Sometimes, I Don't Know What I'm Writing
Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Last week, I wrote a post about Public Displays of Affection.

The weeks prior to that had been a slack time for me, blogging-wise. I was feeling immensely tired of the political in-fighting I was seeing at some of my favorite blogs, I was very busy in "real" life, and I was dealing with some interpersonal crap with an erstwhile friend that was taking a lot of my focus in terms of self-examination and introspection.

Also, I was anxiously awaiting the day when my site-meter rolled over the 20,000 mark. After weeks of very sporadic blogging, my readership had dropped off pretty clearly, and I was lingering in the 19,700-or-something range, so I was absolutely certain-sure that when the blogodometer rolled over, I'd be there to see it.

Little did I know.

When Melissa forwarded me a link to an ABC study on queer PDAs and asked me if I wanted to post something about it, I thought I'd just whip out a little post and that, as they say, would be that.

What's weird is that, while I was writing the actual post, it seemed very disorganized and rambling to me. I started out trying to write something about the social experiment, but then I lapsed into personal ponderings (as I am wont to do). The post seemed to wander all over the place and I was hard-pressed to give it some sort of structure.

Now, I have had written posts in the past which, when I hit "publish", I have thought: "Now, THAT is a GOOD FUCKING POST!!! THAT post is going to shake some shit UP!!!"

This was not the case with Take My Arm, My Love -- on April 28th, when I hit publish, I just thought: "Well -- yeah . . . . that'll do."

Imagine my surprise when, two days later, I realized that my site-meter now read: 21,009.

And comments were starting to come in here, and where I'd cross-posted the entry at Shakesville, and Google Alerts was popping up "Portly Dyke" notices every couple of hours (yes, I'm vain enough to Google Alert myself -- why do you ask? -- and don't you dare claim that you haven't googled yourself -- it's like digital masturbation -- everybody does it).

This is the thing that I don't get, though -- I wasn't trying to write a particularly pithy post.

On that occasion, I thought I was just "getting a post out" -- I wasn't intentionally reaching out to change minds and hearts, I wasn't thinking that I was saying anything particularly profound -- I was just describing my internal process (and feeling as if I was fumbling along pretty much the whole time I was writing). Yet here were comments from an amazing variety of people who had somehow been touched by what I wrote, or who expressed a resonating "Yes! I do that! I know this experience!"

I went semi-internet-viral for a week, and it's kind of mysterious to me how that happened.

So now, I'll just have to wait for 30,000 to watch a land-mark tick over on the ole site-meter for Teh Portly Dyke.

(Happy Belated 20,000 blog-visitors to me!)
*Party-hat*
*Confetti-popper*

Posted byPortlyDyke at 11:39 PM 10 comments  

Labels: Blogging, Teh Internet

Commenting Policy
Saturday, May 3, 2008

So, here's my Commenting Policy (updates will be noted at the top of this post as they are made, and the comments policy will available from the top menu tabs).

You are commenting at my personal blog.

You do not have a "right" to comment here -- you have the privilege of doing so -- a privilege which I reserve the right to revoke at any time. (And no, this is not an abridgment of your freedom of speech -- you are free to create your own blog and say and do whatever you want there -- at your personal blog.)

I like vigorous, informed, respectful discussions, and I am not afraid of disagreement. I invite you to respectfully challenge me on fallacious thinking, shoddy statistics, personal opinions expressed as fact, etc.. I am rather notoriously willing to engage patiently and civilly with people, even when we don't agree.

That said, engaging in the following practices and behaviors will usually result in your comments being edited or deleted outright.:

• Using misogynist, sexist, racist, homophobic, trans-phobic, fat-phobic, able-ist, or classist slurs or epithets (when using them toward any individual or group, rather than referring to such language for the purpose of discussing it). Example: If the best argument you can come up with is "You're a fat hairy-legged pervert", your comment will be deleted as a waste of server space and bandwidth.
  
• Threatening me or any commenter on my blog, overtly or subtly.
• Trolling, sock-puppeting, comment-spamming, posting hate speech, or making frequent off-topic comments which are simply argumentative or belligerent and which you can not (or do not) tie to the original post in some logical way (aka thread de-railment).

Multiple offenses of the above will probably result in you being banned from commenting altogether.

And yes, I get to be the sole judge of this. It's my blog.

Posted byPortlyDyke at 9:36 PM 13 comments  

Labels: Blogging

Sunday Meme-ish-ness
Sunday, April 27, 2008

Phydeaux has pulled my ass out (again) by providing me with a blog-meme to pursue.

Teh Rulz:
1. Pick up the nearest book of 123 pages or more. No cheating!
2. Find page 123.
3. Find the first five sentences.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people.

The Book: Animal-Speak, by Ted Andrews.

The sentences:

One was the Strasburg Brotherhood of the Crown, and another was formed by St. Nicholas of Vienna in 1288. In Germany, specifically, there existed a guild of meistersingers at Nuremberg. This schooling was to teach the power of sound, music, and voice -- physical and spiritual.

Since I believe in a synchronous Universe, I find it no surprise that the book delivered a perfect message for me.

I've been pondering, during the last few days, about when to speak and when to be silent. I want to always do so by conscious choice, not shying from speaking because I fear to speak, or fear the repercussions of speaking, nor speaking because I fear that I will otherwise not be heard, or that my silence will be construed as something it is not.

I had a very interesting experience today where I had been watching a very long blog comment-thread, and going back and forth and forth and back about whether to speak up. Through the day, I dabbled in various responses in my head (and in draft form in Wordpad), and when I finally made up my mind to post the response, the blog ate my comment. So, I let it go.

Then, hours later, I decided that I'd give it another go -- I added a few more choice words to my comment, and attempted to post it. It was, once again, eaten.

Must be a time NOT to speak up -- or at least, not until I'm a "meistersinger".

Posted byPortlyDyke at 11:32 PM 3 comments  

Labels: Blogging, Spirituality, Tagged, Teh Internet

An "Interesting" Weekend
Monday, April 21, 2008

It all started on Friday, when I put up my "Blog for Fair Pay Day" post.

The first thing that happened was that an anonymous source (no, really, a real anonymous source!!!! ZOMG!!! -- just check the comments if you don't believe me!) informed me that "the wage gap is a myth". (Wow. Aren't you relieved?)

I spent a little time (a very little time) addressing this troll commenter, and I must admit that I was a bit perplexed, because my readership here is usually very small, and while my readers sometimes disagree with me, it's very rare that someone comes along spouting Warren Farrel-esque ridiculousity. Occasionally, the stray troll has followed me home from Shakesville (*cough-cough*randyson/jasper*), but usually, it's smooth and responsible communication here at Chez Portly.

A couple of hours later, I got three comments on my "Robbing the Hearts of Men" post (which is nearly 6 weeks old -- don't bother trying to find them -- I deleted them immediately) -- suffice it to say that they were lovely bon-mots such as "fat hairy-legged pervert" (the mildest of the three), and I found myself wondering:

"Hmmm? Have I done anything particularly controversial today? Or yesterday? Or in the last week?"

My regular readers will know that I have not only not done much controversial blogging in the last two weeks, but that I've barely been blogging at all (*fighting the urge to apologize*).

It's times like these that site-meter is your friend.

I checked my visit history, and sure enough -- Robbing the Hearts of Men had been linked to by no less a "Men's Rights" luminary than Glenn Sacks. (And no, I will not link to his site -- not if you threaten me with wild dogs and fingernails on blackboards.)

Mr. Sacks said, in his post, that he does like to compliment feminists when they try to be fair and understanding -- so he began his post with this highly complimentary line:

"Misguided feminists do occasionally acknowledge the problems men face in our society, under the rubric of PHMT (Patriarchy Hurts Men Too)."

Oh goodie.

I visited Sack's post, read through the comments thread (highly NOT recommended that you do that), and left a comment requesting that Mr. Sacks encourage his readers to visit my blog respectfully, or that he refrain from live-linking to my blog.

Sacks emailed me his response (and posted it in the comment thread), and I went back to his blog (didn't I tell you this was highly NOT recommended?!?!), and was treated to the following lovely stuff in comments (these are just the highlights):

In the comments to his post, I was called:

Fallacious, Dishonest, Irrational, Irrelevant, Misguided, Angry, and Morally Superior.

I was told that my perspective is not legitimate, that I "hate myself", that I have a "fundamentally flawed and hateful position", that I "played the race card" (because I stated that I considered myself as having privilege by virtue of being white), and I was suspected of being conniving and dishonest (writing the original post just so I could later say "Hey, at least I tried.")

Here are some choice quotes:

"Yeah, don't you believe it. The first time she's pissed at someone that's been vulnerable in front of her, she'll attack him for it too."

"This writer is making the same assumption that all feminists make. Female = Good : Male = Bad.
All female attributes are good and all male are bad."

"this woman has a purely gynocentric world view."

"this whole essay a backhanded insult"

"I do get annoyed when feminists pretend to be concerned about men. Frankly, it's an insult to my intelligence to expect me to accept mock sympathy and not be able to see their true agendas."

"If she can't take having her fallacies (or dishonesties) pointed out she should go to a girl's site [emp. mine] where she can get highbrow responses like "Wow! Awesome" and "Right On!". With opponents of such low calibre it should be obvious to anyone that the only reason feminism has come so far is because previous generations of men didn't bother fighting back."

One of the most interesting things (to me) was that many of the commenters made the case that men did not display emotion because that's "just how men are".

Even more interestingly, this line of reasoning was nearly always immediately followed up with a sentence about how women won't sleep with men who display emotion.

I hate to break it to them, but if these guys are having a problem getting laid, I think that the problem probably isn't about how much emotion they do or do not express, but maybe, just maybe . . . .

. . . . . it might have to do with how they talk to women?

The ultimate irony in all of this is that I also dealt with some intense reactions from feminists in comment threads on that particular post (and the follow-up post) over at Shakesville.

So, my trip to Sacks-ville was very educational (and, thankfully, very brief). Here's what I learned/got out of it:

I discovered newfound compassion for those feminists I know who dismiss MRAs out of hand in comment-threads, and are unwilling to extend any benefit of doubt to them, because they have experienced precisely what I experienced -- men who deny that misogyny exists -- while simultaneously actively demonstrating it. Some of these feminists have experienced far worse -- from DDOS attacks on their blogs, to death and rape threats in their email inboxes and postal mailboxes. It was a time when I felt very glad that I was blogging anonymously (or as anonymously as possible).

There were a few people who commented at Sack's in a reasoned, respectful tone (seriously -- like, a few -- as in -- three). There were even a couple who defended me, or said something like: "Well, it's a start."

Here's the thing -- Not only do nearly all of the people commenting at Glenn Sacks' site believe that institutionalized misogyny does not exist -- many, if not most, of them believe that women actually have MORE rights than men do in our society.

They honestly believe this.

(And what I wouldn't do for some "Freaky Friday" soul/body-swapping powers about now.)

Now, I'm an optimist. I believe that humans can change. In an instant.

I believe this because I have changed. In an instant.

So, I thought, "Well, maybe I just touched some nerve -- I'll go to the front page of the blog and see if there's anything that I DO agree with." (How Many Times Do I Have to TELL you, Portly -- this is highly NOT recommended!?!?!?!?)

OK, so the front page had a article about a guy who killed his ex-wife and shot the judge who ordered him 50% custody and 20% alimony payments. To his credit, Sacks was posting the video of the session before the judge that preceded the murder and murder-attempt, apparently intending to get some of his readers to stop apologizing for the guy as they had apparently done in a previous comment-thread.

What was in the comments (and in the comments from the previous thread) shocked me to my core. There were MRAs who not only excused the man's behavior, but claimed that violence of this nature was necessary.

"He killed the childs mother and took away both of his child parrents. I have no sympathy for that. If he had killed the judge only I would be sending him flowers and my judges home address."

"It may well take a lot more killings similar to this for the court system and lawmakers to come to the realization that they screwed up and need to make a change.
Simply put one man with a bullet can create more change than a thousand with protest signs.
Take that any way you want."

Wow.

Oy.

As I said, it was an "interesting" weekend -- and my visit to MRA-land taught me a lot (kind of like how wading in the run-off from the nuclear power station can teach you -- not to wade in the run-off from the power station . . . . ever again).

Because I like to understand things, I've been attempting to wrap my brain around this particular group and their philosophy. So far, my brain doesn't seem to be big enough to quite wrap around it (that's prolly cuz I'm a woman, and my brain is so "low-calibre", dontcha know), but I'll update you if I get any insights.

*Disclaimer: If you get all curious and google this shit and end up on that comments thread, I'll just say, I warned you -- Highly NOT Recommended.*

Posted byPortlyDyke at 2:19 AM 21 comments  

Labels: Blogging, Feminism, Gender, Teh Internet, Trolls

You Asked For It
Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Well, some of you said that you were content to hear whatever it was that I was currently thinking about.

Today, that happens to be: Sweeney Todd (Depp, Carter, Burton, Rickman)

I saw this musical live, onstage, not long after it was first released (with Angela Lansbury and George Hearn). I always loved the music (I love Sondheim, it's true) -- and I've owned the DVD of the Broadway production for some years.

When I rented the DVD of Tim Burton's version, I was prepared to be disappointed, or at least, underwhelmed -- that's generally been my experience when I've seen a movie based on a stage play that I adored. There's usually something so visceral about live theater that movie adaptations rarely pack the same punch.

Strangely, I was not disappointed by the movie.. In any way.

In fact . . . . I was moved by this production in a way that I was not moved by the live production or the Broadway DVD -- and engaged with it in a way that I was not engaged in the stage-production.

I fell in love with much of the music in Sweeney at first listen (I heard the Broadway soundtrack before I saw the play) -- Sondheim's wry wit and the entanglement of simple melody lines with complex rhythms and ever-more-creepy undertone arrangements on established themes enchanted me. (Listen to the differences in the arrangement under Toby's version of "Nothing's Gonna Harm You" and Mrs. Lovett's reprise a few minutes later -- when she's realized that she's gotta off the kid, and the discordant violin saws around amidst the heavenly harp chords.) A college buddy and I delighted in belting out a ghoulish duet of "Have a Little Priest" at every opportunity.

And while I loved seeing it all come to life onstage -- there was something a bit clownish about the production that I saw. I figured this was all to a purpose (after all -- we were talking about mass murder and cannibalism).

It was, however, the ability of film to draw in close and show the subtleties that I loved about this movie. In watching the staged musical, I found it easy to distance myself from these oh-so-hideous and damaged human beings. In movie-form, such distance was impossible, and I actually found it easier to connect to the characters as human-beings, instead of caricatures from a penny-dreadful.

Not to mention that I have a huge crush on Johnny Depp. And only slightly less huge crushes on Alan Rickman and Helena Bonham Carter.

I watched the entire film three times in two days, and have replayed certain sections probably ten times each.

Maybe it's just me, but I do have this thing about Johnny Depp. And it's not his looks (OK -- it's not just his looks) -- there is something compelling for me about Depp -- I can't really figure it out, but the end effect is that when I see him onscreen, I can't seem to take my eyes off him. I do think that he's a fine actor, but I don't think that's all of it. I've had this experience watching him since I first saw him in a movie (maybe Benny and Joon, or possibly, Gilbert Grape). It's just . . . . something.

Anyhoo -- after three days of Sweeney saturation (amidst work and other stuff), I will say that my ONLY disappointment with the film was that they cut one of my favorite bits from "Have a Little Priest":

"How about General?"
"With, or without his privates?"

Posted byPortlyDyke at 11:30 PM 4 comments  

Labels: Blogging

Well now, THAT wasn't so bad, was it?
Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Last Saturday morning, at 9:35 am, we had a little electrical "blip". It was very short -- resulting in a power outage of, maybe, 20 seconds. People all over town reported that they experienced it as well, and there was no storm in the area, so I assume it was some sort of systemic problem.

When the microwave started flashing 12:00, and I heard my UPS screech out its warning beep, I wasn't too worried -- we had lost power for much longer, and the UPS/surge suppressor had preserved my computer just as it ought.

But then . . . .

When I went to start up my computer (which shouldn't have shut down, according to my UPS manual), I got this weird error message . . . . a message that I didn't recognize and which . . . didn't look good.

I fiddled about a bit with my usual emergency measures, but nothing . . . . nada . . . . zilch. So I called the motherboard manufacturer (as the error had to do with my mobo being able to find my hard-drive, and it wouldn't allow me to get into setup to reconfigure).

Several hours (and calls) later, I had removed and replaced RAM sticks, flashed the BIOS, etc., etc., etc. -- and the tech on the phone finally admitted to me that he was pretty sure the mobo was toast.

BIG bummer. I had built this puppy with my own two hands, exactly one year and 21 days earlier. Which meant that the one year warranty from the reseller had expired 21 days ago, and while I had a 3 year warranty from the manufacturer, their RMA process is 10 - 30 days (after they receive the faulty part).

I wept, both quietly and not-so-quietly, at several junctures during this process.

I had choices, but all of them stunk. Go out and buy a new mobo (if I could find one -- turns out the local computer store doesn't stock them, and this means a 45 minute drive to a computer store that might -- I said might -- have one), then send in the mobo for RMA and wait 10 - 30 days. I could always ebay the replacement mobo once I got my really expensive, really good mobo back, I guess. Being out of computer contact for 30 days was out of the question, as much of my work is done via computer. Not to mention that the withdrawal period for the blog-reading/commenting/writing addiction was unimaginable at that moment.

As an aside, one of the few disadvantages of living in a picturesque little tourist town which has passed ordinances to keep "Big Box" stores out of the area is that . . . . there are no "Big Box" stores in the area.

I did the last-ditch test recommended by the mobo manufacturer and went and bought an entirely new stick of RAM (which the local store did have) and tried the computer. Nothing.

It's Saturday morning.

I can't even begin the RMA process on the mobo until Monday.

All of my most critical information is stuck inside a computer that I can't start, because I'm so smart and all and put the information inside it, on the two reliable and expensive and humungous hard drives about which I thought -- "Oh ho ho, so smart am I! I will have them back each other up!" -- forgetting that none of the other "back-up" computers that I own can read those particular SATA drives.

I wept again.

Then I began limping along on a ten-year old laptop with a teensy-tiny screen to attempt to research whether I could somehow access the hard-drives with an adaptor, or throw them into an external case while I waited for my mobo (or my purchase of a new mobo).

I had forgotten just how slooooow this laptop was, and had forgotten that web-designers have long since stopped worrying about people with slow connections and tiny screens and don't give a flying fuck if you have to scroll a million miles to see an eighth of the screen with all the vital fucking information that you need in an emergency.

At that moment, I was IM'd by a person I know in town who is also a computer repair and tech trainer. I asked if they had such a magical device as the one I was researching, and it turned out they did. I drove to their house and picked it up.

When I returned and plugged the drives in to back them up to an external, one of the drives didn't work, and the techie, IMing me again to check in on how I was doing (just because she's as much of a curious computer geek as I am), mentioned that the error I had gotten might have been a bad drive, not a fried mobo -- and suggested that I put the drive that WAS working back in and see if I got the same error. And I didn't. And I began to breath a bit easier.

Turns out, after all that, it was one zapped drive -- not both -- just one. Phew. Breathe. Weep some more.

Problem was - the backup drive didn't contain the system -- but no prob -- I had a backup of the system. Yes, I would be installing some shit, but my data, for the most part, was still there. After harsh experience, I'm a bit of a back-up nut, but that doesn't mean that I'm always completely smart about it, or that bad things can't happen during a restore. So, I dutifully backed everything up again (slowly, via the limping laptop), and went to bed late Saturday night, ready to awaken on Sunday and make the 90 minute round-trip drive to buy myself a new drive (if they had them, which I would call first thing on Sun. morn to find out).

I have left out something about this day: In the middle of the whole fiasco (post mobo-death pronouncement and pre techie-savior help), I had a full on Fit of Pique.

"Why had this happened!?!?! I had all the protection I was supposed to have! I did all the right things!! Why me!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!"

I don't whine very often. However, I can state for the record that I did whine. Loudly. Longly.

I whined while my beloved gently uttered things like: "Well, if you ascribe to the theory that you create your reality, what do you think this might be telling you?"

At which I whinged even more pathetically, and vociferously denied that there could be any meaningful spiritual aspect to a completely bizarre and unwarranted power failure mixed with a failed Uninterruptable Power Supply. In the midst of this, I even managed to spew some completely disconnected bile about a human being that I was already mad at (which, strangely, seemed to help).

At any rate, next day, during the "church hour", I called the heathen-ridden, open-on-Sunday computer store which is 45 minutes away and inquired about hard drives. Which they said they had.

The beloved and I piled into the vehicle for an unaccustomed adventure (as you may know, I filled my gas tank last December or so -- we don't drive much these days). We had a good chat about my melt-down of the previous day, and creating our own realities and such, and I got my drive(s). Home again, home again, jiggety jig.

Where I discovered that the store-clerk had given me the wrong type of drives. So I called them and got a bit bitchy and asked them to check if they had the "right" drives, and if so, would the person on the phone personally go to their stock room and get two of them, and assure me, upon pain of death, that they had the right type of drives in their hot little hands, in which case I would drive over AGAIN and pick them up.

Which I did. This time, solo. Giving me further time to reflect.

The store-owner knocked some dough off the price for my trouble, and I actually got bigger and better drives than I might have. Home again, home again, jiggety jog.

Where I began restoring and installing and restoring and installing and remembering that there are a million little tweaks that you made to the system which you will never remember you made . . . . until they aren't tweaked anymore.

And I backed the whole fucking thing up, matched perfectly, to the second new drive, system included. The whole fucking thing this time, and an external back up, just to be certain sure.

So, here are the miracles and spiritual developments that I got out of a 20-second power blip and a failed hard drive:

1) The computer tech and I used to be close friends. We've had a civil but cautious relationship in the last couple of years after an unresolved conflict, and I would probably not have had contact with her if we had not just recently reconnected over the story of a mutual acquaintance who was undergoing some difficulties. She IM'd me the day before my computer crisis, and had she not, would probably have not IM'd me the day of the crisis itself. If she had not IM'd me, I would not have contacted her to ask her a business/computer question on a weekend. In the course of our communications about the computer, we ended up having a long conversation about the unresolved conflict that we had and the ongoing dynamics of our relationship as friends that I feel certain we would not have had otherwise. We both stated that we were glad that we were talking about it.

2) The bile I spewed about the person who I was "mad at" (but who was completely unconnected with the computer situation) might never have come to my attention -- or, at the very least, would have come up later -- and I got some very good insights about my own personal triggers and patterns by watching myself transfer my frustration about the computer onto this person.

3) I did actually come to my senses and listen to my beloved, and began looking at the "metaphoric" aspects of the computer situation: a) a seemingly random event which bypasses my usual forms of "protection" creates a situation in which I cannot access the information that I have stored, b) turns out that the access problem is NOT the fault of my "central processor", but is, in fact, a difficulty in the actual place I've stored the information -- it's not like it's "forgotten" -- I'm just not getting to it, and c) the situation makes it necessary for me to look elsewhere for solutions -- in places I might not normally have looked, and specifically, to access resources that I've had in the past (the laptop, the erstwhile friend, etc.), but that I haven't been using.

All of which is helping me to resolve this situation about the person I'm "mad at".

Well now, that wasn't so bad, was it?

Posted byPortlyDyke at 1:56 AM 2 comments  

Labels: Blogging, My Great Fucking Computer

Blog Vacation for Real
Saturday, March 15, 2008

Dear Readers -- Today, I had a motherboard meltdown. I'm blogging this from a "spare" computer that is balky, and it will probably be several days before my mobo is replaced, so there may be radio silence from the Portly Dyke until at least mid-week.

Visualize swift recovery for Charlie -- the computer of my dreams.

PD

Posted byPortlyDyke at 3:35 PM 4 comments  

Labels: Blogging, My Great Fucking Computer

Truth Be Known
Wednesday, February 27, 2008

My recent blog hiatus started, perhaps, because of an overload in the online world: Insults, cyclic arguments, disappointments, etc..

It continued because of an all-consuming project that I'm working on.

It was then compounded by some interpersonal shit going on in the intentional community that I live in (yes, I'm that kind of dyke) that has occupied whatever consciousness was left in me.

It's nothing personal. I don't hate you or anything. In fact, I kind of miss you.

I'm currently engaged in the kind of shit that gives intentional community a bad name, but truly, my time living in intentional community has been nothing but expansive for me -- even this apparent struggle between people who want to keep on keeping their agreements, and a person who doesn't.

A lot of people blanch when I speak of living, on purpose, with other adults who are not my spouse. The very words "intentional community" can conjure up for them visions of endless meetings, constant processing, and most people associate it with a loss of personal space.

That's not been my experience. In the main.

The past few weeks have been a sticky bit, though (and not in the enjoyable "sticky bits" sense of the phrase). I've watched someone with whom I've lived for five years go from "I need to do something else," to "You're bad, and that's why I'm leaving" in the space of a few weeks.

It's not that uncommon, and truth be known, I have compassion for the individual. Leaving is hard, even when it may be the perfect thing for all involved.

In our culture, I think that we're not really trained in the fine art of ending something.

The cultural ideal of nearly everything is that, if it's good, it must continue forever. Relationships are valued mostly for their longevity, regardless of the quality of the time together. So it is that we celebrate 50th wedding anniversaries in a sense of awe and wonder, even if the couple involved has been barely tolerating one another for the past 40 years, and have only the TV remote in common.

Don't get me wrong -- I like things that last. I treasure my oldest, bestest friend of (counting on fingers) . . . . wow! 30 years!

However, I think that there are some things that are not meant to last forever, and I think most people in our culture don't know how to handle it when that becomes apparent -- so they work hard to make the "other" wrong (even if they've been with the other for years or decades), because this makes it easier to part.

I feel sad about that bit. The person who is leaving my community seems busy re-writing history, when only a few months ago, he was misting up at a community-meeting, talking about how much having community had meant to him.
I honestly don't mind that he's going. I'm just not enjoying (at the moment) how he's going.

So that's where my head has been these past few weeks. In meetings. In communications. In cleaving to my own principles while someone else acts out in what I perceive is an unprincipled way.

It's taken a lot of energy, and if you have a prayer/good thought/some energy to direct this way, I'd appreciate it.

In many ways, I see this microcosmic event in my community as reflective of much of what I'm seeing in the larger culture -- the apparent dichotomy of principles versus practicality, the seeming rift between the physical and the spiritual, and the dissonance that is created when some people wish to move toward a greater functionality and sustainability, while others want to maintain the status quo.

Lessons, lessons, who's got the lessons? I do. I'm glad to have them.

Posted byPortlyDyke at 11:10 PM 6 comments  

Labels: Blogging, Very Personal Details

Saturday With Portly
Saturday, February 23, 2008

Often, I'm teaching on the weekends, so my usual "real" weekend is Wed/Thurs, but this weekend, it's a free and breezy, sunny and open two days for me to catch up on rest, relaxation, bills, and sundry activities that I didn't get to in the last, very busy, week.

Here's my usual Saturday routine (when I'm not teaching):

• Lots of Green Tea with lots of honey (essentially, Green Tea is simply a carrying agent for honey, AFAIC)
• A few hours of "being a bobo" (which means idly alternating between reading email and staring out the window, maybe catching up on some blogs if they aren't mentally taxing)
• A nice, hot bath, followed by a little quality naked time in my office while I cool down enough to dress
  
• 11 AM -- Listen to: This American Life on my wireless headset, sometimes while at the computer, sometimes while wandering around the house. It's a good time for dusting, as I can't seem to do anything else if I'm actually listening to the program.
  
• Begin whatever day I've decided to have. Today, I'll be continuing on my video project, as there are hours and hours of open time to fuss with the incredible complexities of mesh-modeling -- something that I've discovered requires my entire brain -- and then some.
• Late afternoon -- this is the time I generally eat my main meal of the day, if I can, so there will probably be some light-weight cooking involved (you know, can-opening in preparation for making the black-bean burritos of which I am so fond on a lazy Saturday).
• Usually, at some point of the early evening, a movie. We have David Attenborough on hand today, but I don't know how National-Geo I'm feeling, so I may forego the movie and keep plugging away at the animation I'm working on.

That'll probably be me today. This American Life starts in 8 minutes, so I'm going to shuffle off to my local NPR station and give it a listen.

I hope the sun is shining where you are. It's shining here, and since we tend to get a bit mushroomy around these parts this time of year, I plan to enjoy it while I've got it.

Happy Saturday.

Posted byPortlyDyke at 10:52 AM 4 comments  

Labels: Blogging

One Whole Week
Friday, February 22, 2008

I haven't blogged here since the 15th of February. Kind of amazing, really.

There is a shitload of shit going on in my non-virtual life. Shit I'm enjoying and relishing, and shit I'm trying to learn to enjoy and relish.

It's not like I don't have anything to say about it all -- I've just been choosing to say it more with my vocal chords, to people whose faces I can see, and less with my blog.

Add to this the fact that somehow, the spaces and places that I usually visit in cyberspace have seemed rather . . . . . . how shall I say it? . . . . Rabid? . . . lately.

When I come upon these times when I simply seem to need a break from the ravages of the internet, I often wonder if I'm wimping out or being self-nurturing.

I suppose it doesn't matter. I needed a vacation from blogging, I took it, and I'm back.

"Look to my coming at dawn".

See you tomorrow.

Posted byPortlyDyke at 1:06 AM 3 comments  

Labels: Blogging

I Will Not Torture You With Fluff Tonight
Tuesday, February 12, 2008

As most of you know, I've been slogging up the giant mountain known as "Computer Animation Learning-Curve" for the past six weeks or so.

But that's not the only reason my blogging has been flimsy lately.

It's that Thumper thing again -- you know -- "If you don't have anything nice to say -- ".

I'm not big on the word "nice", but let's just change that to "additive/expansive".

Recently, I've witnessed some comment-threads that have seared my eyeballs -- name-calling and verbal hack-and-thrash (even among people who might be considered "natural allies") that have given me pause, and set me thinking about the term: Brutality.

Brutality. The ugly child of Hatred.

Hatred. The ugly child of Dissociation.

I honestly believe that the root of all the "-isms" that wreak such havoc in our culture is dissociation.

As primates, we are tribal/troop mammals. When we "associate" with other beings, we tend to think of them as "ours" and join them into a big "us" -- and that association usually leads us to defend, protect, and nurture anything that is considered me/my/mine/us/our/ours.

I hope you won't think I'm being terribly deterministic when I say that I believe that this tendency is hard-wired.

Luckily, I believe that there is another, and even more powerful, drive in us -- something that's wired into us not just at the Family Hominidae level, or as Ordered Primates, or even Class-y Mammals -- but at the Eukaryotic fundament of human-as-living-organism -- and that powerful drive is: Energy Efficiency.

If you think about what makes Homo Sapiens Sapiens really distinctive as an animal, it always seems (to me anyway) to be about the issue of Cooperation -- both the possibly "expansive" types of cooperation (Big Fuck-off Pyramids! International Space Stations! Teh Internets Tubes!) and the not-so-expansive types of cooperation (Xerxes Builds Mile-Long Bridge. Athens Doomed! Super-Delegates to Determine Election! Phelps Clan Pickets Another Funeral!) -- and I believe that, ultimately, humans usually cooperate in response to that pesky energy efficiency thing.

However, in order to cooperate, we have to work through any not-me/you/yours/they/them/theirs which resides at the shank end of our troop-mentality dichotomy. So, we often spend a lot of energy trying to determine the same thing that our immune system wrestles with all day: "Me? or Not Me?"

I believe that, in order for me to brutalize you, I must be convinced that you are not me/my/mine. In any way. I must be convinced that you are not remotely similar to me at any level, and that I could never be like you, and that you are alien and strange and possibly/probably -- very, very dangerous.

The bummer-ish thing about that is this: In order to become convinced of your "not-me-ness" to this extent, I have to also dissociate from the idea that, simply by virtue of your being a human being, you are probably more like me than 99.9999999999....% of the rest of all the matter that exists in the entire Universe.

So that's a lot of energy required for complete dissociation, right there -- and that wanton expenditure of energy pushes hard against our very deeply-ingrained desire, as organic life-forms, to get the MOST amount of energy for the LEAST expenditure of energy.

That's why whack-a-mole comment threads are so tiring sometimes, especially when the topic goes so far afield of the original post that Legolas couldn't track it if you dropped the phrase "leaves of Lothlorien" every third comment.

Yes, sometimes getting OT leads to some very interesting conversation, and leads us to ideas that we would never have imagined discussing -- but when the thread degenerates into --

"Asshole!" brtltrooth||2:14:03 pm
"No, you're the asshole!" snppycmbck||2:14:04 pm

-- well, then it's time for Calgon to take me away.

The threads that seared my baby-blues were not, however, of this simple "I know you are, but what am I" variety -- words and phrases were used that directly attempted to de-humanize the opponent, words like "scum" and "slime" and phrases that called into question the opponents' right to even be alive.

When that shit starts up, I believe we are entering into the realm of brutality. When action and words are used that have no other purpose but to denigrate and degrade the opponent -- I believe that these are used so that we can ultimately justify . . . . destroying them because they are "not me".

My main problem with dissociation (which I believe is a necessary predicate to hatred and brutality), is that, if I can manage to de-humanize you, I generally de-humanize myself in the process -- thus it is that, when hating, we are likely to become the very thing that we hate.

The worst part of all was that this kind of "conversation" was occurring between people who I am almost certain would call themselves "progressive" -- people who would protest that they are not "haters", and who would chafe (or rage) at being compared to the God Hates Fag-ers, or the KKK, or the man who raped me as a four-year-old and managed to dissociate from me so completely that my pain was, to him, completely inconsequential.

Some would argue that these are false equivalences (words in a comment thread and Phelps at a funeral) -- but I believe that the outrageous behavior of truly radical bigots and haters did not simply spring full-blown from the brow of Zeus -- it probably began with something much smaller and more "excusable" for each of them -- stones thrown at the alley-cat -- then derisive names for the passive servant who you know won't confront you -- then a trial slap -- turning into a blow -- turning into a beating.

I believe that any time I can convince myself that any other being "deserves" my brutality -- for any reason -- I am not standing on solid philosophical ground if I want to call myself a human-rights activist, or a progressive.

So I've been skimming threads lately, and Calgoning as needed, and thinking what I wanted to say about all this -- (it's not like I haven't gone there myself in the past, but I don't want to do it ever again).

I don't want to be Fred Phelps.

He's human -- and I don't hate him -- but I don't think he has a "Happy Place".

Posted byPortlyDyke at 11:59 PM 2 comments  

Labels: Bad Behavior (Others), Blogging, Progressives, Teh Internet

Organizing My Thoughts
Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Today was my "day off", and so I piddled around most of the day. I watched a movie which I liked (it made me weep, which I enjoy), surfed the internet, helped a phriend solve a dilemma, and tackled the beginning of something that I've been putting off -- I started adding labels to the posts I've made here since the beginning of this blog.

I don't know why I didn't start it from the beginning, really -- but I didn't -- so understanding "why" wouldn't change the fact that I didn't.

When I started this blog, it was really only because I found myself posting ridiculously long comments on other people's blogs, and realized that I should just "get a room, already", and trust that if people were interested in what I thought, they would come along.

Anyhooooooo -- You will now find, in the right side-bar -- a list of "labels" (and I swear to all the Girl Scout ancestors that I will faithfully label all my posts from now on), so you can take a look at some old stuff that is now partially catalogued (I have not finished labeling all the posts that I've made, but I got a good start today).

Of course, in order to do this, I had to read back on a lot of blog entries. This was an oddly satisfying task, as I found some posts that engendered a certain fondness in me.

Not bad for a girl who just wanted to make some "extended comments".

Posted byPortlyDyke at 11:55 PM 2 comments  

Labels: Blogging

If You Can Keep Your Head
Monday, January 14, 2008

. . . . when all about you are losing theirs . . . . .

Now there's a thought.

I've been watching various blogospheric conniptions lately, and I've found that I have hit one of those "blogging walls" that I stumble into from time to time.

I'm sure you know the feeling -- "Does any of this really matter?"

In the past few days, I've found that I'm more interested in what's happening in my real life than what's happening on my computer screen. I don't think that's a "good thing" or a "bad thing" -- I'm just noticing the cycles -- as this seems to come and go for me.

Of course, I think the recent alternating ball-cutting and pettitude of political candidates (did I really just say "recent"?) has put me off my internet feed a bit -- truth be known, I want to dope-slap the lot of them and say: "Hey! You claim to want to be elected supreme leader for an entire nation! Stop acting the Fool!!!!!"

Recently, I've noticed that I've been weighing my comments on threads with more careful consideration before hitting "publish"-- perhaps in response to what I perceive as a rash of hasty, ill-considered statements from people who I think should know better (*ahem* Democratic candidates). I'm wanting to be more thoughtful about what I pour into the stream of ones and zeros, 'cause it sure looks like there's already a surfeit of bile flowing.

I want the internet to inform me, and to provide me with an avenue to, hopefully, inform others -- and perhaps more importantly, to create a space for dialogue and connection. I don't want it to become a kiddy-pool full of poop.

I say all that in full knowledge that I've posted my share of rants, reamed my portion of troll-ass, and spouted off when it might have been better for me to keep my peace.

I'd name some of the threads that have given me digital indigestion, but I think that would just be adding poop to the pool.

As interesting as it can be to get all righteous-wrathy, it's actually pretty exhausting after a bit.

So today, I'm concentrating on "keeping my head" -- contributing my energy to the wild, wooly world of the internets tube in ways that are additive and expansive. It's challenging for me sometimes, but I believe that it can be done.

Since I'm having a blogging dry spell, I'd truly appreciate some suggestions from readers to help get me in gear again -- Any topics you'd like to hear my thoughts on? Anything you're dying to know about me? Any dangly bits I've left from other posts that are driving you crazy?

Just let me know -- I'll be over here, keeping my head.

Posted byPortlyDyke at 10:31 PM 5 comments  

Labels: Blogging, Poo in the Kiddie Pool, Truth

Day 3 of 2008
Thursday, January 3, 2008

I didn't pay any attention to the outside world or the news today, and I'm glad I didn't. I put my head down into a database project (for fun), and had mind-sex with my computer.

I love my computer. I mean, I really love my computer.

That's only fitting, I suppose. I built her with my own hands. She's my own personal Galatia, you might say. She's fast. She's sleek. She's ready and willing and able.

I've had my head up my own ass all day, and I think that was absolutely perfect. The weather outside today was . . . . . well, if I were measuring it by a Cat-Barometer, I'd just say that it was a curl up and sleep day.

I didn't nap, but I definitely rested. I relaxed into the luxury of nothing on my calendar, and traded occasional smooches with my beloved. All in all, a perfect day.

That's me today. I'm cooking on a couple of posts that are requiring thought and care. Look for them in the next week.

I didn't have a flying dream last night, but I did have a very interesting encounter with my sister in the dream-time.

Posted byPortlyDyke at 11:54 PM 2 comments  

Labels: Blogging, Cats, My Great Fucking Computer

Talkin' Bout My Resolutions
Monday, December 31, 2007

Here are my New Year's resolutions:

1. Each week, dedicate an average of 4 hours per day to my Current Project ("Current Project" should be surrounded with neon lights which flash on and off and then spin out in a dazzling display -- I'll probably be talking about it more as the year proceeds).
2. Up my daily spiritual practices to include a mid-day walking meditation at least 5 times a week.
3. Either a) post a blog entry every day, or b) post a forthright “I’m not blogging today, so there!” blog entry on days that I choose not to blog.
4. Take at least 15 minutes every day to review the agreements that I have with myself (my personal precepts) and others (my agreements with my community, my mate, and my friends), and dedicate the focus and energy to bringing myself back into alignment with my agreements right then and there.

That'll be me for 2008.

And as a soundtrack for the title of the post -- one of my favorite youtubes:

Posted byPortlyDyke at 11:35 PM 1 comments  

Labels: Blogging, Video

Entertainment While I Work On a Real Post
Wednesday, December 19, 2007

I love the Internet.



h/t to oddjob -- via The Daily Dish

"Not Much of a Hunter" -- Hysterical!

Posted byPortlyDyke at 1:44 PM 5 comments  

Labels: Blogging, Politics, Teh Internet, Video, Xtians

I Comes and I Goes, Don't I?
Thursday, December 13, 2007

Just a quick note to let everyone know that I haven't fallen into a pit. "Work" -- that ever so inconvenient thing -- has been keeping me busy this week.

In the meanwhile, here's a little something in keeping with the spirit of the season (I'd embed it if I could).

http://www.jibjab.com/view/87953

Posted byPortlyDyke at 11:48 PM 0 comments  

Labels: Blogging, Humor, My Great Fucking Computer, Video

Just for Mary Tracy9
Sunday, November 25, 2007

A reader expressed dismay that I did not actually go into DETAIL on the Ten Commandments in my last post -- and since I am, after all:

Posted byPortlyDyke at 1:59 PM 10 comments  

Labels: Blogging, My Great Fucking Computer, National Bible Week

The Ten Commandments as Push-Back
Saturday, November 24, 2007

Our story so far: God creates this Earth thingy, and a bunch of plants and animals to decorate it, and a thingy called "Man/Adam".

Man/Adam is lonely, so God clones a "help-meet" (whatever the fuck that is) for Man/Adam, by taking a discrete sample of his DNA (Lolcatbible Gen 2:23 "I calz her "whoa man!", k? -- cuz she in ur chest taken ur ribs"), which is kind of weird, since, in cloning, the clone usually ends up the same gender as the clonee (so maybe it really was Adam and Steve after all?).

For the sake of moving the story forward, however, let's assume that God really is a rocket scientist, and got all the parts to line up . . .

You know the rest of the whole temptation setup from Ricky Gervais, right?

Great, let's proceed.

Well, after God bounces the parents of humankind from the Garden, just all kinds of shit breaks loose -- brothers killing brothers, angels sleeping with humans, human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together - mass hysteria.

God gets disgusted with all the shit-breaking-looseness and destroys all life with a flood except for this one guy and his family and a shit-load of breeding pairs of animals which get packed in a big boat -- something about this size, if we have our cubits right:
Peachy.

Except, when this dude gets off his boat (after five months of animal poo and too much quality time with his family) the first thing he does is get stinking drunk and passes out butt-naked in his tent, and one of his sons sees his dangly bits, and there's this whole scene where NoahLushyExhibitionist curses his son's son into servitude.

Even though the son's son wasn't involved in the whole Daddy-I-Saw-Your-'Nads thing.

And that's why God meant for black people to be slaves.

Keep up, will you? We're not even half-done.

Despite God's best efforts to wipe out wickedness, the wickedness just keeps coming, (although God does seem to be able to "look the other way" in certain cases which I'm not going to go into at great length -- Abram *cough*liar, pimp*cough*).

However, there is this one story, which I will include because The Queen Cunt of Fuck Mountain has ordained that it be so, and everyone in the entire Universe knows that all of us who frequent Shakesville are mindless thralls in service to Her every whim (unlike people who consider the Bible the inerrant word of God, who are free-thinking, intellectually-liberated types) -- and that story is:

Lot and His Daughters

The story of Sodom and Gommorah ("I rained down sulfur, man, there's a subtle difference"), and Lot's Wife Turning into a Pillar of Salt ("We were out of salt! You know I love the salt!"), are the stuff of publicist's wet-dreams -- the story just after? Not so much.

Which is why you probably didn't hear about it during Sunday School.

Sodom and Gommorah is a smoking ruin, and Lot has miraculously escaped with his two daughters (his disobedient, fully-salinated wife and his disbelieving, dude-you-so-funny! sons-in-law have been, unfortunately, destroyed utterly) and he is living in a cave in the mountains.

His daughters, charmingly called simply "Eldest" and "Youngest" (probably in keeping with their mom's family tradition of not actually needing a name as long as you've got a man), look around and cannot see any men anywhere, so they go all Spring Break on daddy's ass -- thusly:

Nice.

Incest, passed-out drunken sex which is all the fault of the women who perpetrate this on a poor man who has no idea that he's having sex, twice (to be fair, it was the "Golden Age" -- maybe penises and vast quantities of alcohol interacted differently back then), nameless women serving as incubators so that -- horrors! -- a man's "seed" will not die out, and the extra-added dominionist goodness of -- nation-building! -- all neatly packaged in eight short verses (and all this time I was wondering what part of the Bible the Xtians get their "family values" from).

With all this fucking and boozing going on, it's no wonder God had to come up with the Big Ten, to get these stiff-necked assholes to behave.

So, this will be the last installment of my National Bible Week Series. At midnight tonight, it will all be over -- Thank Ceiling Cat.

In closing, I'll just say this: Know Your Bible!!!! It can tell you all sorts of useful things about the Xtianist movement that would like to convert our nation into a theocracy.

Since we started with Genesis 1, let's end at the end:

I'd like to express my deepest appreciation to Zotnix and all the translators at Lolcatbible for making National Bible Week infinitely more enjoyable and fun for me.

Ai thnx Ceiling Cat fr dem.

Posted byPortlyDyke at 2:05 PM 3 comments  

Labels: Blogging, My Great Fucking Computer, National Bible Week

Psalm 23
Monday, November 19, 2007

Psalms 23 (Lolcatz Bibel) -- (KJV translation for the lolcat-impaired)
1 Ceiling Cat iz mai sheprd (which is funni if u knowz teh joek about herdin catz LOL.) He givz me evrithin I need.

2 He letz me sleeps in teh sunni spot an haz liek nice waterz r ovar thar.

3 He makez mai soul happi an maeks sure I go teh riet wai for him. Liek thru teh cat flap insted of out teh opin windo LOL.

4 I iz in teh valli of dogz, fearin no pooch, bcz Ceiling Cat iz besied me rubbin' mah ears, an it maek me so kumfy.

5 He letz me sit at teh taebl evn when peepl who duzint liek me iz watchn. He givz me a flea baff an so much gooshy fud it runz out of mai bowl LOL.

6 Niec things an luck wil chase me evrydai an I wil liv in teh Ceiling Cats houz forevr.

In honor of National Bible Week, please bear with the commercial at the front of the video below -- after all, G-d needs $$$ too! :(

Posted byPortlyDyke at 1:20 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Blogging, Humor, Mr. Deity, National Bible Week, Religion