Toy-Store Sweetheart
asymmetrical
hair lady check my sparkles
smile let’s mixi*bang
[Event: Nov. 21, 2009 – flirtation via Touma signing @ mixi*bang]
LA Day 3 haiku
Relief Engine
crowded shopper streets
salon escape gallery
surprise monsters glee
[Event: Nov. 20, 2009 – Xmas fest in Burbank, incl. Monster Engine show @ Wax Poetic Salon]
LA Day 2 haikus
Pre-Beau, oh, no
wacky patio
ipod adjuster wordsmith
closeted nudist
/
Absolutely Fib-ulous
malformed songs witty
frowns voodoo clowns whore and priest
absurd dirge delight
.
[Event: Nov. 19, 2009 – Beau Fib (a play)]
LA Arrival haiku
Cancer Dancer
I usually avoid personal posts here as I want to focus on writing and ideas (and diary-like entries are usually boring for casual readers), but I’ve been thinking about cancer a lot lately + I wrote a nice little haiku (about chemo):
Follicles fallow?
Consider hirsute respite
Head skin relaxing
This was for my good friend Mal’s support site (they are having a hairless haiku contest thing there). It’s discomfiting to have a friend undergoing this (cancer, chemo, port surgery, etc.). I’m just so powerless. I’m not religious; I’m not a good baker; I’m medically inept (though I know a modicum about herbs; I sent her some info on that); I don’t have a useful crafting skill; and sie’s one of the funniest people I know (I can’t make hir laugh – my ridiculousness is mild by comparison); physical hijinks are out (when one of us is too sick to jump). All I can do is wait and see. And even though I love all my friends, this particular one is exemplary in many ways (one of hir jobs is working as a clown for sick children, sie volunteers time with LGBT youth, walks dogs, etc.) and it just seems horribly unfair.
Also, one of my coworkers (my boss’s boss) has the big C and she’s super-nice and capable (one of the too-rare woman in a position of responsibility) – I see her daily in flamboyant headscarves. She’s cheerful and seems OK, but it’s still worrisome/sad. And I know of several friends who have recently or are about to lose parents or siblings to cancer. I always knew cancer was a bad thing (my aunt had it years ago, but we were distant), but it always seemed abstract, like nuclear war or something. It’s scary. This form of dancing is like dancing away from a chasm that suddenly opened up.
Big G. wants to probe you; privacy & security
We already know that Big G. (i.e., Big Government) wants to look in your underwear; after all, that’s how they determine whether or not you can be eligible for the draft so that you can pull triggers and push buttons in the great war machine. We also know they want to look in your bedrooms to see what you’re doing there, so they can punish you if you perform any unapproved acts (even when the participants are consenting adults). They can use these underwear/peephole checks to determine whether or not you’re capable of being married or whether you deserve other legal protections (e.g., housing, healthcare, job security). However, Big G. is going to great new lengths now that we’re undergoing the 2nd generation McCarthy era (ultra- high-tech with better fear efficiency).
When the Cold War ended (officially in 1991, but well on its way to collapse by the mid 1980s), it was a terribly sad for Big G. – its favorite scapegoat and boxing buddy retired from the ring. It tried for another abstract war concept (officially started in 1969, but ramped up into a powerful, mainstream initiative when the Cold War began to die down, in the 1980s), the War on Drugs. That pepped things up for a brief while, but most people weren’t really that interested (ho-hum – Prohibition, been there, done that). After a decade or so, most of those who weren’t using drugs (and many who were) weren’t particularly scared and, worse, it was transparently ineffective[1] (we need a war that we can at least pretend to make progress on). This so-called war was also undermined by our government’s collusion with drug-supporting regimes and rebel factions in other countries (e.g., the anti-Soviet [opium-growing] Taliban of the 1980s Afghanistan or the [cocaine-trafficking] Contras in Nicaragua, also in the Reagan “just say no” era).[2]
Continue reading “Big G. wants to probe you; privacy & security”
Self-Made Bed: One lesbian’s journey into the obvious
A month or so back, I received a strange package in the mail from an old friend I’d lost touch with; it was Norah Vincent’s “SELF-MADE MAN: One Woman’s Journey Into Manhood And Back Again” and it was a fascinating and infuriating read. What was fascinating to me was not so much the topic of the book, but the neuroses and narcissism of the author, a self-proclaimed butch lesbian who seemed incredibly ill-suited to this particular experiment. What was infuriating to me was that nearly all her conclusions were painfully obvious – either reinforcements of cultural stereotypes or “insights” about the problems men face (which should be obvious to all those with a relatively open mind who have long-term interactions “as” men; i.e., anyone [male or female] who has been perceived as a man for years).
The topic of the book is Norah’s year-long drag-act as “Ned,” a bookish, slight man with perpetual 5-o’clock shadow (courtesy of some drag lessons by a friend). I use the word “drag” very intentionally here because Norah clearly has no aspirations to become a man permanently (she’s not at all trans and, oddly, never even touches on the subject of trans-men in the entire book); for her, it really is an “act,” albeit one that goes further than she had perhaps intended. She puts herself in typical or extreme masculine environments such as joining a bowling league, frequenting strip clubs, “Red Bull” sales jobs, a men’s support group and even tries “heterosexual” dating as a man.
I have to commend the author on the bravery of going through with this experiment despite the risks and her not insignificant misgivings. All in all, she did it mostly full-time (at least in public) for a year and a half. However, I do not understand the rationale of most of her decisions. Continue reading “Self-Made Bed: One lesbian’s journey into the obvious”
criminal injustice
I don’t think most people understand how truly awful incarceration is. I think because the law so cavalierly assigns years of imprisonment, even for relatively minor crimes, that we trivialize the experience. Having your freedom forcibly removed, being locked up with extremely limited choices (no option to choose your own restaurant or go to a bar or art gallery or wherever) is no small matter.
Even a few months of this is extremely disruptive – you will likely lose your job, your apartment (or house) and possibly some friends and family in the “real” world while being caged in with a bunch of other “same-sex” unhappy prisoners (and not always nice prison guards). Even one year in prison is a very significant punishment, if you look at it from the point of view of the person actually experiencing it (just imagine yourself in it – no privacy, no family, surrounded by concrete walls, steel bars, precious little comfort to be had, etc.).
If we got our priorities straight (with an iota of compassion) and chopped all the knots off the legal system, I think crime could be classified and punished in a much simpler way – where the punishment would actually fit the crime and where many fewer people would ever need to be incarcerated for years at a time. Continue reading “criminal injustice”
writer’s lock
The paradox of good writing (assuming you have an iota of talent) is that it takes a lot of time to sit down and figure out all the words and phrasing, but in order for it to be interesting (i.e., for you to have something worth saying), the writer needs to get out into the world and really live life (you cannot be locked up with a typewriter or computer all the time). This is especially true of non-fiction, but also true, I believe, even of fiction (which tends to fall flat when written by a deskbound, adventure-shy introvert).
Hunter S. Thompson is a great example of someone who really lived life (at least, had an excess of adventures) and could actually write, but by his own admission, was something of a crazed maniac. How is this possible by those of us who are not quite so blessed/cursed as HST?
The problems with VD (valentine’s day)
Couples have some obvious advantages in terms of the physical intimacy and companionship that a relationship provides. Less obvious perhaps are the many societal advantages that being in a relationship gives people. Marriage (the “ideal”) provides many legal and social advantages, but even non-married couples are treated as the “standard” (what everyone should be, usually in temporary state prior to marriage, which of course everyone should ultimately aspire to), while singles are looked upon with pity and sometimes scorn. Many people, who leave the ranks of single to become coupled up, distance themselves from their old single friends in preference for other couple friends. Some organizations (i.e., most of politics) are completely closed to the un-married and single.
Throughout the entertainment complex, there is an obsession with relationships (love and sex both), which is a common theme in many, perhaps the majority of stories. When singles are acknowledged at all, single women are singled out (ha) as pariahs - the “old maid” pejorative of old has now been replaced with “cat-lady.” No one really acknowledges the existence of single parents (or if they do, it’s something that needs “fixing” with a wedding ring). Single men or “bachelors” are seen as biding their time until a suitable bride can be found. Most representations of singledom involve severe loneliness, misanthropy and/or mental illness. Not independence, self-reliance, community involvement or emotional sturdiness.
Couples are celebrated every day of the year in our culture while singles are put down or ignored, so having a special holiday dedicated to “romance” is a bit like having “white history month” (as if the already privileged need more recognition). Continue reading “The problems with VD (valentine’s day)”