Focus. This blog is not about U.S. politics or feminism in general, but about the specific instances where I see women treated dismissively.
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September 2004 I don't generally salt food. There are things on which I like salt. Potatoes. Eggs. Although I prefer salsa on eggs. Margaritas. Margaritas should be salty. I love to press my tongue against the rim of the glass. The salt opens everything up for that warm Agave flavor. I salt when I'm cooking. But not vegetables. I like to taste my vegetables. Not salt. This is somewhat ironic since I collect salt and pepper shakers. I haven't counted but I think I might have close to fifty. Maybe more. Some of which are from my grandmother's collection. She salted watermelon. Some friends were visiting once and were confused because, in all those salt and pepper shakers, they couldn't find any salt. I had run out. This is all preamble. Yesterday I was eating some cold chicken and I salted it. There's something about salty cold chicken. It's just so good. If I salted everything all the time I might not know this. I had a good day. I did yoga and ate good food and cleaned the apartment and took care of some business and ...played a little Sims. Heh. I got a new weather thing after seeing it at Susan's. The old one didn't fit in the side bar and I never looked at it when it was at the bottom of the page. Susan is the cool stuff queen. I'd been thinking about her yesterday because I know she is fond of Aung San Suu Ki and I'd seen about fifteen minutes of Beyond Rangoon. I've seen the whole movie so I knew what was happening. I started to cry and couldn't stop. And I knew Susan would have been crying too. A while ago I was invited to join an Yahoo group full of very nice people. But the timing was awkward. I backed out. I did meet a few new people as a result. Very cool people. For that I'm grateful. But it did kinda mess me up in some ways. I've written before about a time when I stumbled upon a blog cluster and wrote my self senseless trying to join them. I met a few cool people during that time too. But I never really fit in with the "group". As it were. Meet is an interesting word. I've only met one person in the flesh. These are all blog writers. The person who invited me is still one of my favorite people to read. My blog relationships are very real for me. So, anyway. I found the whole experience a bit overwhelming. It changed my blog writing again. I became hyper conscious. More aware of the reader than ever. I was thinking about it as I played Sims the other day. There are ways in which I've been curled up in my simulation. I don't really think that's a big, bad deal. I've just been feeling off. And uncertain. In Simsville I can make things work out. In my life ... well ... not so much.
I love him. And I agree with him. But. I'm having a hard time with it all. I've never felt at home in community. Especially not in the fractured community known as my family. Community is a word I've come to find suspect. What does it mean? Hillman goes on.
Yes. I realize I am part of something large and energetic. Something not always visible. Not just the story lines of relationships. The experience of relationship. In fact, blogging makes very real the idea that relationships can be forged in a "psychic field." And I know I am part of a community. More than one. Hillman again.
See. But. Gee. It's true. And that's where I become troubled. I'm part of systems that I find repellant. Right now the community known as Republicans is in lock down in Madison Square Garden. The city of New York is a bad dream of the way things will be if this guy gets four more years. I can rail against it and vote for the other guy, despite the fact that I'm not feelin the love there either. America is a system. I'm part of it. It doesn't make me happy. I'll only feel a little bit better if the other guy wins. I back out of a lot communities. Because inclusion and exclusion bother me. Even when we affirm a semi permeable boundary in our communities we have to accept that we are part of things that we find repellant. So. I pull in as tight as I can. So tight that I'm living in a world on a screen. A world in which complexity is navigable. And then I sit back. And remember. I find my actual self in situations. I'm not sure I handle them well. There's a check list I run through when I'm trying to understand why I'm in a mood. Unemployment. Disappointment in one thing, or another. Middle age something. But. Really. All that is just life. And. So. It's hot in my third floor apartment. All the heat rising to bake me. Sometimes at night I can hear the sea lions. They get real barky. I'm used to it so it doesn't keep me awake. In fact I find it charming. Usually. The other night they were whopping it up and every time they started my heart raced. Like maybe there was something wrong. The next night they were quiet and it felt like something was wrong again. I get this way. Nothing feels right. So
you keep talking in many languages I been remembering the move I made from Boulder to New York. I took the Greyhound part way and Amtrak the rest. I wanted to visit Dad and Aunt June in Missouri and Mom and Ken in North Carolina. I took the Greyhound to St Louis, spent about a week with Aunt June and Dad. Dad took me back to the bus station. It's about an hour drive. Maybe more. I had about an hour to wait for my bus but I told him he didn't need to stay with me once we got there. He was insistent about not leaving me alone in a bus station. Once we got there he decided he did want to get back. Before traffic got bad. We said our good byes and when he was gone I wept. Sitting in the bus station. Weeping. I wasn't scared. I was weeping for the want of a father who wanted to have every possible minute with me. But. That wasn't him. I took the bus to NC but when I left to go North I switched to Amtrak. The station was in South Carolina. The train left at midnight. It was a long drive through mountain roads to get to the station. Mom must have told me a zillion times, they were NOT going to stay. They were going to leave me there and get back home before it got too dark. But. They didn't. They stayed until the train came. The train pulled in way down the track and I had to run to where they were letting us on. I got on and looked out the window to see that they had run along as well and Mom had fallen. But we waved at each other until the train pulled away. I cried so hard I couldn't see for an hour. Tonight I called Mom to read her Maria's post. Mom and I used to talk on Saturday night but we switched to Friday. I thought Mom might find the post as moving as I did. I wasn't sure she knew who Persephone and Demeter were. She's not stupid. She's just not interested in most of the stuff I'm interested in and she doesn't really read. She reads the Wallstreet Journal. And the local paper. Once when she was visiting me she looked with contempt at my book shelves and asked why I needed to keep them if I'd already read them. We're just different in so many ways. Politically. Spiritually. Just as I got to the last paragraph of Maria's post Mom had to stop me and have a loud exasperated conversation with Ken about the location of a measuring cup. She listened to the rest of the post but the mood was broken. She said it was sad. And. I guess it is. But it's also universal and rich with meaning and beautifully written and ... sigh. My mom and I both speak English. More specifically, we both speak Pittsburghese. After an hour of talking with her my vowels get squeezed. I listen more than I talk. I don't feel like we speak the same internal language. I usually hang up feeling worn out. We are so far apart. And yet. I know. She'll hang onto every second she can have with me. And I'll weep with love when we part. Complicated relationships. I love my Mom and Dad in a desperate way. I love them the way you love people who you know are part of you. Even when they don't get you. Even when you don't get them. More just. Ya know. The stuff of life. And yet. I keep thinking about why I am who I am. Because I'm trying to ... grow. Up. Or. Something. I used to think I was Persepone. Hauled into the underground against my will. Now I think I like it in the underground. I surface on Friday night for a phone call. I weep when I return. But I'm not crying because I'm going back down. I'm crying because I'm never really at home in either place. Here's something I'm not proud of. I haven't been reading my blog roll. First time since I started blogging. I mean, I've had a day or two when I was busy or cranky and I didn't read. But this has been different. I am having some kind of weird reaction to the joining the group/leaving the group drama. It was blogging drama number 857 and it just put me in this mood. And, as I've already written. There are things. Going on.
Because of all my Sims playing I'm thinking like a Sims. Sometimes when you tell a Sims to do too many things at once, or change their directions too quickly, or tell them to do something they don't really want to do, they kind of stand there. Rubbing their nose. They stall. That's how I feel. Stalled.
I've been working through the blogroll today. It feels good. It feels like seeing people that you haven't seen for awhile. People that you love to see. Siona. Phew. Siona wrote a kick ass post. And now, despite the fact that it's late and I ought to go to sleep, after days of not having the will to write, I find myself full of language.
My friends who have suffered eating disorders have taught me much. But first I want to say that I don't like the word disorder. In fact, I resent the word. Our relationship with eating and food (As Siona so deftly described.) is loopy. And it doesn't get loopy because we as individuals get it wrong.
I've seen a commercial lately for a refrigerator with a television on the front of it. In the commercial kids eat cookies, men drink beer and women eat fruit. All while watching TV. A TV embedded in the front of the refrigerator. And none of them are fat. They are living the American life. Put food into your mouth while we entertain you. Don't pay attention to what you're eating. Just keep eating and watching.
I'm not pointing fingers. I eat in front of a computer with radio, or television on. I eat beautiful organic food. Even my junk food is not terribly junky. And the last few days, with the heat, I haven't wanted to eat at all. I don't even want the toaster oven on. But I zone. Sometimes I just make myself sit at the table and eat my meal. None of this is a big problem for me.
Sometimes it's hard to talk about all this and not feel like I'm off politic in terms of the revolution. It isn't my experience that all fat people eat crap and don't exercise. I've written about all this before and I'm sure I will again. I feel I owe an apology to Paul and the BFB community. My general malaise seems to have sucked the fight out of me. I'll get it back. Sometimes people in the fat political community don't want to talk food politics because we are under such scrutiny in terms of what we eat. it shouldn't be anyone else's business what I eat.
Except .
As Siona so deftly described.
It is someone's business. There is almost as much profit being made on food as there is in making people afraid to eat.
(Women in the commercial are eating fruit.) (The dad and his son are eating ice cream.) (Growl.)
So there are a lot of intersections and a lot of diverging paths. And it's late. And too hot. And I'm full of thought.
Paul blogged this MSNBC bit. Parents should demonstrate healthy patterns of eating. Some day someone is going to have to help me understand what healthy patterns of eating are. Are they always the same? I don't think so. A pattern of eating is a diet. Being in touch with your body might be a better goal. Eating while you're awake might be a good idea.
My recurrent phrase these days seems to be ... it's just life. Life in a body. We don't always do everything right. We can't possibly imagine that we can or even should. We are not disordered. It's all disordered.
And it's not.
I was struck by some of the comments in Siona's post. Most people were thoughtful and engaged. Some were just off point and reductive. I was a bit reductive in my comment to her addendum. But I was irritated by what felt to me like the need to calm her down.
Growl.
Here's another lesson from the Sims. They have six little need bars that go from green to red. They need to eat, sleep, have fun, be social, take care of body functions and clean up. I've clicked my hand into cramps trying to keep their bars in the green. It doesn't work. If they eat they need to go to the bathroom. If they If they have fun alone they sometimes get lonely. If they do nothing but talk to their friends they don't always have enough fun. (Although this confuses me a little bit. I like talking to my friends.) But for the Sims it's all about taking care of everything, going to sleep, waking up and taking care of everything again. Life. In a body.
Health is not a pattern. It's a process.
OK.
So.
My energy bar is in the red and I've lost coherence. I should wait till tomorrow and rewrite this before I post. But. I like it when I'm all over the place. Neither here nor there. Neither this nor that. Here and there. This and that. Reject. Accept. Start over.
Double Gemini. Libra moon. Duality. Duality. Balance.
Amy Goodman was interviewing a guy at the Republican convention. He said he got all his news from Fox and he would never watch a Michael movie. I like to say I get my news from a variety of sources but the truth is I listen to and read mostly lefty news. I can barely tolerate CNN. I'm not that different from the guy. Just on the opposite end of a spectrum.
It's been interesting to read The Spiral Staircase right after reading about Lucy's spiral into drug addiction and death. Particularly interesting last night when I was still thinking about the idea of health. Lucy was in pain for most of her life. The pain began when she had a third of her jaw removed because she had Cancer. She went through a number of surgical attempts to reconstruct her jaw. None worked. She could barely chew, or swallow. Eating was life threatening. She choked on food. She said the emotional pain of being ugly was worse. But I have to think that some of what troubled her was dealing with constant physical pain. The thing that saved her from Cancer gifted her a life of bad physical and mental health.
It was her longing for love and her fear that she would never be loved because she was ugly that made my own bones ache with commiserate pain. I don't think I'm ugly. But I know there are people who do. Lucy's big life question drove her into a kind of madness. Is it possible for anyone to love me? She had a gazzillion friends. People who were there for her at every turn. But she wanted that one heart. She wanted to look into someone's eyes and see herself loved. It's a narcissistic formation. Love me to prove to me that I am loveable. No one can do that.
It is easier when someone is holding your hand while you do the work.
Karen Armstrong wanted to live for God's love. When she left the convent she felt lost. She felt like she had failed. She had to rebuild herself internally. She had to reclaim her self from that marriage to the invisible.
I looked to God for the love I craved. Always looking for my reflection in something external. And I've worked to reclaim my self from all the people and places went to for love. Because it wasn't really love I was looking for. I was looking for the thing I needed. The thing I longed for. The thing I believed I should have had by birth right. The obscure object. Never quite defined.
My project is about holding the two things that seem to be oppositional. Holding them in some kind of balance.
Neither accepting. Nor rejecting.
But today. I'm feeling. Hmmm.
It's a solopsitic dance this reclamation. I've had times when I kept myself busy with everyone else and everything else. That's an extreme as well. But.
It is easier when someone is holding your hand. Isn't it? Not easy. But easier. Isn't it?
Neither here nor there. Neither this nor that. Here and there. This and that. Reject. Accept.
Start over. I'm stunned. And sad. It occurred to me yesterday that many people who read me are friends who don't read other blogs, or bloggers who read in a blog cluster in which they may not have come across Aaron. I didn't read him as often as I read other people. I read him often enough to know that I admired his politics, his passion, his humor and style and cultural savvy. I was shy around Aaron. I opened the comment box a number of times and never typed anything. He was so grand to me. I felt tongue tied. So I would read. And smile. And click away.
His death really did leave me stunned. Why? So young. So smart and beautiful. So loved and admired. Why? Can't we rewind this tape? Can't we rewrite this? My strongest feelings were for the people I read who I know had relationships with him. As I read across the blog world I see much grief and confusion. He was loved and admired.
When I was reading the Hillman I was struck by a long paragraph recounting deaths in last ten years because of war, genocide and governmental suppression of dissent. The numbers are large. Overwhelming. Too much to completely take in. I had opposite reactions to them. Deep revulsion and an urgent need to make it stop and a kind of calm. It seemed to me that we, as an evolving life form, have just barely figured out how to walk upright. We've figured out a lot of things but we are still brutal and greedy and afraid that we'll lose our little gathering of resource to a bigger, stronger force. So we hate and we battle and we suppress. And many of us want it to be other wise. We want peace. We want money to spent on making sure everyone has what they need and not on the weapons to keep the walls around wealth. But the numbers are still adding up. Deaths. Every day. More. I felt calm because it seemed to me that I needed to accept the fact of all this death. I still feel the urgent need to make it stop.
Can't we rewrite this? Can't we make it stop?
All emotion and abstraction. I understand the feeling. I understand the urge to fill my pockets up with rocks and head for the nearest body of water. I don't know why Aaron did what he did. I know he was too young, too beautiful and smart, too loved and admired for this to be true. And yet. It is true. We need to accept the fact of it. But I can't imagine we will ever not wish we could have kept it from happening.
George said the most important thing. I didn't feel like I could say it. I always did feel shy around Aaron.
I love you Aaron. I miss things. I swear. I get into these funks. I pull into myself. Things happen. I miss them.
I submitted a piece of writing to Emerging Women Writers for their August theme: Passion. They published it. I didn't know that they had published it. If they sent e-mail to tell me I may have deleted it. I delete a ton of junk mail and sometimes I go too fast. I'm just ... I mean ... jeez. I was published. And I missed it.
I am beyond grateful. And feeling a little shy now that it's out there. It was my intention to be ... uh ... passionate. Blush. Head in hands now. Giggle. Blush.
Wow.
Wow.
I found out about them via Trish Wilson, who also has a piece up. Moyers did an amazing job of recounting 911 events. I wasn't intending to watch any of the rehash but I trust Moyers. I don't like the way the events of September 11th have been used to build a fear driven jingoism. It should be a solemn day of awareness that all over the world people are enduring acts of terrorism.
Fortunately, I spent the day away from the screens. I went to yoga in the East Bay because we had our picture taken for my Yoga For EveryBody article, which will be out in January. The Yoga International article will be out in November. And then I spent the afternoon with K3, kissing on Jan and eating oysters and sashimi.
I watched Chungking Express last night. Wong Kar-wai made that movie in the middle of making Ashes of Time, which I'm going to try and watch today. Ashes of Time is a big epic and he took a break from making it to make a movie that was lighter.
There's a big bike race in my neighborhood, which pretty much puts me in lockdown for the day. I don't know what they were doing to get ready last night but it was noisy. So I'm a bit zoned. Paul blogged about a woman who was told by Southwest airline that she needed to buy a second seat because of her weight. She was already in the seat, with her seat belt buckled and there was no one next to her. She is suing Southwest claiming that the policy is not uniformly enforced and that women and people of color are more often targeted. Similarly sized white men are not asked to pay for their second seat. I have no doubt that she's right.
It's one of those things you can't quite explain to people who don't experience discrimination of any kind. There's just something you notice in the way you are treated in public situations. And you look around and notice who isn't being treated in any particular way. It may be subjective. But you know the old saying. Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean I'm not being treated badly.
She's an interesting woman. She has her own company, which was written about in Essence. She was on her way to a conference that her company was sponsoring about empowering women. She decided to get off the plane rather than pay for the second seat and she was met by two county sheriffs.
Imagine that.
This issue always pits people of size against thin and average sized people in terms of comfort and safety. Most of the people (of all sizes) I know who fly regularly talk about how uncomfortable flying can be. So it must be clear that the seats aren't really comfortable for anyone. And I think people have a right to be comfortable in their seat. I just don't know why the airline companies aren't the ones who are asked to fix the problem. I know airline companies are failing financially. But here's an idea, be the airline that makes an effort to provide comfortable seating for everyone. There's a commercial for one airline in which they move the seat to provide more leg room. So...? Is more ass room really that much harder to provide?
Here's another thing that's subjective. How do you determine who is fat enough to charge for the second seat? I'm glad Ms. Thompson is calling out the possibility that women and people of color might be targeted more often but the discrimination is about size. She was already in her seat. There wasn't anyone next to her. She flew Southwest often and she fit into the seat.
I don't. I don't fit into the seat. On the rare occasion that I fly, I go to great lengths to make sure I'm not pushing over on anyone. And if an airline company advertised that they wanted my business and were making sure that they had some seats with movable armrests, on an aisle, or even seats that are wider, I'd be booking with them.
I'm just aghast that this policy still stands. Southwest is doing well financially. There's something about that. Something deeply offensive. They are a mean spirited company known for discrimination. And they are doing well. Van Gogh and Chekhov and all great people have know inwardly that they
were something. They have had a passionate conviction of their
importance, of the life, the fire, the god in them. But they were never
sure that others would necessarily see it in them, or that recognition
would ever come." - Brenda Ueland
(via Whiskey
River) For some inexplicable reason I left for yoga an hour early. I always leave a bit early because traveling by bus can be so unreliable. But an hour? I didn't realize it until I was on the bus and the digital display read 10:05. It wasn't the biggest problem. I went to a coffee shop and read for awhile. I even had some minutes on a card I had purchased for Internet access so I used their computer.
I read Michael's piece about 9/11 and his poem. I've seen so many images from that day. I'm almost inured. But knowing that Michael had taken those made them more real. And I felt the torpor lift and the sadness returned.
The card ran out just as I was beginning to read Jeff's personal cultural inventory. Arg. I knew I could finish it when I got home. So I moved to another table and got back into my book.
Coffee before yoga. Not the best thing. But I was holding poses longer than I have been. So. Ya know. That was good.
When I had my coffee cart at NCOC I walked on Valencia every day. I knew all the street people. Some by name. There was one woman. I always made sure I had change in my pocket for her. I saw her today. She looks thinner. I gave her some money. Not enough.
It took a long time to get home. That happens sometimes. When I got home I was sweaty and stinky and dazed. But I powered up and went straight to finish the Jeff writing. Check e-mail. Comments. Adrienne sent this link. Very important. When I went to college I had some vague ideas about becoming a therapist. I do so love talking personal process. I also get tired of it. I have friends who tell the same story over and over and I wonder if they aren't sick of hearing it. I kinda am. I wouldn't do well taking money to listen to the same story over and over. With my friends I can say things. I'm pretty good at being able to say stop telling the same fucking story. Figure out a way to make a change. And not say it too harshly. After all, I have my own tape loops.
My advisor, at school, steered me away from the therapist thing. But she never quite steered me anywhere else. I ended up in an MFA program. Really. That's how it felt. It felt like ending up. I don't regret it. I got to read and write for two years. I wrote a book. I met some cool people. It's all good.
But. What now?
What I didn't expect was that I would like college. Of course I went to a hippie school. But still. I loved going to class. I loved the rhythm of the day. I loved the reading. And the writing.
I read academic bloggers talking about how life in the academy is fraught. I can imagine that it is. And now I've finished reading Karen Armstrong's account of her own failed dissertation. Failed in a controversial episode in which her reader was known to not like the manner of her writing. It seems that the college knew she was wronged in this political, institutional ego kind of way. And still. After years of work. She didn't get her Ph.D. What is that about?
It's not about the letters. It's about the way all institutions become clogged with bad human silliness. I always become too involved. I always go crazy and have to leave. What makes me think I'd be able to avoid this in a college?
Still. I have this idea that I'd like to teach. And I might like to work on another degree. Maybe in philosophy. Oh. I don't know. Awhile ago I wrote about having fallen in love. I knew then that falling might not be the best way to arrive at love. And maybe love isn't what we arrive at when we fall. What ever. I felt strong feelings for a person based solely on their writing and their politics and their artistry and their aesthetic and just feeling. Just an overwhelming feeling of attraction and recognition and relatedness and ...oh. So much.
Things didn't go well. And lots of that is about me. I'm not sure why they went as badly as they did. I don't think I understood everything that was happening. I know I didn't. But I still could read them. And I took comfort in that. I just realized that I've lost access. I'm blocked. Or it's all gone. Or I dunno what. And it hit me in the heart. So hard.
I've been doing a lot of work to compartmentalize my feelings. I didn't want to lose the love and admiration I had for the person just because the relationship wasn't going to be what I wanted it to be. I've experienced the anger, the loss, the grief, the frustration and I've worked on it all. I was feeling like I'd put it all into a place. I still found them in my thoughts from time to time. I still felt my heart expand when that happened. But I wasn't suffering quite so much.
And now. My throat is swollen with emotion. The tears are falling. I feel like I've been punched in the chest.
I've read a few people lately, writing about finding it hard to want to blog. They all have their reasons. It's been harder for me this year. I'm in the middle of my forth year of on line writing. And it's been quite a ride. But the people draw me back. The people I read. The people who read me. So many beautiful hearts.
And it's about writing. That's where I always return. I remind myself that it's about writing. I shake off my awareness of stats and referrers and who is zoomin who and I focus on writing.
But. I just. Feel. So.
Sigh.
In some ways this is a good time for this to happen. I didn't intentionally set out to read all these books about women's lives but reading about Lucy Grealy and Karen Armstrong I've felt some sense of peace about my single life. So the tightness and the tears are just what they are. I have to accept this. And I will. I don't know what else to do.
Why bother to post about it?
Oh.
Because.
When I first began this on line writing I had the feeling of putting a message in a bottle. And that may be what this is. Because I don't accept loss easily.
Access denied. Wow. OK then. Deep breath. I went through cycles of stages of grief all day. One minute I was checking system requirements for Sims Two. The next I was sobbing on the bed. Then some reading. Then some dusting and book moving. Then some lists of why I'm mad. Feeling. Not feeling. Feeling.
By the end of the day I was exhausted. Spent. Flattened.
This morning. Well. I'm OK.
It's always hard for me to accept that there is nothing I can do. I ought to be able to say something. Just the right thing. I'm so good with words, doncha know?
Sigh.
I really am OK. Just sad. Which seems an obvious response. Last week I started this new piece of writing in hopes of sending it to a magazine. I was in the groove. Then I got busy and then there was yesterday and today I seem to be in a trance. I hate when I'm like this. I keep talking out loud to myself. Saying, "Do something. Do something"
So.
I made some tuna salad. Marilyn has this great saying about life being too short for self hatred and celery sticks. It makes me laugh. Somewhere there is someone eating celery instead of cake because they want to be good. But I hafta tell ya, I like cake but I also like celery. Very much! I was chopping it up for the tuna and eating stalk after stalk. Celery is under valued. It's refreshing.
And I was reading through the blog roll. Amp posted his male privilege list, which I can't seem to link directly but just scroll down. Makes me wanna hug him. While I was there I followed a link to a new blog. New enough that I could go through the archives.
Interesting. I have a terrible habit of using really terrible language from years of working in kitchens and playing in a rock-n-roll band. There are some words I don't use, or if I do use them you know I've lost my grip in some deep and fundamental way.
The other day, when I was sitting in the cafe I overheard a man say to another man, "She looks pretty good for 48."
Cough.
So. I guess 48 year old people just don't look good. And if they do, it's an oddity.
We just let this stuff come out of our mouths.
Thanks for all the comments of support for me and my heart ache. In my dreams I am flying around hugging all of you. I was struck by Hershey Wier's comment. Ms Wier seems like a lovely person. Her comment was kind and generous.
Maybe because I'd been spending so much time reading the blog and was thinking about my own lanquaging of things, I read that part of the comment and wondered if being fat meant I couldn't also be wise and warm. I'm sure that wasn't the intention. People are often troubled by my use of the word fat and the way in which I claim my size as a part of what makes me who I am. If I am warm and wise, that's all to the good. I'm also fat. And I'm not feeling like that's a bad thing. I don't call this blog fatshadow in a self deprecating manner. I claim the word. I claim it as part of the beauty of who I am. I eat celery because I like it.
There's was a study done at Yale in which they determined that fat people accept all of the wrong headed ideas associated with being fat. We are complicit in our own oppression.
Unless, we refuse to be.
So I didn't get back to the piece of writing. But I will. I'm shaking off the loss. I think I'm snapped out of the trance. Maria was reading this book in July and I picked it up at some point but didn't quite get into it until just now. It's interesting because Karen Armstrong has temporal lobe epilepsy. So I feel as if I'm on some kind of track in my book selections.
I just read this.
And. I really. Need. To skip ahead.
Third time through the
We talked. And talked. I'm telling ya. If you asked me what we talked about ...I just don't think I could tell ya. We talked about ... it all. We talked about the problematic nature of personal writing.
Does your mother know you blog? Mine doesn't. My mom and I work really hard to hold onto the little bit of territory on which we can coexist and to some extent that's because she doesn't really know me. And I, who like to let it all be out there, have resigned myself to her not knowing. She wouldn't get it. She wouldn't like it. There may come a day when she finds out. Till then, no. She doesn't need to know.
A friend in my MFA program wrote a wonderful piece about a visit with some friends. The friends were not happy about it. There is a part of me that wants to think that if you're friends, or family with a writer you gotta know you might end up in their writing. And if you're a writer and you write about people you gotta expect that people may not take kindly to being written about. It's an issue. I don't write about everything that happens to me, or everyone I know. But I do write about people on my blog. So far, it's been OK. But it is an issue.
And then there's the blogging relationship. Meeting people and getting to know them through their writing. Is it real? Is it weird? I did not skip ahead in the book so I still don't know what Ms. Flaherty thinks. I'll let you know when I do.
For me the good conversations are not the ones in which you arrive anywhere. I like it when you end up with more questions than answers. And we raised some questions. It was very fun.
I came home buzzed on two double caps and all that talk. Happily distracted from the ache in my heart. I thought I might take a nap but no. Laying there in a curl on my bed I wondered if I could cry until all the water in my body was drained out. Then the wind could come and blow what was left away. And then I realized that I was too distracted. I was distracted by Kathryn's wonderful story. I was distracted by the need to get to chapter six. I was distracted by the pigeons who were obviously courting in Washington Square Park and the humming bird manically flying in the tree above our heads and the man with the big piece of wood that seemed like it might be part of a bed and the conversation with the Italian guys in Cafe Roma and seeing Aaron Peskin, first in Cafe Roma and then at Mooses. And the hearts. And thinking about writing about it all.
So I uncurled. The first time a person told me they skimmed books I was shocked. The person was well read, intelligent, a writer. And they skimmed? Since then I've come to realize that many people skim. I force myself through every word. If I space out when I'm reading (and I space out a lot when I'm reading) I reread. Consequently I am a slow reader.
I got to chapter six late last night. I had a really hard time staying focused when she was writing about depression and writing. Wonder why?
Sigh.
Her conclusion is that we have a primal desire for our words to mean something to someone else, somewhere.
Yep.
I'm really enjoying the book. Her personal narrative about writing, lots of little stories about other writers and some science all add up to be quite interesting. The advise for how to break writers block was lost on me. I don't feel blocked. Neither am I hypergraphic. I'm just struggling to keep myself moving forward in life.
I do feel all these sensations in my head while I read about parts of the brain. But I'm probably imagining that. Right?
Last night Blogrolling was down. Then Blogrolling came back and All Consuming was down. This morning they're both down. Which means it takes my page about three days to load. And I don't have a blogroll. It's making me grouchy. I know a woman who was talking to me in the aftermath of a broken relationship. She didn't want to imagine her former paramour with anyone else. Ever. I certainly understood the sentiment. But.
For me jealousy is in the body. It's cold, icy water in the veins. It's murderous and vain. I'd rather be alone than ever feel it again.
But.
I also know it's just a thing. Just a human thing. Just a reminder that I have work to do in my heart. And I can't really imagine that if I love someone that I would want them to be alone and not happy about it. That doesn't seem congruous.
Two things are true at the same time. I can feel jealous and still not wish ill for anyone. It is hard.
But. You do the work and you find yourself on the same raft in the middle of the ocean. That port that you thought was safe harbour was not. You are in exile again. But.
There are notes. In bottles. In the water. All around you. You can read them and they make you laugh. And cry. And they make you mad. And they are more comfort than all the rest in the world.
I'm not sure about acceptance. I thought it was a destination and instead I find that it is an endless expanse of blue. Sometimes calm. Sometimes stormy. Heart: Struggle. Struggle. Struggle. Head: Knock it off. It is what it is. Let the fuck go. Heart: OK. OK. Struggle. Head: Read something. Listen to some music. Heart: Are you mad? There isn't any music in this apartment that wouldn't kill me. I may never listen to music again. Head: For fuck sake. Get a grip. Do I have to talk you through this again? I'm sick of it. Body: Let's just take a shower. Heart: No. No. Just let me be. I'm feeling. That's what I do. Head: Not useful. Not right now. Not going to help. Stop for a minute. Heart: Body: Heart: Struggle. Struggle. Struggle. Head: I give up. Heart: No you don't. Body: Just a short shower. Head: I do. I give up. Heart: Struggle. Heart: Heart: Struggle. Heart: Heart: Heart: OK. I'll stop. Head: No you won't. Body: Pay attention. I'm beggin ya. Head: Heart:
Start over. Mom called early in the day to say that she wouldn't be calling at 8:00. She had no power and neither did much of Western NC. I was torn between wanting to get on a plane and get there as fast as I could and relief that I didn't have to have a another one of our difficult conversations about why I can't find a job. I don't know what I think I could do in NC that would be useful but I can't stand it when I think she needs help and I'm this far away. At 8:00 she called. She had power, full of stories about what she had done to prepare and trees that had fallen.
I'm wondering about Susan because there is no Saturday morning me happening. Marie posted to say she is Ok but things are water logged.
Moyers did a bit on Global warming that seemed particularly apt to me, sweltering in my little bake oven apartment.
I'm thinking about everyone I know in the South East and the gulf. Fretting. Wondering. There were tornadoes and high winds all the way to Virginia and Maryland.
The news was so full of worry. I just listened and chewed my lip and sent up thoughts of warmth and safety and calm. Whenever I read Kafka, I wonder: what sort of dejection is this, that leaves one the strength to write, and write, and write? If you can write about the wreckage, the wreckage is not complete. You are intact. Here's a rule; the despairing writer is never the most despairing person in the world. - Leon Wieseltier
This inescapable duty to observe oneself:if someone else is observing me, naturally I have to observe myself too:if none observe me, I have to observe myself all the closer. - Franz Kafka via the book When I was talking to Kathryn I mentioned that I would never write about my cousins. In the book they are mentioned when I talk about how they came over after church on Sundays and on holidays but they are not named or written about in detail. They are private people and they aren't central in my story. I write about my mom and dad and a few aunts and my grandparents. They're private people as well. But they are central to my story. It's an ethical dilemma for a person writing memoir. Who gets outted? I did write about a few romantic relationships that didn't work out as well. I think I was fair. I hope I was. It should be clear that I am writing from my perspective and they can write their version. And now I'm going to write about one of my cousins. I'm going to write them nameless and genderless to assuage my feelings of bad faith.
I watched Radio yesterday. It's one of those movies that I was unsure I would like. It could have been a little too after school special. But the acting is wonderful. Deborah Winger is in it, playing the housewife. I don't know why but that surprised me. Everyone in the film, even the people you don't like much is played with dignity. It's a story about a man who chooses not to ignore the person who wanders by with a shopping cart and seems a little crazy. It's about a community making room for someone who isn't easy and slick and able.
My cousin is probably autistic. When and where we were growing up there wasn't a lot of knowledge about autism. My cousin's parents were divided about whether or not there was anything wrong. So my cousin went to the same school I went to and was hounded and abused. In college some kids locked my cousin a closet. My cousin never even called out for help and never finished college. My cousin reads everything but is most interested in politics. Ask any question about who said what in their state of the union address and my cousin can tell you word for word. But knowing that the milk has expired and should not be consumed is another thing.
I've always believed that my cousin would end up in a home. When my uncle died, five or six years ago, my cousin stayed in the house and has done a fairly remarkable job of getting by. There are people in the neighborhood and from the church who help and my other cousins check in and handle the money. Eventually my cousin may end up in a home. My cousin is five years older than I am. Sometimes I think I'll be institutionalized before they will.
I was flooded with memories while I watched the movie. There are big differences in the two narratives but there is a central theme about humanity and ability and how narrow our view on who is interesting can be.
Kathryn mentioned an article from the NYT, which I was able to access and now am not able to access. Grumble. Gripe. Oh but wait. I can access it somewhere else. I love the Internet.
It was written by Harriet McBryde Johnson. who had a conversation with a man who thinks we should make sure that there are no more Radios, no one like my cousin, no one in a wheel chair. Only the strong and beautiful and quick. Better dead than disabled.
I wish I could link the articles in which I read these things. I should have kept a file. But I have read numerous things in which people say they would rather be dead than fat. And I've read people who were interviewed about whether or not they would chose to abort a baby if they knew it would be born with any number of physical "problems." Fat was on that list and the number of people who would chose to abort a baby rather than have a fat a child was high enough to put a chill in my heart. For many people the solution is too simple. No has to be fat, right? Diet and exercise, right? Well. No. Not that simple. And more to the point, why can't some of us be fat? Why is that such a horror?
In the article Harriet McBryde Johnson writes:
It's not that I'm ugly. It's more that people don't know how to look at me. Yep. And since her backbone found "its own natural shape" she is comfortable. A body in its own natural shape is truly, deeply comfortable.
There is a way in which the movie sentimentalizes the role of the less able in the life of the able and athletic. I sort of ignored that part. I was too enamoured of the inclusion and the insistence that inclusion be the norm. That insistence came from the coach but was echoed by many. The Deborah Winger character says something about how caring for someone is never wrong. It seems so simple and obvious. But it's not simple and obvious at all.
It is easier to care for the beautiful, strong, able, bright and shiny. It does require a kind of effort to know how to look and really see people. True caring asks us for some effort. I think, for the people who make the effort, it doesn't feel like effort. It feels obvious. Maybe for some people it is effortless. Maybe there is some innate character involved. But as long as we are living in a system that floods us with images and ideas about what beauty is I think we need to make some effort to check ourselves.
My cousin is miles away. Like most of my biological family. I've always been worried that if they knew my politics they might be upset. My cousin does get upset and leans a bit to the right. But is also fond of Nader. So maybe we'd be more in line than I imagine. I send the occasional letter and macadamia nuts and all my love and gratitude for how having such a family member shaped who I am and how I see things. Perhaps they are more central to my life than I know. I didn't go down stairs to get the mail yesterday. I got it today. In it was a rejection from The Sun. A very kind and quirky rejection.
Intellectually I know that rejection is part of the deal. Everything I read about writing and writers mentions rejection. Emotionally I always feel them. I must be getting better at dealing with them because I'm not too devastated. Although, I've been so down all week I really might not be able to tell if I do feel bad.
But also, I watched Baran. It was so beautiful. Maybe the best love story ever. When it was over I felt calm.
In the book she mentions that Milan Kundera has coined a useful term, graphomania, the desire to be published. Kundera worries that mass graphomania threatens the meaning of the written word. And he was worried before there were blogs.
I'm not worried about the written word.
This morning I noticed I had dropped from an adorable little rodent to a slimy mollusc. By the afternoon I was back as a rat. I liked being a flappy bird and I wouldn't mind being a marauding marsupial but the rat thing kinda bugs me. Not sure why the fall and rise occurred and not at all worried about it. I don't understand it well enough to be worried about it.
The two parts of the book that were hardest for me to take in were when she wrote about depression and when she wrote about our desire for meaning. It's hard for me not to take the rejection from a magazine that I adore as a profound rejection. More to the point, I struggle to not take it as a sign that my whole project of trying to be published is futile. I read too many follow your bliss narratives and I feel like I've been on this follow your bliss journey that has left me on the a fore mentioned raft in the middle of too much blue.
On the other hand, I am published. Everyday. And some very lovely people are kind enough to stop by and read what I have to say. N has a post about Technorati. A post that made me smile in that half smile kind of way. I can't figure out my Technorati status I read the numbers. I'm just not sure what they mean. I like looking at the list of people who are reading me. Sometimes I meet new people there.
When I first opened the rejection I thought about writing about it and I thought I'd start by saying that you should read it imagine me talking in the most whiny voice possible. But after the movie I feel ... oh, I dunno. For so much of the world life is such an endless struggle. And people can be so deeply moved by so little. Two sets of hands picking up things that have fallen from a basket can be so sensual. So erotic. And I am left satisfied knowing that every little moment has some beauty. Beauty that I don't always see.
But sometimes I do.
Too much of me in the parts about depression. Too much of me in the parts about a desire for meaning.
There's a scene in an old episode of The West Wing in which Bartlett is in Washington Cathedral and he is mad. He calls God a feckless thug. He smokes a cigarette and he throws the cig onto the floor and walks out. What a tantrum ! I loved it.
I do not hope to turn again. I am not following my bliss. It's just Sunday night. I'm remembering images from tender portrayal of an impossible love and listening to Brian Lynch play Atras Da Porta. Certainly reasons enough to rejoice. 60 minutes re-aired a piece about the diet industry in Durham. I knew better than to watch. But. Well. I did watch. My main gripe is with the tone of the piece. There was this constant sneer in how everything that was said.
What? I mean. Is that funny? Or just weird? Or what?
They mention that the fat people use humor as a defense mechanism. Yes. We are a jolly lot. We just laugh and laugh all the live long day.
Eighty million dollars a year. It makes my head hurt.
Three years after 60 minutes did this show they checked in on the people they had featured. Two people regained the weight and then had their stomachs mutilated. Two people maintained their weight loss. And one has gained more weight. Not once was there any question about the program. The implication is that the fat people just went back to their eat more/move less ways and now they are fat again.
Cha-ching.
There was a section of the show talking about a row of fast food joints and a table full of fat people talking about how they want to sneak off and gorge. I don't know. 1400 calories of what looked like pretty bad food might make fast food look good to me. But I doubt it.
I know there are fat people gorging on bad food and not getting any exercise. But I wish there were some deeper analysis. I wish there was some thinking about the culture of consumption in which a potato chip is supposed to have the power to make life fun. I wish there was some thinking about how food has been rendered devoid of nutrition in the name of convenience. I wish there was some discussion about the impact of stress on bodies with a natural propensity for fatness. And I wish there was some acknowledgement that some people are just fat. So what? This was a show mocking the existence of a whole town full of people on a diet and pointing out how many of them were just too weak willed to simply eat less and exercise more.
Eighty million dollars a year.
The first time I heard about Durham was in Wendy Shanker's book. I wish I liked her book better than I do. She does try to sound fat and feisty. She does mention BFB. I just had problems with the way she talks about it all. She went to Durham. Jean Renfro Anspaugh was on 60 minutes. She's also written a book.
Uh. What does it mean to transcend fat identity? She sounds like she's worked through her issues with food but what does it mean to transcend fat identity?
That just doesn't sound transcendent. Much like Wendy Shanker she is saying that she's gotten out of the diet industry house of mirrors and that's great. But if someone somewhere finds a potion ... well then. She's there.
Let me just say this. Very clearly. If you are someone (and I doubt that people who read me are) who would treat me with respect and not ridicule if I were thin and not fat, stay as far away from me as you can.
Seepage? Huh? Do I seep? My ass hangs off the seat. It isn't seeping. It just doesn't fit.
Since I have always been some amount of fat, my identity is that of a fat person. If I lost 200 pounds that would still be true. I do not seek to transcend the story of my life, or my body. I seek to integrate. I seek authenticity. I do not seek to subtract an amount of my body from the story of who I am.
Eighty million dollars a year.
We are complicit in our own oppression.
If you are a person who works really hard to eat well and exercise in an attempt to not be fat, knock yourself out. But why not shift the articulation? Why not eat well because it feels good. Eat for pleasure sometimes. If eating is a comfort, eat for comfort. Some times. If you're eating with panic and fear and a desperate need then you might want to do some work on that. If you are not a naturally active person, take a little walk. Do some stretches. Maybe swim. If you'd rather be reading a book then read the book. If you were thin no one would say a word to you. Live your life the way that feels congruous to your ultimate life project. And if someone smirks at the size of your ass tell them to kiss it.
For example, 60 Minutes can kiss my fat ass.
While I'm on this rant, let me mention that Pattie and Carl have launched their new site. There is room for everybody. I just stood up from my chair and did this hands over my head dance reminiscent of the Jerk. There wasn't even any music on. Remember the Jerk?
I mention it because I think I was exceptionally cute in that go-go girl moment. I wish someone had filmed it. I wish I knew how to post it.
You will just have to use your imaginations. I'm a little bit ... um ... something. Not sure what.
So one of the critiques I have of the size acceptance community is that we don't have a way to talk about the difficulty of fat life without sounding like we're off politic. People without a fully developed analysis bang into those with fierce commitment and sparks fly. My sense of this is that living in a fat hating world is so oppressive and the community is so fragmented we all feel a little hopped up. We spark at every little thing. We correct each other more than anyone corrects us.
Perhaps my critique of the woman who was on 60 Minutes and Wendy Shanker was overly harsh. Perhaps I wasn't careful enough in making it clear that I was critiquing their language and not their life.
Would it be easier to be thin? Absolutely. Is there anything wrong with wanting an easier life? No.
I don't live in a sublime place in which I am always fat positive and if I falter there is a fat positive friend there to hold me up. I live in the same fat hating world everyone else does. Despite the fact that San Francisco has a relatively organized fat political community with fat positive social situations, it's almost worse here. Because the city that is all about diversity is still full of people whose eyes glaze over when I talk about fat issues.
In the blog world I am rarely linked by a thin or average sized blogger when I do a fat rant. I am linked by other people working on their own fat identity. I long to read the post on the blog of a thin or average sized person that talks about a difference in perspective they may have arrived at because they read something here.
The left doesn't get it. The left is almost more fat hating than the right. Eighty million dollars a year. Can I get some Marxist analysis from someone?
My objection to the 60 minutes piece was about the tone. You can read the transcript but you won't see the accompanying images of fat bodies. You will see the fat male belly with no head if you follow the link. Unlike most news pieces about fat people, there were some fat people filmed with their faces showing. But there were also plenty of the head missing fat bodies. It's just so much easier to feel superior to someone when you don't have to look into their eyes. A fat body moving through space with all the accompanying jiggles is such an object of destain. For me, there was a tone through the whole piece of mockery. Isn't it just crazy that there's a eighty million dollar industry in this one town? Why can't those fat people just eat less, exercise more and get with the program? No one questions the effectiveness of a program in which there is such a high post-program "failure" rate.
I do a lot of work to sustain my own fat positive ideas. There are people doing a lot of work to challenge the cultural ideas about fat people. But it is work. I never find it difficult to hear a fat person say that being fat is hard. But it is hard for me when fat people say they'd be first in line for the pill. It happened when the NAAFA women went on Dr. Phil. He looked them in the eye and asked if there was a pill would they take it. They equivocated and hedged.
So lets see. Would you take a pill and not have to deal with all the crap you have to deal with when you are a fat person? Hmmm. Well. Let me think. Life could be easier? Who doesn't want that?
When I say I wouldn't take the pill I am taking a position about the value of my life and my life experience. I didn't chose to be fat. I don't wake up in the morning and try to make sure I stay fat. My choice is about owning and valuing my body and my experience. My choice is about knowing that being fat isn't a horrible experience. I am not ugly. I am not unattractive. I am not particularly unhealthy.
There are issues. There are problems. We do need to be able to talk about them. I don't want to be part of silencing of the fat person who is tired of the struggle. I do want to be able to challenge ideas and tones and articulations about being fat. I am not living somewhere that all fat people should aspire to be at. I am doing work on my perspective and my sense of myself in the world and no one should imagine that I think my perspective is more, or less, valid.
I still don't know how to describe how I am. I am feeling too many things all at once. Do I think less of people who would take the pill? It's not that simple. I feel sad. I feel hurt. I feel angry. I see the makeover madness in which the curve of a nose, the shape of a lip, the swell of a hip, the color of hair, and on and on and on, are all under scrutiny and attack. But the fat revolution isn't about appearance and beauty standards. It's about jobs and health care and access and dignity.
For the innermost decision,
(Thanks for letting me know, Mike.)
Hiatus? I beginning to hate that word. Jo Ann told me about the three Kristeva books. There were three words that I could never remember. Life. Madness. Words. I was excited then. I ran out and got the first book. I'm rereading it now and will probably need to reread it again. There are sentences.
Makes my head spin. I recognize the names. But the implications elude me. That whole MA/Ph.D in philosophy is probably beyond my ability.
But the book is a continuation of my unintended and yet really fun lives of interesting women book tour. This one giving me much to think about in terms of politics, being and romance. Arendt was in love with Heidegger and he was in love with her. He was also married and she was much younger. So there was an intense and problematic connection. And then there was the fact that he wouldn't read her work.
How much energy is wasted by women who play dumb so that the man they love can feel superior? I'd like to think that it doesn't happen as often but I'm sure I'd be wrong.
I don't think I would match the word life to Arendt, given my limited reading of her. I'm getting a new view on her writing, which of course, makes me want to reread and read more and you can see how this could never end, right? When Kristina and I were reading the Camus we had this problem. Every paragraph led to six more books. Not a terrible problem.
Heh.
Life. Madness. Words. Yesterday started off fussy and ended up happy. George stopped by for some chat. Such a thrill!
My life has always danced back and forth between extremely extroverted to extremely introverted. When I was in school, running the coffee cart, I was with people all day. I rarely had time alone. Then there was the MFA years. Less public. More time in front of my computer. I told a friend that I am in a reclusive time and they reminded me that I write about my life every day on the world wide web.
Oh. Yeah.
Not the most reclusive thing to do. But I am in danger of contracting into such a tight internal self referential place. Not good. Not good at all.
So there was George. All warmth and wisdom. He ripped some tuned from his Powerbook for me, including the new KD. I feel restored. And then I got to meet Maria. Which was just completely wonderful.
We met at the Ferry Building. I hadn't been there since it reopened as the new Bay Area centric mall. It is quite lovely. Especially if you have lots of cash.
Cough.
What ever my critique of consumerism may be, I am tempted by fresh flowers, locally grown. And Cowgirl Creamery cheese. And Scharffenberger. I did not indulge.
Did I mention? Lots of cash.
Cough.
We had lunch at a Rotisserie. I had pork loin, kobushi squash and green beans. Just wonderful. And I had coffee before and after lunch. I don't drink coffee every day any more. But oh. It is so good.
Best was the conversation.
I think the Yoga International is on newsstands.
They sent me my copies. I wish my piece were on line. You can go to the table of contents page and scroll down. There will be my name and the name of my article. Which, I must say, is quite a thrill and a balm to the bruising of the rejection from The Sun. My picture is on the contributors page with a photo. It's all quite glossy and mofessional.
And it mentions fatshadow.com in the bio. Gulp.
Suddenly I feel like I should brush my hair. Not to mention that I will be sending a copy to Mom and then, if she chooses to do so, she can find the blog. I'm not overly concerned. She's not that interested in the computer. The computer at their house sits idle under dust covers.
But. There is something about the idea of someone coming by via the article. It's not like new people don't come here from time to time. I think I have developed this sense of familiarity with my imagined readers. In fact my hair has already been brushed but only enough to jam into a hair tie and get it off my neck and away from my face. I write in my pajamas. It is earlier than I usually write because I woke up and could not get back to sleep. Coffee before and after lunch. Double cappuccino to be exact. I feel the need to clean up. Double check my punctuation. Not that I don't always. Not that it helps.
It is fun to meet people who you have come to know through their writing. I can't say that imagine what people look like except I did think Maria had really dark hair. I have no idea why I thought that. She is as wonderful to talk with as she is to read. I've used the word wonderful twice now and am worrying that I should find another way to express how much fun it was to spend time with her. But it was just simply wonder full.
4:34 PM Later that same day. I've been to three book stores and not found the new YI. So I may have jumped the gun. Not sure. I love this man. I want to hug him.
He's focusing on the subjective nature of the enforcement of the policy. Which is as good a place as any to start.
I don't want it to seem that I want women to have a fully developed fat identity and don't notice when a man calls himself "of ample proportion" and not fat. I noticed. But. I'm trying to see the glass half full. Or. Something. 12. Being lost in thoughts is a form of masturbation.Well. Yeah. I feel multiple. I am like a room with innumerable fantastic mirrors that distort by false reflections one single pre-existing reality which is not there in any of them and is there in them all. --Fernando Pessoa (via A Glinting Web) Apparently two fellows have written some advise for those of us longing to be more popular in the blogoshere. I jumped to it via Mike. If it sounds interesting go check it out there. After about twenty minutes of link hopping and reading my jaw was so tight my teeth were beginning to crack and I could feel the veins in my neck thumping. Usually that's a good sign that it's time to back away from the screen.
Here's a list of thing that have troubled my web life. 1. Trying to participate in a conversation between other blogs. Writing post after post and having them all ignored by the other blogs. Meanwhile the people who read this because they love me and want to know what I'm thinking and feeling begin to wonder if I've lost my mind. 2. Linking another blogger in a desperate attempt to get their attention. 3. Trying to mediate relationships between bloggers on my blog. 4. Checking my stats. Actually checking my stats could be the whole list. 5. Having my stats go up. 6. Having my stats go down. 7. Writing a post, feeling like it's good, hoping for comments, getting none. 8. Writing a post, not thinking too much about whether it's good or bad, not thinking it likely that anyone will comment, getting massive comments.
Ya know. Ya pay your money and ya take your chance.
When I worked in restaurants we spent hours talking about whether or not it would be busy and why. It was useful to know because it influenced prep. But we also knew we were making educated guesses. And we were often wrong. There is more than one reason for why a blog becomes popular. I read a lot of talk about whether or not women bloggers get linked as often as male bloggers. Some women get linked quite a bit. Let's think about that for a minute.
I'm always grateful when I am linked. I am always thrilled when I am quoted on another blog. Thrilled. I try to link other bloggers with regularity. But I've given up on the notion that any of it adds up. It seems to me that linking, posting, or commenting with the hope that you will join the higher ranks of the blog world is missing the point.
There probably are people who write on line with no concern for whether or not they are read by many. In fact I know there are people who don't think much about it. I'm not that good a person. I am driven by a need for attention and connection and approval and affection and ...
Phew.
I just hate what it does to me. I hate what it does to other people. There are people I read faithfully who don't really do much linking of anyone. People who really are focused on what they are writing about and why they are writing and not too preoccupied with the reader. Linking. Commenting. There are no guarantees. What about writing well? Does that work? One person's great literature is another person's beach read. What I love about blogging is that it subverts hierarchy. There can be something for everyone.
I made an effort to respond to the questions asked on What She Said because I am grateful for the link. And I do support the promotion of women bloggers. I got stuck on the first question. How did you start? Why do you keep at it?
I started because I read Willa and I saw Justin on MSNBC. Writing your life on line? It seemed kooky. And cool. And fools do rush in. When I get too twisted up about my rank in the blog world I read them both. Well. I read them anyway but I read them and I notice that neither of them seems to be too wound up about how popular they are in the blog world. I remind myself of how it felt when I found them. It was fun. And genuine. From the heart. In the spirit of play and curiosity and just ... seeing what might be possible. But why do I keep at it? Oh jeez. The answer to that changes everyday.
When I woke up the other day I was thinking that this isn't really a journal because I am aware of the reader. And it isn't really a blog in the strictest sense because in the strictest sense a blog really is about hyperlinking your way around the web. It's more of a letter. There are days when it's an expression of hope.
Today? Today it's just me snarking on it all. I'm kinda mooky. For a few weeks I've been successfully fending off a post nasal thing that seemed to come on in the evening. It started up again on Wednesday night and I sucked on so many Riccolas my teeth started to ache. Thursday I knew I was illin but I tried to make light of it. Deb and I went swimming and then for bento boxes in Japantown. I believe in the power of miso. But yesterday I succumbed to the call of the bed. And frankly, right now, I want to go back there. So. Maybe I will. I'm not terrible. Just mooky. My computer system is hooked up to an APC battery. It has protected me when the power went out but it's also six or seven years old. It didn't occur to me that it might wear out. Last week I started having these little power pops. It was on and off so fast that nothing seemed to be effected except my computer which would crash. It has continued to happen and I'm beginning to wonder if it's not the power but rather the APC battery. It hasn't really worked for awhile. Mom said that the one she and K have got old and they were told it would cost more to recharge it than it would to get a new one. I hate stuff like that. I hate the idea of throwing this big metal thing into an already overflowing landfill. In order to test my theory about it I have to move the desk and that means moving a metric ton of books. I just did not have the energy for that the last few days.
Whatever it is that I have going on seems to have settled into my lungs. I don't feel terrible. I just feel exhausted and annoyed and stuffy. I am not someone who likes to sleep and for the last two days I've slept quite a bit.
Yesterday I was trying to write and e-mail and the computer crashed three times, always just as I was almost finished. The third time I burst into tears and went back to bed. I also lost some writing that I'm trying to finish since the dead line for submission is tomorrow. It wasn't that much writing and I didn't like it enough to be too upset. But still. It's like a bad acid trip. I'm sitting here. Looking at the screen. Typing. And then it's just gone. The system is also on a surge protecting power bar, which I think is good enough. I just have to unplug the APC. So simple. And yet so beyond me right not.
Maybe not. Maybe today I'm better. I am awake.
Maria wrote about my blogging post. I figure she linked me and now I'll link her and we can toss it back and forth.
Heh.
But really. I'm linking it because she titled the poet Learning To Walk. I talked about needing to learn how to walk on my birthday so the metaphor rang for me. She writes about publishing her poem on the blog after it had been rejected by a journal. And taking a hike. Maria has been dealing with her own health challenges and publishing challenges and I just relate to it all. But especially the idea, both literal and metaphoric of learning to walk.
I wake up in the morning with no guideline. I have to look for a job and submit writing and write and make toast and tea and post to the blog. The order changes every day. I am writing this with no tea. Or toast. Everything feels huge and undoable. Sometimes even the making the tea feels huge and undoable. And I have to calm myself and do one thing after another.
I've been feeling better in general lately. Meeting people. Getting writing done and out there. Feeling support from friends. And I still feel OK. I'm just mooky. And I'm trying to stay calm and not freak out about all the sleep and the lost writing. I can do it today. It all feels very tenuous. One step after the other. Falling on your butt. Getting up. One step after the other again.
OK. I better get some tea. An old bumper sticker says if you're not outraged, you're not paying attention. Today, if you're not grief-stricken, you're not paying attention. If you're not terrified, you're not paying attention. But I also think if we're not hopeful, we're not paying close enough attention. - Naomi Jaffee I watched The Weather Underground. And then I watched it again with Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dorn doing commentary. In some ways the movie leaves a sense of all these aging radicals looking back with regret. But when you listen to Bernadine and Bill they are as radical and committed as ever.
I was overwhelmed by the feeling that things have taken such a turn for the worse in the last few years. And we are sliding toward November. I'm just so afraid.
Bill Ayers said that people always ask them about the violence. He wonders why no one ever asks Kissinger when he decided to resort to violence. One persons freedom fighter is another persons terrorist.
The thing that is true is that they all feel they were too certain in their youth. That they needed to have more doubt. Doubt slows things down and makes time for deep consideration. I remember how it felt to debate non violent action vs acts of property destruction. I could never bring myself to accept destruction.
But the movie is a portrait with so many parallels to now. I wish I could remember the exact words that they used but it was basically that the awareness of what their country was responsible for in the world was so repugnant to them that they had to take action. But what action? That's always the question.
So we will have the parallel press conference aka the debate. We will have the election. And please oh please we will see a change. But even in the best senerion how much change?
Change happens slowly. Change happens all at once. Naomi Jaffe reminds me that there are changes happening all the time.
Yes. So. Onward. Mondays are often a little void of course for me. I think I sense the rev of everyone around me and I don't feel like I can keep up. So I stall. But I'm not sure if that's it, exactly. I never worked Monday through Friday. Not in restaurants. I almost always had Monday off. Which may be why.
I did get everything sorted and ...uh ...ready. Not sure for what.
The power didn't go off all day Sunday and Monday. Leaving me to wonder if the problem was in the apartment electricity. It has been cooler the last two days. Maybe some fan somewhere has been tapping the power and causing it to blink. So I'm in wait and see mode.
I am much less mooky. Except when I sleep one side of my nose fills up and makes it hard to breathe. Last night I woke with a start having a dream that my computer screen went black but also having a stuffed up nose. There was something about the idea that I couldn't get oxygen to my body or power to my computer. It was just so metaphysically ... something. I laughed.
Democracy Now was so full of information today I found it hard to chew my Cherrios.
What if they gave a war and nobody came?
I was listening to a CSPAN call in show last night in which the topic was - what do the candidates have to do to win the debate? So many of the people calling in support of Bush mentioned his plain spokenness. Kerry was referred to by one caller as high falooten. Uh huh.
I've been talking to a few friends about how I struggle with a feeling of being not smart. Before anyone rushes to assure me that I am smart let me say that I know I am smart in many ways. I have good instincts and I am able to listen and I think about things. A lot. But I feel like there is lots to learn. And lots that I keep trying to get that I don't quite get. And it's buggin me. Sometimes I wonder if I just don't have the ability to retain some things.
I'm also aware that I live in a country in which learning is suspect. Schools are under funded and sports stadiums are macked out. We watch the same three television shows (How many Law and Orders do we need? How many CI: this or that city do we need? How many Survivors?) People like Bush because he's plain spoken.
The CPSAN people did a great even job of talking about how Bush and Kerry come from the same educational background and class. It's impressive how they managed to put out quite a bit of information and not seem to be biased. Democracy Now does have a bias.
Or maybe it's just that DN underscores what isn't being underscored. Just go read, or listen. And then there was a discussion about the debates.
So it's Tuesday. I need to not be void of course today. But the night was restless and the morning has been a flood. Can't one of you bring me a coffee? OK. So Tuesday. Kinda void of course as well.
I'm sitting at the computer. With always present game of Spider Solitaire. My own web page. Gmail. In box. Word. Craig's list. At least three blogs. Monster.
Can you say short attention span?
The moon is pushin up on full. That's my excuse. George brought Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind to my DVD player. Hanging out with George is a memory I would never want to erase. Although, I can't say that I have any memories I would want to erase. Even the really painful ones. The movie is beautiful and thought provoking. When George walked in I had a head full of things all clamouring for attention. The movie slowed all that down and left me pondering memory and love and romance and choice.
George asked me if I have any conservative friends in the blogs. Maybe. But I don't think so. I think there are people who have and may still read me who don't agree with my political views but I don't go around looking for a fight. Or even a debate. I don't avoid one either.
It's confusing for me. If I already have a relationship with someone it's easier for me to disagree. If it's my first visit to a blog I don't always want to jump in with a disagreement. It shouldn't be a big deal. But I worry.
I read somewhere in the blogs some ideas about Christianity having gone through a reformation and Islam having not gone through one. Someone's gonna hafta tell Falwell about the reformation. And then there's that my God is bigger than your God General. I'm not sure he got the reformation memo. And then there's the complexity of Islam. The Shii /Sunni split. The mystery schools of the Sufi. Is Islamic imperialism any more vile than western imperialism? I think not. And is the way non believers in Islamic majority counties are contained as lesser any more egregious than the way people are treated in our increasingly Christian identified country? What about the targeting of mosques and synagogues? Or for that matter the targeting of Christian churches if they are filled with people of color? People in this country who spend their time on a zafu imagining they are beyond that fray may find themselves on a watch list if we have four more years of the current administration.
And then there's the women's issues. Someone (I wish I could remember who) said that size 6 is the American version of the hijab. I suppose I can't hold the Christian faith accountable for that but I can say that women in a fundamentalist Christian American are under a veil. And four more years of this administration will make The Handmaid's Tale read like social history.
I keep referring to the administration in a post responding to ideas about Islam. But this notion of Islam as a culture and faith in need of reformation comes from the day we all woke up and asked why do they hate us. Suddenly people were aware of Islam. And it has been dumb and dumber ever since. Certainly there is a troubling fundamentalist Islam but I find it no more troubling than fundamentalist Christianity. They both have agendas of imperialism and social control. And fundamentalist Christian soldiers go into battle fired up on visions of rewards in the after life.
Make no mistake. Reformation movements have been going on in almost every spiritual tradition. Martin Luther isn't the only guy bangin on a door. And if an Islamic person calls for reformation I have less of a reaction than I do when the call is one which imagines the Christian faith as more reformed.
What brought on all this thought? A post on a blog. And the writer of that post may find this. And maybe I should let the person know it's here. But. Here's the part where I worry. There was nothing about the blog that led me to believe that this was a mean spirited or hateful post. It was, in fact, noting the writing of yet another person. This stuff gets me wound up. I'm not sure I can be measured in my tone. I'm not sure I should hafta be. But I worry.
Because we do need to put out our less than perfect thinking. We need to get input. And blogs are a valid way to have a conversation. But (and this goes back to my post about blogging) I don't have trackback. How does that impact my participation of conversations on the web? And if it's my first visit what does that do to shape the relationship?
If I were sitting at a table in a coffee shop and hear the same conversation I would say much of what I wrote here. But my body language, my eyes, my physical presence would be there to hold the tone. I may miss out on a lot of political discussion on the web because I do shy away from things. I write it here. People read it. Or they don't.
I do like the way conversations occur on the web and between blogs but I haven't quite caught on. And I don't spend much time reading the right. Maybe I need to spend more time doing that.
I'm probably gonna hafta watch Eternal Sunshine again. There was just so much in that movie. Today I'm wondering about how well I do with difficult relationships. Ya know? Like when you get to that moment of discord and things start to break down. I'm not sure I handle it as well as I might want to. I'm still thinking about it. The debates are on. Can't one of you bring me a near lethal dose of heroin?
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