| May 2003 Marilyn and I had tickets to go see Vic Chestnut at The Bottom of the Hill. We got there and found that there had been a fire there on Monday and the show was cancelled. No one was hurt in the fire. I guess there wasn't much damage. I'm not sure why they couldn't have let us know. What ever. We went to Rock Soup and got some dinner.
The truth is that I was worried about the seating in the club so I was almost relieved when it wasn't happening. Everything I put in my stomach yesterday seemed to hit it like gasoline. I think it was nerves.
Today I just feel like shit.
It is May. Celebrate as you will. (link via Susan.) And remember. (link via Cyndy )
The rumor was true. And it turns out it was Cyndy's birthday a few days before. Happy birthday.
George has the riff to levitate CNN.
More on fat and cancer from the mighty Paul Campos. (link via BFB)
I'm going to try to feel better now. Como é que sei tudo o que vai se seguir e que ainda o desconheço, ja que nunca o vivi?
Monica! Feliz Aniversário! I LOVE this. Get up. Get on up. Yes. Yes. Yes. Makes me wanna shake my butt.
I feel better. My stomach is still grumpy but not in flames. I didn't get a thing done yesterday. Oh well.
OK. What do we think? Dennis Kucinich? Or Howard Dean? They will both be in a debate tomorrow that we can watch on CSPAN this weekend. I was all about Dennis and may still be. But, I have to say, I'm listening to Howard. And Howard has a blog.
Craig's art, which if you didn't check out the other day you should go do now, is going to be in this show.
I really do need to focus today. It needs to be The Day of Cooking Vegetables. I want to blanch asparagus and green beans, roast Japanese eggplant and a yellow bell pepper, (although, I might keep the pepper raw and slice it into a salad I want to make with a mango and some jicama) boil beets and ... that's it I think. Maybe I'll roast some little yellow tomatoes I have as well and make a stewy kind of a deal with the eggplant and some shitakes. Hmmm. Well. It's a rainy day. The window will get all steamy if I cook. I like that.
Meanwhile ... is there a reason why my text is all pushed up to the left? Whatthefuck? Why is my text all bunched to the left? I swear. I've checked everything I can think to check.
The Day of Cooking Vegetables went pretty well. When I defrosted the fridge things were out a little too long and were not holding up. I actually lost the green beans and the mango. The jicama is OK so maybe I'll get another mango and make the salad. Some of the aspargus is kinda woody but..it's OK. The roasting was the best thing. I did all the previously mentioned veggies and ate them with orzo. There's enough left over for today.
And I made some tapande. I like making it when figs are fresh. A little bit of fig adds a musky sweet thing. But I had no figs and I used quite a bit of roasted red bells. It's very red and not too salty. I guess it's more of a pepper/olive/garlic thing than a true tapanade.
My stomach seems to be OK.
I signed up for Netflicks. I get two free weeks. I figure I'll go into a movie coma when school is over. Thanks to Dorothea my text is back in place. Thank you so much. I left some of it messed up. Just cause. I guess that happened when I did a cut and paste on the Portuguese quote. The 70% must have traveled in with it. I swear I WILL LEARN MORE HTML. Of course I'm always swearing that I'll learn how to conjugate verbs in Spanish too. I can never really have a conversation in Spanish that involves yesterday or tomorrow. Although I do know how to say yesterday and tomorrow. Heh. And thanks to Paul for confirming Dorothea's diagnosis.
I can't believe I'm about to link to the Fox network. But I am.
I'm listening to To The Best of Our Knowledge. They just talked to this woman. Her site is too much fun but might be a drag on dial up. And there's a little pop-up of her book. If it wasn't so cute I'd be really annoyed.
Cyndy linked to this site about the Kent State massacre. I got the dates wrong in the piece I wrote, which is also part of THE BOOK. Must edit later. Weeeellllllll. The debate. I watched most of it twice. The first time I was screaming at the television every time Lieberman opened his mouth. The second time I just seethed. Things opened with some silliness between Kerry and Dean. I missed the very beginning three times so I don't know what the big deal was or how it started, except I guess Dean had been misquoted in the S.F. Chronicle (imagine my surprise) and he pointed out that there had been a correction. Are these guys really worried about Dean?
The conversation about health care focused on Gephart's plan. (Uh, first there's a tax break to employers who give their employees heath care? Why doesn't that seem like a particularly great idea? I mean it's not the worst idea but it sure wouldn't be my first idea.) Kucinich was almost never called on to speak. When he did get a word in he was very cool. I think I do like him best. I still like Dean but it was weird watching how contentious things got between him and Kerry.
They talked about electability. Which I really hate. I hate the idea. I hate the idea that it was talked about instead of an issue. And. The truth is, it's something that was on my mind. Which brings me to Reverend Al and Carol Mosely Brown. Both said wonderful things when they got a chance. But. Are they electable?
If I think about too much I get really depressed and miserable.
Why not Dennis and Barbara Lee? That's who I want. And I doubt they're electable. The only thing that makes me more miserable is thinking about the SF mayoral election.
So there was some spatting and some chest thumping and a few issues squeaked through. I do not like Edwards. ( He doesn't think it was about the oil. Paalllleease.) Graham is ... I dunno. Not happenin. Elayne blogged this the other day. There are no words for how strongly I want this guy out of office. But I need someone to vote for.
I seem to be following Cyndy all around the Internet lately. She blogged this poem generator and I got ...
Fatshadow function yaccs_c {document.
It's kooky. I like it.
We had lunch (yum )after the swim so I wasn't too hungry for dinner. But I had a Chinese cucumber that I cut up and dressed with yoghurt and sherry vinegar. And I was cooking some sausages to have ready for breakfasts this week. I ate one with some of the cucs and it was such a nice dinner.
Last year there was a public event in SF to celebrate No Diet Day. It was before I had perma links but if you scroll down you can see pictures.
I think Marilyn and some of the Bod Squad (the fat cheerleaders in the pictures ) are going to something but I'm off the loop. Which is fine. I feel pretty somber these days about fat stuff. I was reading some ISAA stuff and I came across this woman's story. ISSA has a tribute page for her on which they say she passed away from health complications. They are not specific. There will be people who will take one look at her picture and say she died because she was fat. But I've read her story. The number of things she put her body through from the age of seven in an attempt to lose weight, ending with gastroplasty, seem like reason enough.
Part of what makes a person fat is their diet history. And when people get on the diet roller coaster so young they put themselves at risk for so may health problems. And now, the people who want you to be afraid of being fat are telling us that toddlers are too fat. In the article they use the fear of Type 2 diabetes. Which really pisses me off since the link between fat and diabetes is under scrutiny and not accepted as a given.
I want the lives of fat people to be known. We are a diverse group. We do not all look alike. We have different eating habits and feelings about movement. We are not one size fits all.
But most of us have dieted. Once, twice, twenty times.
People tell me that they like it when I write about food. I do love food. Real food. Yesterday I got my first delivery from Planet Organics. I got a box full of beautiful fruit and vegetables grown by folks like these. I got a pineapple. I never buy pineapple. Once I did some goofy diet that involved eating a pineapple before every meal. I really got sick of pineapple. So now I'm eating yoghurt and pineapple. I am not on a diet. It's so good. When I was three months old my mom found lipstick on dad's collar. Sounds like a country western song. But it's true. We went home to (her) mother. I grew up in the same house in which my mother was raised. In the same room. There was this idea that Mom and I were lucky to be living there. I think it came more from Mom than Grandmom & Poppop. But I'm sure they had ways of making Mom feel as if she were a burden. I also know they needed her financial contribution and energy. Shortly after we moved out they moved into a senior citizens home.
So I grew up trying not to be a problem. Trying to be helpful and cute. I felt like if I were too much of a problem we might not have a place to live. And my Mom was a working mother and I couldn't be too much of a problem because she would get tired. So I tried to make her smile and feel happy. And then, of course, I was fat so I couldn't expect that people would like me unless I was really, really, really ... something. Nice. Helpful. Funny. Something.
I think there are ways in which that stuff was good. I like being helpful. I like being able to see situations with an awareness of myself as a member of a larger group. If I am patient and kind it's because I had to be. But those aren't bad things. And I'm not always patient and kind.
And there are ways in which it sucked. Recently I've been thinking about the ways in which, now, I am the one with the problem. I am the one who doesn't like parties and needs a ride and an extra chair and who isn't satisfied with things. And it feels so yucky to be the one with the problem. It feels like I might end up homeless and friendless. I understand that it isn't true in any kind of logical way. But. Sometimes. It feels true.
So I assert my bad self. As it were. And then I isolate myself. Before they leave me.
Not fun. Here's the thing.
I feel like I'm in the slide. School is, for all practical purposes, over. No more workshop. Next week we will have a party at our teachers house. I have a little more work for the teaching writing class but nothing that will keep me up nights.
Yesterday, Kristina and I were sitting at the big round table in the cafeteria at Lone Mountain, where we've been meeting before class for the last two years, and we realized that I won't be there next Tuesday and she won't be there next Wednesday and that it was the last time we would be there together.
She said. "That's a lot to take in." I said. "I ain't takin it in."
So classes will be over. I'll have this summer working with Stephen on THE BOOK and then it'll be done. It'll be done because, honesttogawd I can not work on it any more. I have other book ideas but I can't even think about them right now.
I have to send pieces of writing out and I keep not doing it. I have to look for a job and I keep not doing it. I have to reinvent myself for the zillionth time. And I'll be fifty in month and a half.
And it's not about the age. Because I like being the age I am. It's about the roundness of the age. And it is about the fear. Because the age does mean things about time. And it is about letting go of some things.
But I am beginning a new time. And I want to be excited. But I still have one foot in the time I've been in. But I can feel it all beginning to move faster. And it feels like a slide.
I always feel like it's best to hold the shadow and light parts of myself in some kind of balance. I am feisty and full of ire and ready to play. And I'm also tired and full of old stories and wanting to stay in my own little world of books and cooking and blogging.
Last night I had a tornado dream. First one I've had in a while. I was in Colorado with Karen and the Diamonds. and I was worried about Lee Trees. And the tornado was huge and it was going to destroy everything and it took us by surprise because there aren't supposed to be tornadoes in the mountains. But we were safe.
It could just be that Cynthia showed me photos of tornadoes and there were tornadoes in the news last week.
Or it could signal a coming storm.
So.
I'm gonna stop thinking about it all. If I can. I'm going to clean my apartment and watch some Netflicks and finish my homework and play the new game from Meg.
I faced the pile of bills and then talked myself out of walking to the Golden Gate and jumping. I called the financial aid office to ask when I might be getting my check and it seems there may be confusion about my money having to do with whether summer is in the 02/03 year or the 03/04 year. I need to fill out a FAFSA , which I never thought I'd have to do again. And I may not get money till the end of June. Which will be way too late.
I just need to get a job.
I guess I was hoping I could get through the summer without one, work on THE BOOK and maybe teach in the fall. Or something like that.
I used the movie coma to try and forget about money. But the movies made me think about sex. And love.
Sigh.
There are things to happy about. I love the sound and smell of balsamic vinegar when it hits the pan in which you've been sauteing kale and pieces of flatiron steak. And my mom bought me a dress. Which I'll wear. If I ever go out my door again. Which I will have to do. I guess. Most of the day I sulked and cried. I got back in bed and finished reading Naked In The Promised Land. I saw it in the back of Marilyn's van and borrowed it. I don't usually borrow books because I'm a slow reader but this one just called to me. The book is a memoir. She and I have some similar experience. She was raised by a single mother and a doting childless aunt. I was raised by a single mother and had two doting childless aunts. There are big differences in our lives but she did this thing that I'm hoping I've done in my book. She describes how sometimes having a single mother is like being married. She describes the inner emotional struggle that happens as you grow up and the wrenching need to break away from that relationship. And when I finished the book I cried in big choking sobs.
And then.
I have a little back room. Perfect place for junk to build up. I put a desk back there. Well. Two metal file cabinets with a board on top and material covering the board. All my cookbooks are on the shelves. It's kinda junky but it's also nice. When it's clean.
A while back when I moved furniture I took my futon apart. The frame is broken and it was buggin me. So, the frame has been in the back room. And it takes up most of the space. Things kinda built up around it. Boxes and papers and you know...junk. I got this surge of energy, pulled the futon frame out of the back, broke down the boxes and got them ready to haul down to recycle, cleaned it all up. Mostly. There are still issues. I had to put the futon frame back in there. Someday I have to get it hauled away.
I turned off the television while I worked. Played some music instead. Ripped a few into the computer. Turned the television back on long enough to watch Moyers. it was a little difficult to bear his conversation with Bill Gates. But it was the kind of show that puts things into perspective.
By the end of the evening I was feeling a little calmer. I mean this is just one of those times. And I have to start taking little steps and move forward. And I will.
While I was writing this I went looking to see if I'd written about moving the furniture. I think I did but I can't remember when. But I noticed that I'd never put a link to the October page on my more stuff page. I updated the book list and moved a few things over there. I moved the Attack Iraq? No! button. I mean. Clearly. We have. And I moved the Amina Lawal picture. Pattie forwarded me a letter that there is some concern that the campaign may be harmful to her case. I'm linking to Amnesty so I'm not worried about that but there's been no news. I'm not sure what to think. I don't know if anyone really jumps to the more stuff page. I guess it's the junk room for my blog. A
classmate of mine wrote a piece that was none too complimentary
toward her mother. There were folks in my class who
were offended. Oh. Maybe offended is too strong of a
word. But one of them said something about "our
Yeah. Well.
I guess I have a complicated view on the mom thing. My own relationship with my mom is complicated. I love her in a desperate, inchoate, reflexive kind of a way. I am always running towards her and pushing away from her, simultaneously. When we have been together and we part company I weep. I love my mom.
I think it's good to have a day when people demonstrate their love and respect for their moms. I like flowers and cards. I like the sentimentality of it all. But I understood what my classmate was writing about. I understood the tension and the misery and the shedrivesmecrazy feelings. Giving birth does not automatically make a mother.
And sometimes that all mixes up and there are moments when moms and their kids share this skin aching love. When you just look at each other and you know that you are as deeply connected as you will ever be to any one. Ever. And sometimes that hurts.
I'm not trying to be all shitty about the mom thing. But it's not as simple as everything they've done for us. Some do more, Some do less. Some enjoy doing it and some resent it all. Most are just trying to get through each day making sure that everyone has what they need and all the work gets done and many are making it up as they go along and hope hope hope they aren't fucking it up.
I have big admiration and respect for moms. Especially my own mom. And I sent her a plant and we talked on the phone and we gushed and cooed at one another. And I hung up and felt that gap. The distance. The ways in which she does not know me. Cannot know me. Does not want to know me. But she loves me. And I love her. And it's simple. And it's complicated.
So.
If you're a mom I hope someone is making you a lovely meal and giving you a handmade something-or-other and wetting your cheek with kisses and laughing with you about it all. But mostly I hope you can feel through the complexity. Through the apple pie failures and the words not spoken and the phone that doesn't ring and the card that doesn't come. These stories that we write are a mystery. I had the television on with the sound off the other day. I was on the phone and I was flipping through channels, not really looking. I came upon a show that was some kind of Believe It Or Not type thing. There was a very fat woman and they were showing her naked. I mean there were blurry patches over the obvious places but it was kind of shocking. At one point she was in bed and a man was washing under her arms. The image has been haunting me. I didn't have the sound on so I don't know what they were saying about her but she was so exposed.
I've felt haunted lately. Paul blogged this story about a fat man who died because the hospital he was taken to after a car crash couldn't treat him and sent him to another hospital. They couldn't treat him because the operating table couldn't support his weight. He bled to death on the way to the second hospital.
There's a Yahoo group of health at every size folks from which I get mail and a member said that Mary Douglas argues that health concerns cannot be taken only at face value, that people will select for worry those risks that help to reinforce the social solidarity of their institutions.
I feel haunted. I keep thinking about dignity. And the loss of dignity. I'm in a terrible, terrible mood.
Don't worry.
I'm working on it. So. Last night was the last class in my MFA program. I don't actually have an MFA yet. I need to finish the work with Stephen this summer. But I will.
I'm still in a pretty terrible mood. There are so many emotions knocking around in me. I can't quite decided which one to feel. I'm just trying to hold on while I ride through them. I just have to finish the writing and find a job and get on with it. It isn't the worse thing to have to go through. But it isn't the easiest.
I appreciate the support from my on line community. And my off line community. I really, really do. And I am working on getting through all this fear and weariness and stuff. This is the culmination of something I began six years ago. I got my BA and now this. I don't think anything I'm feeling is weird or unusual. I'm middle aged, unemployed and deeply in debt. With some letters after my name. Almost. It's hard to figure out how to feel good about it all.
There is no small irony in finishing this writing program and feeling like I can barely put enough language together to make a post. Powers of observation heightened beyond the normal imply extraordinary disinvolvement: or rather the double process, excessive preoccupation and identification with the lives of others, and at the same time a monstrous detachment ...The tension between standing apart and being fully involved:that is what makes a writer. -- Nadine Gordimer I think there's a thing with MT, and maybe with other blogging tools, where you get an e-mail when you get a new comment. YACCS doesn't send e-mail and sometimes I look at an old post and realize that someone has left a comment that I didn't see. Such is the case with my May 10th post. AKMA stopped by and I didn't know till last night. I've been a bleary blogger lately. Not reading everyone. Not commenting. Moving through this muck of emotion.
And so AKMA asked for my thoughts on the things I am reading and such. I had a funny reaction. You'd have to know the sound that the SIMS make when they see a wilting plant. It's a quizzical kind of hhhhheehhh sound that sounds a little bit like Skooby Do. What do I think? Hhhhheehhh?
The Lillian Faderman book was compelling to me but I think that was, in part, because of when I'm reading it. She writes about being a Jewish, poor, lesbian, sex worker who goes to college and becomes an academic and has a baby. I'm writing about being Methodist, working class, sexually frustrated and fat, going to college and becoming...well we don't know yet. I'd like to think that it would be interesting to everyone. It certainly does describe a time and place. It describes the way class and physicality enable and disable. She writes in a strong narrative voice. She has a great tale to tell. So if you like reading about people's lives and you want more than a story of an individual, if you want to read a persons life in a political and historic context, you might like it.
And I did link to a review of Joni Mitchell's latest that wasn't totally positive. Why did I do that? Hhhhheehhh? I'm not sure. I laughed when I read the part about her nicotine ravaged vocals and bitter dissatisfaction. It's true. She sounds like she's lived a life. I wasn't sure I'd like the second album of orchestrated Joni. But I did. I do. I'm unreasonable about Joni. I adore her every raspy breath. The orchestra gives the music an epic feel. I like it. It suits my epic mood.
I'm not sure I'm very good at writing about this kind of thing. All Consuming has a place for book review and I never fill it out. But it would be good for me to think about writing my thoughts about books and music and stuff. Certainly better than the dreary woe-is-I stuff I've been doing lately.
Adrienne came over. We ate goat cheese and olive spread and tangerines and a really good cake that she baked with strawberries. And macaroons. There aren't that many people I can hang with when I'm in this droning place. And it was good to not be alone.
Blogging is funny. There is a lot of great thinking in the blog world. I try to think on the page. But I also try to be with the blood flow in my blog. My blood. In other words there are days when the blood flow is about something political or cultural. And there are days when I'm writing here in the manner of the thin gray note books I used to carry. I'm writing my own narcissistic emotional spin. And there's a very specific reason why I do. I'm trying to push against the belief that I am alone. Or that I will be left if I have too much need, or tell the truth. When I write a dreary head in hands post I worry that I will be abandoned for lack of content. But I never am. There are always comments and e-mails and phone calls. And I pull myself together, look away from the reflection in the water and look toward the folks who are there and I feel better.
It's not that I think that AKMA was saying that I shouldn't write in my own way, or that I should write in a different way. I don't think any of that. But his questions did kind of jog my blog brain. Hhhhheehhh? Does it look OK?
I'm making soup and doing laundry and fooling around with this site of mine. I was strongly influenced by stonefishspine. But I tried not to copy exactly. I keep looking at it and looking at mine and I see the differences. But I see the influence. So I'm chewing my nails a bit about feeling like I'm stealing. It was the textured background that I liked so much. I got this one from squidfingers which I found following a link on little. yellow. different. There are always issues so let me know if something isn't working.
The soup is for a friend who had a minor surgery. It's roasted garlic and ginger carrot soup. First I roasted some garlic. The smell of roasting garlic is just so good. Then I sauteed some yellow onion, celery, mushed in the garlic and a few spoonfuls of ground ginger. I cooked this for a minute because it toasts the spice but you have to be careful not to burn it. Then in went some chicken stock and carrots and some Yukon golds. The Yukon golds add some body and creaminess. Then I cooked it all till it got mushy and blended it with my magic blender stick. (Mine is a little older and not quite as spiffy.) It's pretty good soup. It has a kick. Susan says I should write about food. So there. I did.
I listened to music for a while but now I have the budget committee on. I'm strung out on these guys. They're working so hard. But the writer knows something no-one else knows; the sea-change of the imagination. I moved the perma link and time stamp to the bottom, which is where it is on most blogs. Every once in a while someone will try to link to me and not be able to figure out where my perma link is. Maybe this will be better. I keep tweaking. I wrote to the stonefishspine fellow to confess the potential sin of template theft. He wrote back and was generous and sweet and said, "The web is about collaboration and cooperation." Well. I'd like to think so. But there was a way in which I was walking a line. I really liked the layers and colors on his blog. I like the writing too. And the things he links to. And he has great ideas. But I liked the feel of his style and it was in my head when I was doing my design. It just seemed better to confess. And get absolution. Heh. Marilyn stopped by and brought me a graduation present, wrapped in paper with books and globes on it. Very scholarly. And perfectly matching ribbon. It was a ceramic statue of Our Lady of Quadalupe with these fiber optic lights behind her. Psychedelic. I love her. USF is a Jesuit school and there are BVM statues all over the place. I love them. I think it's hard for people who were raised Catholic to understand how much I love Catholic art. I really do. I'm a wanna be Catholic. Except for all the guilt and stuff. One of the last things I did at school was to say goodbye to the statues. Now I have one of my own. I watched Magnolia. It was pretty amazing. Layers of meaning, the aching need that we all have, even for people who hurt us, the grace of forgiveness, the exhaustion of love and the commodification of the unusual. When the movie was in theaters they used Tom Cruise to pitch it. It's not that I don't like him but it just didn't seem interesting. So I was surprised at the complexity. And the look on the women's face at the end ... like she has just won the things happen lottery ... I loved that. Molly Ivins was on Now last night. Moyers seemed to be having a great time talking to her. I know I would be havin fun talkin to her. I love her. They were talking about the Texas Dems who ran to Oklahoma to avoid voting on redistricting. I love those guys. I'm just full of love ain't I? I'm a bit manic. Low lows. High highs. But I'm riding it. Meg is always stealing. It makes me laugh.     
Our senses are currently whip-driven by a feverish new pace of technological change. The activities that mark us as human, though, don't begin, exist in, or end by such a calculus. They pulse, fade out, and pulse again in human tissue, human nerves, and in the elemental humus of memory, dreams, and art, where there are no bygone eras. They are in us, they can speak to us, they can teach us if we desire it. - Adrienne Rich In the back of my apartment building there is a small garden area. I look down on it from my bedroom and kitchen windows. There is a picnic table and some benches. A few of the tenants make it their business to keep all the plants, many of which are in pots, watered. It always seems like I should go down there and enjoy being ... out. But I never do. I walk through it on the way to the laundry room. So yesterday I grabbed a book and went to the corner cafe, got a coffee, brought it back and read in the garden. It really is nice out there. There's a Lilly of the valley bush. I remember Lilly of the Valley in my grandmother's garden but they were individual little plants. This is a bush full of dangling bells. It has a short blooming season but when it's blooming it smells so wonderful. Now all the little white bells are dry. And yet they still look beautiful. I was back in the apartment in front of the screen before long. My Netflix free trial period is winding up. I watched Saving Grace. Sweet. Funny. And I clicked through Craig's list. Looking for the next step. I love American Dreams. I really do. They're talkin about my generation. The minute I hear the theme song I start doing dance moves I haven't done since I was 15. It all comes back. The Wee Teen dances on Friday nights at the rec center. All the girls doing chain dances in the middle of the floor and all the boys lined up against the wall waiting for the slow tunes. Only a few girls were ever asked to dance slow. I never was. But I loved to dance. And dance. And dance. Last night's episode was about tensions exploding in the African American community. I cried through much of it. I remember sitting in front of our black and white television watching the scenes from cities where things were burning. Black and white television. Earlier in the evening I'd seen a small segment of an old 60 Minutes interview with Tony Morrison in which she talked about never really trusting white people. She talked about a kind of vigilance that she feels. She's open to the possibility that they may be friends. But if the train pulls up to take away all the black folk she imagines her white friend will not do anything to stop it. In the last scene of last night's episode the white girl is taken out of the riot zone in her uncle's police car while the black boy is huddled over the body of a young black man who has been shot by the police. The boy and girl are looking at each other, she is going home to her safe clean neighborhood and his world is in flames. I do like the show. They do a pretty good job of portraying the complications of race relations in that time. It is prime time TV so it does get reductive. But then there's the music. And I want to forget all the problems and dance in the middle of the floor again. Once another girl came up to me and said that I danced like a black person. I thought it was a compliment. I smiled and said thanks. She gave me a look. It seemed clear that there was something I wasn't understanding. The girl in the back of her uncle's police car is just beginning to understand. She has seen the police, her uncle among them, walk away from a young man bleeding in the street. She is in the car with them. She is looking at her friend and they both know that something is changing. They just want to listen to records together and talk about their teenage problems. But the world around them is exploding. I remember. I remember being confused by the rage and the hatred. There were things I did not understand. Things I did not want to understand. Things have changed. But we are still so far from where we need to be. I'd like to think that someday there will be no fear of the train coming. There will be no possibility for betrayal. I'd also like to think that if the train came I'd say if you're taking them you're taking me first. Last week I was in a conversation about Jayson Blair. (link via George) All white people in the conversation. They just had to speculate on the whether he would have been hired and promoted if he'd been white. Well. There's a guy in the White House who wasn't elected and isn't qualified. So having a job and being any good at the job are not necessarily mutually reflective. Sigh. Cause we just wanna dance all nightLive inside the spark of light This might be the only time around We wanna know the face of freedom We wanna make a place where We can learn to love Build a world that we can be proud of This is my generation. Malcolm X would have been seventy eight today.
It amazes me sometimes, really steals my breath away to watch the changing of the mood guard, see the steady, stable sister of Sanity saunter off, swaying her hips like an Egyptian dancer. Her cousin Blissed-Out Hedonist slithers up in her place, shakes a tailfeather or two, whispers something naughty in my ear and gets me to say it to certain special people. And anyone else I might happen upon. No sooner am I boogie-ing with her than she checks her watch, tongue-kisses me and says it's time for her to fly and Irritable Grumpus Hedgehog mood shows up, grinding axes and teeth and spitting bile. Acid-tongued and bitching at the world. Irritable Grumpus Hedgehog does not permit me to answer the ringing telephone, or to reply to e-mails, or to quietly enjoy a book or magazine article. Irritable Grumpus Hedgehog snaps at me and reminds me that I am, now and always and ever shall be, surrounded by nothing but crap. He makes me to lie down in brown dead dried-up pastures and gurgle helplessly in my own retch. I am glad when his stay is up. His departure nearly makes me light up, if just for a brief flicker, when finally, after all these months, my Little Black Depression Cloud moves in to nest all over me, cover me with sad precipitation. - Laurie I got a different kind of green tea. It's good. Smokey. Mmmm. Laurie is a juke box. I always leave her blog humming. Seriously. And she was writing about India Arie. I love India Arie. Last week there was a thread about women and self image on a couple of blogs. I jumped to them from a post on Cav Lec. I was in my reallyfuckingmiserable bad mood so I didn't totally respond. But it stuck in the back of my mind. The other day a woman I know said that she is thinking about plastic surgery. She's in her mid forties and she's beginning to see the signs of aging and she's not diggin it. I had to take a breath before I reacted. This stuff pisses me off. This narrow band of what is beautiful. Narrow. I do not fit. I never have. I remember a dear friend of mine telling me that when she got older (by which I mean around 50) she became invisible. She's was and is a very nice looking woman. At the time I thought she was imagining it but lately I think she's right. It's not a new experience for me. People only look at fat people if their going to make a joke. Much of the time I move through the world invisible. And it does seem more true in the past few years. But I had to take a breath and think about what it's like for a woman who has been in the checkherout world and then she begins to look older and there aren't as many people checking. I can't really feel that loss since it's something I haven't had. I have some experience. I was in a cab once with a driver who was loving my fat body. I knew this because he was telling me. He was looking me up and down and asking me if I'd ever seen a certain magazine, which I knew was fat porn. I said I had not. He kept saying he loved woman like me and when I got out of the cab he gave me his card. It was all pretty slimy. And I remember walking around with a friend who is very thin. She was wearing a short summer dress and men were just staring at her. I was stunned. I really hadn't seen men be so blatant and lurid and invasive in a while. I guess I did get some of that when I was younger. So. How we look. What does it mean? It's a maelstrom. I have three new shirts that my mom bought. They're just big baggy shirts but they're great colors. I feel lit up when I'm in them. I like feeling lit up. And I like the big gray streaks in my hair. I think older women are beautiful. I think older men are beautiful. It drives me crazy to think that people have surgery to change the way their body looks. I just feel like you gotta dig in deep and find you heart and feel your beauty and then look in the mirror. Because all the curves and lines and stuff that hangs a little lower than it did last year is beautiful. Beeeyooottttiffuuuuuuuuuuuuuulllllll. It's hot in SF. The weather is so moderate here that complaining about it feels petulant. I'm not exactly complaining. But I am slouching in my chair. I don't actually mind heat. I worked in the kitchen for too many years. Standing beside a 450 degree oven for eight to ten to twelve hours beats back your nerve endings. Fucks with your inner thermometer. You just stop noticing. But I did sleep on top of the blanket last night. I'm listening to the mighty Dennis Kucinich on KPFA. I like him. I like him a lot. But I heard Dean on CPSAN this weekend. And I still kinda like him. Dennis will be here this weekend and I want to go hear him. Paul is getting married. I'm not that into the institution of marriage, truth be told. But it has been so dear to read Paul when he talks about it. He seems so delighted. It's just so cool to read someone delight in their relationship. So I wish them all the best. Big Fat Blog is doing a bit of fund raising. I'm getting my tote bag. As soon as the student loan comes in. Just as I was about to publish my post I noticed that I had a second comment on yesterdays post. And it was from Angela. I wasn't feeling like I had much to say today but asking me how I feel about power is a great way to kick up a rant. I have a lot to say about power. I do think beauty has a kind of power. And the media exalted kind of beauty has a very specific kind of power. It's the power of privilege. I do understand my friend struggling with losing the power of the beauty of youth. But I also think the real struggle is about a shift of values. It's about fighting internalized oppression. I am not sure that I want to accept that we are not all built for self acceptance. I think there are large commercial institutions that want us to believe we are not all built for self acceptance. Every once in a while someone leaves me a comment that talks about the difficulty of (specifically) size acceptance. And it feels like I'm being told that I have some advanced level of acceptance that isn't easy and that I shouldn't expect that other people can get to the level. Sometimes it worries me because I never want to portray a deep inner level of self acceptance as a vertical process. Ya know like it gets better and better and you get stronger and stronger and one day you just start to glow. Heh. Not in my experience. I want to question the assumptions about things, my own and others. I specifically question the assumptions about beauty and, even more specifically, the assumptions about beauty and fat bodies. There is "a difference (absolutely) between empowering yourself and the full blast of power that a magazine cover type beauty has in her hands." Empowering yourself is a difficult inner process. It doesn't really ever stop. Not when you live in a culture that bombards you with images that look nothing like you and rarely shows anyone who looks like you romantically, successful in their career, or powerful in a substantive meaningful way. And I know Angela gets this. She writes about it regularly and with great spirit. I think it's possible to hold the complexity of two truths. Women who participate in the affirmation of a media and/or culturally constructed notion of beauty are living in the masters house. Do I think they are lesser? Or weaker? Or not as self actualized as I am? No. I do not think about in those terms. I think they are making a choice. And so am I. All this pondering and yammering that I do is the daily effort to not lose myself. The choice I am talking about is made in a context of oppression way fatter than I will ever be. I don't blame anyone for wanting to hold onto the privilege of beauty. I do ask them to think about what their choice does to keep the machine in motion. Suzanne and Carrie came over for dinner last night. (There used to be a photo of them on the web that could link to but it's not there now.) I made risotto with English peas and corn and sausage. And butter lettuce, tomato and goat cheese salads with a dressing I made by adding some olive oil and sherry vinegar to an olive and red bell spread that I made a while back. And we had walnut bread. And wine. And tangerine sorbet and chocolate sorbet. And Carrie brought flowers from her garden that are so beeeyooottttiffuuuuuuuuuuuuuulllllll. I guess a digital camera would be nice. The conversation on beauty and self image kinda morphed into one about fat women and the men who love us. Or don't love us. Which is fine. I like a conversation that takes on a life of it's own. Why aren't men more outraged by media constructed notions of beauty? We know some men are. It's interesting when you think of the damage women have done to their bodies in the pursuit of beauty. It would seem that men might want to reject those images of air-brushed perfection. And some do. I guess. I hope. And women do some idealization of six pack abs and tight butts and what ever. Men are having body image problems. So no one is served by all this. Oh. Wait. That's not true. Drug companies, cosmetic surgeons, weight loss programs are all served by our pursuit of false beauty. So Dru was very kindly linking all this up and pointed out that because I put the perma link at the bottom it opens the post at the bottom. Which seems like something I shoulda known. And I guess I might oughta put them back up top. Drat. It might take me a day to try and figure out if I can keep them at the bottom and have them open at the top. Or. Just get over it and put them back on top. Pattie and Carl got a chance to talk to Pico Iyer. Let's not forget. This weekend. Get on up. May 23 2003 OK. Perma link on top. I'm all wound up. George did this cool thing back in January. He did 150 posts in a day. The idea began with this guy, was picked up by this guy, and then stonefishspine and then George. I wanted to do it right away but there was school and I dunno. I forget why I didn't go for it. But I'm going for it now. I mean look. It's Friday. I don't have a job. I meet with Stephen next week to begin the push to finish THE BOOK. I know I can work on the book on my own but, frankly, I'm a-scared. I want Stephen to hold my hand. So. I may as well do something kooky. Of course I think George didn't blog for a few days after he did it. Hmmm. And my whole blog style is more journal than blog. And I don't even want to do 150 posts about my inner chat. (although there may be more than a few) So I may be tryin to pull something off that I'm not even ...uh...able ...er sumthin...to do. But I'm going to try. Just coz. Now. Despite the fact that Dru has generously offered to host an MT site for me and I could have an MT site if I switched servers on my own the fact remains that I do not have MT. I'm not on Blogger. I do this funny little page with WYSIWYG software and I have to get in to the html to do the perma link and comment # for the day. It's just enough of a pain in the ass to make me wonder if I will be finished by the time I get to 20. So I have to make my own rules about what is a distinct post. And. I do this crazy table toggle every time I post. Which will also drive me crazy. So I'm going to do them all here. I'll number the posts but they won't all have comments and perma links. But at least once an hour I'll post sumthin. Once and hour until I get 150. Or lose my mind. I'll be looking for memes and links and things to go off about. But I'll just be relaxing into an all day blog a thon. Consider this #1. I'll be back. comment 8:29 AM
May 24 2003 Sputter. Gasp. comment 8:44 AM Re-vision -- the act of looking back, of seeing with fresh eyes, of entering an old text from a new critical direction -- is for women more than a chapter in cultural history:it is an act of survival. - Adrienne Rich May
25 2003 Doin
the one One thing that I thought would be true - that wasn't - was that I would be able to leisurely read through my blog roll and check out some new stuff. Not true. I woulda hadta go even faster than I did to get to 150. Or stay awake. Heh. I'm still a little spent. It really does mess you up physically. And I think that has to do with the screen and staring at it for that long. And the fact that I do not have a comfortable chair. But I did look at some new blogs. And I am filled with thoughts about the way I write on my own. Which isn't to say that things are going to go through any big changes. But Renee and I were talking about writing that you love because the language is just so gorgeous. And I want to write like that. And there is the busy-ness of linking. Cyndy did this thing today that made me laugh. She titled a post: Sunday Somethings. But this is not a question meme wondering about toothpaste and favorite movies. There
was a point while I was doing the one Ah. Well. It's all just reveal itself. As we go merrily down the stream. comment 8:37 AM May 26 2003 Swimming is good. The minute I get into the water and feel that buoyancy I enter a zone. The light glitters on the water. The teenage lifeguards walk in circles. Fat women bob and float and do jumping jacks. Jumping jacks. Ahhhh. The water makes all things possible. Got a ride home from Ari. I was talking about my inability to celebrate my degree. She said this thing about how when you're working class college just doesn't feel like work. It's a thought I'd had plenty of times before. But hearing it out loud...well. There it is. I don't know how to own it. I guess I figure that the summer work with Stephen will move me to another place. KPFA is broadcasting the FCC hearing today, complete with commentary. Move On has a petition. I don't think much of our Mayor. I feel like he sold the town to business and squandered the dot com cash flow on pimping up City Hall and hiring all his friends. But he does do The Women's Summit. I've never been but I always watch it on 26. It was on yesterday. This year featured Molly Ivins. Goodgawd that woman makes me laugh and cry and get mad and laugh some more. And Marion Wright Edleman who talked about the tax cuts and the negative impact on children. I dreamed about an apartment in Boulder. I used to live in this nice little apartment with a fireplace. I dreamed about it. I can't stop thinking about it now. comment 8:42 AM May 27 2003 Hmmm. It's shaky around here. I was talking on the phone and I felt a thunk. My apartment shakes when a bus goes by but there's a way those earthquake thunks feel. The person on the phone didn't feel it. That's the way it always is. After a quake you ask, "Didja feel that?" I always really want someone to confirm it for me. Didja feel that?" Therapy was odd. I'm not very good at relaxing when people play games. And generally my face reveals all. I have a big desire to accept people for where they're at and I want to take them at their word for where they're at. But. Sometimes. I just wanna say ... awcomeon. And I usually do. And I did. Heh. Balloon hat of the week. Spliff Skankin. Makes ya wanna inhale. comment 7:41 AM Well, we can ask the question: "Is all of social phenomena contained within capitalism, or are there psychological and cultural and emotional and geographic and economic spaces outside of capitalism?" But I haven't really fully explored that question, because my everyday life is (pretty clearly, and in very non-abstract way) contained within capitalism. I live in a city; I live in an American city. Therefore, almost every single thing I do is mediated by not just the commodity form, but by money. We're able to record this interview because you bought batteries for your tape recorder. Someone's paying for the gas that is heating this apartment. Our interaction here is infinitely mediated by economic exchange values. So, I think it's really important to analyze capitalism and the way that capitalism shapes everyday experience, and our landscape. - Christian Parenti May 28 2003 This popped up in my referrers. I love the postcards.
But it's full of diet talk and porn and links to other dubious fat hostile crap. At some point yesterday the link that was there for Fatshadow went away. Which is OK. I guess. Very strange. Brooke couldn't get into prison and Anita got kicked out. They had gone to visit one of the Angola Three. They both write about the cruelty of the experience. And that makes sense, since they were there feeling it. I keep thinking about the fear and the greed that drives the Prison Industrial Complex. People are cruel when they are afraid and the system keeps them afraid. And invested. Both Brooke and Anita commented on the prison gift shop. Oh yeah. I keep thinking about what a person has to do to their heart to work in that context. And I keep thinking about the people who profit from all that suffering. I live in a state that spends more on building prisons than on building schools. It's a cheap labor force. And it's a way to suppress the ideas of the dangerous minds. I took a class with Christian Parenti and read his book I googled his name as I was thinking about writing this post. And I got the quote about capitalism. I've been thinking about capitalism. Not in terms of prisons but in terms of how it messes with everything. When it comes to writing and wanting to be a Writer it can really mess you up. because now my ideas and my ability to express them well are a commodity. Or not. comment 9:15 AM May 28 2003 April feels the need for a good cry. Heh. That's a commiserate kind of heh. Fat & Feisty wrote a great post and the comments are a barrage of internalized fat hatred. It's interesting to me because I've been talking about the idea of internalized oppression with Suzanne recently. Because I have my own idea about what it means. In the comments on the post a woman talks about not being able to be "maneuvered" on a gurney into a hospital and she is not outraged that she might not be able to rely on the people who are there to do health care. So, what's that about? The recent death of Kelly Snider-Smith left me outraged. I haven't been able to understand how he died. He was in a car wreck. He had a broken leg. He needed surgery for some reason. The hospital he was taken to didn't have an operating table that could support his weight and he was transferred. He died from loss of blood on the way. What isn't clear to me is why they couldn't control his bleeding. More importantly is why they couldn't figure out how to do the surgery that he needed in the hospital where he first arrived. I mean really. These are smart people. Was there no way to shore up the table? And, ostensibly, the woman who left the comment thinks that the hospital should not feel too bad about the fact that they couldn't do the surgery. I mean, come on, the guy was so fat. How can those of us who are so fat expect adequate health care? Heh. Oh yes. I say heh. Because if I don't I will scream. And I may scream any way. April says she is radicalized by her difference. Yes. Yes. Yes. Internalized fat hatred. This fat revolution that I'm always talking about isn't about accepting myself IN SPITE OF MY WEIGHT. It's about being whole. It's about knowing myself and understanding my body and not buying into the idea that I am wrong to have a fat ass. I feel the need to rage and rant and go on and go on and on. But I'm just going to say this; it's not too much to ask. Having cloths that fit and are affordable, being represented in the cultural in a positive manner, being able to find a seat in an institution of education so that you can concentrate on your work, being able to travel, being able to get health care, being able to enjoy your life with your kids and not worry that they will be taken away. It's not too much to ask. I am radicalized by my difference. Because this is about more than wanting to look like a Victoria secret model, this is about having a right to my own experience in my own body and not being shunned and scorned and denied. And make no mistake. The people that don't want radical thinking about this issue are many. And most of them are making money. And then there are the ones that don't want me to be "OK" (what ever the fuck that means) when they have made choices to do what ever they had to do to fit in. I respect your choices. And hope you can respect that I make choices every day. I did not choose to be fat. I do not choose to stay fat. But I do choose to exercise for the love of movement and eat for health and pleasure. And the details of that process are my business. And I choose to celebrate my difference. Way past accept. I choose to celebrate. And I choose to imagine that the world can make a place big enough to hold me. Internalize that. comment 6:43 PM May 28 2003 And then ... I received an e-mail from Harry, the web master at Fatcities. Most of which is in the comment to the post below. But he did ask that I post my "rebuffal". So I am. I guess he isn't happy with my representation of the site. I thought I did a kind of - on the one hand on the other hand - kind of post about it. There are some very cool things on the site. The post cards being one. And I always think it's great for a space to be focussed on fat stuff. And, the link to my site is back. I'm #38 under women. I'm still not sure how I feel about that. I'd love to participate in a fat positive forum. we all know I love Big Fat Blog. I mean if we don't then let me just say ... I LOVE Big Fat Blog. And when April started the I am a person of size ring I jumped to it. So I'm open to the idea of Fatcities as a portal but the message of the site is not clear. To me. Lots of folks trying to hook up with fat folks is not the revolution I'm talking about. Hooking up is good. But ... there is so much more. So the porn links I mentioned are ones I saw when I clicked on women. I'm not going to go into details about this here. For obvious reasons: Google. Believe me, people already come here using some pretty whack key words. I did address them in e-mail to Harry. If you read me you know my issues with dieting and the promotion of diets. For me, that's fat hostile. Lots of links to ideas about healthy food would be fine. But why talk about (not) eating for weight loss? So, if there were some diet links I'd just think ... oh well. But this site is full of them. And then there is a link to an article about the surgery. I am not lovin that. And it's in a section called fat acceptance. Huh? I don't know. Maybe the word crap is extreme. But. There are things that make resort to extreme. Look. The web is about diversity. And Fatcities will no doubt have people who are interested in it. But it would have to be a lot more fat positive for me to want to be involved. There may be a link to NAAFA but I didn't see it.Or ISSA.. And Fat!SO? is here. Harry says they make efforts to insure that the information they present is mainstream. And I think it is mainstream. I'm happily off in a stream of my own. comment 10:05 PM May 29 2003 The post below is time stamped last night. But I didn't actually get it published till today. Last night I couldn't get into my server. I might have been able to deal with it last night but it was late I wasn't up for dealing with the phone system. It wasn't that much fun this morning. But I dealt. I need a job. Things are just tangled lately. I think things with the student loan are working out but I still don't know for sure. Rent is due. Everything feels impossible. But it isn't. It's just really hard. And it's hot. I have days where I feel wiped out. Yesterday was like that. Might have been the heat. Today I have some energy. I know I'm psyched to see Stephen and get to work on the writing and I see him today. Sigh. comment 7:48 AM May 30 2003 So ya know what happens? Suzanne calls me and we talk and talk and talk and then she says, "Ok. Gubye." And I say, "OK. Gubye." And it's not like we're talking trash. We are politics and psychology and story and news and inter and intra and personal and identity and Ihatehim and oppression and deflection and didyouseewill&grace and social theory and reality and OK.Gubye and OK Gubuy. I love that. I love that way we talk. And then we gotta go. But I didn't talk to Suzanne yesterday. I was just thinking about it is all. Seeing Stephen was great. He gets THE BOOK in exactly the way I hope everyone gets THE BOOK. And we talked and talked and talked. We were talking writing and politics and psychology and story and news and inter and intra and personal and identity and oppression and social theory and reality and bodies and process the gay gene and the fat gene and he had some structural idea that rocks my world and builds in a circle and makes me think and think and want to write and write. But. I went to see Isabel Allende at Clean Well Lighted talking about her new book with Adrienne. And we talked and talked and talked until Isabel started to talk, of course, and then we listened and shot each other meaningful glances. And then we went to eat and eat and eat and talk and talk and talk. And it's not like we're talking trash. We are talking writing and politics and psychology and story and news and inter and intra and personal and identity and oppression and social theory and reality and bodies and process and doesthis tastelikegin? I am all wound up. comment 8:16 AM May 31 2003 I wrote a lot. And it felt like work. It felt good. And it felt hard. Like I was having to push. I really like rewriting. I like organizing and filling parts out and taking parts out. But it is work. And except for a few breaks to do e-mail or talk on the phone I worked all day. I was talking to Cheryl on the phone and I realized it was 8:30. Woah. But then I tried to keep going and I started to really hate the writing. Yuck. Yuck. Yuck. It's dumb. It's boring. Who cares? Seemed like a good time to stop. So I watched Moyers and read for a while. I'm ready to get at it again this morning. Susan
was lamenting not having read blogs the other day. Yeah.
I feel that. And while I was doing the one But. Ya know. I love it. Here's something I haven't remembered in while.
comment 8:33 AM |
