Spit in the Spider's Eye

 
I cannot express how much I hate ladybugs. But ladybugs and I both like houses that gather light, so each house I've lived in has fallen prey to the swarms of ladybugs that descend during Indian Summer, then crawl into corners and tuck themselves into window casings like flying cockroaches that exude a stinking orange slime into what was once your home. 

You can vacuum, fumigate, wear a trash bag over your head when you walk outside so they don't coat you and crawl into your clothes and bite you, leaving a nasty smell as a reminder on your fingertips when you flick them away. But they'll come back. When you take a shower, they creep forth, tiptoeing up the curtain like so many diseased soldiers come to huddle around a campfire and bum a smoke. There were dozens today, drawn by the steam, marching along the curtain rod. You can't beat them away when they're that close because there's the chance one will land on you. And that simply won't do. 

This hatred of mine, it may be closer to phobia that I thought. But I have plans. They involve a Shop-Vac.

Koi mermaid
Swishing away
Orange flashing
A sodden sashay.

I poured bleach in the claw-footer and watched in horror as it immediately turned the porcelain rust orange. I have no idea why this happened or what chemical reactions took place, but the filthy white tub is now a clean orange tub and this girl is not pleased. However, I have the entire mural fleshed out in my mind and the second base coat is on the wall (the bit that's not in my hair) so the seaweed can go on tomorrow. What better image to contemplate while taking a bath than a brightly colored merwoman silently swimming away to take your thoughts outward and beyond the petty misfortunes of today? And lo, I'm painting again! Writing, too, poetry about baby sociopaths and soup kitchens. Thank goodness for this job, I'm doing exactly what I need to be.

I was just recertified in CPR and AED, etc., etc. and in class the nurse made sure to point out that even if you don't remember exactly what you're doing or if you left you card at home or if there isn't an AED nearby, you shouldn't be afraid to try to help someone. It struck me very strongly at the time. If you're in a situation and someone isn't breathing for some reason, call 911, press the heel of your hand, one of top of the other, between their nipples and please perform at least chest compressions (100 per minute). Every minute the brain is without oxygen, more of it dies. You are protected by the Good Samaritan law if you've acted in good faith in trying to help someone even if it doesn't end well. You might be sued if you break some ribs or just because people are crazy, but it won't go anywhere; any judge will drop the case. Even if someone has been in a car accident and has a spinal injury, if they aren't breathing, it would be better to get blood to their brain and have them live as a paraplegic than as an able-bodied vegetable. You don't have to remember to give them two breaths and then 30 compressions, you can even skip the breaths as long as you can tilt their chin back and open their airway. 

I felt a need to get this information out there, so please pass it along. It's important.

 
I do believe I got karmically fucked today. 

I'll be very glad to see the ass-end of August. 

Unit7, Primate Fiasco, Luminz and myself make our debut here in a contemporary ragtime video. It has everything the gangster lifestyle can offer from flappers to guns and cars.  

I am at a stage in my life I never even thought to prepare for.

We made yet another offer, this time on a contemporary that doesn't really need any work, and it has been verbally accepted. I have another interview tomorrow and my landscaping clients may be friends but they aren't above fighting over my time. Still, I don't have hundreds of thousands of dollars to pitch in in paying for a house. Eric reminds me that I shouldn't try to everything in the NOW, that there will be time to take care of him later. I'm just unpracticed in letting go of any shred of independence. Having him make my life easier and offer to help me in all kinds of ways doesn't make me feel good, it makes me horribly uncomfortable, which then makes me feel like a shmuck because I'm not properly grateful. His therapist finally managed to explain it to him, that too much assistance can be a burden, especially when I've never needed that kind of help and to accept would not only cripple me but it would be like admitting defeat against odds that wouldn't otherwise get the better of me.

Basically, being almost twenty years younger and much less financially stable than my partner, the man I live with, sometimes makes me feel helplessly behind. And not being an equal partner throws off my financial feng shui. I guess I'm learning that lesson that untold numbers of significant others have already learned, that economics are not everything, and what I can offer is actually everything he needs.

The kittens help enormously. There are finally creatures rampaging through the house that come from me. That wholly depend on me, yet communicate more poorly than I do. The house doesn't feel so cold when I have two tiny purr-machines sitting in my lap, trying to crawl onto the keyboard when I type. There's also something incredibly rewarding about their trust, when something skittish learns to like falling asleep in your lap. My sister has baby red squirrels - but they're definitely not at that stage. It may have something to do with her rottweiler rescue dog having eaten two of them and terrorized the ones that are left.

Joseph has graduated from college. My mother threw the party that she never had. My sister and I stepped in to help and it would have gone off without a hitch if my brother, the scoundrel, hadn't been taken away from Commencement in an ambulance. Heat stroke apparently, I'm convinced an excess of drink had something to do with it. A number of relatives made an appearance and uncle Jeffrey came up to stay with us. I teased a number of important family stories out of the weekend - with Joe in the infirmary, pops and I had to pack up and cart away the contents of his college careers from his room. On the way home I learned that my mother's half siblings' spouses had divorced them, married each other, and gained custody of all the kids. That's a winner. Also, on the way home from the following dinner party at my sister's, I found out that our family has been in the country since the 1600s and my grandmother did groundbreaking work still known in anthropological circles before she asphyxiated herself. My uncle also mentioned that the grandfather I have only met twice, who beat my mother and then threw her out when she was sixteen, is basically blind from macular degeneration, has had two strokes, and yet was still out on a scaffolding fixing his house when he fell off and broke his collarbone, his arms, bones, bones, and more bones. He may not be long for this world and Jeff invited me to their Thanksgiving in Georgia. He made a point of telling me that I should decide for myself whether he is man or beast before I lose my chance. I'm not sure how I feel about it, but he did manage to jolt my sense of internal bias. That entire side of the family may be in therapy, but I can still become an emotionally healthy person.

Bad things have been happening to Io. And this time I can't even pretend to know how to help her. We're taking a trip through CA at the end of June when I'll finally be able to see her. I'll just have to find a way to show her a years worth of love in a handful of days.

In other news, this chica is writing again. I'm also posting pictures and reconnecting with friends. I also figured out that I should move for my MSW, maybe at Smith and maybe at Springfield College or UConn. There is light at the end of this tunnel and I've finally figured out what the next logical step is toward my personal crusade for prison reform. If I can land a job with one of the advocacy or alternative detention programs in Springfield or Holyoke, then I can shed the romanticism with which I view crime in disadvantaged communities and start to learn Spanish. Then, I can go back to school and earn the golden degree. I'm excited again. About the coming years, about the house, about my sister dropping hints that they're trying to have a baby. And this family. I took Addy to his pediatrician and it turned out that he was due for several immunization boosters. We were in a tiny room for an hour and a half, debating the merits of sharks and turkeys as pets. When the time came for the shots, he was fooling around and jolting exaggeratedly when the nurse stuck him. On the last one, he moved so suddenly that he scared the nurse and she had to stick him again. Then, they didn't even have any lollipops!

I'm learning. I guess the trick is to never stop learning and that will keep things on an even keel and prevent me from going out of my mind.

The dog is snoring, the dryer is buzzing, Addy's homework is willfully scattered on the floor in front of the fireplace and me, my head is spinning. Some combination of heat, exhaustion, and lovesickness - - or maybe just swine flu has me slumped blearily in a chair. Eric is in California and I've been filling his shoes, getting up at 6 in the morning, feeding the boy and packing him off with lunch in a sack. Then I go out and tend to the earth; have I mentioned that I now work as an organic landscaper? Today my tentative transport was the Tundra. I stalled at every single traffic light and crosswalk (I may exaggerate but I feel entitled) and again when some bonehead decided to stop on the hill to turn against traffic. The people behind me were quite impatient and I may have been a little flustered. On the way home, I coasted on the clutch and inched my way towards lights winking green, green, green. So, the morning was spent edging lawns and shoveling shit and tomorrow will have more of the same.

I feel like I've accomplished something, however. And I appreciate my inner capacity to learn things quickly - or to say things with confidence and pretend that I do. I just wish UMail (which magically still works a year after the fact) would work today because I need to confirm tomorrow's appointments. I wouldn't mind instantly developing a few handy negotiation skills. Standing up for myself and setting prices in a business I really know nothing about makes me queasy. Harrumph.

I would like to feel powerful again. That particular kind of confidence unraveled down my back over the past year. The crisis of identity students experience after they graduate from high school, college, a military tour, law school, and assorted PhD programs has not left the cloud of signifiers and signifieds floating around my head unchanged. Still, at around this time last year I was bemoaning the fact that I felt too comfortable, too secure. So, I have what I wanted, now I must figure out what to do with it.

 
Russell Brand, actor, comic, author, vindictive vegetarian and gecko duchess. One who can say, with all seriousness, "I shall have heroin, but I shan't have a hamburger." Also, English, and possessed of an enjoyably vast vocabulary which he employs at a delightfully the brisk pace. He wanked about quite a bit after raising a family of incestuous and cannibalistic gerbils, then went to an American sex rehab and now he's written a memoir, dedicated it to his mum, and implored her to never read it. He had an interview last night that we happened upon en route to racquetball. Something about Helen Mirren's panties and how only a dame so well-mannered could ever play the queen. So, what'd we do? We went out and bought the book. 

It seems like we lost the house today. But, I suppose we never really had it. Geothermal/ solar system, attached greenhouse, 15 acres, woods, lawn, a barn just waiting to be a studio and a hell of a lot of work we were ready to do (let's not talk about estate taxes). It's a bit depressing but the butch selling it backed out right after the lawyers got involved in the sale. I'm still kicking her shins inside my head, dratted wretch. 

We saw Milk last night. Had I known there was a hanging scene, I never would've agreed to watch it, certainly not with E. I'm becoming more and more conscious of cinema that offers up scenes of rape, death, and violence as entertainment. Sure, it sells, but I don't need to sit through it. People accomplish all kinds of things but we don't notice or just don't care unless they get raped or murdered in the getting in done. 

Now, the film was amazing. Sean Penn is more than brilliant in his role as actor, jerkily waving his arms to incite a crowd just as uneasy in their world as he is in his, an awkward middle aged insurance agent consumed by a need to stop the violence toward and ease the suffering of so many locked within the closet. It's worth a lot, to have our stories told, but how many memories can we voice? Should all of them be told? In what capacity may we judge? When will anyone be able to tell their child that everything will be all right and mean it when they wake from nightmares?

How are your hands? Steady as faith. 
How is your community? Hmm, oh, it can't talk. We cut it's tongue out. Then we ate it. 

I managed to catch K today. Both her and J actually, and we discussed communication. It was illuminating; everyone has problems expressing themselves if they're not sure how they feel. I'm sure I overwhelmed them but they're used to it. I was speaking unusually fast, explaining this, that, and the other bit to catch them up as they did the same. As long as I keep reaching out, I'm hoping that the speed will eventually diminish. Now I have that "Brother's gotta work it out" Chemical Brothers beat stuck in my head. I finished and returned my growing stack of library books and I will only reward myself with reading when I actually spend equal time with that fucking GRE study book that's 900 disgusting pages long. At least, that's the plan.

So Google is going to ask for a few nail clippings and sync all your phone lines, emails, conference calls, and textos. Malnutrition in India is raging among children, as it is in China. New Jersey is going to try to enforce a ban on Brazilian waxing - all genital waxing, actually. And, just in from South Africa, CORRECTIVE RAPE FOR LESBIANS, courtesy of NGO ActionAid and the Human Rights Commission report. This is on top of the murders in Burundi of people with albinism and the hideous story from Brazil about the 9-year old who had been repeatedly raped by her father, got pregnant with twins, had to appeal to the courts for an abortion, after which point the church proceeded to excommunicate everyone involved except the bastard responsible.

It's been a rotten week. The change in the barometic pressure has made everyone cranky and crazy. Every which way I turn someone has a ridiculous story, dentists are going insane, and my dearest brother just missed the officers foreign service exam by one fucking point. Added to this, the IUD makes me a raging bitch for one week, hurts like hell for two weeks and I'm thinking that as it takes 12 months for everything to even out, wasting half a year to unhappiness just for birth control seems a bit much. I could stop whining and do something about it but getting it in hurt so much that the prospect of removing it terrifies me.

Also, my breakfast rice cakes are stale.

But this is dippy. It looks like they've been caught en flagrante delicto


from the UK Telegraph. Furry porn, anyone?

Tuesday is salsa night. We rotate through partners with bad breath and lunging steps and then seem to sigh into one another's arms when we finally complete a full circle. Some of the men and even more of the women have an unbelievably awkward arrangement to their bones. Perhaps an unwillingness to open themselves up to a relationship with the music. I wonder about it. And I like dancing with E. I'm reluctant to go out dancing without him and I want him to learn to love it as I do so we're taking lessons. The spinning can come later.  The whole mindset is a shift for me, but I'm finding a groove and banging myself some room inside it.

Earlier this evening my painting came together. I finally sketched in wings that worked. It started with a woman's shoulders around which are swirling many different colored locks of hair. She grew a mermaid's body as well as a lion's body as well as striking black wings that stand out stark inside the rainbow. Her nipples, I must say, are perfect. I set out to paint a merman but my paintbrush just seems to prefer the larger mammaries common to the opposite gender. I've been avoiding studying for the GRE and thinking furiously. E says I mutter every night in my sleep. Sometimes I reach over and tap, tap, tap him awake, mumble something, and subside as soon as he's fully awake. We've only been living together a few months but really, I'm sure this isn't the first century we've found each other. Last Wednesday, I think it was, we both dreamed of his wife. She hasn't walked though my dreams in a long time, nor his, so I feel that it could be none other than a visitation. And she seemed happy, so that's something.

We've been house hunting. I'm partial to the passive solar house with fifteen acres and the beginnings of an orchard. Trouble is it's the land that prompts my attachment, not the prospect of the sweat equity it would need to be livable. And a house that's really only worth 300 thousand, after you sink 80 grand into it, is still only worth 300 thousand. It's something people don't seem to realize even if their property has been sitting on the market for a year. But, as the man tells me, emotion is never a good reason to take on a serious investment. And making a decision is stressing him out. I suggested building a house, but apparently that's the best way to ruin a relationship. Flipping houses, tho, that could be an interesting living. Not right now, of course, but I'm pretty much open to anything at this point. I have signals telling me to go back to school, as most folks are taking refuge in grad school but I don't want to rush that. I'm worried that a PhD will make me overqualified when my resume is already crowded. And I'm worried about finding another job when this one runs out in, let's see, 8 working days. Added to that I'm still on an experimental baking kick. And there's nothing more frustrating that using all of some ingredient only to find out that of the next item there is nothing left.

I went to the bank in the next town over and the teller recognized me. She asked where I'd been and I said "Korea. Don't go." The next teller over apparently has an aunt over there. I guarded my tongue. Mumbled something and clacked out. Bridget called me yesterday and said that four more people were all fired. Fired and then ordered to work overtime and then not paid after not receiving a full paycheck for the last few months. So six of them are running. I'm glad Brom is happy with her lot but, really, North Korea could send over a few little missiles and I wouldn't shrug. Not yet.

What say ye about Bank of America stock? An investment or a gamble? Is the stock market ever not a gamble? Still, it seems unlikely that they'd nationalize that one - unless they nationalize them all. And someone just made a funny satirical advertisement comparing the future nationalized banks to the fucking RMV. The whole skit was peppered with "fuck" 's and "fucking" actually.  And they're thinking about paying teachers for results, fixing health care, and making people in the medical field acknowledge corporate contributions above $50. The housing bailout is much more sensible than all the talk show hosts would have us believe and studies have shown that seeing ads about exercise make us hungry - so all the posters of pretty, muscled people are, rather than encouraging people to move around a little, potentially contributing to the morbid obesity in this country. Also, the leading researcher in the field of anaesthesiology just admitted to fabricating data for years (his costs were underwritten by Pfizer and Celebrex, I think) and they've linked schizophrenia and autism in children to older fathers. Children of fathers over a certain age perform more poorly on every single test except physical coordination. Apparently the optimal age for both mother and father is the same, but there's a snag because men are fertile longer. Rascals. It's an advantage for a child to have an older mother - she's likely to have more money, more education, and most important, more time to spend with them. Curious, curious. I'd consider the idea of tax breaks for people who exercise coupled with higher insurance rates depending on body fat as I don't see it disadvantaging anyone - the YMCA even provides child care. Perhaps an even larger tax writeoff for throwing away your television - now that would be radical! Although I completely agree that there would be a resounding hue and cry. Obesity is really the leading cause of death in this country, all things considered; it's directly linked to diabetes, heart disease, and it's even a factor in infertility among women as young as twenty. Sometimes I wonder if I should cut myself off from the Times - but it's so easy to click to article 6 of 43, then 7, and so on.

We were in Boston over the weekend because E had a gig at the Toad and a V and J came out, along with the Dragon and her party. There were a few staid matrons sitting near where we were dancing and they really didn't get her. And there was some old lady who was hitting on her HARD CORE. It's rare for her to be, like, whoa! but it happened. Later we went to dinner at the E Walk and it turned out the women weren't staid matrons but that no matter how mature or flush people grow, they're always going to short the bill. The saying is, "You always know when someone has very little money, because they're the biggest tippers." (I get all my best quotes and the most horrific insults from the man these days.) During the show the music man was poking fun at the crowd and the Dragon moaned loudly, as it was somehow relevant, shouting, "Ohhhhh, yes! Oh! Yes!" The crowd loved it. To top it off she's organizing the music festivals up in Maine this summer so he can get in all the space he wants!

foucaultonacid posted this superfantasticdevelopment on his LJ and I had to include it.

The first time I filled up my gas tank since being back made me laugh. It cost half of what it had before. Now it's climbing again and really, the cock and bull story behind that chokes me a bit. I'm back to reading four books at once. Racquetball every other day. We cook, we clean, we make love, we help with homework, we get up, groaning, to let the dog out, we laugh, glower, and can't help but wait to do it all over again the next day. There's not much left in the pantry so tonight he threw together everything that was left and served up a lovely red pepper sauce with pasta and beans. He pushes all the buttons I didn't know I had, feeds me supplements and enzyme replacements, forgives me when I act like a fool and makes me laugh at all the inappropriate times. I sound like a romantic sap but maybe this is as good as it gets. And there's nothing wrong with that.

An IUD is a copper T that is unfolded inside the uterus. The presence of the copper thwarts most sperm while the mucus produced due to a foreign body sitting in the uterus and the subsequent thinning of the uterine lining make it a most inhospitable place for those little squirming things that have forever been getting women into trouble. Most of the research floating about online says that it is mildly uncomfortable, fast, effective, and very long lasting. In order to insert the device, the cervix must be widened, straightened, and then clamped to one side with a tenaculum while the uterus is measured to ascertain that it is wider than 6 cm, yet smaller than 10 cm. What I came to found out is that having an intra uterine device inserted feels like being impaled on the business end of a shovel and continues to feel this way for about four days. The nurses remind you to breathe, but ones' instinct is just the opposite. Childbirth is supposed to make the process more effective and less unpleasant, and I imagine that having a child sit on your cervix for a few months would be a less abrupt way to widen it.

The cost is around $600 but it's going down, and most insurance should cover it. My insurance tried to back out right before the procedure. The nurses were like, "Ahh, could you put your pants back on and deal with this?" Situation dealt with and pantsless once more, we all discussed Proust to try to distract me while a clinician was petting my arm and another was rearranging my insides. I found out that after bearing a particularly massive baby, the uterus may never shrink below 11 cm. There's some poor woman somewhere who just had octuplets; all of her children survived at around 1.5 pounds apiece. Definitely newsworthy, and certainly not something I'd ever care to experience. The women at Tapestry were remarkably assured, knowledgeable and helpful. They're pleased to offer these ten years up to those as choose it, especially in light of the thousands of dollars women end up spending on preventative measures, EC, the pill, etc., etc. I imagine that they've also seen many women who've fallen into abortion as a form of contraception and would rather children only came to those as wanted them. Their funding has been severely cut but they still offer a range of services that the community appreciates.

As you age, the likelihood that you'll have multiple babies increases, but then, so does the number of women who ask for a hefty dose of fertility drugs. Removal of the IUD requires another doctor's visit and given how pleasant it was this time around, it may take an appreciable number of the 10 years Paraguard works for me to ask anyone to take it out. The device increases menstrual bleeding and cramping, can cause ovarian cysts, sometimes perforates the uterus during insertion, and may become embedded thus requiring surgery to remove it. It also puts you at a much higher risk of contracting an STD because there is a handy ladder for all the bad things to climb up inside you. All in all, I'd recommend it.

It turned me into an absolute horror to be around, decimated my immune system, and made me reconsider entering an alternative nunnery. Apparently I'm part of less than 5% who find it a bit uncomfortable, but not part of the 1% who vomit and then faint afterward. Sneezing, however, sneezing isn't so great when you want to stop the bleeding end of things. Nor is falling down, digging ditches, performing contortive gymnastics, or fighting off an army of demons, but then we try to avoid all of those things. The gymnastics mainly because I tried to do a backwards walkover and fell straight on my head so many times in third grade that I got a bit fed up with the whole sport. It might have helped to have a spotter as I don't think my noggin ever recovered.

It's been an interesting number of months, to say the least. 

Thought I'd pass this along. Edward Gorey's Recently Deflowered Girl, etc.

As well as the more embarrassing residences the NYT could come up with, along with Wetwang and Spanker Lane in Derbyshire.

tomorrow just waltzed off
with your wife and your wallet
heels clicking the time signature
of she-wolf castanets.
you win some
you lose some
you cry some
you booze some
you remember that last cigarette
smoking on a balcony
as you both got wet,
counting your chickens
and far-fetched convictions.
drumroll narratives scrabbling under
nepotistic meritocracies.
you wait in line to draw a number
and still wind up on your back
furnishing some ungodly chopshop of pretties.
wind up
wind down
stick em up
and shake em down.

tarnation, cute poetry is like a bad case of the hiccups..

I leave this country tomorrow if Air Canada stops giving me the runaround and allows me to confirm my ticket. Nearly every day that I have been here over the past few months has felt like soul rape. I can deal with sexual violence, but not this. It's all wrapped up in white privilege, etc., etc., but I am very glad to be done with it. I guess I've found one of my limits. Not everyone has shared my experience, Christina loves it here and she's found a lovely place for herself working with sane people. At dinner with my now ex-coworkers, I was plunged back into the circumstantial manic depression that is SLP. The second, third, and fourth sentences I heard were, "Sophie's gone now, too. She got fired on Saturday. And Miso is quitting next Tuesday after we get paid." Bridget is leaving after Malaysia. Sarah is going to Japan. Poor Lindsay is as stuck as I was, not really wanting to take a midnight run but unable to pay back the plane ticket and handle student loan payments. John's out as soon as he can afford a housing deposit stateside and the other girls are floundering. The unfortunate schmuck who took my place doesn't know what hit him. And he won't. The hopeless helplessness of the situation doesn't sink in until the first month is over, when you realize that the boss lady really does own you.

Heya BJ,

How are the chickens?

I'm leaving Korea. I was fired without notice on Monday, told that I would not be paid for my last month, and informed that I must vacate my apartment by Friday and that I owed my boss thousands of dollars.

I am writing an article about my experiences and that of other teachers to inform people about what is going on before they're 'amongst it.' Too often we forget about due diligence and I obviously didn't do enough research before I signed my contract (not that the contract is worth anything). I missed the warning signs and walked off a plane and into the shit, so to speak.

The whole 'teach abroad' thing is often a triangle scheme in which hagwon owners 'own' recruiters, and as your patron they 'own' your visa as well. They also own your housing so if you piss them off you're out on the street and instantly an illegal. They feel that they own their employees, and have said as much; therefore, they feel that they are within their rights to coerce, cajole, humiliate and deceive their workers into doing all sorts of things. As a white, middle class American, this is not something I was accustomed to. Korean Labor Law is such that employees, especially immigrants, don't really have any protections whatsoever; unless you have worked on the books for six months, Ministry of Labor and Immigration officials will not speak to you. Confucianism plays into this - but they're not actually abiding by the tenets of Confucianism either. This place confounds me... and my situation doesn't even come close to some of the horror stories I've heard.

I am having incredible difficulty keeping this piece objective. The Honolulu Syndrome (?) is in full swing and at times I feel that I'm becoming a racist. This morning, the lady at the convenience store gave me free kimbap in what was a very nice gesture, but relations with the boss lady have completely soured me on the entire culture and I never, ever want to return to Asia. I don't think I'm very good at feeling helpless, or impotent. Added to that, journalistic ethics are a joke on this side of the pond. It is not uncommon for journalists to just ask you to write a story and submit it for tidying up before they put their name on it. They begin the journalistic process with a thesis and write whatever they like to support it. Libel law states that you may not publish anything damaging about anyone, regardless of it being verifiable fact, which is... inconvenient. I've pulled all the strings I can and my last remaining option is to cut and run - but this is exactly why Korea has no anti-discrimination laws - because no one is invested enough in the culture to stay and fight to better it. Yet, somehow I feel compelled to at least try- and that, and the union organizing I've been doing, is what got me fired in the first place.

Would you mind reminding me what journalists are good for? What am I trying to do here? Where is the line when I can make the fight my own.

Thank you so much,
Emma

I wish someone had told me that when I was eight years old.

( Now say, 'Ahh.' )

Enfin, le titre m'est arrivé.

"It's been suggested that one reason sex scandals have such an explosive impact on Washington is that there is so little sex going on [there] in the first place." This is the latest from Slate and I like it, as it made the point that D.C. tends to change the people who move there rather than the other way around, but I hope, for those of mine as have moved, that there will be at least a bit more sexy time to be had.

Judith Warner makes an interesting point about equality in her latest piece, "No Ordinary Woman."And if I were to ever have children, I would want them to be able to recognize and call me a racist, too. And I'd love to be able to admonish them to, "show, not tell," as is beaten into every journalist in the newsroom. I don't know much about Judith Warner but I just resolved to find out more. This is apt. As is Alice Walker's open letter to the President-elect when she warns him that he need not take on all the enemies of the old administration, among others. On top of this.

Also, this bit from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger about protest surrounding the passage of Prop. 8 in CA:

“It is unfortunate, but it is not the end because I think this will go back into the courts,” Mr. Schwarzenegger said. “It’s the same as in the 1948 case when blacks and whites were not allowed to marry. This falls into the same category.”

Still, I sometimes wonder about the minority vote, if we missed it entirely, telling certain constituencies why equality is important while we preached to the choir and forgot to account for the voices we don't hear. And it's no wonder we don't hear them, because who the hell is listening? Slate ran an article about the religious conservatives who mobilized the minority vote from pulpits and it is those individuals pulled to the polls who tipped the balance in favor of Obama and away from marriage equality. I can't really be too upset. But I wonder, again, at how people who are criminalized and discriminated against view gay people who are similarly discriminated against? Don't they know anybody who is Hispanic or Black AND female AND gay? How marginalized do you have to be to be acknowledged? Do people really still believe that people choose to be gay just to be difficult as they attributed the behavior of women who did not wish to marry men to during the last century? (What an awkward sentence, apologies)

If all people are equal and we all have a fundamental right to marry the person of our choice, regardless of color or creed, how can there possibly be a gender restriction? When I think about this the 1948 case that Schwarzenegger spoke of is buried in the back of my lexicon; for my generation, marriage equality is about sexual orientation and gender issues, not race issues. But really, Emma, how can those things not overlap? 

Matthew Staver, of Liberty Counsel said, "No matter how you stretch California's Constitution, you cannot find anywhere in its text, its history or tradition that now, after so many years, it magically protects what most societies condemn," to the LA Times back in May. It seems that he was right. I doubt that this measure will last, but I do worry for the children of gay couples who have been politically declared unfit to raise families in the interim. That really pisses me off. It's hard enough to start a family as a gay couple, whether it be via legal channels and adoption, sperm banks, or the horribly awkward time spent with a good friend trying to do it the old fashioned way - without throwing a wrench into it like this.

Irregardless, I am absolutely thrilled to have Barack and his best friend, Michelle, ascending to the White House. I may not agree with everything they plan to do, but they are both articulate, thinking inviduals and that alone will be a welcome change from Dubya. I never once saw old George give a full 'speech,' televised or otherwise; I went straight to the transcripts because he was just too hard to watch as he disgraced himself time and again. Now, if only we could toss him out on his ear before the 70-some-odd days are up...

My life just exploded with women.