Teh Portly Dyke

Moving Day -- PLEASE NOTE!

2011-01-01T23:10:00.000-08:00

Hello to all who have followed Teh Portly Dyke here over the last three years.

This post is to let you know that I've moved/consolidated my two blogs -- This is the Thing and Teh Portly Dyke, into one, and will now blog exclusively in one place -- at my new space . . . .

Madwoman at Play|Teh Blog

There, you can find all the old posts from TiTT and Portly Dyke, plus all the old comments, and new stuff, too, like archives of my Madwoman At Play video shows.

If you've commented at this blog, you may have to make an initial comment at the new place that I can approve -- once I've approved your first comment, subsequent comments should go through immediately.

Comments here at Teh Portly Dyke are now closed on all posts, but all the old comments are available, and comment threads are open at Madwoman, so if you find something here you want to comment on, simply search the post title at MWaP|Teh Blog, and drop your comment there!

Come on over and join me! I've started the new blog on January 1, 2011 -- 1/1/11, baby!

Questing for Questions

2010-08-17T12:41:00.000-07:00

OK -- so I've kicked off a new feature at my tri-weekly ustream show MadWoman at Play -- it's called "Ask the MadWoman", and will be featured during Sunday evening shows.

The problem is: I need people to ASK me something.

It can be anything -- anything at all -- whimsical, serious, personal, global, whatever.

If you ask it here in comments, I'll probably answer it on the show (no guarantees, just strong probability) -- if you let me know that you want your name included when I read/answer your question on MWaP, I'll include it -- otherwise, I'll keep you anonymous.

Go ahead! Ask me! Then tune in on Sunday nights at http://www.madwomanatplay.com to see if I answer!

No New MWaP Today

2010-06-18T16:00:00.000-07:00

If you've been watching my new ustream show (Madwoman at Play), and you're on one of the many email lists that gives notices about the show, you'll know I'm not broadcasting tonight -- but you can view the last show right here! Click the small play button in the control bar if you want to view on this page -- NOT the big button in the screen (which will take you to my ustream recorded video page).

Streaming live video by Ustream
If you haven't been keeping up with the show, click the big button to see archived shows on the recorded video page.

Click HERE to find out how to follow the show and get email, facebook, twitter, or myspace announcements about MWaP.

Here We Go!!!!!

2010-06-01T09:00:00.000-07:00

I used to have a hair-dresser who I would allow to do all kinds of weird-ass things with my hair.

She loved me because I wasn't averse to ridiculous experimentation, and every time she started something really wild with me (I sported a leopard-spot crew-cut before anyone even knew what to call it), she would begin by running her hands through my locks and saying: "OK! Here We GO!"

In precisely that spirit, tonight I'm kicking off my new thrice-weekly Ustream show -- called MadWoman At Play.

I have no clear idea what the result will be, but I know what my intention is:

To express myself fully in a way that moves me (and everyone who wants to come along) to the world I want to live in.

I've been talking to Melissa McEwan about this on the phone so long she probably thought I was NEVER going to do it, but -- tonight's the night.

(A note for deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers -- I'm going to be getting captions up as soon as possible after the live broadcasts -- the video above is close-captioned, but Ustream hasn't mastered that yet, so captions and/or transcripts will follow the live broadcasts a few days later, when I post recorded shows on Youtube.)

If you visit the MW@P homepage, you can find links to follow the show on Ustream, Facebook, Twitter, and/or Myspace.

Hey! Come on over tonight and see me being weird-ass!

(If you can't make the live broadcast at 5 pm PDT, you'll still be able to watch the last recorded show until the next live broadcast.)

Watch Your Mouth Part 3: Use Your Big-Kid Thesaurus

2010-01-29T11:00:00.000-08:00

In the course of discoursing on the web, I've witnessed and participated in many conversations about semantics and language.

I've seen discussions about whether the word "niggardly" is racist or not, whether or not the origin of the phrase"rule of thumb" refers to domestic violence, and whether the term "lame" has entered common usage to the extent that people who have difficulty walking should just stop being offended and shut up about it, already.

Now, I know that the word "niggardly" is not etymologically derived from a racial slur, but so what? If my listener/reader doesn't know this, do I really want to derail from whatever topic it is I'm addressing by pressing that debate, just so I can sound like a Dickens character?

Which leads me to the most complex question on this issue (for me, at least): Why am I choosing the words I'm choosing?

Am I choosing certain words and phrases because I think they will help me establish my own identity?

The choice of the handle PortlyDyke, for example, is rich with reclamation for me, but also serves as a handy auto-filter -- if people are offended or put off by my screen name at first read, I can guess that they're probably going to be offended by a lot of things I say, and if they chuckle upon reading or hearing it (which happens a lot) I figure they're probably going to appreciate my sense of humor.

Am I choosing language that helps me bridge a gap?

As a 53-year-old who interacts with online communities which are often composed of much younger people, I find that I often refrain from using idioms that "date" me. When I find myself communicating with someone who is relatively new to feminist thought, I may not use phrases that are commonly used in Feminism 301 conversations. If I'm talking to my 83-year-old mother about my spiritual views (which is rare, I grant you, but it happens from time to time), I tend to use phrases that are somewhere between her notion of the Big White Guy in the sky and my ideas about a Vast Organizing Consciousness.

Am I choosing idioms because I think they are going to "buy" me some kind of acceptance?

This is a slippery edge for me, really -- because at the same time that I'm dropping some terms that would peg me for an old fogie, I might also slip in some words and phrases so that I can sound "hep", even if I don't use these in my day-to-day speech (and see, that right there is an example of an old-fogie word -- "hep" -- which is a dead giveaway). This behavior, by the way, can go horridly, horridly wrong (like when your Dad tries to sound cool in front of your friends).

Also, in the same moment that I'm searching for words that Mom can relate to, I might be filing off the edges of my own belief system, in the hope that my world-view would be more accepted by my family. Which sucks.

Sadly, these attempts to purchase acceptance inauthentically rarely really work in the long run. An example I'd point to is Rachel Maddow. There are many things about her show that I absolutely adore -- the way she opens interviews with potentially combative people by asking them if she's gotten the fact right in her intro, the general fastidiousness of her civility toward them when debating even the most difficult issues, etc., -- but there is one thing I hate: Her continuing use of the words "lame" and "lame-itude" as an idiom for "bad". I even wrote to her about it (gently, civilly).

At first, I thought my reaction to her use of this term was "just" being offended by the ablism demonstrated (which would have been enough) -- but I realized later that another thing that grated on me was that she seemed to me to be using this able-ist term in order to sound cool. There is just something about the emphasis she uses when she says it that rings to me of the 11th-grader who's trying to get in with the popular kids. It seems out of place in the midst of her usual Rhodes-Scholar presentation, and it jars the hell out of me every single time. I want to say to her: "Rachel, you're the first out news-lesbian headlining her own show on a major network. You're cool enough already."

I think it's important for me to know why I'm speaking or writing as I am. I think it's important for me to be clear about my intention when I communicate.

For me, the only reason to post something like this to a blog is to communicate and connect with other people, with the intention of raising their consciousness (and my own, which happens both during the writing process and subsequent discussion in comments), and I don't think I'm going to be very effective at that if I am leaning on idioms that a) have underlying meaning that I don't support, b) are inserted to somehow buff up my image rather than communicate my point, or c) I already know are likely to offend people that I want to communicate and connect with.

I have found, in every single case where I have used an offensive word or phrase, or undermined my own communication by employing an idiom which was rooted in the language of oppression -- let me repeat -- I have found in every single case that there were other words available.

Other words that not only didn't alienate my intended audience, but which usually spoke my point more eloquently.

To those who would argue that maintaining this level of consciousness about language is an onerous burden laid upon them by the evils of political-correctness, I will simply say:

There are over 200,000 words in the Oxford English Dictionary -- many of them languishing in the linguistic lethargy of left-behind lingo. If you really don't care who you offend, or how much you sabotage your own communication in the process of maintaining your "with it" factor, you might actually sound edgier if you use something like "That's so absolutely inverted" instead of "That's so gay" -- because never forget -- the really cool kids don't repeat the offensive slurs -- they invent them.

For those of you who find that the effort toward clear, responsible communication is a yoke which does not chafe you, remember -- there is no shame in visiting Thesaurus.com.

In other words, there are always other words.

Watch Your Mouth - Part 2: Reappropriation and Co-option

2010-01-28T11:37:00.000-08:00

I find idiomatic speech and shared lexicon endlessly fascinating -- never more so than when I study a sub-culture of which I am a proud member: The Gay.

I can't tell you the number of times I've stumbled on some online conversation where homophobes are moaning about how we nasty Queers have "hijacked" a perfectly nice word that used to mean "happy, merry" (happy, Mary?), and "why can't they just be called what they are -- homosexuals!".

Which is very amusing to me, because the term "homosexual" was coined in the late 1800s, and first used in an English text in 1897 -- at around the same time that queers were reclaiming the word "gay" in reference to themselves ("gay" was originally used idiomatically to indicate anything "immoral", but especially in terms of sexuality and promiscuity -- for example: a "gay house" was a brothel). Gay was used commonly within the community of self-identified homosexuals by the 1920s, and there's evidence that it was used as early as the late 1860s.

So which came first, Teh Homo or Teh Gay?

Doesn't matter, AFAIC -- what matters to me is how people being identified with a word want to be identified. Me? I prefer "queer" as a general term for the community I consider myself a part of, but I've had friends and lovers who hated this term -- they preferred "gay", or "LGBTQ" as a descriptor. My very best friend (my Beloved), doesn't like any of them, and doesn't want her sexuality labeled at all.

*Ahem* I shall henceforth trot myself back over to the focus of this post.

I think it's clear that by now, the word Gay has been reclaimed successfully by the queer community -- so much so, in fact, that it's unlikely that an author writing in English would use it without being aware that various layers of meaning might be read into it.

On the downside, it's been so successfully claimed that it can once again be used as a pejorative by virtue of being associated with queers ("That's so gay.") *sigh*

"Dyke" is another word that's been reclaimed (see Dyke, sub-category Portly), as is "queer", although the re-appropriation of these terms carries a certain level of controversy that is similar to (but, perhaps, milder than) the split in feminist communities over the word "bitch".

I know a number of lesbians who would be absolutely offended if I called them a dyke -- even in private, or in the exclusive company of other lesbians. I also know lesbians who would be offended if I referred to them as "gay women", and gay women who would be put off if I called them lesbians.

So what's a dyke to do?

Well, for one thing, comprehend and respect this fact: It is vitally important that oppressed persons retain the agency to identify themselves.

Labeling a minority, or any oppressed class, is big tool in the oppressor's tool-kit. That's why there is such a vast array of slurs applied to people who are disenfranchised based on their sex, color, race, creed, orientation, disability, national origin, etc..

When a member of a privileged class uses these terms, they are saying, in essence: "I own the culture, and I get to define you." It is an attempt to exercise power, whether conscious or unconscious.

When a member of a non-privileged class re-appropriates the term, they are saying: "No, you do not define me."

Tends to piss them off (the privileged labelers, that is).

Here's a true-story example: I was walking down the street holding hands with my girlfriend, and the guy we'd just passed said (just loud enough for us to hear): "Fucking dykes."

I turned around and said, in my cheeriest voice: "Congratulations, Sir! -- you have correctly identified the dykes -- but I will have to remove points from you for mis-identifying our current activity."

He was absolutely aghast.

I had not only refused to passively accept his right to label me pejoratively -- I had had the audacity to actually confront him for attempting to "power-over" me.

In his mind, the way this was supposed to work was that I would get scared, or drop my girlfriend's hand, or feel ashamed, or Maude knows what -- however he thought it was going to play out, clearly it did not include me engaging him directly and proudly claiming the term he sought to denigrate me with.

So, what does all this have to do with Part 1?

Let's say a person of privilege uses a term or idiom (perhaps with no intent to offend at all) and a member of the non-privileged class says that it is offensive to them, and the privileged speaker responds with something like: "That term has come into common use and isn't offensive anymore".

I believe that they are enforcing their privilege.

I believe that they are reiterating the following message (usually, completely unconsciously):

"I have the power. I own the language. Your experience does not count, and the fact that you are offended is of no consequence, because you have no power."

Which is fine, if you aspire to be a privilege-wielding butt-hole.

Watch Your Mouth - Part 1: Explain Yourself

2010-01-27T10:09:00.000-08:00

Part 1 of An Ongoing Series

Recently, I participated in a conversation about certain words and phrases and when they do (or whether they can) become used as common vernacular to the extent that they lose any derogatory or degrading meaning inherent in their origins.

It isn't particularly important what the exact phrase being discussed was at this point, but it is a subject I see come up frequently, especially on blogs where people are making an effort to use language responsibly, inclusively, and non-oppressively.

So, I'm going to offer up what I use as my general guideline (aka "rule of thumb" -- see more about that in part 3 of this series, arriving in a few days) when thinking about what language I will use when communicating with others, especially on the internet.

I'll start with a wee story: A number of years ago, when I was first studying Hebrew, I would occasionally send an email in Ivrit to a friend in Israel. I was learning formal Hebrew, so to him, I'm sure my emails read as if I was a real stuffed shirt (fortunately, he knows me better than that). He would tease me a bit about my proper language and was infinitely good-natured and supportive when he corrected some of my word choices to a better reflection of day-to-day speech.

One day, though, I sent him an email about Halloween, and I indicated that many children had come to my door "begging for candy". He wrote back and warned me with uncharacteristic sternness that the word I had chosen for "begging" would be offensive to many native Hebrew speakers in this context, even if I was just being hyperbolic about the Trick or Treat traditional threat/demand chant of costumed children on a pagan-esque holiday.

I asked him to explain this to me, and he said that the word would imply, in Israeli culture, a certain level of poverty and powerlessness so abject that it would not be a joking matter, especially when referring to children.

He went on to talk about the complexity of attitudes re: begging and charity in Jewish and Israeli culture, and how using such a word in this context might even subtly indict the community referred to of failing in their responsibility to care for their children.

This experience was very enlightening to me. My friend's explanation took some time -- he had to provide me with history and context in order for me to fully comprehend, as someone outside both the culture and the language, why one word next to "Beg" in my Hebrew dictionary implied wretchedness and cultural failure, and another simply meant "asking emphatically".

Since then, I've used this as a tool for determining whether a commonly-used idiom can be successfully detached from any oppressive history or present-day offensiveness.

This is how I use the tool:

(Note: In this example, I'm going to use a fairly innocuous phrase, rather than something as highly-charged as "that's so gay", or "shuck and jive" or "bitch", but this technique can be applied to pretty much any phrase that some people receive as offensive because it's racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, ablist, etc., while other people argue that commonality of use has rendered inert any roots in racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ablism, etc..)

I'm going to use the phrase "Pardon My French".

Let's imagine that I am conversing with a person who is just learning English, has a fairly good word-by-word vocabulary, but who knows nothing about France except that it's a country, and nothing much about the culture of any country in which this idiom is used.

I say: "Damn this fucking pickle jar lid! -- Oh, pardon my French."

And they say, "Hmmm. Why are you wishing to send to hell the lid of a jar? And what do the French have to do with it?"

First of all, I would have to explain to this person what I mean by "damn this ___" (that what I really mean is definition 5 in the OED -- an expression of frustration).

If they ask (and why wouldn't they?) how a word whose first meaning is "be condemned by God to eternal punishment in hell" came to mean that I'm annoyed, there might be conversation about Judeo-Christian attitudes, and why some words which are considered "bad" come into use only in moments of great frustration. I might also need to relate this to any words considered to be "cussing" in the speaker's own language (which might involve the etymology of the word "cuss").

However, let's assume, for the moment, that the listener understands the concept of cursing, but is scrambling to comprehend the Gallic influence on my U.S. potty-mouth.

I would need to explain to this person a least a little bit my culture's historical attitudes and stereotypes about residents of the country of France, who are assumed to be libertine from birth, and why some members of other countries attempt to excuse their "salty" language by claiming that they are just speaking French (and then, of course, I'd have to explain why "salty" language has nothing to do with sodium chloride), and I'd probably need to put in some stuff about why some people in our culture think that using the word "damn" in any context is bad/wrong, and I'd probably touch on why they are likely to hear the word damn on broadcast television at some hours, but never the word "fuck", even though they are both "cussing". Phew!

The point is -- I consider that if I can't explain an idiom without also describing a system of bias or discrimination or oppression that gave rise to it -- the term is fundamentally discriminatory and/or oppressive.

And this is "just" Pardon my French! -- something I doubt most people think of as demonstrating bias (although I think it does) -- and the residents of France are not really all that disenfranchised as a group. Think about how the energy of oppression in these casually-expressed idioms are amplified when they involve groups and individuals who are more deeply other-ized.

You may be breathing an exasperated sigh at this moment and saying to yourself: "Oh PortlyDyke, do I have to always be thinking about every single word and phrase I use?"

No. You don't have to do anything.

However, in the text-saturated environment of the blogosphere, words and phrases are often the only tools we have -- and ostensibly, we are here to use those words and phrases to communicate to, and connect with, other people.

So, if there are words and phrases that I use, but haven't actually thought about -- idioms that may be so common that I don't have a clue about their etymology, but which I find are undeniably rooted in discrimination and oppression when I use the "explain it to a non-native speaker" exercise above (such as the phrase: "I got gypped" -- a slur against Romani people that I'm often surprised people don't know about) -- if I continue to use these words and people are offended by them and I say: "Hey, it's common usage! I didn't mean it like that" . . .

Well, if I do that, I think that what I'm really saying is:

"I want to use these phrases because they are an easy short-hand for me, and/or they make me sound hep, or edgy, or current -- and I want that more than I want to effectively communicate and connect with you."

Which, when I put it like that, sounds really shitty of me.

Cat Doings

2010-01-20T11:49:00.000-08:00

OK, so Ms. Sovereign McHammerson is not much of a hunter (which we are happy about, as one of our household pleasures is bird-watching). Turns out being a cat so blazingly white that photographers are hard-pressed to even snap you in correct exposure is also not the greatest advantage as a predator (unless we move to Antarctica).

So, a couple of weeks ago, I'm sitting on the side porch, and see this, out by our raspberry patch:

You might not be able to tell from the photo, but Sovereign and the squirrel are like, nine inches apart. (It was hard for me to get a decent shot, because every time I came out, the squirrel would run away, but then would come right back, within inches of Sovereign, turn it's back on her, casually eat some of the sunflower seeds that had fallen from the bird-feeder, twitch its tail in her face, etc.)

This went on for a number of days. Sovereign showed interest, but no real hunting behavior -- usually she was in Kitteh Meatloaf position.

So, about the third time I see it, I decide to get the camcorder and shoot a little "Lions and Lambs Why Can't We All Just Get Along?" video, when this happened: (TW video below may increase adrenal activity in wild-life-lovers)

So, now I'm thinking that it will never be the same between them -- the squirrel has now learned that this big white fluff-ball would like to chow some sunflower-stuffed Sciurus griseus.

But no. The next day, I look out the kitchen window and see this:

Let me enhance that for you.

OK, bad photo, so I go out to get a better angle, and once again -- the squirrel runs away from me, not the cat.

I honestly believe they are just playing. Or the squirrel is messing with her mind. Or both.

Landlord Approved

2010-01-14T13:19:00.001-08:00

So, in mid-September, this kitty showed up in our yard.

At first, we figured someone new had moved into the neighborhood, and that she was just checking out the new neighbors, but she didn't seem to be going home.

We called the shelters, the vets, and checked all the "lost pet" ads we could find for our area. We even took out a "found pet" ad in the local newspaper, because we were just certain-sure that someone must be looking for this beautiful cat. We fed her and let her inside when she wanted to come in (she's quite the outdoorsy type, but was soon joining us on the bed every night), and we asked around to friends that we knew were looking for a new cat, because we really weren't sure we were ready for a new cat (Little passed away less than a year ago) -- plus we weren't really sure this kitty was "ours" (know what I mean?).

So, for about six weeks, we just hung around together. No one called from the shelter, or the vets, or the paper -- and we . . . . started falling in love. Because really?

How could we not? I mean -- really . . .

We stopped calling her just "White Kitty", and started calling her "Sovereign" (also "Hammy McHammerson", because she seems to vacillate between standing on her enormous gravitas and acting like a complete goofball).

We formally adopted her on Winter Solstice, and as of January 14, 2010, she is officially land-lord approved (we had a pet deposit that was quite specific about the pet it covered, but she is now formally covered by the Pet Rider in our lease).

So we are very glad to welcome Ms. Sovereign Please-Carry-Me-Around-the-House-in-A-Sling & Give-Me-A-Greenie to our briefly catless household.

I will be following up with some film of Hammy McHammerson and the Squirrel in a few days.

Kittehs!

How To Accept An Apology

2010-01-07T21:07:00.000-08:00

This is a companion piece to my infamous "How to Fuck Up" post -- because, just as surely as you will fuck up some day, it's certain that someone you know and interact with is likely to fuck up, too.

And really, since you're as likely to be on the "fuckup-ee" end of the fuck-up as you are to be on the "fuckup-er" end, it might be a good idea to get some practice accepting those apologies in the way you'd like others to accept yours. Dontcha think? Or dontcha?

I'm assuming that you've already read the other post, so you know all about what I consider a "real" apology. In this exercise, I'm going to assume that you've actually received a real apology (because if you haven't, then you haven't been really been apologized to, so there's nothing for you to accept).

(Note: This post is focused mostly on how accepting an apology bears on relationships with people and groups you actually care about having relationship with, but it may be more globally applicable -- I just haven't taken it there.)

There are two basic scenarios that I've experienced once I've received a real apology:

Scenario 1

FuckUp-Er apologizes to me.
I feel a rush of relaxation move through me, and usually, whatever stony guard I've built up during the fucked-up interaction seems to melt away -- usually immediately and for good.
The slate feels clear and clean.

Scenario 2

FuckUp-Er apologizes to me.
I do not feel that rush of relaxation.
In fact, sometimes, I feel even more irritated.

When Scenario #2 occurs, I find that the first thing I think is something like: "They didn't really apologize."

If I go back and check, though, and find that they did acknowledge, apologize, and amend, and I think they really did apologize -- I usually find that I have other stuff going on internally -- like
a) I don't think they are sincere, or
b) I don't trust that they are actually going to do something different in the future, or
c) I find that their apology seems not to cover the scope of what I'm pissed about

The fact is, if any of these things are true, I think the person who really has a problem here is me.

Here's why:

Let's say either a) I don't think the apology is sincere or b) I don't trust that they are actually going to do something different in the future.

Essentially, I am saying that the person is apologizing in bad faith -- and if I'm saying that, what does it say about the fact that I'm continuing to interact with that person?

I'm essentially admitting that I don't trust them -- so I think I need to dig into that and see what the source of my mistrust is.

Is there something that I've actually witnessed in this particular person's behavior (toward me or toward someone else) that makes me think that they don't mean what they say?

If I find that I believe that this individual person is unworthy of my trust, based on actually observations I've made of them -- then what the hell am I doing continuing to partner with them/work for them/read their blog/pretend that we're friends?

When I continue such interactions, knowing that I don't trust that person, I think that's my bad -- and it's likely that I'm going to feel pretty peevish about betraying myself in this way (hence, my escalating irritation).

Now, what if I examine the observations I've made of this particular person and discover that I don't think it's their individual actions that I don't trust? What if I find out that I'm defended and cautious because I've been screwed in the past by people who might be like them in some way?

Well, again, I think that's my problem.

I'm not saying that I'm "bad" for feeling cautious (for example, if I'm cautious around straight people in general). I'm not even saying that it's unwise -- Maude knows I've had my share of experiences with straight friends who make witless remarks that demonstrate their straight privilege.

I'm saying that the caution belongs to me -- it's mine.

It's quite possible that a situation could arise where a straight ally might make a gaff, then apologize quickly and quite sincerely, and my past experience could harden me to it -- but I try to be very aware when I hear my internal thought-process running along the lines of "Straight people -- you can't trust 'em!" -- because this is exactly the kind of broad-brush bias that I don't want to be painted with as a queer.

These days, if I find myself in a situation where I feel particularly surprised and shocked at the speech or action of someone I previously considered an ally, I try first to assume "friendly intent", and I'll go a long way to get to the bottom of what's going on if the other person's amenable to it, because I'm currently more interested in seeing if people will transform than deciding that they're all out to get me.

So, what happens if I actually do trust them, but c) I find that their apology seems not to cover the scope of what I'm pissed about?

If I find myself saying/writing things in the course of attempting to accept an apology like:

"Yes, you apologized, but there was this other time that you did (x/y/z) . . . ", then the truth is, I'm dealing with backlog.

Nasty, erosive, relationship-destroying backlog -- times where I didn't speak up when something bugged me, and then didn't speak up again, and again, and again -- and now there's this morass of feelings that I've got -- and yes, for sure, this one little apology for the thing we're dealing with now is not going to heal all that.

And guess what?

Once again, I think that's really my problem. I didn't speak up. I let things slide. The other person has absolutely no control over what I choose to do, so how in the world can they be responsible for my pent-up, stewing, brewing anger?

Yes -- "anger" (maybe even rage) -- not "mad". I think "mad" is a real emotion that happens in the moment, and that "anger" is the result of suppressing mad.

Mad is in the present. Mad is: "You're whistling, and it's bugging me."

Anger is: "You whistled yesterday, and the day before that, and NOW YOU'RE WHISTLING AGAIN!!!!!"

Anger is in the past.

Don't get me wrong -- I have no problem with feeling "mad", or even being "angry" -- I've just found it incredibly helpful to know what I'm actually feeling mad or being angry about.

See, the problem with anger backlog is that, once you have it, you're not really mad "at" that person anymore -- you're mad "at" yourself -- for not speaking up, for not putting a stop to it -- so it will not matter how many times they apologize to you, or in what manner -- because they're not who you're mad "at"/angry "with".

Here, Let Us Pause for A Brief Explanatory Break:

The scare-quotes around "at" (above) exist because I actually think it's sloppy emotional communication to say I'm mad "at" someone.

My emotion is entirely internal -- yes, it might have been stimulated by something someone else did, but the feeling still belongs to me.

If I direct my mad "at" someone -- try to use that energy to make them "wrong" and "bad" -- rather than directing toward action to rectify the speech, action, or event that's stimulating this essential response in me, my experience is usually that the "mad" just builds up, turns to anger, and toxifies me.

I believe that the purpose of "mad" is to motivate us to align things that are out of alignment in ourselves, our relationships, and the world. When mad is used correctly, it fuels change.

Mad can actually feel good, sometimes. It's a highly energetic emotion -- your blood gets pumping, your get off your ass and start talking, or writing, or taking action, or yelling -- think about the sensation of "Righteous Wrath" (which is probably actually "anger" anyway -- but I won't go off on that right now. I mean, I could -- but I won't).

My experience of "Righteous Wrath" is that it nearly always arises when I've been holding back/not speaking up/biting my tongue. I wait until the person does the thing that I've been mad about just one more time, in a way that I can absolutely, positively point to (usually with a trembling, pontifical index finger) and say "There! You see? You did it!" (And inside, a nasty little voice says: "Ah-ha! I've got them now!!!!!", and I ride, ride, ride the energy of my Righteous Wrath.)

That can be addictive, that energy -- the Red Bull of the emotional realm -- but let's be honest about how nutritious a steady diet of it is going to be for any relationship you actually want to keep.

/As-It-Turns-Out Not-So-Brief Explanatory Break

So, when you are presented with an apology that you think is genuine -- which includes the four As -- here's what to do:

If you feel that Scenario #1 rush of relaxation, rejoice in that fact that something in the world has gone awry and been brought back to balance. Tell the person who apologized that you accept their apology, and that you're ready to go forward with them to a new moment.

If, instead, you find that you experience symptoms of Scenario #2:

Take a deep breath.
Tell the person that you really would like to accept their apology, but that something doesn't feel quite right to you. If you need it, ask them for a little time to discover what's going on for you.
Examine whether you trust this person or not, based on your experience of them. Perhaps more importantly -- ask yourself if you want to trust them.
If you don't trust them, stop having these interactions. You don't trust them. If you keep relating to them, I see (with my prodigious psychic powers) . . . . a train-wreck in your future.
If you do trust the individual, but still feel unsettled, ask yourself whether this person belongs to a class of people that you generically mistrust, and think about whether/how that generic mistrust may be affecting you and your relationship with this individual.
If trusting their sincerity and good will about future action is not the issue, but you find that you have backlog with them, accept their apology for this occurrence graciously, and then -- clean your shit up! if you want to have a relationship with them. Do this separately from the apology acceptance. Start with something like this: "When we were talking about what happened, I really felt and accepted your apology for what you did, but I noticed I had some lingering feelings. I realized that I haven't been honest with you -- I've been holding some shit back about things that have happened in the past. I'm sincerely sorry about that. I want to clear them up now."

Unless I ascend in the next five minutes, it's pretty likely I may make another mistake in this lifetime, or interact with someone who will make a mistake in this lifetime.

I like knowing how we might find our way back to grace.

Geez I Wish I Could Laugh At This --

2009-08-28T20:40:00.000-07:00

For those of you who are curious -- yes, I have continued to send emails to my representatives about investigating torture. One of them actually responded directly, one of them invited me to a fundraiser.

There has been progress, though, with Holder's move toward inquiry. I'll keep writing.

Daily Bits of Writing

2009-08-18T10:16:00.000-07:00

From time to time over the years, my Beloved and I have engaged in what we call our "Daily Creative Bits" -- where we do just a daily snippet of writing or art every day and email it to one another.

It's an exercise that isn't about making perfect creations, but rather, about getting the creative juice flowing.

In recent weeks, we've been delighted to be joined in this daily venture by our dear friend (and now, land-mate). I've really been enjoying the exponential energy of it, as I receive their daily creative bits, and produce my own.

Here's my bit from yesterday -- a miracle of brevity for long-winded me.

Is the world full

of delight or trouble?

Depends on who you ask.

Ask me.

Because It Is Important to Keep Laughing

2009-08-17T00:05:00.001-07:00

In the past couple of months, I've been rediscovering the importance of laughter in my life -- and that process has been greatly helped along by a dear friend who loves to laugh as much as I do.

We've been watching this youtube video over and over, because it makes us laugh -- every single time.

(note: if you're not familiar with the character of Stuart and his mom Doreen from Mad TV, this may not seem as funny to you as it does to us -- I don't know why, but watching Mo Collins crack up is way funnier to me than the actual sketches where she doesn't):

Stuart Bloopers:

In Which Portly Attempts to Determine The Wisest Course

2009-08-14T23:30:00.000-07:00

So, I haven't blogged at all for nearly two months.

Yes, I have been busy in "real life" -- building someone a website, making a couple of new videos for people, painting the exterior of the house, working on a novel, putting up a new online class, adjusting to new community members, and spending more time in the Summer air.

But none of those things are really the reason why I haven't been blogging.

The simple truth is, I've been trying to figure out whether I want to keep blogging at all.

A couple of months ago, I was involved in one of those inter-blog incidents that arise now and then. I found myself the focus of an online discussion at a blog that I had never read before -- a blog that I might never have read, had I not become a subject of discussion there, and had someone not "kindly" informed me of this by dropping a link to the thread in a discussion at a blog I actually do read.

Being the curious type, I went over and had a look.

All I can say is -- good thing I'm not a cat.

The statements that I was a whack-job and a scam-artist didn't really bug me that much, especially since they (mostly) came from people I don't know even remotely -- in my line of work, I've heard this stuff before, and after a lifetime of being called "unnatural", "pervert", "sinner", "damned", and worse -- whack-job and scam-artist just don't nearly pack the punch you might imagine.

The participation of people in the thread who I did know, but who didn't seem willing to confront some of the nastier stuff said about me -- some of whom I'd had personal contact with, and a couple of whom I'd actually provided with some pretty involved support in the past -- did bother me a little.

Still, I did what I usually do -- I tried to assume the best and figured that the people who I had thought liked/trusted me, but who seemed fine with standing by as I took a hiding might be either a) just getting caught up in the sturm-und-drang of it all, or b) be scared that if they did speak up, they would become a target of the same type of vitriol that was hurtling in my direction (which seems a rational concern in the circumstances). Once again, my experience as a queer stood me in good stead -- I'm kind of used to people not standing up for me -- even people who say they know and love me.

I opted to just observe my own responses, take care of myself, and generally didn't get my knickers in a twist -- I figured there would be about of week of shit flying in my direction, and then something else shiny would draw the attention of folks who like a good internet rumble.

Since I worked my masochism out a long time ago, I chose to simply stop reading the thread, as I couldn't imagine what possible good it might do me to allow it to occupy more space in my brain.

But then, it followed me "home".

Home to my website (you know -- the one that is associated with my livelihood?). I started getting all these weird, off-topic comments at my other blog and the forums that I maintain, and a raft of bogus registrations from people with handles like "SoYouThinkYourPsychic" and "stoptehscamming".

*sigh*

I did what all good web managers do -- I went into the logs to find out where this stuff was coming from so that I could block IPs if I needed to (my website generally nets about 900 unique visitors each month -- 90% of which are generated from the email list that folks have joined after participating with me in person -- so I was wondering where an extra 400 unique visitors had come from in a week).

Turns out, someone had linked my personal bio at my site in the "conversation" at the blog-i-might-never-have-known-about-but-for-a-"kindly"-link.

My bio -- where I get all exposed and vulnerable and shit about my personal history, and the weird-ass job that I do, and where I come from, and who I am, and who I am trying to become.

My bio at my home website -- where my phone number and address are intentionally accessible, so that people who are interested in knowing more about what I do could find me if they wanted to.

So -- you may think that this is a post about this terrible thing that happened to me when people tried to harass and bully me on the internet.

But it's not.

This is a post about about the basic inequity that can arise between people who are willing to be visible, authentic, and vulnerable -- online and off -- and people who aren't.

I was surprised that I didn't freak out when all this bizarre traffic hit my home site, from people who seemed to have only a couple of things in mind -- 1) to attempt to freak me out and 2) to "make" me feel vulnerable. There was a time in my life when it would have scared the shit out of me, and led to sleepless nights wondering if any of those people were vindictive or insane enough to take their seeming enmity towards me into the meat-world.

I think it didn't freak me out precisely because I'd already been moving in the direction of becoming more intentionally vulnerable and revealed.

I knew, last year, that abandoning my cloak of psuedonymity as Teh Portly Dyke and identifying myself as a real-life person with a real-life profession might result in rejection from some, derision from others, and outright hostility from a few -- but that was a risk that seemed miniscule when balanced against what it would cost me to continue to live my life as a disjointed, dis-integrated being.

So, I opted to come out -- again.

It was heartening to me that when I did this, there was nothing in my blog history as Teh Portly Dyke that I found I wanted to hide or take back as Carol Steinel. It was also heartening (and unanticipated) that my revelations seemed to give others the courage to be more forthright about beliefs and philosophies that they held, but rarely revealed, because they worried that people would brand them as "crazy".

In the months that have followed the conversation-about-me-that-I-wasn't-a-part-of, though -- as the bogus registrations and non-sequiter comments gathered into a big stinky cloud of inconvenient web-management and then slowly subsided -- I gained a deeper understanding of my original motivations in taking on the psuedonym of which I've now become fond.

I realized that, when someone criticizes your anonymous online persona, you think that you can pretend they aren't really criticizing you -- you think you have created something that they can throw stones at, and that you will be able to stand aside from that target and chuckle as you watch the card-board cut-out fall over backwards.

Except that you can't, really.

You still feel it somehow -- at least that was my experience -- and at least partly why I chose to come out as myself, finally -- because the stones that landed on the noggin of Teh Portly Dyke (even before I vulnerabalized myself) actually did give Carol Steinel a headache from time to time.

Conversely, I found that when people praised Teh Portly Dyke, Carol Steinel didn't really feel the appropriate glow -- because there was always that little voice piping up -- "Well, if they knew who you really were, and what you really did, they wouldn't praise you".

The worst of both worlds, really.

But I digress.

Here are some of my current problems with what I call the internet's "Twilight Tendencies":

If I'm using the internet as a tool for revelation, connection, and evolution, and you're using the internet as a tool for entertainment, distraction, and simple maintenance of the status quo, it's likely that our interactions on the internet will reflect the natural tension that can exist between those goals.

My intention is probably going to lead me to an increasing desire to make myself vulnerable and identifiable, and to seek to know more about you (how else can I truly connect?), whereas your intention is more likely to lead you to remain anonymous (because, after all, the beauty of passive entertainment is that you aren't really "in" the game -- your avatar is), and perhaps, one of the ways you might entertain yourself is by poking at the tender spots I've exposed.

I actually don't even have a judgment about that -- a person who chooses to remain anonymous on the web usually does so because they take what is, to them, a "realistic" and cautious view of the online world. From their perspective, my choice to risk being identified may be foolish at best and "asking for it" at worst.

I can understand that because I've been there. The rationalizations I made to myself for remaining anonymous at TPD originally didn't run along the lines that people who opted to be identified were stupid or deserving of harassment, but there was at least a dash of a desire to remain above the fray -- to speak without a certain level of personal accountability, and to experiment with the invention of an online presence in terms of how closely I wanted it to reflect my real-world self.

As time went on, though -- as online friendships transformed from in-jokes at the Virtual Pub to private chats of the LOL-OMFG-variety to private chats of the "What would feel supportive to you right now? How can I help?"-variety to face-to-face conversations on Skype or landline phone calls -- I re-affirmed to myself that the dynamics of internet relationships are influenced and defined by a couple of the same rules that real-life relationships are:

1) There can be no real intimacy without revelation of the self, and

2) Variances in vulnerability-levels in relationship can leave an open door to abuse of power.

One of the things that always bugged me about traditional therapist/client relationships is that #2 up there -- the therapist gets to know the deepest darkest secrets of the client (they have to, in order to be effective, really), but the client, by design and intent, knows virtually nothing about the therapist's inner life.

When used benignly and ethically, this can be a great format for the client -- they don't have to worry about the therapist's sensitivities, thoughts, or feelings -- in fact, therapists are trained to go to great lengths to prevent the client from knowing them -- so that the client can focus on themselves and their own process. They can fucking scream at the therapist and the therapist is not supposed to take it personally.

Of course, if you've ever been in the therapist's role, you'll know, of course, that there is actually a human being in there -- a human being who does respond and react to the client. Sit through a debriefing with a therapist and their supervisor or support team, and it's evident that the well-trained exterior that most show in their office demeanor is very different from what's going on inside.

I've always had questions about the value of a system which requires the de-humanization of one person in order to facilitate the re-humanization of another.

And this lopsided vulnerability is fraught with danger if the therapist is not ethical -- they can manipulate the client very easily if they choose to, knowing precisely what cues might trigger them into unconscious response, and what desires and fears might be used as levers on them.

Differing levels of vulnerability are problematic in less formal, role-based relationships, too -- think of a couple where one person is frank and forthcoming, while the other person is closed and contained. (For some reason, these two people always seem to end up together, too -- at least for a while.)

The forthcoming member of the couple usually sees the other's containment as a sign of distrust, or as something withheld from them. They often attempt to ferret it out of their more closed companion.

The contained member usually sees the other's attempt to "get in" as a violation of their sovereignty, and often retreats further.

I'm the forthcoming type. Which you probably already know.

In a sense, my choice to blog at all was an expression of that outward-going nature -- I wanted to bring more of myself to the world -- but that's become problematic for me in the Half-In/Half-Out world of the internet.

I do want to share myself with the world. I have thoughts that want more room than the kiddie-pool of my brain.

However, I have no desire to swim with sharks.

Sometimes I wish that there were two internets -- one reserved for the Tron-ists, and one for the Space Paranoids

Adherants of Tronism could use their internet as an ocean of potential connectivity beyond their geographical locale -- a place for them to walk in a virtual body that is a direct extension of their physical form, and that is more than just an amusing game. They would realize that metaphorically crashing your light-cycle online could be every bit as painful or deadly as it would be in meat-world, and that bits and bytes arranged into words could actually reach through the screen and have effect on the User behind it.

And the Space Paranoids could continue to "play" their version of the internet. They could remain safely dissociated from their avatars, and could act out all sorts of scenarios and behaviors that they would never, ever consider in real life. They could snark away and scream words that they would never speak to another person face-to-face, and leave bags of burning dog-shit on each other's virtual porches, secure in the knowledge that every IP connection was an anonymous proxy, and no finger-print or DNA sample could identify them.

The problem for me at this moment is that the Tronists and the Space Paranoids are all shook up in the same bag.

As a result, there are places on the internet to which I do not ever venture -- comment threads at YouTube are about the strongest online toxic that I'm willing to expose my psyche to (and that, only in very measured doses).

I'm sure that there probably are people in the real world who spend the majority of their lifetime-word-allotment screaming obscenities at others in person -- but I've created a life where I choose not interact with them, so why would I intentionally wade into the online equivalent of their living room?

And I guess this brings me to my basic dillema about blogging as myself in an environment where others who choose to remain hidden can drop bags of virtual dog-shit at my door:

Why would I invite those people into my living room? Or even tell them where I live, much less invite them to view the contents of my fucking head?

I have no control over the actions and choices of others. This I know.

I know this, too: The vast majority of people who read my blog have treated me honorably, respectfully, and connectively in comments and emails -- and, as far as I know, the way they've treated with me "to my face" matches the way they've treated me "behind my back".

I kind of hate to admit it, but . . . . those burning bags of dog-shit?

While they didn't "scare" me -- they definitely brought up a desire in me to just duck my head and get out of the line of fire for a while -- to shut up and stop being the target of some anonymous person's/people's inexplicable desire to let me know how much they disapproved of me.

I feel sad as I type that, because I think that this is often why people stop speaking up and stop showing up -- it's not necessarily that they're scared -- maybe they're just tired.

I know that's how I felt during the whole thing -- tired -- as if everything I'd ever blogged that had been helpful or insightful or forward-moving -- had suddenly been vaporized -- so fuck it -- why keep blogging?

Which pisses me right off, now that I tune into it.

Am I going to let a bunch of Space Paranoids wear me down?

Hell, no.

I'm going to recommit to what I believe in: This technology -- the internet -- has massive potential as an instrument of revelation, connection, and evolution.

I'm going to recommit to what I believe in: Truth -- not "the" truth -- but revelation of personal truth -- is a profoundly curative energy.

I'm going to recommit to what I believe in: If I don't bring my voice -- if I don't bring my self -- to the world -- I have willfully forfeited my right to be an agent of transformation in the world.

So . . . I guess I'll keep blogging.

Glad we cleared that up.

I'm Getting Ready to Be Older

2009-06-19T15:24:00.000-07:00

I'm kind of known for having wacky-ass parties on my birthday -- like my naked birthday when I turned 50, and my head-shaving nude beach party when I turned 40.

This year, everyone gets to keep their clothes on (if they want to).

This coming Sunday, June 21st, 2009, I turn 53 — and I’m having a party — a musical party — and I thought I'd put my invite out there, so that you can celebrate with me in spirit, if not in the flesh.

The text of my birthday invite is below.

This year, when pondering what to “do” for my birthday, I was advised to do something I’d never done before — so here’s my plan:

I’ve been wanting to have more live music in my life. There was a time when live music (both playing and listening/dance to) was a huge part of my life, and I miss it.

I’m having a live music party on Sunday. A very intentional live music party — and I’m going to do what I can to help the attendees align with my intention, so that I can have the best chance of getting what I want out of it.

Here’s the roster for festivities:

11 am – Guidance Wander My Beloved will lead a “guidance wander” for anyone who wants to come along, from 11 - 11:30 AM. A Guided Wander is a walk where you let the Universe lead you on the path — you start without a destination and allow the signs and sygils take you from point to point on the way. It’s a ton of fun, and I think it will be a good start for a party where the whole idea is to be in the moment and let the music lead you. If you want to go on the guidance wander with us, please arrive no later than 11:00 am — cause we’ll be taking off then and God knows where we’ll be!

12 pm - 3 pm – Music Party The front two rooms of our house will be set up as a live music hall. There will be some spare instruments (we have several guitars, drums, a synthesizer, piano, tambourine, shakers, etc.) — but bring your own if you have them.

Here are the “rules” for the party:

Don’t worry if you don’t have an instrument. There will be an area where there are instruments that are available for anyone to play — if you bring your personal instruments and don’t want to share them (which I completely understand), don’t place them in this area (which will be marked).
- Any instrument that is not in this area should be considered someone’s personal instrument — please don’t pick it up, play it, or even touch it without their specific permission.
The front two rooms of our house will be dedicated to music. If you want to have a conversation with someone else at the party, please take this out to the yard or into the kitchen, rather than carrying it on in the hall while music is being made. In the music hall, incidental verbal interactions such as “an-a-one-and-a-two”, “let’s try that in the key of G”, and “Here’s a good one” will be welcome.
Leave your ego and your judgments at the door (especially judgments you may have about yourself “I have a crappy voice”, or “I suck at playing guitar”). Refrain from “taking stage” and performing a personal concert — the point of this gathering is to have people make live music together — not for any individual to give a house concert. Expect that any song/music you start may end up being a group effort, and don’t get in a snit if someone else fires up a harmonica in the middle of your classical piece.
Join in. Yeah, you may not think of yourself as a musician, but that could end on Solstice, 2009, you know? Sing, shake a tambourine or maraca, pound on the drum kit in the synth, dance, listen — stretch your edges.
You may be recorded. I’m going to have the four track deck recording during the party, but it’ll be unobtrusive, and purely for my own enjoyment.
I reserve the right to throw everybody out at 3 pm, although I may not — just depends on how I feel — it’s my birthday, after all.
There will be tip jar out — proceeds will go to me — it’s my birthday, after all.
There will be potluck snack table up — it’s potluck — if you’re going to snack, please also bring a snack to share.
This party is strictly bring your own beverage. Alcohol is welcome, but mindless drunkeness is not (mindful and intentional intoxication to spur you on to heights of musical genius is welcome). If you want something to drink, bring it. I say this nearly every time I have a party, but people inevitably show up and ask: “Can I have one of your beers?” This year, I will be saying “No” in the nicest way, and pointing them down the street to Aldrich‘s, where there is a wide selection of excellent brewsky.
Come absolutely, positively fragrance free – if you don’t, I’ll probably ask you to leave, even if that feels embarrassing and awkward for either or both of us.
If you bring a friend that I don’t know, show them these rules before you bring them, and ask them to come only if they want to join in this intention:
- The intention of the party is to celebrate and kick-off my 54th year on the planet by making music together that is dedicated to creative, enjoyable connection — and having fun while doing it.

Them’s the rules — if I sound like an old cranky codger, well, I’ve discovered that if I get the boundaries out of the way first, I tend to weed out the people who don’t want to play nice — heh, heh.

Seriously, it’s been my experience that clearly defining the container usually gives us a better shot at cooking up something lovely inside it.

If you want to join in long-distance — play or sing or dance on June 21st — and think of me.

(Oh, and a note: In the past five years, I’ve usually been all “I want your presence, not your presents” — but fuck it — this year, I want some presents. If you want to get me something, drop a tip in the tip jar at the party — or leave something via the donation button up at the top of the page, or check out my Amazon wish-list.)

Happy Birthday to me!

If It's Wednesday, It Must Be Time to Investigate Torture

2009-06-17T12:12:00.000-07:00

Here's my weekly letter to congress-critters and President Obama -- feel free to cut and paste at will in sending your thoughts to your own reps.

Dear [Name]:

I am writing you again to request that you do everything within your power to investigate and bring to justice those who have violated US law and UN Conventions co-signed by the United States by perpetrating torture.

This week, the ACLU obtained newly released detainee statements which provide more evidence of torture programs -- and more evidence that they were as ineffective as they were inhumane.

As this evidence unfolds, the last pitiful refuge of excuse for this horrifying activity (performed in my name as a US citizen) -- that this was done for our protection in some kind of "ticking time bomb" situation -- falls apart completely.

It is not a surprise that these techniques are not effective -- the Pentagon was warned of this as early as 2002, and a host of experts in the field of interrogation techniques have clearly stated that the use of torture and inhumane/abusive techniques result in "false and misleading information".

In other words, the use of these techniques not only did not keep us safe -- it is most likely and logical that they have actually heightened the danger to our nation.

In order for us to be a nation governed by the rule of law, those who have broken the law must be brought to justice -- even if there are other pressing things to attend to such as health care, or the economy -- because the rule of law is the anchor of this nation.

What will it profit us if we get our economy fixed, or health care secured for our citizens, if we know that we live in a country where torture was performed, and is now condoned by our silence? What will it profit us if we move forward into some shining new day for our nation, if those who have broken the law and gotten away with it are in our midst?

I urge you, again, to investigate and seek prosecution for those who have broken the laws of this country and violated the UN Convention Against Torture to which this country is a signatory. I urge you to this action as a citizen, but most importantly, as a human being.

Thank you for your time in reading this. I welcome and await your response.

[PortlyDyke]

Long-Winded Answer

2009-06-13T14:00:00.000-07:00

So, today, I noticed in Google Reader that there was a new comment on a very old thread of mine at Shakesville -- the post in which I "came out" as myself.

I started to answer over there, but you know how I can go on -- when my response started squishing out the edges of the comment box, I thought it better to address it here at home (you may want to click through to read the question for full context, because it's pretty long, too). My summary of the question, though (and I may not have got it right -- be sure to tell me if that's so, swedishfisherman!) is this: What do I think and how do I feel about the use of the word "psychic", my choice to self-identify as such, and the way that some people use it as dismissive or pejorative.

Here's my response:

I don't generally find an honest question offensive, and I don't find anything about your question offensive at all. In fact, I find it a very engaging question and it's stimulated a lot of thought for me.

RE: The term "psychic". I don't particularly like that term, but it is a handy shorthand to communicate to people a general sense of what to expect when working with me or attending one of my events. It doesn't fully encompass for me everything that I think I'm doing, but explaining that would take several pages -- plus it keeps evolving.

One reason I don't like the phrase "I am a psychic" all that much is that I believe that everyone is "psychic", in the sense that I think that they have the ability to receive information that is clearly not being transmitted in physical 3-d -- whether they use that ability consciously or not. I train people (who want that kind of training) to develop those abilities, and I've never met a person in the course of that training who "couldn't" access others levels of perception, once they started exercising them.

Another reason I'm not fond of the phrase is because of the associations and assumptions which exist for some people, but I recognize that those are outside any realm of my control. (I think that's true of anything that exists in someone else's head, btw.)

My experience has been that most of those who eye-roll over the term psychic probably do so because of a broader set of beliefs and understandings that they hold which doesn't include belief in anything "supernatural" (another term I dislike, but will use here as a short-hand, as that's usually how people who hold these views express it when they talk to me about it). I respect each person's right to their particular personal beliefs and word-views, though, so this doesn't bother me at all.

I think that other people may actually believe that some things exist outside the purely physical perception of reality, but they may have had experiences with professional psychic practitioners that were damaging to them or made fraudulent claims (and I know full well that those kinds of practitioners exist). While I think that's unfortunate, and that some practitioners give the term"psychic" a bad name, I also think that people should listen to their own guidance over anyone else's, so if the very mention of the word gives them the heeby-geebies and they have the impulse to back away or disconnect, I encourage them to do so, rather than to override their own knowing -- so this doesn't bother me either.

In terms of using this word to refer to msyelf, I think of the intuitive abilities that I use in my work not as a "gift", but rather a developed skill-set. Someone may really like woodworking, and even excel at it, but not call themselves "a carpenter". I refer to myself as "a psychic" because I do this work in the world, not just for my own enjoyment (and there was a long time when exercising my intuitive abilities was more of a hobby for me).

My experience has been that most people who are drawn to the kind of work I do don't have usually have a particularly negative connection with the term "psychic" (even some who have had bad experiences with particular practitioners) -- in fact, they seem to be drawn to it -- so I rarely run into blanket dismissal or pejorative use of the word in my work-life. It is usually only when I interface with others outside my work-life and people ask "what do you do?" that I encounter these types of responses.

When that happens (and I tell them), some people simply say: "I don't believe in any of that stuff, but you seem a nice person. Let's talk about gardening." Others may decide on the spot that everything I have said up to that point and everything I might say in the future is now placed in doubt, because my belief in something beyond the purely physical means that I am certifiably crazy.

If I found anything offensive in the comment you mentioned (the one that led you to my coming out post), it is not that this person identified me as a psychic (I identify myself that way -- why would that be offensive to me?) -- but that s/he did so in a way that used my vulnerability in revealing that self-identification as a soft spot in which to poke me, in a context that had nothing to do with my profession. It was clearly a jab (that's not my interpretation alone -- the commenter emailed me after the event to apologize personally to me, and specifically characterized it as "a jab" and "mean-spirited").

My perception is that, when people use this term in a dismissive way (especially in a context outside a discussion of me or my work), it is usually in an attempt (conscious or unconscious) to discredit the other things I might be saying, or even an entire group I might be associated with. ("Well, what can you expect? They hang out with PortlyDyke, and she thinks she's psychic. *eyeroll*)

That second part is a concern for me -- I "came out" in that post with full understanding that some people would dismiss me because of it. That was a risk I was willing to take, but it is a concern to me that others might be similarly dismissed simply because they choose to be associated with me.

Because of this concern, when I decided to come out at Shakesville in the post where your question appeared, I discussed it with Melissa first and told her that I would understand completely if she didn't want me to post it there, or even if she didn't want me to continue as a contributor if I posted it here at my home blog (because a lot of Shakers read me here as well). She, in her usual embracing manner said I was welcome at Shakesville as the person I really am.

In fact, when Melissa McEwan initially invited me to become a contributor (I had only had contact with her as a frequent, but psuedonymous commenter up to that time), I told her what I did for a living before I accepted, and told her: "I wanted to come clean with you about all of this before we continued in confirming your invitation. I won't be at all offended or disturbed if this information is a "deal-killer" for you in terms of the invitation." I felt that it was only fair for me to let her know what she might end up dealing with, precisely because I understand how the judgment about who I am and what I do might be applied to Shakesville by association. Melissa responded that she was not the slightest bit dissuaded by my revelations.

I chose the term "coming out" in that post quite intentionally, because my process of "coming out" as a psychic has been exactly like my process of coming out as a Queer, and I think that this did contribute to a reclamation of the term "psychic" for me.

For one thing, "being psychic" was something that has always been true about me, and something that I do not perceive that I chose -- just something I chose to be out about or not (as with being queer). It was something that I really did not talk about with anyone for a long time (lest people think me "crazy"). I would sometimes flirt around the edges of this stuff in conversation, but would veer away from it at the first sign of any scoffing or disapproval.

Then, I started coming out, usually very cautiously and tentatively, to a few other people who I either knew or suspected also identified in this way -- people who had dropped hints in conversation, or whose bookshelf in their bedroom held tomes that indicated they might be into "woo-woo" stuff (and yes, I kept my early metaphysical books in my bedroom or private space in my younger years, just as I "straightened up" my apartment before my parents visited at that time).

Then, I began to understand that if I were going to become close to someone, I was probably going to need to share this information about myself in order to do so -- or they were going to find out anyway (if they got close enough to me).

Then, I got a little bolder and put it out there in the world in a tentative way, but tried to limit who might access this information by generally only putting the information out to people who I thought would be open to it (I had two business cards for example -- one that mentioned my psychic work and one that did not, a website that only the people who attended my events knew about, and which was visible only to registered members, etc.).

Then, I made the decision to come out to my family of origin.

Then I got to the place where I started telling those who might be affected by the judgements of others by virtue of being associated with me (potential employers, people who blogged with me, etc.) before I accepted the associative position.

Then, I got to the place where I just said: Fuck it. I'm going to be out everywhere, and people are going to think what they think.

Then, I came to the stance of celebrating it as a huge gift in my life.

Finally, I came to where I am now -- this is something that is so much a part of who I am that I don't usually think about it until I run into someone's judgment, and I'm often kind of surprised when I do.

That is exactly -- same steps, in the same order -- the process I went through in coming out as a lesbian.

And the responses I received from others to my coming out were also the same in both cases (and in about the same proportions) -- listed below in no particular order:

Some people said: "So what? You're great."

Some people dismissed me out of hand. (Very few)

Some people felt betrayed that I hadn't told them sooner because if they had known, they wouldn't have chosen to associate with me, or they were hurt that I hadn't trusted them.

Some people told me they didn't understand or that they didn't agree with my world-view, but they didn't see this being an obstacle to our continued relating.

Some people told me they didn't understand, but they wanted to know more.

Some people said "Me too! And your coming out has given me encouragement to come out."

Some people said "Of course I don't care, but I think you're exposing yourself in a way that isn't safe."

Some people said that knowing me and then having me come out to them had motivated them to re-examine the judgments they had held previously, because they had liked and respected me before they knew, when they had believed that people like me were innately crazy or wrong and they would never be able to like or respect "someone like that". (This being one of the really good reasons to come out about anything which is attached to a societal stigma.)

There are parallels, too, in how "being psychic" and "being queer" have affected my life in terms of where I choose to live geographically, the impact on my relationships with certain members of my family (my fundamentalist sibling now believes that not only am I going to hell for being queer, but I am also possessed by the devil -- but she still talks to me at family gatherings), and choosing to spend the majority of my life within circles of people who have a certain basic level of acceptance of these realities about me.

As to how I feel about the dismissive/pejorative use of the word -- I take a "sticks and stones" attitude for the most part. I believe that the comment referenced above really says something more about the commenter than something about me.

As I found with being out as a queer, the more I claim the word and identity, the less effective it is as a tool intended to harm or silence me, even when people would like to try to use it to dismiss or discredit me -- and I understand that it's possible that some people may try to do that, and some people have.

For me, at this point, it's kind of like having someone yell "Lesbo!" at me derisively -- I can feel a bit of pain at first if it's someone I have previously known, respected, and thought liked me (this pain is usually followed by a period of reassessment on my part about whether that person is someone I want to know) -- but if it just pops up randomly from someone I don't know or don't know well, it's pretty easy for me to simply go: "Oh. OK. They have a judgment about me. Good to know."

I think that when people attempt to use this term to dismiss me, they are relying on what they assume is a shared, status-quo judgment, just as someone who yells "Lesbo" is hoping that others around them will share the opinion that that's a bad thing to be -- and hoping that I will buy into that opinion as well, which would be the only way that the word itself could hurt me.

Just as with being out as a queer, it's possible that some people will attempt to use my vulnerability in being out against me, I suppose -- and just as with being queer, I had to move through my own internalization of the social stigmas about psychic stuff that might give efficacy to those attempts.

If people want to discuss the validity of my world-view with me, I'm totally open to that. If they want to judge and dismiss me, that's their sovereign right, but it's unlikely I'll engage them in conversation about it -- because if they hold those attitudes, I imagine that they probably wouldn't want to talk to "someone like me" anyway.

In my own life, I've experienced things that defy any other explanation but that there is "something more" going on besides what I can perceive with my five physical senses -- and I've experienced enough of those things that I'm clear within myself that those things are "real" -- my need for proof is satisfied, and I accept completely that this may not be true for others.

I had to come to a place where I was satisfied that being queer was completely true, normal, and positive for me. I've also come to that place in terms of acceptance of my psychic skills as something that is true, normal, and positive for me. This comfort in my own skin has allowed me to let go of attempts to manage what others think of me, and that's a huge energy-saver.

I sometimes entertain fear when simple words start to turn to actions (as it recently did when someone dropped my profile into a comment thread elsewhere and my website suddenly sprouted derisive and demeaning comments on my other blog), but I try to remember that these, too, are only words -- unfortunately, words that require energy on my part to delete, but words nonetheless.

When that fear crops up, I remember that if I had lived my life making a real attempt to people's criticism or judgment, I would, right now, probably be married to some poor man who knew I didn't really love him, going to a church that I didn't really believe in, and doing a job that I hated. Which I believe would be a misery for all involved and make the world a crappier place.

So, yes, I'm a psychic -- a lesbian psychic at that, and proud of it.

I hope that answers your question.

Show Me Who You Are

2009-06-10T16:49:00.000-07:00

Once I was in a relationship with someone who essentially started out our relationship by lying to me and someone else.

She had "good reasons" for lying (or so she convinced me), and the original lie was fairly harmless (or so I convinced myself) -- partly a lie of omission, and partly a "white lie", ostensibly created to "protect" the other person. I justified it in my mind with "that other person is fragile", and I was not, so my girlfriend would never need to lie to me in the same way.

Which I think was stupid of me, really, and not a little arrogant, as well -- because I watched her telling lies (small and large) to other people over the course of three years, and thought that somehow, I was the Special One who she would not lie to. Oh, the Specialness of me!

When our relationship fell apart amidst a whirlwind of dishonesties and betrayal, someone who I think is very wise said two things to me which I have attempted to keep in mind ever since:

If you watch someone do something to someone else, or to many someone elses -- it is a virtual certainty that they will, one day, do the same thing to you, given the right circumstances.
When what people say and what people do don't match -- trust what they do, not what they say. People can tell you all sorts of stories about themselves, prop up personal mythologies with words -- but their actions will show you who they are.

I realized that this particular person had started showing me who she was from the beginning, with that "little", "benign" lie. She was a person who would lie to someone she said she cared about, if it got her what she wanted.

In truth, I believe that every day I did not confront her about that first lie (and all the others), I ratified by behavior an agreement that I would participate with her in falsehood.

That relationship taught me a lot, even though the lesson was hard-won.

Today, I witnessed a conversation in which several of participants admitted directly that they knew that what they were doing was probably "wrong", even in their own estimation -- but they kept on doing it.

I've run into this a lot in my tiny little town, where gossip is something of a municipal sport -- it usually starts with something like: "OK -- now, I know this is gossip, but . . . ". (This usually comes from someone who says that they hate gossip, by the way -- at least, they hate to be gossiped about.) There's something extra-special fucked-up about starting an activity with a statement that indicates that you already know that what you're about to do is fucked-up -- as if saying it somehow will absolve you from what you know is an intentional fuck-up.

I've been steadily weaning myself off of gossip in recent years. The first step was recognizing when I was engaging in it, which actually wasn't that hard. Note: I believe that there is a difference between talking about someone I know from a place of concern and care when they are not present, and gossiping about them.

The "Warning! You Are About to Gossip!" signs are pretty clear for me.

If I'm about to engage in gossip, I'll notice that I tend to lean in in a conspiratorial manner and lower my voice ever so slightly, even though the subject of my gossip is nowhere in the vicinity. One of the key checks I give myself in order to stop gossiping is to ask myself the question: "Would I say this if the person I'm about to talk about in this way were in the room?"

If the answer to that question is "No", I do my very best to rein myself in.

Lately, I've been getting very clear mirrors in the external world that reveal stuff about my own internal processes.

Today I got to see why I don't want to gossip -- because it breaks trust.

I got to witness a conversation where someone I once thought of as an ally said things about someone else who I have heard them say they claim is an ally -- things that I know they had not, and probably would never, say to that person directly -- at least, certainly, not in the way they were saying it in their absence. This wasn't just that sort of "I'm bored and here's something to fill my time" kind of gossip, either -- it was that awful "gloating over someone else's trouble" kind of gossip.

A little while later, I witnessed that person's interaction with the "someone else" in question, which seemed completely different in tone and word from the conversation I'd witnessed earlier, and I noticed that there was this little *click* that went off in my gut -- a queasiness that I couldn't quite define, yet which was unmistakably present.

I sat down to think about that, and I realized: I no longer trust that person.

This realization didn't feel at all personal or even judgmental -- just factual and real.

They were showing me who they are, and, unless I cling to some kind of illusion that I'm the Special One to whom they would never do such a thing, I have to assume that, given the right circumstance, they would do it to me in the future.

I felt sad, because I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt and assume that maybe they're just having a bad day when they do stuff like this -- but I can't deny that *click*, nor do I think it would be wise for me to ignore it.

For the past ten years, I've been working hard on a personal principle -- pledging not to say things about people behind their backs that I wouldn't say to their faces. It's a tough nut to crack sometimes, but it has vastly improved the quality of my internal environment and my external relationships.

I'm a pretty flexible person. I've worked out a lot of shit with friends and loved ones over the years, but one of the consistent deal-breakers for me in relationship has been what some people refer to as being two-faced. I have found it incredibly erosive to relationship (not to mention ineffective), both when I did it or when the other person did it.

I think that's what that *click* was -- a clear indicator that this person had shown me something that I absolutely do not want to be connected to. I want to be open, and trusting, and give people the benefit of the doubt, but I also want to be sensible about my expectations, and not ignore something that's right in front of me.

That click was some opening in me snapping shut, I suspect. I feel a bit sad about that, and a bit disappointed -- but I recognize that any expectation I had of the other person was my own -- they never agreed with me that they wouldn't do this, and obviously, they haven't agreed with themselves not to do it, either (which is probably the more important agreement in the end).

The good news is that I don't hammer myself anymore about having trusted them in the first place, which used to be my default. I wasn't stupid to give them the benefit of the doubt, or to risk disappointment -- and I'm glad that my internal self-care reflexes seem to be operating better than they used to be. I think that's a sign of health.

Obviously, I haven't kept up with my blog commitment (so, believe what I do, not what I say, right?) -- partly that has had to do with the stuff I talked about in my last post -- I've been dealing with a shitload of internal process. My blog may have been silent, but my mind and my life certainly hasn't been. Add a new roommate (which is a huge relief, as we've been carrying a large rent for nearly a year now with just the two of us), major events at a blog community that is near and dear to my heart, my upcoming birthday, taking on a new website-build, creating a short film for a non-profit I volunteer for (Yay, empowering kids!), and generally managing the accelerating energy of Summer -- and it's kind of a miracle that I'm finally posting at all.

That said, I suspect that the experience that I had today is somehow important to my next abuse-onion-peeling -- there's something about the whole "two-faced" thing that really pushes my buttons, and I suspect that it is tied up with the duplicity in the life of my perpetrator. I watched him present one way to the community we both lived in, and quite another way to me.

It's a miracle I trust anyone at all, really, when I think of that -- or that I can hope for a better world, and end this day, feeling my sadness and disappointed, but not feeling shattered by it.

I will celebrate that miracle.

Here We Go Again

2009-06-03T23:21:00.000-07:00

Recently, I've been revisiting a topic that I have spent, literally, thousands of hours and thousands of dollars dealing with -- my history of abuse.

I spent the better part of a decade dealing with nothing else. Over the course of the last 18 years, I somehow managed to transform myself from a blithering mess to a fairly functional being -- and there is nothing I would love more than to swish my palms together in that famous "dusting off" gesture and say: "Well, that's done!"

But it doesn't seem to work that way -- so far, at least.

For me, at least.

In the past few months, external circumstances and internal cues have signaled to me that it's time to take another look -- at ghosts I thought I'd vanquished, and scars I thought I'd healed.

When I started really working on my abuse shit, way back when, my greatest fear was that I was utterly and irrevocably "broken" -- that I would never and could never recover.

I didn't want to be the woman with the awful, dramatic history -- the terrible tale to tell. I didn't want to be a victim.

And I'm not.

I'm a survivor.

Still, each time I discover that there is another layer of this onion to peel, I go through some large or small ritual of resistance. Most recently, this arose when I, my Beloved, and a dear friend chose to do personal work together. We each chose an area of our lives that we knew we wanted to work on, and we did weekly check-ins and intention setting.

I chose the state of my relationship with my FOO (Family of Origin) -- especially with my parents. They are now in their mid-80's, and I in my mid-50's, and I know that they will not be around forever. I love them, and I know that they love me, but there are places in my relating with them that I know are not as deep as I would like them to be.

That's where the resistance came in. As my two compatriots checked in with verve and gusto on their chosen areas of focus, I found myself dragging my feet, making excuses, and bringing my energy to the assignments I'd given myself in a half-hearted, half-assed way.

That's when I began to suspect that that pesky onion was stinking up my psyche again.

Seriously, I've peeled more skins off that fucker than you can believe.

It's kinda funny though -- the closer I get to the core, the less traumatic each peeling seems to me. That's a hopeful thing.

And I think that's a big part of what's kept me from blogging. Part of what marks me as the "New Improved Portly Dyke -- Now More Functional!!" (in my mind, at least), is that my abuse history is no longer the central issue of my life every single day -- and I think that when peeling time comes around again, I get scared that it will subsume my life as it did 18 years ago.

But truth is, this is a huge part of what I've been thinking and feeling about internally.

I've been carrying on with my routine and doing what I do. From outside, you probably wouldn't notice much difference, but inside, I'm having tectonic plate shifts and long talks with myself, and it all feels intensely personal and important -- but there's also a lot of self-talk that says that no. one. on. earth. would. be. interested. in. hearing. about. this.

And I talk back to that voice and hint that maybe, just maybe, it might be very important to communicate my experience to the world. For me. For someone else.

So, when I said that I was going to just let you in on what's been going on in Cranium-Portly, this is what I'll be letting you in on.

I have no idea whether it will be worth reading. I have great hope that, at the very least, it will be worth writing.

It all kind of came to a head a couple of weeks ago, when I was talking to my Beloved about how much the whole torture thing was bothering me.

Regular readers here will know that I don't blog that much purely political stuff -- the reasons for this are complex and more than I want to go into in this post -- suffice it to say that I was really surprised at how politically-activated I felt when I regarded the torture issue.

I talked about this with my Beloved, because I have strong feelings about being pro-active and working towards things rather than against things, and I wanted to find a way to take action without going into "fighting against" mode. I wanted her advice about approaches and actions, and I wanted to understand why I was so activated about it.

She said: "Well, I'm not surprised that it would be intense for you, given your history."

And I was stunned. Stunned because I had not even considered that angle. It felt a little scary to me that I hadn't seen it, and at the same time, it seemed a mark of healing.

I am a survivor of abuse that would be described -- with no hyperbole involved -- as torture.

It seems impossible that I could fail to see how that connected for me with the issue of state-sponsored torture authorized and perpetrated by my government, but I did fail to see it until she said it out loud.

Therein lies the onion-skin I'm peeling now.

Is it a sign of dissociation that I didn't see it, or is it a sign of healthy objectivity that I didn't see it?

It doesn't matter what the answer is -- I only know that I am compelled to get to that answer.

I have to peel this onion.

In Good News Today -- Mr. Deity Shall Return!

2009-06-02T23:49:00.000-07:00

Some of you may know my love of Mr. Deity. You can imagine my relief at this announcement:

52 Years, 344 Days

2009-06-01T23:59:00.000-07:00

My birthday's coming up. On June 21st, I'll be 53.

This seems ridiculous to me, in some ways -- but only when I hold up whatever enculturated idea I have about what it means to be "53" against my internal and external experience.

I'm doing some stuff to mark the next 21 days for myself -- making some changes in my work and play that have been nagging at me for some time. I don't have a clear answer to the question -- "Why now?" -- I only know that now seems to be the time.

I've really struggled with blogging over the past couple of months (or more) -- I either seem to have too much to say, or too little. I've tried a number of strategies to get myself kick-started back into more frequent blogging, but obviously, they haven't worked.

I think that I've fallen into that dreadful pit of self-editing, and that some of the things that have been in the forefront of my consciousness have just seemed so intensely personal that I've hesitated to put them out into the blogosphere.

I'm going to use the excuse of just three more weeks left before my birthday to get the fuck over that.

So, my pledge to myself is to blog at least once a day between now and June 21st -- the first day of Summer -- the longest day of the year -- my natal anniversary.

I'm writing this down here, not because it is earth-shattering news, but just so I will do it -- funny how putting the words to paper can motivate me, and how powerfully that "outside witness" (you, the reader) can affect me.

In the past few months, I've been experiencing a personal transformation which has challenged every facility of language that I possess. There is no way that I can call it subtle -- my internal experience is of a gigantic, tectonic motion -- and although it does seem to connect to some of my external experiences, these seem mere metaphors of what is happening within me.

So, I'm going to summon my guts and glory and attempt to write honestly about my internal reality.

It isn't simple. It isn't always comfortable -- but I think that I haven't been blogging because I haven't been willing to share the complexity of that internal process -- and if I'm not willing to share that, why blog at all?

Strap yourselves in. You're going to get (at least) 21 days of "What's Going On Inside Portly Dyke's Head".

If You Want to Sit Cross-legged

2009-05-31T14:53:00.000-07:00

and drink a bunch of beer in the sun on Saturday afternoon --- ?

You might want to remember that your ancestors were Scandinavian.

Jus' sayin'

A Letter For Those Who are Triggered

2009-05-28T09:35:00.000-07:00

Today, I was participating in a thread about the photos from Abu Ghraib that show graphic images of rape and sexual assault. Several commenters said that they simply felt too triggered by the issue to write a letter about it. I understand this completely, and I volunteered to write a generic draft letter that they could use.

Here it is:

Dear [Name]:

I am writing to ask you to do whatever is in your power to bring about impartial, thorough investigation into torture and abuse of prisoners by the US government. As a signatory to the UN Convention Against Torture, our government has agreed to such investigations whenever there is reasonable suspicion that torture has been perpetrated by, or at the command of, any official of our government.

In specific, these are the areas that I believe must be investigated:

Any and all connections between White House level policies regarding so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques" (torture) and the part that such policies played in abuses that were carried out by soldiers and contractors at such places as Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay.
Why did the Bush administration proceed with authorizing and carrying out acts that, according to their own legal advisors (documented in the footnotes of a memo dated 5/10/05 - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/16/bush-memo-footnotes-defin_n_188008.html) were torture?
Why were contractors carrying out such torture allowed to exceed even the administration's own questionable guidelines for these techniques, without being investigated and brought up on charges of torture? Did the Bush administration neglect their duty and/or commit obstruction of justice in this matter?
Were contractors who were authorized by Bush administration memos to carry out torture involved in training soldiers, interrogators, and contractors at Abu Ghraib?
Have victims of torture (some of whom, in Abu Ghraib, were raped and sexually assualted) been allowed the opportunity to seek redress as agreed in Article 14 of the Convention Against Torture? Has a legal system to assure fair and adequate compensation to these victims been established by the US in accordance with the Convention?
Have all those who have broken the laws of these United States, and international agreements, been brought to justice?

At this time, I believe that the United States government is in violation of its own laws and international agreements, by virture of neglecting/refusing to thoroughly and impartially investigate these matters.

I request that you uphold your oath to protect and defend our Constitution by doing all in your power to bring investigation into abuses and torture authorized and carried out by officials and agents of the United States.

Sincerely,
=======================
PS -- If you want to "sign on" to this, leave your real name and address in comments (or email it to me, stating clearly that you are authorizing me to add your name/address to the letter) and I will include your name on my hard-copy to President Obama.

My Weekly Torture Letter

2009-05-27T10:09:00.000-07:00

As promised last week, I will be posting my weekly letters to my Congressfolk, President Obama, and the United Nations. Here are this week's letters (feel free to copy and paste in your own missives, and strap yourselves in -- I will be posting every week until something gives).

To my Senators and House Reps (you can find all your congressfolk's information HERE):
====================
Sent to Patty Murray, Maria Cantwell, and Norm Dicks.

Dear [name]:

I have voted for you in every election since I moved to Washington State in 2000.

I am writing to ask you – to plead with you – to do everything you can to push for investigation of the torture of human beings authorized by, and implemented under, the Bush/Cheney administration.

I am 52 years old. I’ve lived through assassinations and wars, Watergate and Iran Contra, recessions and bubbles burst, and if you had told me there would come a day when my federal government would authorize torture in violation of its own laws and international treaty, and then neglect to investigate it, I would not have believed you.

I find it incredibly disheartening that this letter even needs to be written, but write it, I shall.

I have heard the rhetoric about wanting to move forward rather than look back, but it rings hollow to me – the mandate that the people of these United States sent in electing President Obama and a Democratic Party majority in the Congress was a clear cry for change. Even Republican officials have distanced themselves from the disastrous policies implemented by the Bush/Cheney administration – policies that have left our nation physically, financially, and morally bankrupt.

When you’ve been through a horrible battle and it’s clear that one of the principal players in your contingent has been dreadfully wounded, you do not just march on. You stop, examine their wounds, and tend to them.

In my opinion, the other wounds to our Constitution (wire-tapping, undeclared wars instigated on the basis of faulty intelligence, etc.) -- themselves no small injuries -- pale in comparison to the authorization of State-sponsored torture.

If we can stand by while people are tortured by our government, if we can know that such a thing occurred, and refuse to even investigate it, I believe that we are not a nation which has established Justice, or secured the Blessings of Liberty -- and with every report released about how the actions of the previous administration has served as a recruitment tool for those who wish to commit violence against the US and its citizens, it becomes clearer and clearer that, far from insuring domestic Tranquility and providing for the common defence, the use of torture has put both our physical safety and international standing at risk.

I will not stand by silently as my government violates law, treaty, the principles of its own Constitution, and basic human rights.

I will be writing to your office every week until investigations into torture are initiated by our federal government – even if this takes years or decades. I will speak to others and encourage them to do the same. I will blog about it and email about it. I will send letters to the United Nations asking them to enforce the Convention Against Torture, to which my country is a signatory, and in which, we have agreed to investigate these matters.

I believe that you know, deep in your heart, that we must investigate these matters, if we are to be who we say we are – a nation committed to justice, democracy, and freedom. I will speak to you, again and again, as an echo of that knowing, and I will support you, and call for others to support you, when you take action on that knowing.

I implore you, as a constituent and a fellow US citizen, to do everything you can to initiate immediate investigations of torture perpetrated by the United States government during the Bush/Cheney administration.

Sincerely,
[PortlyDyke]

===================
Same to President Obama, with a few changes (highlighted in blue):

Dear President Obama:

I voted for you, primarily because I recognized that my country was in need of transformation, and I believed that you were earnest in your promise to protect and defend our Constitution.

I am writing to ask you . . . . .
. . . . ., but write it, I shall.

I have heard in your speeches that you have a desire move forward rather than look back, but it rings hollow to me . . . . (all remaining the same).

=================
Finally, to the United Nations:

His Excellency Ban Ki-Moon
Secretary-General of the United Nations
New York, New York 10017

Dear Secretary-General,

I am a United States citizen, appealing to you to enforce the articles of the UN Convention Against Torture in the matter of torture perpetrated under the presidential administration of George W. Bush.

I had hoped that, with a new president leading our nation, my country would at last be brought back into compliance with the Convention, but as of this date, no investigative action has been initiated by my government, even though the Convention clearly states that States who agree to the Convention are required to begin prompt and impartial investigation whenever there is a reasonable suspicion that torture has been performed.

It is clear now that such suspicion not only exists, but that a majority of United States citizens believe that torture has been performed on prisoners interrogated by our government. Even if these citizens believe that this torture was somehow justified, as officials of the Bush administration have claimed, the articles of the Convention are clear – war, threat of war, political instability or any emergency is not a justification for torture.

I believe that the UN must take action, since it seems apparent at this point that the President and Congress are not hastening toward the prompt and impartial investigations which they have agreed to perform.

I believe that my government is in violation of both its own laws and its international agreements.

I implore you to make good on the Articles of the Convention Against Torture.

Here's hoping it does some good.

Blotter Blogger -- May 22, 2009

2009-05-21T09:17:00.000-07:00

By request, I'm back with more from my local police/sheriff's blotter.

I'm sensing some patterns this week, and I've been wondering if the blotter has been thematic -- perhaps even prognosticatory -- all along.

Diving right in, then -- Perusing the top story this week (with exciting! photo), I'm concerned that my idyllic-paradise of a town may be sliding into a Cautionary Tale Vortex:

House destroyed in fire set by children playing with matches.

Digging deeper into blotter, I found further signs of CTV slippage:

Two women drove to a health club on Washington on May 16 and left a 1998 GMC pickup truck unlocked with the keys in the center console. Someone drove the truck to an uptown location and stole a duffel bag containing medications and other items.

A person reported leaving a wallet in a bathroom at a park-and-ride lot May 6, and the wallet was stolen.

Moving on from my ponderings about whether a wallet can be stolen if you leave it in a public bathroom, I was somewhat mollified by the burglary reports, which seemed to indicate that the status quo was being maintained:

Candy was taken May 2 from a Port Townsend home that was burglarized.

Police believe that an intoxicated person tried to enter an occupied room at a motel in the 1800 block of Water on May 10. An investigation found that someone broke into another room and apparently made a cup of coffee and left.

Casual-use burglary is a proud tradition in my little town. A couple of years ago, we had the Sandwich Burglar, who would break into people's houses, fix themselves a sandwich, and leave. These burglaries might have been nominated as "Perfect Crime" material, had the perpetrator's mother only taught them to rinse the mayo knife and crumb the counter. If you come to visit, lock up your bologna -- the Sandwich Burglar remains at large.

Just as I was relaxing a bit, thinking the CTV alert was a false-alarm, I noticed that the County Sheriff's office had apparently been issued an overabundance of "scare quotes", and had opted to discharge some of the surplus in this week's blotter:

A deputy contacted a marina manager to advise him that it was legal to shoot off a small cannon in the marina, which is within a "no shooting" zone, provided the cannon didn't fire a "projectile."

A deputy was asked to check on an "unruly, intoxicated female" who had been "ejected from an aid car" near Port Townsend on May 4. Port Townsend police officers apparently took her to Jefferson Healthcare Hospital so she could be with her husband.

(As an aside: You can't imagine how satisfying it is to place the words "scare quotes" inside "scare quotes". Really. You can't.)

I searched for more evidence to support my CTV hypothesis, but alas, the blotter revealed no more clues to unlock the code. Yet, as it returned to it's usual "An off-duty officer found a belt with geological tools near Blue Heron Middle School on May 13. The owner can claim the tools at the police department" and "A bobcat was chased from the Chimacum High School property May 2", I couldn't help feeling that perhaps I'd stumbled upon hint of some esoteric truth -- and I'll be watching my blotter more closely in the future. The lottery numbers are probably in there somewhere.

Blotter Blogger Parts One and Two at my home blog

Why We Must Investigate Torture

2009-05-19T13:49:00.000-07:00

Part of the reason that I haven’t been blogging is that I’ve felt a bit soul-sick lately.

I know that this is almost certainly not the first time that my government has actually tortured people. It is, however, the first time that my government has done so publicly, accompanied it with brazen justifications – and not a damn thing has been done about it.

I’ve been kind of stunned since it began (seven fucking years ago!), to be perfectly honest. I’ve felt helpless and hopeless at points. It has triggered a lot of things in me (as a survivor of torture), and I’ve wrestled with how to take action in a manner that is not “fighting” anything (I’m a firm believer that “Fighting for Peace is like Fucking for Virginity”).

Oh sure -- I sent letters to my congress-critters way back when -- I had hopes that the new administration would actually do something -- but I’ve come to a point now where I simply cannot refrain from moving into determined and sustained action on this issue. I must know that I have done all that I can to help create the world I want to live in.

So, this post is my first step. It presents the reasons I believe that we absolutely must investigate, and an invitation -- because I want you to join me (action item at the bottom of the post).

As a citizen of the United States, I consider myself a “cell” in the body of this nation – a nation that I believe is very ill at this point. If I am to help my nation heal, I have to become an active agent in its healing. So, here are (some of) the reasons I believe that we must investigate Torture:

Reason #1 – Because There is a Festering Wound in My Nation’s Heart

The argument that we should just “move on” and “look forward”, ignoring the human rights violations of the Bush administration, would be fine and dandy – if it had ever actually worked.

Think about your own life. Have you ever really been able to just "move on" from an act of intentional harm that you perpetrated -- an act that you knew was wrong, either when you did it or after?

These are the acts poison the soul and haunt the psyche, until they are faced and investigated and understood – they are the acts that recovering alcoholics reveal in their Fourth Step, so that they can unshackle themselves from their past – they are the acts that people bring to the confessional and the psychiatrist and the terrifying moment coming clean with the beloved, hoping that love and connection will not be annihilated by the revelation.

They are the acts we are doomed to repeat, if we do not come to understanding of them. They form the dysfunctional patterns that swirl our lives into chaos and drama, if left unexamined -- no matter how much we’d like to pretend that we’ve “moved on”.

Think about the act of physical healing – the tiniest splinter, left untended, either poisons you or festers out, and no disease can be truly resolved until the underlying cause is addressed. You go to the physician, and together, you investigate your symptoms – nothing is treatable until it’s diagnosed, and in order to arrive at a diagnosis and any hope of treatment, you have to tell the doctor the truth, and the doctor has to tell you the truth.

And this is much more than an illicit affair, or a drunken disaster. This is much more than a splinter.

If any individual you knew told you that they had performed the same acts that the Bush administration sanctioned – would you shrug your shoulders and say: “Well, that’s in the past -- let’s just move on”?

I know that my country harbors many forms of "disease" in parts of its body – racism, sexism, xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia, classism, religious intolerance, greed – the symptoms of which have been sometimes chronic and sometimes acute -- but we have pretty much always at least claimed to be seeking a cure.

Even as a person facing a number of these oppressions, I've held on to the hope that that claim was genuine. Through assassinations and wars of invasion, through Watergate and Iran-Contra, I have stubbornly believed that the United States could one day fully manifest as the healthy body implied in the purity of this embryonic phrase: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal . . . . ".

The national identity that most US citizens have clung to – the myth of our role as defenders of freedom and paragons of democracy – has been steadily eroding for years now, as leaders of our nation tiptoed up to, and then stepped over, the slippery slope of these oppressions. Descending into State-sponsored, State-justified torture means, to me, that we are approaching the awful bottom of that slippery slope.

Go ahead -- say it, out loud, that way -- State-Sponsored Torture.

I think we need to say this out loud to ourselves, and to hear it broadcast from our televisions, and blared from the floor of Congress, so that we can face reality -- the diagnosis is in, and we're sicker than we thought.

There is a festering wound in the heart of my country -- and that’s a dangerous place for deep infection – very dangerous indeed.

Reason #2 – Because There Is an Enormous Log In My Nation’s Eye

When you criticize your neighbor for doing despicable things, and then invade their home under the pretense of getting them to stop doing said despicable things, and in the process, do similarly despicable things – you look like an arrogant, hypocritical, disingenuous asshole.

Depending on your despicable acts, you may also look like a criminal arrogant, hypocritical, disingenuous asshole.

Even if you get away with it and no one turns you in, everyone in your neighborhood who heard you bitching earlier is going to know, and they are going to see right through your claims of moral superiority and righteous intention and ending tyranny and blah, blah, blah.

Until the United States cleans its own house, the entire world will rightfully suspect us of being exactly what we are being: Arrogant, hypocritical, lying assholes. A nation that doesn’t believe in its own Constitution or laws. A nation that is, at once, meddling busy-body and bossy, obnoxious teenager, throwing its weight around and refusing to take responsibility for its actions -- with a penchant for torture.

Finally, and perhaps most pragmatically, there is this reason to investigate:

Reason #3: Because We Said We Would, and then We Said We Would Again

The UN Convention Against Torture was signed by President Reagan in 1988, and ratified again in 1994. The United States has not withdrawn from the Convention, and is still bound by it. The Convention says, among other things, that:

"“torture" means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity.”

But . . . But, Waterboarding isn’t torture!!!

Doesn’t matter. The arguments that waterboarding is not torture, specious as they are, make no difference, because the Convention goes on to say:

“Each State Party shall undertake to prevent in any territory under its jurisdiction other acts of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment which do not amount to torture as defined in article I, when such acts are committed by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. In particular, the obligations contained in articles 10, 11, 12 and 13 shall apply with the substitution for references to torture of references to other forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment."

But . . . But . . . Ticking TimeBomb!!!!

Doesn’t matter.

“No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political in stability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture."

But . . . But . . . . I was ordered to do it!!!!

Doesn’t matter.

“An order from a superior officer or a public authority may not be invoked as a justification of torture.”

We just want to move on.

Well, poor us -- too bad. If we are to honor our agreements as a nation, we must investigate – because we say we will.

"Each State Party shall ensure that its competent authorities proceed to a prompt and impartial investigation, wherever there is reasonable ground to believe that an act of torture has been committed in any territory under its jurisdiction."

I won’t even go into the clauses that state that we will give victims of torture the right to redress and adequate compensation.

Suffice it to say that it is completely clear, even if an investigation was made and the acts committed under the Bush administration were found, by the entire world, not to be torture (and pigs could fly)– the United States – my country – WE – have an obligation to investigate -- promptly and impartially.

I believe that my government is currently in violation of its own laws and international treaties.

====================

So, here is my invitation to action.

Beginning this week, and continuing every week until an investigation is underway, I will write a letter to my congressional representatives, President Obama’s office, and the United Nations.

I will request from my reps that they push for investigations with every ounce of their strength. I will tell them that, if they do not, I will not vote for them again.

I will request from President Obama that he order investigations. I will tell him that, if he does not, I will not vote for him again.

I will request from the United Nations that they hold my nation accountable to the UN Convention. I will request this as a citizen of a country which I believe is currently in violation of both its own laws and its international treaties.

I will invite everyone I know to do the same.

If you'd like to join me, I'm glad to share my letters with you. I'll be publishing them at Teh Portly Dyke, as well.

Comedy TONIGHT!

2009-05-10T18:14:00.001-07:00

OK -- Scroll down to the next post to view the broadcast -- I'll be starting the broadcast at about 6:50 -- you may have to refresh the page to get the password box to come up. Password is: TehFunny

See you soon! (Gad my palms are sweaty!)

Check Out "Sit Down Comedy" on Sunday, May 10th

2009-05-09T18:05:00.000-07:00

Hey everybody! Woo-Hoo! Ever since I started releasing those old standup routines of mine on youtube, I've been thinking about exercising my comedy muscles again -- so . . . . . . .

I'm doing my first-ever "Sit Down Comedy" broadcast on ustream this Sunday (tomorrow - 5/10/09) at 7 pm. You can watch it RIGHT HERE at my blog (scroll down)! Just visit Teh Portly Dyke at 7 pm Pacific time (8 pm Mountain, 9 pm Central, 10 pm Eastern) on Sunday, 5/10/09 -- I'll be broadcasting live via Ustream fer shits and giggles. (Show up a little early -- I'll be warming up the crowd.)

If you want to be able to heckle me (via chat) while I'm being Teh Funny, you'll need to tune in at my home website or at my ustream channel page, where a chat widget is available (yes, it's a funky chat widget, but hey, it's free).

No matter where you view my sit-down comedy, you'll need this password to see the broadcast: TehFunny (case sensitive). (You won't need this password until I actually start broadcasting tomorrow night, when a password box will pop up on the screen below)

I hope that you'll join me -- and may I repeat: WooHooo!!!!

Free TV : UstreamYes! ^^^^ Right up there^^^^ I WILL be TehFunny! (7 pm PST 5/10/09)

If the ads bug you, just click their close box -- I have no control over the ads, because the service is free and that's how Ustream makes its money. I will attempt to mock them appropriately where appropriate.

Like Teh Funny? Tip me!

Moar Blotter

2009-05-07T11:00:00.000-07:00

OK -- So, longer-time readers of my blog may remember my penchant for the police and sheriff's blotters in my hometown newspaper (if you have no idea what I'm talking about, please read this post).

Last week, I was talking to a friend on the phone and we fell into the inevitable "reading each other things hysterically funny things from our respective hometown newspapers" thing -- so I thought I'd share some of the recent Police and Sheriff's blotters entries with you (because they're just too good to keep to myself). Please note -- the blotter entries are verbatim. My comments in italics.

Sunglasses, a flashlight and other items were stolen from an unlocked 1996 Geo Metro in the 500 block of 22nd on April 27. (Poor thing -- probably left the Metro unlocked hoping that someone would steal the CAR.)

A 41-year-old man called police to report that his 47-year-old live-in girlfriend was "running her mouth" on April 27. Police made a report of the verbal dispute. (No comment, lest my Beloved turn me in for "running my mouth".)

A 44-year-old Port Hadlock woman and her 20-year-old son got into an argument about who would pay for the gas related to a landscaping job they were doing in the 1500 block of Lawrence on April 29. Police took a report.

A Hadlock woman called to compaint about her 15-year old daughter not behaving on Jan. 18. She called back before a deputy arrived and said to disregard her issue.

(RE: The two entries above -- please refer to my first blotter post, which contains one of my favorite blotter entries ever -- the woman who called 911 to report that "her relatives were annoying her" -- I will simply repeat: REALLY?!? You can call 911 for these things? Who Knew?)

On the night of April 29, a 23-year-old transient woman said she was robbed of $40 in the parking lot of an apartment building on Gaines. Police and a witness were unable to locate the suspect. At 3:40 a.m. the next day, police were called back to the same building, where a resident complained that the woman, who used to live there, was keeping people up by using the laundry equipment. (Because, apparently, reporting these two things in the same entry maintains Cosmic Balance -- since we all know that transient-being-robbed is offset and utterly neutralized by transcient-keeping-people-up-by-using-the-laundry-equipment.)

A 53-year-old man parked his 2003 Chevy truck in front of a food vendor in the 2400 block of Washington at noon on April 30 to have lunch at a nearby restaurant. The food vendor asked him not to park there, police said, but he declined the suggestion. When he returned, he found a chunk of asphalt on top of his truck with a note telling him not to park there. Police are investigating. (This entry drives me to distraction -- was the chunk of asphalt wrapped in the note? Was the note held down by the asphalt so that it wouldn't blow away? Inquiring minds need to know.)

OK -- the next three are filed under -- zuh??

A 27-year-old man reported that a painting he had on display in a Water Street coffee house was stolen May 3, but it might have been a misunderstanding, police said.

A pistol was found at Snow Creek and turned over to authorities April 26. It had not been stolen.

A Quilcene woman returned home April 29 from a vacation and found her house in disarray. She determined a relative was responsible and declined to pursue charges.

(And on that last one -- So, not only can I call 911 when my relatives annoy me, but also when my house is in disarray?)

Meth was said to be a problem in Hadlock on April 24, a woman told deputies. (Well, I should say so.)

Carpentry tools and power tools were reported taken from a weekend cabin back in February. (Reported in the May 5 paper, but apparently, the blotter was so thin this week that we needed to include a three-month old report. Maybe someone complained. "Hey! I didn't see my report in the blotter three months ago! Unfair! 15 minutes! I was told 15 Minutes of Fame in the brochure!")

A Hadlock woman said a truck turned a corner April 25 and a sheet of glass flew off and broke into the roadway on First Street. The woman said she swept the glass off the roadway and the owner denied losing anything from the vehicle, but a half hour later the woman flipped off the driver, and that caused a brief argument to ensue requiring deputy patrols. (I love my little town, where professional police reporting includes the phrase "flipped off the driver".)

A dead raccoon was found March 30 in a trap left in the woods at Middlepoint and McCurdy Point Road. (When I read this to my friend, all I had to do was clear my throat, indicating a new entry, and speak the words "A Dead Raccoon" to induce rflmao.)

A prowler was said to be outside a home in Ludlow on April 5 and making coyote noises. A deputy saw no sign of a prowler. (It probably _was_ a coyote (or a dog who was part coyote -- heh-heh).

Tips and the jar they were in were stolen April 6 from an espresso stand in Discovery Bay. (As my friend said: "When they find the $33 in small bills and change on grandad's dresser top, they'll be like -- 'Well phew! At least we know he didn't steal it -- because he doesn't have the jar'.")

A tie was found burnt in the middle of North Jacob Miller Road on April 9. There were no other signs of a fire or problems in the area. This is definitely in the top ten for my all-time favs, but read below to see why I don't think it may not make the final cut. Even though it's probably not the Best Blotter Entry EVAH, it does have a very nice Twin Peaks-ish ambience going on there.

Now -- Drum Roll, Please! My current front-runner for Best Blotter Entry EVAH (though surely it may be knocked off its pedestal as the saga of my little town unfolds) is:

A woman said two Mormons came to her door Jan. 21, and she was concerned that they might not be real Mormons.

I heart my tiny little town with an unrivaled fury.

My Blog Has Fallen and It Can't Get Up

2009-05-06T22:41:00.000-07:00

I honest to fuck don't know what it is -- I just don't seem to be able to blog lately.

It's not for want of ideas and notions and things to say -- in fact I'd say it was the opposite -- there is a constant swirl in my head -- a cacophony of concepts that vie endlessly for blog-space.

Perhaps I'm just too egalitarian for my own good. I can't decide which one should go first.

So I'm blogging tonight in the hope of blasting out whatever clog is in the pipes.

I haven't even been able to comment much at my favorite blogs -- every time I start typing something, I think: "This is of no pertinence or interest to anyone", and as often as not, I simply scrap the whole thing.

It's true -- I really have been focused elsewhere -- working, gathering myself, trying to think what direction I want to go next. I've been pondering big issues like Life and Death, and who I am now, and who I've been in the past, and who I might want to become in the future.

Here's hoping this post is some magic wand that gets me back blogging.

Little -- The Reacher Creature

2009-04-06T15:36:00.000-07:00

This morning, at 3:52 am, our Little Petunia crossed the Rainbow Bridge.

From Little

She was a cat of many names -- most usually, just "Little" -- but also -- "Pinky/Pinks" (because OMG that nose!), "Reacher Creature" (because she had the most endearing habit of reaching out for you with one or both paws -- as you passed by, as you sat too far from her on the bed -- oh, just any time!), and of course, "Sweet Little Petunia".

She had white ballerina slippers in the front and white Nancy Sinatra hip-boots in the back.

In certain light, her eyeliner rivaled any goth-queen's (or Richard Alpert's).

She was a tuxedo cat (actually, maybe a grey-morning-suit kitty), who also had tabby stripes in her undercoat that only showed in Summer (so you could gauge the seasons by her).

She was small until middle age (like me), and she loved for you to comment on how diminutive she was -- if you said things like "Where is Little? I need a microscope to find her!" or "Who's the tiniest cat of all?", she would purr and reach and purr some more.

She walked out of 58 acres of forest to me, all skin and bones and well-honed mouser sensibility. She weathered my many moves without a mew of complaint -- happy to just be with me, exploring our new digs with curiosity and the good sense to be in by nightfall in coyote country.

She kept me on the planet, many times, during the years that I was remembering and healing my abuse -- because there were times when she was the only living being I felt accountable to -- she was my family -- and as much as I despaired sometimes, and wished myself gone, I wouldn't leave her on her own.

Her passing was graceful and swift. Her breathing was suddenly rough and difficult yesterday, and by 4 am today, she was gone. We buried her under the pine tree, on the first really Spring-like morning we've had.

May she frolic with endlessly-entertaining mice who don't mind being caught, amidst acres of catnip.

I cross-posted this at Shakesville, but for my regular readers here, I'll add a bit more:

I feel sad, but not heart-broken, and I found myself marveling and impressed by how she slipped out of her body -- without drama, but with frank expression of herself -- that's the death I would want for myself.

Another thing that happened today is that I received my bankruptcy discharge in the mail -- so it feels like a time of beginnings and endings, and all in all, I feel a bit altered and strange as I pass through this day. Everything is the same. Everything is different.

Cousin George -- Or -- My Rather Copious Thoughts On Death

2009-04-01T22:23:00.000-07:00

Last week, my cousin George died.
He was just three years older than me.
It was unexpected.
My Mom and Dad phoned to give me the news.

When Mom started with the opener that usually prefaces reports of the passing of 90+ year-old grand-uncles/aunts -- "We're calling with some sad news . . . . ", I didn't suspect, even a little, that it would be George.

George -- the kidder, the scamp, the guy who shared my first joint with me.

George, who I hadn't laid eyes on for 15 years.

George, who I can't say that I really knew, but with whom I clearly acknowledge a connection -- because he was: Family.

No matter that the word "family" is vague and serious and confusing and real and raw and muted and cloudy in my head. No matter that I hadn't actually known him, in my definition of knowing . . . . he was still that: Family.

As always, Death has evoked contemplation of Life for me.

I've spent the last week pondering myself into George's place -- into the places of my aunt and uncle, and my parents, and other cousins, and my siblings, and George's widow -- thinking about what legacy I would want acknowledged by those who might survive me (and how that may or may not match up with the legacy I've actually created).

I've thought about these particular words that are used in obituaries: "S/he is survived by . . . . ", and how I would want those who "survived" me to think and feel and act around my inevitable passage from this mortal coil -- all the while knowing that I have absolutely no control over their thoughts, feelings, or actions.

I sometimes think that the way I think about death is unusual, compared to most people -- but honestly, I sometimes wonder if my attitudes about the "final passage" really are all that peculiar.

I mean, there are the ways that we are culturally trained to think/speak/act about death -- the expressions and deeds that we bring to the deathbed and the funeral home and the graveyard -- and then there are the private, internal cogitations we all go through when considering death in general or our own passing in particular -- and it seems to me that those things don't always match.

Take me, for instance -- for myself, I am:

A) Not afraid to die.

No, really. The fear of death left me a long time ago. When I think about dying, the stuff that worries me is not the dying part itself, or being dead -- it's more fear of pain/discomfort in the process, or worry about the pain that people I care about might experience.

B) I don't see death as necessarily "tragic" -- especially not my own.

I feel sad sometimes, missing people who I can no longer hug in their physical bodies or kiss on their physical cheeks, and I feel sad when I think about the sadness of others who are dealing with their sense of loss, or shock at the sudden absence of someone who had been previously present with them, but I don't really feel sad for the dead person.

I know some of the things that formed these attitudes in me.

For example -- being seriously suicidally-ideated for more than half a decade will take a certain punch out of the whole death thing for you.

I mean, if you've spent five years genuinely wishing that a random semi-truck jack-knife or a freak mudslide or a statistically-improbable flash flood would "take you out" and relieve you of having to decide on the messy business of ending your own life -- it starts to look really disingenuous for you to carry on about how awful death is -- know what I mean?

I've found myself in a quandary in the last week, because I harbor a belief that people in my family would not want to have a discussion with me that included my real attitudes about death and dying.

You know who I've found do want to have those discussions, though?

People who are in the process of dying.

With an amazing consistency, the most real conversations I've had about the subject of death have been with the experts -- people who are "dying".

Ironically (or maybe not), these "dying" people have also consistently been the most present and truly "alive" people that I've ever interacted with

I've been up close with the dying and the dead more than most people in our culture, I suppose.

I worked with fragile elders for a decade, and lost dozens of friends to AIDS in the 80s. I've been the one who found the body. I've been the one who watched and waited at the bedside. I've been awakened in the middle of the night by the shocking phone call, and I've received the news days or weeks later from someone who was too stunned to call me sooner.

And every single time, the death of someone else puts me in mind of the fact that I am alive (which I just somehow magically seem to forget so many days).

Thinking of how they affected me -- what I remember of them, and what I carry forward from our time together -- reminds me that I am affecting someone, and that they will carry forward something of me.

My last big close-up death experience was with a friend who was "too young to die" -- but who died nonetheless.

The experience of sitting with her during her last three days in physical form changed my entire existence. Honestly, I've never been able to find words adequate to the task of describing how profoundly her passing affected me -- in a very, very good way.

Sometimes, I feel weird saying that -- because it seems unfair that she (who wanted so much to live) should die and I (who wanted so much to die) should live -- but it is undeniable that her death was a life-changing catalyst for me.

It transformed me so deeply and irrevocably that, for me, this was her legacy -- and it doesn't matter to me whether this was Fate, or Karma, or Dharma, or Soul Agreement, or Serendipity -- no philosphical box I could shove it into would change the fact that I was changed.

And if it were me passing out of body into whatever awaits us (even nothingness, if that's what might await), I would gladly take the life-change-for-infinite-betterment of one person as an absolutely acceptable legacy.

So thank you, George, for your life and your death. Thank you for that first toke, and for always being one of the family that I didn't really "worry" about finding out that I was queer. Thank you for the presence you were with me, and for helping me to think and feel more about the concept of "Family", which has been on my homework list for the past few months, even though I've been resisting/procrastinating on it -- thank you for kicking my ass with the Death Hammer, and pointing me back to my Life.

A Very John Waters Bankruptcy Hearing

2009-03-04T01:57:00.000-08:00

As some of you may already know, I was recently distracted by a 65-page document.

It's not something most people want to talk about (their bankruptcy) -- but I simply cannot continue to think of myself as a truly sharing person if I refrain from regaling you with the following tale (every word of which I swear to Ceiling Cat is completely true and wholly unexaggerated) -- because the story is simply too quirky to keep to myself.

Shamelessly Truncated Backstory: Filed for personal bankruptcy. Received summons to "341 meeting" -- aka "meeting of creditors".

So, yeah, I was nervous.

Not nervous in the "I'm hiding something" way -- more in the "I realize that the trustee may be a raging homophobe, or be having a really bad day, or I might look just like his horrible ex-" kind of way. (Because -- yes, servants of the court are supposed to keep that shit out of it, but sometimes, they don't.)

I was that kind of nervous.

Now, I live in a tiny little town, so there was a bit of driving involved in order to get to my 341 meeting, which was to be held in the municipality that I shall simply call BigBoxStoreO'Ville (or, as it is referred to locally: BigBoxO'Hell -- the town that you go to if you want anything from Home Depot, Staples, or Petco, etc. -- but the town that you don't go to at all, if you can help it).

So, with the drive, I had an extra hour and and 15 minutes to feel that nervousness.

Two stalwart companions accompanied me. One of them drove while I checked and rechecked the Mapquest directions in the jump-seat of her truck. (I know, I know -- this doesn't sound so awfully quirky yet, but be patient -- it gets better.)

Five years earlier, I had accompanied a friend to her 341 meeting at the courthouse in downtown BigBoxOVille, so I thought I knew what to expect -- a tiny, run-down courtroom, clerks and attorneys and clients lingering in the hallways -- however, when I checked Mapquest against the address in my meeting notice, it didn't look like this was the same location that I remembered, but rather, some other place called: Gateway Center.

I knew that BigBoxOVille had been doing a lot of downtown renovation, so I imagined "Gateway Center" as some kind of chromy/glassy edifice -- a bustling hub of civic offices and civil servants -- all sexy-whole-foods-indirect-lighting and spacious entryways, with busy receptionists residing cooly behind sleek corian counters.

Which vision hadn't exactly made me less nervous.

There had been something tired but friendly about the old courthouse where I had sat with my friend in her hour of need -- a dumpy, frayed-around-the-edges feeling that carried a reminder that people in their thousands had passed through this place -- winning cases and losing them, being found innocent and guilty, being arrested and posting bail, marrying and divorcing -- it put the proceeding my friend was about to endure into some kind of perspective for me. Nothing new under the sun, and all that.

Imagine my surprise when, as we drew closer to our destination, I called out the address to my friend once more and she said:

"Huh? Well, then . . . this is it. We're here."

And here was . . . . ? A strip mall.

Not just any strip mall, either -- this was one of those tiny, sad strip malls from the 80s -- there were six spaces on the mall sign at the edge of the parking lot, but only four of them containing signage (and it turned out that two of the businesses listed were no longer in operation).

As we pulled into the parking lot, I felt a rush of relief.

I believe that what came out of my mouth was: "A strip mall? A fucking strip mall? A fucking dying strip mall?!?! Wow. If they don't have any more respect for themselves than this, what am I being all nervous about?"

Let me paint the scene: Dingy. Dismal. Shabby. Dinky. ("Not a nice place you have here, Joe.")

Two spaces were occupied at one end, and then a series of echoing, empty, glass-fronted caverns stretched to the other, presumably once occupied by entrepreneurs who, in their haste to depart, hadn't even bothered to retrieve their signage.

I scanned the markers above each door for "Suite D". There it was -- but it, too, was empty. (Turns out the Bankruptcy court met next door to Suite D -- more on this in a bit).

The two enterprises carrying on discernable trade in the mall were: 1) A rather cute coffee-shop/deli, and 2) A Dollar Store, prominently festooned with signs saying: "CASH ONLY!" and "NO Checks" and "Credit Cards Not Accepted".

Which just seemed so . . . . perfectly perfect. My relief deepened.

Being a believer in all things woo-woo, my compatriots and I had been affirming all the way to BigBoxOVille that today, we would navigate to the "Utopian Version" of Bankruptcy court. We declared that we would experience the day as affirming and uplifting and educational and expansive.

It was starting out well, I had to admit. The setting alone had stimulated my sense of humor.

Since I had insisted on arriving an hour before the actual meeting time (I have similar tight-assery around catching airplanes), we decided to explore the coffee-shop.

Imagine my delight when I found that they make their own doughnuts from scratch, every morning.

Heaven. We do not have a doughnut shop in our town, and I refuse to use the sacred word "pastry" when referring to the rubbery items passed off as donuts at the local Safeway.

AND! -- The barrista chap behind the counter was almost certainly a Friend of Dorothy, who connected with us in a manner that indicated that he suspected that we, too, had more than a passing acquaintance withToto's mistress.

Better and better.

We pretty much had the place to ourselves at first, as we sipped coffee (a rarity for me) and bit into what I like to refer to as: Wheels From The Divine Chariot.

People came and went -- some nervous and pacing, others calm and bored (the latter, by their dress, were no doubt attorneys waiting for their client's meetings) -- but get this -- I'm 95% certain that every single person that I saw during the three hours I was at that mall was there for not-Suite D.

Which was a whole 'nother interesting twist -- because that coffee shop would probably be filing for bankruptcy itself, if it weren't for . . . bankruptcy court. (I adore the occasional brush with ouroborian reality.)

Amongst the nervous-/pacing-type customers was yours truly.

I would get up from time to time, go out into the parking lot, through the entry next to Suite D, down the narrow hallway to the door with one little peeky-hole type window in it, and then I would wrestle with the choice of just going in now and seeing what was going on in there, or wandering back to Oz and Priscella Queen of the Dessert (who had also seen fit to bring some free truffles to our table, because he "just needed to taste-test them so that I could describe them to customers, and they're really too big for me to eat a whole one, but if I split them into four pieces, well, that leaves a piece of the maple-citrus and a piece of the almond fudge for each of us!").

So, we're all like: "Get out! -- free Chocolate? I love the Utopian Bankruptcy Alternate Universe!"

In one of my pacey/nervous moments outside, I ran into an acquaintance from a nearby town who used to be a client in the parking lot.

"Portly?" she queried.

I queried back, delicately, cautiously: "Are you here for . . . the same reason I'm here? . . . . . . Suite D?"

"Yes. Yes, I am -- but it's a good thing. Really." She looked into my eyes after we hugged, and repeated with more emphasis, "It really is a good thing."

As she walked off to her car, she added: "By the way, they're more than an hour behind."

Having now wired myself up with unaccustomed caffeine (and weighed myself down, with unaccustomed pastry), I decided to go into "the room".

It was an ordinary, large, conference-type room, with conference-type chairs, a low acoustic-paneled ceiling, and flourescent lighting. A roster outside the door listed, in alphabetical order, the cases that were being handled today -- fifteen or so cases to the hour, each hourly group organized from A-Z -- I was the last person on the roster for the day.

I squeaked the door open and tried to enter without drawing undue attention to myself. Forty or so chairs were arranged in rows at one end of the room, with a big desk up front, and a set of chairs off to one side where sat The Attorneys (or so I surmised, because I recognized one of them from his picture on the business card he had enclosed in the letter he sent some weeks earlier).

Oh, and about those letters -- those letters that began arriving in the mail the day after my bankruptcy filing became a matter of public record?

To date, I have received four letters from attorneys who all began their missives with "Dear Portly: I noticed that you are filing Pro Se, and would like to notify you of my services . . . . ", but who all also managed to end their missives with some variation of ". . . . . . because you really don't understand how dangerous it is to represent yourself in these matters". I have received four credit card offers, and 42 (count 'em! Forty Two!) offers of pre-approved car loans (at an average of $32G each -- which is something like $1,344,000.00 worth of car loans). As my Beloved said when these letters started arriving: "Oh look, dear -- vultures."

My compatriots and I sat and watched as each person or couple was called up to sit at the desk, where the Trustee swore them in and repeated the same basic script ("This is a copy of your petition. Did you see these documents before you signed them?", "Have you listed all your property on these documents?", etc., etc., etc.).

I listened to the little bits of their stories that the questions brought forth. Of all the 25 or so cases that preceeded mine, only one seemed the slightest bit questionable to me -- all the others were stories of health crises, business plans gone awry, unforeseen circumstances, or people just trying to make ends meet in tough times.

When the Trustee reached the end of the docket ahead of mine, he addressed the 11 am group (which I was in) and gave us a little briefing about what would happen next.

He was serious but kindly, and went through the speech (which he has probably given a nonnillion times) efficiently, while peppering it with a few wry witticisms that had this room full of nervous people chuckling aloud from time to time. He had a wonderful type of deadpan humor, but he maintained the decorum of his office at all times. I was impressed.

Especially when he said stuff like this: "So -- you need to cooperate with me. No, actually, you have to cooperate with me. It may seem unfair, but the truth is, this is an unequal relationship -- you have to cooperate with me if you want your bankruptcy to be discharged."

I appreciated his honesty, and his clear attempt to put us all at ease as much as he could under the circumstances. He was extremely funny in his serious way, and he looked tired -- and very human, which I also appreciated.

By the time my turn came, there were only the four of us left in the room -- my two compatriots, the trustee, and myself.

He called my name and I took my seat in front of the Big Desk.

Before he turned on the tape recorder, I said: "You know, you may have a future in stand-up."

He raised his brows a bit as he peered over the desk at me (uh-oh), and said: "Not gonna go there."

At which I straightened my ass up and did what I was supposed to do -- just affirmed that I would tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the blah-blah-blah, and answered simply "Yes" and "No" to his questions.

But I swear that there was a little twinkle in his eye.

I had the sense that he was in that difficult place where his role prevented him from connecting with me fully as a human, but I honestly had the sense that he wanted to make that connection. I can relate to that. When I was a social worker, I was often in situations where the requirements of my role as a professional impinged upon my ability to relate to my clients in certain ways. Which is one reason I stopped being a social worker.

I'm a stubborn little thing, though. Once the tape recorder was off, I said to him:

"Seriously. You helped put me at ease today, during an experience that could have been much more difficult for me. Thank you."

He didn't really respond to that, but there was that little tiny twinkle again, and he asked me about my tiny town and how it was weathering the current financial climate. Next summer, our peninsula will become a virtual island for 3 months, right in the middle of tourist season, because of a bridge closure. He said: "I just wonder how [tiny town] is going to hang on."

Then we left, and he left, and the lights went out in not-Suite D for the day.

My compatriots headed back to Oz for a few minutes, to get some of the day-old pastries to take home.

I went to the Dollar Store.

The CASH ONLY!!! Dollar Store.

Next to the bankruptcy room.

I spent five dollars and forty-three cents. The cashier there didn't need to use her cash register, because everything in the store is $1, and she has memorized the sales tax for every integer from $1 to $150 (I asked her). She just counts up your items and says: "Five Forty-three."

I purchased:
1. A pair of reading glasses (which I needed)
2. A pair of compact flourescent light bulbs (which I needed)
3. A package of those funky light bulbs that are supposed to look like candle-flames and which are the only light bulbs that fit the dining room fixture (which I needed)
4. A knife sharpener (which I needed), AND

5. A lobster cracker (which I hope to need someday)

Because it just seemed like a fitting end to the day.

Rush Limbaugh Needs Better Friends

2009-03-02T21:30:00.000-08:00

I consider that some of the best friends I've ever had have been those who were willing to pull me up short when I was hovering at the abyss of assholery.

You know -- friends who are willing to say something to you like:

"Dude --- nobody elected you."

65 Pages

2009-03-01T23:59:00.000-08:00

You may have noticed that I haven't blogged ~~much~~ at all ~~lately~~ for nearly a month and a half.

You might say that I've been . . . . . distracted.

Yes . . . distracted . . . . . . .I think that's the right word.

One of the distractions was the preparation of a life-changing 65-page document.

But before I get into the nitty-gritty of that oh-so-distracting document, let's begin with this, shall we?

You see, the 65-page (as opposed to two-page) document that I was working up is called -- "Voluntarily Petition for Bankruptcy".

In truth, that's only three pages (the "voluntarily petition" part) -- the attendant forms and provision of detailed personal information comprised the other 62 pages.

Before we go any further, let me make a couple of things perfectly clear:

The primary reason that I'm blogging about my bankruptcy is in the hope that recounting my experience might be helpful or supportive to someone else.
I'm posting this after I've progressed through the hearings portion of the process, although I've been working on this post for some time.
I'm surprisingly un-traumatized about the whole thing.

Let's go back to the beginning, shall we?

I took my first real job at 17, and was employed by someone else until I was 32, when I started my first business. For the past 20 years, I've been self-employed, and that was a good choice for me.

I've never remotely approached being "rich" by status quo/cultural standards (but that's never been my goal in life anyway, and I think that I'm "rich" by my own standards).

I was raised by hard-working school-teacher parents (one, the child of Kansas farmers who lost pretty much everything during the Dust Bowl, and the other, the child of an Arizona widower who managed to survive tough times in the mining industry during the Depression pretty well).

For most of my formative years, my parents were only separated from "working class" status by virtue of the prestige of their positions as teachers (certainly not by their salaries). I grew up in a Kansas farming community, and let's just say this: The Work Ethic Is Strong With Teh Portly Dyke (read in your best Darth Vader, of course).

That work-ethic has served me well, I believe.

I've never felt deeply deprived of anything that was really important to me, I once co-owned a house, and later, gave it up and went back to renting. I've never starved or been homeless. I've lived simply, but very well, and still do -- and I think that it's important to mention here that I have lived this way by choice, and according to my own standards.

I generally did well being self-employed and maintaining a simple lifestyle. I've had varying levels of debt over the course of my life, but in the past ten years, I'd never made a late payment or missed a payment on any debt I had.

I was "getting by", and that was OK with me.

In the past two years, though, things got a bit tighter.

I did what I usually did when cash-flow was tight -- considered purchases more carefully, didn't eat out, traveled only for work -- stuff like that.

After 20 years of self-employment, I'd seen slumps come and go, so I wasn't particularly concerned. In fact, I figured it was probably just the Universe nudging me to do something different, so I did something I'd felt strongly urged to do -- I started working on a project that a lot of people had asked me to get out into the world -- a video version of a class that I'd taught in person for the last ten years.

I figured out how to finance a lot of this project by offering a pre-purchase deal to the people who had asked for it, and used some of my available credit line to fund the rest.

Yes, this would mean my debt-load would go up, but from the pre-purchase response, I figured I wouldn't have any trouble recouping it once the project was released.

Then, early last year, one of the community-members that I'd lived with for five years (and with whom I shared expenses for rent and utilities) suddenly decided that he wasn't interested in continuing to live in community anymore.

His decision was abrupt and messy, and I was already in the middle of the project -- we didn't have a candidate to replace him, so we decided we'd tough it out through the Summer as I got the project finished, and remain where we were living.

I'd already decreased my regular bread-and-butter work for a few months so that I could focus on the vid-project, and it seemed like a huge (and possibly project-killing) distraction to stop production in order to make a major residential move at that time -- a move that would also involve dismantling the video studio that I'd just set up (and somehow hoping that we'd find a place where I could "re"-mantle that studio).

So we stayed where we were, with rent and utility obligations that had increased by a third.

We did "what you do" -- we cut back on luxury utilities like cable TV and down-sized our phone plan. We ate very simply, cooking from scratch most of the time, and always ate at home. We sold some stuff that we weren't using, or that was expensive to keep up.

That all felt pretty good, too -- it was more aligned with the way that I want to live.

So, by September, the video project was ready for release -- to a public that had lately been put on notice that its economy was a shambles (which meant that buying an expensive set of DVDs was probably very low on the list of fiscal priorities).

It didn't really phase me. I've never been the type of person who thought that anyone else "owed" me a living. I've always been realistic about the nature of my work, and have known that a) it's not everyone's cup of tea, and b) if it's a choice between food/shelter/warmth and some service that I offer, I would always encourage a prospective client to procure that food/shelter/warmth before working with me.

I just kept on keepin' on -- paid my bills on time and in full. I ate even simpler, and cut non-essential expenditures even more, and my Beloved and I started looking at the reality of our financial situation -- we were going to need to move, we figured, and that was OK, too (even though we love this place).

We might even have made it through without the bankruptcy, if it weren't for the people that I owed money to -- credit card companies.

Credit card companies that began raising interest rates and lowering credit lines, even though I was on-time and paying in accordance with agreements, starting as early as last Spring -- even before my debt-load went up -- and even though they knew that lowering my credit limits would screw up my credit rating (which was pretty damn good at the time) because the lowered limits would make me look like I was maxing out my credit line, which I wasn't (at least not until they lowered my credit line)-- which would then trigger other creditors to raise my interest rates and cut credit lines I might have with them, which would screw my credit rating further.

They did this even though I wrote them nice letters and had polite telephone conversations with them about the fact that cutting my credit line right now would probably result in a cascading clusterfuck of credit hell. They did this even though they told me, straight out, that yes, I'd always been an excellent customer, and they wanted to keep me as a customer.

They also said that they were doing it because they could, according to our agreement (and they were right about this -- they could do it -- the agreement said that they could change my credit line or interest at any time, and for any reason -- although they never did so until it was clear to them that it would be very difficult for me to simply say "no" and cash them out on the debt).

When I asked them why they were doing it, they said that it was because my recent credit usage made me look like a higher-risk customer -- never mind an 18-year credit history with only one late payment ever, and that due to the vagaries of the US mail (long before it was possible to check one's credit card statement online) -- never mind that I was current on my debt.

The irony is that they actually made me a higher-risk customer.

My increased payments were eaten up by increased interest rates (one card raised me from 9.9% to 26% overnight -- for no reason other than "our agreement says that we can change your rate at any time for any reason" -- another card attempted to raise me from 12% to 33% -- although they relented after a letter in which I threatened to close my bank accounts with them) -- and the resultant lowered credit rating that triggered other cards to jump their rates up or bring my credit line down was actually what tipped the scales for me in terms of the bankrupcty.

When we came to the end of one month and barely scraped our rent payment together because we had paid the credit card debt on time, I did something I had not wanted to do -- something I had chalked off the options list for myself -- I began considering personal bankruptcy.

It took a couple of months for me to get absolutely clear on it. I had those midwestern values to struggle with, and other options to examine, and that hope that springs eternal, blah, blah, blah -- that somehow, things were going to suddenly shift.

I think the real turning point for me was when I called a credit-counseling company and explained my situation, and the counselor there said:

"Well, we have this plan (blah, blah, blah), but honestly, I think I'm just going to give you the number of the attorney that we refer to for bankruptcies."

She said this, even though recruiting me to their "plan" would have involved me paying her company a lot of money for quite a long time. They would negotiate my debt and my interest, but by the time they added their cut on top of the monthly payments, I'd still be scraping for rent and my credit-score would be screwed anyway.

(Actually, it was nice of her to be honest like that, even though it meant that her company wouldn't benefit.)

So, I stopped paying my credit-card bills, and moved forward with the bankruptcy.

I filed "Pro-Se" (which is a nice Latin way of saying "can't afford a lawyer"). This is in no way advice or recommendation, but it worked for me -- my bankruptcy was very simple -- I don't own a house or land, my car is 13 years old, I had no investments, savings, or "secured debt" -- and my decade as a wage-slave in public service did serve me well in this regard: I'm pretty handy with a form.

That said, after filling out, checking and re-checking, and mailing those 65+ pages, plus communicating by phone and mail with the BK court myself ever since -- ?
-- I can easily entertain the possibility that most bankruptcy attorneys actually earn their keep.

The most difficult part (for me, at least) is over: Making the choice to declare bankruptcy at all.

It wasn't an option I wanted to exercise, but I came to a point where it seemed clear that it was the wisest choice for me to make.

I don't feel like a victim. I played in that game, and this is where it took me.

I participated with an industry that I knew from the start was relying on my sense of fair-play and responsibility, while knowing that said industry would skirt fair-play and avoid responsibility in every way that it legally could.

In truth, I think that the credit industry still made money on me, even with the bankruptcy -- I haven't totted up every single figure yet, but I'm pretty sure that over the last 18 years, they made every bit of their money back, plus profit -- which is what the game was all about, really.

So I don't resent them, and I hope they don't resent me. This was the game that we played together. It's like a casino, really -- you go in knowing that the odds are against you -- but you go in anyway.

The hardest bit has been dealing with my midwestern ethics thing -- examining those internal voices that might want to brand me a "failure" -- and getting past the cultural entrainment that we all have to Be AFRAID -- Be VERY AFRAID!

Truth is, operating my life on a purely cash basis feels pretty good.

We're still eating very simply, and our household could currently be used as a case study in the research project: "Creating an Antithesis to Conspicuous Consumerism".

But right now? -- I'm well-fed, and warm, and sheltered.

And really, what else is there but -- right now?

Yes -- there are times when I find this thought in my head: "What if an emergency happens and I don't have any/enough creidt?!?!?!"

-- but I also thought that same kind of thought when I had "enough" "available credit", and when I had a "regular paycheck", and when I owned a house, and when I had "extra" money . . . . . . . . and -- when I had no money at all.

So it's clear to me that this thought -- "What If Something Bad Happens!?!!??!" -- is a thought I could have at any time -- under any circumstance --

-- just as I could have the following thought at any time, under any circumstance:

"You know, I think Everything's Gonna Work Out Just Fine."
======================================================
(Blog Note: Yes, I am back to blogging. Yes, I think that my hesitance to speak about this particular aspect of my personal life -- the bankruptcy -- created a big old Blog-Clog for me. Yes, I feel scared to share this, and worried that my internal midwestern-ethic voices will be reflected in disapproving voices from the Blogosphere.
And finally -- YES -- I will be blogging further about my "bankruptcy experience", because there are some stories from this process that are just too surreal and luscious to pass up. Watch for them.)

About Today -- A Walk on the Moon

2009-01-20T20:47:00.000-08:00

Today, I skimmed back and forth between working and catching what I could of the inauguration coverage.

I managed to be there for the live coverage of the swearing in, and President Obama's Inaugural Address.

I was awed by the sheer mass of humanity on the Mall.

I was moved by the music, and even more by the cut-aways to people in the audience -- their faces streaked with tears of joy, their eyes searching hungrily for external signs that the hope they hold inside is justified, and their faces relaxing, brows smoothing out, as they seemed to have found those signs.

I watched what I could of the parade, in between clients (cuz I'm a sucker for a marching band -- plus, I wanted to see the queers tooting their horns -- no pun intended).

As I watched, I had the same sense that I had on Election Day 2008 -- a strange mixture of solemnity and giddiness as I witnessed something historic -- something being logged into a history that I would want to claim.

This feeling is not entirely unfamiliar, although it seems like a long time since I last experienced it.

I felt something like it as I stared into my television set to see the first moon walk, and President Nixon announcing the end of the Vietnam War, and Nelson Mandela walking out of prison, and the Berlin Wall being knocked down.

Still, today felt different, somehow.

I should note that my giddy/solemn sensation of today has a nasty cousin, too -- a feeling of similar solemnity, but devoid of all giddiness -- a response that's all sinking stomach and aching heart.

I felt that the day John F. Kennedy was assassinated, and again, when Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated, and yet again, when Bobby Kennedy was assassinated, and after the massacres at Kent State and Tienanmen Square, and when the first Bush authorized "Operation Desert Storm", and on 9/11/01, and when the second Bush authorized "Operation Iraqi Freedom", and as I watched thousands of people abandoned in the aftermath of Katrina.

On those days, too, staring into my television, I knew that I was watching something that was"historic" -- but as part of a history that I emphatically did not want.

Yet today seemed something more than a simple antithesis of that "nasty cousin"-ish feeling.

I kept reaching, all day, for a clear understanding of what I was feeling -- I searched for it in the confused sensations that flirted around the edges of my heart and mind as I watched the inaugural festivities.

I searched for it in the expressions that lingered on the faces of joyous, tearful, boisterous crowds, and in my own confused and tender caution as I watched Michelle and Barack Obama step out of the presidential limousine during the parade. ("No! Be careful!" my inner mother-hen whispered, and then, a moment later, my inner activist cried: "Yes! Be Unafraid!")

I kept crawling around in my own brain and heart and body all day, trying to put my finger on the exact "difference" that I felt, until I saw this clip in the online coverage I was watching (forgive any commercials, please -- I'm not in control of that, but I wanted you to see the vid):

That's when I knew what was so different for me today.

Barack Obama's presidency does not erase the agony of Myrlie Evers-Williams' loss of her husband Medgar, or the tragedy of our collective loss of her husband as a powerful, committed voice against racism and discrimination of all types.

Barack Obama's presidency does not remove the grueling pain of daily discrimination that Medgar, Myrlie, their children, grandchildren, and countless other people of color have faced in the 45 years since Medgar's murder -- much less mitigate the suffering that centuries of abuse, oppression, and discrimination have perpetrated upon people of color during the history of this nation.

Barack Obama's presidency does not end the ongoing reality of racism and the toxicity of its impact on our nation.

But it does erase, remove, and end this:

The notion that the agony, pain, and toxicity that is racism is inevitable in our country.

Racism does not have to exist. It is not "natural" to human beings, nor is it necessary to society. When people of all colors share power and responsibility, nations not only do not crumble -- they rise, and celebrate, and grow stronger.

Myrlie and Medgar Evers knew this. I knew this. Mostly likely, if you're reading this blog, you knew this.

But today, in the United States of America, Barack Obama demonstrated this.

Today is not the end of racism in the United States, but I honestly believe that it is the beginning of a new era in the process of eradicating racism in the United States, because today, a template is set and a precedent created -- it is now possible, beyond any argument, for a person whose skin is not "white" to hold the most powerful office in our land.

That is what was different for me today.

When I think back on the other times I had that "giddy-solemn-historic" feeling, only the moon-walk begins to parallel it -- wars have been ended before, and walls knocked down -- but to walk on the Moon?

A single footprint on the Moon means that anything is possible.

(Full Disclosure: Yes, I have complaints with Barack Obama and his campaign/transition teams. Yes, I'm not satisfied with Obama's dealings with queers and their issues. And finally -- Yes, I am an incredibly complicated being who is capable of simultaneously experiencing deep disappointment about discrimination that is peculiar to my situation while experiencing profound joy as I watch my brothers and sisters who are discriminated against for a different, equally fucked-up, reason rejoice in a breakthrough in the particular area of oppression that has kept them down, and capable of understanding that "their" victory is "my" victory, because -- you know -- they are my sisters, and my brothers -- they are ME.)

We All Have Our Dirty Little Secrets

2009-01-08T23:45:00.000-08:00

I have a confession to make. I was a kiddie-viddie starlette -- no, not porn -- real kiddie video -- as in Wee Sing -- as in Big . . . Yellow . . . . Rodent.

Here -- check out marker 00:24. I'm the yellow one.

To see some actual footage (a little scary, really) with decent video quality, not the trailer, try this link: Big Rock Candy Mountain 2 (not embeddable, otherwise, I'd be torturing you here).

Yes. I was a Meecy-Mouse. It's true. I wore that enormo, hot costume, and the prosthetic make-up, and the mittens, and the ears (in the middle of August), and I acted really, really goofy. For money.

There are a couple of weird things about this -- if I reveal that I was in Big Rock Candy Mountain, many, many people that I know who were raising kids after 1991 (and most of the young adults that I know now who were kids in the 90s) will say something like: OMG! My kids loved that video! or

"I used to watch this tape 24/7 as a kid, and listen to the cassette of the songs in the car."

(Now, if you didn't watch the unembeddable linked footage above of the actual video, the next vid might not make much sense to you -- it's a tribute video made by the young adult youtuber I just quoted. This is obviously not the real soundtrack.)

I also had my niece email me recently to tell me that she had spotted this little meecy mouse in a very weird youtube that a friend had turned her on to. She said: "quite honestly, the song sucks...but that's beside the point. you can imagine my surprise when around 2:30-3:00 into the video, my dear aunt appeared!"

I mean, how strange is it that something that I did which I thought of as a kind of a bizarre but enjoyable side gig is now indelibly branded into the minds of people that I might be working next to?

It's like I'm folk-art or something.

But it doesn't stop there. In fact, my meecy-mouse run was my second endeavor with the WeeSing crowd. A year earlier, I had appeared in another kiddie-viddie -- "The Best Christmas Ever" -- then, as an elf (I "hang face" briefly at 00:34 and 00:52 below -- and Oy! with the prosthetic makeup and squeaky voice already!)

When I took the elf job (my first with WeeSing), it was on a lark, really. Somebody told me that they were looking for diminutive actors, and I showed up at the cattle call (with my equally short girlfriend).

I landed the part of the elf "Snooter" (hence the prosthetically-enhanced schnoz, and the many jokes from the crew about my character's secret cocaine habit).

And yes, you heard right -- the hero elf was, in fact, named "Poofer". Hmmm.

And as a completely fun fun-fact, the "secret handshake" they do was the one my Dad taught me when I was a kid. The Director wanted a secret elf handshake, and liked my Dad's when I showed it to him. I love that it's immortalized there.

Mind you, I actually have formal training in theater -- with a degree and everything -- and in my film acting classes, I had always been told that when acting for the camera, you were to scale everything back by at least a third -- gestures, inflections, characterizations, everything.

It was incredibly disorienting to be introduced to a film-set where I was actually directed to amp it up by at least 2/3rds. You see the results above.

I am a passable actress -- really, truly, I am -- but it seems that small children like big hams, so what's a girl to do?

Apparently, I was a quick study at hamology, because they wanted me back for the mouse thing, and later, as a puppeteer in two other productions (see below).

Now, when I say puppeteer, I don't mean sticking your hand up the bum of Kermit the Frog.

I mean full-body puppeteering -- the kind of costume where you are encased head to foot, with wired calipers in the hand-sets of your costume that allow you to blink the eyes and move the mouth of the character. I was not voice talent for either of the two characters below (apparently they didn't need Piercingly-Shrill for these particular roles) -- I operated the character body - - so all I had to do was lip-sync. In a penguin suit.

Think Disneyland. Think hot. Think ice-packs held against your body in a special mesh vest so you don't pass out, and bisquit fans in your "helmet" (head piece) so you can get enough oxygen. In Summer. In a studio blazing with lights.

Oh, and in the case of the penguin "Weeber" below? On my knees. Often, 12 hours a day.

Let's face it -- I'm bat-shit crazy.

My favorite song in that production (WeeSing Under the Sea) was the one at 07:21 in this clip -- "Clam Dance":

You would have thought that experience would put me off the full-body puppeteering thing, but no -- I took on one more job, this time with the same production company, but not for Wee Sing.

I'm proud to say that I ended my stint as a full-body puppeteer in style -- as a Kitteh -- that's me -- the big yellow Wooleycat (and isn't that so cosmic and totally cycle-of-life of me? Big Yellow Mouse to Big Yellow Kitteh?)

Just so you know -- I think what brought me back and back to these productions was that the people I worked with were absolutely, positively great and fun, and honestly, the messages that the vids put out were pretty cool and kid/life-affirming (ex: Under the Sea had an environmental message).

Next time you wander into a room where a gang of toddlers are engaged in the Bunny-Foo-Foo singalong, you'll be sure to impress if you point casually to the TV screen and say: "I know that Mouse."

'Cuz I know you've been worried about your cred with da toddlers. ;)

Another Portly True Story -- But First, A Movie!

2009-01-07T21:39:00.000-08:00

That video put me in the mind of this story:

Portly and the Car Salesman -- Circa 1988, Portland, Oregon

So, on April Fool's Day, 1988, I managed to get in the way of someone who was making an illegal turn across traffic. I walked away from the head-on collision unscathed, but the family's beloved Datsun B-210 station wagon did not fare so well.

So, my then-partner and I began the arduous process of buying a replacement vehicle. We had a limited income, and knew exactly how much money we could spend and what kind of car we wanted (Toyota Tercel wagon -- you know, the one that looked like it had an ATM on the back?).

It was the late 80s. The auto-sales industry had gotten wise to the fact that more and more women were buying cars -- and doing so without the "aid" of a man. I had just read two or three articles in major newsmags about how the industry was re-gearing its sale-pitches and changing its showrooms to re-niche-ify toward the car-buying women's market.

I hate haggling. I've bought only three of the many cars I've owned at car dealerships -- my 1978 Datsun pickup, the Tercel, and my current van (all used). I take some hippy pride in the fact that I have never in my life purchased a new car.

My partner and I went out car-shopping the first time with the kids. (Note to parents: This is a very bad idea. If you want to gain the dealership's sympathy vote because you're raising a family -- ha! -- stuff your wallet with pictures instead -- put a "My kid was an honor student at blah-blah-blah" sticker on your car -- anything. Just do not take them along.)

The dude at the first dealership showed us the Tercel (awful color, nasty-ass plaid upholstery -- glad it didn't work out, really). We told him how much money we had to spend (which was, of course, far below the sticker price), and he herded us into his office, assuring us that he thought he could work something out.

Which began the two-hour agony that followed, where he exercised all the old ploys -- took our car-keys so we couldn't leave, went back and forth and forth and back to the manager's office, etc., etc., etc. -- if you don't know the drill, that's a good thing -- my advice to you is that you keep it that way.

When he got it through his thick skull that when we said "this is how much money we have to spend" what we really meant was,"this is how much money we have to spend" -- that we weren't driving a hard bargain, that we weren't being cagey and conniving -- as this simple message finally penetrated his consciousness, he looked at us, absolutely dumbfounded (two HOURS later), and said: "Well, I can't sell this car to you for that!"

To which I said something like: "Yeah, ~~dipshi~~t -- I thought that was probably the case, and every time I tried to tell you that, you told me you could work something out, and then left us sitting here for another 15 to 20 minutes!"

We regained possession of our hostaged car-keys, and the children never forgave us for the two hours of lost Saturday which they endured. (It did have the fortunate upside of them never wanting to go car shopping with us again.)

The next weekend, just the two of us ventured out once more, this time to a different dealership.

We guarded our car-keys carefully, and, exhausted from the craptasticness of the previous foray, we came up with a signal -- if either of us made the sign-language gesture for "Fuck" (my partner was an ASL interpreter), we agreed that we would both get up, without discussion, and leave. No explanation needed, and either of us could make the call at any time -- we had concluded that life was too fucking short (hence the choice of sign).

The Tercel that we looked at was closer to our price range (on the sticker), so we allowed ourselves to be seated with coffee and really bad pastry in the salesman's office.

At first, it went fairly well. We politely explained that we only had ____ amount of money to spend, and that no, we weren't kidding, and no, this wasn't a counter-offer thing -- it really was the entire amount we could spend (which really confused the salesman, I could tell), and then it began -- the smarminess, the cajoling, the manipulation. It was mostly vocal tones and lack of meetings of gazes, but it wasn't long before I saw my partner give me the sign.

I said: "Thanks very much for your time, we're not interested", and we stood up and headed for the door.

What happened next, I never, ever imagined might occur.

The guy followed us. I mean, really close behind us, and shouted at us that we had to come back. Literally -- those word -- we had to.

When that didn't work (now keep in mind -- we are walking through a very large showroom, and then through a very large parking lot, with this guy right behind us, yelling at us the entire time), he tried things like: "Get back here! You can't walk out of here! You women have no idea what you're doing! I demand that you come back here right now!"

We were kind of glancing at each other now and again, but we basically just kept walking resolutely toward our car, when we heard him scream, at the top of his lungs:

"You're nothing if you don't buy a car from me!!!!!!"

Seriously.

We were still just marching stalwartly to our car, when a manager came sprinting out from the showroom, got between the salesman and us, and started rapid-fire spewing things like: "Please. Don't go. I'm sorry. I know we can work something out." We kept walking. "PLEASE -- Ladies! . . . . "

That stopped us.

It was not planned -- it was not calculated -- but my partner and I wheeled around as one and said, in perfect unison (both in terms of words and level of dripping venom):

"We're not Ladies!!!!!"

The manager then said: "Girls! . . . . . . ."

When he caught the look on our faces, he went silent, his jaw going up and down for a few seconds, and then finally spluttered out -- pathetically -- desperately -- as if he'd only just remembered that the word existed:

". . . . Women!"

But it was too late. We were already gone.

When we got home, I called the owner of the dealership at the corporate office (he was the mega-owner of Blankety-Blank Ford, Blankety-Blank Toyota, Blankety-Blank Honda, etc., etc., etc., now known as the Blankety-Blank AutoGroup).

I was passed from one secretary and middle manager to another secretary and middle manager, and kept insisting on speaking to the owner. I believe that it is possible that I may have uttered words like discrimination, harassment, and lawsuit.

I was finally passed up the foodchain and spoke to the owner directly.

I told him about the articles I had just been reading about the "New Consumer -- Woman!" (yeah, right, we've been here all along), and I inquired of him just how he thought he was going to cash in on that market when he employed these kind of salespeople.

To his credit, he listened (and in the following weeks, he had his dealers calling us every single time a Tercel station wagon that was within our price range rolled onto one of his many lots).

We ended up buying from an private owner after all, and we drove, drove, drove that blue Tercel over the next years. My ex- got it in the "divorce".

I just had to tell that story, after I saw that 60's reel up top.

Although that salesman was an unmitigated ass, I really must thank him for all the laughs he's given me over the years -- whenever I replay his outraged shriek in my mind:

"You're nothing if you don't buy a car from me!!!!"

Sarah Haskins Helps Us Remember 2008

2009-01-05T16:33:00.000-08:00

Being a Friend Indeed

2009-01-02T13:13:00.000-08:00

Last night, Sarah in Chicago's dad passed away very suddenly. (Most of you will probably know SiC from Shakesville)

A friend has loaned her the money for a plane ticket back to New Zealand, but she's going to need to pay that back. If you've got a few quid to spare, please visit her blog and chip in.

This is Portly Dyke, sending out a a big hug for Sarah and her family.

Enter Laughing

2009-01-01T23:42:00.000-08:00

Well, I can't think of a better way to kick off 2009 than with a bit of laughter -- and for that matter, laughter of the intertubes-meme sort. If you've already seen the video below, watch it again, and don't miss the second one. (Warning: You may need a diaper. Jus' sayin'.)

May your New Year be full of laughter of the really good kind.

Two More Days of '08

2008-12-29T21:04:00.000-08:00

So, I'm preparing myself for another new slate. Tomorrow, and Wednesday, I'll be tying up loose ends and getting ready for a new beginning.

There will be resolutions, no doubt (which I generally suck at).

So, question for you: Are you considering any resolutions for 2009?

Just curious. (And wondering if there are some out there that I might want to consider, too.)

Of Synchronicities and Intentions

2008-12-28T23:30:00.000-08:00

A couple of weeks ago, my Beloved and I had a talk about my blogging. I had written a piece that brought up questions for her about how my choice of words and focus served my world view, and whether I thought that my approach really contributed to creating the world that I want to live in.

We've had a number of conversations of this type, and they are always helpful to me, because, to be perfectly honest, I've never been 100%, absolutely, and completely clear about what my underlying intention is in terms of blogging, and as a result, I believe that I haven't always been a true contributor to the world I want to create.

I know that blogging feeds me somehow -- it's something that I usually feel called to, and I find it satisfying (nearly always, anyway) -- but I am a firm believer in the notion that clear intention tends to lead to clearer results, so this lack of clarity has been bothersome to me.

Which leads me to the synchronicities -- a couple of days ago, I was cleaning my office and listening to an episode of "This American Life" -- the episode included research from a man who had studied the concept of the "bad apple". He wanted to know just how much "negative" behavior by one person in a group could impact the group.

Turns out (according to his research at least) that the energy of a single person in the group can have a lot of impact -- groups that he studied, into which he inserted an actor who demonstrated one of three behaviors that team-building experts have identified as having detrimental impact on the efficacy of groups (being a "jerk", being a "slacker", or being "depressive/pessimistic") performed with 30-45% less efficiency than groups that didn't include that actor.

Which doesn't come as a huge surprise to me -- I've worked with groups for a long time, in many settings, and I've seen, first hand, what a single person can do to sow discord in a group.

When I was working as a queer rights activist, there was this one woman in the queer community who was well known for her ability to join a functioning group and have it dysfunctioning within a few meetings. There were even rumors that she was a plant (maybe government, maybe right-wing -- they were rumors, after all), because the connection between her arrival in any given group and its imminent implosion had a certain clock-like precision to it.

So, as I listened the TAL episode, I simply thought: "Hmmm. Interesting story," and finished cleaning my office.

Then, yesterday, I got an email from someone that linked to this video (it's long, so I'm not going to embed it).

This video was also about the power of attitudinal contagion (this time, both in terms of additive as well as detractive interactions -- note: I prefer additive/detractive to "positive/negative", because the p/n words are so attached to judgmental other stuff in my head).

Now, when something like that comes across my path in this kind of synchronous rhythm, I tend to pay attention.

I decided long ago that, given the choice of living in a strictly random Universe to which we bring meaning, or living in a divinely ordered Universe in which no event is accidental, my choice was clear -- I want to live in the divinely ordered thingamabob.

This, for me, is a pretty pragmatic decision: If, in the end, it turns out that the cosmos I live in is completely and utterly random, and I'm absolutely wrong about Life, the Universe and Everything, then -- well, when I die, my component cells will rejoin the Earth, the self-aware persona that I think of as "I" will cease to exist in any form beyond whatever might travel along as those component cells wander off to become something else, and "I" will be none the wiser -- I won't be disappointed about having been wrong.

If, on the other hand, it turns out that the Universe I live in is, as I suspect, an organic, transforming being of which I am but a tiny part, and that the "coincidences" that I experience are, in fact, rich opportunities for growth being presented to me through the mechanism of that larger transforming being -- well, then, I may as well act on the notion that thought creates reality, and construct a life that fits with the notion that either everything is a miracle, or nothing is.

It basically boils down to the fact that I find the second format more . . . fun.

But back to my synchroncities . . . . .

I haven't clearly gotten the third-of-three part of the synchronicity (which is a well known confirmation tool for receiving guidance or totemic symbolism, stimulating the "notice this!" node of our brains, and, of all things, building jokes -- the "rule of three"), but I'm pretty that this third synchronistic experience will be along any minute now, so I'm going to take the hint early and start applying my consciousness to the "message".

I think it has to do with me setting a clear intention for blogging.

I've been puzzled by my sporadic blogging style. I stand in amazement at people who can pump out a five-to-ten blog-posts each day, and I have wondered about the times when I have had a blog-stall (and there have been many of those, as my regular readers can attest). I'm beginning to think that it has something to do with this absence of clear intention.

I think that when I'm not clear about why I'm doing this, I'm much more easily distracted by this current event, that personal story, those shiny toys, and these niggling second guesses -- so sometimes, I don't blog at all, because I can't decide what kind of a post would serve the intention of the blog (because I don't have an intention for the blog).

I'm going to experiment, though, with some intentions.

I actually have two personal blogs, and I've been acutely aware of the difference in their tone from the beginning -- Teh Portly Dyke was my outlet to the larger world -- a place where my readers might have little (or no) context for me -- at least that was the intention at the beginning, when I blogged completely psuedononymously. This Is The Thing was a blog where I spoke to people who knew me in my professional and personal context -- I was known by my real name there from the beginning.

Since my coming out at Portly Dyke, I have noticed that there continues to be a slight difference in tone between the two blogs, even though I'm no longer completely anonymous at TPD -- and that leads me to believe that I actually still have different intentions (albeit unconscious ones) when I'm blogging at each blog.

At TITT (wow, I never realized that that is the acronym for my original blog -- interesting . . . . . ), I rarely provide much explanation of my world-view or lexicon -- I generally assume that the reader there has bothered to check out who I am and what I do, or they have come there specifically in reference to who I am and what I do (although this, too, has changed since I came out, and new readers have shown up at TITT -- ooo -- now I'm all excited about that acronym!).

At TPD, I explained my lexicon a lot, although often in the more generic terms required when reaching out to an audience which has little personal knowledge of me, and where readers sometimes drop in from the blue. To find TITT, you kind of have to know where it is, whereas TPD is now linked hither and yon.

I do think that I have arrived at a unified intention for both blogs, though -- an intention which I'm going to try on for a bit and see about: I want to blog an an infectious agent -- an infectious agent of light.

Not light as in "sweetness and -", and not light as in "light vs. dark" -- light as in "best disinfectant", and as in "bouyant and headed skyward", and as in "likely to be able to read more easily if it's on".

I am going to try a two-branched approach, though, since TPD and TITT seem to have developed their own personalities, and I don't think that's an "accident", either -- here at Teh Portly Dyke, I'm going to try out being an outgoing infectious agent of light -- being a reading lamp of sorts for others -- and at This is The Thing, I'm going to try out being an incoming infectious agent of light -- shining that light into myself and my own internal quandaries and ponderings.

It's a start anyway. If I have that intention, I suspect that the choice of subject matter and the approach I take may be far less overwhelming.

We'll see.

Dear Mr. President Elect,

2008-12-20T09:30:00.000-08:00

You don't know me, but I voted for you.

I'm 52 years old, and I've been waiting for your inauguration day since I was old enough to understand what institutionalized oppression was -- perhaps longer, without really being conscious of it.

As I grew older, and gained more life experience, I think that I grew increasingly impatient in my waiting, as I began to understand more about what might actually help dismantle the systems of privilege that keep institutionalized oppressions alive.

I believe with my whole being that your election as President of the United States has, and will continue to, help take apart some of those systems -- not just because you are a person of color and your election breaks a tradition of exclusion that has existed throughout our nation's history, but also because I honestly believe that you want to make change and move this country forward.

So last month, I cast my vote for you with a hopeful heart, and wept during your victory speech. I said to my beloved, as we watched the closing of the speech (where you gathered with family, colleagues, and supporters in a glad mingling, awash in the cheers of thousands): "Look at that stage -- old, young, women, men, faces of many hues-- we're seeing something we've never seen before in our lifetimes."

And I took the opening lines of that speech to heart:

"If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible -- who still wonders if the dream of our Founders is alive in our time -- who still questions the power of our democracy -- tonight is your answer."

I took a cautious, hopeful in-breath when you actually said the word"gay" in the section where you detailed the diverse groups that played a part in this victory. I didn't notice it before I heard the word, but I think I had been waiting for that word for a long time, too -- yet I had been hopeful, not expectant (a habit I've developed over the years -- perhaps a defense-mechanism against disappointment).

You see, I'm old enough and savvy enough to understand that there will be times when mention of a person like me will be omitted -- because there are elections to win, and assumptions about what works and what doesn't work in political tactics, and polls that indicate the "safe" course that must, perhaps, be steered in the present, in order to make gains in the future. I understand this. I really do.

That's why, when I watched your infomercial the week before the election, I wasn't surprised to see that there was no one like me featured as one of the "average Americans". Yes, I'm a small business owner who can't currently afford health insurance, a person who has raised kids, and who is coupled in a stable, loving relationship, a person who currently faces big challenges in earning enough to simply cover rent, utilities, and groceries for my family -- but I would never be featured in your examples of working folks in this country -- because I'm a lesbian -- and that wouldn't poll well.

And again -- I understand this. I really do. You were attempting to reach out to a segment of the population that you needed to win over, so that you could win the presidency.

But understanding this intellectually doesn't necessarily make it easier to experience -- all the political savvy and realistic assessment in the world didn't make it easier to sit watching your ad (which takes the time to really go into detail about the problems that Americans face today, and how you will work to fix them) -- knowing that I (and others like me) would not be represented, or even referred to.

Last April, during the Democratic primary, I said that I had started to feel like the orphan at the family picnic.

It's not as if that feeling is completely foreign to me. I've sat around bargaining tables as part of my union and argued strenuously for family leave acts and benefits packages that would never cover my family. I've extended understanding to politicians for whom I've campaigned when they had to do the "politically smart" thing, even if it excluded me and mine. I've had compassion for some of my family members, who have acknowledged my orientation and have not outright disowned me, but who also do not ask about my life in any detail, lest an uncomfortable or challenging moment arise.

In fact, I sometimes worry that I've become so used to my position as an outsider that it has dulled my motivation toward change -- that it has made it too easy for me to say things like: "Well, that's the best I can expect -- and it's better than nothing."

So, when I cast my vote for you in November, I had hoped to put that feeling aside, and "........ choose hope over fear, and unity over division -- the promise of change over the power of the status quo".

Which is why I'm writing to you.

I understand that you may have selected (or allowed the selection of) Rick Warren to speak the invocation at your inaugural as part of a plan to demonstrate that you are not closed to the concerns of those who embrace a conservative Christian lifestyle. I understand that, regardless of what your real personal feelings about gay marriage may be, you were probably advised to say that you didn't support it, in order to get elected. I understand that you may have made choices in the past two years which were politically expedient in the short term, with the intention of serving an eventual greater good. I understand all this. I really do.

And when I read about the honor that Pastor Warren is being done in being allowed to perform the spiritual opening for your inaugural ceremony, I was surprised that I didn't feel angry -- instead, I simply felt . . . . profoundly sad.

I believe that sadness is to the heart and soul as hunger is to the body -- and I believe that my hunger is this: I want to be included in your diverse, but United, States of America.

When I hear you talk about the problems of working families, I want to be able to believe that you are talking about my family, too, and when you swear your oath of allegiance, I want to believe that you will be upholding the Constitution of our nation with the clear understanding that my rights are equal to the rights of every other citizen of this country.

I believe in the maxim that one should begin as one means to go on, and as a minister, I understand well the meaning of an opening invocation. It quite intentionally sets the tone of all that is to follow.

Pastor Warren has publicly expressed statements which compare my desire to marry my beloved to pedophilia, incest, and polygamy -- all of which are illegal in this country -- and so, for me, your presidency will begin with an invocation delivered by someone who considers the most precious human relationship I have -- a core and anchor of my daily existence -- as similar to a list of criminal acts.

He will be recorded as the pastor who was given the great honor of speaking first at this most historic presidential inauguration, and I will, once again, be a less-than -- an "other". I am concerned that, for many, the power of your office, and your perceived blessing on his blessing, will give strength to his voice -- and weaken mine further.

As an out lesbian, there are few laws that protect me from discrimination based on my sexual orientation, and many laws (and more prejudices) that curtail my unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

I have dealt with these realities since I was 12 years old (when I first realized that I was a lesbian), and often, it has only been the small, symbolic victories and gestures that have kept my hope of eventual equality kindled -- the confrontation of a homophobic remark by a straight co-worker who knew that I couldn't speak up without risking the loss of my job -- the decision of a straight couple to postpone their marriage until their gay and lesbian friends have the same right to wed -- the willingness of my mother and father to speak out in their church when their synod was determining whether or not to sanctify gay and lesbian unions.

These symbolic gestures, while not carrying the weight of law, have given me hope, and helped me to carry on.

Those gestures are sometimes small -- but since I can be pretty sure that I won't show up as an "average American" in the next nationally-broadcast infomercial, and reasonably certain that any candidate who states that they support full marriage rights for gays and lesbians will be declared, soon thereafter, to be "unelectable", symbolic acts of support from allies have become incredibly important to me.

I realize that my letter may not change your mind about having Pastor Warren provide the inaugural invocation. I realize that, at this point, it may be politically nightmarish to even consider such a change, or it may have become such a political hot potato that you are sick to death of hearing about it, or that you may simply dismiss my letter as yet another from some disgruntled LGBTQ person.

My hope, though, is that you will not simply dismiss this letter.

My hope is that you will consider the symbolism that is implicit in the way that your administration begins. If this administration is to be about inclusivity, then I believe that it is best begun with an invocation by someone who truly personifies that concept, who can be relied upon to invoke both the spirit and the language of inclusivity.

My choice to vote for you was like one drop in an ocean, but your choices as President will profoundly influence the currents and tides of that ocean, in which I will swim for many years to come.

I know that you are just one human, with a complex and enormous task before you, but I ask you to . . . . remember me.

When you hear the invocation that Pastor Warren is allowed to give, please listen with my ears.

I realize that this will be "your day" in many ways, and that you are straight, and Christian. I personally have no problem with you wanting to have a spiritual invocation that reflects your belief system - but if you hear prayers which invoke only "traditional" families, or only Christians, or which lean too heavily on any structure which contributes to institutionalized oppression of any sort -- I implore you to remember that you will be President of every citizen of this country, and to listen with the ears of those whose voices are rarely heard from the bully pulpit.

You have power and a great deal of choice around what this ceremony will symbolize -- I hope on that day, you will remember me, and remember that some days, a symbol is all I have.

Congratulations on your election, and thank you for taking the time to read this.

Sincerely,
Carol Steinel

I Always Wanted A Brass Brassiere

2008-12-19T00:17:00.000-08:00

It's cold outside -- and this has brought to mind phrases about Witch's Tits and whatnot -- and this has set me off on another of my ponderings about such phrases.

I mean, who do you think first coined that particular phrase -- "Colder than a witch's tit in a brass brassiere?"

For that matter, who uttered the initial version of "Slicker than snot on a doorknob"?

Or "Colder than a well-digger's ass"?

Or "Dumb as a box of rocks"?

Who were these people? Will we ever know? Do they mind that we use their witticisms without credit?

Since it is unlikely that you will be able to answer these questions in any definitive manner, please include your own favorites in comments.

Here are some more that I like:

One coupon shy of a toaster.
Sharp as a marble.
Couldn't organize a piss-up in a brewery.
Ugly as a sack of spanners.
Ugly as a bulldog licking piss off a nettle.
Couldn't pour piss out of a boot if the instructions were on the heel.

Update: On Cameras, Crying Jags, and Haircuts

2008-12-18T00:12:00.000-08:00

For those who may be wondering about how I've fared since my crying jag last week, I offer this update -- I'm still being very mindful about where I go, who I interact with, and what I put my focus on -- but I'm also feeling rather triumphant about the fact that I managed to get the camera working.

So, of course, here's a picture from said working camera:

You can't really tell from that photo, but one of the other big triumphs of the day was that I FINALLY had a haircut.

I haven't cut my hair since last Spring, just before I started shooting my video project.

I have a funny relationship with my hair -- it's something that I've blogged about rather extensively at my other blog (oh, and you will want to read those archived posts from the bottom one to the top to make much sense out of them -- oh, and if you don't read them, what follows might not make a whole lot of sense -- oh -- or you can skip the other blog and read the rest of this post as a sort of zen-koanish thing).

So I cut my hair today, with help from my Beloved.

I always feel liberated after a haircut, and I've been working my way toward the optimal 'do for myself (referenced in the "Why I have not shaved my head . . . recently" in the above-mentioned archive) for the past two or more years. I still haven't mastered it perfectly, but each time I grab the scissors, I inch a little closer.

I always loved what Lori Anderson said about her "hairdo". I recall an interview in the 80s when she replied, in response to a question about who cuts her hair: "I go into a dark closet with a scissors, and I don't come out until it's done."

I started cutting my own hair in 2002, during a trip to Mexico. I cut it by "feel", and it felt great. I've never gone back.

That approach is very similar to the one I took to get the camera working.

I HATE not having stuff work. I can be incredibly dogged in my pursuit of getting something that doesn't currently work to eventually work. I will research and figure out and tweak and restart my computer a million and a half times to try to resolve a problem with software, or hardware.

So, the camera sat here, staring at me, and I stared back. And I googled, and researched, and prodded, and poked, and figured out that the way to get the incredible Isight camera that is meant to work on a Mac to work on a PC is all about the power --- and isn't that just a perfect synchronicity?

Because hair, too, is a symbol of power.

The problem with the camera was that there wasn't enough power -- so, a $13 part and a few days later and a molex plug and a crawling under my desk because I'm too lazy to pull it out and lay it down where it would be easier -- later and -- voila! The camera works.

I think it was the collapse of this nearly omnipresent perseverance that I mourned on the night of the crying jag.

That perseverance (although occasionally fruitless) was one of the qualities that I possess that I believe saved my life (as a child, and later, as an adult struggling under difficult circumstances).

It's unusual for me to come to the "end of my rope", and when I do, I think that I find it incredibly scary -- because my doggedness has been an important tool in my kit in terms of sheer survival -- and because, if that tool is nowhere to be found then . . . . . what?

Will I die? Probably not -- and I didn't, even when I collapsed into a puddle of goo over a camera that, ultimately, ended up doing what I wanted it to do.

But I think that sometimes, there is an inner voice that whispers: "You will not survive", when my usual stubbornness disappears. So I keep my cantankerousness close at hand -- I treasure it.

It can be really useful -- when there are cameras to be fixed, and blog-rolls to be sorted, and hair to be cut.

Tired-Ass Blogging

2008-12-15T21:52:00.000-08:00

Ho-ho-ho -- A little (kinda) seasonal humor from Jim Gaffigan.

Snow and Reality

2008-12-14T22:44:00.000-08:00

I've really been struggling with blogging in recent days. Longing for some great flash of insight, or brilliant inspiration, I have waited -- but I think I've waited long enough.

It snowed last night, and today, the town was quiet under its cold white comforter.

Now, the moon is dazzling and the town has gone from quiet to hushed.

And I'm wandering from my office to the porch, restless and still at the same time.

I think that, since the election, I've been feeling the rising sense of personal revolution. "This is not enough," rings the mantra in my head.

I want to change the world. Really change it.

That's been in me since I was a child, and in some ways, I have impacted the world -- but that's not the kind of change I want to make -- I want radical change -- astounding transformation.

And I don't believe that this is in any way "unrealistic", or "dreamy-eyed", or "naive". I believe that it is possible. I've seen it. I know that it is possible.

I used to go to a weekend retreat ever year at a place called Breitenbush Hot Springs, in Oregon. During that retreat, a group of people, many of whom did not know each other well at all, would come together to celebrate, play, and change. There were no "organized agendas" -- scheduling was intentionally handled like this: If you wanted to offer a workshop or organize an activity, you wrote down on a big sheet of paper in the main hall what you wanted to do, and the approximate time and location where you would do it, and people showed up then and there if they wanted to.

It sounds ridiculously simple, and I wouldn't have expected it to work at all -- but it did -- year after year. And there weren't any great conflicts about it, and it didn't take a ton of planning, and it created an atmosphere where you could be certain that the people involving themselves wanted to be there, which seemed to change everything about the way things went.

We would do this for three days. The relaxation in the faces of those participating was visible, and the organic flow of this huge group of people was amazing.

And then we would all go back to the city, and it would change. We would hunker down into our individual or couple dynamics, into our own isolated lives, and we would forget.

I know that we were capable of living and interacting very differently, because I experienced it -- year after year -- and the greatest question that I had was: "Why would we give that up? Why would we go back to something that we don't like?"

Daniel Quinn addresses this kind of thing rather eloquently in his book "Beyond Civilization" (which I recommend highly, btw), and I've studied on it long and hard -- and written, and thought, and puzzled, and opined -- but now, I'm tired of that. I want something more.

So, I'm going to be posting, in the coming days, about creating a new reality. Because that's what I want to do -- and because I'm out of patience with sitting on my ass and hoping and praying and dreaming that this new reality will somehow just "arrive".

One of the first things I'm going to be thinking and writing about is this: What wakes me up? What brings me back to life?

I noticed that, after the election, my usual impatience with things "political" (which I've written about before) has increased daily -- and I've noticed that the things that feel truly "real" to me have to do with direct human contact, not the shit in the media, and not the arguments about theory -- I was brought abruptly into myself upon hearing that an internet friend was facing a tough diagnosis (someone who I have never met, but who I have the sense of knowing). I was dragged into consciousness by the strangeness of the snow, as interpretted by the cat (who is not my cat), when I opened the side door to let him outside last night, and watched his befuddlement as he gazed out on the first snow of his lifetime. I was drawn into the raw reality of my emotional body when I was moved by the message of a man who shares my desire to change the world, and whose actions harnessed to that intent inspire me to think bigger again.

That's where I've been at.

I don't know about you, but I'm tired of waiting. I believe in the vast potential of humankind. I know that we can create the world I want to live in. I know this. I'm planning to take my focus off all the people who say we can't do it, and put my focus on those who are doing it -- and that will, from this moment on, include me.

Crazy Person vs. Madwoman

2008-12-11T22:57:00.000-08:00

(This is a reprint of a post that I made at my other blog in May of 2006 --posted here especially for NameChanged, who asked for something like this in response to my stimulus request. Thanks to all who suggested topics -- I'll be getting around to them in coming days.)

=======================

I just want to state for the record, right off the top, that I am definitely a madwoman.

There can be no doubt about this whatsoever, as far as I’m concerned -- plus, it is a thing in which I take great pride.

I will also say that I am not crazy.

I have been crazy, in this lifetime — this incarnation — as this current persona.

It would do no good to deny this or attempt to cover it up — there are records. So, instead, I tell people quite readily that I have been institutionalized, not once, but three times, as a bona-fide crazy person.

Not for long periods of time, admittedly, but these days I actually think you have to kill other human beings to be institutionalized as a crazy person for long periods of time.

But while I was a crazy person, I did see the inside of a loony bin several times.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m still mad as a hatter, and I intend to stay that way.

I’m just not crazy anymore.

I’m taunting you, of course — prompting you to ask me the question “So what’s the difference?” — a question that you can’t ask me right now, because you’re reading this and I’ve already written it, and the best you could do is leave a comment to this post, and by then, you’ll have already read my answer to the question I’ve just taunted you with.

(Sorry — just having a moment of cat-and-mouse fun with the dynamics of blogging there.)

I think that madness is essentially just another name for a state of peculiar genius — a willingness to think in ways that are, dare we say — “outside the box”/”slightly wacky”/”beyond the beyond”?

I don’t think this has anything whatsoever to do with ability to think in this way.

I believe, instead, that it has everything to do with the willingness to think this way.

On the other hand, being “crazy”, in my opinion, is the choice to abrogate one’s own power and say “I am too different/sensitive/damaged/insert-your-own-excuse-here to be responsible for or to myself.”

To whit: When I was “crazy”, I chose (never for a moment think that this wasn’t a choice, no matter how much I denied it at the time) to give my life over the social workers, psychologists, psychiatrists, friends, fellow inmates, and various hospital personnel, in exchange for having them care for me — feed me, house me, attend to me, prescribe medication for me, pay attention to me, etc..

It didn’t take me a real long time to figure out that this might not be the most ideal exchange in the world for me.

True, I didn’t have to be responsible for myself — I could lip off, act out, and generally whine and moan to my heart’s content — after all, I was crazy, dontcha know.

The trade-off was that I didn’t get to decide the following: when and what I ate/drank, when or for how long I slept, what chemicals were introduced to my system, or how my time was spent.

Not so fun, in the long run. Kind of, like, “friendly” prison. (Okay, not always so friendly — just depended on who was on shift.)

So, why am I going on about this?

It bears on that item I brought up in my last post — namely, the issue of
capability vs. choice.

When I look back on my loony-bin days, I am acutely aware that my choice to acquiesce to institutionalization was just that — a choice — however unconscious I was of it at the time, and no matter how much I didn’t see it as a choice.

The proof of this is that, when I became fed up with the untenable trade-off of all my power for all my responsibility, I figured out a way to get my trip together and get myself out of the institution — and I watched other “inmates” do this as well.

It seems to me to have had little or nothing to do with my state of “capability”.

I have had many interesting conversations with other “crazy” people, both while in and out of the bin — no doubt about it, every single one of them was completely mad — but I also think that all of them had made a choice to step into being “crazy”.

I can almost grasp and remember when that moment of choice came for me — I recall it as a sort of psychic “letting go” — an “oh fuck it” whispered softly to the Universe. I then slipped into the role of victim of my own experience and mental process.

That role felt somewhat comforting at first, I think — it reduced the complexity of my life to just think of myself completely as someone that this was “happening to” — and professionals of all variety were happy to support me in this idea that I “couldn’t help it” — that I was “mentally ill”.

I realize that my saying this will probably send some people into fits. They might call it “blaming the victim”, or claim that I am minimizing the seriousness of mental illness. I’m not. I recognize that there are actual conditions such as schizophrenia and bi-polar disorder and MPD and post-traumatic stress disorder and alcoholism, and I recognize that they are real because I have experienced some of them.

I also know many people who “have” these dis-eases, and live with them without becoming “crazy” — without giving up their responsibility to and for themselves — or who become crazy and then un-crazy themselves.

Fifteen hundred (who knows, maybe even a hundred) years ago, my fellow inmates and I might have lived at the edge of the village and been sought for our “wacky ideas” as shamans, seers, and healers. We would have had a job, not in spite of our madness, but because of it.

In fact, cultivating our madness would probably have been part of the responsibility of that job.

In some sense, that is what I am doing today — my “job” is to be this madwoman — to bring forth what many in our society would (and probably do) scoff at as woo-woo nonsense at best, and utter insanity at worst.

So, when someone asked me this week whether I thought that it was possible that someone could be drug-addicted “beyond the point of no return” — to a point where they literally could not be responsible for themselves and their self-care ever again, I said that I didn’t think that this was possible.

It’s true for me that when I went “crazy” there was still some niche in me that knew exactly what I was doing — that I was asking — maybe even screaming — to be taken into the arms of the system, to give up my power and my responsibility and become a child again — to be a helpless crazy person.

I don’t regret that journey to crazyville — it taught me a lot, and changed me irrevocably. Once I had allowed myself to “go crazy”, there really is no way that I could ever pretend that I was “normal” again.

So, much of the work of psychiatrists and drugs and social workers is essentially wasted, in my opinion, because that is what they endeavor to do — to return you to “normal”, which, in my experience, is impossible.

For, once I had loosed my grip on my own consciousness and responsibility, I now knew that this is an option — and in all the years since, I haven’t been able to un-know that.

It’s difficult for me to explain how pivotal this tiny piece of knowledge is for me. Prior to my time as a crazy person, I had spent about ten years as a social worker, and I worked with many people who were mad, mentally ill, and/or crazy. I remember sitting across the desk from them, helping them “manage” their lives.

In my first trip to the hospital, I sat across the desk from a woman who was in the role that I had played for so many years, and saw her looking at me in a way that I found utterly familiar — the way I had looked at those with whom I had worked — as if she were gazing into some far distant universe to which she had neither the technology nor the desire to travel — a universe that was a virtual impossibility for her to inhabit, or even to fully imagine.

I wanted to scream at her “No, wait — you don’t understand! — I’m you!”

I think, though, in that moment, I already knew that I was no longer her — and that I could never be her again — that I could not, and would never, fully return to the other side of the desk.

Looking at a postcard of a place that you haven’t visited and think you will never travel to is very different than looking at a postcard of the place where you were born and raised, knowing that you will never return.

That metaphor doesn’t fit exactly for me, I suppose, because I do visit that "birthplace" — I walk free in the world of “normal” people (which I now consider are simply people who don’t know — yet — that they have the option of going crazy) — but I walk in that place as a covert visitor now, an undercover alien who has adopted the costume and affect of the natives but whose observations of the culture are informed by that other universe and the long trek to and from it.

I recognize, though, that I was not the victim of a kidnapping — but rather the intrepid launch team, pilot, and captain of the voyage. I do not believe that this assignment was thrust upon me — I am absolutely convinced that I volunteered for this dangerous and exciting mission.

This was, admittedly, hard to see from inside the crazyness — or maybe, having gotten myself into such a fine pickle, each day it became more challenging to re-take my responsibility, because there was such a continually-mounting pile of it to shoulder.

Energetically, I am sending the person whose friend asked me whether he might be drug-addicted beyond the point of no return -- whose whole community might be considering him incapable -- my full vote of confidence in his complete ability to “un-crazy” himself. I believe that in granting him his responsibility, I am granting him his power.

When I was hospitalized, the friends who were most helpful to me were those who had been to that universe and back. They didn’t look at me with mournful and pitying eyes, and they gave me good advice, based in direct experience.

One of them said to me: “Get your money’s worth. Do crafts.”

When I discovered that my bill would be more than $15,000 for the first 4 days (including a $32 tube of chapstick), I took her counsel and threw myself into the various needlepoint, sculpting, and leatherwork projects available to me, under the watchful eyes of the occupational therapist.

I tooled a black leather belt that I still have, and stamped a phrase on it that demonstrates to me that, even though I was in the depths of self-pity and victimhood at the time, some part of me understood all of this as a conscious and choiceful act. The belt simply said:

“Going there. And coming back.”

Things That Make Me Cry

2008-12-10T22:00:00.000-08:00

I'm actually a soft-touch when it comes to weeping. Sappy movies, empathy for others -- but in my day-to-day life, I don't get teary that often.

Tonight was an exception. There's nothing huge and tragic going on for me, just a lot, lot, lot of little things, but I'm feeling discouraged and down tonight, which is very unusual for me.

I think part of it is a series of gear-ups and let-downs that I've experienced recently. I really needed a webcam for a project that I'm working on, and I worked out this perfect trade with someone who had a great cam to trade me for something they wanted as badly as I wanted that camera. It arrived in the mail today, and I was all excited like a little kid -- but it doesn't work on my 'puter -- not without significant fussing, and expense. I just felt like someone had pulled the wind out of my sails.

Now this event, by itself, wouldn't have done that. But honest to fuck, the last couple of months have been challenging -- not in a death and dying, or broken bones/spilled blood way -- a printer that died (got another one from a friend, and it, too, doesn't want to work -- techno-HELL!), a huge slow-down in my work, concerns about my mom's health (that thankfully, turned out to be a false alarm), bills piling up, my Beloved and I talking about whether we can afford to keep living here, the beloved elder cat who is struggling with her health right now, and my own internal wonderings about what constitutes "right action" for me in all of it.

I've kept my chin up, really, through this and more -- every day, there is far more good than bad, and I've honestly felt that -- savored it -- felt rich in a time when money is thin because I am truly blessed in so many other ways. I'm a genuinely optimistic and upbeat person, and I've seen far, far worse times than this. Generally, I consider these inconveniences and challenges with equanimity -- but tonight -- I don't know -- tonight I am just feeling like my stuffings got knocked out.

It's such an unusual state at this point in my life that I'm not even particularly resistant to it -- it's new and unfamiliar in some way, and I'm just observing it and the inertia it seems to be breeding in me right at this moment.

Maybe it's because it was my "day off", and I was looking forward to R&R, and playing with the new camera that was supposed to (and did) arrive today. Instead, I ended up fussing, and googling, and trying to find workarounds, and freezing up my computer, and going to two stores to see if they had a part, and thinking that even if they did, I really shouldn't spend money on it, but the camera could be a source of income-production, so maybe I should spend money on it, and I was feeling so hopeful and upbeat and excited about it before all this happened -- and -- as I was driving away from the second store (that didn't have the part I probably shouldn't be spending money on anyway) on the way home, I just started bawling.

That's really unusual. It was that kind of sad, disappointed kid crying -- but I knew it wasn't just about the camera -- that was just the excuse for the release. It was a tired sort of weepy crying that says to me that I'm tuckered out.

It's not just the stuff in my personal realm, either, I don't think. I tend to believe in that stuff about "If you do what you came to do, the Universe will support you" -- so I think I'm having deep questions about what seem like frequent obstacles and tepid support recently -- questions about whether it's all a message that I need to be doing something -- or many things -- different/differently.

There's also the fact that I personally know people who are dealing with far, far more difficult things than I, so I feel a little weird and give myself a hard time that this shit is getting to me. Then I think, "Well, maybe I'm releasing for others who don't feel as comfortable releasing".

I honestly don't know. I just know that when I sat down to blog tonight, with all these ideas about what I might write, I found myself sitting there, staring at the computer, and needing to express this -- just to get it out there and out of my way, I suppose -- to clear the thing that's clogging the pipes.

So this is a post with little cohesion or direction -- just an expression -- like my tears in the car.
=========================

OK. I wrote that part so that you could see the kind of process that I go through every fucking year around this time.

You see -- around 49 years ago, I had a very bad thing happen to me at this time of year. I won't go into the details, because I'm not at all sure that they're important anymore -- suffice it to say that when people hear the full story, they always seem to look a little haunted afterward -- as I once was.

I spent years in therapy healing the wounds that resulted from that time of my life, and am now remarkably whole, considering my history. This time of year used to be a crushing weight for me -- a time of fear and depression and despair. For years, before I had any clear memory of what had happened to me, this crushing weight came down anyway, in the weeks before Christmas, and I spun like a top in a maelstrom of emotion.

After I remembered and began dealing with my past, the storm continued to descend annually, but at least I had some idea of what was going on for me. My understanding didn't mitigate the difficulty of this season, but it did at least give me some way to deal with it.

I stopped thinking of myself as just a neurotic mess and began thinking of myself as someone who was having a response. That didn't take away the fear, or erase the depression, or dissolve the despair, but at least I could grab onto my newfound intellectual understanding as some kind of anchor as I tossed and turned and whipped around and wailed.

For six-seven years of my life, healing was pretty much all that I did -- and slowly, slowly, I did heal.

Now, mid-December approaches me and I do not shrivel up and crawl into a corner.

In fact, it's gotten to the place now that, like tonight, I forget that I might be responding to something much deeper than the surface, physical events that are happening in my life -- that I may be experiencing an echo of something that, while mostly healed, still presents patches of scar-tissue in my psyche.

I forget, and an unexpected crying jag overtakes me in the car, and for a minute or two (or a half hour, or sometimes even an hour or two), I am very mean to myself about what a big baby I'm being -- and then -- I remember.

I remember that I am not a wimpy whiner who can't handle disappointment, but rather, a miraculous testament to the perseverance of the human spirit.

I remember that it's a miracle that I survived my childhood, let alone those years and years and years of confused anguish.

I remember that it's a miracle that I made it through the six years of constant examination of incredibly difficult material, and the inching advance toward wholeness.

I remember that it's a miracle that I am a basically optimistic, and that 99.9% of the time, I believe in the potential, goodness, and worth of human beings -- because the things that I survived might have just as easily turned me into a very justified cynic.

I remember that I am a miracle.

================
There is this particular sensation I get at very specific times -- not whenever I cry, but whenever I cry in this particular way. It comes when I watch movies that are very sad in a certain way -- usually about human beings being unjust to one another, or yearning in vain for real connection with one another. It's that heart-breaking stuff that gives rise to this sensation.

Anyway, when I cry in that particular way, from that particular stimulus, I often get this very distinct sensation in the side of the tip of my left index finger. It's always in exactly the same spot, and it's like a sharp pinchy ache. I can feel it as I start to tear up, and the more I try to suppress tearing up, the more it aches until I cry.

It was so consistent and so peculiar that I looked it up on an acupuncture chart -- the spot that hurts is precisely on the Large Instestine Meridian (LI1) -- and in some disciplines, the "negative" aspect of that meridian is associated with the concept of guilt. The affirmative emotion suggested for its healing is "I am inherently pure and good. I am worthy to be loved."

Tonight, as I started this post, still crying, and listening to little assholey arguers in my head like: "Well why in the world would you post that? What earthly good will that do? Why do you think these people would even care about you?" -- I kept crying, and I could feel that spot in my finger aching. I can feel it now.

Much of the healing that I've done has been about learning to stop thinking that what happened to me was my fault. It's weird to me, at an intellectual level, that I could think that -- I was three years old when it happened -- but there were once large parts of myself that thought that.

Those voices are dimmer now, and I don't give them much weight anymore, but I think that they are my last bit of healing to do -- the voices in my own head that discount my experience, and denigrate my own strength -- the voices that tell me I'm a cry-baby, or weak, or whining. I think the stingy ache in my finger is stimulated by that inhumanity that I harbor in my own head toward myself.

I will go gently with myself in these coming weeks. I'll let myself cry when I want and need to. I'll give myself permission to let myself off the hook when the little stuff seems overwhelming. I'll open my heart and embrace the miracle that I can open my heart.

I'm sharing this with you in case you're struggling with this season -- or in case you struggle with any season -- so that you can remember that you are a miracle, too.

Time For External Stimulus

2008-12-09T23:48:00.000-08:00

As is periodically necessary, I require external stimulus from my readers to get my sloggish brain and over-worked ass to post.

Please suggest subject-matter you would like to see posts on in comments. I don't know what it is, but I'm feeling dry as a bone for inspiration the past few days. It's not like nothing is going on -- there's a LOT going on (in fact, my Beloved tonight quoted someone as saying "It's like trying to comb your hair during a hurricane", and that sounded just exactly right).

But see, blogging actually helps me with that, if I can get past my slog and blog.

Please -- I beg you -- tell me what to write about!!!!!!!

My Apologies for Missing a Day

2008-12-08T23:32:00.000-08:00

I was waging the "great printer battle", which I'm still waging. And work and stuff. I will be back. I'm Arnold-like, that way.

Lazy Girl Blogging

2008-12-06T23:44:00.000-08:00

I'm tired tonight and I've got a big day tomorrow, so here's a re-run of Mr. Deity from last year (I miss Mr. Deity -- *sniff*)

From Crackle: Mr. Deity and the Good - Season 2, Ep 8

Emulating 'Liss -- I Write Letters

2008-12-05T21:30:00.000-08:00

(For those who haven't seen it yet -- this is the Advocate cover that I'm talking about. What follows is an actual letter that I'm sending to the Advocate -- I can't leave it in their letters section because they only allow 1000 characters and you know how I am with the excessive words thing. I'm sending it in complete from via snail-mail.)
================Begin Transmission=========================

Dear Advocate:

Your December cover was appalling to me.

In one fell swoop, you managed to:

Appropriate the black civil rights movement,
Act as if the struggle for equal rights for people of color is completed,
Potentially piss off and alienate a whole bunch of queer and straight allies -- and -- Big finish now! --
Infer that the gay rights movement is the only civil rights struggle still in existence.

Quadruple-privilege-whammy. Way. To. Go.

But as if that weren't enough, you also wrangled an opportunity to fail utterly at both edginess and cleverness.

"_________ is the New Black" is a phrase meant to infer that something is new or cutting edge. News for you: Oppression is neither new nor cutting edge -- in fact, lateral oppression among and between disenfranchised groups is so old and status-quo that perhaps your cover would be better served with the following slogan: "Same Shit, Different Gays".

In your rush to construct a "clever" cover, perhaps it did not occur to you to completely think through the inferences in your choice of trendy phrase -- which is most commonly defined to mean this: "Blank is the New Black" is used "to indicate the sudden popularity or versatility of an idea at the expense of the popularity of a second idea". Get that?

And if you did consider all the implications of your catchy, hip cover blast, and decided to use it anyway -- if there were discussions such as "You know, queers of color, and straight allies who are people of color, and all kinds of people for whom racism is an important issue might be offended by this, but . . . . . hey, f*ck 'em!", then I would posit that you are consciously doing harm to the very movement that you dub (with all the arrogance borne of privilege): "The Last Great Civil Rights Struggle"!!!eleventy-one!!

Oh, and about that little conclusion you seem to have drawn, there -- can I just say: WHAT?!?!?

Last I looked, there were plenty of perfectly great civil rights struggles to be had -- immigrant rights, disabled rights, transgender rights, transsexual rights, intersex rights -- just to name a very, very few. Oh, and those two eensy-weensy matters of equal rights for women and people of color. (I thought I'd mention some of those just in case you were wondering what you might do with your free time after you complete the Last Great Civil Rights Struggle.)

Because I'm sure, what with completely alienating a bunch of people of color (gay and straight alike) and people like me, who actually care about stuff like inclusiveness and outreach, you're just going to whip that Last Great Civil Rights Struggle into shape in no time. (Good luck with that, by the way.)

OK -- enough with the snark. You see -- that type of flippant, psuedo-hip, so-what-if-it-oversimplifies-the-entire-situation- and-alienates-someone-with-whom-I-might-otherwise-be-a-natural-ally-but-hey!-don't-I-look-cool!? communication (which is exactly what I perceive your cover to be) -- just isn't helpful, in my opinion.

I'm a white lesbian. I've been active in the struggle for queer rights since the mid-70s. Although I understand the convenience of the short-hand term "gay rights", I don't feel included by it, and I've been deeply saddened and disheartened to see some in the "gay community" continue the ongoing attempt to distance themselves from the rights of transsexual, transgender, and intersexed queers.

Although I understand that it can (sometimes) be useful to connect with narratives of various other struggles for equal rights, I have been attempting to listen and learn what it means for people who have faced oppression because of racism, ableism, classism, and xenophobia to hear me do so. I think that there are ways to discuss certain parallels or similarities respectfully, and in ways that foster connection and understanding, rather than alienation -- but I don't believe that your choice of a cover is one of them.

The deepest inroads that queer-rights activists have effected in my 33+ years in the movement have been made through connection and visibility, not appropriation and alienation. The biggest problems that I've seen in that movement over those 33+ years have arisen from marginalization of certain queers within the movement, complacency bred of "I've got mine", "It's the best we can get", or "It's not my problem" thinking, and the alienation of natural allies.

The article that Mr. Gross wrote at least put a question mark behind the words: "Gay is the New Black?" (and for what it's worth, I thought that the vast majority of his article was respectful, thoughtful, and thought-provoking -- I did have some nits to pick, but I won't pick them here).

I find it hard to believe that the cover-space, dominated as it was by a simple white title, couldn't have accommodated that question mark (and maybe one after the bold christening of gay rights as the Last-Great-Blah-Blah-Blah-Frankly-I'm-Sick-Of-Typing-It, as well?).

Sweeping declarations are, to me, only rightfully owned by those who have actual authority in a matter, and in the matter of civil rights, "gays" definitely do not own exclusive rights to the territory.

Mr. Gross posed his article as a question, and, in my opinion, brought himself to the examination of that question forthrightly, with a good degree of nuance and complexity. I think that you did his article a great injustice, in fact, by replacing his question with that extremely unstable declarative -- because only the Advocate's primary audience is likely to look beyond that cover.

In my opinion, that greatly reduces the likelihood that an important discussion that might have taken place in response to Mr. Gross' article will take place. Even I, as someone more likely to be sympathetic to the article, opened it ready to be offended and alienated -- based on the message of your cover.

You have a big voice in the queer community.

I ask you, please, to use that big voice with more care. What you choose will affect the lives of queers like me, whether I agree with you or not. People will point to your cover and say: "See? The gay rights movement is racist and insensitive!", and I will counter: "I think the cover editors at the Advocate were racist and insensitive." -- but my voice won't sit on every news-rack or echo through the mainstream media.

Sincerely,
PortlyDyke/Carol Steinel

=====================End Transmission =======================

A Really Easy Post To Write

2008-12-04T23:27:00.000-08:00

I'm going to my first-ever blog round-up.

Go read my Beloved's blog.

That is all.

A Closet of One's Own

2008-12-03T23:20:00.000-08:00

This week, I had a discussion in which someone pointed out that it was racist and appropriating to compare the Black Civil Rights movement to the Gay Rights movement.

I completely agree that one cannot equate the two (although I do believe that it is possible, and often very useful, to identify certain commonalities that seem to run through all forms of oppression), and I have taken to heart the things that I learned. I will be more aware and more respectful of this in the future.

As I am wont to do, I went on an internet quest to learn more about this concept of appropriation of the black civil rights movement, and did, in fact, learn more.

I also noted that a lot of people made comments to the effect that one of the major differences between the oppressions faced by people of color and people who are queer (and yes, I include in that -- not in any particular order of priority -- lesbians, gay men, bisexual people, transgender, transsexual, intersexed, and questioning people -- plus anyone who considers themselves "queer", whether I've used their label choice or not -- I prefer and choose the word "queer" because the acronyms keep changing, and dammit, I like being a queer) -- anyway -- I kept seeing this comment when people were citing the differences -- that queers can "hide it" -- that they have the option of remaining closeted.

I noticed that I had a deep and visceral response to these types of statements, and didn't initially understand why, so I did some soul-searching and thinking and delving deep, and this is what I found:

First of all, I'm not sure whether it's even true that all (or even most) of us can "hide it".

I attempted to "hide it" for years -- just for starters, from age 12 to age 19, before I had even kissed a girl, but after I knew that I was queer -- and this didn't stop me from being harassed on the playground and in the halls of my high school with taunts of "lesbo" and "homo". So, maybe -- lol my hiding skills?

Second of all, even if it is true that it's possible to hide it -- hiding your queerness doesn't mean that you're not queer -- it just means that you're queer and completely suppressing a huge part of your persona.

To someone who is straight, the complexity of being closeted is probably not really apparent or easy to imagine. Being in the closet, once you have acknowledged your queerdom, is neither casual, nor does it impact one small, tidy area of your life (the bedroom) -- as evidenced by the difficulty that my straight coupled friends had in meeting my challenge to emulate a closeted life for even one week.

Attempting to remain completely closeted usually means either joining a cloister, remaining solitary, or marrying someone of the opposite sex (the latter almost always resulting in emotional wreckage for everyone involved).

Attempting to remain partially closeted as an adult (say, being involved in a same-sex relationship, but presenting a false front of being "straight" to one's family or employer/co-workers), influences nearly everything -- for example:

the jobs you will, or can, consider,
the clothing and hairstyles that you choose,
the living situation you will have (this changes with age, too, because you may get away with having a "roommate" at 21, but by the time you're in your mid-30s, people are going to start wondering, no matter how careful you are with your "straightening up" when the landlord or mom and dad come by),
the care that you take with the love-letters that you write (or choose not to write at all, depending on the depth of your closet) in terms of their traceability to you or the chances of them falling into "the wrong hands",
the proximity you will dare in terms of living near or interacting with your family of origin,
the amount of social familiarity you will allow yourselves with your co-workers (or your lover),
how often, and where, you will be seen with the person who you are most intimately involved with,
where (or whether) you keep keepsakes, momentos, or reminders of your most intimate relationship,
the art you put on the walls of your house, the magazines you leave on your coffee-table, and the books you keep on your shelves,
the topics of conversation that you will engage with at work, or with your family,
major decisions about where, and with whom, you will be at every holiday, birthday, etc.,
Etc., etc., etc.
This list does not even touch on the complexities of the closet for TG, TS, and IS people (the examples I used above are distinctly personal to me as a lesbian -- I can barely imagine how the closet is complicated for those who are dealing with trans-phobia and a raft of other oppressions).
This list also does not touch on the complexities of queers who live in countries where being queer is a crime punishable by death.

It's been a long time since I maintained an active closet, so I'm sure I'm leaving shit off the list -- but suffice it to say: "Hiding it", if that's what you attempt -- is a full time fucking job -- and rarely successful, anyway --

When I was closeted (to my family and at my work) and I did finally come out -- guess what -- no one was surprised. There was not one person at my work or in my family who didn't know -- which means that, if they had been a raging homophobe with an axe to grind, and had wanted to kill a queer -- they would have killed me anyway, regardless of my attempts to stay in the closet.

Even as an out queer, I still attempt to hide stuff when I think my safety is at risk, and that level of vigilance is constant (although nearly unconscious, at this point, as I have elucidated in the Take My Arm post cited above).

So yeah, that's one difference between racist oppression and homophobic oppression -- a queer can attempt to mitigate how badly homophobia affects them by suppressing big parts of themselves on a daily basis.

Isn't it nice to have options? -- I know I'm feeling all "whee!" about it.

Seriously -- the concept of choosing the closet is pretty contemporary, anyway.

Until 1973, homosexuality was still listed as a mental disorder (I have a friend who was forcibly committed to a mental institution -- straight jacket and all -- by her mother when she was discovered kissing her high-school lover in the early 1970s).

The last sodomy laws in this country were repealed only 5 years ago, and that ruling finally nullified the Idaho law which mandated a minimum 5 years up to life-imprisonment for "Every person who is guilty of the infamous crime against nature, committed with mankind or with any animal". When I was in high school, the only state where sodomy wasn't a crime was Illinois, and they had only repealed their sodomy laws in the 60s.

So, I'd say that at the time that I was coming out, it wasn't so much about whether we had the choice to "hide it", but that we had the choice to hide it, or risk jail or mental institution time. The closet didn't seem optional when I first realized I was queer -- and there were very, very few examples of thriving, out queers in those days.

Another peculiarity about experiencing the direct effects of homophobia as compared to other forms of discrimination is this -- at the beginning, at the very least, you pretty much get to experience this all alone.

For most queers, the first "coming out" is to yourself. For me, it was at age 12. I'd never met a homosexual. I'd never even heard the word.

There I stood, at the Health Department brochure rack, after my First Aid class (which would hopefully earn me another merit badge as a Girl Scout), and I opened a brochure for older kids which had a glossary in the back that included the word: "Homosexual". The description wasn't favorable, but I knew when I read these words -- “Homosexuality is a perversion in which the person prefers sex relations with a person of their same sex.” -- that they described me.

From that moment forward, I was dealing with my queerness -- alone-- until I found others queers, over 7 years later. The vast majority of queers that I know (especially of my generation) had this experience. There might even have been another queer in the family (in may case, there was), but we would probably not know that, because the option (ha!) of "hiding it" was exercised.

So, while people who are oppressed on the basis of their race, or their religion, or their nationality, tend to come to the age where they can begin to intellectually process the oppression they experience within an environment of others who also understand this oppression (family-of-origin/culture), many, if not most, young queers do this first "coming out" to themselves while completely surrounded by members of the privileged class (heteronormative/straight) most likely to oppress them.

Compound this by the fact that this first realization usually comes at a time when they are in the already-fragile state called adolescence, and while they are still completely dependent upon that group of potential oppressors.

Compound this further by the fact that young queers face not only the potential of being rejected by their families, but by their friends as well, especially if they grow up in a geographic area, specific ethnic or religious culture, or an era in which homophobia is not only not confronted, but fostered. (I first came out to myself in rural Kansas, in a family of Missouri-synod Lutherans, in 1968.)

Compound this further by the fact that the virulence of institutionalized homophobia may be so strong in a particular culture or religious group that the thought of coming out as queer would almost certainly mean becoming a complete exile from the roots that have nourished you, while entering the world of queer culture might mean facing a whole new set of oppressions because of the very roots you've had to leave. (Like my friend Catherine, who left her neighborhood and family behind because an out butch dyke wasn't welcome in the culture she grew up in, yet who faced constant racism within the queer movement as a black dyke, and Suzie, raised mormon, who was rejected by a religion and a social network that was very important to her, but who faced constant anti-mormon sentiment in the queer movement.) In this case, coming out may very well mean having the sense of having no "place" in the world at all.

Consider those facts, and tell me again whether "hiding it" is really a choice -- because honestly, is it a true "choice" when the alternative may be (during my era, anyway) institutionalization, incarceration, or complete isolation -- and more contemporarily -- homelessness, beatings, or death?

I mean, sure, it's technically a choice -- everything is -- but kind of a "shit-cake or death" choice -- the reduction of an oppressed person's choices to "obey or survive" is a time-honored tradition amongst oppressors.

Getting back to "coming out all alone" bit -- one of the most significant issues, for me, in queer culture and in the movement for equal civil rights for LGBTQ people has been this peculiarly isolated state in which most of us begin the discovery of our authentic identities.

With rare exceptions, we aren't born into queer families. No one tells us stories of our heritage -- in fact, books that might give us a glimpse of someone like ourselves are often the ones most likely to be kept out of schools and libraries.

The stories of people who were queer and brilliant -- the people we might look to as "ancestors" (Bernstein, Michaelangelo, DaVinci, Alexander the Great) are sanitized and "straightened up" (or their queerness is hotly contested, even when -- as in the case of DaVinci -- historical documentation would strongly indicate that they were queer).

This has resulted in a lot of problems in the queer movement, I think -- there has been a distinct lack of continuity -- a sense of the queer community remaking itself again and again with each new generation of queers. That's changing now, to some extent, as outreach programs to queer youth and greater exposure in the mainstream media documents the history of the queer rights movement, and queer history in general.

That takes me right back to my original point, though -- the reason I had no queer role models when I first realized that I was queer was because they hid. They hid, I believe, not because they wanted to -- in fact, the truly remarkable thing is that some of them came out of hiding, which made it easier --perhaps possible at all -- for me to come out of hiding.

Which lands me square on why this whole "you can hide it" argument bugs me so much, I think. Keeping queers in the closet is a major tool of homophobic oppression. It's not some perc. It's not some great advantage -- it's part and parcel of the eliminationist rhetoric of institutionalized homophobia. It's the thing that leads queer kids to suicide, and ruins lives, and destroys relationships.

The oppression of queers has relied upon queers' willingness to hide, to closet -- to erase themselves from the record of human life, or risk erasure by others -- sometimes in the most drastic of forms (complete expulsion from family and family records, edited out of history books, burned at the stake or hanged) -- so I consider hiding my queerness to be actively oppressing myself -- for me, it's a form of capitulation with my oppressors.

Ah! Wait! Eureka! I found it! After all that thrashing around -- here is why it doesn't seem like a choice to me:

Because the choice for queers, so often, is not really "Hide or Be Out" -- it is -- "Erase Yourself or Be Erased By Us".

Which isn't really much of a choice at all, except in the matter of who does the erasing.

Glad I got to the bottom of that. Maybe I can sleep now.

Ruminations

2008-12-02T22:28:00.001-08:00

I'm ruminating tonight, and I'm sleepy, and my neck is out of whack, and I do have a big post cooking in my brain, and tomorrow is my day off -- so I'll probably be posting early tomorrow.

I had the experience, today, of feeling worn out by process (which is unusual for me), and slightly discouraged about being queer (in terms of "Gah! Will this shit ever change?!?!?!?!").

I will wait for morning to reveal a new attitude to me, as it nearly always does. In the meanwhile, my faithful readers, rest well, and dream of large women.

(Skip to 6:11 for referential enjoyment)

A Recession is Just An Agreement

2008-12-01T22:33:00.000-08:00

Yes. I said it. It's just an agreement -- and agreement based, for most people, on simple fear (for others, perhaps, an agreement based on simple greed).

If you don't already know about my thoughts on the subject of "money", you may want to read here -- if you don't read that, and you want to go all spluttery on me in comments as if I haven't already made my views about money perfectly clear, I'll probably just refer you back to that post anyway, so you may as well read it now.

OK. Back?

On with my subject matter.

Recession is an agreement -- if this is not abundantly clear to you already (given that the "Recession" is "declared" by "the powers that be", even though many people have been feeling the pinch of said Recession for months) -- then I invite you to consider the following:

No actual money which existed on this planet prior to the great financial crisis of Autumn 2008 has suddenly disappeared -- no money magically slipped out of Earth's atmosphere into deep space -- no money was dumped in a hole, doused with gasoline, and destroyed -- no money was accidentally, or purposefully, atomized in a freak nuclear reaction.

All the money that existed before the subprime mortgage crisis was triggered in 2007, and all the money that existed before the Bear Stearns takeover in March '08, and all the money that existed before the Feds took over Fannie and Freddie, and all the money that existed before the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, and Wamu, and the Bailout (aka Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 -- doesn't that sound nice?) -- all of that money still actually exists.

(That is, as much as it ever did actually exist -- because it has only existed because we agree that it exists -- please see that post that I referred to above).

On a more tangible scale, the physical resources, objects, and raw materials that all of that money represents or stands-in-for actually do still exist, for certain and for sure, regardless of any human agreements about money -- the Recession has not blown great wads of the planet into nothingness. All the stuff that we have used money to represent or purchase is still here.

That means that the only thing that has really changed on planet Earth since the Recession was declared today (or since it supposedly began months ago) is this: Our agreements about money have changed -- what it is, what it's worth, and how much we will circulate it.

That's it. That's the only difference, in "financial" terms, between yesterday and today, or 2006 and 2008.

All that money that used to be flying around so freely is still somewhere. It may not be at my house, or your house, right now -- but it's somewhere.

Regardless of where you may fall on the financial spectrum -- if you use money in any way, you participate, whether consciously or unconsciously, in this vast agreement -- that's why I can't exempt myself from the Recession concept, or pretend like it "just happened" -- I was playing with the monopoly money with the same earnestness as the fat-cats on Wall Street -- equally convinced that the game was real -- the only difference is the scale and the numbers.

So, I'm going to change my agreement tonight -- I hereby formally lodge my opinion that the Recession does not exist -- either that, or it always existed -- since all the money, resources, energy, and raw materials situated on Planet Earth still exist today.

That is all.

Let's Just Hope . . . .

2008-11-30T23:03:00.000-08:00

. . . . . that the Cat League doesn't find out about this. He'll be drummed out for sure.

Portly of Omaha's Wild Kingdom

2008-11-29T21:46:00.000-08:00

I meant to blog this earlier, but it got away from me.

In order to get the full-body experience of this post, I suggest that you click here

A couple of months ago, we were sitting in the kitchen nook with a dear friend, chatting.

A bit of back-story: There is this cat, you see.

He's not "our" cat.

Our cat is a different cat.

She looks like this:

Although I could understand how you might be confused, when you see something like this:

. . . . . . . And yes, that is a gigantic heap of catnip he's lying in -- why do you ask?

ANYway -- Mr. Black Kitty is not, as I said, "our" cat, but apparently, he has decided that we are "his" people. He ostensibly belongs to our neighbors, but he doesn't seem to spend any time there. They are rarely home, and there are two rather yappy dachshunds living there that he does not seem to enjoy, so he spends the bulk of his days at our house.

Now, it's been a while since we had a younger cat around. Our remaining kitteh is 15, with bad hips, and her version of "playing" is lazily swatting at a peacock feather -- IF she feels like it.

So I had forgotten about younger cats, I think.

Back to the kitchen nook table.

So, I'm looking over my friend's shoulder out the kitchen window when I see the hardy fuschia bush suddenly thrash about as if a hurricane-force wind has kicked up (it was a still day). The bush careens around for a about twenty seconds, and then we hear a thump on the ground below, as if something has fallen.

"What the hell was that?!" popped out of my mouth, and we went out to see what had happened.

Where we saw this, at the bottom of the bush:

My Beloved said, "I'll be he was trying to get a hummingbird in the fuschia."

We all went inside.

And looked out the kitchen window, where we saw, at the very, very tippy top of the bush -- this:

Which, of course, surprised us, so I went outside with and took a picture of this:

To give you a little scale:

Mr. Black Kitty is a voracious hunter, and he had been bagging more than his share of native songbirds recently (despite bell and collar), so my Beloved had a talk with him and told him that she was fine with him hunting rodents, but to please leave the birds alone (which he has, for the most part).

His predator fetish is so pervasive that I considered calling him either Tab Hunter or the Black Death, but my Beloved gently reminded me that I might not actually want to energize that by reinforcing his big cat fantasies every time I called his name. Smart, she.

At any rate, there was this little rodent person (we had already found parts of his/her compatriots scattered about the lawn in recent days), perched high atop the fuschia, panting frantically. I tried to lure Black Kitty into the house so that said rodent person might make its Great Escape, but BK was having none of it. He hung around under or near the bush for over an hour, and finally, rodent person, no doubt exhausted by its ordeal, actually fell asleep at the tippy top of the bush.

Giving me the opportunity to do my Marlin Perkins thing:

I seriously considered a rescue attempt, but honestly, I thought it would just freak the poor rodent person out further, so I went inside and let nature take its course.

Which it did. Later, rodent person moved further down the bush, while Black Kitty waited patiently, and a few hours later I found rodent person's remains (or one of rodent person's compatriot's remains) nearby in the yard.

I will say that Black Kitty does actually eat his kills, which is more than I can say for a few of my cats, and I'm assuming by the number of rodent carcasses (usually partial) that I've found in the yard that they probably needed some population control. I'm still not exactly sure what kind of a rodent it is. At first, I suspected that it was a baby Norwegian rat, but now I'm not so certain.

Thought I'd share the adventure.

Wotthehell

2008-11-28T17:46:00.002-08:00

OK -- so, I'm going to do something I've never even considered doing on my blog, but I figure -- you never know.

I've had a Ernst Roth violin (it's really nice) on craigslist for a couple of months with no luck in selling it. The truth is, we need the money right now, and the fiddle has been languishing, pretty much unplayed, at our house for a while. We've been concentrating on moving stuff along here at Chez Portly -- simplifying, getting rid of stuff that we don't use, preparing ourselves for whatever is next in our lives.

So, if you, or anyone you know, is interested in a truly killer deal on a very nice instrument, you can check it out at this link:

http://seattle.craigslist.org/see/msg/933749368.html

It's a good instrument -- German made, 1965.

Feels kind of weird to do this here, but as I said: wotthehell -- it couldn't hurt, and the rent is due on Monday (and yeah, it's that kind of "we need the money right now").

Contact me via the email in the profile, or from the craigslist ad. Thanks for passing it along if you know someone who might be interested.

Happy Turkey -- with Mormon Sauce

2008-11-27T22:03:00.000-08:00

So, last night, after I had been dialoguing with some internet being about whether the LDS had overstepped itself as a non-profit during the Prop 8 campaign, I was unwinding by surfing the tubes, and I heard this little "tap-tap-tap".

I pulled my earphones off one ear for a moment and cocked my head to listen. Nothing.

I called up to my Beloved: "Was that you?"

"What?"

"That tapping -- was that you?"

Then I hear a muffled voice as I get up to listen again -- a faraway voice that is not unusual to hear in my house when a friend has arrived at the back door without calling first: "Helloooo?"

I stopped in the hall, trying to figure out whether it's at the front door or the back.

Then I hear it again -- tap, tap, tap.

Front door. Why don't they use my (rather lovely, if I may say so myself) doorbell?

I advance toward the door a bit cautiously. None of our friends come to the front door.

It is the gateway for the landlord, Jehovah's witnesses, and people who are arriving as clients, students, or attendees to our events.

I wasn't sure why I felt cautious -- I live in the town of 911 calls involving annoying relatives and wandering goats -- but cautious, I felt.

"Who's there?" I call out as I move toward the door hesitantly.

"Helloooo?"

I switched on the porch light and opened the door a crack.

They were two. They were tall. There were matching trench-coats, white shirts, black ties, and name-tags.

It was the FUCKING MORMONS!!!!!!!! (repetitive screeching noise from the shower scene in Psycho)

I don't know if I rolled my eyes. I do know that I lacked the will to even fuck with them. After all, it's not their fault that they were born into a family that thinks it's a really swell idea to farm their young men out to do door-to-door harassment on the night before Thanksgiving.

Me: "Hello."

Taller of Them: "Hi -- "

Me: "I really don't have time to talk with you right now." Lie. (Goddammit! My own Mormon-allergy has led me to violate one of my own core principles -- Authenticity! -- Curse you, Josepth Smith!)

Taller of Them: "When would be a good time for us to come back?"

Me: "Well, actually, I'm a minister myself, so I'm -- all set with my spiritual condition."

Taller of Them: (brightening...... kind of..... amidst the befuddlement) "Oh really! Where do you preach?"

Me: "Right here."

Taller of Them: "Really! People just come here?"

Me: "That's right."

Taller of Them: "Oh. Well . . . . could we help you in any way?"

Me: "Uhm -- No. Thanks anyway."

I close the door.

Beloved has now come down and is in the kitchen, prepping some stuff for tomorrow's meal.

"Who was that?"

"The fucking Mormons."

"Really? The night before Thanksgiving? That's weird. Well, I guess they figure there'll be a lot of people home. Did you talk to them?"

"Kind of. I told them I didn't have time to talk to them."

"Which isn't technically true."

"Yeah, I know. Well, no, really -- I don't have time to talk to them -- because I don't want to talk to them, and I don't want to make time to talk to them, and . . . . . yeah, I lied."

I recounted the interaction in brief, pretty much as above.

Then I started thinking about how I had missed this great opportunity to enlighten these fresh-faced boys (and yes, they were boys) on the impact that their precious church was having on queers like me. But then I thought that I probably wouldn't have been very coherent, and that I probably would have come off pretty venomous, after my afternoon conversation with the bone-headed internet being, and then I thought that it was really stupid to expect these hypnotized boys to take any kind of responsibility for the world-wide svengali that has sent them out on these "missions" so that they weren't home competing for wives, and then I thought that what if one of them were a closeted or questioning gay and I might be the only out queer he might ever meet and that might save his sanity and/or his life, and then I thought that it was truly mean to send these poor boys out to make religious cold-calls on woo-woo lesbians, and then I just thought -- "Oh fuck it, I'm going back to my computer".

I've never understood Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses (who strangely, also never use the doorbell) -- the thought of tracking down a complete stranger to see whether they might want to hear about my spiritual beliefs sends the creeping willies up my spine in the first place, and in the second place, the concept of living in a world where every single person who doesn't believe as I believe is doomed to the worst fate imaginable is something I simply can't wrap my brain around. What a sad, sad world-view.

Anyway, despite my visitation from the Moroni twins, and my almost certain damnation in their dimensional reality, I managed to have a fine Thanksgiving. For the first time in many years, it was just me, my Beloved, the cats, and a rather sumptuous turkey breast. We watched two disappointing DVDs, but the cuddling on the couch compensated for the video-blahness.

I am truly thankful, today, for many things. I'm healthy, happy, well-loved, and in love. My mom's medical report was all clear. I have fine friends, and I live in paradise.

It's Time

2008-11-26T21:40:00.000-08:00

Recently, I received an email from someone to whom I had offered help. She told me when I offered this help, that she had a hard time accepting help from others. I told her that I understood, and that it was fine -- she could know that the offer was open and take me up on it if and when she was ready.

A few days later, I got an email from her -- the subject line simply said: "It's time", and the body of the email explained that she wanted to take me up on my offer.

The simplicity of the subject line struck me.

I've always been fascinated by that internal process whereby we might put something off and put something off, knowing that at some point, we must move forward, and then, one day, for some reason that we can't explain -- It's time.

And then we do it. We move forward after hours, days, weeks, months, or even years of resistance.

I had this today.

I've been thinking lately that I wanted to return to a discipline/practice of daily blogging again. It's been percolating in the cauldron of my mind, and tingling around the edge of my consciousness, but every day, I just seemed to push it into some dusty corner in my brain.

But now, it's time.

You can read more about the spiritual aspects of this at my other blog, if you're interested, or you can just receive my pledge here -- I'm going to get back to daily blogging. It may suck some days -- I'm cool with that -- but I'm pledging to blog here every day for the next year (I'll give myself a break, of course, in the case of power outages or true emergencies).

It's time.

Because I'm Busy Working on a Real Post

2008-11-23T23:29:00.000-08:00

I try to never say: "Some people have too much time on their hands", because usually, they tend to do some incredible things with it.

Be A Patriot - Dump Money in a Hole!

2008-11-19T22:45:00.000-08:00

You Smell So Good It's Killing Me

2008-11-16T21:20:00.000-08:00

I live with someone who has MCS -- Multiple Chemical Sensitivities (also referred to as "Chemically Injured" or "Environmental Injury").

Strap in once more, because this may be a long post. I'm going to attempt to communicate some facts that may be of interest to you -- but first, I'm going to tell you why I'm writing this, and what it means to live with MCS. I'm going to tell you my story, but I'm also going to tell you what my story may mean for you.

My Beloved has always been sensitive to certain chemicals -- but in the past three years, that sensitivity increased.

Three years ago, exposure to certain chemicals would mean she experienced an accelerated heartbeat, skin flush, mental confusion, and an adrenal response that was like "fight or flight/I've-got-to-get-out-of-here!"

Then, as her sensitivity increased, it would mean having that suite of symptoms, followed by symptoms that were like a hangover (fatigue, body aches, general malaise, etc.) for a few hours or a day.

Then it became a few days.

Then, the effects of exposure would mean several days of headache, extreme fatigue, digestive complaints, and all-round OMG I FEEL CRAPPY.

Her exposure to things like paint fumes, pesticides, cleaning chemicals, and other known toxins was fairly easy to handle -- we were already pretty "green" in terms of our household products, because that fit with our general values of sustainability and environmental awareness -- but there is a particularly difficult scenario that has been much more challenging to control -- exposure to synthetic fragrances.

As we changed our lifestyle to rid our home of the stuff that makes her sick (which meant looking carefully at shampoo, soaps, lotions, laundry and cleaning products, toilet paper, and yes, even the books we purchased used on Amazon -- some sellers will package a book that's been in a smoker's home with a scented dryer sheet to mask the smell of smoke), I learned a lot -- about chemicals, and about myself.

I'm not as sensitive to chemicals as is my Beloved. I tend to have that sort of physical unit that processes toxins fairly quickly, and even if I don't like a particular fragrance or smell, it doesn't usually give me any physical symptoms. Or so I thought.

As our home got de-toxed, and our air got clearer, I found that I actually did get physical reactions to certain chemicals. They weren't as severe as hers, but they were there -- I just hadn't noticed them because they were subtle and so omnipresent.

Now, if I sit in a room with someone who is drenched in perfume for an hour or more, I'll actually notice the results afterwards -- a slight headache, reddened eyes, sinus congestion, and marginal fatigue.

The same exposure for my Beloved would result in much more extreme levels of the same, and for her, they can last from one to three days.

Recently, she's found some things that have helped reduce her symptoms and reactions, but still, when she ventures out into the world, she always carries a small mask in her pocket, just in case.

When the doorbell rings, I'm the one who answers, because even our UPS guys and gals seem to be obsessed with making sure I know that they are Teh Sexy with their mad scentz. I usually step out quickly and close the door behind me, so that a chemical that could make my love sick doesn't waft in through the door. And waft it does.

Getting on a airplane for a two-or-three hour flight would be a complete gamble at this point. We haven't traveled by plane for over two years.

We've asked our friends not to visit the house wearing fragranced products. They have tried to comply, but still, if they used fragranced laundry products like dryer sheets or fabric softener in the past (which are not only designed to have a "lasting scent", but often contain waxes that get inside your washer dryer so that the fragrance continues on for months after you stop using them), their clothes can have lingering fragrance that can make her sick.

Depending on how full her "toxin bucket" is on any given day, she may or may not be able to sit across the room from them for a chat, and she rarely gives hugs to them anymore, if there's a whiff of chemical fragrance. She seems to do fine with all-natural essential oils -- no synthetics (but please note: this is not true of all people with MCS).

Her primary response seems to be from synthetic fragrances -- and synthetic fragrances are in stuff you would never imagine. Many people who have MCS have much worse reactions than my Beloved does.

We've posted signs and sent emails to people who attend our circles and classes, asking them not to wear fragrance to our events. Sometimes they forget. We generally allow them to stay, and my Beloved dons her breathing mask. We remind them. Sometimes they forget again. We remind them again.

Sometimes their perfume is so strong that the chairs or cushions that they sit on retain the smell for days. We've taken to covering furniture with washable throws, but sometimes we just have to drag the furniture outside and let the sun and air do its work.

Keep in mind that for someone with severe MCS, contamination of this type might mean that they have to get rid of that piece of furniture entirely.

Friday, we had someone attend our regular group meeting whose perfume was so strong that it gave me a headache, and we had the room airing out (and closed off) for an entire day -- but there's still a lingering scent.

This person has been here before, and has been asked not to come wearing fragrance. When my Beloved approached her to talk about it (these conversations are often a bit awkward), she said that she had remembered about the fragrance-free request, and had given herself a quick wash, but hadn't taken a shower. (In some cases, even showering doesn't do much good, because the person's clothing is permeated with the scent, especially if it's something they wear every day.) We didn't want to send her away, so we chose to have her stay.

However, after the group met, my Beloved and I confabbed on this and we have come to the conclusion that we just can't do that anymore. We're going to maintain better boundaries about this, and do more education, and take care of ourselves.

Here are some non-scientific observations, and then I'll get into some facts:

1) It seems like my Beloved has a "toxin-bucket" -- when she hasn't been exposed to something that triggers her symptoms for a while, she can go to the library and pass someone who is wearing perfume and her reaction will be slight.

Then something will happen like: A person wearing fragrance comes to a class -- she'll do OK -- the next day, the neighbor's dryer vent is blasting Downy all over our yard -- she'll do slightly OK -- the next day, the wind shifts and the paper-mill steam blows over our way -- she'll do less OK -- that afternoon, the sewer pipe backs up and three City guys (all Ax Body Sprayed to the -enth degree) and one plumber (Calvin-Klein-ified) have to be in our house to fix the sewer.

Then, her toxin-bucket gets full, and she has to lay down for a good long while.

At this point, answering the doorbell if I'm not home is a crap-shoot. Going into the yard to get some fresh air (which usually is helpful for her when her symptoms are active) is sometimes impossible, because it could mean a snoot-full of neurotoxins in the form of a breezy, fresh new scent. Being called for jury duty could mean sitting with a breathing mask on for days at a time.

2. The nose is a peculiar beast. Think of how it is when you come home from a long time away, and smell the smell of your own home. Usually, you can't smell this, unless you've been away. You can smell other people's houses the minute you walk in, but once you've been there a while, you don't notice that smell.

We become desensitized to smells over a fairly quick period, so if we wear perfume or scented products over a period of time, we usually can't smell them. I think that this accounts for the times when I pass someone on the street and their perfume just about knocks me over from three feet away. They can't smell their own perfume anymore. So they put on more perfume.

An old friend who was a grade-school science teacher was fond of telling her students: "If you can smell it, it's in your nose."

She would usually tie this saying to something like the smell of dog-poo, just to evoke the "Ewww! Gross!" response from her students, but her point was that the mechanism of smelling was a chemical process whereby chemicals from the object we smelled actually entered the incredibly permeable surfaces of our noses -- that it had to go into us in order to be registered as an odor.

That entry into our body doesn't stop at our noses, though -- it continues into our mouths, and our lungs -- all organs that are fabulously designed to absorb and assimilate chemicals from the outside world.

So, when you're wearing perfume or smelling your Bounced clothing, you're actually ingesting it, too -- and so is everyone else in the room. Fragrance is designed to invade other people's space -- manufacturers actually put chemicals in it to help it disseminate further and faster, and to last longer.

3. We are permeable beings. It's not just what we breath in through our mouths and noses that gets into our bodies -- our skin and eyes are permeable for a reason.

Years ago, when I was sealing a very small, high-ceilinged closet with a shellac-based (alcohol) product, I wore my very expensive respirator the entire time I was working. I had to close the closet door to access all the surfaces, and the high ceiling concentrated the fumes intensely.

I had done what I needed to protect myself -- or so I thought -- but at the end of the day, I could detect the distinct flavor/smell of ketones on my breath -- you're probably familiar with it, even if you don't know the word --it's that particular smell on the breath of someone who has had way to much to drink.

I asked my MD about it, and he pointed out that we very efficiently absorb chemicals through our skin, but most especially through our eyes. Our entire body is "breathing".

So, chemicals that we douse our clothing in (and then wear next to our skins) will get into us, even if we can't smell them.

Now, some facts:

A) Fragrance: You don't know what's in there.

Anytime you see the word "fragrance" on a product, it contains an unknown amount and combination of chemicals that are not required to be individually listed as ingredients.

These combinations of chemicals are considered a "trade secret" for fragrance manufacturers. The FDA has only banned about 10 chemicals from use in perfumes and cosmetics. Legally, any other chemical can be used in a fragrance, and those chemicals do not have to be revealed to the consumer in the ingredient list -- the word "Fragrance" is enough, even though that may be dozens, or hundreds, of chemicals.

The fragrance industry is essentially, self-regulating. (And looking at the current state of the world economy, we all know how well that self-regulation thing works.)

B) Fragrance: What's in there might not be very good for you.

"The fragrance industry does come under the regulation of the FDA, but the regulation is extremely limited. Many of the ingredients used in fragrances have little to no safety testing done on them. Most of the safety testing that has been done has revolved around the dermatological effects of fragrance chemicals. The effects on the respiratory system, the brain, and other organs of the body have not been determined on individual chemicals - much less in the combinations in which they are used." ~ http://www.ourlittleplace.com/fda.html

"95% of chemicals used in fragrances are synthetic compounds derived from petroleum. They include benzene derivatives, aldehydes and many other known toxics and sensitizers - capable of causing cancer, birth defects, central nervous system disorders and allergic reactions." ~ 'Neurotoxins: At Home and the Workplace', Report by the Committee on Science & Technology, U.S. House of Representatives, Sept. 16, 1986. (Report 99-827)

Oh, in that 1986 Report from Congress, Fragrances were listed among the six categories of chemicals that should be given high priority to be tested for neurotoxicity -- along with insecticides, heavy metals, solvents, food additives and certain air pollutants. (Neurotoxins are chemicals that damage or destroy nerve tissues.)

So, you don't really get to know what's in your nose, and they don't have to tell you.

The only way you would be able to find out is to take it to a chemist and have it analyzed -- and honestly -- if what was in there was actually good for you, don't you think the manufacturers would be touting that as a selling point? -- "Between Love and a Stronger Immune System Lies . . . . . Obsession."

C) Fragrance: It's Not Just Your Cologne

Perfume and cologne, scented lotions, and soaps and shampoos that you apply to your body is only one of the problems with synthetic fragrance.

Dryer sheets, fabric softener, and detergents can contain fragrance -- even if they're marked "unscented" or even "fragrance-free" -- because if a fragrance is used as a "masker" (something to mask the smell of another chemical, but not intended to impart a "scent") -- it doesn't even have to be listed using that one word: Fragrance.

You can be, literally, "cleaning" your clothes in a chemical bath that isn't "clean" at all.

"Trouble is, you have no way of knowing it. Manufacturers of detergents, laundry sheets and air fresheners aren't required to list all of their ingredients on their labels -- or anywhere else. Laws protecting people from indoor air pollution from consumer products are limited.

When UW engineering professor Anne Steinemann analyzed of some of these popular items, she found 100 different volatile organic compounds measuring 300 parts per billion or more -- some of which can be cancerous or cause harm to respiratory, reproductive, neurological and other organ systems.

Some of the chemicals are categorized as hazardous or toxic by federal regulatory agencies. But the labels tell a different story, naming only innocuous-sounding "perfume" or "biodegradable" contents. ~http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/371779_toxicfragrance23.html

D) Fragrance: Your Favorite Fragrance Has Gone Global

It isn't just going onto, and into, you.

It's going down the drain to the water table, and into the sea, so fish are swimming in it and breathing it, and you get to drink it later, and eat it at Chez Fins.

It's blowing out of your dryer vent, so insects and birds are flying through and breathing it.

It's being dumped into landfills. (The EPA cites discarded or waste consumer cosmetics as one of the leading contributors to PCPPs in the environment.)

So fragrance is a gift that will keep on giving (toxins) for generations to come, and to other species who really don't care whether you smell like a Spring Day (but who might care that they get to live to see another Spring day).

Of course, fragrance isn't the only culprit in MCS (many people are triggered by things like new plastic products that are off-gassing -- carpeting, etc.), and the toxicity of our buildings has increased as more and more synthetics are used.

But even if we're just talking about fragrances, and we really do have a "toxin bucket" that can "get full", and once we get full, we get sick, then what does it mean that we are bathing in, slathering our skins with, inhaling, and washing our clothes in stuff that we have a hunch might not be so good for us?

". . . . . .health effects from exposures are often difficult to detect. While some effects are immediate and noticeable, others are gradual, subtle, and sub-clinical. Of particular concern are chronic and often low-level exposures to mixtures of chemicals, which are the type of exposures that typify daily life.

Human exposure studies, over the past two decades, have revealed widespread U.S. population exposure to VOCs (Wallace et al., 1991b;Wallace, 2001). Paradoxically, the largest contributors of VOCs to human exposure (nearly 90%) are not the sources traditionally recognized and regulated, but rather sources that are small, close to us, largely unregulated, yet often within our control (Wallace, 2001; Wallace et al., 1987), such as consumer products and other indoor sources. In particular, fragrance compounds, used in a wide variety of consumer products, can be primary sources of human exposure to VOCs (EPA, 1989; Sack et al., 1992; Wallace et al., 1991a; Cooper et al., 1992, 1995)."

Source: Steinemann AC, Fragranced consumer products and undisclosed ingredients, Environ Impact Asses Rev (2008), doi:10.1016/j.eiar.2008.05.002

Two recent situations I've been in that I find ironic:

I live in a state where you cannot smoke, even outside, within 25 feet of any doorway, air vent, window, or opening to a public space (even privately owned businesses), yet my Beloved cannot risk going to the City Building to pay the water bill without wearing a filter-mask, because the clerk might be wearing perfume, or have a Downy addiction.

My Beloved went to the public library to pick up the book she had put on hold (How everyday products make people sick : toxins at home and in the workplace / Paul D. Blanc), but she couldn't bring it home and read it because it reeked of perfume.

So, there is my story, and some facts.

Now, here's what you can do:

What You Can Do For Yourself and Your Family:

Get that stuff out of your home, off your skin, and out of your clothes (and off of your loved ones' skin and clothes.)
There is a great round-up here about becoming fragrance-free.
Check the labels on your body and hair-care products -- but first, get educated about tricky words like "unscented", "natural", and "perfume free". If it says "fragrance", it has chemicals in it that you have no idea about. Even some "fragrance free" products can be dicey, because of the masking chemicals, which do not have to be listed as fragrance. Most products sold at Natural Food stores that are listed as Fragrance Free are reliable -- but I prefer items that have an entire list of ingredients, and say so. You may be able to find out more about your existing products at Skin Deep, which has a database of safe and unsafe cosmetics. (You can also research individual ingredients there, because even fragrance-free products can contain other chemicals you don't want on you or in you.)
Start using products that are environmentally safe and safe for you. Here's a great start: http://www.peggymunson.com/mcs/products.html
Get educated -- all of the links in this post lead to real information, much of it peer-reviewed scientific study and official reports, the rest from people who deal with MCS.

Here's what's currently in use at my house:

Seventh Generation Free & Clear Laundry and Household cleaning products
Bon-Ami
Citra-Solv
White Vinegar (cleans windows, surfaces, and absorbs fragrances in rooms)
Baking Soda (mix it with vinegar to clear drains, absorbs smells -- you can even wash your hair with it -- and yes, it does work -- my Beloved has been using it, and her hair looks, and feels, great.)
Shampoos and Hair Care Products vary, but I like Aubrey Organics (also, there are very inexpensive and effective ways to go fragrance-free that don't involve buying expensive fragrance-free products -- check the links above).
We usually purchase locally-handmade soaps, but we always have Dr. Bronner's on hand (sometimes, literally on hand).

What You Can Do For Your Chemically Sensitive Friends:

Get educated. There's a wealth of information out there. You might want to start with Peggy Munson, and MCS.org.
Ask them what their sensitivities are. Take them seriously. This is real. It's not in their heads, and if you choose to use fragrance and then hang around them, they can end up feeling lousy for hours, days, weeks, or months.
Don't be offended if they're hesitant to hug you, or invite you to their house, or when they say that they can't accompany you to a certain restaurant or concert or bar. It isn't you -- it's your chemicals.
Remember that when you choose to wear fragrance around your friend, even if you know it will trigger reactions in them, it's kind of like blowing cigarette smoke in the face of someone with emphysema -- your choice is trumping their health.
Remember that some people are triggered by off-gassing from new plastic items, so consider this when choosing gifts and packaging.
Speak up for them when other people scoff at their needs. Help people get educated.

Giving up fragranced products has been difficult for some people I know.

There seems to be a tendency to think that the person with the MCS is the one with the problem, rather than a willingness to look at the fact that maybe the level of toxicity we live in and around is the problem.

Last week, a student came to class wearing perfume. She is a nutritionist, and when my Beloved had a conversation with her about fragrance, the student cheerfully informed Beloved that she had been helping people with MCS improve through dietary changes -- maybe she could help Beloved, too! My Beloved thanked her, told her that she is working with *therapies that were helping her, and then said:

"You know, even if I'm not having reactions to the chemicals, I still don't want to live around that stuff." The young woman looked honestly baffled at this.

But you see -- I don't actually think of MCS as a "disease" (the "canary in the coal mine" comes to mind) -- instead, I think that, as we increasingly surround ourselves with more and more and more low-level toxins, all of us may be"getting our buckets filled" -- and that those whose MCS reactions are more extreme may be our early-warning signal, giving us a glimpse of what's to come if we don't clean up our act.

============
*I've asked my Beloved to write a post at her own blog about the things that she's doing that are helping her deal with her reactions to chemicals. It's not ready yet, but when it is, I'll update this post with a link.

I Adore Sarah Haskins

2008-11-16T10:15:00.000-08:00

(h/t to Namechanged, who keeps up on Teh Sarah)

Me and My Blotter

2008-11-15T10:10:00.000-08:00

OK --so, I live in this little town -- a really sweet, quirky, weird little town.

The town bumper sticker on the vehicles of "committed" residents is:

When I moved here eight years ago, I was a bit nervous at first. With a population of 7,000 (at that time), a paper mill for the "big employer", a large number of military bases within a 50 mile radius, and acres and acres of surrounding woodlands, I was a bit daunted about moving from Portland (where I had resided for 22 years) to a little tiny town. Then I saw those bumper stickers everywhere, took a deep breath, and assured myself that everything was going to be A-OK.

I settled in pretty quickly, attending the weekly waffle breakfast at the home of a man who opens his home on Sunday mornings to all comers -- and makes batch after batch of his prized waffle recipe. Visitors bring the raspberries, real maple syrup, whipped cream, etc., -- and musical instruments -- there's usually an impromptu concert after -- a mellow, carbohydrate-soaked concert. This tradition is simply known as "Waffles" -- as in: "Will I see you at Waffles?", "You gonna be at Waffles this week?", and "OMG! You'll never believe what happened at Waffles!"

I attended the Kinetic Sculpture Race -- in which contestants build a human-powered vehicle that must race on water, land, mud, and sand, the "winner" gets the Mediocrity Award (Offishul Rules here) -- for coming in -- not first -- not last -- but smack dab in the middle, and the finale at the Mud Bog is accompanied by the Teddy-Bear Toss (in which stuffed animals are catapulted -- from a huge catapult -- across a football field into the arms of waiting children).

I've been in the "Port Townsend Family Portrait" most years since I moved here -- a full poster-sized photo of thousands of residents, usually photographed from a crane or the top of a building (wish I could take a photo that would do it justice, but even wall-sized, the faces are so tiny that it's a game of Where's Waldo to pick out your friends, or yourself, in the crowd).

But probably my very favorite part of my quirky little town is our Police Blotter and Sheriff's Log -- one of the real reasons I shell out 75 cents for the local weekly paper.

There are Blotter entries that I have clipped and saved, and after laughing uproariously with a friend yesterday as I read my favorite snippets to her, I thought I'd blog a few. It's not like we have zero crime in our town (in fact, there's a meth-lab problem in some areas of the county) -- let's just say that what constitutes the typical entries in the weekly paper are pretty low-key -- and some of them are downright hilarious.

"A dog has been seen running with a pack of coyotes. The dog's former owner said Jan. 1 that the dog is part coyote."

"On May 25th, Officers were called to the scene of a party where a 24-year old man had become stuck in a hide-abed sofa."

"Goats were said to be loose Dec. 30 on Cedar Avenue"

"There was a report of a fire March 19 at East Price Street. Deputies responded and found the fire to be piece of furniture in a fire ring. The people were warned about burning particle board shelving."

"A PT man said he was assaulted after he was struck in the head Dec. 31 by a lobster tail"

Now, to be perfectly fair, the follow-up article in the next week's paper (Yes. There was a follow-up article) did reveal that it was a frozen lobster-tail. So, there is that.

*TRIGGER WARNING* Now, the next one isn't really funny -- but honest to Maude -- I had to wonder if the author of the blotter wasn't just fucking with someone's head with the last line:

"On March 25, a woman brought a doll that she found in the 200 block of Adams Street to the police department. The doll had been altered with satanic symbols. The doll's owner can retrieve it at the police station." [emp mine]

(/TriggerWarning)

But my all time favorite was this one:

"A woman called 911 on Dec 26 to complain that her relatives were annoying her."

I was like: "Holy Shit! You can call 911 for that?!?!"

If only I'd known sooner.