May

This is funny. To me anyway. Remember yesterday when I said there was another Tuesday group of questions but it was on a password protected site? Today I noticed that the questions were answered on Life Uncommon. So this is the Tuesday This or That (and I'm not linking to the site ... for obvious reasons.)

Which is worse: a driver riding your bumper or someone pulling out in front of you with their car? I don't drive.
Can you do 10 push ups? Nope.
Do you bathe/shower in the morning or in the evening (or at all)? I shower in the morning after I eat breakfast and do my page. So, sometimes it's more like noon. Heh.
Michael or Janet Jackson? Uh......
Which do you enjoy most? Your bedroom or living room? Right now, since I'm in my living room, at my computer, my living room. And hour ago, when I was sleeping....my bedroom.
Bathroom or kitchen? OK, same deal. Hungry, kitchen. Bathroom, well you know.
Crayons or markers? No preference.
Leaves falling or flowers blooming? Both.
Fred and Wilma or Barney and Betty? Uh......
Fame or fortune? Just enough of both to do what I want to do.

Is it me? I don't think I'm that good at the question thing. And Wednesday has three. The Wednesday Whine.

Julia Cameron's advice to writers is to "keep the drama on the page." (page 40, The Right to Write) Where do you express your drama? Do you write about it, sing about it, fight regularly with a significant other or family member? After the drama has ended, how do you feel? This is making me laugh. I'm not a big fan of the Cameron approach to writing. And I am a drama queen, but I try to resist that aspect of my personality. But drama happens. And drama is it's own reward.

What do you think is the most underpaid and unsupported profession? Why do you think this? This is a good question to ask on May Day. Mom's should be paid. Teachers should be paid more. I could go into a long diatribe about women's work. But let's move on.

Name one thing (object, person, feeling) that you are happy that you have in your life. Now name one thing that is missing. How are they related? I love my friends. I often wish for romance. Are they related? Well, my friends make sure I know I am loved. They're just cool like that. But no, they aren't related.

"You must have chaos in your soul to give birth to a dancing star." -- Friedrich Nietzsche (Do what you would like with this quote!) I think I'll just appreciate it.

< whines > Why should we always have to use our "nice voice?!" Oh, I do not think we should always have to use our nice voice. Whine away!

Have you ever dreamed of being a star of the stage? Tell us about it. I was a star of the stage. It was a little stage. I had a band in Boulder, Colorado. It was great fun. And it also sucked.

No one can convince me that they didn't act up to get attention as a child. Tell us a story about your childhood theatrics. I used to sing Happy Talk, from South Pacific. I didn't act up so much, but I did love attention.

The mighty, mighty Pattie has produced an episode of "Women on Air" for CFUV. The radio station is showing support for a "Stinky Fish" action for May Day by highlighting the action and talking about the implications for women and Canadian webcasting. Tune in around five o'clock with your web radio. More radio fun from Pattie and Carl is here.

So, we're still in the day late mode. I found the third Wednesday question thing. It was Hump Day Humpers.

Who would you want to play you in the movie about your life? Camryn Manheim. Your significant other? Who? Do these people look anything like you? Kinda. Cameryn is taller. I think.

What rating would the movie have? G What would you allow them to discuss? Who are they? Mistakes? Sure. Drunken stupors? Yes. Fighting? OK. Getting Fired? Yeah. or just the good stuff? Oh no! Forget the good stuff.

This was a picture of something she and or her son had made in clay that looked like it might be a cow.

Lions! Can a lion tame its mane? What about you? Tell us your worst hair memory... I got a root perm once. The perm solution is just applied to the hair closest to the scalp. It was suppose to give my hair lift...er something. It burned my scalp and just made this crunchy mess of my hair.

Tigers! Can a tiger change its stripes? Can people really change? Oh...I hope so.

Bears! Who's a grumpy bear? 'Fess up - what makes you grumpy? I'm pretty grumpy. No need to 'fess up. It's usually evident.

I've actually been happy to use the question tour as a content devise this week. This is the last week of school and I should be writing papers. My brain is tired and somehow I must focus.

Here's an irony. The week I pick to do the questions tour, The Friday Five takes a break. I feel so abandoned. I was actually looking forward to the Five because it's something familiar. I've been finding the questions kinda overwhelming. Maybe because it's morning and the caffeine hasn't hit my adrenal glands. Maybe it's because I'm working on a paper about the Moral Equivalent of War and the Bhagavad Gita and Walt Whitman. So my desk is covered with books and my brain is struggling to form sentences that have academic merit.

So, thinking about who I would want to play me in the movie of my life puts me into tilt.

And while I mine the Internet for content questions that give me the spins, Mike Golby writes a devastating story of a suicide attempt. Jeneane writes about her rage. I read them and reread them and then I try to shake off the feelings and think about war. War. Heh. I can't stop writing to feel. I just have to get this done.

But, of course, that's nuts. I do feel. I am feeling. I remembered my own scratching at my arms. I used to come home from working at a diner on Sunday. I'd fill the bathtub with some bubble bath stuff that turned the water lime green. I'd make a LARGE vodka gimlet that was the same color as the water. I'd put Billy Holiday on a looping tape, draw a few lines of coke on a tiny mirror, get an ashtray and a pack of smokes and spend the afternoon in the bath tub crying. Every Sunday.

I cried about the man who was not in love with me. I cried because I'd lost my direction spiritually. I cried because it was the only thing that made sense. And I ran the blade along the lines of white powder and later along the vein in my arm. But I never pressed. Often I'd pass out and wake up in the cold lime green water.

I'm not trying to compete with the other folks who are writing about their depression. I don't have it in me. I have papers to write.

But my depression waits patiently, knowing I will return to it. It's a kind of narcissism that demands it's due time.

William James says this is why we still fight wars. "War is the strong life; it is life in extremis;"

I miss the Friday five. I want the calmer thinking about the details of preference. What's your favorite vacation spot? Do you have any allergies? What famous person would you have dinner with?

Well, the Dark Angel finale took a turn toward jingoism. The finale was pretty great but I cringed when they raised a flag. Granted, it was a flag that featured a dove moving toward light, made by a transgenic who looks a lot like a puppy and is very sweet (unless he's pissed). But it was a flag. And then there was the speech Max makes about them being made in America. Kinda problematic for me.

It probably didn't help that I was working on my paper about the purpose of war and the need to out grow it. So, I was in front of the computer with a copy of the Gita annotated by Gandhi while I watched.

The thing is ... this is a show about how physicality is created genetically and the variety of curses and blessings there in. So, I am a sucker for much of the metaphor. And I am proud to be a freak.

You e-mail your picture to an attractive person you met on the Internet. Do you mention you put on 30 pounds since the picture was taken? OK. So you can imagine my reaction to this question.

The country gets into a war you don't agree with. You're drafted. Do you fight? Wow. These questions are workin my nerves. I'm writing a paper about this now. There is not one answer.

At an out-of-the-way bar, you see a friend's spouse having a romantic liaison. Do you tell your friend? This is a tough question and I've had the experience. Actually, I was friends with all three people. It wasn't exactly that I saw them in a bar but I knew what was going on. I didn't tell. My friend found out and was mad at me. It just sucked.

There is one more Saturday question thing but the person hasn't published since last week. I could answer those questions...I guess. But I'm burning out on the questions tour, it's getting late, I should be writing my papers.

I saw a ghost yesterday. Adrienne and I had plans to go to our favorite restaurant. The one we ate dinner at before class, back in the day. We walked in and he was there. I was surprised that I didn't feel much. Just this dull thud of awareness. But, Adrienne noticed that my hands were shaking. We left and went to another place. She generously bought me a lovely lunch with a fair amount of booze. I love talking to her so it was easy to enjoy the food and the company and not think about the ghost.

Until I got home. I worked on the paper and watched my kooky television show. But my eyes feel full today. It all just hurts too much. I can't think about it right now. I have work to do.

So I went back to the Saturday question site that I had missed and they had put up new questions. And I am trying to do the full tour this week. My need for completion is overwhelming. So...the eight from the eighties. Eight questions derived from eight songs in the Eighties. Posted at eight. (Although, clearly, not yesterday at eight.)

What dreams go on when you close your eyes? Well...these days...stressful, scary dreams.

Today there is the Sunday Op-Ed. It's a little different. These are answers in search of questions.

I'm not so good at coming up with questions. I don't really think I'm that good at the whole question thing. I don't always get them. I still think they're a cool thing. A call and response from blog to blog. But I'm such a fussy girl. There is one more for Sunday. It seems that this blogger goes to other people's sites and says helpful things, or nice things. I may not have it right. And I may go back and check later. But I'm done with the questions tour. It was interesting.

Tomorrow is International no Diet Day. Click on the blue ribbon for details. I'll be in Justin Herman Plaza with other fat activists.

This is International National No Diet Day. Fat revolution activists around the world will stage consciousness raising events and celebrations. They will dispense literature debunking diet industry propaganda, perform aerobic street theater, and build community. But will they get support from the left?

Fat revolution has all the attributes generally embraced by the left. The issues are job discrimination; unbiased health care, access to public facilities and a public policy that asserts an individual’s right to not be excluded because of an attribute of physicality. But fat activists receive little to no support, instead obesity is declared a disease, conflated with a host of social ills, or dismissed as comic.

The dismissive attitude has root in one virulent misconception. Fat people are fat because they do not control their appetites and they are indolent. Such puritanical assessment of any group deserves at least a moment of deconstruction.

The National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance reports that fatness is most often caused by a combination of heredity and dieting history. For some people dieting fails 95 to 98% of the time. For those individuals choosing to remain at a high but stable weight and concentrating on personal fitness rather than thinness is a healthier way to deal with the propensity to be fat. Having made that choice, they should not be expected to accept a social climate of hostility and discrimination.

Mary Evans Young, author of Diet Breaking: Having It All Without Having To Diet and leader of the anti-diet campaign in Britain declared the first No Diet Day in 1992. Evans, a recovering anorexic, had seen a television show about stomach stapling surgery. One woman had popped her staples and was having them restapled, for the third time. Then Evans heard a report about a fifteen-year-old girl who had committed suicide because she couldn’t deal with being fat. Evans felt the need to speak out against the culture of fat hatred that engendered this kind of body mutilation and destruction.

In the early 1970's a group of radical fat women known as the Fat Underground put forth a political analysis of fat oppression. They drew comparisons to looksism, sexism, racism, classism, ageism, and ableism, and pointed to the economic power of a 50 billion dollars a year diet industry to account for the skewed content of media reporting toward anti-fat biases. Their work and the work of NAAFA was the platform on which fat people began to build their revolution.

In a world filled with violence and death, fat revolution may seem frivolous until you notice the number of deaths connected to the diet industry. On March 19 2002, consumer advocacy group Public Citizen filed a petition with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration asking them to ban Abbott Laboratories Inc.'s diet drug Meridia, linking the anti-obesity medicine to 29 deaths in the United States. Diet drug related deaths are not new for fat revolutionaries. The diet drug Fen-Phen has been linked to over five hundred deaths, five times more than the deaths that were linked to Firestone Tires.

And there the suicides caused by the climate of fat hatred. Add to the fifteen-year-old girl who inspired Ms. Young the story of Samuel Graham. Samuel was a twelve-year-old boy from Fort Lauderdale, Florida,. He had been teased in elementary school about his weight. He had dieted and tried to exercise. He was still fat. He hung himself in his back yard the night before he was to start middle school. There are many more. Deaths that can be linked to fat hatred and pursuit of the false hope spun by the diet industry and its media allies are generally the deaths of women and children.

A liberal reaction to all this might be to affirm the rights of fat people and perhaps do some self-examination for signs of internalized fat hatred. Would you date a fat person? A radical reaction would be to educate your self about the truth, join activists on May sixth and speak out.

It was a great fun day. And there was some news coverage. But some news channels covered the release of the new hope (and I say the word hope with teeth clenched) for weight loss. They're talking about something that we in fat activism have know for a while, thanks in part to Glen Gaesser. The body fights weight loss in a natural reaction to starvation. A distinction that I would think should be made clear is that even this natural response varies in different bodies. They know that there are different things controlling this response and one of them is the hormone leptin.

So...I guess we can all run and get our leptin implants. OR we can eat healthy food, exercise in reasonable amounts and enjoy a diversity in body shapes. Anyone watching Jennifer jumping around yesterday, and the fat cheerleaders, and the fat hip hop dancers, gets this. Everyone was very cute.

And Aung San Suu Kyi was released from house arrest. Which is the kind of news that makes it easier to have hope.

It isn't totally true that I'm not reading. I'm rereading some of the books I read for Ethical Issues and a few more while I work on the papers. I'm reading the Bhagavad Gita, annotated by Gandhi. I also worked on a piece for workshop about my India days/daze so I've been sentimental for that blissed out guru girl feel.

I'm sitting on the bus, and I've just finished a section of the Gita and I'm trying to remember my first mantra (it's been a while) and I'm trying to feel...bliss. We're at stop and a young man comes forward swearing about how the driver hit him in the head with the door and he's cussing the guy out and it's ugly. And the driver decides to get up and get into it. He's saying, "I didn't do anything. You didn't get off the bus properly." And the kid is saying, Shut up, who are you? You're nobody." And they do some more back and forth and then the kid gets off. The driver looks up at me through the mirror and says, "That kid has pulled a gun before."

And I could see it. I could see it when it was happening. I wasn't scared. I just felt like there were a few possibilities and we got to have the one where the kid gets off the bus.

It didn't plummet me into a pit or anything. It just felt like part of the writing of the paper. We are always on the verge of war.

Barbara was telling me that, as the month goes along and the before page gets filled, it takes longer and longer to load. So, I decided to move things every seven days or so. The May link has the earlier stuff.

Papers are done, school is over, yippie yi o ki aye. Is that how you spell that? I came home and watched the end of West Wing and American Family. I've only seen the show one other time and it was good. It was good last night as well but it was about the eldest son enlisting in the army after 9/11 and the father remembering fighting in the Korean War. After all the work I did on the William James paper I was tired of war. I didn't even realize how tired I was until I hit the bed.

Marilyn was on Crossfire yesterday. I didn't see it but the transcripts say it all. Some of the people who opposed Jennifer's case talked about the right of a company to hire who they want to hire. The guy on this episode of Crossfire said "it is really demeaning to those people, who have fought for true civil rights, to have their fight compared to the fight of overweight megabar babes to be Jazzercise instructors."

Marilyn did a fine job in the debate. The guy that was being so contrary was so idiotic and inflammatory. He kept saying things like Jennifer is not fit and demeaning her certification by the Aerobics and Fitness Association of America, with out ever saying why it wasn't a credible certification. And he said, "If you followed her through a grocery store, it would be white bread, frozen pizzas, Breyers ice cream, the whole bit."

Amazing. This guy knows what Jennifer eats. More specifically, he thinks he has a right to look into her grocery cart. I guess he thinks he has that right because he's making his point about her body being not fit. But I'm just gonna bet there are Jazzercize instructors who do eat white bread, frozen pizzas and Breyers ice cream but who don't have the genetic disposition that holds on to fat. Are they fit? Why aren't we worried about their food? I don't really know what Jennifer eats but she does six classes a week, some back to back. She's need to eat every other minute of the day to be fat.

What's weird to me is that Jennifer isn't really fat. Not to me. I guess my perspective is skewed. Or, maybe it's "their" perspective that's skewed. Or MAYBE...it doesn't matter. I appreciate the work she's done to break the mold of what fitness looks like.

Pattie and Carl are doing another radio show today at 3:00 on CFUV Today's topic is Who's In Control of Your Life? They will air interviews from people on the street regarding control, discuss a Mark Twain spoof of a Horatio Alger story, and review the movie "The Matrix" as the ultimate sociology movie. Sounds like fun.

Pattie and Carl were on at three yesterday...if you lived in the east coast. I don't. DOH! I need to read better. I didn't get the EST part. I figured it out at three...when I tuned in...sigh.

I spent the day going though the piles of paper that I've ignored for the past week. Reading blogs that I've been unable to concentrate on. (Golby and Wood_s Lot took almost an hour each) I've been on the blogsisters blog roll for a while ... but I didn't realize I could post there. Figured that out yesterday. Thanks Elaine. Thanks Jeneane. Tried to read and answer all e-mails, and clean up my inbox, outbox and deleted files. I have joined the ranks of the spammed. Let's see spam, telemarketers, commercials. Can't they just leave me alone?!

Didn't shower till noon. Ordered pizza. Did dishes at 7:00. It wasn't like there were that many of them but it seemed like I coulda done em earlier. Totally forgot that I have registration and financial aid issues to deal with. Didn't look for a job.

Didn't fully realize how tired I was. In the afternoon I went to lay down and an hour and forty five minutes later I struggled to wake up. After so many years of working one or two jobs, this last year has been ... odd. I mean I'm digging a debt hole that I may never fill. I don't really like not working. And it just doesn't seem like I should ever be tired.

I took a second shower at 7:30. I didn't really need one but ... I just felt like it. Put on new pajamas. I started reading Tripmaster Monkey on the way to school on Wednesday. I thought a novel might be relaxing...heh. So, I'm sitting on the muni, depressed, reading about a guy who is sitting on the muni, depressed, reading Rilke, outloud. It was not exactly relaxing. But I read it for a while last night. Before Will & Grace. (The show I love to complain about...first two minutes they say "it's my day off I don't want to read" "it's my day off I don't want to learn." "I'm going to boink my fat husband." "hell, I need to drink that."...why didn't I turn it off!!! ) And ER.

There were these commercials for ER that had a tag line...a show to cherish. Uh...I just can't cherish television. I've watched ER on and off. It's a good enough show. I cried watching Mark die in Hawaii. But cherish...if I ever start cherishing a television show...do an intervention.

I woke up at 6:30. Tired. Ate dry Cherrios because I didn't get myself to the store for milk. And made coffee that shoulda woken me and my ancestors. But...

There's no Friday Five today. And I still haven't cleared my head from the week long questions tour, so I'm almost happy about that. But my thesis on the question things building community is born out in the comments on the site where the Five is posted. Some folks are doing their own Five, some people are fussing, some are threatening to never come back. Oh well. Some are going into the archives and doing ones that they haven't done. Which might be what I would do, but I'm too busy figuring out ...what...I'm ...doing.

And it's true that I am in a curmudgeon phase and I'd rather be in my house, grumpy. But I did need to go out yesterday. I needed milk. I went to Real Food, since I'd heard that they deliver. And they do. I love this store. It's got all my favorite stuff, and a deli, a meat and fish department, and good veggies. It isn't as abundant as Whole Food but it's not as crowded. It's very mellow. And they deliver, FOR FREE if you buy more than forty bucks worth of food. So, I stocked up.

Kara came over and I made dinner. Pork loin, smashed Yukon golds, watercress and roasted tomatoes. She brought strawberries and we put em in a bowl with ice cream. And we drank a bottle of Syrah. Well,not the whole bottle.

I think I've said that I like wood s lot because he blogs art and poetry and really brainy stuff. And that's true. He blogs really important things.

Tripmaster Monkey is such a San Francisco book. They're walking though North Beach. The air of the city is so filled with poems, you have to fight becoming imbued with romanza. I love that.

I should probably say Happy Mothers Day. Not that my mom reads the page. I'll write about it tomorrow. But I had two conversations on Friday. One in person and one in e-mail. And I'm still having them in my head. So, I'm going to write out the inner blahblahblah.

So, you're in a room full of people who have just finished a great meal and someone says something about not doing that too often...or else...we'll get...FAT. Or a parent is telling a kid not to eat the eighteenth cookie and they say something about them not wanting to be FAT.

I think everyone has a right to their own esthetic of beauty. But it occurs to me that some of our esthetic is trained. Magazines, television, culture sends a bombarding message about what beauty looks like. And kids notice things. Parents communicate things to their kids on subtle levels. When you walk past a group of people of color, and you're holding your child's hand, and your hand gets tighter, they learn that there's something different when people of color are around. No one ever has to say anything racist, it's communicated in body tension. With beauty, children notice reactions as well. "Beautiful" people get a certain response and kids notice. So ... how do you know what you think is beautiful if you've never questioned your perception? Most people look at fat bodies and look away. Nothing to see there. Others stare and think hateful thoughts. Just once, or twice, look at a fat body. Really look. Try not react in any way for awhile. Just look.

I've worked on my loving own body. I've looked at it and stopped all the voices and just looked. I haven't tried to affirm anything. I've just looked. I've had some spontaneous moments of self acceptance. But they came from lots of taking the time to really look at my own and other fat bodies and not listen to the first response.

And then there's the health thing. Much of the conflation of fatness and bad health is junk science. You can be fat and healthy. Especially if you don't hate your body. Dieting is not healthy. Many times people defend dieting by saying that they just know they feel better, thinner. Well, the smart-Aleck part of me wants to say...oh do ya? ...in a sneering, jeering manner. The part of me that really does believe that everyone has a right to their choices usually just nods and smiles. But, dieting is weird. Eating healthy is great. Eating moderately is fine. And sometimes you just have to indulge. Dieting is punitive. Dieting is controlling your desire. I really believe that if most people work on being aware of their appetite they will naturally eat more and less in response to inner signals. That doesn't mean that we'll be thin but ... remember me...I'm not worried about that.

When you're telling a kid to not eat too many cookies you can remind them that they may get a tummy ache. Create awareness. Big soup to nuts dinners, especially with friends, are great, but not if you do them every night. Why add the threat of fat?

Not everyone gets to be fat. The people that study these things know one thing for sure...no one knows why anyone is fat. They know it is a combination of genetics and diet history. They think there are brain chemicals, hormones and a bunch of stuff that may influence getting fat and staying fat. Diet and exercise do mediate how fat, but there is a range of how much can be mediated. In other words, some people are just gonna be fat, unless they live on rice cakes and work out five hours a day. And there are people who will never be as fat as I am. Not if they lay on the couch and eat cake for six years. They'll be fatter. And they may change their metabolism. And it may be harder for them to lose weight after six years of cake, but for some people all they have to do is get off the couch, stop eating cake and they'll lose the weight.

If you think Americans drink too much soda and eat crap fast food and spend too much time watching bad TV and not moving, I'm with you. If you think I drink too much soda, you're wrong. I may have soda once or twice a week and I drink hippie soda. If you think I eat fast food. OH. You're so wrong. If you think I could be more physically active, you're right. But I can tell you that when I lived in NYC I worked out five days a week and I was still fat.

And if I did eat junk food and drink soda and watch crap Jerry Springer, so what? I can say I have judgements on all those things but not on the people who do them I have no feeling of moral superiority. At least not because of soda and TV.

Imagine I'm standing next to a thin or averaged sized body person. You don't know me. You don't know that I'm a food snob who has her television tuned to BookTV. You don't know the other person. They live on junk food, smoke, and watch the game show network. But if you're asked to guess who does what, you may guess me, based on my weight. That's called prejudice.

And what you need to understand is that people are denied jobs, housing, good medical care and access to public facilities because of their weight.

So, the next time you're with a group of your friends and some one says they're making choices avoid being fat...experiment. Ask them, what would be so bad about being fat? Ask yourself that question. If you don't ask those questions you are tacitly approving of the prejudice.

May 13, 2002 8:06 AM

I needed a new design.

I was pretty cranky. And then I got a comment from Christine at Infinite Pink. I spent some time on her site, looked at the great art. It cheered me up.

Then I decided to try and learn HTML. Again.

I spent two hours and finally got this done. Well,except it didn't have -the links open windows- thing, that came later. I took a break and then went back on line and read tutorials and studied the code on pages and figured out how to make my scroll bar pretty. I've been trying to figure that out for a while. And I found a site that was giving out the code for the -open links in new windows- thing. If you put a check in the box and you click on a link, it opens a new window. Then you can close that window instead of clicking back to my page. I prefer this when I'm looking around. Maybe because I don't have DSL and it's so slow going back and forth. So, if I can open new pages and close them ...I just like it better. But, now you can make the choice. I'm unlikely to get really good at code. I just like playing with the site. I don't usually like yellow but... it looks so buttery. It helped me to stay distracted from my cranky inner self.

And I liked Jeneane's new design.

I talked to Mom last night. We reminisced about all the times we've said goodbye and then cried our eyes out. We're close and not close. It's the cornerstone of my insanity. I've always marveled at the fact that our moms are the only people in which we've lived. Our skin holds the memory of being in that body. When our mothers don't get us it feels like god doesn't get us. Elaine wrote about giving her mom Kahil Gibran and it didn't work for her mom. Jeneane wrote about the changes in her relationship with her four year old daughter. Things with moms and daughters can be so push away/hold me close. Conflicting drives. It's kooky.

Jo Ann wrote poems.

My mom gets that she doesn't get me, but it makes her uncomfortable. She wants to get me. She just wishes I were a Republican. I want her to get me. And ... that ain't gonna happen.

Oh, I love these guys.

So...I'm going to be wringing my hands, waiting for the complaints. Does it work? Is it pretty? Do you love it?

comment

May 13, 2002 11:06 PM

Men were working on my roof. I don't know why. All I know is I kept thinking, if there is an earthquake in SF today, I won't be able to tell. I could hear the concrete falling through the walls. Little pieces of it kept falling after they left. Ai Yi Yi. The desk was shaking, the monitor was wobbling. It spaced me out.

Maybe that's why I could only look at jobs for two minutes at a time. Yeah, that's why.

And then...at 10... as the news was coming on...we had an earthquake. And I was able to tell. It's such a strange feeling. My favorite thing is when news channels play people telling the stories of what they felt.

Earthquakes make me dizzy. And I'm awake now. So, I'm posting.

You know, there are sooooo many people who have never heard of blogging, never been on a computer, don't even care about the issues. What are the issues? I say all this because I'm fascinated by metablogging. Bloggers blogging about the impact of blogging, or the purpose of blogging, or the joys of blogging, war bloggers, peace bloggers. Can blogging effect public policy? Is blogging the new journalism? I dunno. It's fun.

If I use the word blog too many times on my page I get e-mails and phone calls asking,"What is a blog?" I find myself trying to explain google bombs to people and watching their eyes glaze over. Many of my friends don't spend much time on the Internet. They read me because I whine if they don't.

How much power does a google bomb have? I'd like to think that google bomb campaigns like the verisign bomb (and they really do need to clean up their mess) work. I like to think that all the letters I write to my public representatives work. Letters are powerful. And a google bomb is like a public letter campaign, in a way. But of all the blogs I read, maybe half of them knew about the campaign.

A while ago, my friend Karen noticed a change in the page. She said, "It's like you're talking to all these people." I think that was when I was obsessing daily over whether or not I could call my little project a blog. She was right. I'd stumbled onto a blog cluster and I loved all the kids in the cluster. I was reaching out to them from my page. I don't really think they read me. Or not as often as I read them. But, I really dig checking in with my blog buddies every day.

Jeez. I'm doing it now. I'm responding to something I read. All this probably doesn't make much sense. Part of what got me wound up was an assertion that everyone has access to a blog. Oh...no.

Blogging is, potentially, a great subversive tool. A way to get information passed about. I linked to a story about Aung San Su Ki last week. A friend wrote me an e-mail and said that she hadn't heard anything about it on the news. And my site is far from the vanguard of news posting.

So we can use our power for good or evil. And we'll be the arbiters of which is which. Democracy in action.

May 14 8:43 AM

It's the morning after. It is a little hard to go to sleep after an earthquake. The adrenalin jolt is a bitch. I listened to the news. Took a shower. Read for a while.

The men are back this morning. It's so noisy. The earthquake wasn't as bad.

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May 15, 2002 11:06 PM

Roof pounding continues. Sigh.

You may notice the new button on the side, SOUL. Like Ageless and Aortal it's a portal to the independent web. If you click on it you get a popup window with a few links. If you have some time, it's a great way to take a tour.

My pretty yellow scroll bar only shows up in IE. So, if you're using Netscape, or Opera, or AOL, you can't see it. Bummer. I'm pretty proud of the new design. I think I figured out perma links, but it made me think about the way I archive. All this is how I talk myself down from the emotional ledge I crawl out on after ten minutes of looking at Craig's List for a job.

Really. I am nuts. Finding a job was always the same. Look at the restaurant section of the want ads, go to the place, give them a resume, go to work. Some times I took bad jobs, but I could always find a job. I just don't know what I'm doing. I force myself to look at the ads, but I get almost frantic. Hard to believe I could ever have run a business. But I did. More than one.

Kristina has written in her journal. A lovely entry, I might add.

So today's the day to turn beauty inside out!

And how are we gonna do that?

These women had an idea. A calendar. I love the picture with the socks. This is a good read about the notion of beauty. On the site they have a section on anti-dieting. You know I like that. Andrea, one of my Blogsisters, did a AMAZING tribute. Esta, also a Blogsister, wrote about her hands in a way that'll make you look at your own in a different light.

Inside out. Outside in. Beauty, it seems to me is in the eye of the beholder. And the eye is connected to a heart and a mind and body.

I love telling my friends that they're beautiful. And I have friends of all shapes. I like telling men that they're beautiful. Once a man, who I had just gushed over about his beauty, said, "Tish, men are handsome, not beautiful."

OK. Whatever. He looked goooooood to me.

St. Francis said something like, what you are looking for is what you are looking with. I'm paraphrasing and I think he was talking about God, but it's a nice way to think about beauty. Beauty is.

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May 16, 2002 8:32 AM

The roofer guys keep up the banging and they're putting on the tar. The smell gives me a headache and a stomach ache. I guess I shouldn't complain. It was my bathroom ceiling that fell in last year after some big rains made puddles that leaked though the cracks.

Looking for a job with a headache and a stomach ache was just so much fun. My misery and panic multiplied.

It may have been the universe trying to get me out of the house. It worked. I grabbed my book and headed for the wharf. Ferlingetthi was standing on the corner near my house. I said hi. He seemed startled, but he said hi. It's good to have a poet hanging around the hood.

I live three blocks away from the wharf. It can be such a mob scene, but this is an ebb time in tourist season. A band of musicians from Peru play music down there. They sell CD's to tourists. There's a wharf that runs parallel to Pier 39. No shops. Just a walk way. I passed through a Japanese tourist cluster and found a bench. Peruvian music providing a sound track. It is good to breathe sea air.

Stopped on the way home and bought some chicken/artichoke sausage, which I ate with some pappardelle.

I was reading this interview of Susan Sarandon in UTNE and I thought she gave two answers that demonstrated my idea of internalized fat hatred. In one part, she's talking about political subtext in movies and she says,

"...any film is political. For instance, I think Eddie Murphy’s version of The Nutty Professor was incredibly revolutionary. By the end, everybody in the audience was rooting for this guy to stay fat. What’s more radical than that?"

Earlier she talks about the kind of music that she listens to.

"And then there’s Britney Spears. She’s great for exercising to. If you need inspiration while you’re working out, you can think of her body."

OK. So ya know...it's great that she works out, and I'm not going to dis Britney, but Susan is in her fifties and she's beautiful. And when she works out she thinks about the body of a woman in her twenties. (Britney is in her twenties, isn't she?) I just don't think Britney should be a source of inspiration for a body.

And why is it radical for Eddie to be fat? I haven't seen the movies and I'm glad people root for anyone to stay fat, so is it radical...sort of. You know what would be more radical? If Susan Sarandon didn't think about a younger woman's body as a model of what an older, or any, woman should aspire to.

So, I'm saying that she has a fear that fat might suddenly take over her body. See, she could work out because it feels good. She could listen to Britney for the rhythm. (I guess.) But the minute she turns Britney's body into an icon, well...it just makes my eyebrow raise. It's about staying thin, and young, and nubile, or something. And she's a very cool, smart woman. So, what's that about?

Today at 1:00 Colorado time, Mark Diamond is playing some Jazz on KUOV. Pattie and Carl are on CFUV at NOON, SF time. Good gawd. I need to do math. But it seems I may be channel surfing.

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May 17, 2002 6:55 AM

Democracy Now is broadcasting from East Timor this week. They are there to cover the formalizing of East Timor as an independent nation. You can listen to these shows on Web Active. Very moving stuff.

I mentioned yesterday that Mark Diamond was playing some Jazz on KUOV and Pattie and Carl were on CFUV at NOON, my time. So, right at noon I was listening to CFUV and I realized that there was no Pattie & Carl. Apparently, there were technical difficulties. So, I bounced over to KUVO just in time to hear Mark's voice say hi to me. ( Hi Mark!!) That was fun. Then they started playing some tunes and doing some pledge drive stuff so I bounced back to hear Pattie, who was doing an interview about immigration policies in Canada. I listened for a while and jumped back to hear Mark play some tunes. Then back to Pattie, who also said my name when referencing the Iyer quote at the bottom of my page.

Pattie was on Real Player and Mark was on some thing that opened in IE as a side bar. Every time I went back to Mark I had to listen to a commercial for allaboutjazz.com. Arg.

It's great to have this many talented friends. A little hectic. But great. By the time Caroline came on I was happy to have one person on my good ol radio to listen to. She was interviewing David Bollier.

And, there was a hearing on the much debated SF public policy on homelessness on channel 26 during all of this. I did feel a bit over stimulated. TV on, sound off, Internet radio on, blog on the screen. Three e-mails half way written.

I've not been a reader of Rage Boy. No big reason. But he was on the Market Place talking about blogging and you can hear him and he's kinda sweet.

While I was listening to all this I was looking for a job. I'm thinking of changing the name of the page to Fatshadow Looking For a Job. And I think I found one that I might actually not hate. So, I sent a resume. Of course I can't say more. I'm superstitious. But send good vibes.

I'm still working on permalinks. This is a test. If you have any techie wisdom for me .... I'll be happy to hear it. Not that anyone is linking me. Heh.

What shampoo do you use?

I change shampoos. Right now I'm using Rusk, green tea & alfalfa. But I like EO products.

Do you use conditioner? What kind?

I just started using it more often. Right now I'm using EO rosemary & mint.

When was the last time you got your hair cut? September.

What styling products do you use? Not.

What's your worst hair-related experience? OK...I just answered this. Remember...during the question tour. It was on a Thursday. Root perm, burned scalp. Yada,yada.

I'd link to it if I knew how to do a permalink.

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would not understand until years later that, consciously or not, Rimer was following a long tradition in Japanese literary criticism which—using terms such as "joryu sakka" (woman writer) and "joryu bungaku" (women's literature)—places most women writers in a separate (and implicitly inferior) category. -- Jonathon Delacour

The guy who came up with Book Crossing is on NPR and they talk about the Free Words project.

Random acts of bibliophilic kindness. I think Kristina coined that phrase. Or, anyway that's where I heard it first.

I really thought the roofer guys were gone. their little orange tar machine wasn't in the parking lot. But they were back, bright and early, pounding away. The little orange tar machine was in front of the building. The tar smell was overwhelming. I don't know what they were doing but, I swear it changed the air pressure in my apartment. They were using some kind of machine to, I dunno, maybe roll down the tar.

So, When I heard that Ilyasha Shabazz was going to be at Stacey's talking about her book Growing up X, I decided I best get out of the house.

She was interesting. Apparently she didn't realize that she was going to speak. She thought she was just going to sign books. So she read from the book and she chattered and seemed a bit wound up.

I had just heard Malcolm's The Ballet or The Bullet speech on KPFA. It was prescient and fierce. He talks about the similarities between the Democratic and Republican parties, and the power of the African American vote.

Shabazz had, in her own words, a privileged life and protected life. She never felt fatherless. The book is a testament to her mother. She wants the truth about her family to be told and the truth is that, after her father's death, her mother did everything she could to give her six girls a "normal" life. So, Growing Up X is about summer camp and first kisses. She talks about black nationalism, globalization, and her father's assassination, but she returns again and again to the affirmation of "normalcy"

I'll admit, I went hoping to hear Malcolm's daughter, and I had ideas about who she should be. She talks about how that expectation followed her in life. Her project is different. She wants to tell people about the Shabazz family, a father who gave his two year old daughter oatmeal cookies, and a mother who worked to shield her daughters and define herself, and sisters who share the role of Malcolm's daughter.

Malcolm's birthday is on Sunday.

I came home and read some blogs. I read something that hurt my feelings, despite the fact that it had nothing to do with me. I think it was because it had nothing to with me that my feelings got hurt. I felt left out. I know this is oblique, but it isn't really about what I read but the way I reacted.

I'm just such an emotional whack job. Maybe because my father was able, is able, to not have a relationship with me. But if I called him right now he'd be all charming and say he loves me. And my mother has a relationship with a me that she has constructed in her head.

I don't know. I long for relationship. I mistrust relationship. I'm deeply grateful for the friends I have. I covet the friends I don't have. It's so exhausting that I withdraw into my own isolated little space. My web site becomes a message in a bottle.

I don't know. I'm just cranky.

And I don't know how to make permalinks.

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May 19 2002 8:29 AM

Roofers do not work on Saturday. Or maybe they're done. I haven't been able to open the windows all week, so that was the first thing I did. Then I turned off the radio, put on music and cleaned up.

I need a job.

There are two things I need to do every day. Find a job and work on my summer writing project for school. Both happen in front of the computer. Writing the page and reading blogs are the things I do for pleasure...in front of the computer.

Sheesh.

Scrubbing the bathtub felt like a wild new adventure.

Clearly, I need a job.

The exception to all this sitting front of my computer is reading ... you know ... a book.

In the afternoon, I did more HTML studying. I redid Rage. It was one of the first pages I ever did. I think I used Netscape Composer. So, I used my web editor but, every time I did anything I looked at the HTML to see the changes. And I practiced editing. There's probably an easier way to learn. While I was at it I edited the writing a bit. I thought I'd figured some things out, but when I tried a second page... well... I just didn't know enough.

I may have figured out perma links. At least, as of yesterday the May page opened when you clicked on the date, but, it doesn't open to the place on the page I'm trying to link to...so this is another test.

Worked on the summer project writing.

Made some pasta with asparagus and chicken. Talked to Mom on the phone.

That was my swinging day.

Happy Birthday Malcolm

Happy Birthday Marie.

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For people like us - that is, relatively privileged people in quite free societies - none of this is inevitable. Terrible crimes are committed if we allow them to be committed. It's as simple as that. We're not talking about things happening on Mars, or crimes being committed by Attila the Hun, but crimes being carried out by forces that are, in principle, under our control, if we want to control them.

We're not confronting laws of nature. These are questions of will and choice. We can't undo the past, but at the very least, we can face the present. We can choose to look at it honestly, to learn lessons from it, and to use those lessons to affect the future. -Chomsky

May 20 2002 10:17 AM

Yesterday East Timor became a nation. Democracy Now did a special report.

I'm usually tense about flag waving. I like to think that, some day, we won't need borders and states. But we aren't there yet. And this is wonderful story of a people who are experiencing, in the words of Jose Ramos-Horta, "a triumph of faith and conviction over oppression and tyranny".

Events in East Timor Venezuela and Burma have been heartening in a still worrisome world. And I'm waiting for this jury.

I went swimming in the morning. So good.

Marilyn took me out to lunch. Thank you Marilyn.

Came home and took a nap. Woke up. Read and watched some TV.

I'm in a mood. Tense about money and meaning and ... it all.

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May 21 2002 9:01 AM

Roofers.

Sigh.

They were here.

The rain chased them away.

The rain stopped.

They were back.

One of the funny things that's happening is that, what ever it is that they're doing, knocks the wiring loose in my kitchen light. So, one day it works, the next it doesn't. I'm sure this isn't good.

I needed to register for the summer writing project. While I was at school I stopped by and visited Cheryl. It may be a grass is always greener thing, job crazed that I am, but her world looks pretty great to me. Nice little office with lots of windows, and a nice view. Cool work buddies that bring lattes from the corner cafe. (And double capps to visiting friends. Thank you Cheryl's cool work buddy!)

OK. I got away from my computer and my little page and my obsession. And what's the first thing we do? We look at my page on Cheryl's computer. I'm always mind blown when I see the page on other people computers. It looked good on her's. It looks the way I see it, except in Netscape. I don't freak out the way I used to when I'd see the page on some one else's computer and it looks different. I figure, I'm making it up as I go along and it looks OK, and I'm trying to learn more all the time. (Do I sound defensive?)

It was funny. At a certain point we're looking at stuff on the computer, sites from the SOUL button and such, and we realized that we could talk to each other, instead. It's like a virus that I carry. I walk in the room, the computer goes on, I'm checking the site for design flaws. My poor friends wondering what I'm talking about.

I had good bus karma yesterday. They came right as I got to the stop; I got a seat. If that doesn't seem like a big deal to you, you don't ride MUNI. I missed most of the rain.

I did one piece of writing this semester that I had fun writing. I took chunks of Atlas of the Difficult World and did responses to them. I decided to make a page of it. I was trying to use it to practice HTML, but I got frustrated with my limitations. So, it's a Conversation on the Difficult World. And we had to answer the question Why Write? So I did.

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May 22 2002 9:11 AM

No noise from the roof. Is it possible? Are they gone?

I was reminded of Rob Brezsny horoscopes by Elaine.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20) Week of May 16, 2002

"In my dreams, I was drowning my sorrows. But my sorrows, they learned to swim." So sings Bono in U2's tune, "Until the End of the World." I bring this up, Gemini, because unless you act quickly, your sorrows will also learn to swim. If you hope to leave them behind for good -- if you prefer them not to follow you to the new world you're headed for -- make sure you don't do anything to help them stay afloat in the coming week.

Hmmmm. Gulp. OK. No more whimpering from me.

Elaine reacted to something Mike said. Elaine writes: The question for me still remains: Do I want to stir things up or do I just want to write the kinds of “personal essays” with which I seem to be most comfortable. Sometimes too much comfort gets stale and boring. Just something for me to think about.

I think about this kind of stuff every day, in terms of the page, and the writing that I do for school, and the writing that I'm doing so I can grow up to be a writer. How do I position what I'm going to say? How much do I reveal?

I've made veiled references to things that happen in school here. Things that only some folks would get. But once I went off about some fat talk in a class, sort of forgetting exactly who said what, and one person who said stuff read my site. We talked about it all, so it was an opportunity for us to understand each other.

I think a web page is like hanging a piece of writing on a tree in the middle of the forest. One person may happen to pass and read it. They may tell others. Eventually a trail may be carved by folks stopping by and other folks will follow that trail. So, it's a public space and yet...

Lately, other than my chronicle of the roofers and my job search, I haven't had much to write about here. I wander the Internet, looking for cool things, or news items that I am tracking. I record what I had for dinner (tamales) and I fuss about my design frustrations (see if I knew how to do perma links, when you clicked on fuss, it would go to the exact place on the page, where I was fussing. BUT NO!!! Arg!) Doing the page has always been about writing every day. Nithia writes about this in a lovely way. (See how that perma link worked?!)

I like the way Mike writes. I like his politics and his passion and his hyperbole. (I mean what is all that Porridge Boy stuff about?) He can be very revealing. But Elaine can be very revealing as well. I mean she talks about her vagina! She has never struck me as a woman who plays it safe.

Bloggers do have conversations with each other on their pages. It's one of the things I love. And much of it happens in comments. I usually get comments from my friends. The ones I know and talk to in my life. Thank you my friends. All these bloggers that I hang around rarely show up here. A fact that I just internalize as unrequited love. Sniff. Anita left me a comment last week. Thank you Anita!

There was a point in school where I wrote about something that seemed very revealing, in terms of content, but for me it was just the details of some thing that happened. I knew that some readers would settle for those details and believe that they had really gotten a deep part of me. But I didn't feel like I was revealing that much.

I think if you're really reading some one you get as much from what they aren't saying as from what they say.

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May 23 2002 9:23 AM

The roofers were indeed gone. But the handy man and the owner of the building were here checking out their work. Apparently they messed up the cable for some folks, not me. So, it was chaotic here. Lots of shouting from the roof. The handy man fixed my kitchen light.

It was an odd day.

I worked on the refrigerator door. No big changes. I put in a white scroll bar, which you can only see in IE. I added some links.

Rebecca called and we set up a chat in Yahoo. She has a web cam so I could see her and hear her via my computer. What a trip!

Suzanne came over to practice for her gig. I'm going to sing a tiny bit o backup. Mostly we talked and drank coffee.

MARK SENT ME A COOL CD!! YIPPEE! THANK YOU MARK!! OK. I'll stop shouting. But, you should really listen to Slappin the Cakes on Me.

I got this from Wood s Lot. I'm always gonna have a crush on Jack Kerouac. Forever.

I saw this on Moodswings. New terrorist attack, really, really, really certain in like five more minutes.

The Bangladesh Film Censor Board, a division of the Ministry of Information, has refused to issue a censor certificate to the film MATIR MOINA (Clay Bird). They say it contains "religiously sensitive" material. Well, let's take issue with that.

Pattie & Carl are on at noon.

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May 24 2002 7:46 AM

There is an interesting discussion among Indian bloggers about which Anita blogs.

I read her right after I had two discussions with friends about the problems of being American. Both conversation stemmed from my worrying about money and feeling frustrated because I worked so hard to get my BA and now I'm working on the MFA and so it seems Sisyphean. And I keep signing up for another semester worth of loans. The whole notion of ... if you work hard enough things will work out ... is lost on me.

I was raised, according to my mother, in a white collar working class family. But I'm a sixties kid. We rejected middle class values and went running into poverty. And what we saw as middle class values were valuing money above all things, uniformity, exclusivity, things that felt so constrained.

Of course our parents didn't love money so much as they feared the lack of it. And they had experienced the lack of it. They worked to provide us with the choices and education that they never had, and when we began to choose away from their ideas of limitation, they reacted with anger. We ran off into the world, looking for art and spirituality and truth. We ran to places like India.

I should probably say I, rather than we, but part of the whole sixties kid thing is feeling part of a ... community.

Now, in my midlife, I am trying to do what my parents wanted me to do after high school. Get a degree and get a white collar job. I'm not trying to be rich. I'm just trying to be happy. And economically, I'm floundering.

It's not for me to speak about where anyone chooses to live, or why. Anita says it very well.

Where you choose to live is a totally a personal decision as to what you want to do in life, how you want to achieve what you want and what makes you happy. Make your choice.

I rejected the identity of being American in reaction to so many things. I went in search of an authentic self. Part of self is where you were born, and where you grew up, and everywhere you went after that. But only part.

My friend Abeer's parents are Bangladeshi. She was born in Nigeria. When she was 13 the family moved to Pittsburgh, PA. Is she Bangladeshi? Nigerian? American? How does she anchor identity in terms of place?

I agree with Anita. There is no moral high ground in terms of where you choose to live. We all make choices and some choices are made for us.

What's the last vivid dream that you remember having? I dreamed about talking to Willa. I was trying to figure out some code that I was reading at the top of web pages. She said it was there to make sure that if there was a photo of someone with bangs on the page the bangs would show up. I experimented and when the code was gone my bangs on my photo were gone.
Do you have any recurring dreams? I used to have tornado dreams.
What's the scariest nightmare you've ever had? Cats always scare me. In my dreams. The other night I dreamed about a cat chaseing me and I was closing the door to keep it from escaping. It wasn't really, really scary, I guess.
Have you ever written your dreams down or considered it? Why or why not? On & off. It is a good idea. My dreams are clearer when I try to remember them.
Have you ever had a lucid dream? What did you do in it? Well.....I think so. When I paid more attention to them, they were more lucid. I've dreamed about blogging. I'm not sure that's lucid.

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May 25 2002 7:29 AM

The NAAFA memorial day weekend is happenin. Marilyn and I went for a while. There was a nice photo show, a woman who takes pictures of fat women and men. Very pretty. There was some fun shopping. But, as we know, I have no money. I do have some very cool and generous friends. Marilyn bought me a dress. It has cherries on it. And then she took me out for Chinese food. Thank you Marilyn.

I came home and was looking at e-mail and I put on the TV. Big mistake. 48 hours was doing a show called Slim Chance. On every diet thing they talked about they note that people have died as a result of taking the pill, or having the surgery, or what ever. They even had a man who is bulimic and a man who is anorexic. The horror! Men are now doing the same things to their bodies that women have been doing for centuries! But they leave you with the impression that it's understandable that folks would take these risks and adopt these behaviors. After all, they want to be thin. Doesn't everybody? Arg.

So, first I visit fat xanadu and then I'm reminded of the world in which I live.

Sigh.

I'm tired.

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May 26 2002 8:36 AM

As the African proverb goes, however, when two elephants fight, it is the grass beneath their feet that suffers. In fact, the grass simply vanishes! - Wole Soyinka

I watched my goddaughter graduate from high school yesterday. It was amazing. I think rituals can be hollow, but I also think they provide an important context for transistions. And I was sentimentally involved with this one. The minute the principal gave her the diploma and she turned to walk away, I started to cry. I was flooded with images of her from the last eighteen years and I was aware of the tenuous world she enters as an adult.

Ironically, my mother just came across my cap & gown from high school. I remember not wanting to participate, being petulant and miserable. Perhaps the world felt as tenuous then as it does now. I know mom was worried and I was anxious and ready to get out into the mix.

My goddaughter is already enrolled in college. She's smart and aware and creative and beautiful and deep and fair. She brings so much to the world.

Back in Colorado, Dean is graduating. It's such a wave of feeling when someone you knew as a baby, and as a child, becomes an adult. The transition is viceral. Life has rolled in a way that can not be denied.

It's not about feeling old. It's about knowing that you now have a new set of allies in the world. People who will engage in their own terms and do great things. And these allies were there when you did some of your own great things, and many of your stupid things, and you hope that you didn't let them down too much. May be you did some small thing that made life seem possible and good. And maybe they'll take those memories with them as they sheer away from the role of beloved child.

Now they are beloved adults.

I'm still not sure I get what being an adult means. But I know that it is the best thing to have someone who you watch grow. What ever fear I have about the world pales when I think about the wisdom that these new allies carry forth.

Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don't criticize
What you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin'.
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'

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May 27 2002 7:58 AM

Went swimming with Ari Asha. I love swimming. And it was great to get a chance to visit with Ari Asha.

Then I came home and crashed. I read, watched some TV, ate Chinese food. Not much. And I don't have much to say today.

I did have a nice dream about a man that I have a crush on. I was some how involved with a plan for him to take a trip, so I was there at a celebration of for the trip. And he was getting a bunch of money in an envelope. Then a woman left a message for him with me, which I told him, and then I walked away. I was jealous and upset. I went to sit outside and I was on this cliff with a panoramic view. He came to find me and sat down very close to me. I was trying to make a joke so he wouldn't see how upset I was and he was smiling. Then he just kissed me.

Sigh.

Recently I heard he is dating and I decided that I should just not think of him ... you know... that way... any more. So, I woke up from the dream and felt a combination of guilt and sweet pleasure.

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May 28 2002 9:05 AM

Went to the NAAFA brunch. Diane Bliss spoke. Very cool woman. I think she's doing some really important work.

I often leave fat community events in a state of frustration. Most of us haven't fully grasped the notion that we've internalized a faulty notion. We still believe that we are to blame for our fat bodies. We ignore our basic genetic structure, forget the damage of our diet history, and do relentless documentation of how much we eat or how often we exercise.

And there is a peculiar divide between the plus size women and the super size women. I'm not clear on where that line is drawn, but there's a scarcity thing that occurs. For example, maybe there won't be enough men who want fat women, or maybe a corporation may allow one fat person but they aren't going to hire and promote more than one. So, there's an attitude. I'm willing to love my 250 pound body...but I would never allow myself to be 500 pounds.

Each one of us has an individual story. I would like to understand why someone gets to be 500 pounds. And I just don't believe that anyone gets there because they eat donuts and watch sitcoms. I mean that may be part of the story, but it isn't the whole picture.

For the 500 pound folks the loss of mobility is a worry. I worry about loss of mobility. But people lose mobility for a variety of reasons. And I feel that we need to parse these things. As long as we hate fatness and blame it first, we'll never have any clarity.

Marilyn says this best. Fat! SO?

Are you worried about my health? Let's talk about my health. And if the first thing you say is that I need to diet, you haven't educated yourself. You don't know how often diets fail. Should I eat more green leafy vegetables? Probably. But the best thing you can do for my health is to not add to my stress level with your disapproval.

We need to raise the level of the discourse. Because even if I do eat donuts and watch sitcoms, I still ought to be employable, lovable and I ought to be able to get unbiased medical care.

Love your body. Eat your veggies. Take a walk. And insist on being treated with dignity.

I'm in the Mirror Project!!!

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May 29 2002 9:00 AM

SHIT! I woke up at 3:40 AM having a panic attack about money. It's so irritating. There's nothing you can do at 3:40 AM except fret. I thought about turning on the computer, but I just kept hoping I'd get back to sleep. I did. And I had crazy stressed out dreams.

This is so frustrating.

I spent the day running errands. There were so many people out. Lines everywhere. But, I wasn't too bugged. I feel like I'm sleep walking during the day.

OK...so the resumes I've sent out have landed with a thud. Must try again.

Random Walks has some great links about India and Pakistan.

KPFA is talking to the folks that make the film Last Chance to Freedom. Sounds like a good movie to see. Anyone want to go?

I'm still tired. Working is never as exhausting as trying to find work.

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May 30 2002 10:15 AM

Most evenings a sea breeze starts to cool things off about 6:00 and I go around closing windows. Not yesterday. San Francisco was hot. My windows were still open at 8:00 PM. I love it when this happens. I listen to my neighbors talk while they make dinner. Their kitchen window is right beside my living room window. I hear the clang of the trolly car, three blocks away. Traffic noise and the bark of the seals at the wharf, it's a cacophony, a sound painting of this city.

There wasn't anything on television. I mean, there rarely is...but I do like to watch West Wing. Now, it's on at 10. The same time as American Family. There's only five shows I ever want to watch and two of them are on at the same time. Sigh. Not a huge problem. I was reading and listening to the airborne sound track wafting through my window.

Suzanne, her musician friends and I practiced our song for Sunday. It was so much fun! I forgot how much I love hanging out and working on music. I was so lucky when I was doing it.

I knew so many wonderful musicians.

So, I didn't spend any time looking for a job and I spent a lot of time worrying about money. But there was this oasis in the middle of it all. Just being in a little room, the walls covered with pictures of Professor Longhair and Dr. John, Mardi Gras beads and masks, all of us with gray streaks in our hair and lines in our skin, felt great. Better, I suppose, to focus on that feeling and ignore the panic about cash.

So, I have a little mystery. Someone snail-mailed me some cash. I thought it was Rick because he and I had just spoken about my money trauma. He says it wasn't him. Then I thought it was Cheryl. There's a story about some stamps...but it's not that interesting. But, she says nope. Now, I have a new suspicion. But, let me just say this...if it was YOU...THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!

Pattie & Carl are on today at noon. (If you live in the west. If you live in another time zone I'm leaving it up to you to do the math.)

I have the biggest pile of laundry ever to do. Oh, and I need to find a job.

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May 31 2002 9:19 AM

At 8:00 PM, the biggest pile of laundry ever was piled on my bed waiting to be folded. One last load was still in the drier. I thought about leaving it until tomorrow, but I rallied and made one last trip down the three flights of stairs. I was still folding at 9:30, but I got it done. The clothes were clean. The sheets were clean. The dishes were clean. I took a shower and went to bed with a book.

OK. So, it's come to this. Some folks blog about world affairs, some post their beautiful art. Some blog post modern :: poetic :: eclectic :: considerations of culture. I'm blogging about doing the laundry.

Sigh.

Oh, some people answer questions posed by other bloggers.

But for some reason ... I can't get to the five. Check back later.

What can I say about world events. Civil liberties? It's all such a worry.

I guess I could jump in on some blog conversations ... but I don't have strong feelings about blogs as journalism. And as for forgiveness ...yeah...it's good. I mostly feel off the loop in this blog circle anyway.

So...my laundry is done.

Kristina did an entry when I wasn't looking.

Don't forget

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