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[04 Nov 2009|07:18pm] |
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There is too much. I'm happy, I'm overwhelmed, I'm doing stuff and forgetting stuff. Oh well.
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| if you really loved me |
[16 Sep 2009|01:20pm] |
As an addendum to my earlier post today, I wanted to share this affirmation that my friend Jariatou wrote. It's called Intimacy Love Affair, because the idea is to have intimacy with your own body. She read it to me and I made her read it again so I could write it down for myself. This is something I have posted on an index card where I can read it frequently, because it is such an antidote to the ubiquitous toxic messages about women's bodies. (Not to exclude males, you guys are welcome to share your stuff and join us in a saner world anytime.)
I think this is helpful for anyone who is re-framing their relationship with their body. It shows you what it would really mean to love your body (as opposed, for example, to the damaging words from your mother, or the damage we've learned to inflict on ourselves because we don't value the bodies we have).
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Intimacy Love Affair
I am beautiful from the inside out
I luv ALL of me, not some, ALL
I set healthy boundaries 4 my body
I treat my body with luv & Respect
I nurture my body with kind words,
actions, food & exercise.
I am blessed to have this unique body
I LOVE my body.
-- Jariatou
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| taking food out of my mouth |
[16 Sep 2009|10:57am] |
It is so cruel the way so many mothers tear into their own daughters about how they look. Fat is a feminist issue, and it's one of the ones entrenched society that has women using to bring down each other instead of boosting each other up.
It's a totally unhealthy way of looking at yourself, even when moms say it's to make us more healthy (when they're not telling us that it's to make us prettier). It make daughters feel unacceptable to their own mothers. That power of that particular rejection psychologically fucks a person up. Your creator, who you most resemble in the world, has disdain for you. There is no way to make that situation right, when the one who created you is the one who encourages you to self-annihilation.
It puts us into a place of self-denial and guilt. It eats away the confidence that actually does make us beautiful. It's damaging, no matter what the mother (who is probably as brainwashed as any of us) claims about how pure her concern or realistic her motives are, because she cares for you enough to be destructive to your mind and body.
Some of the most beautiful women I know are bigger sizes. (Actually, when I think of the most physically attractive people that I know personally, they are all bigger sizes.) Although their faces are lovely, and certainly their skin and hair, their bodies with curves are what make them attractive. They fully inhabit their bodies and their beauty and creativity and passion shows in their shape and movement and dress.
(They also happen to be brilliant and hardworking and fascinating and artistic, but I don't want you to think I'm being distracted by inner beauty when I tell you how gorgeous they truly are. If I saw them on the street as strangers, I would still be looking at them as much as I could to take in the physical appearance.)
Pretty looks that are empty of those qualities are just objects, not people. It's like room of mass produced watercolors are our concept of beauty, when there are striking pieces of sculpture walking around outside. Beauty, like real art, should have something to say for itself.
And although I don't plan to have kids, if I did become a mother and have a daughter like that, I hope I would have enough sense to know that I was very lucky, and revel in the existence of such a person and her own beauty, and not seed her with poisonous thoughts about being unworthy until she lost another 10lbs. or whatever obnoxious goals I could think of to set for her.
* * *
This comes up all the time. It keeps coming up. This was here before me and will still be here after me. I don't think this will ever be conquered. I think we will have to struggle against it again and again in our lives. I wrote this entry feeling that this should already be understood, that I am repeating something that has been written and understood but is always in danger of being forgotten. If I don't remind myself, my strength is taken away, and it has been taken away and taken back, on and on, and this will never stop, but I have to keep taking it back. You'll keep seeing it from me.
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[02 Dec 2008|09:09pm] |
For those of you who are lying to your children in the name of seasonal cheer, there's an opportunity for corroborative evidence:
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If you would like your child to receive a letter from Santa with a postmark from the North Pole, write the letter and add postage. Put that letter in a first-class or priority mail envelope with the proper postage and mail it to North Pole Christmas Cancellation, Postmaster, 5400 Mail Trail, Fairbanks, AK 99709-9998. Requests must arrive before Dec. 10.
The post office in Santa Claus, Ind., offers a special hand-drawn Santa Claus postmark. To participate, follow the directions above, but allow a 2-inch-by-4-inch space in the stamp area for the postmark and include a note in the envelope along with the letter from Santa indicating you want the special mark (you'll still get a regular Santa Claus postmark if you don't include a note). Send the letter to Postmaster, Santa Claus Station, Santa Claus, IN 47579-9998. The special mark is available between Dec. 1 and Dec. 24.
Santa Claus Station processes 500,000 pieces of mail between Nov. 15 and Dec. 20.
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[12 Sep 2008|10:49am] |
This is the peach tree in our front yard, with its Dali crutch. There are others scattered on the property.
In March, we got these deliciously fragrant blossoms.
And in April, we got fuzzy baby peaches. They stayed green and tart (the guinea pigs seemed to enjoy them with their woody pits) before they disappeared.
I'm guessing that spring 2007 was too wet, and spring 2008 was too dry for the peaches to ripen properly. A few determined deer sneaked up to pluck the fruit anyway, which was an amusing sight. Deers' mouths are so narrow I thought that they looked as though they were chewing on mini-footballs with their plier-shaped jaws.
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| flora #1 |
[03 May 2008|12:55pm] |
I *thought* it would be neat to take pictures of some of the plants around here and identify them. (You are definitely welcome to share your knowledge with me.)
There are a few patches of the flat, oval cactus.
I've found just this one patch of this long branched cactus.
Spiky white flowers, not as sharp and mean as they look.
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[16 Mar 2008|09:50pm] |
One of the SXSW panels was an organization called "Game for Change," as in video games being "great for more serious content: poverty, the environment, global conflict. Games let people try on new behaviors, and immerse people in these situations that they don't normally have access to."
For example, Darfur is Dying: www.darfurisdying.com
I am taking it hard that I have killed so many of my refugee players dodging the trucks on the way to the well and back to the camp.
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| horror-bright |
[03 Mar 2008|06:31pm] |
Finished Cruddy, "an illustrated novel" by Lynda Barry. (Not a graphic novel, but with a few maps and pictures among the chapters.) I'd read her Marlys strips in the Chronicle, and flipped through her One! Hundred! Demons!. I kind of appreciate that she's got dysfunctional family/kid stuff, because it's more like people's childhoods than the sitcom thing, but it also makes me uncomfortable seeing the characters so cruel to each other all the time. Relentless, just like real life.
I could tell Cruddy was going to be rough. And it was. The New Yorker's review on the back cover used the author's phrase "horror-bright," reminding me of Anthony Burgess's "horrorshow" (was it one word like that?) in Clockwork Orange (for which I never saw the movie, I like Burgess and don't trust Kubrick). I buried myself in it for a couple days, wincing, and it was very good. The way she writes a disturbing story, in the character's voice, without leaving anything out, felt truthful and burning.
I'd like to be able to write like that. She does a workshop called "Writing the Unthinkable" (so appropriately), and did it at my work years ago, but who knows if she'll come back. I poked around Wikipedia for more about her, and read an article mentioning her as being an ex-girlfriend of Ira Glass (who came out sounding like a jerk for that, as a side to sounding like a jerk for the way he played his role in the creation of "This American Life").
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| nature spirits want to help |
[21 Feb 2008|10:38am] |
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Daisy and I were on our way back from our morning walk, and I got to feel the cold air come rolling in. The birds have even gone quiet.
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[26 Dec 2007|08:01pm] |
That was the least depressing C-mas that I can recall.
Finished reading Do They Hear You When You Cry by Fauziya Kassindja, which was a surprisingly good book about her experience seeking asylum in America. Her father built a successful trucking business in Togo and used his status to make his own life, marrying outside his tribe (to the disapproval of his family), keeping only one wife (instead of taking up to four and maybe getting at least another who was of his family tribe), encouraging his daughters to attend school, sparing them the tribal practice of female genital mutilation, and consenting to their suitors after being certain that the suitor was to each daughter's liking.
When he dies, his property passes back into his family, and they kick out Fauziya's mother. Her older sisters are already married and out of the house, but 17 year old Fauziya is pulled out of school (her younger brother is sent back) to be married to a man (more than twice her age, at the lowest status to do the bidding of the other 3 wives, and who requires that she be cut). She tells her aunt she doesn't want to be married, but one morning she wakes up and her aunt has the papers drawn up. She's legally married, and the FGM surgery is to be done the next day. Her oldest sister miraculously rescues her against the wishes of her own husband (it's not their place to get involved, the father's family has the right to do these things) and gets Fauziya on a plane to Germany, but she ends up seeking asylum in America (her previous schooling was in English and she has a few relatives here).
Her perspective as a young devout Muslim girl enduring over a year of INS prison conditions (housed in smoking sections which aggravated her asthma to coughing up blood, degrading strip searches, being housed with actual convicts, including bunking with a convicted murderer when the INS prison riot sends them to other prisons...) makes her struggle to escape a terrible fate almost terrible itself enough to send herself back. She frequently loses hope, as her health suffers with the stress and despair (shared by the other refugee women) of not being understood, believed, or treated as human.
The legal issues and the system were also well-described as one the first members of those who became involved as her legal team explains each step and the actual problems they encountered. Bashir, the co-author, is first drawn to civil rights by her Ba'hai faith, and later the Ba'hai community formally signs on as community support so Fauziya can plea for parole. It was interesting to get a little idea of what the tribal law entails, what being a practicing Muslim in prison would be like, what a refugee seeking asylum must go through as they try to prove their case to the system, and this was a really clear narrative of all of those.
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[03 Dec 2007|10:03am] |
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Yesterday our porch posts were covered in ladybugs, and today there's no sign of them. Were they meeting for mating, or a rendezvous to flee this climate for the season? I read that they were sacred to Freyja, and then the Virgin when Christianity took over, and it was all kinds of good luck to get them in your bedroom, but they only ended up in our kitchen and front room. I just escorted one out, and it took flight promptly.
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[20 Sep 2007|10:47am] |
Sometimes I wish I was smart. I was going to post my tarantula and scorpion pics, but..."Cannot copy file. Cannot read from source file or disk."
Uh-oh. My monkey brain can see them right there on the screen in Photoshop, but is also cringing because there's a voice (of paranoia? or cold reality?) telling me that I deleted something important the last time I went poking around in the less-understood files of my computer.
I wonder if shaking the modem will help. Nothing's ever really lost, right?
Hell.
In other news, since we haven't matched the right filter to our needs yet, I've been lugging a re-fillable water jug full of deliciously potable water from work (also from a well, but with braggingly pure filters) to the pitchers we keep at home. Repeatedly buying uselessly disposable plastic water jugs and bottles had to stop.
As usual, the painful part isn't the doing of the task, but being commented upon. Sometimes I am bitchy and get annoyed when silly co-workers gasp and make offending remarks about my bladder size, but when I'm in a sunnier mood I can make jokes about being an Aquarian.
Actually, I have felt significantly bitchier lately. I'm not unhappy (and when I asked my closest co-workers if they were planning an intervention, they denied it), but I have gotten pretty vocal and cranky. Maybe I'm subconsciously practicing to be old, when everyone gives you guff and you have to fight for your right to party and so on.
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[17 Apr 2007|10:49am] |
Her x-rays were clear. Thank you, world.
She's a little bit famous at the vet. The surgery side hasn't seen her since last summer, but the ones with whom I've been talking and scheduling look at my dog when we show up in person and ask if that's Chile. The vet tech got on the phone and asked the vet if she remembered "Chile, the chow?" I asked if she was memorable because her first surgery covered so many growths, or if it was due to her disposition being especially sweet for a chow. The tech just said that some dogs you remember even if you only see them a few times, and others you see all the time (with a shrug).
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[13 Apr 2007|11:58am] |
Dropped Chile off at the vet for x-rays today. Here's hoping for the best for her, that her cancer (malignant melanoma) hasn't hitched through her lymph nodes, to her lungs or bones, etc. From her outward behavior, there isn't any reason to think that's the case, as she is acting as strong and energetic as ever.
My very best hope of all is that she will qualify for a specific upcoming immunotherapy study, that her cancer hasn't progressed past the point to be a research dog and make some history for this vaccine study.
Think good thoughts for Chile! She's a wonderful creature.
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| another post about my dog |
[05 Apr 2007|01:06am] |
I got Chile on April Fools' Day last year, so this was our first year together. You see how lax I am about anniversary dates, even ones that are easy to remember? She woke me up, and we hung out. We took a walk around the nice Texas State Cemetery, with the good grass that she likes to roll in, and I thought about how much better she's made my life. I didn't really know what I was getting into, or if I could handle it, and I did severely misplace her a few times, but I have to say she turned out to be a well-suited companion for me. I think we get along pretty well and have a reasonably healthy relationship dynamic. I hope she likes being with me, because I sure like being with her...and she's stuck with me.
At the moment, she is snoozing on my bed. With her head on my pillow. Having gotten finished checking for that phantom pizza crust that she still remembers hiding there last week.
But I've got another picture to post that will do just as well.
Yes, it's a dog in a hat, James.
Yes, Amanda, it's that hat.
Yes, Merideth approved this model.
( A rather large picture. )
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| a subject on which i have some thoughts |
[04 Apr 2007|08:37pm] |
Chile and I just got back from the dog park. We left because she was tired enough to lay down for a rest every so often, and because this older guy showed up who got irate about his dog being humped (by another dog, thankfully not Chile). First he chased off the offending dog, yelling at it to get away and for someone to get their "damn" dog. Then when the other owner approached and asked if the humpee was in heat, the older guy angrily told him that she was a puppy. The second owner just backed away at that. I wouldn't have been even brave enough to go talk to him, mad as I'd be at someone for being a jerk to my dog. She didn't look like a big-footed clumsy puppy to me, she may have been young but she looked full-grown big, though she crouched everywhere and had a seemingly permanent tail-tuck. (To be a puppy, and not allowed to hump? Maybe training them not do it with people's legs or furniture, but NONE at all, stretches my belief of what puppies can and can't control. And seems like a big communication tool for creatures without language. How else are you going to let another dog know they've been 'pwned,' or brag about being king of the dirt pile, or trash talk the tail you're chasing into chasing YOU?)
I kind of wanted The Dog Police to step in and give that man some mandatory anger counseling. People do get a little weird about dogs humping in the park, but generally it's just social embarrassment, with a quick question about if the dogs are fixed. Okay, for me, it's whether I am *sure* my dog is fixed, and then when I mentioned that Chile is spayed, whether I'm *sure* she's female. Since I know she's not impregnating or getting impregnated, I figure this is normal, nothing-to-worry-about behavior. If she's doing that, she's playing, and if another dog is doing that, she either doesn't mind or she'll tell them off. (And I haven't had a problem yet with the other dog not taking off when she said so, though a lot of other owners have stepped in and dragged off their dog [or pushed Chile off, as the case might be] because, I imagine, their social tension was unbearable.)
Dogs might be crude, but the park seems less cruel than a children's playground. Sometimes I think that being in a large social group (even an unstructured one, despite what they say about the importance of social structure) helps dogs to maintain their peacefulness. I haven't seen dogs singling one dog out to harrass, or shutting another anyone out of their reindeer games. If a dog wants to wrestle, or chase, or help dig a really big hole and roll in it, they just jump in. I see Chile stepping up to her potential play partners, wading in and out when she feels like it, which is really cool as chows are not usually very social dogs and she isn't always a particularly social beast, either. I wish I could float through social groups with that much ease.
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| poodle with 2 overgrown eyebrows, 1 shaggy goatee, and nothin else |
[23 Mar 2007|07:47pm] |
Chile has her lion cut, a homemade job by me.
*has trigger finger ready to post more pictures of my dog to the world of LJ*
And the long-haired guinea pigs have their trains of curls trimmed, by me, to keep from dragging around what falls behind (and should be left behind, ahem).
And yesterday I went on and trimmed my own hair (as I have for forever), moving the base of the bowl cut up to the top of my head (up from the middle back of my head) and leaving the sides down.
When I took Chile to the dog park, I had a conversation with a fellow dog-person (typically didn't get her name, we dogfolk don't exchange those, we just exchange the names of our doggies! Lucy's mom? I don't consider myself to be much of a mother to Chile, but that seems to be a respected identification and it IS easy to use).
And she mentioned "You and your dog have the same haircut, don't you?"
I don't really have a decent spot for a tail puff, but I suppose I do have a bit of a ruff from having my hair pushed up to the front and top of my head with the rest shaved smooth fuzz.
*also, we both snap at those who would sniff our tails when we're BUSY doing something else. GIT!
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[20 Mar 2007|12:34pm] |
So having properly finished up my SXSW volunteering experience this year, and another free day before I'm scheduled back at work, I went sifting through my life's mess to see what I'm behind on now.
Missed reporting for jury duty yesterday, apparently, so I did the online version (a day late, still) which contained such rude questions as religious preference, sex, and race. Also, where did I grow up, what are my special skills, and my hobbies. I want to screw up my mouth and throw rocks when these topics come up. I will need to put on some composure if I actually am going to be asked these questions seriously in public for this thing.
I remembered to put in CMA Beltane and Flipside for my "schedule conflicts," hoping I haven't forgotten anything else.
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[13 Mar 2007|07:10pm] |
Too much rain.
I think I drowned a little walking home. My throat and ears are weirdly sore. My sneakers are still soaking wet, though I took them off when I changed into dry clothes hours ago.
And my dog is not pleased. She really needs a proper long walk, and is restlessly waiting for the weather to clear up enough to go out.
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reiving's journal