Dru Blood - I believe in the inherent goodness of all beings: March 2006 Archives

DruBlood

Home
Dramatis Personae
Archives
Contact

Feed the Bleed

Full Bleed Fundraiser

Amazon wish list
Cole’s birthday - 10/24
Monk’s birthday - 12/2
Dru’s birthday - 1/5

Search

Syndicate this site (XML)

Special thanks

adam host
julie template queen
kd general lusciousness
pea guru

Powered byMovable Type 1.5

« February 2006 | Main | April 2006 »

Yes. It's so true.

March 31, 2006

[00:27] lgbdozer: I've suddenly realized that I'm an extrovert.
[00:27] trac: hehe - i knew that when i first met you
[00:27] lgbdozer: I wonder how many other things I have totally pegged wrong abuot myself.
[00:27] trac: was this a recent change in your personality - or has it always been there?
[00:27] lgbdozer: I don't know.
[00:28] trac: i'm becoming more extroverted, too
[00:28] lgbdozer: I think maybe I just like to call myself an introvert, so I don't offend the people I don't feel like talking to.
[00:28] lgbdozer: hahahhaahahhaha
[00:28] lgbdozer: And there are a LOT of those.
[00:28] trac: this month particularly because i'm having to sustain a strong outgoing focus with all of these interviews and calls and whatnot
[00:28] trac: hehe!
[00:29] trac: yes, it's easy to blame introversion instead of *aversion*
[00:29] lgbdozer: ha!
[00:29] lgbdozer: good one!
[00:29] lgbdozer: I'm totally going to blog that!
[00:29] trac: ...and then tell me about something funny someone said the next time i see you...
[00:29] trac: ... and you'll say, "oh wait, that was you!"
[00:29] trac: :-)
[00:29] lgbdozer: fuck you!
[00:29] lgbdozer: You are SO MEAN!
[00:29] lgbdozer: hahahahahahaha
[00:29] lgbdozer: ;)
[00:29] trac: you know i'm kidding!
[00:30] lgbdozer: I totally know!
[00:30] lgbdozer: but it's also TRUE.
[00:30] trac: ha!
[00:30] lgbdozer: It's actually HILARIOUSLY true.

Posted at 12:32 AM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Like A Cricket Swallowed by a Whale

March 31, 2006

I'm thinking "Sweet. Sweet. Sweet." as I'm on my walk today. It couldn't be a nicer evening for a walk. And I totally had a hot makeout session with the wind, as it nibbled my ear playfully, ran its soft edges along the line of my jaw, and tickled my lips, tongue on teeth.

And I realized, the void doesn't smile crookedly - it smiles nervously. As I cock my head and stare into it, I recognize that it fears its own finiteness, just like everyone else. Like all of these people who claim that living in the now can be achieved by erasing the past and totally flipping off the future. Like that. Only worse. The frequency is missed. To some, it buzzes - to others, it chirps.

We were talking last night about those empty spaces, and what we fill them with. I know now, walking outside full to bursting. The wind. The dog. The crookedchirpingcricket void. The everything that I am to be and ever was. I can't help but be utterly in love with the wind, and all that it encompasses, implies, or informs.

Posted at 12:02 AM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Disco Nap

March 30, 2006

I can't believe I am about to take a disco nap before I run out to play cards with a total stranger. But the kids just left, and I had to wake up at like 5 AM after staying up until 2 AM, so a disco nap is definitely in order.

And suddenly I have about a zillion people who want to move into my house. What's with that? Keep your fingers crossed that this weekend is the weekend I find someone. Damnit!

And, can I just ask something? What is fucking WRONG with people lately? Specifically, my ex. Dude, it has been over THREE YEARS since I have had any reasonable possibility to do anything that you might perceive as having been wrong to you. It's OK to start talking to me now. At least to say "hello" and "goodbye" when you pick up the kids. You are really not convincing me that I am A Bad Person by rolling your eyes at me whenever I extend what should be common courtesy by greeting you politely at the door.

I mean, seriously. I don't get some people. I truly, truly do not.

Posted at 6:13 PM • Comments (1) • TrackBack

The origins of things

March 30, 2006

I suddenly find myself nursing the most healthy addiction of all.

Hello, my name is Lainie, and I am addicted to interaction.

Last night, yet again, I walked into my living room, set to give the dog her long-overdue walk. And there was Rachel. Rachel, the wonderful distraction. Rachel, with whom I have spent the past month engaged in some of the most wonderful, revealing, heart-wrending, open, honest discussions. I feel replenished. And I'm sad that she is leaving in a few short days.

So, we talked. Fuck the walk. The dog lay on the couch and sighed and sighed. I felt bad, but, like I said, I'm addicted to interaction.

Also, I have initiated a couple of nice little email exchanges that are very gratifying to me. Email is another vice of mine - only sometimes I feel like I am foisting my emails on people because, well, I *do* go on and on, if encouraged...and sometimes even if not encouraged. I seem to have made at least one friend who loves to send and receive emails, and I am enjoying it a great deal. Silly, sweet, stupid, charming little exchanges several times a day. Yes. Oh yes. It's like a writer's wet dream! Here, you can have this! I wasn't using it anyway! And you are giving me something in return? How nice!

So, anyway, the origins of things. Last night, the conversation with Rachel twisted and turned and convoluted itself right back to the origins of this...thing...I have where I am constantly drawing a certain personality type into my life. Yes. I am familiar - Quite familiar - with my relationship patterns and where they originate. I am also pleased to note that I am recognizing myself in those patterns as I fall into the groove. Soon enough to stay detached from the outcome, and yet, somehow I've managed to not become jaded by my own idiocy.

It's nice. I feel whole. And I feel like I have something genuine to offer to a conversation, rather than glib speculation or advice I read in a book. I also feel fully present, and fully accepting of what is being offered to me in the moment. Knowing how my interactions with my family have effected me in the present, I also feel like I can participate in at least recognizing and acknowledging how those same patterns play out with my children.

Yesterday, I heard Monk talking to Coley in a harsh tone. I walked out, and they were both in tears. Coley had stepped on Monk's hand, and Monk was lecturing Coley about how he NEVER is careful. There was anger and hurt in their tone with each other. Practicing my newfound art of emotion coach, I told Monk that I was sorry that he was hurt, but that I wanted to see him talking to Coley about his feelings in the present, rather than using the words never or always with regard to Coley's behavior (of course, Monk...with a sly smile...tried to say "not ever" instead, but he quickly got that it was the same thing.) And then I asked him "I know you were hurt by Coley, but does it make you feel better to make Coley feel hurt, also?" I was pleased that his answer was no. But he had already carried his lecture to the point where Coley was feeling a bit enraged, so there was a moment where Coley had to compose himself. "Mom," said Monk..".I KNOW that look on his face! He's GOING to hit me!" Monk locked himself in the bathroom while Coley released some anger by yelling, not hitting. And I held Coley for awhile and it only took a moment - long enough for me to say "I know you will feel bad about yourself it you hit someone." and the rage turned to regret and sadness, and Coley was ready to make amends with Monk.

I don't know if I'm conveying it clearly here, because I'm running late for my thingy today, but it was actually a really monumental moment. The boys were both very clear about their feelings, and they both responded so well to being reasoned with, empathized with, and yet still held to a standard of expression that is acceptable. I was so proud of them, and of me.

So, all of this examining. All of this talking, and hashing out. All of my fucking up and trying again and fucking up again and trying again again...it's all got a point. The origins might be disordered and painful, but where it's leading is ordered, free, and totally healthy.

"While looking for the light, you may suddenly be devoured by darkness and find the True Light." - Jack Kerouac

Posted at 6:00 AM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Fictionalizing my life

March 30, 2006

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about my friend Michael. I woke up just now, wondering how long it has been since I last wrote something about him, and I found this, which I wrote in July of 2003 when I was trying to write the novel which, for various reasons, might never come to be:

Fictionalizing my life

I've been listening to 80's music on the bus and not reading in order to put more thought into the novel, and the fictionalization of my life. I had some thoughts today that I wanted to put down.

First of all, as someone who has always been fairly adament about sticking to true stories, I find myself getting caught up on facts. I keep forgetting that I'm writing fiction here, and if I don't remember the exact timeline of events that laid themselves out for me, that's REALLY ok. The point is that I tell the story, and the story is already inside me. It is who I am. It has formed me more than I am forming it. I just need to put it to words. So I find myself having to remind myself that I don't need to remember if "curtis" actually said that certain thing at that particular time, or if "melvin's" locker was two to the right of or two to the left of "curtis's" it's really ok. I'm finding that I'm pretty anal about remembering things, and this is NOT helping. I'm assuming that as I let loose, the story will flow more naturally and I will forget all about this historical accuracy crap.

Also, writing drafts is new for me. Normally, I write whatever comes out and that's it. If I want to change something, I discard it and write it all over. I can't do this with an entire novel, so what I'm doing here is writing the framework and going back to add the details. Anyone who is reading this process is encouraged to comment on what they would like to have described in better detail, that would help me a lot...and hopefully it will make it more enjoyable for you.

Curtis, who will probably be the main character of the story (aside from myself) is actually a fictionalized conglomeration of at least three different boys/men I have known in my life. Two are living (and lost to me, although I would welcome them back into my life eagerly if I should find them) and one, the main force behind Curtis (which is both a reference to Ian Curtis from Joy Division and a waiter named Curtis who was important to us) is/was Michael Dosselman, who (some of you who read closely will know) shot himself in the head at the age of 19, shattering my rapidly diminishing innocence and thrusting me into the world of "adult" concerns. The novel is dedicated to Michael, because I love(d) him so much and never got a chance to say goodbye or hug him one last time. He will be forever missed, and I still cry about him frequently.

OK, but here's some interesting psychological stuff that came up in me today. For the longest time, I have puzzled over why these men have always been so important to me. And I think I have it figured out to some degree. Now that I have come to terms with my history of abuse, I realize that they all healed me. Unknowingly. They were 3 (or 4) men who loved me without expecting anything whatsoever in return from me. Particularly not sex. All of them shared my most intimate secrets and (some of them) even my bed with me WITHOUT EVEN ASKING FOR SEX. At the time, I just thought this was a given. I was very uncomfortable with the idea of sex, and was convinced that I would never "do that." Now I know why, but then I just thought it was yucky and complicated.

What these men/boys did was show me that I was completely and utterly lovable. That I was a whole and complete human being, regardless of the fact that they were not physically/sexually involved with me. I was so confused by their love for me (as will be made more clear as the story progresses) because all I knew of love was people enforcing power over me. I assumed that anyone who loved me would have this ulterior motive, and I was suspicious of someone declaring love for me without stating what else they wanted. Matt was the first to do this...then Michael, who was like the unabusive brother I never had...then Dave.

And D was also, to some extent, important in that regard. I suppose D was my first-ever boyfriend, although neither of us would ever admit that. The love story between D and me is amazing and beautiful and insane all at the same time. We lived together for 2 long years, slept in the same bed for one of them, and I don't even remember if we ever kissed. I think at that time, I was trying to assert control. It would be incredibly egotistical of me to say that D was driven insane by lust for me and that's what caused us to inevitably drive each other crazy and "break up" - but I'm wondering if I can admit that I was insane with lust for him, and at that point I was still too afraid of losing control to allow that kind of relationship to happen.

I know control was very important to me. It was the reason I never drank and never did drugs throughout my youth. It was probably why I never allowed myself to have sex, although I Bill Clintoned a bit on that topic, it was easy for me to deny that I was being sexual. It's obvious to me now that I had good reason to be scared. I had been molested.

I don't know what my life would have been like had it not been for "curtis." I know I still had a lot of work to do even up to and for years after Monk was born. Perhaps I still have more work to do...perhaps it's lifelong. But knowing that it was possible for me to be fully loved and respected and adored by men (not to mention hot-blooded teenage boys) without having to "put out" was most likely pivotal in my life. Had it not been for them, who knows how I would have found a way to regain balance and self-esteem in a life of chaos and invalidation.

So, thanks to those men/boys. May they live on forever in my heart and in my words.

***
I really needed to read that tonight. Thanks, me! For writing it!

Posted at 2:17 AM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Floodnado!

March 28, 2006

This morning, while watching the storm with Coley, there were nervous inquiries about tornadoes. I gave my standard parenting answer of "Usually tornadoes don't form while it's raining this hard." To which Coley responded...agape..."But what about a FLOODNADO?"

I have the coolest children. Ever.

Posted at 9:20 AM • Comments (3) • TrackBack

Specific Desires

March 28, 2006

I just posted my ad on Craig's list, like, an hour ago.

Then I went into the other room and danced. And danced. And danced. For, like, an hour.

Then I came back in here, and I already have two responses.

My specific desire?

I want to play cards. Specifically, Spite and Malice.

I need to think of other things that I specifically desire that I'm not getting out of life right now. I'm thinking if I post an ad a week on Craig's list, I will have all of my bases covered.

Posted at 12:42 AM • Comments (3) • TrackBack

The almighty church of chili

March 27, 2006

It's been a long time, ladies and gentlemen, since I last brewed up a big old fucking pot of chili. Too long. Way. Too. Fucking. Long.

So, today when it started looking all rainy and gloomy, I decided - YES! Chili!

Below the fold is my super top secret recipe for vegetarian chili, including an "I love the internet" preservative-free chili powder recipe.

Dru Blood's super top secret Chili Recipe
(this blog post will self-destruct in five seconds)

A couple few tablespoons of oil
2 onions
3-5 cloves of garlic
1-2 jalapeno peppers (optional)
2 large carrots
3-4 celery stalks
2-3 green bell peppers
Chili Powder (I love the internet!)
3-5 15-oz cans of beans (an assortment of your favorites. I use kidney beans and pinto beans) or the equivalent in rehydrated dried beans
2 28-oz cans whole, peeled tomatoes (I'm sure you can use the equivalent in fresh tomatoes...but gah! What a pain in the ass!)
2 28-oz cans diced tomatoes (see above)
about a cup or so of Textured Vegetable Protein
1 15-oz can of corn
1/4 cup (approx) of pure maple sugar (although brown sugar, turbinado, or sucanat might work, also)

***
Instructions

Turn on Castaways and Cutouts by the Decemberists, because chili is made for Grey, Rainy Days...and so are the Decemberists. Alternately, you can listen to anything by Joy Division.
Heat up the oil in a cast-iron skillet
Dice up yr onion, and throw it in the pan
mince up some of the garlic, and throw it in the pan
mince up the jalapeno, and throw IT in the pan
dice up the carrot...also, throw it in the pan.
You know what to do with the celery and green pepper. Do I really have to tell you? Dice 'em up...toss 'em in.
Yum! smell the aroma!
mix up your chili powder, pausing every once in awhile to stir around the delicious delciousness in the skillet.
toss a bunch of that chili powder onto your veggies. Probably about 2 tablespoonsful or more
Let it all get shmoogled together, and keep it cooking until everything is nice and soft
meanwhile, pour the undrained tomatoes into a large large pot
drain the beans, and put them in the pot, too
Throw the veggie mixture into the pot and stir stir stir.
Let it heat up a bit, and when it's nice and warm, throw in the TVP and instantly add a ton more chili powder (to taste. The tasting spoon is your friend!)
Get preoccupied dancing around the kitchen, and suddenly remember: The corn! The corn! Throw that in!
Let it simmer a bit, then add your maple syrup. The maple syrup helps bring down the acidity of the tomatoes and makes the whole thing a little smoky and mellow tasting.
Keep it simmering for as long as you can stand to without eating any. Remember your handy "tasting" spoon. Adjust the seasonings as necessary. Add some salt, too!
My kids love this stuff with macaroni...and topped with cheese. I imagine sour cream would be good on top, too...and perhaps some cilantro or something. Or even garnished with red pepper, if you want to get totally fancy with it!
Eat it up! Yum!

Guaranteed to chase your blues away, and that's the gospel truth!

Posted at 6:50 PM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

How Homeschooling Works

March 27, 2006

I had the distinct pleasure last night of waiting in line for TWO FREAKING HOURS with two school teachers. They were both interested in how homeschooling works, as were the women I assembled for my cooperative.

It's been awhile since I've had to think about homeschooling. Right now, I'm regrouping a bit with Monk. I'm debating the whole idea of memorization - especially as it pertains to multiplication tables. Monk multiplies by adding, and he's pretty fast, but it's causing some trouble now that we are working on division. I feel like I need to put the brakes on math a bit until I can figure out a good way to really present division so that it makes sense to him. I feel like he's just getting by, and I want him to understand the concept fully. So, we're focusing on other things. Like Philosophy (we're reading The Tao of Pooh, after which I plan to read The House at Pooh Corner) and science and, as always, reading reading reading.

Today was a perfect homeschooling day. The kids played "their own version" of some board games we have, and then we went to the grocery store where, not only did they get some practice weighing items and comparing weights and units of measure, but they also initiated a ton of interesting conversations. It was raining, so Monk thought to ask about friction, especially as it pertains to cars. He pointed out that in the Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy there were frictionless cars, and we talked a little bit about what would happen if there was no friction in the world. Coley asked who invented the car. These are all such great questions, and when I came home, I found a number of websites geared towards answering them. I'm hoping we can get a chance to do some of the experiments on the sites that I found, in addition to reading about this stuff while I have their interest. It changes so quickly to other things.

I also discovered that Monk knows that things/people from Holland are Dutch ("because of the Pirate game, mom...see, computer games ARE educational") and that Buffalo Wings come from Buffalo. It's just funny that they pick these little things up. They seem like really small details, but they are significant to me. I guess it's just proof that I don't have to be the educator of all things. That they pick these things up in various places, without me telling them what is and is not important.

Posted at 12:25 PM • Comments (4) • TrackBack

A total "Duh" parenting revelation

March 27, 2006

I tried something new in my interaction with Coley this morning. For one thing, I'm trying to set aside several little periods during the day where I have one-on-one time with each kid. This might sound stupid, but if I don't make a concerted effort to do this, I feel like I am constantly pushing them away during "me" time (or, since I do a significant amount of work from home "work" time) and then by the time I have time for them, we're all too frustrated with each other to do anything meaningful. So, what I'm trying to do now is alternate between my tasks and work, and time to play with the kiddos. It's working out really well.

Additionally, though, I have found that it helps to set reasonable limits on WHAT we do during playtime. Coley is always wanting me to engage in these imagination games with him...or "his version" of a board game. These things drive me insane when I am in work/task mode. I just can't let go of the scrolling to-do list in my brain. So, today...since we are so pressed for time, and I will probably never find the time to escape the task-based mindset, I told Coley that I just wasn't going to be able to play "his version" of a game. That I wanted to spend time with him, but it was going to have to be time playing a game that had set and simple rules. He was OK with this! We played Uncle Wiggily. He had his time with mama, I had time with Coley, and I wasn't having to squish my brain into a box that it couldn't deal with in the moment, so I was able to stay fully focused on the activity.

Posted at 10:49 AM • Comments (1) • TrackBack

Ana Sisnet

March 27, 2006

The first time I met Ana Sisnet, she was holding court at the CTCnet conference here in Austin several years ago. A few people I work with introduced me to her, and I just thought she was way too cool for me. Imagine my surprise when, a year later, I volunteered to assist her in a blogging class and discovered that she knew about my blog, and considered herself a fan. I was so...honored.

Ana is one of the most talented, wise, kind and open-hearted people I have ever had the pleasure to meet. Versatile, too. Her artwork is phenomenal, her poetry is stunning, and she herself is absolutely amazing. I wish her and her family the best in her recovery.

Posted at 8:27 AM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Criteria I never considered prior to being a single parent

March 27, 2006

I just realized that my ears perk up at the prospect of dating a school teacher, because...well...criminal background checks.

Posted at 12:32 AM • Comments (1) • TrackBack

I win, so you lose.

March 26, 2006

Well, the 30th Anniversary gig was a bust. We waited in line for 2 hours for food, and by the time we got to the front of the line, all they had left was salad. I hated to complain at a birthday party, but...d00d. It was the least single-parent friendly event I have been to in a long, long time. My kids were AMAZINGLY patient in line, and I guess I deserve some credit for not overreacting on the occasions when they were less than patient. And there was also this really nice man who helped entertain the kiddos for me by telling silly jokes and stuff. And we talked for the entire two hours we were in line. So, hmmm...maybe the line wasn't such a bad thing after all.

As an aside, somewhere along the line, I have become approachable somehow. Perhaps it's just because I normally go to events with a book and something else to occupy me - and so few people view me as approachable. But tonight I had random strangers talking to me all over the place. To some extent, I feel like I have opened myself up a bit over the past few weeks. I feel like I really allowed for more interaction at, er, the interactive festival, and it has really built on itself. But it's nice to stand in line alone and suddenly find myself engaged in a productive, friendly conversation with several strangers. I need to remember to leave my book behind more often! I made a couple of new friends who might actually end up going to the UU church - so I'm hoping I run into them again.

So, anyway, it was all redeemed in the end as coley totally devoured his plate of salad. Monk had already turned his nose up in disgust over the paltry selection and was playing on the playground. Coley, between voracious chomps, turned to me and said "Mama! Thank you so much for ALL of this FOOD! This is HEAVEN to me!" I melted. My little guy and his love for broccoli is just...so...delightful.

Plus, I got to talk with M for awhile while the kids played. M's son, P, is Coley's age, and they are getting ready to figure out how to do the homeschool thing. I forget that I'm the veteran homeschooler to certain friends of mine...but the thing is that I'm totally starting from scratch with Coley. He's a completely different kid from Monk. I'm really looking forward to working with M. I feel like we can form a nice, supportive cooperative together. She wants to teach drama. I could never do that on my own...so it's exciting to have someone else to pick up where I am weak. Plus, I've really come to enjoy my friendship with M over the years. There have been times when I have found it difficult to understand where she is coming from, but she is very wise and funny and kind...and I always have the most incredible, arm-waving, enthusiastic, idea-laden conversations with her. So, having an excuse to hang out with her more is definitely a good thing.

All in all, it was a pretty good weekend. Rachel was gone yesterday and today, and I don't know if it's because there were fewer people in the house, or what, but I reached a point today where I felt like I really could just sit and relax and have fun with the kiddos without worrying about cleaning or "getting things done." Monk and I played several bouts of Mario Kart (by the way, when I'm done with this entry, I'm going to go practice that shit so I can beat monk once and for all!)...Coley and I snuggled and read some _Runny Babbit_...and we all just kind of had a nice, mellow time.

I think I have failed to find a housemate, though. The kids aren't going for the woman with two dogs (one of which is a St. Bernard! A SAINT BERNARD! I freaking LOVE st. bernards!) and the guy I interviewed on Thursday appears to have found another place. So, it's back to square one. I'm starting to really enjoy the runaround...and it's not going to absolutely kill me to have to wait another couple of weeks or even month to find someone. At the beginning of the weekend, I had settled on the vegetarian chef...and she wasn't going to be able to move in until mid-may...but she found another place. Blah! Whatever! The perfect housemate will present him or herself. I just know it!

You know...there was lots of falling apart this week - and over the past month or so. I feel like I've had to work through a ton of shit as a result of several challenges I have faced. What's funny is how things come together in such a different way that is still so promising and wonderful. And that, even through the painful experiences - perhaps especially so - there is growth. Like green shoots up from scorched earth. Like friendships originating in long lines leading to puny portions of food.

Posted at 10:12 PM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Two by four

March 26, 2006

Two great things happened today. First, I had an awesome conversation with my mom in which, for the first time in several months, I didn't feel like she was trying to get rid of me. Second, I wrote an epic-length emai to my friend in conflict that I feel explained myself and my intentions as well as could possibly be explained, and I sent it out, and I exhaled for the first time in a long time with regard to that particular relationship. Whatever happens will happen. I have done my best to explain my intentions, and at this point the interpretation is up to the other person. My self-worth is not dependent on acceptance or rejection. And, when it comes right down to it, hope is not a horrible thing...as long as I'm not clinging to it to keep from falling over a ledge...and I am not.

Two great things happened this week. First, I had a really kick-ass conversation with a good friend, and was able to really verbalize some things about how I interact with people...and some root causes for the problems I experience in my interactions...that I don't think I've ever really uncovered or admitted to before. And I was pleased to receive the same from her. Also, I coordinated and gathered together a group of mamas and children to form a childcare cooperative that I think is going to be incredibly mutually beneficial to everyone. I just "winged it" ("wung it?") by posting an announcement on Craig's list, and ended up with people who really seem to have similar interests, goals, and ideals...not to mention schedules that complement each other marvelously. So, yay!

Two parenting successes have occurred this week. For one thing, I've really been able to put the emotional coach ideas I'm reading about in _Kids, Parents, and Power Struggles_ into practice. I've remained calm in moments when the children are acting emotional, and I have been able to guide their behavior gently and empathically. Also, I have made a concerted effort to create situations in which I can be fully present with the boys, and I have done a good job of it!

Two things are upcoming and I am looking forward to them. Tonight, there is Wheatsville's 30th Anniversary dinner at the UU church...and next Sunday is another lovely Roller Girls bout. Yay!

Posted at 1:45 PM • Comments (1) • TrackBack

Drawing to a close.

March 25, 2006

Had a nice, mellow day with the kiddos yesterday. We basically hung out all day, listening to music, cleaning the house, dancing around like fools, snuggling, and playing occasional bouts of Mario Cart. At the end of the day, I popped in a movie and had a nice chat with a potential housemate over tea and pizza.

It occurs to me that a lot of things in my life are drawing to a close this month. Rachel leaves at the end of the month, and a housemate will be moving in. I'm not sure which candidate yet, but I have an idea...and the person I think I will be choosing will bring a number of changes, as well. Subtle changes, but changes I need to be prepared for.

In fact, a lot of the ground beneath me is shifting. It's unsettling, but there's still an element of optimism and "what happens next" that I love, once I move through the nausea of not knowing.

I sent an email to a friend last night that I absolutely hated to have to send. I've been waiting around, hoping this issue would resolve itself. Actually, hoping that the other person would work with me to resolve it. But the few times I have attempted to reach out in an attempt to work things out, I feel like I've been mistreated. In this email, I offered one more chance at working things out, but I have a feeling the offer will be ignored...or, worse, responded to with the same total lack of regard and understanding (replaced by pseudo-politeness and distance) that this person has adopted in his dealings with me.

One thing I know about myself that makes me sad is that I will allow myself to be mistreated. It's not a good thing. I find all sorts of ways to justify someone else's behavior towards me, meanwhile cutting all sorts of slack that is not reciprocated. And, the thing is, I had an idea I would get to this point with this friend. For various reasons that aren't really mine to explicate here, I was aware that this would be the potential outcome of our relationship, even down to the timing. I'm happy that I didn't allow my internal predictions of doom to effect what I gave to and received from this person. I believe that I have given exactly enough of an opportunity for this to be mended, and if this final offer is not accepted and acted upon, I truly can be done without feeling any regrets. Perhaps that is the upside of being a terminal slack cutter. Once I reach the end of my rope, and no slack is offered in return, there is no fucking question about letting go.

So, we will see. I'm feeling really brokenhearted, but it's not unbearable. It's the grieving that hope would not allow, and as I lose hope, more grief is allowed in, little by little, until I can say "I have grieved" and move forward. I now have room and time in my life for another good friend, and once I am done grieving, I can look forward to welcoming this presence into my life with the same unabated joy I felt over the departing friend. It's funny, I was talking to a friend of mine the other day who has a much more reserved attitude about love. I was totally unable to understand the concept of "deciding" whether or not to love someone. I truly do fall utterly and completely in love with everyone I meet. It's a wonderful wonderful thing, but it's also incredibly painful. I don't know that I would change it, but perhaps I need to learn to temper it a bit.

In the meantime, there are sick kiddos to care for, much love surrounding me, and lots of work to be done, as always. There is always that work that must be done. But it's the most fun work. The kind where I get messy and emotional and honest and lay myself out for myself to tend to...taking the lessons I have learned to apply them elsewhere. Always.

By Design
Rites of Spring

Time heals all wounds they say
But the self inflicted won't just fade away
And in these shifting tides of blame
why are you suprised to see your name? It's such a drag
Time got the best of you
Things you gave you say were taken
Explanation piled over excuse

And so the story goes
But by your own design
And if you look to me to find you
Then my eyes will pass right though

Believe me I had wished
We could have avoided this
Please dont ask me to explain
All the things that caused your pain
I only want you to realize
Passivity equals compliance
Let it slip right through your hands
Become the victims of other's demands

And so the story goes
But by your own design
And if you look to me to find you
Then my eyes will pass right though
Pass right through

Posted at 9:31 AM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Zany Musician Friends.

March 24, 2006

In order to inspire myself to do some major housecleaning today, I made a mix CD of random, upbeat tunes for myself. It just so happened that two of these tunes were created by two different musician friends of mine that I introduced to each other awhile back in hopes of them possibly working together. The songs came on one right after the other, and I laughed out loud because I realized, even though the two musician friends got along pretty well, both of them had confided in me "Don't tell [other musician friend] this, but I really don't like his music all that much."

Thankfully, since I am not an uber-competitive music dude, I can stand on the periphery and enjoy it all!

HA!

Posted at 5:05 PM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Friday Random Ten - Version This is the Week I Find my Housemate.

March 24, 2006

You know the drill. Fire up the music player of your choice, put it on shuffle (as if there's any OTHER way to listen to music!) and list the first ten you hear. Pray that nothing dorky comes up.

The Pogues - Hell's Ditch
Electric Light Orchestra - Telephone Line
Cypress Hill - Insane in the Membrane
The Pogues - The Band Played Waltzing Matilda
Stiff Little Fingers - Roaring Boys
The Velvet Underground - I'll Be Your Mirror
Wutang Clan - Uzi
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - There is a Town
The Velvet Underground - Guess I'm Falling In Love
Phil Rosenthal - Goodnight, Irene

Bonus Tracks:

Sugarcubes - Motorcrash
Portishead - Undenied
Gilberto Gil & Jorge Ben - Filhos de Gandhi
Buzzcocks - Why can't I touch it?

Posted at 11:15 AM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Friday Blogroll roundup

March 24, 2006

Here are some of this week's standout posts from around the blogosphere:

Michelle continues her hilarious coverage of The L Word:

This show has gotten so bad even my dearest darling B is frustrated. B, my love, who adored Queer as Folk for all five seasons. If she turns against a gay show you know we're scraping the bottom of the barrel content wise. If you're asking yourself why I'm so hard on The L Word I'll just say "visions of a dead woman in a waterfall." And if you ask my why I bother watching it if it's so bad then I'll just say shut the hell up because I don't have a good answer. It's like a train wreck I can't look away from. Onward.

Hey...what's wrong with Queer As Folk?

***

I like "I'm not married" better, too. It's no one's business if I'm divorced.

Also, I like the bear.

***

Redneck mother swears off of swearing off of swearing.

***

Belledame likes pussy! Pass it on! And I can't remember if I linked to this awesome post last week, but even if I did, and even if you read it...it bears repeating, and rereading.

Hahah! get it? bears.

Er...I think I need more coffee.

***

Anna hips me to Pomegranate Tea. POMEGRANATE! TEA! I'm all over that shit!

***

Dawn has switched to Drupal.

***

That's it for now...I have to go play war with Coley.

Posted at 9:56 AM • Comments (1) • TrackBack

Happy Blog-o-versary to the Badge

March 24, 2006

Badgerings: 27.1.3.22

All doubts and inadequacies aside, over the past year, blogging has made me part of a community that I cherish. While both dissertating and grieving are incredibly isolating experiences, the blog has helped me feel less alone in both endeavors. The support that the readers of Badgerings have given me has helped keep me afloat â€“ emotionally and intellectually and financially.

I love your spirit, your honesty, your humor, and your humanity. Thank YOU for your courage, and for sharing your experiences.

Posted at 9:31 AM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

I think I'll even have 6 year old Elsa make some calls today.

March 24, 2006

(click to make it bigger)

[image via Jhames and Redheaddread]

Posted at 9:10 AM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Just...I love twisty is all.

March 23, 2006

Hot Mama at I Blame The Patriarchy

The thing is, in a world where women are the sex class (by which I mean Planet Earth), even morphing mamas are expected to display themselves according to male standards of fuckability as defined by pornography, and those who fall short are subject not only to public censure and ridicule and fat jokes, but to the ultimate horror: not being hot enough for Husband.
Whether MIM and Husband find eternal bliss in their personal oasis of mutual hotnessâ€”and really, if it makes them happy, ï¿½buena suerte!â€”is of little consequence to this patriarchy-blamer; it is the larger stupidity of the sexist beauty mandate illustrated by this pair that smegs me off. Check out this agonizing post at a blog called The Homesick Home, wherein author L. has put on a few pounds and now endures her husbandâ€™s silent disdain.

She's so freaking dreamy!

Posted at 10:18 AM • Comments (1) • TrackBack

Distant Shore

March 23, 2006

My late night walk was prematurely aborted by a battery outage in my old fashioned walkman. I was all loaded up with Dirty Three tunes and, damn the rain and the cold, I was going to take a walk.

However, halfway through the park, my newly-charged batteries died. And I said to the dog. To the deaf dog, no less. I said "No way am I going to go on this walk now. It's too wet, and it's not...musicy enough."

So we came home, and now I'm listening to Dirty three on the computer. I'll probably go to sleep to Dirty Three. I think I need to find a nice person to lay and cuddle with on a cold rainy night, listening to Dirty Three.

I had an essay written about all of the nice boys I have cuddled with in my lifetime. Boys who didn't question why there was only cuddling and no sex. At the time, I don't know if I could have explained if they did question. I know why now, though. I know that I spent most of my teen years trying to find a way to feel safe with boys. It was a totally healthy thing for me to do, and I'm thankful...so thankful for the wisdom of the teenage me for finding nice boys to cuddle with. Nice boys who didn't demand sex or even ask for it. Nice boys who didn't question my honesty or my sincerity. I didn't publish that essay because I ended up talking about some things...some reasons for why I'm feeling a need to find that non-sexual safety again...and I'm just not ready to talk about them. But I acknowledge them, and I guess I'm the only one who matters. Finding men to cuddle with presents way more of a challenge than finding boys to cuddle with ever did. There's a perfect balance of attraction and non-attraction required. And a lot of trust. And the ability to communicate. And I'm finding those things to be quite rare.

Rachel and I had a nice conversation tonight about relationships and disconnection and feeling out of place and how much things change and how difficult it is to find a community and being a freak. I'm growing more and more frustrated with the concept of pair bonding and how isolating it is. Standing on the outside of it, I experience the frustration in a different way. Like I want to have a megaphone up against the window that separates me from my pair-bonded friends and shout "This is ALL WRONG! You are TOTALLY MISSING OUT!" At the very least, I don't ever want to get into another relationship unless I am certain that I can remain open to everyone else. Beyond the surface. Open to the entire depth and breadth of knowing people - even if there are just a few people on earth remaining who are able to BE open. Even if, in the end, it really fucking hurts to have laid myself open like that.

The funny thing is that I'm all for sexual monogamy, but I think I had it right when I was a teenager and shunned sex altogether. Sex is great, but until we can figure out how to have sex with each other without cordoning ourselves off into these tiny little isolated islands of emotional intimacy, we are basically all fucked. Hahaha. Pardon the pun.

I've been perusing Craig's List lately. I'm seriously considering placing a personal ad looking for someone who will come and play cards with me, or board games, or watch movies after the kids go to bed once or twice a week. Something mellow. Something totally platonic. Something that is very clearly defined. I'm seeking safety. For now, I have Rachel here, and can enjoy being diverted from my late night walk to talk about stuff, but soon she will be gone and this house will be yawning and empty - until I find a housemate.

Perhaps that's a good thing. My recent attempt at healing a huge wound through non-sexual intimacy with someone who I felt totally safe with, someone who I thought met that "perfect balance" criteria, has failed miserably - to the point where now I have to heal from the attempt at healing. You know? How much do I really want to compound this?

I want to hear the song "Hope" because it describes how I feel. Certainly, at some point, humanity will find the answer. At some point, I will find the answer. I won't be always standing at the window. I won't be always unceremoniously crashing through. I will find that safe place. That safe person. Those safe people. That balance. And I will lay a foundation and rebuild.

Again.

"If you assume there is no hope, you guarantee there will be no hope." -Noam Chomsky

[I made some random edits to this post the morning after I wrote it. It just needed to be fleshed out a bit.]

Time Jesum Transeuntum Et Non Rivertentum
Artist: Nick Cave and the Dirty Three

We were called to the forest... when we went down.
A wind blew warm and eloquent
We were searching for the secrets of the universe...
And we rounded up demons and forced them to tell us what it all meant
We tied 'em to trees and broke them down one by one
And on a scrap of paper, they wrote these words...
And as we read them, the sun broke through the trees...
"Dread the passage of Jesus, for he will not return."
Then we headed back to our world and left the forest behind...
Our hearts singin' with all the knowledge of love.
Then somewhere, somehow, we lost the message along the way...
And when we got home, we bought ourselves a house.
And we bought a car that we did not use...
And we bought a cage and two singing birds...
And at night we'd sit and listen to the canary's song.
For we'd both run right out of words...
Now the stars, they are all angled wrong...
And the sun and the moon refuse to burn
But I remember a message in a demon's hand
Dread the passage of Jesus for he does not return...
...he does not return...
...he does not return...

Posted at 1:38 AM • Comments (3) • TrackBack

Fairy Land

March 22, 2006

My kids are spending the night at a friend's house. I call this place Fairy Land, because it's a magical place where everyone gets along swimmingly and it seems like there are never any arguments or conflicts. Perhaps it would be more accurate to call it Bizarro World.

At any rate, I just called to check in with them, and S, who is 12, answered the phone. She said she and Coley (who is FIVE, mind you...and in almost every other childcare situation that involves older kids, he is viewed as the pesky tag-along baby brother) were teaming up to defeat the evil empire of Monk and R. She asked if anyone wanted to talk to me, and the answer was...well, it really sounded like they were too busy having fun to hear the question, but basically - no. They didn't want to talk to me.

S seemed like she wanted to apologize for their lack of interest in me. "We're in the middle of drawing up a truce," she offered.

"It's really OK," I said. "It sounds like you all are having a lot of fun."

And I'm happy for that. Thank maude for fairy land, and for sleepovers, and for play wars...and for truces.

Posted at 7:58 PM • Comments (1) • TrackBack

blog-o-versary

March 22, 2006

Tish mentioned her blog-o-versary, and I realized that I neglected to celebrate mine. I started blogging at blogspot on March 4, 2002. FOUR YEARS AGO. Damn. The blog is almost as old as Coley.

I guess whenever I get my shit together, Adam is going to help me integrate all of my posts from that blog and the old surreally blog into this one blog. I will finally be reunited with myself. Yay!

Posted at 8:56 AM • Comments (4) • TrackBack

Consumer reports deems C-Section, Episiotomy, Hysterectomy, Circumcision needless

March 22, 2006

It's an old article, but it's incredibly interesting.

Also, wisdom tooth extraction!

[link via yomamasays]

Posted at 8:42 AM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Sandalistas! Ha!

March 22, 2006

Visitors Seek a Taste of Revolution in Venezuela

Posted at 8:30 AM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

It's Blog Against the Strawfeminist Week

March 22, 2006

Ilyka is breaking it down for those who need the breakdown.

[link via feministe]

Posted at 8:25 AM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

I'll try not to draw analagous conclusions here.

March 22, 2006

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Sinister secret of snail's escape

Presumably if left-handed marine snails became more common, crabs would eventually evolve apparatus or techniques for eating them, and their advantage would disappear.
But that cannot explain why in some populations they persist only in extremely low proportions, about 1%, or why in others they have gone extinct; other factors must be at play.

Sinistral snails apparently find it much harder to find a mate, and so may be doomed to remain rare or die out completely, whether or not they evade can-opening crabs.

Although I have to say that the headline writer at the BBC News is totally high. There's nothing SINISTER about the secret. Unless you consider lefties to be SINISTER. What is going ON there in the jolly old?

Posted at 8:02 AM • Comments (2) • TrackBack

My Kids. Sigh. Part Two.

March 21, 2006

I just walked into the kitchen, and both kids were sitting at the kitchen table looking all puffed up, but silent.

"What the heck is going on in here?" I nervously query.

Monk exhales explosively, "We're having a competition to see who can hold their breath the longest...and COLE is CHEATING. You're BREATHING, Cole! YOU ARE BREATHING! MOOOOOM! Cole's CHEATING!"

"Um, guys..." I offer, "I think if you are going to have a competition to see who can hold their breath the longest, I kind of WANT you to be cheating."

Posted at 7:31 PM • Comments (2) • TrackBack

My kids. Sigh.

March 21, 2006

Coley just tugged my arm so hard I fell OUT of my chair. I was like "dude! What the heck was that for."

He said "I'm practicing my new martial art I invented. It's called EIGHT kwan do."

hahahahahahahahaha

ETA - after a bit of research, I am here to report that evidently EIGHT kwan do is more about the screeching than the actual combatting. Also, lots of tugging. And some tickling, too.

Posted at 6:19 PM • Comments (2) • TrackBack

I wrote you this letter because the clothes were hung on the line...

March 21, 2006

It's a perfect spring day. Fuck. Just, fuck.

Coley and I took a walk - me on foot, him on scooter - to deliver some letters and pictures he made for his friend Paulo. The scooter has a little net/holdery thing on it, so he has this idea that he wants to be the neighborhood letter carrier. At first, he wanted to write letters to all of our neighbors. The letters said things like "I don't know you, but I'm sure I will love you when I meet you" and while I LOVE the sentiment, the truth is that I just don't know my neighbors well enough to feel comfortable delivering such sentiments to them and attaching our address to them (yes. I'm one of these people who doesn't know her neighbors. I blame it on the fact that I work nights, but that's probably a lame excuse). So, instead he wrote a love note for P, who lives in the neighborhood though he is not an immediate neighbor. On the way, I told Coley that if he wanted to make things for our neighbors, I'd be happy to help him produce a little comic book that he could deliver door to door...and that art is one way to give yourself to people without that discomfort that accompanies oversharing.

At least that's what I like to tell myself. Hahahaha. This blog is, um, ART...right?

So, anyway, Coley's getting really good on the scooter & after we got home and the kids had some time to play we decided it was time to start our first spring gardening project, which was to plant elephant ears on Bailey's grave. I got all ready and got in the car to go and then I realized that it was already the second day of spring and I hadn't yet listened to Key Lime Pie by Camper Van Beethoven. And Key Lime Pie is an absolute springtime tradition with me. It's such a lovely LP. Just perfect for the weather and the mood that accompanies those first days of spring. And I'm thankful that spring has arrived cool and breezy and gentle here in Austin, because I can pretend like I'm in Chicago and it's that first day that the sun bursts forth through the clouds (and, in fact, compared to yesterday it kind of is!) and you realize how fucking depressed you have been all winter. Key Lime Pie is the perfect thing to listen to as you are ascending from darkness into the light of spring - light and airy, but not overly sentimental. You don't want to come out too quickly, after all. You might get the bends!

So, anyway, first, we headed over to Wheatsville to post our room for rent sign there (that's where I found my last housemate, and he was definitely a good one) and then we went to the nursery and picked up three different colors of elephant ear plus some seeds that the kids were interested in. I think I am going to build an herb spiral this year as my next project. I have to do something with all of these cinder blocks that I lined the bottom of the fence with in the days of the escape artist dog. The kids chose peas and beans and sunflowers and chives and tomatoes and...watermelon...and...I can't remember what else. It's a lot to plant, and we can cross our fingers that I'm actually successful this year, although I think Coley is significantly more motivated to help than ever before, so my excuses on that front are wearing thin.

When we got home, I hauled a bunch of cinder blocks over to Bailey's grave and made a cinder block circle around it, which I filled with soil and plopped in the three plants. I think it's going to be lovely as they grow and (I hope) propogate. It's a nice little shady spot. I told Monk that when he feels up for it, I will put a little bench out there so he can use it as his quiet reflection area. And maybe we can plant more shady plants there, too...or even a little pond or something. Something nice to remember her by. Coley says we should plant "beagle noses" along with the Elephant Ears, but fuck if I know where I can get a plant that might possibly be referred to as a beagle nose, and fuck if I even can imagine WANTING to plant something like that in the ground!

So, anyway, the planting is done and the kids are occupied with some game they invented involving sharpened sticks and running back and forth from the back yard to the front yard. I am enjoying my last few hours of freedom from work and feeling bittersweet things about love and friendship and spring means renewal, right? So there's hope there somewhere. But it's the kind of hope that is infused with sorrow. And there is nothing in this world more bitter than spring.

June
by Camper Van Beethoven

Are you weary of the lengthening days?
Do you secretly wish for November's rain?
And the harvest moon top reign in the sky (now that it's June)
There is nothing in this world more bitter than Spring
Now I wrote you this letter
Because the clothes were hung on the line
And the crows flew out of the field
And up into the sky
I'm lying here in the station
Stretching out on the tracks
For all the possible places that I might arrive
There is nothing in this world more bitter than love
In all those long days of June
Bring me the long, brown grass now that it's dry
There is nothing in this world more bitter than Spring

[oh, fuck it! Read the lyrics to whole album! It's one of my very most favorites in the whole world, ever.]

Posted at 4:20 PM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

3 day old Chaos Collards

March 21, 2006

Wow. Even better than the original recipe is letting them sit in the fridge and mingle a bit, add some vegetarian sausage, fry it up again (enough so that some of the noodles get a little brownish and crispity) add some red pepper and, YUM! ALICIOUS!

Eat to the sound of Eastern Dub Tactic while surfing the internet, looking for good news.

(P.S. There is none, but it won't matter, because your mouth will be pleasanty aflame with delightful flavors!)

Posted at 1:39 PM • Comments (2) • TrackBack

A more reasoned response than I could give

March 21, 2006

Not that this is worthy of reason, but ECHIDNE manages to actually use, like, words and stuff:

I don't know why I bother. Someone seriously arguing that "marginal productivity of CEOs" justifies their humongously enormous pay packets... The marginal productivity refers to the first derivative of the production function with respect to an infinitesimally small change in the labor input of the CEO, holding all other inputs constant. How does Snow measure this concept in practice? And does he really believe his own twaddle? Never mind the lack of empathy that it reveals; it also reveals someone who fell in love with Microeconomics 101 and never grew up.

Whereas I just flipped off my radio and taught my kids a few new cuss words.

For those unwilling or unable to listen to the report, basically our new Treasury Secretary (who, by the way, has a name that just INVITES you to make references to his bullshitting.) is talking about how the market rewards Hard Work, and that is why there is such a huge gap between laborers and CEO's. He did manage to throw in a "not that I think it's fair or anything" for good measure...but whether it's fair or not doesn't really matter, as long as we trust in the almighty market. All hail the all-knowing market!

Fuckwad.

This is, by the way, absolutely an example of what I referred to earlier, about idiot specialists drawing stupid conclusions without the benefit of other disciplines or experiences to mitigate their idiocy.

Posted at 9:49 AM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

So, it's not just the US of A...

March 21, 2006

Go read this article, and then answer me this...WTF?

The article basically presents a study that links cancer to pesticide exposure, and then some dude says "Well, that's nothing to be concerned about - because I said so." So the article is titled "Doubt over Pesticide Cancer Link" and begins with this quote:

Experts have said people should not be alarmed by research claiming a link between pesticides in food and cancer.

But I see no evidence of studies that refute the actual study that says we should actually very much be alarmed! I really thought this kind of media manipulation was unique to the United States. Boy, was I ever wrong! Go UK! Get on that circular logic train!

Posted at 9:26 AM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Slowing Decline requires cross-discipline convergence

March 21, 2006

This article points out something that came up during a lecture I attended recently. The speaker, a marine ecologist, concluded his grim forecast by basically saying that academia is too focused and specialized, and that we aren't going to solve any of these problems until all of the areas of specialization work together. For instance, economists need to learn to take the biological impact of fiscal policies into account.

It's something I, as a reg'lar old uneducated joe never really took into account, but it's so true. I recently had an experience with a data nerd that I know where someone pointed out the practical applications of his data with regard to the education system. He was astonished. He didn't realize that all that data he loves so much actually had a real-world application.

You see what I'm saying? And maybe this ties in, also, with the whole Wisdom of Crowds theory. Those of us who are less specialized can be here on the ground, pulling the data geeks, the intellectual snobs, and the pie-in-the-skyers back down to the here and now. Of course, that requires that we finally gain the capacity to start actually, you know, working together rather than in fragmented social groups based on arbitrary characteristics.

So much evolving to do...so little time!

Posted at 9:13 AM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Mr. Danger!

March 21, 2006

Chavez Blasts Bush as "Donkey" and "Drunkard"

CARACAS, Venezuela - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Sunday lobbed a litany of insults at U.S. President George W. Bush ranging from "donkey" to "drunkard" in response to a White House report branding the left-wing leader a demagogue.

Chavez is one of Bush's fiercest critics and has repeatedly accused the U.S. government of seeking to oust him from the presidency of Venezuela, the world's No. 5 oil exporter and a supplier of around 15 percent of U.S. crude imports.

"You are a donkey, Mr. Bush," said Chavez, speaking in English on his weekly Sunday broadcast.

"You're an alcoholic Mr. Danger, or rather, you're a drunkard," Chavez said, referring to Bush by a nickname he frequently uses to describe the U.S. president.

In my post-DMBQ mindset, this kind of makes me laugh. It's like Chavez is doing politics the way he interprets the U.S. does politics, only totally exaggerated. You know? Like this is the political equivalent of smashing your drum set with a rock.

Posted at 9:09 AM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Really, really cool!

March 20, 2006

[link via uffish]

Posted at 10:51 PM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

A confession.

March 20, 2006

First, a disclaimer. I love my friends, and I have really enjoyed the company of all of the people who have lived here/stayed here temporarily over the past five months. I wouldn't trade the experience for anything, and I would do it again in a heartbeat.

But to put this all in perspective...Last week...my houseguest had...a HOUSEGUEST*.

Things are becoming way too meta here.

I am totally ready for a few weeks of having this house all to myself before I move someone in here permanently. There's no room in my fridge, the house is a mess (which is mostly my fault, but if it was just me living here, I wouldn't feel guilty about it) and I want to be able to cook some food for my children without worrying that more hungry children might wander in and want what they are having.

So, I'm wondering...would anyone give to the "give dru blood a two-week vacation from houseguests and housemates" fund? I figure if I could raise $200 I could spend a peaceful two weeks at the beginning of April and not have to rush to fill the vacancy. Anyone? Any takers at all?

*I need to add that I was totally cool with the houseguest having a houseguest thing, but I also think it's too fucking funny to NOT make a big deal about it.

Posted at 1:18 PM • Comments (2) • TrackBack

Happy Spring!

March 20, 2006

As I wait for my children to arrive, I'm trying to think about ways that we will celebrate this day of balance. It seems like fun balancing games would be in order. Perhaps building a house of cards or playing Jenga or building tall buildings with blocks.

Monk got a skateboard and Coley got a scooter. I need my children to have wheels, and they are totally unwilling to learn how to ride bicycles. This bothers me. I feel like children should have bicycles. Free children, especially.

In the midst of typing this, the sun suddenly burst out. The mourning doves are doing their thing. The kids are here and I have read to them and we are in the middle of our morning routine, only slightly disrupted due to the fact that it's a holiday for us. I need to read the news and drink this coffee, then take a shower and do my morning writing. Then the kids and I are off to our appointments and errands for the day. We're making Macaroni and Cheese soup (slightly modified from this recipe) together, and if it's windy, we might try to fly kites in the school yard.

I'm coming down off of an amazing week. It's good to have the kids with me again. It's good to have all that I have.

Here are some things I accomplished last week:

I totally met the coolest people on the face of the planet. My list of "people I met at sxsw" isn't as long as some, but it's certainly a nice list, and I'm sure I met the nicest people of all.
I saw some great bands play and expanded my musical horizons a bit. For instance...HEAVY FUCKING METAL, DOOD! hahahahaha. I totally GET metal now. It's just that it needs to be sung in a foreign language so I don't have to know what they are talking about. Plus, I also totally get bellbottoms now. Especially when they are worn by short, skinny-assed, stick-legged guys. With humongous shoes. It makes sense! Totally!
I laid out my tattoo design idea to Allyson, and I think she's going to draw it up for me. I am so psyched about this, I can hardly stand it.
I did absolutely nothing all week that I did not completely and utterly enjoy the heck out of. Seriously. I spent an entire week doing ONLY. FUN. THINGS.

Things I did not accomplish:

Just about every practical item on my to-do list - although I did manage to clean my room and clean up some things in the living room. And Rachel cleaned up and mopped for me.
Finding a housemate. But I did have some nice interactions with ex-potential housemates. And, although I REALLY need to start getting some rent money for that spare room, I wouldn't mind terribly if someone moved in MID-April instead of April 1st. I'm still looking. Hey! If there's anyone out there in the Austin area who is or who knows someone who is looking for a really cool place to live - let me know! We're a non-smoking, vegetarian household. Pets are welcome. The room is beautiful and private, and the rent is reasonable.
I didn't accomplish a whole lot of reading, but what I did read was enlightening.

I'm sure there is more, but I have to get a move on here. The kids are restless and I am almost done with my coffee!

Posted at 7:13 AM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

DMBQ photos

March 19, 2006

I just did a search to see if I could find photos that adequately captured the spirit of my dmbq experience, and this set is the best by far.

There are some non-show photos and a great sound clip here, in addition to the story of the tragic death of their last drummer.

They are so cool! I can't even believe I am enjoying something so heavy and metallic!

I still haven't found any photos that capture the spirit of Afrirampo. You will just have to see them live to find out! Tracy says he found an audio recording of one of their live shows, but I haven't looked for that yet. I imagine that would give you some idea, though.

Posted at 7:55 PM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Blogging about blogging

March 19, 2006

Dawn raises the issue of being non-anonymous in such a public (not to mention permanent and archived) forum.

It's a topic I have thought a lot about lately. I frequently share my URL with friends I meet, and I've never really regretted it. I think the idea that friends might read the blog holds me to authenticity and keeps me from devolving into petty griping about my personal life. (Although, not entirely!). I've learned to not EXPECT friends to read the blog, but I've also found myself in the middle of a conversation in which I'm relating stories I've written about online and having friends nod patiently with that "Um, new material, please, Lady!" look on their faces.

Recently, however, I've discovered a new downfall to talking about my personal issues online. Actually, this occurred awhile back with my ex-husband to some extent. He was reading the blog, looking for me to misstep and say something that he could use against me in court. I don't think he found anything, because first of all...I don't really say anything here about anyone else that's not true, and second, I really have a pretty strict ethic about sticking to MY experience and not attempting to interpret other peoples' experiences through my lens.

Right now, I have a conundrum where a friend I have fallen out of touch with is reading the blog on a regular basis. And, while on one level, I appreciate that this person is still interested enough in me to care what I'm doing on a day to day basis, my lack of contact with this person also creates a lack of context. Is this person looking for things to hold against me? Is this person trying to find ways to reach out to me? Is this person trying to prove something? Or is this person just really so out of touch with reality that he feels he can simulate my presence in his life by reading my words? And maybe I'm a writerly genius, and really can do that...but I kind of doubt it.

To make matters worse, I used to send this person long, rambling emails that were like my blog posts, only more personal. Nothing angsty, nothing demanding or threatening, just a gift that I felt like I could give to this person - as sometimes words are the only gift I have to give. In the end, this person related to me that he viewed these long emails as intrusive, I guess is what he was saying - Or at least demanding of attention that he was unable/unwilling to give. Which was not my intention at all. The emails were a gift given without any need for reciprocation. It could be argued that the emails were reciprocation for the gifts this person brought into my life. It's what I have to offer. It's what I like to give. And the fact that this person is now reading my blog regularly makes me feel like he's incredibly mixed up and doesn't fully understand what I was offering and what he was turning down. And it makes me sad that there has to be that voyeurism and dissociation present in order for him to feel comfortable receiving my words. It makes me sad and...actually I am compelled to feel even more empathy for this person than I ever have before. I'm sorry that's the closest you can stand to my love without feeling uncomfortable and threatened, dude. I really wish there was something I could say to help you see that there's nothing to fear.

I guess what I'm getting at here is that, to my friends who read this blog - I am not anonymous. They can see my words, and all of the vulnerability they bring. They have a pretty clear window into what I'm thinking/feeling/going through. And they have the option to remain anonymous themselves. Ironically, I'm pretty sure that my entire conflict with my anonymous friend blog reader revolves around the fact that he felt like he was over-exposing himself to me, without recognizing that I was allowing myself to be vulnerable to him in ways that were actually fairly scary to me, as well. The difference is that he had the option to hide from me, and he's not allowing ME that option. Not that I would take it if it was given.

Since this whole thing with my friend started, and I realized he was reading the blog, I have thought about shutting things down temporarily. I have thought about retreating to locked livejournal land and making this space news and links only. But that's not my ideal. For one thing, not everything I write here is about this friend - not even everything I have written lately about conflict in my life is about this friend, although I'm sure it's easily interpreted that way...which actually makes things kind of precarious for me. Regardless, my ideal is not to shut down and run away. My ideal is that neither of us/none of us hide. That, rather, we recognize and cherish the exposure we have allowed between us, and that we treat each other with mutual care and understanding. And, sort of, that's the whole point in my tireless pursuit of this daily emotional exhibitionism called blogging. And if I lay myself open for total strangers, I should feel comfortable doing the same for trusted Friends - even when the trust becomes somewhat shattered. Because sometimes words are all I have. Sometimes words are all WE have.

P.S. It's also possible that this friend isn't reading the blog, and I'm just imagining things. But if he is, I would like to refer him to the previously posted quote by Bill Hicks. It's something I have been reading daily to remind me. And it's something I posted for him...as a reminder.

Posted at 11:38 AM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

But seriously, though. Wow.

March 19, 2006

Check out this post on crooks and liars, complete with video link. What is going on here, people? Our retired judges and our newscasters are talking about government conspiracy and the loss of freedom - comparing our society to pre-dictatorships and prequels to 1984. Hello? America? Are you fucking awake yet?!

[link via Tennessee Geurilla Women]

Posted at 10:45 AM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

This post is for my friend Tracy

March 19, 2006

Nina Totenberg, Tracy! Nina. Sexy Mama. Totenberg.

Posted at 10:27 AM • Comments (3) • TrackBack

I want to talk about the amazing conversation I had last night.

March 19, 2006

Now that I've had a bit of time to process things, I just think it's really important that I try to put forward some of the ideas I was sharing last night with this person who I recently met.

First of all, what I'm feeling about the conversation right now is that it was so nice and healing to talk to someone with total honesty...radical honesty, as he called it (which is I guess a BOOK, but I'm not sure if he read that book or if he was just making up the phrase. I might just have to read the book and see if it brings anything to me.) without fear of being reacted to negatively. And it was about a subject that could very easily have caused either of us to disintegrate into argument.

In fact, before we even got to the emotional stuff, M was debating with me about technology and social networks and how I feel they bring people together. I was espousing my views about how the nerds seem to have all of the answers to the end times that the historians and the ecologists are predicting, and M was smirking a bit. As a person who works in the computer field, he had to point out to me that the technology that I love so much has an origin in pain and torture. That the computer I'm typing on right now is the product of low-wage labor and oppression just like any superfluous "thing" that I possess. And while I totally see/saw his point, I just feel like the tools are here for us right now, and that there's still a lot of organizing, sharing, relearning, understanding that needs to happen before we can be fully ready to exist in small communities or tribes. Or do we really want to form in the exact same kinds of arbitrary social groups that we exist in currently?

So, the conversation started off somewhat adversarial, but smilingly so. And rich. And it was wonderful to feel like I had something to offer and to have that offering countered...AND enriched in the sharing.

And then we got to the tough stuff, which is stuff that I'm not really going to talk about in this forum because it's public and our discussion was private...but I will say that M coaxed some things out of me about a couple of relationships I'm having trouble with, and offered a perspective about how I am dealing with those relationships and how I should deal with those relationships that, yes, I have thought about before...but brought such a gentle clarity to it that I now feel so much, well, more clear about what I need to do.

And, for a minute I felt like I was hanging. And as if noticing that I was suddenly feeling somewhat vulnerable, having shared so much of my more personal issues, M came to me with his major issue that he's facing - which is a big one. And I feel like I was able to offer insight from several different useful perspectives. And I used care. I acknowledged that I felt like I was treating him like a case study, and we laughed and I jokingly poked at him and we laughed again and proceeded to have even more really rich discussion around parenting and presence and abandonment and love and community and following dreams and privilege and...gosh. So fucking much.

And once again I can't help but marvel at the timing. I'm feeling pretty beat up over certain conflicts in my life - feeling vulnerable and perhaps a little hopeless about all that I'm trying to cultivate with people. And to, in the midst of all of that, have such a wonderful, rollicking, totally safe and totally confrontational discussion with someone about everything in the world including my current conflicted relationships. It's all pointing somewhere. It's all pointing ME somewhere. It's telling me to keep trying - not necessarily with the same people. It's telling me to not give up hope...that the kind of connections I am seeking* are rare but not impossible to find. I need to acknowledge the challenge and to keep on the same path. I'm walking against a pretty strong current, and it's going to be difficult and it's going to be confusing, and I'm going to constantly feel like *I* am the one who has it all wrong. But it's the only way for me to be authentic. It's the only way for me to feel good about myself. It's my tiny one-person vigil, and I need to fight like mad to keep that little flame lit.

*I should clarify that there's no mystery to the connections I am seeking. I'm really just looking for authentic community in which honesty and mutuality is present, nurtured, encouraged, and developed. The challenges I face are time (as a single parent, it's really freaking difficult to take the time to get to know people and to bring myself to people) and my own fucked-up reactions to situations, as well as others' that cause dischord and dishonesty to creep in.

Oh, and I'm also really hoping to, for myself, destroy the paradigm of pair bonding as it exists in our culture. Which is not at all to say that I want to live on a hippie love commune. I'm all for serial sexual monogamy - or even possibly eternal sexual monogamy - but I find emotional monogamy to be terribly destructive. And so often, one accompanies the other. And there's a lot more I can say on this topic, but I'm still trying to figure it out enough to even really begin to express it.

Posted at 9:32 AM • Comments (2) • TrackBack

Crickets in my ears

March 18, 2006

So, DAMN! This week has been all about impeccable timing. First, I find a nice companion at SXSWi at just the right moment when I was in need of good companionship (and he's a local, no less, so the companionship can continue! Yay!), and from there, everything has fallen into place to make this one of the most socially productive weeks of my entire life. So much good conversation, so many fun adventures, so much positive interaction. And all impeccably timed. Like, every single band I have gone to see these past few days has been totally kick-ass...and I have arrived just in time to see them.

Today was no different. I drove downtown in hopes of bringing food to Mr. George, and decided to just walk from the library all the way to the Typewriter Factory to take in some yummy fuck by fuck you! offerings. It was quite a walk, but it was nice to walk down sixth street and hear it throbbing with music in the middle of the afternoon. People were everywhere. I was by myself with my bag of food and my yo-yo.

I knew I was close to the FXFY venue when the music sounded less like plaintive wailing and more like a carnival. I arrived at the Typewriter Factory just as one band was finishing up. I was on the porch, under the awning when I turned around to find that Shellshag, one of the awesome bands I saw last night, was performing on the tiny stage while the other band was setting up. So I got to enjoy a short but tasty set of their music. Amazingly enough, when I went to check the bill, I discovered that DMBQ were slated to perform next. I quickly stepped out to call Harold and let him know that the hard rock performance of the century was about to be repeated in front of the scraggly crowd at FXFY. He said he was on his way!

They changed the order of the acts, though, so Harold arrived in time to see the end of the International Playboys set, and another band took over on the small stage while DMBQ set up their gear. Harold went off to find something to eat, and I impatiently awaited the start of the rock&roll extravaganza that I, in my veteran fandom of 2 days, have come to expect of DMBQ.

I was not disappointed. These guys are amazing! They have all of the lovely pose and panache to make it not matter that the sound sucked and I couldn't even hear the vocals. The lead singer spat all over the audience, the guitar player once again carried his axe onto the stage with his TEETH (There is one huge bite mark on the top of his guitar. The guy must have jaws like a freaking pit bull) the bass player preened and posed and tossed his big fro all over the place, and the drummer sat in his pink velvet short shorts and proceeded to beat the crap out of his drums. I don't know how else to describe these guys other than to say that they must be seen to be believed. I was just standing there the whole time, grinning broadly. I wasn't laughing AT them...and I don't even think it matters if they are trying to be serious or ironic. They are just totally FUN to witness, regardless.

Evidently it's "destroy your drum kit" week in Austin, TX, because the performance ended with an achingly wanky tune (or what would have been achingly wanky if it was any other band. In the case of DMBQ, however, it was absolutely delightfully wanky!) after which the lead singer grabbed the bass drum, THREW IT against a pole, then put it over the head of the drummer and pushed him off the stage into the crowd. After that, a giant rock was hurled at the drum repeatedly, until it lay broken on the ground in the middle of the crowd. And, I mean, I'm not a huge fan of gratuitous acts of wasteful destruction, but somehow it works when DMBQ does it. Don't ask me why. Maybe it's the tight bellbottom pants. Maybe it's the hilarious facial contortions that the guitar player surely must practice in the mirror before bringing them to the stage. Maybe it's the pink velvet short shorts. Maybe it's the hair. Whatever it is, it works. All the way around. It fucking WORKS.

When it was over, I was like "I gotta go, dudes." Because there was no way anything would have topped that. George had sent me a text message asking if it would be ok to do a meal tomorrow, as well as some nice words about my hospitality that I TOTALLY appreciated, so I traipsed back to my car with crickets singing in my ears the whole way. The throbbing sounds of sixth street were a little less loud what with the crickets and everything, but it was still nice to weave my way back through the crowd.

My arrival at my van was impeccably timed with the setting of the sun, and I made my way back to my house, thinking I might come back later to witness the splendor that is Attack Formation. However, good timing won out once again, and I got a call from a new friend inviting me to go out for coffee. I thought "I could really use some coffee at this point" so I said "Yeah, OK...meet me in half an hour! And sorry if I'm yelling, but these damn CRICKETS won't stop chirping in my ears!"

So I get to Flightpath a little early, but not too much later my new friend arrives and we proceed to launch into a really great conversation about our lives and some tricky decisions and relationships and what he referred to as "radical honesty" (which I thought was a totally awesome way of legitimizing such a frustratingly difficult dynamic to cultivate) and lifestyle and collapse and consumerism and all manner of things. And the conversation was well-timed because it just reaffirmed so much of what I've been thinking about with regard to certain relationships in my life....and isn't it funny that someone who hardly knows me can bring himself so fully to me - matching each of my admissions with one of his own. And not only that, but offering and accepting unfiltered advice and observation! In the end, the actual conversation stopped mattering as much as the fact that this kind of communication could actually occur between myself and someone else - particularly someone so new...but lately I keep finding myself in the most positive situations with some really wonderful people - some old and some new, so maybe at some point it will stop be surprising to me and start being something that I actually EXPECT. But still, when I come to the table with ideas and thoughts and wisdom and honesty, it's so nice to have another person on the other side of the table bringing all of those things, as well. And NOT shying away, and NOT making assumptions. I love it!

So, soon I'll go to sleep. I didn't make it to Attack Formation, and I didn't do any of the puttering around the house I had been planning to do, but I think I kind of decided while I was weaving through the crowd today, and reaffirmed during my conversation in the coffee house with my new friend, that my time away from the kids is time for me to form those bonds with people. To be a roving reporter of life so I can report back to my children and my other companions all that I've discovered along the way. To do some arm-waving and excited rambling! To stoke myself for all that comes next.

Tomorrow - who knows what's going on? I think Daniel Francis Doyle, and I've got that raincheck on George's food. I'll probably find myself downtown once again, soaking it all in. At least all that I can hear over these damn crickets!

P.S. I kept kicking myself for not bringing my camera, because DMBQ is definitely a photographic band. So here are some links to other peoples' flickr files:

DMBQ
Shellshag
Afrirampo

Posted at 11:28 PM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

On being Nice (a rambling post about friendship)

March 18, 2006

My friend Susan and I had a discussion recently about slack. And how much to give to people. And how much we have a tendency to overgive. The subject came up in the context of a friend of mine who is requiring an inordinate amount of slack right now. I'm inclined to give it, because I care about this person greatly...but I'm not really getting any slack in return, which is a concern.

Anyway, Susan said something that really struck me. It was something to the effect that at her very most meanest, she still has a very difficult time being actually mean to people. She said she sometimes needs to keep this in mind when dealing with people, because it comes to a point, I think, where people just expect niceness and don't feel obligated to return the favor. And while I'm probably meaner than Susan, I think the same can be said of me. More along the lines of cutting slack.

I remember when I was younger, I used to make it a point to be NICE. If you were to ask me what my goal in life was anytime between the ages of 16 and 26 or so - maybe even up until I turned 30, I would probably have said "I just want to be a nice person." And it's not that I *don't* want to be nice now...it's just that I have so many bad habits that stemmed from doing the NICE thing for everyone else rather than the RIGHT thing for me that sometimes I get lost and confused in the middle of it all.

I'm still pretty nice, but I also get bristly. I am also aware that being female, being a mother, being fat* - these are all qualities that cause people to expect me to be nicer than the average person, and I rebel against that. I already, as Susan point out about herself, have the tendency to take responsibility for everyone else's comfort. I already have the tendency to take the blame in any given situation. I already have the tendency to comfort people, to take them in, to feed them, to make them feel good about themselves. I don't think these things are wrong. I feel like, to a great extent, this is part of my nature. But I do need to be careful that I'm not doing these things at the expense of MY comfort - at the expense of ME feeling good about mySELF.

I'm not saying it's totally easy being friends with me, either. I'm not fucking perfect, you know? I'm a smart ass, I talk too fucking much, and I have a big mouth. I like to state my opinion, and I'm frequently wrong. I can be intense and I can be nervous for no reason and I can be totally outgoing and totally shy at the same time. But I think my best quality is self-reflection, and when someone challenges me, sincerely challenges me, I do take the time to reflect, apologize, and change my behavior where possible. I think I've demonstrated this ability in all of my relationships. It's not even something that I tolerate - it's really something I demand of people. I am pretty insistent that my friends stand up to me and hold me to a high standard...and that's not easy for people to do. For one thing, holding a friend accountable requires that you have a relationship that is built on honesty and the pretext that all communication comes from a place of love. It's also a two-way street. I have to participate in the relationship, as well, in order for people to feel comfortable confronting me.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this, really. I just feel very fortunate to have the Friendships that I have. It's so fucking tricky and I am so terribly picky about the people I choose to spend my time with. And sometimes I lose sight of things. I forget, for instance, that Susan is sometimes Susany, and that's why I love her. And that Megan is sometimes all Megany - and that's what makes her delightful. And I, too, can be a force to be reckoned with. And I can only hope that those who care about me understand where I am coming from and where I am going and what, ultimately, it all means in the grand scheme of things. I can only hope, and I can only offer explanation and clarification when it is allowed.

*I find it interesting that when I do a google search looking for links about how fat women need to be nicer than thin women in order to be "acceptable" (you all are aware that this is the general rule, right? I mean, as you go down the heirarchical scale of social acceptability, you have to keep getting nicer and nicer and quieter and quieter until maybe you totally disappear altogether.) I find, really, nothing except article after article about how women prefer bad boys and nice guys are so totally fucking oppressed. Oh, boo fucking hoo, cry me a fucking river!

Posted at 10:23 AM • Comments (1) • TrackBack

Holy fucking shit!

March 18, 2006

The previous post, titled "There's a reason for emo" seems totally silly to me right now. FUCK emo! I wanna fucking ROCK. You know...ROCK! Like the kind of rocking where you can't even tell what the fuck the band is singing about, and it doesn't fucking matter! They might as well be singing in a foreign language about chickens...and as was the case tonight...they probably ARE!

And rock we did. We walked in on an amazing performance by a band from Brooklyn called Shellshag, and oh my fucking lord did they rock! When I saw this woman dancing around on stage rolling a cymbal and all bedecked in bells, I thought "What the fuck?" And then I saw the guitar dude way up high. It was like high energy aerobic acrobatics night at Flamingo Cantina. And although drummer woman with bells seemed to be rocking harder than I have ever seen anyone rock before (and, at that time in my life, she WAS rocking THAT HARD.) by the end of the night, she might as well have been playing jingle bell rock!

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Shellshag played an amazing set, and I was, in fact, duly amazed by them. Watching the drummer dance on stage, playing the drums, shaking her bells, AND singing all at the same time made me seriously think hard about working out on a regular basis. Dude! I want to rock! and I'm not in any position to do so in the condition I am in! The set ended with the band asking the audience (it was, in fact, audience participation night, you see) to say a number - first one...and when we said it loud enough, he jammed his guitar through the tom that the drummer was holding up over her head. Then, two...and he did it again. Then three...and one last hit and they were done.

(as an aside, Shellshag are playing fxfy tomorrow afternoon @ the Typewriter Museum - 1306 E. 6th. If you can catch them, I highly recommend you do! Plus Attack Formation is playing that gig, as well.)

And it was time for Afrirampo. Susan and I got in a big fight after Afrirampo over whether they were more energetic than the Go! Team. I loved Afrirampo, and I totally dug their energy, but the Go! Team is like cheerleading. It's a different kind of energy, and I felt like there was more of it. Susan disagrees. We totally hate each other now. No. I'm kidding. I love Susan, and there is room in our relationship for a difference of opinion, especially after we have now shared the experience of Afrirampo together. I was nice enough, too, to call Harold when we got in to let him know he didn't need a wristband, so he shared the experience with us, too. So I had like 3 of my favorite people in the whole world with me for the musical treat of the century.

Afrirampo bloody rocked, dude. That's all I can say. They came on stage clucking like chickens, and in the end demanded to be carried about the venue on peoples' shoulders like the queens they are. In the middle of all of that, they screeched, squealed, screamed, sang, strummed, stroked, struck & fucking rocked. ROCKED! And when I say rocked, I mean ROCKED! There is no other word I can use to describe their set. Well, OK, that's really lazy of me. There are many words, actually. High energy, High drama, extreme excitement adventure. Complete with clucking and talking about flamingos peeing on rainbows. Man. It was awesome.

I wasn't sure if I wanted to stick around for the next band, DMBQ. I could tell just by looking at them that it was going to be a testosterone-fueled adventure. But stick around we did, and boy was it ever a treat. The guys came on stage all dressed up. 4 skinny-ass, tiny dudes with varying degrees of hair-itude. Tracy said afterwards that their hair weighed more than their bodies did. Ha! And they just took the stage and proceeded to blow all of our eardrums out with this stadium-grade chunka chunka heavy metal hair band crunch complete with posing guitar and bass solos and standing on the monitors for maximum picture takage (I was so mad at myself for neglecting to bring my camera!) The lead singer seemed to have a spitting problem, and the drummer was wearing a puffy shirt and gold lame short shorts.

I don't even particularly LIKE metal, but somehow this band made me understand it fully, for the first time. I mean, I totally get it now! And I'm not just saying that because I caught one of the drumsticks. They played for what seemed like hours, alternating which performer would come up and pose on the monitors and then melting back to play some bad-ass shit! Holy fuck! It was awesome!

At the end of their set, the audience was encouraged to come up on stage, while the drum set was slowly passed into what remained of the audience, and the drummer was placed on his chair that was being held by the crowd. He proceeded to even bang out a few beats before he fell off of his chair, and he continued to bang on the bass drum while people held on to him to keep him from crashing to the floor. I looked at Tracy, and we made a silent mutual agreement that there was no way it was going to get any better. Frankly, if the next band had been good as well, I might have passed out from an overdose of really intense fucking musicianship. So we bolted.

Harold called me when we reached the parking garage to ask me where I went. "Dude, I am an old lady!" I told him "I had to go! I need to get home and write about this shit!" Harold replied "Yeah. I don't think it's going to get much better than THAT!" and we both laughed and I hung up and Tracy drove me home and here I am typing this. And if you weren't there, damn you! You missed out on some incredible stuff!

It feels like every night this week I have come home and thought "Gah! It can't POSSIBLY get any better than this!" And every day, something new and cool happens. I used to truly truly HATE sxsw week, but I'm loving it this time around. Go figure!

Posted at 12:42 AM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

There's a Reason for Emo

March 17, 2006

You know? There's a reason for emo. Well-executed emo like Rites of Spring can express that certain kind of frustration that exists in every attempted interaction with another human that ends in disconnection and misunderstanding.

You just can't beat lyrics like "I only want you to realize/Passivity equals compliance/Let it slip right through your hands/
Become the victims of other's demands" and "And I've found the answer lies in a real emotion/Not the self-indulgence of a self-devotion" and "Cruelty is the better part of your honesty/And when you're so direct its just for yourself to protect" when there's a need to listen to someone else expound upon the ridiculous drama that exists between us all. And it's especially perfect when sung by a near-cookie-monster-esque voiced man. Gruff and sensitive and wonderfully cathartic. I love it! I'm totally rocking out here like I haven't rocked out in years. In fact, possibly since waaaaay back when I was in high school and used to listen to this album daily to relieve the tension and stress of those lovely high school relationships.

Posted at 4:39 PM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Chronic Chaos Collards and riotous ribbon noodles

March 17, 2006

I just made the most delicious and deliciously simple lunch. I felt compelled, midafternoon, to take myself down to Wheatsville in hopes of finding popcorn tofu there. I didn't, but I did pick up a head of collards, a red onion and some garlic. Also some ribbon noodles and brussels sprouts - but the brussels sprouts weren't on the menu today.

What WAS on the menu was ultra-yummerific! I diced up half of the red onion and placed it in a pan of warm olive oil and sauteed a bit while I minced 2 cloves of garlic. Then I threw the garlic in and lowered the heat a bit while I cleaned half of the head of collards and tore them up and threw them into the pan.

While that was cooking, I heated up some water for the noodles and threw them in. When the collards were turning bright green, I squeezed a bit of Bragg's Liquid Aminos in for flavor, and then I turned off the heat and waited for the noodles to finish.

When the noodles were done, I drained them well, turned the heat on the collards again, and threw the noodles in the pan with the collards. I tossed everything together, threw on some salt and freshly-ground pepper as well as a bit of garlic powder, tossed some more and threw that shit into a bowl.

damn! It was so freaking tasty!

Now I'm treating myself to some Amy's ice cream. I can't remember the name of the flavor, but it's chocolate with nuts in and some cayenne pepper. So your mouth gets a nice little treat after the icecream is gone.

Yay, food!

P.S. I've decided that the soundtrack to this meal should be The Ex - Starters/Alternators. Because it's chronically chaotic and Riotously riveting!

Posted at 3:22 PM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Kids, Parents, and Power Struggles

March 17, 2006

It seemed somehow omniscient that, of all the books on my shelf, Rachel pointed to this one and said she needed to read it. So this is the parenting book I am focusing on this season.

So far, I've read the first chapter, and I'm already totally psyched by it. It's been a long time since I invested time in reading a parenting book. I read a ton of them when Monk was in his toddler/pre-school years, but he's such a different child from Cole, and I feel like I'm lost when it comes to parenting Coley. This book has already evoked some tears of realization from me. I'm looking forward to studying it and applying some of the wisdom.

Mostly, it goes back to presence again. For some reason, I have no trouble witnessing and adjusting for my emotions and triggers when I am dealing with other adults - or at least retreating to consider them before I respond...but with my children, it's totally difficult for me to mitigate my reactionary-ness. And that's really what it is, isn't it? It's a lack of ability to be proactive with the children and to find solutions before the situation becomes a problem. Perhaps it's because so much of who I am is reliant upon that need to retreat to find an appropriate response, and so much of my parenting life requires that I find a way to respond immediately. It seems it would be valuable to set up the expectation with myself and my children that I will need time to respond to their needs and desires. Demands and getting all up in my face are sure-fire ways to set me off.

At any rate, this book seems to be a good place for me to start to re-find the right parenting path for myself. So much has changed in my life over the past couple of years that it makes sense for me to re-evaluate what I am doing as a parent and how. I'm glad that I'm getting some time here to re-energize myself.

Also, I really miss my kiddos right now. I wish I could just see them for five minutes so I could hug them.

*sigh*

Posted at 11:03 AM • Comments (2) • TrackBack

Bill Hicks says it better than I ever could...

March 17, 2006

"Here's my point folks, in the blink of an eye: we can have Heaven on Earth - it's a choice, that's all it is... You can look through the eyes of fear, you can look through the eyes of love, it's the only two ways to look. The eyes of fear is insanity, it's not really there, the eyes of love are the only real eyes. Bing. Go. Bing fucking go. Heaven on Earth right now if you want it. [beat] (Right now.) It's a choice! To look through the eyes of love instead of the eyes of fear, just once." -Bill HIcks

Posted at 10:56 AM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Yesterday's sxsw adventure

March 17, 2006

Caught the bus just after mid-day so I could see The Go! Team. Holy SHIT they fucking rocked! I wish I had brought my camera - they were just so high energy and wonderful to experience. I'm definitely a huge fan now. Having seen them live, some of the stuff I was listening to makes a lot more sense. It was a short set, but definitely well worth the time it took to get there.

I said goodbye to Tracy at that point, and met up with Susan in front of Whisky Bar. We hitched a ride with her sister up to her place so she could freshen up, and then we went up to my place to hang out for a bit before Tracy picked us up to head back down to the shore to see Echo and the Bunnymen. We missed Blackalicious, which is a damn shame...but I hate feeling rushed, and we would have been rushed to get there. I will have to catch them another time.

When we got down there, George was texting me asking me where I was. I had been hoping to intersect with him at Blackalicious, but didn't make it. His text message was like "Are you here at auditorium shores" and when we got in I was thinking "no way are we ever going to find him." because I knew he was going to be cutting out of there before Echo so he could get in good position for Morrissey. But the funny thing is that we found him RIGHT AWAY. He was on his way out, and I got to steal a deliciously mushy big bear hug from him which is EXACTLY what I needed. That George. He's really the bestest. I'm so glad that I get to see him every year at sxsw.

We had a harder time finding Sam, our other companion for the evening...but we eventually did. There's this new element to going places with people where you have to "meet up" and eleventy gazillion text messages ensue. But it all comes together in the end.

Echo was great! I was really impressed with the fact that McCullough still sings like McCullough - in spite of the fact that he smoked about a million cigarettes just in the time they were performing. I loved the old stuff. They played "The Cutter" "Rescue" "Bring on the Dancing Horses" of course "Lips Like Sugar" many others that I didn't recognize, and they ended with Ocean Rain. McCullough nailed the ending of that song where he belts out "Screaming from beneeeeeeeeeath the waaaaaaaaves!" It was awesome. They still rock, even though they are old men. Which gives me hope. Maybe I will finally build up the nerve to start a band when I'm, like, 40. I figure if I sing barracuda, there will be at least one person that will pay to see me. hahahaha.

After the show, Tracy and I met up with Sam at Austin Java, which was surprisingly uncrowded. We talked a bit about the conference and various goings-on. Sam's really neat & I'm glad I got some time to hang out with him a bit before he had to go home and crash.

I just looked at the show listings, and I'm pissed that I missed Gogol Bordello last night at Emo's. My friend Harold has mentioned them a number of times, and it sounds like they put on a good show. Tonight, I'm going to try to see Afrirampo at Flamingo Cantina. Harold (who is my arbiter of musical goodness) has mentioned them, too...and Susan and Karen told me that they thought I, particularly, would like them (because they are crazy, which made me laugh. Evidently I like the crazy men AND the crazy music.) We'll see if I can make it down there, and if I can get in. If I do get down there and can't get in, you will find me consuming heavy metal pizza at Hoek's and enjoying the presence of oceans of people all around. It's kind of like a reverse camping trip, I think. I'm really enjoying the crowds for once.

I feel really fortunate. I have so many cool options for fun times - so much time to spend - and so many groovy people to hang out with. It's been a very revitalizing week, even without the camping trip. I feel like the retreat has been in the adventures. I've really challenged myself to be open to anything. Today there are all sorts of Irish bands playing everywhere. Part of me really wants to go, but there's another part of me that's nursing some wounds from my friend-who-is-no-longer, and feels like listening to Irish music might lead to drinking too much & I don't want to go there today. So, instead...I will get some alone time in my house and play the Go! Team and Echo and the Bunnymen really loud, get some cleaning done, and enjoy what is present in my life rather than what is absent.

Posted at 9:23 AM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Back To Reality

March 16, 2006

It only took one news article to bring me back to reality. All week, I have been hobnobbing with the nerds and all of their optimistic outlooks on social networks and how blogging will overcome all obstacles. And how people are good. Oh, how many times did I hear that expressed? It seems like the blog world, in general, believes in the inherent goodness of all beings. And then - bam - there's george motherfucking bush mucking up the works again as usual.

I could tie all of this together in one post about what I believe to be true and what my experiences are. The thing is, I'm having so many thoughts about life and love and the future of our society and community - and they are all floating around in my brain and heart and are seemingly disconnected and range from the extremely microcosmic sphere of one specific relationship I am having difficulty with on up to the world at large and all of our multitudinous, multifarious relationships with one another. And not just the way people relate to each other within current widely-acceptable paradigms, but also some potential ways that we might be able to relate to each other. Ways that people shun because they aren't "appropriate" or "acceptable" within the standard context of human relationships. And how, even though I have ideas of a more ideal way of relating with people, the current paradigm is so ingrained in me that I'm not sure I can break through fully. And maybe we really ARE too fucked up by the current state of things to ever break through fully.

But it's all too jumbled up still for me to effectively write about it. I need to work through it. I'm going to spend some time today reading my parenting books, scribbling notes, thinking, feeling, experiencing...and I'll come back to this later.

I do want to say something that I know to be true - on that microcosmic level of an individual relationship that is challenging me right now. I am compelled to love people fully, thoroughly, absolutely. I don't want to have that compulsion brought into question. It hurts to have to defend or explain that love. It hurts to have that love misinterpreted or questioned. I know the precise place this person occupies in my heart and soul, and if he chooses not to be there fully with me, I can live with that...but what I can't live with is feeling silenced by his misunderstanding of something that I feel is so easy to understand and so totally safe to accept. And this conflict - this making complicated of something that is so fucking simple, easy, and true, really speaks to all of the complicatedness and obfuscation and doubt and damage that exists in the world at large.

Wars are caused, on a totally microcosmic level, by people who refuse to believe that they are lovable, and that there does exist within us and around us, an unselfish love that only requires acceptance, presence, and participation. We (including me, myself!) need to stop fucking worrying about whether or not we are worthy of love and whether or not others are worthy of our love...and just learn to give and accept love feely without threat or feeling threatened.

Posted at 9:41 AM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Um, Sorry Daniel Francis Doyle...

March 16, 2006

I am NOT going to see DFD today...instead - I'm going to head down to Waterloo and see The Go! Team. rock! For FREE!

I'm going to do the freeloader's sxsw music experience. If anyone has any suggestions for other free shows, let me know. For today, it looks like The Go! Team at 3, Blackalicious at 6, and Echo and the Bunnymen at 8.

Tomorrow, it's fxfy'all.

Any other suggestions for free shows?

Oh, Daniel Francis Doyle is playing at least two additional shows, plus a showcase this week, so I will probably catch him on Friday or Saturday. You really should try to see him. He rocks. He FUCKING rocks.

Posted at 8:50 AM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Home Sweet Home

March 15, 2006

I just spent the longest amount of time that I have been in my home in the past 5 days. In fact, I don't think I have spent 8 waking hours in this house since Friday.

It was nice. It's good to be home.

I still haven't fully processed everything I took away from SXSWi. There's a lot of stuff to think about - not only from the panels and discussions and presentations, but also from all of the social interactions and observations...plus tons of blog posts to read about. I like reading the different ways people reacted to the same forums I went to. There's really so much power in this whole idea of instantaneous independent media. And instantaneous independent non-media. But, like I said...I'm still wading through all of my ideas and feelings about it.

I did end up canceling my camping trip, though. First of all, I'm totally not sick of people at all, which is why I had planned to drag myself off into the wilderness...and second because I just want to be in my home. It's nice here. I kind of like it.

What this means is that I will be seeing some shows this week! woo woo! Tomorrow at three, I'm going to see Daniel Francis Doyle & then I'm headed down to the shore to see Echo and the Bunnymen. Those of you who are in town for sxsw and want to see a really kick ass local performer, Daniel Francis Doyle is a good bet. He's quite a unique experience.

Posted at 10:07 PM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Why Bloggers are Easy

March 15, 2006

It's because you always find out what they think of you the next day when they blog about what they did the night before.

And I had such fun with everyone I hung out with last night. It really was my endcap to sxsw fun...it's really time for me to get back to the real world, get some work done professionally and around the house, find a fucking housemate. All of those real-world concerns that I have not thought for a moment about over these past 4 days that have felt like 4 years.

Tracy and I were both near tears after the Sterling keynote. He was amazing, and I will just have to find the transcript later because there is no way I could do it justice. By the end of the speech, he was weeping on stage, and the audience was, I think, mostly confused. But after all week of hearing about the tech and the content...it was so awesome to end things off hearing about the humanity. I want to write more about my comparisons of this conference with the other conferences and lectures I have been attending lately. It might surprise you to know that nerds are a sensitive bunch, and optimistic to boot. I wonder why this is so. I have a couple of theories that are a bit cynical, but I still...need to write more about it later.

But anyway, afterwards we went out to eat at a Thai Restaurant (I can't remember the name!) and ended up skipping out on the closing party so we could meet up with a friend at my house for a bit and prepare for KARAOKE.

I never thought that I would ever ever in my entire life ever EVER feel comfortable enough around a group of people to do karaoke. For some reason, though, it's easy to be comfortable around bloggers. Maybe it's because they are easy. Maybe it's for some other reason. Maybe it's because, hey, we're already nerdy - who the fuck cares if you can't fucking sing? I didn't spend any time analyzing it, I just rocked out to "Breaking the Law" and any number of other Karaoke standards, along with all of the other people in the room, most of whom I didn't even know. Let me see if I can link them: There was MJ (our hostess! Organizer! Cow-bell bringer alonger! Of fun!), Yimay (who made me feel instantly comfortable by demanding that everyone participate, and also by just being so awesome! D00d, that woman can sing!), George (Nursing allergies due to my stupid dog-hair infested house, but regardless always the most fun to experience fun things with! And, DAMN can that man bust out!), Tracy (who I, mutually, feel like I've known forever - rather than a mere 4 days), Jackson (I'm supposed to tell you that Jackson was really BAD at karaoke, which is what he predicted I was (or perhaps everyone in the room was) going to blog about today...but actually, he was so awesome it's not even funny. Adorable! He's absolutely adorable. I had to keep resisting the urge to mush him all up!) and I think that's all I can muster a recollection of, but the group ranged from 10- nearly 20 as the night progressed. And, I must admit, we fucking ROCKED! Who knew? It was a blast. Karaoke is definitely something I will do again. Like most things one can never envision oneself doing, it became obvious why it's such a popular activity as the night progressed and people loosened up even more. There's something about belting out songs in a group in ways that I don't normally belt them out unless I am in the car, alone, that is totally fucking soul-replenishing...and, really, if the Sterling speech was the perfect way to end the conference, karaoke was the perfect way to end my week of social debauchery (or, as Min Jung was saying at lunch, social bulimia.)

So, yeah. Thanks everyone! You were all so much fun! I have had about the best 4 days I think I've ever had in my entire life & now I'm totally ready to get down to the business of "doing shit." All of those sxswers who are still in town, I'm trying to figure out a good day to have soup. The good news is that I think I'm going to cancel my camping trip and just have a "retreat" in my home, and maybe take a day trip out somewhere to do some hiking. So, if you are reading this and can think of a day that you would like soup (everyone I've asked has decided on gazpacho, but I can do more than one kind) I will either invite you over or bring some to you in a container for you to consume on the go! Let me know!

Oh, and PS - I totally take back that joke about Californians. Clearly all of the coolest people in the entire world live in the motherfucking BAY AREA. What's with that? Weren't you guys supposed to have relocated to Austin years ago?

Posted at 8:58 AM • Comments (7) • TrackBack

liveblogging DIY Media

March 14, 2006

Just some notes:

Crumlish Panel Moderator
Torrone
Zee
Fried
Shaw

Fried says electronics musicians are kind of like the Ham radio geeks of our time. Modifications are the step before contributions. If you can't commune with the synthesizer, you don't want to share. Three things that make people want to contribute to a project:

Value: I hacked something up because it was missing
Ego: I wanted to show off my skills, get positive feedback
I like playing with this toy, experimentation & creativity

How to get your customers to do really cool stuff for you:

Make it possible
Be humble
be respectful
be thankful
be supportive
mingle with the natives

Shaw
AOL is opening up the AIM platform to allow for more flexibility with filesharing.
Also opening up the mapquest api's

Zee & Torrone
Torrone: They have modified a roomba, and it's chasing people around the room. You take a butter knife and pop a little port off of the side, and Make.com has how-tos to modify them. You can use your phone or your computer to control them.

Smart businesses will assume that the consumers will be the producers.

Zee: talks about crafts and knitting.

Yarn Harlot: Knitting Olympics
pinkofperfection.com covered the knitting olympics.

Torrone says "You don't want to piss off knitters."

hobbyprincess.com

someone from the audience asks why we are doing this
zee answers we have a need to make something with our hands.
we used to have more electronic equipment that we were able to fiddle with, and now we don't have those options.

At this point, I got caught up in an aim conversation and stopped paying note-taking levels of attention.

Torrone is veering back onto the subject of implanting play into our regular day-to-day things. Social hardware.

It's totally legal to modify hardware.

this is a really engaging group. I'm going to add some links to this later.

Someone wants to talk about the controversy of opening the AIM protocol.

Shaw says you can't resell & you can't have more than 50,000 logins a day or 2 million logins a month. You can use all of the functionality that is there, but you are limited in quantity of messages.

Posted at 3:28 PM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Here's that joke I was trying to remember last night for the Californians in the crowd

March 14, 2006

Three guys are in a bar: an Aggie, a Californian, and a guy from Austin. They drink and get a little rowdy. Suddenly, completely without warning, the Aggie grabs a bottle of tequila, unscrews the top, takes a good swig, and throws the bottle in the air. He then jerks out a Colt 45 pistol and shoots the bottle, spraying tequila all over everything and everybody.

The patrons at the bar shout, "Hey bud, why'd you waste that tequila?"

The Aggie says "Heck, it's just tequila. Us Aggie's go across the border all the time and get all the tequila we want."

Not to be outdone, the Californian whips out a corkscrew and uncorks a bottle of wine. He pours a little bit into a glass, swirls it in the glass, sniffs, comments on the tart insolent piquancy of its bouquet, sips, tosses the bottle in the air, nicks it with a round from a little chrome plated pistol, and showers a couple of patrons at the bar with wine.

The patrons, upset by the casual waste and general lack of concern for their safety, express their displeasure and astonishment, to which the Californian replies, "Well, I'm from the Napa Valley, and we have more than enough wine where I come from."

The Austinite, a quiet observer until this point, touches the crystal hanging from his neck, checks out his tattoo, flips back his ponytail, and puts down his guitar. He pops the top off a Shiner beer, hammers it back, throws the empty bottle into the air, pulls a 9mm Beretta, takes careful aim, shoots both the Californian and the Aggie, and catches the falling bottle.

The patrons scream,"Why did you do that!?!"

The Austinite replies, "I'm from Austin. We've got too many Aggie's and WAY too many Californians, but glass bottles, now - those can be recycled!!

[joke ripped from here, with one small change.]

Posted at 2:02 PM • Comments (2) • TrackBack

Liveblogging The Future of Radio

March 14, 2006

I'm sitting with George, because he's cooler than you! This is not going to be a point by point recap, but just random thoughts.

Hirschman puts the history of the record industry into context. Radio used to be the single most important economic element of recording industry. The people at the top of the record companies are clueless about the digital world. The record industry is not in the same business as the creators.

Westergren doesn't subscribe to the "music industry is evil" mindset. Has had good experiences with record industry. Payola is mentioned.

Nordling had to shut down SOMA due to the RIAA. Can't play requests within 20 minutes. I love her hair!

Mars talks about development of content.

Westergren says that people don't want access to a gazillion songs that they can pick and choose at will. I think he's wrong. He thinks the solution are services that help you browse. I think he's wrong. I think we need BOTH. We need to have access to everything, along with having the ability to browse. These things aren't mutually exclusive, particularly in the digital world.

Hirschman says that music...perfume...garments are based on a sense of trust and a willingness to discover. She thinks we want to trust that we're going to turn on the radio and here a quality of music that we are familiar with...and that we are going to discover something new. The thing is that I rely on my friends for that discovery - they are my radio, and sharing files and information about music is how I make discoveries. Maybe this is why I haven't really joined the podcast revolution.

They totally just mentioned "Bob Edwards" I will have to explain why that is so funny. Later. OK. Now. Drinks were consumed. The Bob Edwards dream was mentioned. And then Tracy related his little "thing" for Nina Totenberg. We were totally having more fun than anyone else in the entire building. Possibly the most fun of anyone on 6th street.

OK...back to the panel.

Westergren is saying something about something. I don't know. He says it's hard to find new music. There has to be ways for hundreds of thousands of stations so we can start promoting the "middle class" of musicians. He's saying it's either feast or famine

Hirschman says that the independents do cater to this "middle class" by doing direct sales. She says the hardest part is getting the baby bands access to the media. She feels that not only the radio model, but the record label model needs to change. It's several different landscapes shifting simultaneously.

Smokler - from the listener's point of view - do we hit a natural limit of what we can consume? What are we going to do when our ipods can hold a terabyte? (I say "ROCK!!!!") Dude, it's TOTALLY bottomless.

Westergren says that radio listenership drops when they get an mp3 player, but that they go back to the radio. And only about 5% of the mp3 player is filled, and not refreshed. this so does not apply to me. I almost never listen to the radio. Again, I discover music through other friends. Why aren't they mentioning personal radio stations/file sharing/etc?

Nordling finds that her experience is people like to hear something familiar mixed in with something new.

Westergren doesn't like mobility. He feels it's socially disruptive. Again, I disagree...I think we need to make devices that allow for multiple headsets! George is doing a search for splitters.

Mars says "commercial radio lost me so long ago that I don't even know what I'm talking about with them." He grew up listening to public radio. Public radio is more one-to-one. Radio will live forever as long as there are cars

Hirschman was just thinking that the difference for her is that radio provides a place for her to not being alone, to feel a sense of community, and to hear new stuff. She listens to a DJ because she wants to know what he or she thinks.

Nordling thinks the primary function of radio is that people want company - like people who leave their television on all the time. It's hearing somebody talking to them.

Questions from the audience:

Q: could we have a hybrid of pandora/soma - like you hear a song and you like it and can choose to have "more like that"

A: Westergren - some technical stuff that I don't understand.
A: Hirschman - There's a tricky difference between radio station and on-demand w/r/t rights.

Q: about podcasting that I missed - something about jukeboxes.

A: Westergren - We're losing money, podcasting is not a money-making thing. It's a rights-infringing, money-losing thing. The question is how to support it. Terrestrial radio makes money through advertising.
A: Hirschman - Podcasting is more of a promotional vehicle. It costs nothing, but there's no economic model. Terrestrial radio has quantified their adverstising...the new portals needs to do the same to generate income.

Q: has a friend who has a program on kcrw (the blueprint) part of this is that people in the scene were creating their own market. Not just with podcasting. What does the panel see as the future of internet radio. Pirate. Internet. Radio. ROCK. Creating a community by networking directly with artist and doing livestreaming through chatrooms. Majors are BLOCKING distribution. So communities of listeners and artists can aid in this distribution.

A: Hirschman addresses local scenes - every community has something going on in it. Media needs to be sensitive to that and transcribe it to a larger audience. One of the problems in the equalizing of the internet is the infinite number of choices. When you look at how music evolves, you find it's about the scene. There hasn't been a place on internet radio to focus and captivate local scenes.

A: Mars says radio existing in a location is one of the things that makes radio special, especially with regard to news and public radio. Content shifts based on location.

Q: The question is about sound exchange - the organization that collects the fees for the RIAA

A: Nordling says Sound exchange shut them down recently. They collect about 12% of their funds, and they are currently lobbying congress to up it to 37.5% and collect a yearly fee. They want to apply this retroactively? I think is what's being said. Nordling says she's involved with a group of independent broadcasters who have lawyers to fight these things.

Q: Spitzer effect?

A: Hirschman - radio stations are less likely to work with independent label. Great work by Spitzer, but the reality is that commercial radio stations are advertising vehicles. The don't want to take risks on new artists, unfamiliar music, unfamiliar artists, unfamiliar branding.

Final shots What is the future of radio

Westergren - Right now, if you sell music on Itunes for 99 cents, you make a nickel. He feels every artist should have their own website, recording studio, and the ability to create music without going into debt. At that point, the artist can sell for 25 cents and make 20 cents. Then people can afford to buy.

Nordling - Doesn't know. She hopes that commercial radio comes down. She's tired of the 100 song playlist with two hours of commercials in between. People need more input.

Mars - The future favors the content makers, particularly those who aren't currently getting paid. He wants to break free of the hour format. Most of his time is spent either filling time or cutting. Freedom of format should be used more to create stuff that is different.

Hirschman - Her ideal is that we eliminate the itunes model and we operate on access to all music. ISPs charge a monthly fee (2 dollars) and you can download everything you want any time. An invisible world of library that you can use at any time. Also moving towards flexibility, timeshifting, and portability. Handheld devices with buy buttons. Ubiquitous access points. Radio stations are the purveyors of taste, lifestyle, identification, and community.

Posted at 11:31 AM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

There is another thing.

March 14, 2006

About this "thing" I have for boys with nerdy glasses. Last night, I realized that if you were to drop Colin Meloy into the middle of sxsw interactive...you would NEVER be able to find him.

Needle. Meet haystack.

And, man...wouldn't that be a fun game?!

Posted at 7:29 AM • Comments (1) • TrackBack

I Call Trunk!

March 14, 2006

Suffice (I actually just type "fuccise" there) to say that today, the panels were boring, but the parties were the most fun. Tracy, who is my new best friend in the whole world, with or without references to love butter, Anna, Felicia, Jason, Tiffany, and Timothy (I don't know if Timothy has a blog!) are the most fun people to hang out with. My stomach hurts from laughing and I think I have pulled several muscles and if anyone thinks I'm going to make it to the 10:00 panels - well...it ain't gonna happen, d00d.

I'll probably wake up in the middle of the night and write more later - or first thing in the morning. But for now...Yay! And:

"Oh my god, it's a midget!"

Posted at 2:38 AM • Comments (4) • TrackBack

So...

March 13, 2006

Has anyone else noticed this weird verbal tendency towards using the word "So" to start a sentence?

B just said "So is the new like!"

It's true.

I'm totally bringing a flask to sxsw tomorrow and playing a drinking game. Anyone else in? We'll all be drunk by noon!

Posted at 5:23 PM • Comments (3) • TrackBack

A comfy chair.

March 13, 2006

I went for a little walk, and it was very peaceful on the west side of the conference center. Two pigeons had taken up residence in the silent halls. I used the bathroom & took a look at my messy hair for the first time all day & then I rejoined the buzzing hive of people.

So, I flopped down into a comfy chair and sighed, and promply met Susie, who created this nifty tool, and geekymom. Now I'm just sitting here waiting.

I'm really tired, and I'm a little buzzed and comfortably stuffed from a yummy lunch at Habana. I think I'm sufficiently sedentary right now (and not wanting to move anytime soon) so I can actually include some linkys with this post.

Tonight, it looks like 20x2 and maybe some other party. Did I already say that? I can't even remember what I've already posted today. I'm about to head to the "What people are really doing online panel." I must abandon my comfy chair. Oh, how I will miss you, comfy chair!

Posted at 4:25 PM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

liveblogging Darknets

March 13, 2006

I can't see the names, so I'm just going to call everyone dude. Darknets sounds like a mysterious topic. This will not be an accurate blow-by-blow because I'm feeling chatty and giggly and silly.

What is a darknet?

Any social network - online or offline - that lets people share information or digital files.

You are missing out on a great presentation.

What are darknets used for?

Tradiing Hollywood share
community
Activists in Asia
communication
Whistle blowing
Asserting digital rights
Creative freedom (like sharing the mashup of blackeyed peas and Ac/Dc - "You humped me all night long")

Another mashup is played with ernie and bert as Brokeback mountain dudes.

"A lot of us use darknets to skirt dumb copyright laws"

"Big Media. The Darknet's best friend"

darknet.com

Great presentation!

So, the idea is that entertainment companies are missing out by opposing this culture.

Some dude from the MPAA is up there. Wow. That's freaking brave! Geez - and a guy from ATSP.

They are watching you. Basically. Is what he is saying.

3.5 - 5 million unique copyright infringments a day (was I the only one who had to supress a "HELL YEAH!")

Dude, intellectual property is neither.

"There are 60 million file traders out there, and you can only sue so many of them."
-If we identify you as being the 1st person to make the content available, and we sue them 100% of the time.

Evidently, I'm not the only one who is having to supress my disgust. The dudes in back of me are grumbling. This guy is going to get beat up after the panel.

A question is asked - "Are you equating file trading with drug trafficking?" because the guy made a comparison, um, equating file trading with drug trafficking.

The moderator wants to make sure we don't only talk about legal issues, but direct the conversation towards ways that darknets work to expand communication.

Clarke from freenet says the goal of freenet is to allow people to share information freely. They focus on people in countries where information is censored. The downfal is When you run a freenet node, people don't know what you are doing, but they know you are part of the network. He's talking about ways to create a peer to peer network that allows for more selective protocols. "A scalable Darknet."

Human relationships exhibit the Small World property - you can get from one person to another through a relatively small number of steps. And freenet found a way to exploit this property to create a global darknet in which each participant is only connected to someone they know.

Champ from flickr says they received a large "take down" notice that she felt wasn't valid. 80% public and 20% private. There is a darknet within flickr...several of them. Flickr faces challenges of defining copyright.

MPAA PR Lady is next. She's saying a lot of words, but I'm not getting anything out of it. which, I guess, makes her a good PR person. The goal is to limit the impact of piracy to the creative world. Intellectual property, again. They want to "get" (she really said get!) the people who are "abusing" new technologies. The approach is 3-fold. They are working with law enforcement and governments all over the world to take down small and large distribution networks. They have an education department to help educate people about copyright. And thirdly, their companies are working to harness technology to distribute content in a way people want to receive it.

Toole with outthink works to create a community where people can share content without being constrained. As an artist, he recognizes intellectual property, but he likes to participate with media. We need to figure out a way to make it easier to do that and still satisfy the needs of all of the entities involved. We want to play with content, and have the right to do that.

Dude, I'm 36, and sticking it to the man still rocks!

At least they have a good sense of humor about being berated. The one dude said the audience member should buy another Tivo. I don't even have one Tivo...and anyway, isn't there some degree of objection to Tivo also?

Audience member says "it seems there's an entire potential industry for mash-ups." - why can't we pay a little extra for rights to do mashups?

Response from Toole is that derivative content can add value
Response from Clarke is wondering about royalties and revenue
response from mediator dude is that we need to drag the big media folks kicking and screaming into the present

Audience member who has experience in the film industry asks/says the very basis of representation has to change, and that artists' rights are not necessarily being protected within the current paradigm. Right now the money and rights are NOT going to the artists much of the time. She asks how the reality can be more honestly and understandably be presented to the artists?

Another audience member says the system is broken and wants to know what "you guys" intend to do about it except for simply suing people.

MPAA woman says things are evolving and she already addressed their THREE PRONGED approach, including EDUCATION! (Which is basically a restatement of her first prong.) Basically, she's saying, we need to sue people for piracy, we need to educate them about all the ways we will sue them for piracy, and we need to, at some point in the distant future...change the way content is presented to meet consumer needs. Of course, she's not at liberty to divulge this information.

The crowd wants more specific solutions. The audience member says we are paying for content multiple times.

An announcement has been made that Amazon is going to allow people to download movies and copy them to DVD.

Another audience member says there's a film called _this Film is not yet rated_ that was pirated by the MPAA. Everyone applauds. MPAA lady says she's SHOCKED that he asked the question - she sat next to him on the plane.

And educator in the audience mentions documentary filmmakers do not know their rights regarding fair use.

An audience member says that the war on piracy is a war that can't be won. And imposing artificial constraints will only make things worse.

Clarke says DRM is not only an invasion of intellectual rights, it's an invasion of physical property rights. He says Sony did us all a favor by proving this point by overstepping their rights. "we could lose the right to use our computers as our tools." He mentions to Ishikawa that "not everyone reads the 15 page user's guide." "If I own a piece of hardware, if I've paid for this hardware. It should do what I want it to do."

Ishikawa says "If you go to the store and buy a dvd, you should know there are rules"

Clarke interrupts and says "You mean that I can't play it in the UK?"

Ishikawa says "So, you just copy it and share it with 10, 000 of your friends?" Which wasn't the point at all.

Clarke says DRM imposes a lot of rules, none of which prevent you from copying the material.

Fights break out all over the room, and the point is reinforced that copying material does not COST anyone money. Because someone copies something, it doesn't mean they would have spent money on it if copies weren't available.

Posted at 11:34 AM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

And since I already missed my bus...

March 13, 2006

Jason totally made me cry:

There were great questions about how knowing who my audience is might now change the way I write and about Black vernacular English. There was discussion of angry words and online beef and the differences in responsibility and protection between the citizen journalist and the media professional. Aaron Hawkins's name was invoked again and I was honored to be able to speak loudly and proudly about his voice, spirit and uppitiness in the presence of Dru and Irina Slutsky (who eulogized Aaron at Red Herring) .
I have to admit that when I met Dru yesterday, I was caught a little off guard. My connection to her, which has waned since his death, will forever be linked to him and a lot of "stuff" came rushing back. It has been a pleasure to be able to see her and get to know her more offline and to begin to build a new relationship that moves past Aaron.

The feeling is totally mutual.

Posted at 9:16 AM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Oh, and also...

March 13, 2006

I also want to confess. And maybe I shouldn't admit this...but when Tracy first commented, I thought he was a woman, and I described myself as having "fabulous hair" which I probably never would have done if I knew he was a man. And then, to make myself sound even more ridiculous, when he described himself, and mentioned he had a goatee, my first reaction was "Cool! A woman with a goatee!"

And then I realized that, um, Tracy is a man. Which, you know, it's not like I never heard the name Tracy for a guy, but I think it's hilarious/embarrassing that I was so sold on the name as a female name that I was totally open to thinking about a woman walking around with a full-on goatee. Not that there's anything wrong with that. And, really...why would I not describe my hair as fabulous to a man?

Oh, never mind. See, I knew I shouldn't have said anything. I'm just laughing at my own dorkiness, as usual. I guess this is just to show you that gender identity matters even to us feminist folk. And not always in a good way, either.

P.S. Damnit, I'm going to be late to my first panel today.

Posted at 8:50 AM • Comments (2) • TrackBack

Reading back through my notes

March 13, 2006

I'm reading back through my notes, and I feel like I need to apologize for the lack of links. I keep thinking I will add them in later, but then I keep running out of time. And there will be a lack of links in this post, too, because I'm probably going to miss my bus by just typing this. I also keep having new ideas for non-sxsw (but maybe inspired by sxsw) stuff that I want to write about. The theme of platonic/non-sexual male/female relationships is totally weighing on my mind. Also, I was inspired by a few things my friend Susan and I talked about regarding that topic, and the messed up state of relationships, and the difficulties surrounding the fact that we are all such fucked up people, and my history with boys/men and choosing or desiring NOT to have sex with them. I would like to talk about our tendency to split people off into pair bonds as opposed to communities (inspired by the "Bloggers in Love" panel). I also want to talk more about being totally open about your identity and other people still reading your blog "even though" you talk about issues (like parenting, race, gender, etc.) that they don't necessarily want to/feel they need to read. I really think it's more about THEM than about YOU, but still, self-censorship will happen if you want to retain readers. Also, something that was said about linking to personal blogs struck me. I think it was Kottke who said that it's kind of a policy of his not to link to personal stories because he feared that the people writing those stories migh tnot necessarily want to share them with a larger audience. I found that interesting, too, considering how many people linked to Bone's story...and I wonder if that criteria can end up being gender-specific/gender-exclusive. I was also really enjoying my bus ride this morning, listening to music and just smiling, and I wanted to write a post about just. being. happy. Also, I thought I'd try to find the story that I was going to attempt to retell yesterday at Fray. I know it was published in my friend Coleen's zine, but I don't know if it ever made its way online. And, in fact, I don't even know if I have a copy of it anywhere.

So, I have a lot of thoughts rolling through my head. There are a few time slots today that are ambiguous to me, so perhaps I'll sit near a plug and pound away on my beloved keyboard for a bit. If anyone has any votes for content that would help me narrow it down, I would sure appreciate it!

Posted at 8:28 AM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Liveblog of Blogging While Black

March 13, 2006

Again, I don't want to try to capture this point by point. I'm disappointed with what I feel like is a low turnout. This room should be packed!

Lynne D. Johnson is the moderator.

Jason says it looks like the church pews in a biracial wedding here. Jason almost quit blogging, but decided he needed to have an online identity for several reasons, including the fact that there need to be more people of color represented online.

George has had a busy year, winning three black blogger awards for his blogs, including a lifetime achievement award.

Tiffany talked briefly about her blogs.

Tony talked about people coming to his site to see whether he's an "angry black man" after he came out as black, and about controversy over his relationships with white women.

Lynne has been doing work for BlogHer, and talks about the demographics of her readers being mostly black, college educated men.

All of the bloggers on the panel had a poll on their sites to discern demographics, and they all discussed the results of the polls.

It seems funny that one of the people who answered the poll at negro please said they would rather not know Jason was black. Maybe he should change the name of his site to â€œrandom person of no particular ethnic groupâ€ please?

This poll is interesting...I'm wondering what the results would be if I posted the same poll on my blog?

George gave props to Aaron Hawkins.

somebody asked if the poll affected how they write, George said, deadpan "I've decided to stop blogging." Everyone laughed.

Jason answered that he tries not to think about his audience, but that upon reflection he feels that finding out that he has more black readers gives him a certain feeling of freedom from having to explain himself so much.

Lynne wants more female readers, but feels like her content might limit that readership. I think I'm going to link up to her now. I think more women need to write about hip hop!

Tiffany tends to write in more standard english rather than black vernacular english when she envisions her audience as primarily white.

Jason mentions that his vernacular changes based on the topic - that he tends to get "really black" in his language when he's talking about hip hop or black identity. In response to the question "Why do you limit yourself to race?" he responds "Why do people think that race is limiting?"

Lynne says the comment she gets is that she "writes like a journalist, and that alienates people" as a roundabout way to question her authenticity. She's so cool.

George feels like silence is the best way to deal with certain heated discussions. You don't need to necessarily give everything oxygen & Jason responds that everything on the web has the same weight, and isn't it important to give context to some things people say. Don't we have a responsibility to counterbalance that by not being silent? George feels like he has an obligation to be a journalist and an educator and if someone is showing their ass, and he feels he has an obligation to let it go.

Tony loves the conflict and jumping in with the haters and using a sledgehammer.

Tiffany prefers to be civil, and to not escalate that anger. She does not want to be seen as the angry black woman.

The room is filling up slowly.

Laina Dawes in the audience wants to ask a question about the angry black woman. Having come from the Henry Rollins discussion, where he described himself as the "angry white man" --Tiffany steps in and says the key words there are "white man" and that black women and men tend to have their anger dismissedâ€¦or their arguments dismissed because of their anger -- Laina continues to ask if perhaps black people are dismissing her because of her lack of anger -- and Tiffany differentiates between justified and unjustified anger. Jason makes the point that there is a difference between a heated discussion and assholes. He mentions Aaron Hawkins and his angry, educated, kick-ass self. May he rest in peace.

But what Jason does mention is that he's not an angry person, so he doesn't sound angry on his blog, whereas I feel like certain people are assumed to be angry for stating an opinion emphatically just because having an opinion and standing up for that opinion is something that, for instance, women, aren't expected to do.

There was some discussion about the subtext of commenting on how a black person is well-spoken.

Jason explains the word "tourists." God. I miss Aaron. Tiffany suggest an FAQ to answer those common questions tourists have about being black, or being a woman.

Everything comes from George. He is the Original Negro.

Tony responds to a question about being honest by mentioning GG Allin.

The originator of the "well-spoken" comment stood up to defend herself, and Jason is very well-spoken in his response. Ha! He says that it's important to keep the filter of the recipient of the content in mind, and this is why identity is important.

George talks about cultural production being about what we do. "Chappelle, bless his heart, is keenly aware of what he does and says and the differences of his audiences over time."

"Coffee house dudes and white chicks recognize quality, too." -George Kelly

Tony talks about being an ambassador, as a light-complected black person, to race issues.

Jason grew up as the lone black kid in the smart class, and feels he finally connected with "the black student union" when he brought himself into the blogging world. Blogging connected him to a social circle he never had before.

Someone asked how they deal with "ass showing" within the community, and Tiffany talks about the diversity of the community, and how engagement rules can't be applied universally.

"It's about having an out-of-browser experience." -George Kelly

Eliza Camahort says that it's important to remember that inclusion is desired IN ADDITION TO, not INSTEAD OF identity blogging.

No additional comments. They all rock. Tiffany is excited to see so many women and black people here. They counted 13 last year, including them. Props are given to BlogHer. Jason is interested in doing something similar for people of color. Liza Sabater is working with Afronetizen on this project.

Lynne wraps up by saying "I'd like to be asked to sit on some of these panels, not just because of my race or gender, but because of my expertise." (and Eliza adds "In addition to.")

Jason says you can't be passive - you have to be invested in the community.

Posted at 1:02 AM • Comments (2) • TrackBack

My dog hates me, and I don't have any clever lyrical tie-ins

March 13, 2006

But I wanted to post one last thing before I crash for the night. I have a pretty detailed play-by-play of the Blogging While Black Panel (you guys fucking ROCKED!) but it's on my laptop and I don't feel like taking it out of the case right now, although I probably should to recharge it for tomorrow, so I might just end up posting it in a few minutes anyway because I'm obsessive about this shit, and, whatever.

But Fray was great! Yay! Well, most of it was great. I was going to tell the story of my epic road trip to Portland and back with my kiddos and the difficulty of finding good places to pee. It was going to be so good! I was going to start off by saying "I was going to tell the story of my two birth experiences, but I thought then every time anyone looked at me they would be thinking about my uterus...so I decided to talk about pee instead."

But I was too far down the list, so I couldn't do it. Which sucked, but oh well. I got to see GEORGE do his thing. I think George should release a CD. All About George! The multimedia spectacular!

Also, I got to meet Tracy! A fellow closetish anarchist with kids from Austin! I am so psyched! I will definitely be inviting him and his family to my next potluck thingy!

And Susan and Karen! Susan was kind enough to come out to eat with me before the Fray because I hadn't eaten anything all day. Literally. I was just too excited and engaged. Really. All day I kept thinking "OK, I'm going to disengage now and do some writing" but I couldn't. It was an amazing day. And then Karen was kind enough to drive me home, so I didn't have to wait forever for the Sunday bus.

Tomorrow, my plan looks like this:

10:00 - Digital Preservation and Blogs
11:30 - ??
Lunch with someone fun - who? If you are reading this and you want to do lunch, email me!
2:00 - Craig Newmark Keynote
3:30 - ??
5:00 - What People are Really Doing on the Web
Evening - Blogger Party at Club DeVille?
Whatever anyone else who is interesting is doing? I don't know.

so...Yay! I'm totally an overly-gesticulating bug-eyed enthusiastic overjoyed freak. And now I have to go to bed.

Posted at 12:35 AM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Bloggers in Love

March 12, 2006

I'm totally not going to try to liveblog this moment by moment, but this is a really great panel so far. I was kind of thinking I could sit here and think about what I might possibly perform at Fray Cafe tonight...but this is too entertaining to miss.

I'm loving the stories here, but I don't think I can replicate them on the computer. I'll just pluck bits and pieces.

What I love about sxsw is everyone has their laptop out and they're all typing away. It's like keyboard crickets.

I'm discovering I have a "thing" for boys with nerdy glasses. The nerdier the better. What's with that?

There's a bit of discussion about the ethics of blogging about relationships here that I think can be applied to more than just just romantic relationships.

Pirillo challenges us to write 100 things you like about your partner. And post it.

Williams brings up the point that it's really easy to fall into the trap of complaining all the time on the blog.

this guy just walked in with THE COOLEST pink hair I have ever ever ever seen.

This is probably the funniest panel I've sat in on. Maybe it's because I can relate to this. A woman mentions that she's in a relationship in which she's online and he's offline, and she feels like it's not fair to him to write about their relationship...but Powazek challenges that by saying that the offline person actually has the advantage there, because they get an extra avenue of insight. Again, this is both true of romantic relationships and friendships.

It's an interesting concept, really. What a writer decides to write about. I mean, prior to this panel, many of the panels were about the professional considerations of blogging, but this panel is about the personal considerations. I think it's just funny how we have to fit things into such boxes, because this could be about, generally, being a compulsive over-sharer and ANY relationships you are in and how to negotiate those boundaries with people.

I guess the difference between being a writer and being an online writer is that things are indexed and searchable, as well as at least somewhat permanent.

Posted at 3:34 PM • Comments (1) • TrackBack

Thoughts on the women and visibility panel

March 12, 2006

I'm sitting in on the Kottke and Armstrong keynote. They are cute! And now dissolving into laughter.

But I had some thoughts during the visibility panel that I didn't really express while I was there because I was too busy listening and taking notes. Although I did have a brief side conversation with George about it. I guess I was frustrated with the fact that visibility was addressed almost exclusively in terms of monetary success. The problem I have with this is there are certain ways in which women (which is my experience, but maybe it can be applied to other identity groups, as well) silence themselves in order to be visible. I think this was touched on briefly in the panel, when one of the panelists mentioned that if she talks too much about her experiences as a mother, she risks alienating and therefore losing a significant amount of her audience. I think I liked where the conversation ws going at that point, but then it was directed back.

I really feel like a rich discussion can and should happen around the amount of self-censorship that has to happen in order to be visible...and the amount of "preference" censorship that other people use to avoid having to face the reality of different experiences. I'm wondering where that conversation is going to happen. And when.

Posted at 2:05 PM • Comments (4) • TrackBack

A cool tip for you out of towners

March 12, 2006

The capital Metro transit site has a really good trip planner that will help you plan your bus rides. Just go to www.capmetro.org and click on the trip planner link, then you can type your point of origin and your destination, choose the date and time you want to either depart or arrive, and it will give you a bus route, tell you exactly how far you need to walk, and everything. You can even choose between different criteria like time/walking distance/transfers.

Enjoy!

Posted at 11:27 AM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Liveblogging Increasing Women's Visibility - whose butt should we be kicking

March 12, 2006

Sitting with Jason and Anna. Yay!

this looks to be an interesting panel. Everyone looks fabulous!

I'm using last names for expediency, and I'll try to link up the individual blogs of the panelists later.

It's funny that almost all of the panels I'm attending are the BlogHer panels. I'm not even doing it on purpose.

Erginer opens up by giving the background about the whole "where are the women blogger" question. And differentiating between the perception of women's participation and the actual level of participation.

A radical fuzzy separatism! hahahaha

The panelists are introduced - I will post those bios later.

erginer asks how they arrived and became visible.

Kabili attributes part of her visibility to kicking her own butt and putting herself in hard positions. More specifically, she has offline presence that she brought online. She doesn't have to pretend to be an expert. Also, she joined a community/network that was already visible.

Henry agrees, and attributes some of her visibility to BlogHer and support from networks and other women. Part of what Patriarchy does is make us less visible to each other. Which is actually a really good point, because I've been really thinking lately about my tendency to not introduce myself to people, and how that sometimes results in me talking to all of the men in the room and none of the women. Henry wants to talk about structural changes that might help us find each other.

Hunt says she's worked hard to become visible. Had minimal readers and learned the tips like commenting and tracking back and doing various self-promotion things to increase traffic. Acknowledges her relative privilege of race and class and education level and support from parents. Her visibility comes from that privilege, and she wants to talk about the responsibility that comes with that privilege

DeBolt is a veteran of sxsw & has always felt invisible as the self-described "little old grey-haired lady who sat in the back and listened." Listening made her a convert. "If I ever decide to worship a male god again, his name will be Eric." As a teacher, she was frustrated by the lack of material out there to use for teaching. She started her blog to review books and point out the insufficiency, and created a niche for herself. Became visible by accident, by trying to change the way this topic is approached. "Here I am in front of you instead of hiding out in back which is where I want to be."

An audience member says "How visible are you?" because she's never heard of any of them.

Kabili responds that the web is a bunch of different sandboxes.

Henry says she's visible to mommy bloggers, feminist bloggers, translators and poets, and maybe a little in the tech world.

Hunt is a mishmash blogger and blogs about her personal life and mommy blogging and web 2.0. "We're not famous for 15 minutes, we're famous for 15 people." And her mom.

Lisa, an audience member, says that saturation is an obstacle. And the pursuit of excellence is important. If you do what you do and do it well, and reach out to the social sphere.

Alisa Camahort mentions that it's not necessarily about being "the best" - and that there are other factors that are at play. there's a danger in assuming that talent, skill, and quality is all there is.

Hunt adds that it's important to have an authentic voice without worrying about listings. Addresses the heirarchies that exist in blogspace and meatspace and how we choose what we value. Brings up that mommy bloggers are not taken seriously. Says that she would lose a lot of readers by blogging about being a mom even though she might have useful things to offer to that community.

The 23 year old guy without kids who reads the blog for other purposes might learn something important.

Kabili says her goal is to teach and to reach as many people as she can. And if you are interested in reaching people, the question is whether it should be more difficult to reach people because you are a woman.

an audience member talks about successful tech blogs being focused.

Erginer says that gaining visibility requires that you change your voice to some extent, and asks if that's the right way to go about it - or should we attempt to change the structure that promotes that need to change. Are we kicking our own butts?

an audience member asks if the panel is using their blogs for work, and how are they leveraging their blogs for their career.

DeBolt responds that she ran out of books to review and started writing her own books.

I'm wondering what the point of this panel is about. Is it about increasing earning power for women, or increasing visibility for women? It seems like these are two different topics. It also does really seem like certain experiences that are inherent to being a woman need to be silenced in order to be visible. Is it really worth it?

Hunt gives her long resume of visibilityness.

Henry says that her visibility is increased as a writer. Which is great. No one is coming to her door and offering her fabulous tech jobs. She feels a bit like an outsider and is happy to be up there and listened to.

Kabili says being on the web allows her to be visible every day, even when she's hibernating and writing a book.

An audience member asks what the downfalls fo being visible might be.

Hunt says she's a big mouth and it gets her in trouble, and she gets called on it.

Henry says "obscurity through verbosity" - I totally get that! hahaha.

JW asks if there should be a new type of tagging that helps people find each other.

Henry answers yes, and that we need to identify ourselves in ways that will connect us. And allow us to create algorithms to analyze these identities.

erginer asks "whose butt should we be kicking?"

kabili responds that she runs into this issue all of the time and has for years. this is not something new. Men have always been more visible. She's not interested in blaming but in trying to work our way out of it.

Henry reiterates that the answer is analyzing data to determine how people are viewed based on identity, and based on the identity of those who they are visible to.

An audience member mentions that visibility can bring its own set of problems of exposure.

Another audience member talks about how "women are competitive" and we are hyper-critical and our own worst enemy.

A journalist in the crowd says that in her profession, it's the same thing in every field. She suggests we accentuate the positive.

DeBolt mentions the media report to women, and says the only place where women have equal representation is on the internet. so...we are represented, but we are maybe not being visible. We have equal footing. All we have to do is make good use of it.

Another audience member why we are choosing to categorize ourselves in the same destructive ways when we can choose any identity.

And another audience member adds to that by saying the web is a self-organizing system that is anti-heirarchical and anti-patriarchal and why can't we do something new.

Kabili says it's nice to be innovative, but we don't have to be innovative. We can look to other spheres to bring up a hidden group. Mentoring is a solution.

Another audience member says that assumptions are made whether we want them to, or not. the default is straight, white, male.

Henry agrees.

the commenter who first brought up this identity-blind topic says that what interests her is that we can choose our identity.

Debolt talks about her experience as an older person and the aspect of being able to write without identifying herself as being old. And the words stand by themselves.

Alisa says that tagging helps to combat the assumption that the default is white male. And the more visible we are, the more we disprove that assumption.

timegoesby.net...I forgot her name...says it's important to stand up and identify yourself to, again, prove your value and increase visibility offline.

Skye brings up the importance of including identity to promote an authentic voice.

A comic book blogger says there is still that problem in her niche "where are the woman comic book bloggers?" and says the solution is to form collectives.

And we ran out of time.

Kabili closes by saying that she wants to be out there as a person. Woman or no woman.

Henry says that there's more to discuss.

Hunt wants everyone to send us her urls. She appreciates the diversity of opinions in this room.

DeBolt thanks us, and wants to talk to teachers.

Posted at 11:23 AM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Respecting your blogging elders - liveblogging.

March 12, 2006

So far, this panel is most closely related to my actual job. I totally agree with Bitter that there needs to be a rallying cry around bridging the digital divide for elderly people.

Bennett was talking about the benefit of getting older folks online to monitor their health from home rather than having to visit a doctor.

A social worker in the crowd brings up the challenge inherent in having 4 generations in the workforce. And then starts up a a "personal responsibility" sort of rant.

Someone else mentions that there's a bigger problem that is a cultural problem and that having the sensors in the homes aren't accepted by elderly people because they feel like it is "big brother" watching them. Perhaps the solution is to use blogging as a transition so they won't view technology as a threat.

Bennett mentions a study in which young children between the ages of 5 and 8 seem to be the best demographic for teaching elderly people how to use computers.

Steve Garfield is asked how he got his mother blogging. His process was to teach her how to type, and then she read a newspaper article about blogs, and he made her a blog. They gave her a laptop and set her up with a blogger account and told her to write some stuff. So she started writing some stories, and getting comments. She was like "who are these people? How did they find me? How do I keep track of them?" And over time the people who were commenting became friends to her. And they read each others' blogs, and she says a lot about blogging. She says that when she goes out with her friends, no one wants to listen to her - they are all too interested in telling their stories...but when she is on the blog, everyone wants to hear her story. She says she's always thinking about her next blog post, and she likes that she gets encouraging comments from people about her voice...and it's not something that has ever been offered to her.

someone asked garfield if he ever thought to mention blogging to her before she asked about it.

Another guy in the audience talked about his mom who was techno-savvy until 1995 and then stopped because she was concerned about security, but then his family got her an IBook and she fell in love with it, but still had some apprehension about security.

Assistive technology is mentioned by bennet like foot mice, head mice, abc keyboards, big-key keyboards, etc.

An audience member mentions that little kids and elders have something in common, but I can't hear her. Also, she says that the school buildings in her town are being converted to age-restricted housing.

Another audience member mentions that her parents are elders who have the technology, but she isn't sure if they are familiar with blogging. She wonders if their trips to the doctor's office is a way to reach out socially.

Bennett asks how we reach out. How do we get this technology to the elders in our community. where do we start?

An audience member says we need to start in one place, and show the for-profit people that we can scale up.

Marshall mentions the readers of his magazine are elders and from a business perspective, elders are not generally an economically challenged group. The trouble is getting them engaged. They are worried they are going to break it because they are from the diy generation. I guess he's from Atlantic Monthly.

Ebay funds seniornet to get more seniors online. And there are varying reviews of the senior net structure. Ebay will teach elders how to get online and set up a site.

In 1998 the cape cod bank gave lessons to elders for free to encourage online banking.

someone who partners with the aarp wants to know how elders need to be treated differently from youth online.

Bennett responds that everybody in the media forgets she's there. Invisibility. She gets really angry that she's forgotten and that baby boomers get so much attention.

"I've never been smarter, and the world doesn't think I *am* smart anymore" says Bennett. She says elders have a wealth of information that isn't being tapped.

Sam Taylor from here in austin says the biggest problem he has is that the media makes the internet into something we should fear. And perhaps because the media is afraid that new technology will result in the death of the current model. And that we need to educate people about the things that can go wrong without inciting fear.

I mentioned CTTC.

Laura works at a college and suggests that people partner with local colleges and universities to both teach and create applications that are more user friendly. Particularly open source is a good resource to jump into.

Another man talks about dealing with his own aging & his mom who lives in an assistive living facility and he wants to point out that low-income elders are the ones who need the most assistance...and also stresses the importance of teaching in a non-judgmental way. Also, the importance of political organizing online. He says the right wing has organized seniors, teaching them how to write letters to the editor, etc...but the progressive movement hasn't done as much to educate the elders. Boomervote.com is one example. We need to network and share resources. Firefox and google. seem to be the most accessible.

someone suggest that bennett post on her blog so we can all post our urls on timegoesby.com

Halley from Halley's comment discusses her struggles with cataracts and how it affects her ability to participate. Says that interfaces need to be examined because we are moving towards smaller interfaces that will potentially exclude even more people.

Bennett responds that there is a technology that is being developed in Japan that is quiz software and it's only made for the Nintendo.

John says he's been trying to work on building a computer for his partner's parents & uses gotomypc to fix the problems they have remotely. And it allows him to install software that is more user-friendly on the fly.

someone else mentions that she applied for a grant to make her site accessible for people who are sight-impaired, and said something else that I couldn't hear.

Bitter mention David Wolf who writes about the Ageless Market, and is a proponent for Ageless Design. When you design things for older people, it ends up being better for everyone. He talks a lot also about neurplasticity and focuses on the importance of storytelling. Blogs are perfect for this, because they are so much about telling stories.

Bennett loves the ideas of using blogs as a transitional phase.

someone mentions the benefit of recording the oral histories of our elders.

memorywiki.org

Posted at 10:20 AM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Quick things before I hop in the shower and go catch a bus

March 12, 2006

I forgot to mention that last night I met Lynne and Tiffany. I'm totally weird about initiating introductions with people, but I made it a point to be all dorklicious and just say "Hi! I liked your panel!" to Tiffany...and it wasn't so bad, even though I felt like a total nerd.

So, yay me!

Posted at 8:12 AM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

I stopped talking an hour ago...

March 12, 2006

I think I can go without drinking for about 4 months now and be quite happy at this point. Which is not to say that I overdrank, just that I drank more alcohol tonight than I think I've had to drink in the last 3 months combined. but, what the hell? It was FREE alcohol, right?

B and I met up and went to the Milkshake Media party at Lucky Lounge. I like the theme there, and even though the bartender grimaced when I asked what kinds of girly malt beverages they had, he did pour me a pear cider that was tasty. And then I had some rum and cokes with B. Was it 2 or 3 of them? I can't remember. And then we caught the shuttle over to the Frog Design (?) or whatever the fuck it's called party where B was hit on by a guy who looked like he was about 12 years old. I thought it was cute. He was all trying to be suave and non-chalant, sidling up to us with his drink and his cigarette and making casual conversation.

And then I overshared information about my personal life with B and I think I made her CRY at one point. Ack! I need to not drink alcohol. But it was fun anyway. I was all "B - don't be upset - I'm totally not upset about this shit any more, so why should you be?" But still I thought it was cute that she was so emotional about it. Maybe she was a little drunk, too.

We hung out there for a little while and then we decided to walk back to my car rather than wait for the shuttle, and we stopped on the way and listened to some poetry slamming with Mike Henry as the host.

I thought I might just go home rather than go to the AMODA thingy, because at this point I'm just starting to get a little self-protective about the whole friend-not-talking-to-me thing, especially after oversharing about my personal life and remembering that I spent 3 years living with a husband-not-talking-to-me and I fucking vowed to myself that I was worth way more than that bullshit and I would never put up with that crap again. But that might just be the alcohol talking, and I told you to disregard this post anyway, didn't I? But, still. Fuck this silent treatment bullshit. I'm fading fast. I might love someone madly, with all my heart, but I don't deserve this motherfucking bullshit.

At any rate. Ahem. So, I thought about skipping the AMODA thing, because I just really did not feel like seeing that particular person, but I was too buzzed to drive home at that point, and I had to piss, so what the fuck ever, I just walked to the Copa thingy by myself and the minute I walked in the door I asked this guy that I know where the bathroom was and then I found friendly faces in the crowd and I didn't even see my friend after all, so everything was cool except I started to get really kind of sleepy and tired of standing, so I just turned to my sxsw cohorts and said "I think I need to go home." and I left, and walked back to my car by myself, thinking "Gosh, it's nice to walk around by myself for a little while" which further drives home the point that I need some frigging alone time for cripe's sake.

& then it was back in my car and I was driving home and now here I am, thinking that I really need to get some sleep.

So tomorrow is another full day and then in the evening Fray Cafe & I'm thinking I might head home after the conference and head back for the Fray, but I don't know for sure, and right now I'm too freaking tired to care.

I Hate Danger
Bikini Kill

I said I wanna come over
you said 'ok just come over'
your friends are all on the couch
your friends said 'let's walk around'
I'll pretend your friends are my friends
and kinda try not to offend them
but they won't let you see anything real
let you know, there's limits to--
CHORUS:
I stopped talking an hour ago
I stopped talking an hour ago
I stopped talking an hour ago
I stopped talking an hour ago
It's a predictable point of view
this group dynamic caters to
it's a particular point of view
I think you know when it caters to you
(and if you do know don't act like you
don't cuz it's really annoying, and if
you don't know, well, let's just say,
you're a lot lot stupider than I thought.)
I'll pretend your friends are my friends
but I don't wanna hear you defend them
in fact that kind of insults me and
I kinda don't really wanna be here right--
CHORUS:
I stopped talking an hour ago
I stopped talking an hour ago
I stopped talking an hour ago
I stopped talking an hour ago, ago...
OK: Your whole thing put me in
negative space for way too long
the only thing I managed to say during
that time was 'I hate danger'.
what I really should have said is:
'you're so not dangerous. you're so
not what you say you are at all.'

Posted at 12:31 AM • Comments (2) • TrackBack

One final post for now.

March 11, 2006

So, I have some copious notes from both the "wisdom of crowds" and the "public spaces/exclusivity/inclusivity" panels, but I will post them later.

What I will say is this one thing. Well, these TWO things, and then I'm zipping up my bag and I won't be coming back until I have had a significant amount of partying under my belt, so take whatever I say at that point with a HUGE grain of salt, please.

First...YAY! Some groovy sxsw meeting fellow blogger action is happening all over the place. I got to meet Jason! And EJ! and a very nice fellow named JW Richard (here and here) I hadn't met previously and the illustrious Liza Sabater (here and here), from whom I evoked a SQUEAL! (links forthcoming). i'M BUMMED that I didn't think to include a present in my bag for squealing! I will have to think of something quick and bring it tomorrow.

And second, after the public spaces/private clubs panel, I went to the one private club where I am allowed to go without having a fucking political discussion about whether I might be excluding white men - the fucking LADIES ROOM. And I thought, wow. That's a fitting metaphor. And I also thought about breastfeeding in public, and all of the ways that women are told that they HAVE to create a private space for certain activities that men just don't want to deal with (tampon vending machines in public, anyone?).

At least it's encouraging that there are changing tables in the men's rooms here. I will give them that! Go women's rights!

Posted at 6:01 PM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

There are no words I can add to this.

March 11, 2006

the bone

and I'm having a difficult time choosing a category, as well.

[link via feministe]

Posted at 4:11 PM • Comments (1) • TrackBack

sxswi update - Saturday Afternoon

March 11, 2006

I skipped lunch and sat in on the screenburn thingy that was asking the question of whether austin could be the next gaming hollywood or whatever. It was kind of boring, and I basically just sat there and watched my battery power slowly diminish because there were NO FREAKING OUTLETS in the room.

Then we got the total treat of watching Justin Hall gesticulate madly about gaming and living online and basically how to integrate gamingin into life and total communication. I was telling B that it reminded me of when my friend Matt and I were in high school and we always wished we could have ticker tapes attached to our brains so we could achieve absolute communication with each other. Total immersion. It seems like that's the point that Hall was trying to make, kind of. Only, of course, when that happens you encounter the dilemma of what to do if the government and/or FUCKING MARKETERS get ahold of that information. Hall didn't have any answers for that. He called it the cloud over the whole idea. But it was an interesting discussion, and I just find Justin Hall so delightful. I WANT to call him a pretensious asshole, simply because he seems like one of the "popular kids" but it's obvious that he is so NOT. He's just crazy in that arm-waving exciting totally THERE RIGHT FUCKING NOW way, and it makes me feel like waving my arms crazily in the same way. You know?

Then B and I went in search of food and outlets - I was tempted to spend the half an hour between panels in the lady's restroom...at first because that's where I discovered a power outlet, and then because, I mean, you have to admit it would be pretty funny for me to write a blog post in the restroom of the convention center. Thankfully I did not do that, because we ended up eating in the cafe and my new favorite band was playing - the Total Foxes. They are so cool! They played at the roller derby last Sunday, and I just find them so endearing and funny in the kind of way that lesser bands might not be able to pull off. Maybe other bands might TRY to pull it off, but they would come off sounding intentionally ironic and insincere, but the Total Foxes come off totally awesome, and I just want to hug them and write songs together with them because I love them so much.

So, that was a treat, and there was a cutey tattoo boy sitting behind me so I was trying to surreptitiously look back at him and not doing a very good job of it, and then it came time to go to the next panel that I'm sitting in right now and totally ignoring. It's about the wisdom of crowds and he's talking about search engines right now. And when I sat down this really nice guy completely understood the whole NEEDING A PLUG thing and even plugged me in which I found to be sweet and somehow intimately friendly. HE UNDERSTANDS! Maybe I will marry him, but not really. I'm just still feeling all arm-wavey and excited about life because of Justin Hall's presentation, so I'm liable to say silly stuff like that

Anyway, that's about it for now. More later.

Posted at 3:29 PM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Yay!

March 11, 2006

I also got to meet j! The brotherlove! Yay! Hugs all around!

I'm like a moonstruck nerd among all of my nerdy idols! I know Mr. Toney is here somewhere...but I am so out of it in blogland that I'm not sure if there are any other bloggers here. Where the heck do I go to find out whether any of my favorite bloggers are here? I mean, aside from the panelists.

Posted at 12:53 PM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

sxswi so far

March 11, 2006

Arrived at 9:45ish to find a daunting line for registration. Fuck! Lack of foresight sucks. But weirdly, I stepped in line at the same time as an old Kinko's "co-worker." So, I guess lack of foresight causes some nice synchronicity, as well. It definitely made the wait seem pleasant, chatting about the bad-old days of that overly-stressful underly-rewarding job.

So, the wait was painless. Relatively. Even though I was a little late and missed the first half of the blogging brainstorming session. I did get to see Mr. George, and wow! Yay! I forgot how much I love George! I mean, not really, but all I could do when I saw him but squish him and exclaim "I LOVE YOU!" I love George! He fucking rocks! He makes SXSW worthwhile. If nothing good happens all week, at least I got to see George. In fact, I'm almost glad I didn't go to Chicago now, just because I got to hug George.

Plus, after the blogging brainstorming, I got to see George do his Battledecks presentation and he fucking rocked. It was really hilarious.

But now I'm sitting in the blogging naked panel or whatever it's called, and I'm hearing some interesting stories about what happens when you bring yourself to the online world and people you work with find them. There's lots of interesting material here about the ethics of blogging personal experience. I have yet to find my co-worker here, but I think I will see her the next place I go. And I'm so excited to be here. It's been awesome so far, and I'm sure it's going to be a great 4 days!

Posted at 11:34 AM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

so many options, so little time

March 11, 2006

So, with all of those options...what did I end up doing last night?

Basically, drinking girly malt beverages and cleaning my house. Then Chatting with Rachel about life, kids, boys, and the like.

I just couldn't muster a going-out kind of mood...as I'm clinging to my last vestiges of alone-nimity.

I was going to get up early today and take the bus downtown, but it's also the last day I have full use of my car, as I'm loaning it to a friend, so I've decided to haul myself and my geek-tacular gigantic laptop with me to sxswi, find a place to park, and start my week of public modes of transportation-only tomorrow, instead.

Did I ever tell you about the German guy we met in Chicago one time who absolutely REFUSED to get into a car. He had this crazy-ass bicycle that he rode everywhere, and even when there were 72 of us crammed into my tiny little toyota celica to go somewhere, he was all "Nein, danke!" and off he went, pedaling away to meet us whereever it was we were going. Dude! That's fucking hardcore!

Anyway...I should probably get my shit together and go. I need to register before I attend my first panel, because last night I actually drove down to register at around 7:30ish, couldn't find a place to park, and came home.

My dorkitude knows no bounds!

And, I was reading over some of my most recent posts, and I can't figure out what my deal is with grammar lately. But, oh well.

Posted at 8:38 AM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

And I totally love Amanda, too.

March 10, 2006

*Insert title involving unfair swipe at a diverse group of people with some unpleasant members* at Pandagon

It does suck that thereâ€™s a 9 month anticipation period between when a man loses control over what was inside his body and when it becomes a child, since a woman who lets go of what was inside her body gets to call it â€œJuniorâ€ immediately. But men can take comfort in the fact that releasing their bodily property is considerably more pleasant them than it is for a woman to release hers.**

Posted at 8:17 PM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

I lose nothing in this attempt.

March 10, 2006

I'm at a point now in a stand-off with a friend where I'm like "Holy cats, dude, this is ridiculous!" And it's kind of making me laugh, because I think I've been in this person's shoes before, where it's clear that I'm, like, upset about something. Probably with good reason. And now, I'm also in the other person's shoes, where I'm like - totally not feeling any hate for this person and totally ready to just playfully cuff him upside the back of the head and puppydog him into mutual forgiveness and, you know, moving forward and continuing to figure out this really groovy sort of friendship/soul siblinghood I thought we were working on.

And it's frustrating, because I'm seeing both sides, and all I want to do is hug this person and say "Dude, you might be right, but you are being a big dummy." Because, really, I'm a fucking good friend. And this all is pretty silly. And I'm worth forgiving, and so is he.

I think maybe he might be thinking he's in some sort of fortress, either of self-righteousness or self-doubt...and maybe I'm like the BATF coming to burn the place down, or maybe play loud annoying rock music to flush him out. But really I'm just yawning outside the door with a wilty daisy in my hand, waiting patiently for him to come out. Tapping my toe a little bit. Maybe I'm listening to music on my Walkman that I know he won't like, and grinning because I know just exactly what he would have to say about it, too. And, oh I love him. So much. But, dude...trust me...Not THAT way. The way I love him is WAY better than THAT way.

Hellllloooooooooo! You can come out now! It's safe! I miss you! Come play with meeeeeeeeeee!!!!

Hahahahahaha. See, this is a lot nicer than the post I made earlier...but it's the same sentiment. Maybe less funny, but equally true.

How we connect
Dog Faced Hermans

I hover - you stutter - we miss - and crash.
The mystery lies in the space between us.

My tongue gibbers but in your language.

It's a miracle thing - godsake - how we connect

Fact of life is a fact of distance
Poverty lies in the space between us
Mystery lies in the space between us
I make sound which approaches language
Make my tongue a physical one
Fact of life is a fact of closeness
I lose nothing in this attempt

Posted at 6:31 PM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

My SXSW Interactive Gimmick

March 10, 2006

OK, all of you potential sxsw Interactive attendees, here's the deal. I'm going to be there, and I'm sorta shy...so I have presents for anyone who finds me and introduces themself. A mix CD for an introduction, a yo-yo trick for a hug. If you wanna smooch...you'll have to give ME a present!

Here's the mix...It's a good 'un! It's pretty much all about up & down!

Operation Ivy - Sound System
The Clash - I'm not Down
The Last Poets - This is Madness
The Pogues - Pair of Brown Eyes
Dirty Three - Hope
Camper Van Beethoven - Life is Grand
Jets To Brazil - One Summer Last Fall
Dog Faced Hermans - How We Connect
Cat Power - Fate of the Human Carbine
Joe Strummer & the Mescaleros - Techno D-Day
Buffalo Daughter - Super Blooper
Viperhouse - Wild
Bim Sherman - Simple Life
Spearhead - Do You Love?
Fleetwood Mac - You Make Loving Fun
The Decemberists - The Sporting Life
The Decemberists - We Both Go Down Together
Earth, Wind, and Fire - Sing a Song

Posted at 3:56 PM • Comments (2) • TrackBack

Oh, how I love me some twisty!

March 10, 2006

â€œRoe v. Wade For Menâ€ My Ass at I Blame The Patriarchy

So all this is is a laughably whiny attempt at financial retribution against women who dare to flaunt their humanity by claiming personal autonomy. â€œWhat! Women claiming ownership of their own uteruses? Weâ€™d better sock it to those lying, entrapping cuntalinas where it really hurts: their fashionably tiny handbags!â€

You know, I read this article yesterday, and I was really too busy spluttering to say anything about it. Thank the lordessa of the internet for Ms. Twisty Faster. How we love her so! She makes Patriarchy Blaming so fun and entertaining, you almost start to forget that you are walking around in a blind rage!

Posted at 10:05 AM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Attack Formation is my favorite band.

March 10, 2006

Last night was the first of a long string of nights where everything is happening all at once. Well, not really. But I have so much planned that my head is spinning dizzily at the thought of the next few days. I'm trying to figure out "When the hell am I going to be All By Myself." for a little while, and it really doesn't look like it will be until I do my camping thing late next week.

But that will be OK if I can maintain the high quality of company that I hung out with last night. Me and Susan and Sam, who I am trying not to refer to as "cricket's roommate" but I'm afraid, like "meat guy" the monicker might just unfortunately stick.

So, I picked up Sam (cricket's roommate) after finishing a night at work where I was put in the uncomfortable position of delivering a Trainer Evaluation (which wasn't entirely positive) to a volunteer. He took it really well, and I think I gave him some pretty valuable feedback. It's weird to think of myself as a subject matter expert, but I guess I've kind of been a student of communication/training for the past 10 years or so, and it's true that I can muster an inordinate amount of diplomacy when the situation warrents it. I just don't often feel like it. So I'm usually tactless.

Butanyway, so I gave this guy his TE, and hung out for a bit to see all of the nifty powerpoint presentations that the clients created for their final projects & then I chatted a bit with the management dude and the network dude, and then I called Sam (cricket's roommate) and went and picked his ass up. He had been NAPPING (cheater!) which is I suppose what those lightweights have to do, and before you go talking to me about "Well, MOST people have to work in the morning" I will say blah-de-blah - do you think moms get a fucking break?

I kid. Naps are nice. I wish everyone in the entire world would take regular naps. Especially before big fun musical adventures. Especially me.

So Sam (cricket's roommate) and me went to get dear Susan, who is no one's roommate, really. Unless you count her cat, Maurice. In which case, I suppose, she is someone's roommate. But it really just depends on how into that whole "Cats as people" thing you are and I, frankly, am not - particularly at this point in my life, where I'm sort of stuck with a grouchy, geriatric cat that I am allergic to who has recently been converted from a strictly outdoor entity to a "begging at the back door to come in" critter. And once she is in, she sets up camp and bites and scratches any children who attempt to disrupt her.

But anyway...so Susan was in and we were on our way to eat something at Kerbey Lane. I got the grilled veggie tacos which were meh ok. I need to stop going to Kerbey Lane. Magnolia is much better. Do you hear that all of you SXSW out-of-towners? MAGNOLIA IS MUCH BETTER! I won't tell you where the best 24-hour place is, though, because I want to hog it all to myself and those I deem worthy of my Austinexpertise.

And then we were off to the show. We got to The Whisky Bar at around 11:15ish or so, and there was a steady stream of people...streaming in. Susan was like a little gopher, tunneling her way to the back of the club, looking for some yummy non-crowdedy goodness. I did not believe her that there was a destination to be reached, but I followed along anyway. Somewhere in the middle of the crammed-inishness of the whole thing, I had visions of the newspaper headlines the next day "Innocent Gopherish Victims TRAMPLED at Whisky Bar" because it was THAT fucking PACKED. But we did, in fact, reach a yummy openy space and I was able to settle in and work the yo-yo for a bit and attempt to chat, but really I HATE talking at shows. At one point, I reinforced my hatred of it by accidentally YELLING in Sam's (cricket's roommate's) ear and making an ass of myself. But, hey, what else is new?

So, we stood in back through the first set. I was enjoying the peoplewatchingness of the whole experience. Noting in my judgmental way that the people in that club were really just as annoying as the sorority chicks and frat boys I had been scoffing at last Friday at Kerbey Lane. You know, the "I got dressed up in expensive pearls, a miniskirt, and full makeup just to get drunk and end up fucking on some stranger's bed" set? And the male equivalent thereof. It's the same thing.

And for some reason I have this intense, seething hatred for this guy I will refer to as "beard guy." I'm not sure why. He just annoys me. And he's at all of the AF shows. It's a hatred that has gotten to the point where I will actually point to him and make strangling motions at him even when he might possibly be looking. This concerns me. I seem to have even less of a filter for my own misbehavior than I ever have before. Like eye rolling. I can't help myself sometimes. It just happens and by the time I realize that I'm doing it, I'm in mid eyeroll (or mid strangling pantomime) and it's too late to just...stop.

One of these days, I am totally going to get beat up.

So the first band (Peabodies I think was their name, which, you know? I really think bands should try harder to come up with better names. What the fuck is up with that? Peabodies? Really? That's the BEST you can do?) ended, and I decided I was either going to be near the stage or not there at all for AF, so Susan once again tunneled her way to the front of the room and there we were right up front like the big fucking dweebs that we are.

I've changed my crush from the singer to the bass player. He's so dreamy. OK, I like them both. I decided that I'm going to have a new crush on a different Attack Formation guy every time they play. That way, I won't be creepy stalker girl of an individual member, but I will be creepy stalker girl of the entire band. The good thing is that AF seems to inspire stalkerish behavior, because many in the crowd were regulars. So I wasn't terribly worried about being singled out and recognized as being particularly creepy or stalkerish. And it's not like I threw my underwear on stage or anything, so I hardly qualify anyway.

AF rocked. They did. Allegedly it was the trumpet player's birthday, although I'm still sort of wondering if he wasn't just saying that as an excuse for his extreme level of intoxication. He was REALLY drunk. I mean, the kind of thing where, as Sam (cricket's roommate) said, we were worried that we might get barfed on. Or passed out on. Or maybe worse, although I can't think of anything really worse than being barfed on, so never mind. But he was cute and funny drunk. And he ended up in the crowd a couple of times and it was fun and funny and energy energy energy.

I keep waiting for the guys in Attack Formation to get all pissy with each other because they are always all crammed up on stage and bumping into each other and stuff, It seems like they don't have enough room to move, much less rock. But somehow they manage to move AND to rock, and they never get irritated with each other, they just smile and, for instance, allow the drunken trumpet player to steal the mic to blast his trumpet into in the middle of the song even though the singer probably really needed to use the mic to sing into. The just always seem like they are having FUN, and damnit, the last thing I want to see on a Thursday night is a group of irritated, surly dudes who are up there WORKING on stage, you know?

On the last song, our favorite cute hair tossing hip shaking dude got off of the stage and climbed up on the bar to do his little adorable dance. I just want to mush him right up! And they all played and the trumpet guy blasted, and then it was over and susan was drinking some of the birthday beer and then we left, yo-yoing into the night.

And that was that. It was like 3 in the morning when I got home, and I didn't do my night-time writing. But I guess this qualifies. And it's a full day today of zooishness and readinghood and then maybe tonight more musics, meetups and mushtasticality. I'm up for it. I have the energy.

but maybe I'll squeeze in a good nap, too.

Posted at 8:26 AM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Parenting Plan

March 9, 2006

I spent the day at the park today with the homeschoolers, observing interactions. I think, with Rachel here, and with a whole different perspective on how children are parented...and perhaps, too, with a little breathing room...I'm noticing how far I've veered off of the path of my personal parenting plan.

For one thing, and I think I've mentioned this before, I'm not being present with my children as much as I would like to be. I've really focused this week on engaging them in activities. Simple activities like playing cards or doing homework in close proximity. It didn't have the result I expected or even necessarily desired, but it did result in something that I feel was/is cathartic. It basically has resulted in a lot of emotional honesty from Monk that I haven't heard recently. And, while the honesty is somewhat difficult for me to hear, I think it's important that it's coming out.

And some changes need to be made as a result.

While I can't base some of the larger decisions I need to make entirely on Monk's opinions or desires (after all, I am the adult with the wisdom and experience to make those decisions) - I do think there are some changes I can make to accommodate some of Monk's feelings here. Plus, I really think I need to spend some time over my break from them really examining what kind of parent I was, what kind of parent I am, what kind of parent I desire to be, and what tools I need to get there. Again, it's the path...and it's the veering from the path...and it's the finding my way back to the path, and taking it.

I guess that's what life consists of, in general. It's just that you hope that you don't veer so far or so often that you spend more time moving laterally than you do moving forward.

Anyway, so far, here's my plan:

Talk to the children, and let them know I will be re-evaluating the way we communicate with each other - and let them know I expect them to do the same - while we are apart from each other (I did this today)
Re-read some books that are on my shelf that might give me some clarity or good advice on how to get where I feel like I need to be (ex: The Tao of Pooh, How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen so Kids Will Talk, and Everyday Blessings: The Inner Work of Mindful Parenting)
Spend some time writing and planning for an ideal day with the children. Visualize what it will look like. Think about how I would like our interactions to sound and feel.
Plan a fun family activity the day they come back from their dad's after spring break. Don't talk about stuff, just demonstrate what I have consciously decided upon as an ideal communication model.
Plan a family meeting the second day after they are back from their dad's. Talk about changes that are upcoming, lessons we have learned, experiences we have had. Perhaps play a family game.
Maybe ask the kids' therapist what she thinks of all of this, and plan to have a session with all of us talking together.
Plan to touch base as a family on a regular basis.
Make sure to find ways to nurture myself. I have done a fairly good job of this lately, and I need to continue. But I also need to bring myself back to my children when I am done. It's the transition that is difficult for me. The transition from me-time to mama-time.

I think that's about it for now. I do have a lot to think about. I don't feel like I'm necessarily not parenting WELL, but I feel like I'm coming up short in a lot of crucial ways that would behoove me to work on, not just for the sake of my relationship with my children, but also for the sake of my relationships with everyone. I think this here. Right here. This house...this is where all of my interactions originate. I need to cultivate a safe and healthy atmosphere here in order to feel like I can communicate clearly and consistently with the world. I need to integrate me, and myself as a member of my family, before I can nurture integrity in my extra-familial relationships.

Posted at 6:06 PM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

I'm tempted to move to Ohio, Just so I can vote for this guy

March 9, 2006

The Capital Times

In an e-mail dispatched to fellow legislators last week, the senator announced his plan to "introduce legislation in the near future that would ban households with one or more Republican voters from adopting children or acting as foster parents."
Explaining that "policymakers in (Ohio) have ignored this growing threat to our communities for far too long," Hagan wrote: "Credible research exists that strongly suggests that adopted children raised in Republican households, though significantly wealthier than their Democrat-raised counterparts, are more at risk for developing emotional problems, social stigmas, inflated egos, an alarming lack of tolerance for others they deem different than themselves, and an air of overconfidence to mask their insecurities.

"In addition," the Democrat noted, "I have spoken to many adopted children raised in Republican households who have admitted that 'well, it's just plain boring most of the time.'"

Hagan acknowledges that the "credible research" to which he refers cannot be quantified. But that should not be a problem, he explains, as a bill proposed by Republican state Rep. Ron Hood, R-Ashville, which would prohibit adoptions of children by gay and lesbian couples, suffers from a similar deficiency.

Since Hood's homophobic legislation is not backed by evidence that gay and lesbian parents are in any way detrimental to children, Hagan argues, why should his Republican-phobic legislation have to be grounded in anything more than emotions or ideology?

Absolute genius!

[link via Living on Less]

Posted at 9:49 AM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

I support you, Joseph DuRocher

March 9, 2006

A Veteranâ€™s Letter to the President: â€œI Return Enclosed the Symbols of My Years of Serviceâ€

As a citizen, a patriot, a parent and grandparent, a lawyer and law teacher I am left with such a feeling of loss and helplessness. I think of myself as a good American and I ask myself what can I do when I see the face of evil? Illegal and immoral war, torture and confinement for life without trial have never been part of our Constitutional tradition. But my vote has become meaningless because I live in a safe district drawn by your political party. My congressman is unresponsive to my concerns because his time is filled with lobbyistsâ€™ largess. Protests are limited to your â€œfree speech zonesâ€, out of sight of the parade. Even speaking openly is to risk being labeled un-American, pro-terrorist or anti-troops. And I am a disciplined pacifist, so any violent act is out of the question.

Posted at 9:40 AM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Oh, good fucking lord!

March 9, 2006

3 College Students Arrested in Alabama Church Fires - New York Times

The identities of the accused came as a surprise to investigators, who had speculated that the arsons were the work of people intimately familiar with the remote rural roads where the fires were set, not products of Birmingham's upper-middle class, one the son of a doctor and another of a county constable.
"This is just so hard to believe," said Alabama Fire Marshal Richard Montgomery. "My profile on these suspects is shot all to heck and back."

Gov. Bob Riley said he was happy to learn that the fires were "an isolated incident" and not an organized attack on religious beliefs or Baptists. Speaking at a news conference announcing the arrests, he said the last five weeks had been "a pretty tough time" for church-goers.

You know, the FIRES might not have been racially motivated...but this crap that they are spewing about the perps is nothing short of total racism/classism.

Can you IMAGINE what they would be saying if the arsonists were black and/or low-income? Certainly they wouldn't be playing up that "aww, it was all fun and games." Aspect.

I'll be sure to pass that bit of wisdom on to my children whenever I catch them playing with matches. "You know" I will tell them "It's always fun until somebody BURNS DOWN A MOTHERFUCKING CHURCH."

[link via The Dees Diversion]

Posted at 9:34 AM • Comments (1) • TrackBack

Who will love me now?

March 8, 2006

My walk has been postponed due to rain. The dog is mad. We started to walk, but the lightning! And the thunder! And the raindrops! And the clothes hanging on the line!

I got far enough to hear the plaintive wail of PJ Harvey singing "Who will love me now?" And I don't know the answer to that question. "Who will ever love me?" I don't know that, either.

But the dog decidedly does NOT love me right now. She doesn't give a fuck that it's raining. So my conscience now has to deal with the unloved Polly Jean Harvey and the unwalked Twyla The Dog. And that's quite a burden to bear.

If you haven't noticed, I don't have much to say. So I'm going to just spill here and see what comes out.

I've been in housemate hunting hell these past few days. I had a missed connection with one dude who seemed really nice but has extenuating circumstances. Then there was this woman who seemed dorky in the same way that I'm dorky but ended up giving me more like "actually, this person might be even dorkier than me and even quite neurotic" vibes. Right now, I'm debating whether the presence of meat in my home is worth it for a seemingly groovy housemate situation. We'll see what happens when I meet up with this person, and we'll see whatever else comes up.

All I know is that I need to share this space for financial reasons, as well as for philisophical ones. So I can't really wait much longer. However, the boys are feeling a bit crispy around the edges what with all of the adjustments they have been making. Poor Monk. Poor dear Monk. I had to give him the "I wish we could afford to do this without a roommate, but we can't" speech today. I think...I KNOW he will get over it, but things have been too transitiony for everyone lately. I know. I can feel it, too. And he's such a fucking sweet kiddo. He's all "I don't want Rachel and her kids to feel like I don't like them here, because I REALLY DO...but do you think we can ask them to be somewhere else for a little while when we get home from dad's house?"

How can I refuse a request like that? He might never ever tell me he loves me, but that there is the sweetest damn kid in the universe.

Oh, and I FOUND MY YO-YO! I was so happy to be reunited. It just fell. Out of my bag. The bag I had checked in about a zillion times. There it was. Right there. Falling out. *sigh* my yo-yo. It's the one that Cricket gave me, so it's special. I don't care what anyone says about material objects having no value. Fuck you.

I'm about to hurl myself headlong into a very full weekend and a very full week indeed. Tomorrow is my last day officially at work work. I will be at sxsw interactive, and then I have a meeting for work and some things to finish up on Wednesday, and then I am taking myself camping. Camping! I hope by then I will have resolved this housemate situation and will be able to fully relax in the knowledge that everything is taken care of. But even if not...I will find a way to forget about it. Help is on the way on that end, as well.

But the boys. The boys. When this housemate situation is settled and we can resume our rhythm, everything will be groovy. Already, things are calmer here. I feel more able to relax. I'm present with them. I don't feel like hiding. I need to recognize this feeling and make sure I do something if I start to feel the other way. I need to make sure that *I* feel safe in whatever living situation we end up in here. I need to make sure I protect the little time I have with my boys - and not ask too much of anyone else, either.

It's good to have Rachel here. She is a calming force. A stabilizing force. It's kind of nice. I think every time I see her, I appreciate her in a different way. There have definitely been times in the span of time that I have known her that I have felt like the anchor. Right now, she is the anchor. She's keeping me from drifting off, whether she even knows it or not. I so, totally appreciate that. And I so, totally need that right now.

Today we were talking about the apparent end of the world. That's how it is around here. Just sitting around the table talking about the end of the world as we know it as if it's a foregone conclusion. She lives in Europe now, so we were talking about "stocking up" and, you know, how long we could survive. That's what it's come to, folks.

We ended up talking about how those militia people have a fucking point. We need to form compounds and secede. But the problem is that everyone is so fucked up emotionally from having to live in this world that we aren't capable of working together. I keep trying to form a community of people, but I'm too fucked up and everyone else is too fucked up to really relate as equals. I mean, it works with 2 or 3 or 4 people, but any larger than that and it's too many fucking crazy people making each other crazier! And don't you even try to tell me that's not how it's intended to be.

ah, maude. what the fuck are we to do?

And tonight, when I came home from work, I was telling Rachel about my found yo-yo. I was extolling the virtues of the bearing system, and Monk was looking at me...with this look on his face that totally said "Oh, shit! My MOM is a TOTAL NERD!"

And I told him that's what the look on his face was saying, and he laughed at me and said "No, you are not a total nerd, mom. You are WORSE than a total nerd! You are a total GEEK!"

So, I called him a dweeb.

And he retaliated by calling me Dr. Phil because, get this, I'm "so fucking optimistic."

"d0000000d," I said to him "Stop fucking swearing!"

And then we tickle warred until he started kicking and it hurt so I told him to knock it off and read him a chapter from the book we are reading.

But it was fun, and funny, and sweet...and for a little while, I wasn't thinking about the end of the world, my sad and lonely dog, or ms. PJ Harvey lamenting over love.

Who will love me now?
PJ Harvey

In the forest, is a monster
It has done terrible things
So in the wood, it's hiding
And this is the song it sings

Who will love me now?
Who will ever love me?
Who will say to me
"You are my desire, I set you free?"

(Who will love me now?)

Who will forgive and make me live again?
Who will bring me back to the world again?

In the forest, is a monster
And it looks so very much like me
Will someone hear me singing?
Please save me, please rescue me

Who will love me now?
Who will ever love me?
Who will say to me
"You are my desire, I set you free?"

(Who will love me now?)
(Who will ever love me?)

Who will love me now?
Who will ever love me?
Who will love me now?
Who will ever love me?
Who will love me now?
Who will ever love me?

Posted at 11:47 PM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

One can only hope this reflects badly on the republicans...

March 8, 2006

...but it's doubtful:

"I have always placed my faith in the voters, and today's vote shows they have placed their full faith in me," Mr. DeLay said in proclaiming victory.

EARTH TO TEXANS...Geez, I don't even know what to say after that...how about "GET YOUR HEADS OUT OF YOUR ASSES!!!" Does that work?

[link via P6]

Posted at 9:28 AM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Logistical burnout

March 7, 2006

Ladies and gentlemen. I am totally fucking burnt out.

There are many difficulties that come with single parenthood. One of the biggest challenges, particularly in my life, is the endless logistical nightmare that is childcare. Right now, I'm finding myself in a position where I really need to make some changes in the way childcare is handled with my children, but it is so fucking daunting. I know it will all end up OK, but...well, I'm tired. And burnt out. And, really, while I am thankful for the support I have received in the past and will likely receive in the future, and I do feel like I contribute as much as I possibly can to my community...I'm really tired of always being in the position where I am in need of help.

Plus, there's the deficit. Mostly, it's a time deficit. I need to rely on other people to watch my children while I am at work, but since I have to work, I feel like I have almost no time to build, develop, and nurture the community of people that I am aiming to form interdependent relationships with. Right now, there is a need imbalance and it bugs the shit out of me. I need to have reciprocity...equity...not only because it is only fair, but also because the imbalance makes me feel like I'm put in a position to be viewed as being "the charity case" rather than "the partner." This is certainly not the way I'm being treated, but it doesn't matter. It's still the perception I have of myself in my mind and heart.

Sigh.

So, yeah. It's been a rough week here as I've just been sort of "winging it." Thankfully (?!) Monk was sick today, so I took a night off from work to tend to him and make sure he got the attention he needed. It was good. We played cards. I think the kids are burnt out, too...but for different reasons. It's absolutely wonderful having Rachel here. The kids all get along and they play, rolling and tumbling like puppies, all day long. But I think we will be ready to resume some semblance of normalcy when Rachel leaves.

I know...I know...I KNOW everything will work out. But I'm so tired. So so burnt out. So so so in need of respite. Damn. I just could really use someone to take care of me. It's been a long time since I admitted that out loud - ever since I realized that J and I weren't going to be able to make it work, and I was seriously considering moving back to Chicago. I really want to be able to just hand off the baton for a little while and catch some rest. Just for a little while. Just long enough to take a breath and hit the ground running again.

Posted at 8:04 PM • Comments (1) • TrackBack

March 7, 2006

Technorati Profile

Posted at 11:20 AM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Gmail

March 7, 2006

I am such a total nerd. I finally activated my gmail accounts that have been lying dormant for many years. I'm thinking about switching over to gmail so I can quit my stupid ISP and find a decent one.

At any rate, any other gmailers out there who might want to chat? For some reason, I'm lately feeling like chatting & don't have any friends nerdy enough to chat with me. I gave up on using trillian awhile back because it totally makes my internet connection crash. Plus I can't use it at work.

I am drublood at gmail dot com

I am also myrealfirstname dot myreallastname at gmail dot com (for those who actually know my real name)

add me! email me! chat me!

Posted at 10:43 AM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Random Links all over the place

March 7, 2006

Like I said, my communicator thingy is broken. So...here are some links:

Stopping the next extinction wave

But overall, extinctions are coming at 100 to 1,000 times the normal background rate, according to the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, a vast attempt to audit the Earth's ecological health which was published last year.

It concluded that a third of all amphibians, a fifth of mammals and an eighth of all birds are now threatened with extinction.

It also concluded that although humanity is the cause, humanity will ultimately be among the losers.

The picture of the polar bear reminds me that the marine ecologist who gave the talk last Friday said something to the effect that some species seem to have a tendency to adapt. Polar Bears, for instance, might not become extinct...but they will become more like rats and pigeons which, he added, is not a very dignified existence for a polar bear.

***
P6 has this to say about white guys on the downlow:

I am pleased a popular movie about white guys on the downlow raised the opportunity for its dissemination; because I'm actually pretty sure this information predates that dumbness, I'm a little annoyed (but not surprised) it took a popular movie about white guys on the downlow to get it out there.

***
The Coming Resource Wars

â€œAs famine, disease, and weather-related disasters strike due to abrupt climate change,â€ the Pentagon report notes, â€œmany countriesâ€™ needs will exceed their carrying capacityâ€â€”that is, their ability to provide the minimum requirements for human survival. This â€œwill create a sense of desperation, which is likely to lead to offensive aggressionâ€ against countries with a greater stock of vital resources. â€œImagine eastern European countries, struggling to feed their populations with a falling supply of food, water, and energy, eyeing Russia, whose population is already in decline, for access to its grain, minerals, and energy supply.â€
[...]

Although speculative, these reports make one thing clear: when thinking about the calamitous effects of global climate change, we must emphasize its social and political consequences as much as its purely environmental effects. Drought, flooding and storms can kill us, and surely willâ€”but so will wars among the survivors of these catastrophes over what remains of food, water, and shelter. As Reidâ€™s comments indicate, no society, however affluent, will escape involvement in these forms of conflict.

We can respond to these predictions in one of two ways: by relying on fortifications and military force to provide some degree of advantage in the global struggle over resources, or by taking meaningful steps to reduce the risk of cataclysmic climate change.

No doubt there will be many politicians and punditsâ€”especially in this countryâ€”who will tout the superiority of the military option, emphasizing Americaâ€™s preponderance of strength. By fortifying our borders and sea-shores to keep out unwanted migrants and by fighting around the world for needed oil supplies, it will be argued, we can maintain our privileged standard of living for longer than other countries that are less well endowed with instruments of power. Maybe so. But the grueling, inconclusive war in Iraq and the failed national response to Hurricane Katrina show just how ineffectual such instruments can be when confronted with the harsh realities of an unforgiving world. And as the 2003 Pentagon report reminds us, â€œconstant battles over diminishing resourcesâ€ will â€œfurther reduce [resources] even beyond the climatic effects.â€

I'm kind of wondering if it isn't already too late...but maybe I'm just being cynical because I'm on the rag.

***
Richard quotes Clara Zetkin in anticipation of International (Working) Women's Day on March 8:

As far as the proletarian woman is concerned, it is capitalism's need to exploit and to search incessantly for a cheap labor force that has created the women's question. It is for this reason, too, that the proletarian woman has become enmeshed in the mechanism of the economic life of our period and has been driven into the workshop and to the machines. She went out into the economic life in order to aid her husband in making a living, but the capitalist mode of production transformed her into an unfair competitor. She wanted to bring prosperity to her family, but instead misery descended upon it. The proletarian woman obtained her own employment because she wanted to create a more sunny and pleasant life for her children, but instead she became almost entirely separated from them. She became an equal of the man as a worker; the machine rendered muscular force superfluous and everywhere women's work showed the same results in production as men's work. And since women constitute a cheap labor force and above all a submissive one that only in the rarest of cases dares to kick against the thorns of capitalist exploitation, the capitalists multiply the possibilities of women's work in industry. As a result of all this, the proletarian woman has achieved her independence. But verily, the price was very high and for the moment they have gained very little. If during the Age of the Family, a man had the right (just think of the law of Electoral Bavaria!) to tame his wife occasionally with a whip, capitalism is now taming her with scorpions. In former times, the rule of a man over his wife was ameliorated by their personal relationship. Between an employer and his worker, however, exists only a cash nexus. The proletarian woman has gained her economic independence, but neither as a human being nor as a woman or wife has she had the possibility to develop her individuality. For her task as a wife and a mother, there remain only the breadcrumbs which the capitalist production drops from the table.

(emphasis added by me)
***
When my fat ass isn't setting fires up and down sixth street, it's actually a threat to national security!

SCARBOROUGH: You know, Evan, I don't want to offend anybody here, but I've just got to tell you a story. An undercover FBI agent was sitting around having drinks, telling me that the greatest risk to America's safety was fat women. I said, fat women, what are you talking about? Thinking he was joking.
He said, a lot of these terrorists team up with insecure women. They get married to them, and then their entire family comes in and we can't do a damn thing about it. Does he have a point?

[link via fatshadow]
***
And, wow. Again.

"Unless we do something about it, the magnitude of the dilemma will dwarf 9/11 or any other terrorist attempt," he said during a lecture at the University of South Carolina.

[via big fat blog]

Who knew my fat ass was so fucking controversial?!
***

The war without a name:

The Vietnam War was known as such from very early on. (Of course, it helped that John F. Kennedy was pushing it as his counterinsurgency war of choice against the Soviets.) Similarly, while the war the elder Bush fought against Saddam Hussein in 1991 was dubbed Operation Desert Storm, it quickly became known as the Gulf War. That this war has no name -- and that no one even thinks to comment on it -- has represented a quiet success for the Bush administration.

(For some reason, now I'm singing "This is the war without a name...it just goes on and on my friend...some people started fighting it, not knowing what it was..." Etc. You get the picture.)
***

That's all I got for now.

Posted at 9:03 AM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

You know...

March 7, 2006

When it starts to seem like every interaction you have with people ends up in misunderstanding or worse...it's probably time to stop talking and start listening.

Or maybe it's just time to stop talking and take yourself camping.

One of those.

I'm not sure which.

Either way, I think I'm just going to revert to linking things for now. Clearly my communicator thingy is broken.

Posted at 12:15 AM • Comments (2) • TrackBack

I unpublished a post.

March 6, 2006

I had a post up here for much of the afternoon that I felt crossed a line of ethics. It was about a problem I am having with a friend, and while I feel like the topic is fairly universal, I also feel like I am in the middle of resolving this issue with my friend, and while I didn't name any names, I feel like it's unfair for me to hash it out in front of people without first addressing the issue with him.

I'm not sure if I will ever GET TO address the issue with him, in which case, I will probably publish the post again, with maybe a little more vitriol. Because I'm mean like that.

But, until then...I will try to find another way to express that frustration in a non-specific manner. Perhaps by arguing with people who insist they have managed to somehow escape all gender programming! Because we can do that! I don't believe in gender, therefore...everyone else needs to stop fucking complaining about it!

Posted at 4:17 PM • Comments (4) • TrackBack

And while we are on the subject of boys and their penises...

March 6, 2006

Go read this post by Twisty. And then "APerson" can talk to me about how I need to view men as people, rather than men.

I think the bumper sticker goes something like "I'll be post-feminist in the post-patriarchy."

And, in this case, "I'll stop thinking about rape, when men stop benefiting from it."

Not nearly as catchy, but you get the fucking picture.

Posted at 1:14 PM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Ass-kicking fun.

March 5, 2006

Man, the roller girls kicked so much ass. I'm now officially proclaiming that I am in training to be a roller girl. Well, maybe not. But I'm going to spend more time at the roller rink, relearning how to skate...and I'm totally going to start lifting weights so I can kick some ass. Actually, this has nothing to do with having seen the roller girls tonight. I was planning to get back into the workout groove again once I had a little extra money coming in anyway...but it certainly didn't hurt to see so many big strong ladies on the track today. Damn! I have the perfect fucking build for a blocker. And it doesn't even look like I would have to learn to skate backwards.

So, anyway, yeah. I'm contemplating buying a season pass, that's how much fun I had tonight. Once I got the hang of how they scored the game, and had an idea for the rules...I enjoyed the hell out of it. I love the camp and kitsch and the pro-wrestlingesque aspects as well as the awesome athleticism of the women. Plus, everyone looked like they were having so much fun, I couldn't help but smile. Also, the music! And the crowd! And the family-friendliness of the whole thing. What a good time. Next time I will remember to bring extra batteries for my camera. I got a few pictures, but the battery ran out before I could get some good shots from the seats we usurped after the halftime show. Ah, well.

If you have the chance to witness some flat-track roller derby action in your area - I would say go for it. But evidently the Austin roller girls are the best game in town, so you should probably just come down here for a visit and see how it's really done!

Posted at 11:25 PM • Comments (3) • TrackBack

cocktails and comics.

March 5, 2006

At this cocktail party last night, I was talking to some friends about sxsw interactive. Some guy standing by the snack table says "Isn't that all about blogging?" I replied "Yes...a lot of bloggers tend to flock to the event, and there are a lot of panels on blogging." He replied "I never understood that. Why on earth would anyone want to publish an online journal. What a boring thing to read...what a boring thing to do."

I laughed. And I told him about the dullest blog in the world. I didn't mention that I am one of those people. hahahaha. I find it amusing when people say shit like that. I guess I do it all the time about other stuff, but still! There were actually probably 3 or 4 people in the room who have or had online journals. I, of course, immediately thought "I need to blog about this!"

The party was fun. Pretty mellow. I did some close-quarters yo-yo tricks and met a juggler. We talked for a bit, mostly about how I am just a poser until I can yo with both hands. His dad is a magician, my brother is a clown. That kind of thing. There was not the usual amount of "I don't drink" awkwardness that I feel at such events. Mostly because I knew just about everyone there, and the people I didn't know were warm and friendly. So, there. I guess I have been to a party where I've met people who are worthwhile.

Earlier in the day, I attended what I thought was a zine convention, but what was actually an independent comic book convention. Which is OK. There were some nice people there, too. I got to talk to Christina (?) I think her name is...who volunteers for the zine library at the Rhizome Collective. It is good to have a face now, and I will probably be inclined to help out there. I talked to her a bit about that online zine library I linked up earlier this week. I think it would be really easy for me to help with something like that. I just need to get a decent scanner, and I can pump out PDF's of classic zines right and left. I am hoping she calls - or maybe I will just get back in touch with her. These next few weeks are totally busy, but I think in April I will have some time to volunteer. It will be a good way for me to get back in touch with the zine community, as I really think I need to start sending more writing out, and zines are my favorite outlet.

Keith Knight, the cartoonist, gave a really engaging presentation on being a cartoonist, being black, being political, and all of the other things that make him a unique voice. I've seen his stuff before, but never really enough to realize he had a body of work. Just here and there. And he's pretty awesome. I think I'll seek out more.

So, it was a full day with interesting interactions. I managed to squeeze in some alone time, too. Rachel is here with her kids, but she's spending a lot of time at her mom's, so there's a lot of resounding silence in the house, which is nice. I did play a few rounds of Uno with her on Friday night, and we talked about a lot of stuff. It felt good to have someone here and to force myself to stay present and talk. Once I got over that hump of wanting to hide, it was easy. Playing cards helps. The yo-yo helps. It keeps me busy so I don't have to think too much about escaping. Hahaha. I guess there are worse habits.

But Rachel is great. I have known her for so long. It's just nice to be in close quarters with someone who has demonstrated some degree of permanence or consistency in my life. I don't know how to describe it. She leaves, and she always comes back. I have many friends like this. I guess it comes from having moved away from my hometown at a time when I was participating in a really active scene - and moving somewhere that I felt like a relative outsider. Well, and the trauma that surrounded that move. It took awhile for me to form close bonds with people. I'm actually still relearning. It's a long way back when you've been knocked headlong off a cliff, I suppose. But anyway, Rachel and I met while I was at the very beginning of even thinking that I had anything to relearn. We've had lots of long discussions about things, but we've also done a lot of laughing and just existing. What I remember best about Rachel pre-children is sitting at Kerbey Lane and laughing at her because it always took her for-fucking-ever to decide what she wanted to eat. And we would laugh and laugh and laugh through our entire meal. She still makes me laugh. But mostly I just think she's extra super sweet and really...she's like my sister, only way better. I'm thankful to have her in my life...and glad that she is here right now. Well, right now she's not HERE, but she's near.

I think I'm rambling on because I'm stalling. I need to take a shower, get dressed, and start my day.

Posted at 11:06 AM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Marine Ecology

March 4, 2006

Last night, I attended a lecture by a marine ecologist. He started the lecture by expressing surprise about the size of the audience. "This is the live music capital of the world!" He exclaimed. "Why are all of you here on a Friday night listening to a depressing lecture?"

And then he proceeded to give one of the most depressing lectures I have ever heard in my entire life about the state of our oceans and waterways, and really...the world.

He gave us six main points to consider...six reasons the oceans are in the state they are in. I noticed right away that these reasons can be fairly universally applied. And, shifting focus - turning around the lens - can also be applied internally to the ecology of me...of us as individual humans.

Here are the six points:

No more big fish
Trawling is turning the sea floor into a parking lot
Species globalization (i.e. introduction of harmful plant/animal life into habitats)
Ocean warming/global warming
Ocean poisoning
Rise of slime

One of the points the good professor made which I'll probably remember for the rest of my life was about perspective. We humans tend to view nature as "the way it was when we were young" - which means the definition of what is natural is constantly shifting. In fact, none of us has ever known nature. Nature went away with the large animals, and is becoming even less natural as we also reduce the number of habitats that exist in at least a semi-pristine state. We don't know, anymore, what is natural. So where does that leave us?

I think the professor was trying to tell us that it leaves us in a position where we have to define what is desirable and work towards that. In other words, conservation has failed, and now it is up to us to define what we want the future to look like and try to turn back the damage and recreate nature in a way that doesn't cause more problems in its creation. The problem with this is as we slowly creep towards the point of no more chances, we have a smaller and smaller margin of error to work with. Right now, we can still fuck up, and reverse our fuck ups to some extent. But it's imperative that we at least begin to talk and think about it, and act on it.

It was an amazing talk. And so rich with information and metaphor for me (mostly because I'm a metaphory kind of person). And while it didn't give me a whole lot of hope for our collective future, it did force me to think about ways that I might apply some hope to an apparently hopeless situation. Small things that I, as an individual can do - both internally and externally - to fight against some of the damage we are bringing to the world. My microcosmic experience of the world and what I bring to/take away from it. It's so so tiny, and yet enormous.

I brought one of my interns to this lecture because she is interested in marine biology. She's a high school student, and as far as I have seen, not incredibly politically active/aware (although definitely not ignorant by any measure). As we were walking out, she told me that she wants to read Silent Spring now, because the professor talked a lot about Carson's work and its continued importance. I was thrilled. It was a small thing, really...but huge. Like a drop of water, but vast as the ocean.

Posted at 4:47 PM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Garrison Keillor calls for impeachment.

March 3, 2006

Garrison Keillor, folks. What to do when the emperor has no clothes:

Is the law a law or is it a piece of toast?

Posted at 11:30 AM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Rearranging Time

March 3, 2006

I've begun a practice that I hope to continue. It's already feeling very beneficial to me. In the morning, I wake up, pull out my private, handwritten journal, and write. Thirty minutes non-stop without even thinking about what I am writing. At night, before I go to bed...I do the same thing only typing. Writing and typing for me have always exposed different voices. We'll see if my writing develops as a result of this experiment. At the very least, I will have page upon page of useless drivel to look back on as the years progress.

I'm rearranging time around here - or rather time is rearranging itself. Unasked for change can result in positive change, as well. However, I need to learn to look inside myself and ask for that change before it happens. In other words, it is now apparent that this change is probably better for me, but I was willing to continue plowing forward...to my detriment.

Gah. Will I ever be whole? Fully, or even partially understood? Perhaps not. I'll keep trying to put the pieces together, though. And sketch out a map of my progress.

Posted at 10:57 AM • Comments (2) • TrackBack

Speaking of PTSD

March 3, 2006

feministing.com

Fucking disgusting.

I couldn't agree more. You know, there's all this talk about PTSD and soldiers. You want to examine how the trauma cycle is perpetuated - read things like that fucking travesty of fucking justice.

Gah. There are no words. I am furious. Even though it was rescinded...still. The fact that anyone even THOUGHT to force a rape victim (under threat of jailtime, no less) to watch a VIDEO OF HER RAPE. It's fucking disgusting. Yes. That's about the only description I can offer.

Posted at 10:22 AM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Friday Random Ten - Is it lent? Really?

March 3, 2006

Friday Random Ten â€œFor Lent I Gave Up Blowing Up Toads With Dynamiteâ€ Edition at Pandagon...My random ten:

Neutral Milk Hotel - Two-Headed Boy Part 2
Michael Franti & Spearhead - We Don't Mind
Fugazi - Styrofoam
Portishead - Strangers
Colin Meloy - Shiny
A Triibe Called Quest - Motivators
Cat Power - Fate of the Human Carbine
Fugazi - Lockdown
Tribe Called Quest - Award Tour
Minutemen - Political Song for Michael Jackson to Sing

Yay! The weekend!

Posted at 9:23 AM • Comments (2) • TrackBack

It's almost midnight. I feel fine.

March 2, 2006

I just got home from interviewing potential housemate number one. He seems...almost too good to be true. We'll see how things go with potential housemate number two, and then I have some decisions to make.

I've been a little broken up about a break with a friend. I was all kind of jolted by it this afternoon, feeling out of place. I also lost my favorite distractive device. So, when one of the kids asked the other one what was wrong with mama, the other kid said "Oh, she's sad because she lost her yo-yo." I laughed. I guess I did sort of lose my yo-yo.

It's really quiet here for the first time in I don't know how long. I'm feeling a little lonely, and that's interesting to me. I'm used to feeling lonely when the house is full. I think this is the first time I've actually been ALONE and felt lonely in I don't even know how long. Comparitively speaking, it's actually kind of nice.

I got nothing to complain about.

Rainshine
by Bran Van 3000

I don't care how sick you say it's gonna get,
My big ass bubble has not busted yet.
Because I feel,
I feel fine, I feel fine.
Yes I feel,
I feel fine, I feel fine.
Yes I feel, I feel fine, I feel fine.
Yes I feel, I feel fine.

New time again, dis a new time again,
For de time now, de dodge a man him come through and then,
Me no want no war, me say between no man,
'Cause this hear time dodge a no work for satan.
Lord have mercy,
Lord have his mercy.
Lord have mercy,
Lord have his mercy.

You know what?
I've got nothing to complain about.
My breath is bad,
But my beer is stout.
So take my hand and let us jump about,
'Cause we got nothing to complain about.
The sky is grey,
I think it's gonna rain.
But that's okay,
'Cause hell, I like the rain.
So join me here in this here refrain,
And shut your shit,
And don't complain.
What?
'Cause we got nothing to complain about,
And you got nothing to complain about.
So c'mon,
It ain't that difficult to figure out,
That we've got nothing to complain about.
So c'mon.

A man a shot upon him, life through the dark,
When you check it out, it's a natural fact,
Jah jah have good judgement when you do all you want,
And if...

You can speak of babylon while you're around me,
'Cause every single little thing I see astounds me.
Rainshine...

Inna this time, me no fight 'gainst no man,
Me no want no man come try to test dodge,
'Cause when you check it out and go upon one mission,
And God and the Father and me inspiration.
Me test upon a mission and a one-way plan,
Me no want no man try disrespect me fashion,
'Cause when you check it out and put inspiration,
And that is how a you go reach Mount Zion.

I feel magical, mystical, motherful, logistical.

Lord have his mercy.

Magical, mystical, motherful, logistical,
Magical, mystical,
Magical,
Magical, mystical.

Look around,
Look around,
Look around,
On the ground,
On the ground,
There's a finger on my blister.

Posted at 11:52 PM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Staple!

March 2, 2006

My friend Susan just told me about STAPLE! The Independent Media Expo! Holy shit! I've also been asked by my boss to please NOT come to work on Saturday...so I guess I'm going to hobnob with the zine geeks, instead.

yay! Meet me there!

Posted at 8:00 PM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

My last name means hard.

March 2, 2006

And I am tougher than I look. And I am softer than I seem. And my entire life has been committed to finding a middle ground between the two. The world makes me toughen and soften at the same time. I want to snuggle in, and I want to strike out. I need to strike a balance. I need to weigh circumstance against like circumstance and decide according to what is in my present rather than what is in my past. It's hard work, which is another way to define my name. Or, perhaps, another way my name defines me.

My ex-husband used to tell me I always chose the most difficult things. I used to joke that I married him, didn't I? I need to keep in mind that sometimes there are difficulties that are worth hanging on to. That some people will pose challenges that are worth overcoming. That even myself...I will present difficulties to other people. And *I* am worth hanging on to. And *I* am worth overcoming. *I* am worth understanding.

My last name means hard, and imperviousness is not a negative trait. I am here, withstanding whatever weather until I get to the good stuff. I am here: a rock, a tree, an ocean. A sound. A heart. A friend.

Love.

Posted at 2:28 PM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Room for Rent

March 2, 2006

I don't think I ever posted pictures of the awesome job Pansy did on the floor in my rental room. I totally would live there. In fact, I'm sort of jealous of my new housemate! They have the best room in the house!

Monk did the panel pieces (with some help from Pansy.) and Pansy did the rest of the coolness.

Posted at 11:13 AM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

PTSD, the war, and idiocy.

March 2, 2006

Amanda has it pegged in her response to this absolutely heartless assessment of the nature of PTSD and returning vs. veteran soldiers.

This is what is called â€œsupporting the troopsâ€ on the rightâ€“send them to brutal, disturbing war zones where trauma is inevitable and then call them â€œpussiesâ€ when they actually react like human fucking beings to this trauma.

Some of the comments to Amanda's post are fucking heart-wrending, as are almost all accounts I hear of how PTSD affects the trauma survivor as well as the lives of everyone who surrounds him or her. That's the thing, too: PTSD is, to some extent, contagious. Meaning, if I am in close contact with someone who has severe enough PTSD, eventually, *I* will be traumatized by it.

Someone in comments to Amanda's post said "We need more empathy in the world." And it's true. It's a total neverending loop, though. The damage feeds on itself and, at the rate we are going, and with people like Charlotte whatshername walking around spewing bullshit, it will never end.

Posted at 10:32 AM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

SXSW Interactive

March 2, 2006

Hey everyone!

I guess I AM going to SXSW Interactive after all. Who else is going to be there? Anyone? George? DJ? Anyone?

Let me know, so we can have some yummy interactivey fun!!

Posted at 9:11 AM • Comments (2) • TrackBack

Some more posts about economics

March 1, 2006

Richard summarizes a number of Paul Craig Roberts' Counterpunch articles here, and discusses the shortcomings of an article about Economic Civil Disobedience here.

Posted at 8:39 AM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Ain't patriarchy a bitch?

March 1, 2006

I've been (half) joking around a lot lately about how I've been hanging out with boys too much. I think it's kind of jarring, after having spent the last several years of my life in such a femme-centric world, to have to deal with people who, however well-meaning they might be, just don't (and won't ever) really know what it's like to be a woman.

So, I think I need to invite RJ and his wife over for dinner some night soon. He might be a man, but at least he gets it:

Not to discount a woman's ability to be a judge of character--I'm not saying that all women should be afraid of all men equally all the time. I'm saying that women have the right to suspect any man at any time. All the best intentions in the world don't get you (or me) off the hook, fella. As long as we live in a patriarchy, you're a suspect, a calculated risk, a potential threat to be weighed and evaluated.
Ain't patriarchy a bitch?

Indeed, it is. Thanks, Robert.

Posted at 8:27 AM • Comments (17) • TrackBack

online zine library

March 1, 2006

Yay! I'm so glad someone has finally started doing this. I had hoped to do something similar, but always lacked the time and the technical know-how. I hope I can contribute pdf's of some of my favorite vintage zines, though!

[link via tiny revolution]

Posted at 8:11 AM • Comments (2) • TrackBack