the pill that will put you back to sleep? I gotta say    NO!!! And why would being thin mean that I was asleep? Because being fat is how I learned that doctors lie, and Madison avenue constructs beauty and truth and love is more powerful than all of that.

May 30, 2001

After a couple of days of long diatribes on my NAAFA experience I find that I am feeling a bit quiet. It may be that I am just tired. And I am feeling a bit a drift. I spent some time yesterday looking for a job in the paper. Page after page and there really doesn't seem like any jobs that I can do. I did continue to write about the weekend but I'm not sure where to send it.