Yes, I'm absolutely using my disused blog to try and ram one last Mothership Month blog post in under the gun to unlock a stretch goal. I'm not above it.
Last year I was introduced to Mothership through a shockingly well-aimed campaign tabling at PAX Unplugged. Hello, Omendrome, don't think I don't see you there, lurking.
This time around, I somehow missed every single BackerKit email about the event. All twelve thousand of them. I don't know, it's been a weird year. (Hello, Blogosphere! Nice to see you! What's been up since, uh, the wholeass pandemic?) So here I am, with twenty minutes and no budget to go. Here's what I'm stoked on:
The lynchpin of this year's campaign is Prospero's Dream. I don't know if "butchers" is about meatpacking or murdering. I'll be honest: I want it to be about meatpacking in space. I will mod this out and make there be a kosher butchery in space. Do not dissuade me from this. I have PLANS.
My immediate second choice was Drink From Hippcrene. Corrupt cult? Say less. I'm in. I was unsurprised to learn that this is from the same crew that brought us last year's excellent Dose Makes the Poison.
Next, you can sign me up for Cleaning Crew, a janitor's handbook for Mothership. Yes. Tell me what's in the pipes. Let me set a whole scenario unclogging a jagged up toilet. Let's go.
I went with White Heat, which bills itself as a body horror kitchen crawl for fans of The Thing and The Bear, which is the mashup I knew I'd get to eventually. There's an infection, which is never a good idea for a kitchen. I am inevitably going to just want to NPC around this kitchen and cook things.
And since five unlooks some sort of special hootenanny, I'm here for Rites of Renewal. You wouldn't think you'd find neo-pagan folk horror in space, would you. WOULD YOU. I would. I absolutely would. Weird me out with your haunted space garden, you moss ridden rastabouts.
I backed at the physical level for each of these, because I simply cannot consume a PDF of an RPG. Can't do it. The format makes the content unknowable. I'll spin that in to an SCP antimemetic when I have the time. Til then, there we go. A blog post where I name all five things I backed, which should fit the brief. Let's see if I can feed it in to the machine in time.
**Note to self, me, an idiot: Set a calendar reminder and pledge EARLY. You know what motivates you? Free swag and cool patches. Early Backer rewards. Don't frack this up next year.
Tuesday, November 11, 2025
Mothership Month 2025
Sunday, January 6, 2019
2018 Favourite Books
I am SO BAD at year-end lists. I don't think I've ever actually managed to scrape one together! So, here we go. Having tucked away over 100 books in the last year, you'd think I have some standouts, right? Right! But I'm bad at ranking things, so, in no particular order (besides #1):
1) A Wrinkle in Time, Madeline L'Engle
Whatever, friendos, I still blame every single one of you that didn't tell 5th-grade me to read this. This gap in my oeuvre is entirely other people's fault, clearly. (This is also very much my #1 read of the year.)
2) The Wayfarers Trilogy (The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet; A Closed and Common Orbit), Becky Chambers
Probably my favourite "grownup" read of the year. Definitely the one I want to tell all of you to read, so I have other people to talk with about it. I liked it because it has bits of all my favourite things about speculative fiction: good flow and pacing to the writing, accessible diction that's space-y without being hard SF, excellent world building, excruciating detail in to those worlds, breaking down present-day social barriers by playing with the possibilities of social constructs. This book is home to one of the single stickiest things I read all year, in the Aandrisks and how they construct family units (and specifically, how they confer 'personhood' upon their younglings.) I devoured the sequel and am excited to see what else Chambers will put out.
3) Omnia, Laura Gallego García
What's this two-star rated book doing in my year-end list?? I may not have liked the writing in Omnia (though to be fair, it probably suffers more than a bit from lost-in-translation), but there was something captivating in this take on an intergalactic (maybe even inter-dimensional?) Amazon-like company, and it was easily one of my most talked about books of 2018. Appropriately, this is only available via Amazon Kindle.
4) Octavia's Brood, edited by Adrienne Maree Brown and Walidah Imarisha
I checked this book out from the library roughly 10 times this year, and is the only library book that I had to turn in to a purchase. Octavia's Brood is a collection of POC speculative fiction, inspired by Octavia Butler, written by authors, community leaders, social justice activists, and more. Every story is speculative, but not every story is told by a SFF writer, and that's what makes it fascinating. It's more like a conversation with a bunch of people who have ideas of what the future could be. Not every story is a home run, but the entirety of this collection is deeply satisfying.
5) The Grishaverse (Shadow and Bone, Siege and Storm, Ruin and Rising), Leigh Bardugo
6) The Forgetting, Sharon Cameron
Who loves a fully fleshed out world rooted in the absence of memory, even if the characters are silly and some of the prose is clunky? I do, I do! The Forgetting is here for all of your "I sure do wish The Giver had a female narrator instead" needs.
7) Trashed, Derf Backderf
8) Dept. H, Matt & Sharlene Kindt
What's sort of a stock-standard Matt Kindt story (science, intrigue, weird shit, murder) is brought to life by the phenomenal colorwork of his wife, Sharlene Kindt. I don't know where Matt has been hiding her all these years, but I am super fucking excited to see more of her work.
9) Being Human, William Wegman
This retrospective of Wegman's work is a standout not only for the art, but for the interviews and essays included about his process and work with his doggo-collaborators. I never gave much thought to Wegman's photos over the years, but seeing them collected, learning about his process, and finally realizing the breadth and depth of what he's been doing for the last forty years was delightful.
10) Warcross, Marie Lu
I struggled with picking a 10th standout read for 2018. I hate-read a lot of books, so a lot of things that I spent a lot of time yelling about really don't belong on a list like this. I read a lot of interesting, but not particularly engaging, novels - stuff I'd recommend to people who were specifically interested, but that I didn't feel a particular connection to. And then there's Warcross, which, honestly, I didn't even really like, but it's the sort of novel that I want there to be more of. Y'see, Warcross is the book that, by every measure, Ready Player One should have been. At least, if we didn't live in a cis-het patriarchy that favored the needs and pleasures and even retro kitsch of boring white guys over literally anyone else at all. Warcross isn't for me. But it's absolutely for every teenage gamer that doesn't identify as a white guy, who is interested in video games for what they are and what they can be, and who appreciates source material as reference, not as substance. It's not an eye-opening, world-melting novel, by any means. It's just... it's fine. It's fine in a way that female written, female fronted books don't ever get to just be fine, because they're always carrying the entire weight of an entire genre-type in their rarity. And I want there to be more of that. I want more representation in SFF, in YA: better archetypes, better heroes, even better villains; and the only way we're going to get that is if we have more diversity, more voices, more ideas. So bring on more Marie Lus, more Warcrosses. Let's open this pit up.
Honorable Mentions:
The Power, Naomi Alderman
Vox, Christina Dalcher
Ms. Marvel, G. Willow Wilson
1) A Wrinkle in Time, Madeline L'Engle
2) The Wayfarers Trilogy (The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet; A Closed and Common Orbit), Becky Chambers
Probably my favourite "grownup" read of the year. Definitely the one I want to tell all of you to read, so I have other people to talk with about it. I liked it because it has bits of all my favourite things about speculative fiction: good flow and pacing to the writing, accessible diction that's space-y without being hard SF, excellent world building, excruciating detail in to those worlds, breaking down present-day social barriers by playing with the possibilities of social constructs. This book is home to one of the single stickiest things I read all year, in the Aandrisks and how they construct family units (and specifically, how they confer 'personhood' upon their younglings.) I devoured the sequel and am excited to see what else Chambers will put out.
3) Omnia, Laura Gallego García
What's this two-star rated book doing in my year-end list?? I may not have liked the writing in Omnia (though to be fair, it probably suffers more than a bit from lost-in-translation), but there was something captivating in this take on an intergalactic (maybe even inter-dimensional?) Amazon-like company, and it was easily one of my most talked about books of 2018. Appropriately, this is only available via Amazon Kindle.
4) Octavia's Brood, edited by Adrienne Maree Brown and Walidah Imarisha
I checked this book out from the library roughly 10 times this year, and is the only library book that I had to turn in to a purchase. Octavia's Brood is a collection of POC speculative fiction, inspired by Octavia Butler, written by authors, community leaders, social justice activists, and more. Every story is speculative, but not every story is told by a SFF writer, and that's what makes it fascinating. It's more like a conversation with a bunch of people who have ideas of what the future could be. Not every story is a home run, but the entirety of this collection is deeply satisfying.
5) The Grishaverse (Shadow and Bone, Siege and Storm, Ruin and Rising), Leigh Bardugo
6) The Forgetting, Sharon Cameron
Who loves a fully fleshed out world rooted in the absence of memory, even if the characters are silly and some of the prose is clunky? I do, I do! The Forgetting is here for all of your "I sure do wish The Giver had a female narrator instead" needs.
7) Trashed, Derf Backderf
| Definitely the best comic about municipal waste I've ever read. Also features some cute trash pandas on p.237. |
8) Dept. H, Matt & Sharlene Kindt
What's sort of a stock-standard Matt Kindt story (science, intrigue, weird shit, murder) is brought to life by the phenomenal colorwork of his wife, Sharlene Kindt. I don't know where Matt has been hiding her all these years, but I am super fucking excited to see more of her work.
9) Being Human, William Wegman
This retrospective of Wegman's work is a standout not only for the art, but for the interviews and essays included about his process and work with his doggo-collaborators. I never gave much thought to Wegman's photos over the years, but seeing them collected, learning about his process, and finally realizing the breadth and depth of what he's been doing for the last forty years was delightful.
10) Warcross, Marie Lu
I struggled with picking a 10th standout read for 2018. I hate-read a lot of books, so a lot of things that I spent a lot of time yelling about really don't belong on a list like this. I read a lot of interesting, but not particularly engaging, novels - stuff I'd recommend to people who were specifically interested, but that I didn't feel a particular connection to. And then there's Warcross, which, honestly, I didn't even really like, but it's the sort of novel that I want there to be more of. Y'see, Warcross is the book that, by every measure, Ready Player One should have been. At least, if we didn't live in a cis-het patriarchy that favored the needs and pleasures and even retro kitsch of boring white guys over literally anyone else at all. Warcross isn't for me. But it's absolutely for every teenage gamer that doesn't identify as a white guy, who is interested in video games for what they are and what they can be, and who appreciates source material as reference, not as substance. It's not an eye-opening, world-melting novel, by any means. It's just... it's fine. It's fine in a way that female written, female fronted books don't ever get to just be fine, because they're always carrying the entire weight of an entire genre-type in their rarity. And I want there to be more of that. I want more representation in SFF, in YA: better archetypes, better heroes, even better villains; and the only way we're going to get that is if we have more diversity, more voices, more ideas. So bring on more Marie Lus, more Warcrosses. Let's open this pit up.
Honorable Mentions:
The Power, Naomi Alderman
Vox, Christina Dalcher
Ms. Marvel, G. Willow Wilson
Thursday, January 3, 2019
2018 Books in Review
I never do year-end wrap up lists, but I'm trying to be accountable, even just to myself. So here we are! (I use GoodReads to track this, otherwise I'd never remember anything. Even using a tracking tool like this, I'm absolutely positive that I've missed things. Sorry, year end data, you fall vicitim to my bad memory, just like everything else.)
My shortest and longest books don't really mean anything, as the aggregate data that gets me to 254pp per books is ultimately corrupted by my love of graphic novels (41% of my total books were graphic novels), which are sort of a fundamentally bogus page count. GoodReads also counts my DNF (Did Not Finish) books as fully read, which, on the other hand, may even things out. (I DNF'd 8 books this year, or wholly 7% of my total reads! Including, for the first time to the best of my recollection, a graphic novel!)
It also doesn't count any stray short stories I almost certainly consumed, whether online, via e-reader, or in pieces through collections that I couldn't in good faith mark as "read".
Based on this, you might think that I was reading (or quitting) two books a week. In reality, I read in enormous spurts. I'll grind through an entire series in a week, then maybe not touch any books for a month. This is also why I tend to wait until a series is a completed until I read it, I have zero patience in waiting for "the next one." (I mistakenly picked up Neil Shusterman's Scythe this year, thinking it was a standalone novel. Now Thunderhead was one of my most enjoyed books of the year, and I am livid that he dare do anything at all besides finish up that threequel for me.)
78 of these books were library books, which means that I only read 25 books from my personal collection. On its face, that seems inaccurate, but I couldn't tell you which books in my library I should be adding to this total, so it stands.
Of course, I did make a resolution at the beginning of this year to use the library more, so good job, me! (And let's be honest, I bet even some of those 25 books personal collection books probably came from a library's discard pile or used book sale. SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL SOCIALIST BOOK REPOSITORY.) In doing so, I saved myself approximately $1479.77, if you're going to believe my own math on how much I would have paid retail (or nearly retail) on all of the books I got from the library.
What would I change for next year? I'd like to be better bout quitting books that I don't enjoy. I got a little better at it this year, but I still had a lot of things that I could have quit, or quit earlier, and saved myself some time. This includes shaking my tendencies towards being a completionist, even after it's apparent that I'm no longer enjoying the series. (I see you, DMZ.)
Next year, I think my challenge will really be to read down my own personal library. I think completing one bookshelf book for every library book is a reasonable ask of myself. (And, really, the only way to insure that I don't die as one of those creepy Ripley's Believe It or Not stories, buried by my own hobby.)
Other Factoids:
<1% of my books were art books. I would like to change that in 2019!
10% of my books would be considered "YA" fiction.
15% of my books were "children's" literature. This is actually surprisingly low, I feel like I usually consume much more YA/kid lit than that! (This also ignores overlap between graphic novels and YA/kid lit.)
38% were written by women (though many graphic novels had female illustrators/colorists/letterers, it's just too difficult to doublecheck all of that while I'm running these loose numbers. Go read Dept H and enjoy Sharlene Kindt's incredible colors!).
Did you crunch any numbers on your hobby this year? Miles flown, Pokemons caught, VHS tapes melted? Let me know!
 |
| Contented generated by GoodReads |
105 books read
26,741 pagesMy shortest and longest books don't really mean anything, as the aggregate data that gets me to 254pp per books is ultimately corrupted by my love of graphic novels (41% of my total books were graphic novels), which are sort of a fundamentally bogus page count. GoodReads also counts my DNF (Did Not Finish) books as fully read, which, on the other hand, may even things out. (I DNF'd 8 books this year, or wholly 7% of my total reads! Including, for the first time to the best of my recollection, a graphic novel!)
It also doesn't count any stray short stories I almost certainly consumed, whether online, via e-reader, or in pieces through collections that I couldn't in good faith mark as "read".
Based on this, you might think that I was reading (or quitting) two books a week. In reality, I read in enormous spurts. I'll grind through an entire series in a week, then maybe not touch any books for a month. This is also why I tend to wait until a series is a completed until I read it, I have zero patience in waiting for "the next one." (I mistakenly picked up Neil Shusterman's Scythe this year, thinking it was a standalone novel. Now Thunderhead was one of my most enjoyed books of the year, and I am livid that he dare do anything at all besides finish up that threequel for me.)
78 of these books were library books, which means that I only read 25 books from my personal collection. On its face, that seems inaccurate, but I couldn't tell you which books in my library I should be adding to this total, so it stands.
Of course, I did make a resolution at the beginning of this year to use the library more, so good job, me! (And let's be honest, I bet even some of those 25 books personal collection books probably came from a library's discard pile or used book sale. SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL SOCIALIST BOOK REPOSITORY.) In doing so, I saved myself approximately $1479.77, if you're going to believe my own math on how much I would have paid retail (or nearly retail) on all of the books I got from the library.
What would I change for next year? I'd like to be better bout quitting books that I don't enjoy. I got a little better at it this year, but I still had a lot of things that I could have quit, or quit earlier, and saved myself some time. This includes shaking my tendencies towards being a completionist, even after it's apparent that I'm no longer enjoying the series. (I see you, DMZ.)
Next year, I think my challenge will really be to read down my own personal library. I think completing one bookshelf book for every library book is a reasonable ask of myself. (And, really, the only way to insure that I don't die as one of those creepy Ripley's Believe It or Not stories, buried by my own hobby.)
Other Factoids:
<1% of my books were art books. I would like to change that in 2019!
10% of my books would be considered "YA" fiction.
15% of my books were "children's" literature. This is actually surprisingly low, I feel like I usually consume much more YA/kid lit than that! (This also ignores overlap between graphic novels and YA/kid lit.)
38% were written by women (though many graphic novels had female illustrators/colorists/letterers, it's just too difficult to doublecheck all of that while I'm running these loose numbers. Go read Dept H and enjoy Sharlene Kindt's incredible colors!).
Did you crunch any numbers on your hobby this year? Miles flown, Pokemons caught, VHS tapes melted? Let me know!
Thursday, July 5, 2018
Dessert Hot Dogs
I tried to publish this on Another Social Media Platform, but it was so long that it just got throttled. Which is a bummer. I miss writing longform, I miss journaling. Anyway, here's what I posted. I'm just writing this for me, really, but if you enjoyed it, let me know. Maybe I'll try to keep this up.
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Hi Facebook, I know you just banhammered me, but I'm gonna write in you like you're a LiveJournal post anyway. Today Kit and Avi came over to visit! This is a Big Deal, because not only does no one EVER come to my house, but people also NEVER come all the way from the CITY to the SUBURBS just to HANG OUT. It simply ISN'T DONE. But they did, and it made me feel really special!
We spent the afternoon goofing around and talking about nonsense, like how "good" Snowpiercer is (it isn't), and how terrible Mortal Engines will be (it will be) and how difficult it is to watch horror movies here in 2018 (and also Poultrygeist was not very good.) Then I drew some pictures of french fries. Can you name all the french fries? Would you like to rate them? The french fries, not the pictures of french fries. We did. Everyone agrees that curly fries are the best.
Then we got hungry, and after introducing them to the idea of a "s'mores cone" that I remembered from someone's feed, Avi decided he was interested in Dessert Hotdogs. Then we spent a very long time googling dessert hotdogs and Avi spent some time spiral cutting hotdogs and putting them in s'mores cones. We judged him, very hard. (But we also supported his decision, as friends do.) It was almost like the old days, before Google had an answer to everything! We enjoyed a version of the internet that google often fails to let exist anymore - the weird internet. We learned how to puff rice (with a small cannon!) and that desk potatoes have websites. We also learned that we missed the death of StumbleUpon by a mere four days, and we were very said about that.
Eventually we decided not to go to Narberth for fireworks, because being on a field in Narberth to find out whether or not it was going to thunderstorm on us seemed like a bad time. So we didn't watch anything blow up, except for those rice cannons, but that's ok. We also watched the fireworks on TV, and lip synched along with some Cher songs behind Avi's back (literally) and watched the fireflies in my yard. The fireflies always put on a very good show. We could also hear ALL the fireworks around my house, and it sounded like a goddamn war zone.
Which reminds me: I hope all your doggos are ok, dissent is patriotic and Black Lives Matter. Happy 4th
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Hi Facebook, I know you just banhammered me, but I'm gonna write in you like you're a LiveJournal post anyway. Today Kit and Avi came over to visit! This is a Big Deal, because not only does no one EVER come to my house, but people also NEVER come all the way from the CITY to the SUBURBS just to HANG OUT. It simply ISN'T DONE. But they did, and it made me feel really special!
We spent the afternoon goofing around and talking about nonsense, like how "good" Snowpiercer is (it isn't), and how terrible Mortal Engines will be (it will be) and how difficult it is to watch horror movies here in 2018 (and also Poultrygeist was not very good.) Then I drew some pictures of french fries. Can you name all the french fries? Would you like to rate them? The french fries, not the pictures of french fries. We did. Everyone agrees that curly fries are the best.
Then we got hungry, and after introducing them to the idea of a "s'mores cone" that I remembered from someone's feed, Avi decided he was interested in Dessert Hotdogs. Then we spent a very long time googling dessert hotdogs and Avi spent some time spiral cutting hotdogs and putting them in s'mores cones. We judged him, very hard. (But we also supported his decision, as friends do.) It was almost like the old days, before Google had an answer to everything! We enjoyed a version of the internet that google often fails to let exist anymore - the weird internet. We learned how to puff rice (with a small cannon!) and that desk potatoes have websites. We also learned that we missed the death of StumbleUpon by a mere four days, and we were very said about that.
At some point, Kit mentioned that she wished she had brought a comic book. Then she asked if I might maybe have a comic book for her to read. Readers, can you even believe what sort of monsters I had invited in to MY home? To think that they thought that I had a home! WITHOUT COMIC BOOKS! Luckily, Kit and I are still friends. She read Sex Criminals and The Beauty and enjoyed one more than the other, but you should guess which one.
Eventually we decided not to go to Narberth for fireworks, because being on a field in Narberth to find out whether or not it was going to thunderstorm on us seemed like a bad time. So we didn't watch anything blow up, except for those rice cannons, but that's ok. We also watched the fireworks on TV, and lip synched along with some Cher songs behind Avi's back (literally) and watched the fireflies in my yard. The fireflies always put on a very good show. We could also hear ALL the fireworks around my house, and it sounded like a goddamn war zone.
Which reminds me: I hope all your doggos are ok, dissent is patriotic and Black Lives Matter. Happy 4th
Friday, May 11, 2018
I Read Up On All Ten PA5 Democratic Primary Candidates So You Don't Have To
Oh hey, this blog! It's been a while, right? Sorry about the cobwebs.
So let's talk about the PA5 Democratic congressional primary race. The Supreme Court has said that our former district, PA7, was gerrymandered as helllll, and redrew us some new districts that don't look like Disney characters kicking each other in the bum. Brandywine Roller District is no more!
I'm now a part of the gloriously compact District 5, which includes much of Delaware County and some of South Philly. I'll take it.
ALSO, our current PA7 rep, Patrick Meehan, has finally stepped down! Because he is an old white dude who feels entitled to women and finally, finally, people are beginning to see that that is gross. Also he used public money to pay for the fact that he's gross. ANYWAY, fuck off, Meehan, at least this explains why you've done NO WORK all year, GTFO.
With this sucking void in the political landscape, no less than TEN democratic candidates have stepped up to run for the new PA5. This is: great, overwhelming, annoying, and an excellent reason why we should have ranked choice voting. That is A LOT of candidates and there is not A LOT of solid, coherent info out there about all of them.
Onwards! Standard disclaimer: I'm not a journalist, all opinions are my own, if you're not interested in how a progressive Jewish feminist feels about politics, you really don't need to engage with me. I often engage in leaps of logistical shorthand. (But if you've got links to actual interviews or news articles about any of these candidates, let me have 'em.)
Greg Vitali has been my local state rep since forever. Seriously, 25 years. I know him, he's great. He's really astounding at being secretly progressive - like, MY DAD votes for this guy every year. MY DAD. Greg has always done a lot with peanuts, and he's one of the few people running who I trust to actually know how to do the actual job of being a congressional rep. Greg also once said BOTH the words "Israel" AND "Palestine" when answering a question about the Middle East, which puts him light years ahead of everyone who just tries to dodge that question.
Mary Gay Scanlon is the Radnor Democrat endorsed candidate. She seems fine, but she's also totally comfortable calling the area up on North Third Street (where all the startups are) "N3RD St" so take that white feminism with a grain of weird gentrifying salt. If she wins, I'm totally comfortable voting for her in the general, she's just not my horse in this particular race. She's coming in to this as a pro-bono lawyer in a large firm, with a very good grasp on the criminal justice reforms that the system needs. She's personal friends with some Comcast bigwigs and has a lot of lawyer-friends contributing to her campaign, but none of it strikes me as a politick-ing sort of way. This is simply her life, and these are her people, and at the end of things, the conspiracy-theorying cries of corruption seem like just that. But if coming from money bothers you on principal, she might not be for you.
Rich Lazer is a South Philly pro-union guy with a big Super PAC from the union guys and the endorsment of Jim Kenney (and, as of this afternoon on May 11, Bernie Sanders). You know if you're in to that.
Larry Arata has a bad website. Sorry, Larry. In a field 10 candidates deep, you can't leave the permalink for your Issues page as "/angenda"
Lindy Li doesn't have a website, only a Facebook page, which in 2018 is either brilliant or completely weird. She seems to have a bunch of campaign $$ (based on the number of signs I've seen around town, the mailings, and the offer of $125 per person stationed outside of polling places on election day - if you need $125 this Tuesday, maybe hop on that?), took a picture with Meek Mill and... that's all I can really find about her? I *want* to like her, but other than a generic progressive platform I just don't know anything about what she's about. She's very active on social media and seems like a genuinely nice, passionate person, but like Scanlon, she's just not the one for me in this particular election. *ETA* She's all in on AIPAC, and if you're in to that, rad, but as a Jew who isn't entirely comfortable with the decisions Israel is making these days, I'm gonna nope right out of this one.
Margo Davidson has been serving as the rep for the 164th since 2011. She was invovled in two hit and runs this past winter (perpetrator) which is... odd, at the very least? Her website doesn't provide platforms (it's not a campaign website, it's her PA Rep website), so I'm unclear where her priorities are besides gun violence and that's basically it. The few of her current constituents that I've spoken to aren't huge fans - some are actively disenclined, most just like lots of people in this better than her.
Molly Sheehan was originally set to run against Pat Meehan, and that hasn't changed. I like Molly a lot. She's progressive AF and a scientist. She quotes Isaac Asimov on her website, which is both great (I love Asimov) if not problematic (Asimov wasn't without his misogynistic gasbag qualities.)
Shelly Chauncey is fresh off her '17 JD. She seems to tick all the boxes, but after My Life in Student Government I just can't bring myself to vote for the mystery box.
Thaddeus Kirkland doesn't mention Women's Healthcare at all as a prominent platform issue so, y'know, thanks but no thanks.
Ashley Lunkenheimer: it is really weird to have your parents pay for your Super PAC. Even on the Main Line.
At the end of the 400 people running for PA5, I'm between Vitali and Sheehan. And I'm aware that if I didn't have a personal connection to Greg, I would be firmly in Sheehan's camp. Both are firmly progressive on the environment and women's health. They both support scaling back from the military-industrial complex, but Vitali seems to be more concrete in how he would like to see that done. Sheehan has a better grasp of the intersectionality of civil issues, include justice reform, though I think Vitali could get there.
This has been a hard decision for me, because my gut wants to get all the white men out of everything (and Vitali isn't perfect) but at the end of the day, I trust Vitali to do the things I want him to do and to actually be able to operate within the system that we have. His stealth ability to get people like my dad to vote for him in spite of all their political differences really can't be overstated. (Or even logically explained, but I'll take it.) I like Sheehan A LOT, but this is PA and I can only vote for one of them, so while I'll probably waffle up til primary day, right now I'm leaning Vitali.
So let's talk about the PA5 Democratic congressional primary race. The Supreme Court has said that our former district, PA7, was gerrymandered as helllll, and redrew us some new districts that don't look like Disney characters kicking each other in the bum. Brandywine Roller District is no more!
I'm now a part of the gloriously compact District 5, which includes much of Delaware County and some of South Philly. I'll take it.
ALSO, our current PA7 rep, Patrick Meehan, has finally stepped down! Because he is an old white dude who feels entitled to women and finally, finally, people are beginning to see that that is gross. Also he used public money to pay for the fact that he's gross. ANYWAY, fuck off, Meehan, at least this explains why you've done NO WORK all year, GTFO.
With this sucking void in the political landscape, no less than TEN democratic candidates have stepped up to run for the new PA5. This is: great, overwhelming, annoying, and an excellent reason why we should have ranked choice voting. That is A LOT of candidates and there is not A LOT of solid, coherent info out there about all of them.
Onwards! Standard disclaimer: I'm not a journalist, all opinions are my own, if you're not interested in how a progressive Jewish feminist feels about politics, you really don't need to engage with me. I often engage in leaps of logistical shorthand. (But if you've got links to actual interviews or news articles about any of these candidates, let me have 'em.)
Greg Vitali has been my local state rep since forever. Seriously, 25 years. I know him, he's great. He's really astounding at being secretly progressive - like, MY DAD votes for this guy every year. MY DAD. Greg has always done a lot with peanuts, and he's one of the few people running who I trust to actually know how to do the actual job of being a congressional rep. Greg also once said BOTH the words "Israel" AND "Palestine" when answering a question about the Middle East, which puts him light years ahead of everyone who just tries to dodge that question.
Mary Gay Scanlon is the Radnor Democrat endorsed candidate. She seems fine, but she's also totally comfortable calling the area up on North Third Street (where all the startups are) "N3RD St" so take that white feminism with a grain of weird gentrifying salt. If she wins, I'm totally comfortable voting for her in the general, she's just not my horse in this particular race. She's coming in to this as a pro-bono lawyer in a large firm, with a very good grasp on the criminal justice reforms that the system needs. She's personal friends with some Comcast bigwigs and has a lot of lawyer-friends contributing to her campaign, but none of it strikes me as a politick-ing sort of way. This is simply her life, and these are her people, and at the end of things, the conspiracy-theorying cries of corruption seem like just that. But if coming from money bothers you on principal, she might not be for you.
Rich Lazer is a South Philly pro-union guy with a big Super PAC from the union guys and the endorsment of Jim Kenney (and, as of this afternoon on May 11, Bernie Sanders). You know if you're in to that.
Larry Arata has a bad website. Sorry, Larry. In a field 10 candidates deep, you can't leave the permalink for your Issues page as "/angenda"
Lindy Li doesn't have a website, only a Facebook page, which in 2018 is either brilliant or completely weird. She seems to have a bunch of campaign $$ (based on the number of signs I've seen around town, the mailings, and the offer of $125 per person stationed outside of polling places on election day - if you need $125 this Tuesday, maybe hop on that?), took a picture with Meek Mill and... that's all I can really find about her? I *want* to like her, but other than a generic progressive platform I just don't know anything about what she's about. She's very active on social media and seems like a genuinely nice, passionate person, but like Scanlon, she's just not the one for me in this particular election. *ETA* She's all in on AIPAC, and if you're in to that, rad, but as a Jew who isn't entirely comfortable with the decisions Israel is making these days, I'm gonna nope right out of this one.
Margo Davidson has been serving as the rep for the 164th since 2011. She was invovled in two hit and runs this past winter (perpetrator) which is... odd, at the very least? Her website doesn't provide platforms (it's not a campaign website, it's her PA Rep website), so I'm unclear where her priorities are besides gun violence and that's basically it. The few of her current constituents that I've spoken to aren't huge fans - some are actively disenclined, most just like lots of people in this better than her.
Molly Sheehan was originally set to run against Pat Meehan, and that hasn't changed. I like Molly a lot. She's progressive AF and a scientist. She quotes Isaac Asimov on her website, which is both great (I love Asimov) if not problematic (Asimov wasn't without his misogynistic gasbag qualities.)
Shelly Chauncey is fresh off her '17 JD. She seems to tick all the boxes, but after My Life in Student Government I just can't bring myself to vote for the mystery box.
Thaddeus Kirkland doesn't mention Women's Healthcare at all as a prominent platform issue so, y'know, thanks but no thanks.
Ashley Lunkenheimer: it is really weird to have your parents pay for your Super PAC. Even on the Main Line.
At the end of the 400 people running for PA5, I'm between Vitali and Sheehan. And I'm aware that if I didn't have a personal connection to Greg, I would be firmly in Sheehan's camp. Both are firmly progressive on the environment and women's health. They both support scaling back from the military-industrial complex, but Vitali seems to be more concrete in how he would like to see that done. Sheehan has a better grasp of the intersectionality of civil issues, include justice reform, though I think Vitali could get there.
This has been a hard decision for me, because my gut wants to get all the white men out of everything (and Vitali isn't perfect) but at the end of the day, I trust Vitali to do the things I want him to do and to actually be able to operate within the system that we have. His stealth ability to get people like my dad to vote for him in spite of all their political differences really can't be overstated. (Or even logically explained, but I'll take it.) I like Sheehan A LOT, but this is PA and I can only vote for one of them, so while I'll probably waffle up til primary day, right now I'm leaning Vitali.
Friday, June 3, 2016
I Wore My Favourite Dress, Dudes Made it Weird.
I don't wear dresses very often. I just don't feel comfortable in them, they make me hyperaware of my body, so I don't wear them. Easy enough. But I have this sweet MST3K dress that makes me feel like a princess nerd, and at eight years in to it, RPS feels like a pretty safe world for me, so I wore it out last night.
Whether it's correlation or causation, here's a list of all the inappropriate, unwarranted, unasked for behavior that happened to me last night, and literally has never happened at any other RPS event I've ever been out at:
- Non-RPS dude placed his hand in the small of my back to pass me. He did this to the female player in front of me as well. Did not do this to any other persons standing near us. He had plenty of room to pass people without touching any of them.
- Non-RPS dude "stumbled" past me while I was sitting on a stool, caught himself by placing his hand on my thigh (almost at my crotch) and on my ass.
- RPS player I'd never met draped himself over me from behind while having a conversation with the other players I was facing. Wrapped his arm around my chest/neck in a bear hug that I could not get out of without standing up and physically breaking away from him. (I did not do this. I sat there and froze and waited for it to be over.)
- A conversation with other RPS player where I was describing another, similar dress that I don't wear very often, because it's too small and physically makes me uncomfortable when I wear it. The other RPS player grinned and told me that "too tight isn't a problem," even though I'd just stated that it made me uncomfortable.
In the grand scheme of things, no, these things aren't big deals. But as someone who is fiercely protective of their bodily autonomy, as someone who is both sensitive and adverse to touch, yes, they are. I doubt any of the dudes in these situation thought they were doing anything inappropriate, or making anyone uncomfortable. Because honestly, they probably go through their days without thinking about things like this.
I didn't call any of these people out on their behavior. Most of it happened too quickly for me to do anything about it. Usually, it's because I am bad at confrontation anyway and freeze rather than fight. And, certainly, part of it may have had to do with being in the dress in the first place. Whether I presented as it or not, as much as I love that dress, it made me feel more vulnerable all night, which does amount to a drain on my mental energy.
So. For crying out loud, try not to touch strangers in inappropriate, too-personal-relative-to-your-standing-relationship-with-them ways. Even in crowds. If women are talking to you about their clothing choices, odds are, they're not talking about them with you to titillate you. Don't make weird inappropriate sexualizing jokes about how they do or do not choose to present themselves in public. Unless you're involved in a sexual relationship with them, odds are, they are not presenting themselves for you. Don't make it weird, dudes. Don't make it weird.
Whether it's correlation or causation, here's a list of all the inappropriate, unwarranted, unasked for behavior that happened to me last night, and literally has never happened at any other RPS event I've ever been out at:
- Non-RPS dude placed his hand in the small of my back to pass me. He did this to the female player in front of me as well. Did not do this to any other persons standing near us. He had plenty of room to pass people without touching any of them.
- Non-RPS dude "stumbled" past me while I was sitting on a stool, caught himself by placing his hand on my thigh (almost at my crotch) and on my ass.
- RPS player I'd never met draped himself over me from behind while having a conversation with the other players I was facing. Wrapped his arm around my chest/neck in a bear hug that I could not get out of without standing up and physically breaking away from him. (I did not do this. I sat there and froze and waited for it to be over.)
- A conversation with other RPS player where I was describing another, similar dress that I don't wear very often, because it's too small and physically makes me uncomfortable when I wear it. The other RPS player grinned and told me that "too tight isn't a problem," even though I'd just stated that it made me uncomfortable.
In the grand scheme of things, no, these things aren't big deals. But as someone who is fiercely protective of their bodily autonomy, as someone who is both sensitive and adverse to touch, yes, they are. I doubt any of the dudes in these situation thought they were doing anything inappropriate, or making anyone uncomfortable. Because honestly, they probably go through their days without thinking about things like this.
I didn't call any of these people out on their behavior. Most of it happened too quickly for me to do anything about it. Usually, it's because I am bad at confrontation anyway and freeze rather than fight. And, certainly, part of it may have had to do with being in the dress in the first place. Whether I presented as it or not, as much as I love that dress, it made me feel more vulnerable all night, which does amount to a drain on my mental energy.
So. For crying out loud, try not to touch strangers in inappropriate, too-personal-relative-to-your-standing-relationship-with-them ways. Even in crowds. If women are talking to you about their clothing choices, odds are, they're not talking about them with you to titillate you. Don't make weird inappropriate sexualizing jokes about how they do or do not choose to present themselves in public. Unless you're involved in a sexual relationship with them, odds are, they are not presenting themselves for you. Don't make it weird, dudes. Don't make it weird.
Sunday, January 17, 2016
My Last Lingering Shred of Human Decency
A story:
It's 7pm on a Sunday night in the Philadelphia suburbs. I'm walking across a dark, icy parking lot en route to a youth group event. I'm wearing a long winter coat, my 4th Doctor scarf, and a fuzzy hat.
From across the parking lot, a shout: "Hey! Hey!"
I look around. There's a car pulling out, and no one else around. Is he yelling at me?
I look around.
Goddammit, he's yelling at me.
"Hey! Wait up!"
I'm en route to a youth group event, where I know only a handful of the kids, and even fewer of the other advisors. It's dark, and any other support staff I've met, it was once, several months ago. Maybe he remembers me from there. I stop, I wait.
I regret this decision before I even make it. I make it anyway, because what if it is? I don't want to be rude.
Now he's here, next to me, and he doesn't look familiar. He doesn't look _un_familiar, his face is just a face. "Hi! How are you?"
He's congenial. Have I met him? I squint again. His face is just a face.
"Can I help you?" I ask.
"Where are we going tonite?"
"Excuse me? Do I know you?"
"I want to know what we're doing."
I keep walking. His face is just a face.
"Have we met?"
"We haven't not met."
"I'm sorry, where do you think you know me from?"
"From the place we met."
He grabs my hand, and that's when I know who he is. Or rather, at least, who he isn't.
I snatch my hand back, but we're twenty feet from the entrance, it's freezing out, we're in a parking lot. I am successfully unsettled. I keep walking, keeping dodging out of his grasp.
"You stopped! Why did you stop for me?" he pesters.
I keep walking.
"Why did you stop for me? We're talking!" he insists.
"My last lingering shred of human decency. Do I know you?"
"I just want to know what we're doing!"
I keep walking, the lobby's sliding doors part.
Inside, I immediately busy myself with finding a sign, a direction, a reason to step out of his shared space.
I bolt down the stairs, already swarming with teens.
He doesn't follow. I exhale.
A discussion:
And this, kittens, is why we can't have nice things.
To the other side of things: No. No, you cannot shout at another person in a dark icy parking lot. No, you are not entitled to their time, their answers, their space, their hand. You cannot dodge their questions as they try to figure out who the fuck you are, why you're talking to them in a dark icy parking lot. Your needs are not a priority in this dark icy parking lot, especially if there is no emergency. No, you cannot just make conversation. No, you are not "just making conversation."
What should I have done, people who are the sort of people who exist on the internet to defend this sort of dude? Should I have told him all about my job, my place of employ, and the two hundred teenagers I was about to go supervise? Should I have invited him to come with me? Should I have agreed to ditch my job and go get to know this clearly charming young stranger, and hold hands with him in a parking lot?
Just don't stop. That's easy enough. And I shouldn't have. I know that. There was that tickle in my brain, already knowing that on no planet would one of my barely acquaintance level coworkers have shouted me down in a parking lot. But undoing thirty three years of social conditioning isn't quite so easy (oh, hi, did I not mention, it's my birthday?) - and the social contract is that you stop. You act nice. You try to help. And by the time you realize that none of those things are going to do you any favors, in the nanoseconds that the situation pivots on you, it's already too late.
And so this is why we can't have nice things. Because not every man is the assbag who is going to interrupt your walk from the car to the lobby in a dark icy parking lot and grab your hand and try to force some sort of casual intimacy between the two of you, but some men are. And because I don't know every man, I can't know if you are some men.
So do me, do the world, a favor: don't be this guy. Don't be the guy who is friends with this guy. Don't be the guy who this guy tells this story to, and you laugh it off, and clap him on the back, and ridicule me for being such a prude, frigid bitch, and laugh about how funny it was that he took advantage of the latent social construct of strangers to get in to a woman's personal space, and make her uncomfortable, for shits and giggles.
Just let me get to work.
A discussion:
And this, kittens, is why we can't have nice things.
To the other side of things: No. No, you cannot shout at another person in a dark icy parking lot. No, you are not entitled to their time, their answers, their space, their hand. You cannot dodge their questions as they try to figure out who the fuck you are, why you're talking to them in a dark icy parking lot. Your needs are not a priority in this dark icy parking lot, especially if there is no emergency. No, you cannot just make conversation. No, you are not "just making conversation."
What should I have done, people who are the sort of people who exist on the internet to defend this sort of dude? Should I have told him all about my job, my place of employ, and the two hundred teenagers I was about to go supervise? Should I have invited him to come with me? Should I have agreed to ditch my job and go get to know this clearly charming young stranger, and hold hands with him in a parking lot?
Just don't stop. That's easy enough. And I shouldn't have. I know that. There was that tickle in my brain, already knowing that on no planet would one of my barely acquaintance level coworkers have shouted me down in a parking lot. But undoing thirty three years of social conditioning isn't quite so easy (oh, hi, did I not mention, it's my birthday?) - and the social contract is that you stop. You act nice. You try to help. And by the time you realize that none of those things are going to do you any favors, in the nanoseconds that the situation pivots on you, it's already too late.
And so this is why we can't have nice things. Because not every man is the assbag who is going to interrupt your walk from the car to the lobby in a dark icy parking lot and grab your hand and try to force some sort of casual intimacy between the two of you, but some men are. And because I don't know every man, I can't know if you are some men.
So do me, do the world, a favor: don't be this guy. Don't be the guy who is friends with this guy. Don't be the guy who this guy tells this story to, and you laugh it off, and clap him on the back, and ridicule me for being such a prude, frigid bitch, and laugh about how funny it was that he took advantage of the latent social construct of strangers to get in to a woman's personal space, and make her uncomfortable, for shits and giggles.
Just let me get to work.
Wednesday, January 13, 2016
I'm Living On
You may as well tell me that robins no longer exist, or that water isn't wet, for all the sense that hearing of David Bowie's death makes.
I was up at 2am, because I always am, when I heard. And then I sat around on the internet for three hours, disbelieving and hoping it wasn't true. Too sad to go to sleep, aching in that strange sort of loneliness that only happens in those imaginary hours of the morning.
I considered calling my friends, my teammates, because it felt like they should hear it from a friend, not from the internet. On the other hand, I could also give them a night of uninterrupted sleep, a few more hours of not knowing that we suddenly existed on a planet that was a little dimmer. I let them sleep.
I've never called Bowie one of my favourite artists. He's always been more like a puppetmaster, like background noise. Knowing, in the back of my head, that almost everything I do love is here, in some way, because of Bowie. Now he isn't, and it's like the someone has removed the keystone and everything is just sagging over.
I got to see him, once. In 2002, I dragged Sam Hoffberger (or Sam dragged me? That seems more likely) to New Jersey for Moby's Area 2 tour. Moby set the whole thing up, and asked Bowie to headline. Bowie turned him down, and insisted on opening for Moby. I remember, though can't find the quote, Bowie saying that it was Moby's show, he deserved the headlining slot. That always stuck with me. I remember next to nothing of the set. It was a long, long day, and my brain had already been broken about a hundred times by every single person on that bill. I do remember that there were many, many empty seats. Way to drop the ball, New Jersey. (I went back to my LiveJournal to see if I wrote a review. I did. I was uniformly terrible. "I was tired, so I spent most of the set sitting down. Then I ran to go see Carl Cox." Thanks for nothing, past-me.)
And then, of course, there's my team. Were it not for a long beaten horse about David Bowie's dick, would I even be here, me, now? Sure, we'd probably all have ended up together as Loud Assholes Who Yell At You a Lot or something anyway, but there's a unique magic to David Bowie's Package that I don't think anyone but David Bowie could have ever inspired.
If not for David Bowie's Package, when I got to Colorado, what would Megan have thought was the coolest fucking thing ever, and what would have made it clear that she was going to be the best person I found out there? I'm sure we'd have bonded over something else, but if I start imagining a world without Bowie, in loose threads and lost jokes, it all starts to unwind itself.
He existed at all, and we're all the better for it, but right now that's not enough to fill the emptiness that he's left behind. I think a lot about mortality, and have mostly reconciled that I, and everyone I love, exists within it, but somehow, Bowie seemed beyond that. I think I always imagined him as our Tony Bennett, a billion years old and still cranking out new music with whoever tomorrow's Lady Gaga is. I assumed that Bowie would show us how to age not just gracefully, but stupendously, how to keep inventing ourselves as we keep on marching over the hill and in to the stars. Maybe a tiny part of me figured him for a Timelord.
I'm struggling to define chaos in this, to explain loss, to grieve as poetically as I feel like he deserves. Nothing I've said here is novel: over the last few days, there have been scores of other people saying other things, all of them better than I have, or will ever be able to. (Read them. They make my heart hurt a little bit less.)
So there's this: David Bowie had a profound effect on not just what I like to listen to, but to who I've chosen to make family, and how I interact with the world outside my brain. He very existence enabled some of my most treasured, longstanding friendships, and merely missing or thanking a person whose entire lifetime makes up such an intrinsic component of my own social DNA seems wholly inadequate.
I am glad he was here.
David Bowie's package rules.
I was up at 2am, because I always am, when I heard. And then I sat around on the internet for three hours, disbelieving and hoping it wasn't true. Too sad to go to sleep, aching in that strange sort of loneliness that only happens in those imaginary hours of the morning.
I considered calling my friends, my teammates, because it felt like they should hear it from a friend, not from the internet. On the other hand, I could also give them a night of uninterrupted sleep, a few more hours of not knowing that we suddenly existed on a planet that was a little dimmer. I let them sleep.
I've never called Bowie one of my favourite artists. He's always been more like a puppetmaster, like background noise. Knowing, in the back of my head, that almost everything I do love is here, in some way, because of Bowie. Now he isn't, and it's like the someone has removed the keystone and everything is just sagging over.
I got to see him, once. In 2002, I dragged Sam Hoffberger (or Sam dragged me? That seems more likely) to New Jersey for Moby's Area 2 tour. Moby set the whole thing up, and asked Bowie to headline. Bowie turned him down, and insisted on opening for Moby. I remember, though can't find the quote, Bowie saying that it was Moby's show, he deserved the headlining slot. That always stuck with me. I remember next to nothing of the set. It was a long, long day, and my brain had already been broken about a hundred times by every single person on that bill. I do remember that there were many, many empty seats. Way to drop the ball, New Jersey. (I went back to my LiveJournal to see if I wrote a review. I did. I was uniformly terrible. "I was tired, so I spent most of the set sitting down. Then I ran to go see Carl Cox." Thanks for nothing, past-me.)
And then, of course, there's my team. Were it not for a long beaten horse about David Bowie's dick, would I even be here, me, now? Sure, we'd probably all have ended up together as Loud Assholes Who Yell At You a Lot or something anyway, but there's a unique magic to David Bowie's Package that I don't think anyone but David Bowie could have ever inspired.
If not for David Bowie's Package, when I got to Colorado, what would Megan have thought was the coolest fucking thing ever, and what would have made it clear that she was going to be the best person I found out there? I'm sure we'd have bonded over something else, but if I start imagining a world without Bowie, in loose threads and lost jokes, it all starts to unwind itself.
He existed at all, and we're all the better for it, but right now that's not enough to fill the emptiness that he's left behind. I think a lot about mortality, and have mostly reconciled that I, and everyone I love, exists within it, but somehow, Bowie seemed beyond that. I think I always imagined him as our Tony Bennett, a billion years old and still cranking out new music with whoever tomorrow's Lady Gaga is. I assumed that Bowie would show us how to age not just gracefully, but stupendously, how to keep inventing ourselves as we keep on marching over the hill and in to the stars. Maybe a tiny part of me figured him for a Timelord.
I'm struggling to define chaos in this, to explain loss, to grieve as poetically as I feel like he deserves. Nothing I've said here is novel: over the last few days, there have been scores of other people saying other things, all of them better than I have, or will ever be able to. (Read them. They make my heart hurt a little bit less.)
So there's this: David Bowie had a profound effect on not just what I like to listen to, but to who I've chosen to make family, and how I interact with the world outside my brain. He very existence enabled some of my most treasured, longstanding friendships, and merely missing or thanking a person whose entire lifetime makes up such an intrinsic component of my own social DNA seems wholly inadequate.
I am glad he was here.
David Bowie's package rules.
 |
| Not even going to pretend I didn't steal this from PJ's Flickr album. 2008 World Rock Paper Scissors Championships, Team David Bowie's Package |
Thursday, January 7, 2016
Guest Post: I Can't Accept Matt Walsh at His Worst, and His Blog Posts are Always the Worst.
BFFFL C. Austin wrote this in drips and drabs two years ago, when Matt fucking Walsh had a piece pushed to HuffPo, and it's been showing up in my feed in fairly regular rotation ever since; from people who I adore (and who Matt Walsh would hate - because they're single moms, or atheists, or feminists, or any of a myriad of reasons why Matt Walsh thinks you and your lifestyle are filth) again and again. We finally just compiled Austin's initial response(s), because friends don't let friends repost Matt Walsh's steaming piles of bullshit, at least not without a rebuttal. Thusly:
[Originally posted as a series of Facebook comments, in response to Matt Walsh’s oft-reblogged piece “If I Can’t Handle You At Your Worst, Then Maybe You Should Stop Being So Horrible”]
Gonna do this with cranky bullet points, because I don't want to spend more mental energy on this guy than I have to. Apologies if this is a bit muddled or unclear—but the original piece is meandering as fuck, so the response is gonna be similar. Also, this shouldn't be a surprise, but OH MY GOD THIS GOT LONG ANYWAY.
•First, the common ground: I agree with Walsh that horrible behavior shouldn't be excused, and that horrible people should try to be less horrible. But far from being a brave or honest or novel position to take, this is deep into 'NO SHIT SHERLOCK' territory, and you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who would disagree with that basic premise. Much like his pieces supporting breastfeeding and stay-at-home moms, he's making a superficially correct point but connecting it to all sorts of terrible and unsupported bullshit, being intellectually reductive on every conceivable level, and promoting a childish black & white/good & evil/us vs. them worldview—all while congratulating himself for his insight and bravery. Nope nope nope.
•Apart from the obviousness, it's also a useless message to send on purely a pragmatic level. People who are unusually smug and horrible rarely realize—or care—that they're unusually smug and horrible, so any criticism that they're smug and horrible will just be smugly and horrible dismissed. People don’t like being told they’re horrible, especially when that message is delivered in an aggressive and condescending way. This approach never works, and I’ve got a perfect case study: OH HI THERE, LOOKING AT YOU MATT WALSH. When challenged or criticized, does he listen to those who disagree with him, engage in some self-reflection, and try to be more understanding of differing points of view or moderate his tone? Fuck no—he jeers at his critics, sets up countless straw man arguments, and doubles down on his inflammatory rhetoric (his response is usually more muted when challenged by fellow Christians/conservatives, but it’s still defiant, generally some variation of “you just don’t want to face hard truths” or “you didn’t understand my point”). Not once has he ever responded to criticism with “You’re right, I should stop being so horrible”; it’s always “Liberals who disagree with me are selfish baby-murderers who just want government handouts.” It’s the epitome of hubris to expect others to accept a lecture that he himself rejects out of hand.
…so, yeah, this is an approach that accomplishes nothing. It’s purely an exercise in smug posturing, and it’s deeply disheartening to see it resonate with so many people.
•His whole attack on the evils of participation culture is entirely anecdotal, speculative, based on nostalgic fantasy—oh, and undermined by his own personal experience. He asserts that growing up in a culture that awards simple participation either makes people insecure/ashamed or narcissistic/egotistical, and makes it impossible for them for form decent relationships…except for Walsh himself, of course, who grew up in that same culture but has a great relationship and turned out fine. Soooooooo he's flat-out wrong, and/or he believes himself to be the very most special-est snowflake, and/or he’s being disingenuous and vastly oversimplifying. Or all of the above.
•The whole divorce/relationship line of argument is such an ignorant non-sequitur that it makes my head spin, mostly because it's based way more on self-congratulatory moralizing than it is on facts. The divorce rate has actually been steadily *dropping* since about 1980, but hey, don't let data get in the way of being judgmental and wringing your hands over some imaginary moral decline. And of *course* there were fewer legal divorces a few generations ago—because divorce wasn’t legal, and that’s how laws work. Idiot. It sure as shit isn’t evidence that people were somehow “better” at relationships back then. The fact that there were few legal means to dissolve a marriage tells us *nothing* about the quality or health of those marriages. But yeah, whatever, marrying primarily for economic reasons and staying married because there were no other legal/social options—which was the dominant paradigm for marriage until a few decades ago; marrying for love and emotional compatibility is relatively new—*definitely* demonstrates how great people were at relationships, suuuuuuuuuuuure. ::eyeroll:: This supposed "crisis of failed relationships at every level” "appears obvious" only if you're an ignorant f{artcanoe} who doesn't know shit about history or human nature, and who somehow missed the memo that our cultural definition of 'relationships' is dramatically different than it was a half century ago. It's just more of this kind of nostalgic fantasy bullshit:
[Originally posted as a series of Facebook comments, in response to Matt Walsh’s oft-reblogged piece “If I Can’t Handle You At Your Worst, Then Maybe You Should Stop Being So Horrible”]
Gonna do this with cranky bullet points, because I don't want to spend more mental energy on this guy than I have to. Apologies if this is a bit muddled or unclear—but the original piece is meandering as fuck, so the response is gonna be similar. Also, this shouldn't be a surprise, but OH MY GOD THIS GOT LONG ANYWAY.
•First, the common ground: I agree with Walsh that horrible behavior shouldn't be excused, and that horrible people should try to be less horrible. But far from being a brave or honest or novel position to take, this is deep into 'NO SHIT SHERLOCK' territory, and you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who would disagree with that basic premise. Much like his pieces supporting breastfeeding and stay-at-home moms, he's making a superficially correct point but connecting it to all sorts of terrible and unsupported bullshit, being intellectually reductive on every conceivable level, and promoting a childish black & white/good & evil/us vs. them worldview—all while congratulating himself for his insight and bravery. Nope nope nope.
•Apart from the obviousness, it's also a useless message to send on purely a pragmatic level. People who are unusually smug and horrible rarely realize—or care—that they're unusually smug and horrible, so any criticism that they're smug and horrible will just be smugly and horrible dismissed. People don’t like being told they’re horrible, especially when that message is delivered in an aggressive and condescending way. This approach never works, and I’ve got a perfect case study: OH HI THERE, LOOKING AT YOU MATT WALSH. When challenged or criticized, does he listen to those who disagree with him, engage in some self-reflection, and try to be more understanding of differing points of view or moderate his tone? Fuck no—he jeers at his critics, sets up countless straw man arguments, and doubles down on his inflammatory rhetoric (his response is usually more muted when challenged by fellow Christians/conservatives, but it’s still defiant, generally some variation of “you just don’t want to face hard truths” or “you didn’t understand my point”). Not once has he ever responded to criticism with “You’re right, I should stop being so horrible”; it’s always “Liberals who disagree with me are selfish baby-murderers who just want government handouts.” It’s the epitome of hubris to expect others to accept a lecture that he himself rejects out of hand.
…so, yeah, this is an approach that accomplishes nothing. It’s purely an exercise in smug posturing, and it’s deeply disheartening to see it resonate with so many people.
•His whole attack on the evils of participation culture is entirely anecdotal, speculative, based on nostalgic fantasy—oh, and undermined by his own personal experience. He asserts that growing up in a culture that awards simple participation either makes people insecure/ashamed or narcissistic/egotistical, and makes it impossible for them for form decent relationships…except for Walsh himself, of course, who grew up in that same culture but has a great relationship and turned out fine. Soooooooo he's flat-out wrong, and/or he believes himself to be the very most special-est snowflake, and/or he’s being disingenuous and vastly oversimplifying. Or all of the above.
•The whole divorce/relationship line of argument is such an ignorant non-sequitur that it makes my head spin, mostly because it's based way more on self-congratulatory moralizing than it is on facts. The divorce rate has actually been steadily *dropping* since about 1980, but hey, don't let data get in the way of being judgmental and wringing your hands over some imaginary moral decline. And of *course* there were fewer legal divorces a few generations ago—because divorce wasn’t legal, and that’s how laws work. Idiot. It sure as shit isn’t evidence that people were somehow “better” at relationships back then. The fact that there were few legal means to dissolve a marriage tells us *nothing* about the quality or health of those marriages. But yeah, whatever, marrying primarily for economic reasons and staying married because there were no other legal/social options—which was the dominant paradigm for marriage until a few decades ago; marrying for love and emotional compatibility is relatively new—*definitely* demonstrates how great people were at relationships, suuuuuuuuuuuure. ::eyeroll:: This supposed "crisis of failed relationships at every level” "appears obvious" only if you're an ignorant f{artcanoe} who doesn't know shit about history or human nature, and who somehow missed the memo that our cultural definition of 'relationships' is dramatically different than it was a half century ago. It's just more of this kind of nostalgic fantasy bullshit:
•There's a lazy semantic dodge he pulls off here, where he conflates "accepting a person despite their bad behavior" with "accepting a person's bad behavior." The two concepts are quite different, yet he treats them as interchangeable and denigrates both. Not only is this goalpost-shifting an intellectual cheat, it seems particularly odd coming from an outspoken Christian whose entire goddamn religion is predicated on the concept of being accepted by a loving God despite your flaws, hating the sin but loving the sinner, etc. etc. He doesn't specifically bring up his religion here, but the position he's arguing here is 100% at odds with his oft-stated faith. Idiot.
•Speaking of dishonest semantic tricks: "accept" has a dozen different meanings, and he blatantly ignores the one that best fits the speaker's obvious intent, disregarding every definition except for the one that best fits his own twisted thesis. If he wasn't too lazy to read past definition #1 on dictionary.com, he'd see that accept also means "to accommodate or reconcile oneself to," or, even more appropriately, "to regard as normal, suitable, or usual." Traits like selfishness, impatience, and insecurity shouldn't be "received with approval or favor," I totally agree, but that's not what's being requested: the quote is about reconciling yourself to the fact that we're all imperfect, and not treating someone as abnormal, unsuitable, or unusual simply because they have some flaws. It takes a deliberate obtuseness not to recognize that, making his whole line or argument either breathtakingly stupid or monstrously dishonest. Or, y'know, both.
•Also, in his circuitous lecturing, he's somehow staked out this weird position where you can be loved by someone without being accepted by them. Not sure how that works, but it's more evidence of his incredibly sloppy thinking and/or sloppy use of language. Idiot.
•The latent sexism here is a pretty big deal, and it's probably my biggest issue with the piece. It's obvious that this is mostly targeted towards—or at least inspired by—women; the headline practically reads "If I Can't Handle You at Your Worst, LADIES, Then Maybe You Should Stop Being So Horrible." The quote he singles out is attributed to a woman, and the person who reposted it on facebook was a woman; even beyond Walsh's post, I'd be willing to bet that every time any of us have encountered this line, it's been from a woman. {Most of the time I see this reposted, it's by a woman. I can actively recollect only one dude in my sphere reposting it earnestly. ~M'ris} There's a good reason that this sentiment is expressed almost exclusively by women: as a society, we accept (even celebrate!) bad behavior from men, while we traditionally hold women to much higher (and generally unrealistic) standard. THIS LINE IS A PLEA FOR EQUAL CONSIDERATION, NOT SPECIAL TREATMENT. It's pretty much unheard of for a guy to post "Yeah, I can be a fucking asshole, but you need to accept me for who I am!" because there's no societal reason or personal need for a guy to write that—they have that acceptance by default. Women are pilloried for every imagined physical or psychological flaw, but society treats it as a given that men can find someone who will love/accept them despite their imperfections (and, tellingly, society often makes "fixing men" yet another responsibility of *women*, rather than the responsibility of men themselves). Also, lots of men—including Walsh—DO post the equivalent of “Yeah I’m a bitch, but deal with it” thing all the time, but they camouflage it in lofty ideological posturing, i.e. "I don't care if you're offended when I say that Planned Parenthood murders children and nothing else they do matters, I refuse to sacrifice my principles on the altar of political correctness." Make no mistake, the sentiment is exactly the same, and it's just as egotistical and self-involved as what he's piously condemning.
Anyway, the point is that there's a HUGE societal double standard when it comes to negative—but perfectly ordinary—character traits of women, and the whole "if you can't handle me at my worst" thing is a reasonable and understandable reaction to that. Our society has long told women that they must always be on their best behavior if they want to be rewarded with affection/consideration/
•The headline and article just reinforce all that patriarchal bullshit, and (as I’ve pointed out already) all the arguments he brings to bear can just as easily be used against Walsh himself. What makes him so special that he gets to judge whether or not people are horrible? Is he such a gem that women should change their behavior so that *he* might find them more acceptable, so that they might bask in the glow of his superiority? His whole perspective seems premised on the assumption that yeah, he totally is. Fuuuuuuuuuck that.
•That being said: despite the fact that the meme’s message—given the historical and cultural context of its origin—is wholly legitimate, it's sometimes (often?) reposted these days by immature people as a defense of their own immaturity. And nope, I won't endorse, defend, or cosign that immaturity; it *should* be discouraged, I absolutely agree. It's infuriating when terrible people don't realize they're terrible, right? But here’s the thing: Walsh's piece is written in such a haughty and vindictive tone that it’s clearly NOT being reposted in a genuinely well-meaning or helpful way, but primarily as a way of riding Walsh's self-righteous coattails; it’s less about offering good-faith advice and more about sending a passive aggressive message to the drama queens and trifling bitches on social media. Which, okay, fine, we've all got a few of those on our feed, and they're often aggravating as hell, but you lose any moral high ground when you endorse something this stupid and mean-spirited. It’s a pompous and condescending lecture, not even remotely self-aware or -reflective, written purely as a rhetorical cudgel to be wielded against others. Consider: when you read it, did you think “He’s right, people shouldn’t accept me until I’m less horrible”? Or did you think “He’s right, I know some people I shouldn’t accept until they become less horrible”? I’m guessing that almost all of us thought the latter, because that's the tone in which it was written. That's not a message I want to cosign, not a tendency I want to encourage in myself, not a bandwagon I want to jump on.
But again, the main thing that bothers me about the popularity of this piece is the gender disparity on display; guys are at least as bad about this kind of “fuck all y’all, I’ma do what I want” strutting as women are, but I've never seen that basic fact condemned and reblogged hundreds of thousands of times. Despite being relatively harmless, this kind of immature posturing is apparently unacceptable from girls, while identical (and far worse) immaturity from guys—on the rare occasion that it's even acknowledged at all—is simply given a pass. This is what Walsh feels is a priority? This is where he sees a massive societal failing? Sorry, Steubenville rape victim, Matt Walsh couldn't take the time to condemn your attackers, or address the entitled bro culture that encouraged and defended your assault: he was too busy writing about a woman who was egotistical once on facebook. His values are awesome, he's such a smart and moral guy.
(Aaaaaand what was intended as a quickie bullet-point rebuttal turns into a sprawling, multi-page comment that's longer than Walsh's original post. This same basic thing happens every time with Walsh’s posts, because there just ends up being SO MUCH BULLSHIT to address. His writing often seems reasonable or innocuous at first glance, but it's like a TARDIS of misinformation: it's way wronger on the inside.)
-- C. Austin, 2014
Tuesday, December 29, 2015
This Is (Actually) Why I Can't Have Nice Things
Caveat: there is a 100% chance I am writing this from a place of depression.
I didn't go to practice again tonite. It's the off season, and I don't have to go, but I should. Healthy-me knows that I like roller derby, and that roller derby makes me feel good, even when it's hard, and so, I should go.
Healthy-me is not home right now.
Needs-otters-me is in that place where practice is far, so I should stay home. Practice is independent study, and I don't do well on my own, so I should stay home. It's mostly been A team skaters showing up, and I am not A team, so I should stay home. Roller derby is for people who are capable of doing good things, for people who want things more than I do, who are better than I am, and so, clearly, I should stay home, because trying is hard and failing is easy and why leave the house when I can be the architect of my own disappointment from right here in this spot?
And, hey, since I stayed home, thus satisfying my terrible proof of only good people go to practice, I did not go to practice, I am not a good person, how about I just spend the rest of the night self-flagellating? That seems like a good idea, right? Of course it does.
I have a tendency (it's not a tendency, tendency implies that it only happens sometimes, this is a course of thought that I have roughly 100% of always) to believe that I am not worthy of good things. "Good things" is a catch-all term, but it often includes things like a base level of happiness, proper nutrition, and access to healthcare/medication. Without even looking at what wider circles of that clearly flawed logic include, it causes me to exist in cycles where I deny myself access to things that I should not be denying myself - my anxiety meds, decent meals, anything one could deem a "luxury" - in an effort to satisfy the part of my lizard brain that is more concerned with being right than being healthy. (My lizard brain is a jackass.) (I almost said dick, but I am making a concerned effort to remove gendered insults from my lexicon. Note to self, keep working on that.)
Which brings me to the point of why I opened my computer - I don't want to keep satisfying my lizard brain. Because it is a jackass. I want to figure out how to keep myself in check, to hold myself outside of that base instinct that I do not deserve nice things (kind things, healthy things, things that make my life more tolerable), and to not fall in to its clutches. I want to take my anxiety meds, even if I don't feel like I need them, because they don't just stop my anxiety after it ramps up, they are useful in preventing those feels in the first place. I want to go to practice, even if it's hard and I suck and I'm still afraid that I won't make Brawlers again, because I like roller derby. And because two shitty hours on the track are still better than two shitty hours sitting at home feeling shitty about myself. Because I understand that while the act of denial is in itself a trigger for the pleasure center, it is a terrible one, and there have got to be better ways of indulging those synapses.
I made a Facebook post vaguely about this last week, in an effort to hold myself accountable and not do the thing I just did all over again (skip practice and feel shitty about it.) Will writing a blog post about it help? Probably not. But writing out why I do these things to myself at least sucks a little bit of how terrible I feel about myself out of my insides, and that's helpful. Sort of. Take your meds, Marissa.
I didn't go to practice again tonite. It's the off season, and I don't have to go, but I should. Healthy-me knows that I like roller derby, and that roller derby makes me feel good, even when it's hard, and so, I should go.
Healthy-me is not home right now.
Needs-otters-me is in that place where practice is far, so I should stay home. Practice is independent study, and I don't do well on my own, so I should stay home. It's mostly been A team skaters showing up, and I am not A team, so I should stay home. Roller derby is for people who are capable of doing good things, for people who want things more than I do, who are better than I am, and so, clearly, I should stay home, because trying is hard and failing is easy and why leave the house when I can be the architect of my own disappointment from right here in this spot?
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| Thank you to ThePhotoForum user Overread for taking a bunch of really incredible pictures of really sad looking otters. |
I have a tendency (it's not a tendency, tendency implies that it only happens sometimes, this is a course of thought that I have roughly 100% of always) to believe that I am not worthy of good things. "Good things" is a catch-all term, but it often includes things like a base level of happiness, proper nutrition, and access to healthcare/medication. Without even looking at what wider circles of that clearly flawed logic include, it causes me to exist in cycles where I deny myself access to things that I should not be denying myself - my anxiety meds, decent meals, anything one could deem a "luxury" - in an effort to satisfy the part of my lizard brain that is more concerned with being right than being healthy. (My lizard brain is a jackass.) (I almost said dick, but I am making a concerned effort to remove gendered insults from my lexicon. Note to self, keep working on that.)
Which brings me to the point of why I opened my computer - I don't want to keep satisfying my lizard brain. Because it is a jackass. I want to figure out how to keep myself in check, to hold myself outside of that base instinct that I do not deserve nice things (kind things, healthy things, things that make my life more tolerable), and to not fall in to its clutches. I want to take my anxiety meds, even if I don't feel like I need them, because they don't just stop my anxiety after it ramps up, they are useful in preventing those feels in the first place. I want to go to practice, even if it's hard and I suck and I'm still afraid that I won't make Brawlers again, because I like roller derby. And because two shitty hours on the track are still better than two shitty hours sitting at home feeling shitty about myself. Because I understand that while the act of denial is in itself a trigger for the pleasure center, it is a terrible one, and there have got to be better ways of indulging those synapses.
I made a Facebook post vaguely about this last week, in an effort to hold myself accountable and not do the thing I just did all over again (skip practice and feel shitty about it.) Will writing a blog post about it help? Probably not. But writing out why I do these things to myself at least sucks a little bit of how terrible I feel about myself out of my insides, and that's helpful. Sort of. Take your meds, Marissa.
Monday, November 23, 2015
Influenster POND'S Original Fresh Wet Cleansing Towelettes Review
I received a sample of this product for free from Influenster. I took these out for a test run the night before Halloween and used them to remove zombie blood from my face after street teaming with my roller derby team. It was a light night for FX, and I was able to remove all visible traces of the blood with meticulous use of one cloth, which was impressive, but I still felt like I had to wash my face afterwards. When I used them the next day for regular makeup, it was much easier. Would not substitute these for actually washing my faces, but I'd use them while travelling or in a pinch. As far as using them for FX makeup, I'll just stick to baby wipes.
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| Single towelette, full of a minimal amount of zombie goo. |
Sunday, October 11, 2015
Thanks for That, West Philly
I had a snarky two-liner FB post ready to go about how West Philly never lets me down. Then I had another 40 minutes to think about it on the drive home, and I remembered: the kyriarchy hurts everyone. And that sucks.
As I was heading out of Center City tonite, I saw the traffic up on 76 right before I hit the on ramp, so I hustled around 30th Street Station and headed out via Market/Walnut. Since I was already going to be passing it, I decided to stop for Crown Fried Chicken at 40th Street. So I parked, and then, for the first time in a long time, a homeless guy hit me up for change on the corner, and then followed me in to the store. And I made the decision that buying him fried chicken was probably an easier way to get him off my back than ignoring him while he continued to pester me. Especially since he was now in the actual store with me, and lord knows the CFC guys have their homeless interactions set to Ignore all the time.
So I bought him dinner and figured that was it. Only in his profuse thanks, he ended up cornering me outside the shop as well, and I honestly don't know if he was hitting me up for more money for a Septa token (probably yes) or just trying to talk to someone (probably also yes.) Because at this point, I had my City Girl Hankles up, and my general social anxiety kicking in, so making small talk with a homeless vet who was definitely not 100% there had me in full on Flight mode.
And so I was going to sarcastically thank you, West Philly, because of course you do this. But on the other hand, how much of this was me? In retrospect, the guy presented minimal danger to me. I'm just trained to Ignore All Strangers when I'm out. I bought him a meal, which cost me all of $4, which I definitely have to spare, and he most likely did not. And I could listen to him tell his story (VA hospitals dicking him around, which, whether or not that's true, is absolutely plausible), though, it's not like I'm actually at liberty to change that particular system any time soon.
Instead, I politely (maybe?) frantically (yes.) pretended to listen and shifted my weight a lot, and gave him my fake name and shook his hand more than once, and every time he said "Semper Fi," I glanced in all directions past him, maybe hoping that a magic warp portal would appear and I could disappear my way out of there. Was he off-kilter, or genuinely just excited to talk to a person who had done something kind for him? Was I legitimately in some sort of danger, or just gobsmacked by the awkwardness of forced small talk? Would this all be better (or just different?) if I didn't have to think that d-d-d-d-danger's out to find you, or if the fucking VA system didn't shit all over its patients on the regular?
TL;DR, I bought dinner for a homeless vet and felt really uncomfortable about it, and then spent the next hour thinking about the systems in place that bought us both to that specific situation and have nothing to show for it but this blog post.
As I was heading out of Center City tonite, I saw the traffic up on 76 right before I hit the on ramp, so I hustled around 30th Street Station and headed out via Market/Walnut. Since I was already going to be passing it, I decided to stop for Crown Fried Chicken at 40th Street. So I parked, and then, for the first time in a long time, a homeless guy hit me up for change on the corner, and then followed me in to the store. And I made the decision that buying him fried chicken was probably an easier way to get him off my back than ignoring him while he continued to pester me. Especially since he was now in the actual store with me, and lord knows the CFC guys have their homeless interactions set to Ignore all the time.
So I bought him dinner and figured that was it. Only in his profuse thanks, he ended up cornering me outside the shop as well, and I honestly don't know if he was hitting me up for more money for a Septa token (probably yes) or just trying to talk to someone (probably also yes.) Because at this point, I had my City Girl Hankles up, and my general social anxiety kicking in, so making small talk with a homeless vet who was definitely not 100% there had me in full on Flight mode.
And so I was going to sarcastically thank you, West Philly, because of course you do this. But on the other hand, how much of this was me? In retrospect, the guy presented minimal danger to me. I'm just trained to Ignore All Strangers when I'm out. I bought him a meal, which cost me all of $4, which I definitely have to spare, and he most likely did not. And I could listen to him tell his story (VA hospitals dicking him around, which, whether or not that's true, is absolutely plausible), though, it's not like I'm actually at liberty to change that particular system any time soon.
Instead, I politely (maybe?) frantically (yes.) pretended to listen and shifted my weight a lot, and gave him my fake name and shook his hand more than once, and every time he said "Semper Fi," I glanced in all directions past him, maybe hoping that a magic warp portal would appear and I could disappear my way out of there. Was he off-kilter, or genuinely just excited to talk to a person who had done something kind for him? Was I legitimately in some sort of danger, or just gobsmacked by the awkwardness of forced small talk? Would this all be better (or just different?) if I didn't have to think that d-d-d-d-danger's out to find you, or if the fucking VA system didn't shit all over its patients on the regular?
TL;DR, I bought dinner for a homeless vet and felt really uncomfortable about it, and then spent the next hour thinking about the systems in place that bought us both to that specific situation and have nothing to show for it but this blog post.
Thursday, June 18, 2015
L'Oreal Ultimate Straight Influenster Vox Box Review
I received a set of L'Oreal's new Ultimate Straight hair care supplies to experiment with as a free trial from Influenster. I was pretty excited, as my supplies showed up just as I was about to run out of my regular shampoo, so, hooray, no trip to CVS for me!
I received the full set of the new 4-step line:
Step 1: Smooth Intense Ultimate Straight – Straightening shampooStep 2: Smooth Intense Ultimate Straight – Straight Boosting Pre-conditionerStep 3: Smooth Intense Ultimate Straight – Straightening conditionerStep 4: Smooth Intense Ultimate Straight – Straight Perfecting Balm
I also received the headache of secret steps 5 and 6, blow drying and straightening.
The thing I was the most excited by about this line is that it's paraben free. It's getting easier to hunt down paraben free supplies from the drug store, but it's still not exactly easy. Having a box of them delivered to my front door was pretty swell.
The thing I was LEAST excited about was a 4-step system. I'm pretty low maintenance, and on the best of days, I can manage to shampoo and condition my hair before passing out with my wet hair scrunched up on top of a towel. If I'm REALLY lucky, I'll dry and slap some argan oil on there to keep the frizzies down.
It turns out that the 4 step system isn't so bad. There's one extra step in the shower, the pre-conditioner.It doesn't need to be rinsed out, so it really only adds a minute or two to your usual routine, which is nice. The perfecting balm is used after you towel dry your hair, which is exactly how I use my argan oil, so no real time difference there, either.
What isn't clear about this system is that purported results come as a result of not only use of the 4 products, but also of blow drying your hair, as well as straightening it, if needed, after you blow dry it. These are steps that I almost NEVER take, and was not excited to find out needed to be a part of the Ultimate Straight regiment. (Though, I understand how stick straight hair works, so I can't say I was surprised.)
I tried this system 3 times, once using the whole system less the secret steps, once only using steps 1 and 3, and once using the whole system with the secret steps. My thoughts:
No Secret Steps:
Hair is definitely softer, thought not necessarily straighter. The routine isn't so arduous that I wouldn't keep doing it, though I'm not sure if the results are any better than what I usually do with my three step routine.
1 & 3:
Hair is still pretty soft, but definitely not straighter. If anything, I have MORE flyaways than usual - possibly a result of not using a post-shower moisturizer? Using steps 1 & 3 as an independent straightening system is probably useless, but I might use them in conjunction with my argan oil. Will have to try this.
Secret Steps:
I feel like if you have to use styling tools to achieve perfect, optimum results, the products aren't really delivering 100% on their promises. Of COURSE your hair will be straight if you straighten it with a blowdryer and an iron. You don't really need a straightening product regiment for that. But I was resolve to try this, so I did. Result? The same, if not marginally worse, than my usual hair straightening routine. My hair is still super soft, which is great, but I have plenty of rogue frizzies, and it still doesn't lie as flat as I'd like it to
Takeaway:
As a simple hair care regimen, this seems fine, though it leaves my hair feeling pretty light, which I'm sure contributes to my frizzy/flyaway look. I'm a natural brunette who is actively going grey, so I need a lot more weight to keep the greys down than what this system seems able to offer me. That said, I'm ok with keeping up with the 4 step system til I run out of product, but I'm not sure if I'd purchase steps 2 & 4 independently. I'm not convinced that step 2 actually does anything, but I would purchase it again, if I can get a good deal on it. Step 4 I will probably just trade out for my usual argan oil, which seems to be more moisturizing for my hair. I don't think I'd endorse it as a revolutionary new straightening regiment, but it is adequate.
#Ultimatestraight was provided for me for free as part of a 2015 Influenster VoxBox. Thanks for the products, Influenster!
I received the full set of the new 4-step line:
Step 1: Smooth Intense Ultimate Straight – Straightening shampooStep 2: Smooth Intense Ultimate Straight – Straight Boosting Pre-conditionerStep 3: Smooth Intense Ultimate Straight – Straightening conditionerStep 4: Smooth Intense Ultimate Straight – Straight Perfecting Balm
I also received the headache of secret steps 5 and 6, blow drying and straightening.
The thing I was the most excited by about this line is that it's paraben free. It's getting easier to hunt down paraben free supplies from the drug store, but it's still not exactly easy. Having a box of them delivered to my front door was pretty swell.
The thing I was LEAST excited about was a 4-step system. I'm pretty low maintenance, and on the best of days, I can manage to shampoo and condition my hair before passing out with my wet hair scrunched up on top of a towel. If I'm REALLY lucky, I'll dry and slap some argan oil on there to keep the frizzies down.
It turns out that the 4 step system isn't so bad. There's one extra step in the shower, the pre-conditioner.It doesn't need to be rinsed out, so it really only adds a minute or two to your usual routine, which is nice. The perfecting balm is used after you towel dry your hair, which is exactly how I use my argan oil, so no real time difference there, either.
What isn't clear about this system is that purported results come as a result of not only use of the 4 products, but also of blow drying your hair, as well as straightening it, if needed, after you blow dry it. These are steps that I almost NEVER take, and was not excited to find out needed to be a part of the Ultimate Straight regiment. (Though, I understand how stick straight hair works, so I can't say I was surprised.)
I tried this system 3 times, once using the whole system less the secret steps, once only using steps 1 and 3, and once using the whole system with the secret steps. My thoughts:
No Secret Steps:
Hair is definitely softer, thought not necessarily straighter. The routine isn't so arduous that I wouldn't keep doing it, though I'm not sure if the results are any better than what I usually do with my three step routine.
1 & 3:
Hair is still pretty soft, but definitely not straighter. If anything, I have MORE flyaways than usual - possibly a result of not using a post-shower moisturizer? Using steps 1 & 3 as an independent straightening system is probably useless, but I might use them in conjunction with my argan oil. Will have to try this.
Secret Steps:
I feel like if you have to use styling tools to achieve perfect, optimum results, the products aren't really delivering 100% on their promises. Of COURSE your hair will be straight if you straighten it with a blowdryer and an iron. You don't really need a straightening product regiment for that. But I was resolve to try this, so I did. Result? The same, if not marginally worse, than my usual hair straightening routine. My hair is still super soft, which is great, but I have plenty of rogue frizzies, and it still doesn't lie as flat as I'd like it to
Takeaway:
As a simple hair care regimen, this seems fine, though it leaves my hair feeling pretty light, which I'm sure contributes to my frizzy/flyaway look. I'm a natural brunette who is actively going grey, so I need a lot more weight to keep the greys down than what this system seems able to offer me. That said, I'm ok with keeping up with the 4 step system til I run out of product, but I'm not sure if I'd purchase steps 2 & 4 independently. I'm not convinced that step 2 actually does anything, but I would purchase it again, if I can get a good deal on it. Step 4 I will probably just trade out for my usual argan oil, which seems to be more moisturizing for my hair. I don't think I'd endorse it as a revolutionary new straightening regiment, but it is adequate.
#Ultimatestraight was provided for me for free as part of a 2015 Influenster VoxBox. Thanks for the products, Influenster!
Tuesday, July 29, 2014
How To Clean Your Roller Derby Pads
People keep asking me how I clean my pads, so I figure I'd just write it up for good. Everyone has their own way of cleaning their gear. You should use whatever way you like best - this is just mine.
I skate with a rec league, so at best, I'll have two "real" practices a week, plus whatever skate time I can fit in on my own. I don't take very good care of my gear - I don't spray it down after practice, I don't really even ever take it out of my bag. I only wash it when it gets to gag-worthy level, which is usually every 4 months, or as soon as it hits 90 degrees in Denver, whichever happens first.
So. How I to wash your gear. (And by gear, I mean wrist guards, elbow pads, and knee pads. Obviously, DO NOT drop your bearings in the washing machine!)
Step 1: Wait until your gear becomes ungodly stinky. Dead skunk on a July day in the sun with flies stinky. (Or whenever you feel like cleaning it. In fact, you should probably NOT wait as long as I do.)
Step 2: Remove gear from your bag. Try not to gag.
Step 3: Put white vinegar in a clean spray bottle. Lay gear out, and spritz down. When I say "spritz," I mean "go to town." Undo the velcro bits and get every last bit of surface. If any of the guard-y bits are removable, feel free to remove them, but I never have on mine. Make sure it soaks in and gets to the foam, the vinegar will help kill the bacteria that is actually living in there, and causing all the stinkifying. Spray the velcro. The elastic. Inside the little air holes that serve as ventilation straight in to the padding. EVERYWHERE. Do this in a well ventilated area. I do it in my bathtub, with the windows open, at night.
Step 4: Let the vinegar soak in, to the point of evaporating or nearly evaporating. I usually let it hang out overnight.
Step 5: Place gear in lingerie/mesh washing bags. I put the kneepads in one, and the wrist guards/elbow pads in another.
Step 6: Put in washing machine with about a cup of baking soda and detergent. I use Boulder 100% Natural Laundry Detergent, which I picked up at CostCo for like $10. Use however much is equivalent to what you'd use for a (whatever you plug in as the size as your load of laundry) load of laundry. (Win is also supposedly good at getting rid of odors, but I've never used it.) Boulder has a very mild citrus scent. I'd recommend using something similar, or unscented, to avoid irritating your skin later.
Step 7: This depends on your washing machine. I set mine for a "large" load and a "delicate/knit" washing cycle. Do whatever approximates a lot of water and delicate swishing. The water temperature should be cold wash and cold rinse. Let the machine fill up, and let the gear soak for a few minutes.
Step 8: WASH YOUR GEAR.
Step 9: Take your gear out and let it line dry in the sun. The UV from the sun also helps kill the bacteria.
Step 10: Clean gear! Sniff test: does it smell tolerable? If so, you're done! If it still smells like vinegar (if it still smells like skunk, it may just be time for new gear), run it through the wash (same steps) and line dry again.
That's it! It may sound like a lot, or time consuming, but I swear that this process has rescued my gear from the point of no return every single time I think I've hit the point of no return. The key, I think, is the one-two punch of bacteria elimination (the vinegar AND the UV), and then swishing out all the dead bacteria. (Obviously, I am not a scientist. That is guesswork.)
Give it a shot and let me know what you think!
I skate with a rec league, so at best, I'll have two "real" practices a week, plus whatever skate time I can fit in on my own. I don't take very good care of my gear - I don't spray it down after practice, I don't really even ever take it out of my bag. I only wash it when it gets to gag-worthy level, which is usually every 4 months, or as soon as it hits 90 degrees in Denver, whichever happens first.
So. How I to wash your gear. (And by gear, I mean wrist guards, elbow pads, and knee pads. Obviously, DO NOT drop your bearings in the washing machine!)
Step 1: Wait until your gear becomes ungodly stinky. Dead skunk on a July day in the sun with flies stinky. (Or whenever you feel like cleaning it. In fact, you should probably NOT wait as long as I do.)
Step 2: Remove gear from your bag. Try not to gag.
Step 3: Put white vinegar in a clean spray bottle. Lay gear out, and spritz down. When I say "spritz," I mean "go to town." Undo the velcro bits and get every last bit of surface. If any of the guard-y bits are removable, feel free to remove them, but I never have on mine. Make sure it soaks in and gets to the foam, the vinegar will help kill the bacteria that is actually living in there, and causing all the stinkifying. Spray the velcro. The elastic. Inside the little air holes that serve as ventilation straight in to the padding. EVERYWHERE. Do this in a well ventilated area. I do it in my bathtub, with the windows open, at night.
Step 4: Let the vinegar soak in, to the point of evaporating or nearly evaporating. I usually let it hang out overnight.
Step 5: Place gear in lingerie/mesh washing bags. I put the kneepads in one, and the wrist guards/elbow pads in another.
Step 6: Put in washing machine with about a cup of baking soda and detergent. I use Boulder 100% Natural Laundry Detergent, which I picked up at CostCo for like $10. Use however much is equivalent to what you'd use for a (whatever you plug in as the size as your load of laundry) load of laundry. (Win is also supposedly good at getting rid of odors, but I've never used it.) Boulder has a very mild citrus scent. I'd recommend using something similar, or unscented, to avoid irritating your skin later.
Step 7: This depends on your washing machine. I set mine for a "large" load and a "delicate/knit" washing cycle. Do whatever approximates a lot of water and delicate swishing. The water temperature should be cold wash and cold rinse. Let the machine fill up, and let the gear soak for a few minutes.
Step 8: WASH YOUR GEAR.
Step 9: Take your gear out and let it line dry in the sun. The UV from the sun also helps kill the bacteria.
Step 10: Clean gear! Sniff test: does it smell tolerable? If so, you're done! If it still smells like vinegar (if it still smells like skunk, it may just be time for new gear), run it through the wash (same steps) and line dry again.
That's it! It may sound like a lot, or time consuming, but I swear that this process has rescued my gear from the point of no return every single time I think I've hit the point of no return. The key, I think, is the one-two punch of bacteria elimination (the vinegar AND the UV), and then swishing out all the dead bacteria. (Obviously, I am not a scientist. That is guesswork.)
Give it a shot and let me know what you think!
Monday, May 26, 2014
Anxiety Nightmares #2
Item: My dad is my best friend.
Item: My dad's health is not, and has not been, for a very long time, the best.
Without getting in to the details of his maladies, suffice it to say, the idea of my dad getting even sicker, or worse, dying, has been an source of anxiety-to-the-point-of-trauma for me for a very, very long time.
It's bad enough that I can make myself physically ill with worry during the day, using nothing but controlled, conscious thought. What's worse is how much worse (better?) my subconscious is at drawing out fantastic, excruciating, unbelievable versions of these same anxiety-fantasies.
I have had recurring dreams of my father's death/decline for as long as I can remember dreaming. Not the same dream, but the same storyline. (Do other people dream in movies, like I do?) What's truly impressive is the staggering number of storylines my subconscious has come up with to exploit this fear with me.
The one where I lose him in a crowd at a Flyers game at the Spectrum, and the next thing I know, I see his memorial obit picture on the jumbotron.
The one where, in a stunning recreation of an actual event from his childhood, he wanders down the beach and never comes back.
The one where I sit in the hospital with him for days and days and days and the doctors refuse to tell me why we're there.
It goes on. I've forgotten most of them, thank God. I mostly remember just waking up in cold sweats, consciously toeing that line between knowing it's a dream and just needing it all to STOP, and knowing it's a dream and being so horrified by the nightmare scenario playing out that I want to see it all the way through to the end.
And so, today's. I took a nap after I came home from Kentucky, and got served what may have been my most vivid version of this shitshow to date, and a uniquely nauseating one, to boot.
This wasn't a dream about my dad's death, for a change. The thought and fear of that was a bright and pulsing undercurrent for the dream, to be sure, but not the literal content.
We're driving home in a car that is mine, but is not my Element, though it is suggestive of it. We are driving from a vague but familiar point west - Genaurdi's, perhaps. The doctor's office. We are initially driving past Not-Radnor-High (you know how dreamscape geography is), under the 476 underpass at Lancaster & KoP, when the underpass area becomes more urban (a larger underpass area, more lanes, more concrete, more confusion) and more forest (more leaves on the ground, low-forest shrubs in the same concrete-y area) than before. The area merges to a combination of the underpass intersection of Sproul and Conestoga, but with the trailheads of Enke Park/Radnor Chester Road transposed on the SW side of Sproul.
This locations are important, because they're such a familiar, background part of my daily drives back home. That section of Sproul, particularly, is one of my favourite bits of road to drive on. The scenery and landscape are familiar, homey. So it makes what happens next all the more distressing.
The roads become this morph of roads, and they become difficult to navigate. The car is physically having a difficult time travelling over them. The traffic is getting more condensed - not heavier, just as if the roads are merging - and though I don't see it, it feels as if we're fording a river. I'm becoming claustrophic.
I feel the car pass over what might be a speed bump, as we're passed on the left by a large, white, fast moving vehicle. This is insufficient. It's a vehicle that seems to be part DeathRace 2000 racecar, part boat. The part that is exposed to me, on the driver's side left, is the right side of the vehicle, which is essential the white, oversized ridged bilge of a crappy speedboat, if that speedboat bilge had been stretched with the bow and stern on the horizontal, and the bilge pulled vertically along the gunwales, almost to form a sail (maybe a shield) that obscures the rest of the craft from me as it passes by, though I see enough of it to know that it is attached by a simple joint, like an umbrella, or what is used to hold up deck awnings.
It passes us, and between the reflections (or what, I'm not sure, just that they're glaringly bright) and the water it splashes, I am blinded and run off road.
We are in a patch of the underpass underbelly, stuck in some sort of mud-quicksand-grass-island-median. Dreamscape, all things at once. We're being passed by men and women on foot, in costume. Dad gets out of the car, and wanders in to a storefront, one of many that has appeared, and look like they have come out of a set, or Main Street Disneyland. They look faux, false.
I realize that the men and women in costume are part of one of those doofy themed 5ks, and the Disney set we appear to be on is, in fact, a set that has been built on top of these familiar roads. The bilge vehicle DID offroad us over breakers, and we ARE in the middle of the course. And this course IS partially submerged in water, the racers DO have to ford it (there are large black whitewater rafts, though it is unclear how racers are chosen for them. Teams? Fighting?), and run it, and obstacle course it.
The car is stuck, and there is no way back to where we started. The terrain is unpassable in that direction, and we are beginning to be overcome with course runners. I manage to find a race official to explain the situation, but Dad has wandered in to a storefront, something that appears to be a cross between a tailor's shop and a western saloon. He stands on a slightly elevated square of a pedestal, as you do in a dressing room, while women both measure and coo over him. This added measure of sexuality makes me intensely uncomfortable as a watch them drape themselves over him.
The staffer I talk to is at first perplexed - she doesn't understand that we're not part of the race, that we don't want to be a part of the race, that I just need to get my car off of the "lot" and go home. Eventually, she leads me behind the "scenes" - it is exactly like a false front on a set, or a prop front on a stage, and, from the back of a "barn" front, she throws open the double doors and says that I can drive out that way. Even with my narrow Element, the frame is not quite wide enough for me to fit my car through, I tell her. She gets upset, and re-explains that this is how I should leave. We go through this for a while, til she eventually sighs, exasperated, and pushes a wall to the side, like a pocket door.
I go to retrieve my father, and he doesn't want to go. He doesn't protest, doesn't say he isn't ready - and that's the most frightening part. He is acting like someone wholly unlike the person I know. This is the part I find hardest to describe, because none of the actions he is taking or words he is saying are inappropriate or lewd or unbecoming. There is simply this aura of his behavior, his body language, his words and tone, that is distinctly off and frighteningly wrong. His physical form has shifted. He is not the man who is currently my father, but somehow a dream-ish version of him when I was younger, one that I have cobbled together from pictures, but not actually rooted in memory. Not problem-free, but healthier than he has been in a long time. Brunette, not grey. And I am surrounded by people who cannot see this, who do not understand why these behavior changes, along with the physical retrogression, distress me so much.
I become increasingly desperate to collect my father, to leave this situation, but in between spurts of me not being able to find him, being overcome by runners in (superhero) costumes, by the spray from the obstacles, I can't. And no one will help me.
"You're being a stick in the mud," they tell me. "He's just discovering himself. Maybe this is his true self. Maybe this is how it's meant to be."
But that is not my perception. The actions and interactions I see my father performing are so wrong (on him) that they are shaking me to my core. I am on the edge of hysteria, as the people around me ignore the years of relationship that my father and I have built, telling me that his current actions are the way he really is, should be, wants to be. And that way is rude, childish, fedorable. He stands in front of a fountain like the one in Triangle Park, Lexington (onyx stairs), with his brown hair and enormous tortoiseshell glasses, and looks at me. Looks past me. Like he's not interested, or like I'm only something he imagined, once.
I can only try to explain my terror, in that moment, of someone who is being told that their loved one's cancer, or mental health, or broken limbs, are "natural," and the treatment options that are usual for them are hurting them, that they should be free to be their "true" self. That their suffering/pain/distress is actually pleasant, a release. Or like when a child goes missing, and someone suggests to her friends and family that the reason they ran was a reason so far from the realm of known possibilities that it is actually offensive. (This did, in fact, happen to me several weeks ago. Maybe some of that is bleeding through, here.)
Maybe I'm seeing a version of my father that never was - of a person he wasn't able to be, because of his illnesses holding him back. But in the moment, all I can see is my dad, my best friend, who is acting like he hardly knows me, like he doesn't care, and like he has no responsibility to get back in the car, and back towards the time-sensitive treatments that allow him to continue being my best friend.
I go from person to person, trying to get them to help me bring my dad back to me. Every one of them chides me, asking how dare I pretend to know what is best for him, how I can deny him his true self. "Look how happy he is," they say!
All I can see (feel) is how close we are to that timeclock running out on when he last took his insulin, what he looks like when he goes in to shock, what will happen when medicine can't keep him patched up and running. hHow powerless I feel when bad things happen to him and I can't help him. I can't do anything. Nothing I do or want or say can save him. He stands by that fountain and grins.
I wake up, per usual, drenched in cold sweat and tears.
Item: My dad's health is not, and has not been, for a very long time, the best.
Without getting in to the details of his maladies, suffice it to say, the idea of my dad getting even sicker, or worse, dying, has been an source of anxiety-to-the-point-of-trauma for me for a very, very long time.
It's bad enough that I can make myself physically ill with worry during the day, using nothing but controlled, conscious thought. What's worse is how much worse (better?) my subconscious is at drawing out fantastic, excruciating, unbelievable versions of these same anxiety-fantasies.
I have had recurring dreams of my father's death/decline for as long as I can remember dreaming. Not the same dream, but the same storyline. (Do other people dream in movies, like I do?) What's truly impressive is the staggering number of storylines my subconscious has come up with to exploit this fear with me.
The one where I lose him in a crowd at a Flyers game at the Spectrum, and the next thing I know, I see his memorial obit picture on the jumbotron.
The one where, in a stunning recreation of an actual event from his childhood, he wanders down the beach and never comes back.
The one where I sit in the hospital with him for days and days and days and the doctors refuse to tell me why we're there.
It goes on. I've forgotten most of them, thank God. I mostly remember just waking up in cold sweats, consciously toeing that line between knowing it's a dream and just needing it all to STOP, and knowing it's a dream and being so horrified by the nightmare scenario playing out that I want to see it all the way through to the end.
And so, today's. I took a nap after I came home from Kentucky, and got served what may have been my most vivid version of this shitshow to date, and a uniquely nauseating one, to boot.
This wasn't a dream about my dad's death, for a change. The thought and fear of that was a bright and pulsing undercurrent for the dream, to be sure, but not the literal content.
We're driving home in a car that is mine, but is not my Element, though it is suggestive of it. We are driving from a vague but familiar point west - Genaurdi's, perhaps. The doctor's office. We are initially driving past Not-Radnor-High (you know how dreamscape geography is), under the 476 underpass at Lancaster & KoP, when the underpass area becomes more urban (a larger underpass area, more lanes, more concrete, more confusion) and more forest (more leaves on the ground, low-forest shrubs in the same concrete-y area) than before. The area merges to a combination of the underpass intersection of Sproul and Conestoga, but with the trailheads of Enke Park/Radnor Chester Road transposed on the SW side of Sproul.
This locations are important, because they're such a familiar, background part of my daily drives back home. That section of Sproul, particularly, is one of my favourite bits of road to drive on. The scenery and landscape are familiar, homey. So it makes what happens next all the more distressing.
The roads become this morph of roads, and they become difficult to navigate. The car is physically having a difficult time travelling over them. The traffic is getting more condensed - not heavier, just as if the roads are merging - and though I don't see it, it feels as if we're fording a river. I'm becoming claustrophic.
I feel the car pass over what might be a speed bump, as we're passed on the left by a large, white, fast moving vehicle. This is insufficient. It's a vehicle that seems to be part DeathRace 2000 racecar, part boat. The part that is exposed to me, on the driver's side left, is the right side of the vehicle, which is essential the white, oversized ridged bilge of a crappy speedboat, if that speedboat bilge had been stretched with the bow and stern on the horizontal, and the bilge pulled vertically along the gunwales, almost to form a sail (maybe a shield) that obscures the rest of the craft from me as it passes by, though I see enough of it to know that it is attached by a simple joint, like an umbrella, or what is used to hold up deck awnings.
It passes us, and between the reflections (or what, I'm not sure, just that they're glaringly bright) and the water it splashes, I am blinded and run off road.
We are in a patch of the underpass underbelly, stuck in some sort of mud-quicksand-grass-island-median. Dreamscape, all things at once. We're being passed by men and women on foot, in costume. Dad gets out of the car, and wanders in to a storefront, one of many that has appeared, and look like they have come out of a set, or Main Street Disneyland. They look faux, false.
I realize that the men and women in costume are part of one of those doofy themed 5ks, and the Disney set we appear to be on is, in fact, a set that has been built on top of these familiar roads. The bilge vehicle DID offroad us over breakers, and we ARE in the middle of the course. And this course IS partially submerged in water, the racers DO have to ford it (there are large black whitewater rafts, though it is unclear how racers are chosen for them. Teams? Fighting?), and run it, and obstacle course it.
The car is stuck, and there is no way back to where we started. The terrain is unpassable in that direction, and we are beginning to be overcome with course runners. I manage to find a race official to explain the situation, but Dad has wandered in to a storefront, something that appears to be a cross between a tailor's shop and a western saloon. He stands on a slightly elevated square of a pedestal, as you do in a dressing room, while women both measure and coo over him. This added measure of sexuality makes me intensely uncomfortable as a watch them drape themselves over him.
The staffer I talk to is at first perplexed - she doesn't understand that we're not part of the race, that we don't want to be a part of the race, that I just need to get my car off of the "lot" and go home. Eventually, she leads me behind the "scenes" - it is exactly like a false front on a set, or a prop front on a stage, and, from the back of a "barn" front, she throws open the double doors and says that I can drive out that way. Even with my narrow Element, the frame is not quite wide enough for me to fit my car through, I tell her. She gets upset, and re-explains that this is how I should leave. We go through this for a while, til she eventually sighs, exasperated, and pushes a wall to the side, like a pocket door.
I go to retrieve my father, and he doesn't want to go. He doesn't protest, doesn't say he isn't ready - and that's the most frightening part. He is acting like someone wholly unlike the person I know. This is the part I find hardest to describe, because none of the actions he is taking or words he is saying are inappropriate or lewd or unbecoming. There is simply this aura of his behavior, his body language, his words and tone, that is distinctly off and frighteningly wrong. His physical form has shifted. He is not the man who is currently my father, but somehow a dream-ish version of him when I was younger, one that I have cobbled together from pictures, but not actually rooted in memory. Not problem-free, but healthier than he has been in a long time. Brunette, not grey. And I am surrounded by people who cannot see this, who do not understand why these behavior changes, along with the physical retrogression, distress me so much.
I become increasingly desperate to collect my father, to leave this situation, but in between spurts of me not being able to find him, being overcome by runners in (superhero) costumes, by the spray from the obstacles, I can't. And no one will help me.
"You're being a stick in the mud," they tell me. "He's just discovering himself. Maybe this is his true self. Maybe this is how it's meant to be."
But that is not my perception. The actions and interactions I see my father performing are so wrong (on him) that they are shaking me to my core. I am on the edge of hysteria, as the people around me ignore the years of relationship that my father and I have built, telling me that his current actions are the way he really is, should be, wants to be. And that way is rude, childish, fedorable. He stands in front of a fountain like the one in Triangle Park, Lexington (onyx stairs), with his brown hair and enormous tortoiseshell glasses, and looks at me. Looks past me. Like he's not interested, or like I'm only something he imagined, once.
I can only try to explain my terror, in that moment, of someone who is being told that their loved one's cancer, or mental health, or broken limbs, are "natural," and the treatment options that are usual for them are hurting them, that they should be free to be their "true" self. That their suffering/pain/distress is actually pleasant, a release. Or like when a child goes missing, and someone suggests to her friends and family that the reason they ran was a reason so far from the realm of known possibilities that it is actually offensive. (This did, in fact, happen to me several weeks ago. Maybe some of that is bleeding through, here.)
Maybe I'm seeing a version of my father that never was - of a person he wasn't able to be, because of his illnesses holding him back. But in the moment, all I can see is my dad, my best friend, who is acting like he hardly knows me, like he doesn't care, and like he has no responsibility to get back in the car, and back towards the time-sensitive treatments that allow him to continue being my best friend.
I go from person to person, trying to get them to help me bring my dad back to me. Every one of them chides me, asking how dare I pretend to know what is best for him, how I can deny him his true self. "Look how happy he is," they say!
All I can see (feel) is how close we are to that timeclock running out on when he last took his insulin, what he looks like when he goes in to shock, what will happen when medicine can't keep him patched up and running. hHow powerless I feel when bad things happen to him and I can't help him. I can't do anything. Nothing I do or want or say can save him. He stands by that fountain and grins.
I wake up, per usual, drenched in cold sweat and tears.
Wednesday, May 14, 2014
Just Wondering, Do You Want to Help Me Out With My Random Fetish?
Maybe it's spring fever, maybe it's spring what-the-hell-is-snowstorm-about.
Either way, my friends and I have seen a noticible uptick in online dating messages that are blatant unsolicited solicitations for us to indulge the user's sexual fetish of choice. Generally, these inquiries come from users who are located a fair distance (500+ miles) from us, have very low match percentages with us, no or minimal profile information filled out and, obviously, no pictures.
"Oh, I'm not really serious," they respond when we ask them WTF is up with these inappropriate messages. (Inappropriate because they're unsolicited and/or explicitly the opposite of what the receiver has stated they're looking for. Not because the fetish is weird. Fetishes are healthy and normal!) "I'm just gathering information."
Well, budding sexologists, I have done the data gathering for you, and am willing to share my results, for free. No market research barriers to entry here at ReadaGoddamnBook!
You don't have to thank me. You're very welcome.
Either way, my friends and I have seen a noticible uptick in online dating messages that are blatant unsolicited solicitations for us to indulge the user's sexual fetish of choice. Generally, these inquiries come from users who are located a fair distance (500+ miles) from us, have very low match percentages with us, no or minimal profile information filled out and, obviously, no pictures.
"Oh, I'm not really serious," they respond when we ask them WTF is up with these inappropriate messages. (Inappropriate because they're unsolicited and/or explicitly the opposite of what the receiver has stated they're looking for. Not because the fetish is weird. Fetishes are healthy and normal!) "I'm just gathering information."
Well, budding sexologists, I have done the data gathering for you, and am willing to share my results, for free. No market research barriers to entry here at ReadaGoddamnBook!
You don't have to thank me. You're very welcome.
Friday, December 13, 2013
519 Days Since Our Last Public... Oh.
Maybe I just can't believe how often this happens. Maybe on the first anniversary (364 days young!) of the Sandy Hook shooting, this SHOULDN'T be happening.
88 days since the Navy Yard.
53 days since Sparks, Nevada.
Maybe these events shouldn't be happening more frequently than network Sweeps Week.
Maybe I'm a callous dick. Maybe I shouldn't have to write these stupid posts. Maybe I shouldn't be so jaded to all of it that my first reaction is "workplace accident joke."
Maybe this shouldn't be happening anywhere, ever, at all, let alone at a rate that is literally unprecedented anywhere else in the world. Maybe Colorado shouldn't feel like ground zero for this shit.
Maybe we should be able to have a grown up, adult conversations about why these shootings keep happening. Maybe they should be hard and painful and really introspective. Maybe they should look at all possible roots of the causes. Maybe they should look at the cultural zeitgeist. Maybe they shouldn't be reduced to soundbytes and fearmongering. Maybe they should be complicated. Maybe this is why we can't have nice things.
Maybe the solution is hard. Maybe the solution isn't just one thing, it's lots of things. Maybe it's lots of things all at once. Maybe that's really hard. Maybe we're not ready for it.
Maybe we have to be.
88 days since the Navy Yard.
53 days since Sparks, Nevada.
Maybe these events shouldn't be happening more frequently than network Sweeps Week.
Maybe I'm a callous dick. Maybe I shouldn't have to write these stupid posts. Maybe I shouldn't be so jaded to all of it that my first reaction is "workplace accident joke."
Maybe this shouldn't be happening anywhere, ever, at all, let alone at a rate that is literally unprecedented anywhere else in the world. Maybe Colorado shouldn't feel like ground zero for this shit.
Maybe we should be able to have a grown up, adult conversations about why these shootings keep happening. Maybe they should be hard and painful and really introspective. Maybe they should look at all possible roots of the causes. Maybe they should look at the cultural zeitgeist. Maybe they shouldn't be reduced to soundbytes and fearmongering. Maybe they should be complicated. Maybe this is why we can't have nice things.
Maybe the solution is hard. Maybe the solution isn't just one thing, it's lots of things. Maybe it's lots of things all at once. Maybe that's really hard. Maybe we're not ready for it.
Maybe we have to be.
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