In case you might have missed it, or don’t follow my other blogs, I am a feminist. I have identified as such since the age of 4, when Sean J. told me boys were better than girls and rather than punching him in the nose, I simply said “Well I’m clearly better than YOU!” and walked away. Read more
18
Jul
To give you all context, this week was thrown out of whack by a minor disaster eight days back.
- On July 18th, we were all ready to go see a movie with friends. We stopped for drinks first. Friends ordered food, went to bathroom after, and one friend collapsed in the bathroom. Evening ended with friend in Intensive Care on a respirator, unconscious.
- The next few days were spent with my friend/hospitalized friend’s wife. She’s deaf in one ear and he was sent to the public hospital because the ER team felt it best for his condition. Turns out he went into anaphylaxis. No effort was made to educate him about his allergies.
- My friend was released on Wednesday afternoon. Complaining from Mike about my not being home. Complaining met with not obscenity but with similar words that were much deserved. On the same day, I attempted to bring my friend to Como Conservatory since his oxygen levels were low but stable. This did not work as intended – the bright sun triggered some wacky, humidifying antics in the fern room. I parked him in the area between the zoo and the conservatory, and I wandered around awhile. I have pictures. You’ll probably see them on here eventually.
- Play date with Joel on Thursday. We watched True Blood and I told him about my week.
- Friday we were supposed to go to a Twins game, but I was breaking out myself (oh JOY) and the humidity was godawful.
- Saturday was the Doctor Who meetup. There’s some – hopefully resolvable – weirdness.
But the basics of all this is that I haven’t done a lot of intentional writing. I’ve done my morning pages (mostly) and I did get my most recent Llewellyn article in first draft. While we keep trying to reschedule the movie, at the rate we’re going if we try to get the same group together the movie will have left theaters. So I’m off to see the Sorceror’s Apprentice today, and here’s to a week of getting back on track, my garden in order and my writing underway.
As it is, my garden needs my attention, my blogs need my attention… and dammit, I need my attention.
14
Jul
I used to think of grown-ups as these magic giants who could answer any question and open any jar. I am not yet one of these magic giants, I am simply a larger child who still needs her husband for jar and wine bottle opening, and who is highly averse to suggesting any answers, ever.
I miss my magic giants. These shorter copies they left behind just don’t know any answers either, and they’ll be damned if they admit it.
4
Jul
Not only am I incredibly bad at it – I suck at lying, and so when in situations where I feel it’s best I generally resort to passive forms like omission. I actually have to fight with myself to leave an Internet pseudonym.
And most of the time, my life is so bizarre I don’t need to lie. People who don’t know me don’t believe me anyway. There’s one newer person in my life who would never say it to my face, but who suspects I’m at the very least prone to hyperbole. Perhaps when making a story funnier if I can, but no. I’m not terribly invested in whether he trusts my personal veracity or not. I’m just not hung up on that stuff anymore. But he’s starting to catch on that a lot of those stories of mine he dismisses are true, running into people that were there or people who know both of us that say, “Oh yeah, you should have seen her right after that, it looks like she took on the truck fleet herself!”1
I can tell that either he’s been asking or people have been talking, because more and more often, I’ll say/explain something on the fly, and he’ll stop me and say, “Really?”
- Not in reference to any actual situation, ever. [↩]
1
Jul
Testing again with a new cross-poster.
29
Jun
Minneapolis Gay Pride 2010 shot by puppethead on flickr
Minneapolis boasts the third largest Gay Pride celebration in the United States. The contributions of gay culture here are quantifiable: without the influx of gays in the 80s and 90s (some cast out of their homes, others just seeking their own) a good chunk of the urban renewal that has enlivened Minneapolis would never have happened. When a gay couple moves in next door, my first thought is “Up go the property values!”
The first real friends I made in Minnesota were all in some way part of or allied to the gay community. I was struggling with yet again being an outsider, a status that will never really change for me, and while I didn’t exactly find home, I found acceptance. The kind support of the people I met helped me overcome the homophobia I’d been ingrained with growing up, and opened up paths to freedom within and without that I had never previously imagined.
Now, a decade later, I have friends gay and straight, black and white and occasionally striped, but all mostly liberal. It’s sad, but I don’t particularly enjoy debating – I’d rather just let those around me live with parallel opinions and trade recipes; except in the case of those with really poor character those opinions were come to through life experience as valid as my own.
I am proud of the contributions that the gay community has made to Minneapolis. I am proud to call certain gay individuals my friend, not because they are gay, but because they are people of good character. I uphold their rights to marry, to love and to go about their lives with the same expectation of safety that I have. (Which really should be a lot better than it is for all of us.)
At the same time, I uphold the rights of others to peacefully express their opposing views on this and any other subject.
I have followed the situation with Pastor Brian Johnson with interest. While I completely disagree with his stance on homosexuality, I have to say that the Pride board was dead wrong about this one. It suggests a loss of perspective that is the predecessor to bigotry. The reaction is totally understandable: it’s impossible not to take an anti-gay preacher personally when you are gay. When someone’s politics is directed at your very personal life, your emotional response will fire off first. That’s definitely what happened here, and in the process, the board forgot:
Loring Park is public and belongs to all taxpayers.
First amendment rights belong to the opposition, as well.
As it is, Johnson got some interesting reactions as he passed out Bibles. Many were outright immature, and much of it was about thinking of Loring Park as “pride only” space when it is, in fact, public space – space that conservatives have a right to use, too, and not just those Log Cabin people.
The point of Gay Pride originally was to assert the rights of gays to participate in their whole community. At some point, as happens when subcultures spring up, it became more about the gay community. Johnson and the legal battle he was involved with is a grim marker of this loss of perspective: everyone in the world is in this together, and over-isolating and segregating yourself will lead to the people who set me free becoming the bigots. I hope this does not happen.
16
Jun
It’s Tuesday evening/Wednesday morning and I feel like the week’s already gotten away from me. I blame the depressing weekend. Typically I have an established routine: get up, artist’s way work, write, blog, lunch, afternoon physical projects, a walk, and then husband-related stuff. At the moment I’m instead facing a schedule upheaval. Gone are my Friday artist’s dates, but in their place I have free access to the car on Wednesdays. This allows me to run around fulfilling errands and maybe sneaking in artist’s dates, if I’m careful to moderate those errands.
Also, Mike caved to my pleas and let me get that $99/two month membership dealie at the YWCA. Not a fabulous deal – only $!6 less than the monthly fee anyway – but more than sufficient to thoroughly tide me over until community ed begins again at the end of September. I definitely can’t afford $58 a month year round, but for two months I can swing something a little less. This forces me to drastically alter my writing schedule, as now I get up and catch the bus to the YWCA. I’m aiming for daily if I can do it. I can drive on some days, and parking is astonishingly cheap for members. Even so, getting to twelfth street is always a bitch.
So my good intentions are already a bit rattled. I still have serious plans for the Pagan Values project, including a links roundup and much – much – to write down the line. But I also had another Llewellyn contract come find me, and I realized during rewrites that I need to completely split up a chapter I originally planned to including in the Divorcing a Witch Book Proposal.
I’m sure I’ll get used to it in a week or two. For now, it’s just making sure I do something – just a little – towards all my goals every day. Of course, posts here range from 500-1000 words typically, so “a little” is relative.
So the trick to growing aragula indoors/in a container? Leave it the hell alone. Same goes for marigolds, which last year would not even sprout for me but this year are flowering with cheer.
I’m still experimenting and learning with this whole indoor/outdoor garden thing. Obviously, I use a chunk of it in witchcraft, but there’s also a certain salutary effect to eating food I’ve raised myself, and the food seems happy to offer itself.
It’s actually very cool.
Now here’s hoping I can get some catnip to sprout!
The update:
actually, I'm in my mid-30s.
For those of you who do follow my other blogs, particularly Fat Chic and my livejournal, you know I’ve been out for a blogger’s conference hosted by Lane Bryant. If that tells you anything about my core values, it tells you that I’m far from anti-establishment. I think the establishment, such as it is, belongs to me, and I’m willing to work with that. The weekend preceding the conference was the wedding of some dear friends, and as their official sanity anchor it meant strategic involvement on my part. This has thrown me a bit off my schedule, and has led to spiraling despair usually dumped in a notebook and shelved.
I was on a strong track with the writing last week, but even a short trip can throw me off, so I’m once again revisiting the carefully constructed habits. Making sure I exercise daily. Eating a decent breakfast. Trying to organize the time I spend with friends well. Stashing all the things that make me crazy and insecure so I’m fit for interaction with society. Making time for yoga, meditation, prayer and sunlight.
Also, stuff is broken. My livejournal crossposter is indeed neither crossing nor posting. The survey for Divorcing a Real Witch only loads if the planets configure and someone sneezes at the right time. The humidity has worn the adhesive off the picture hanging strips that attach images to the walls of my home, and my husband just drilled holes in our apartment wall because wireless became completely unreliable for three weeks.
So, this said – I’m getting back on track as best I can. I’ve been discovering a yen for writing fiction, and the noose-like conviction I indeed cannot write fiction is fading. I am still writing and revising the book proposal for Divorcing a Real Witch, and researching markets, researching PR, researching who to talk to and when. I am steeling myself for rejection and lots of “this is not what we’re looking for at this time” type stuff – back when I really trolled the field in my 20s, I was always invited to submit again, but rarely if ever did. I’m sure the same will happen with my fiction when I get that ready, too.
So there is is, you have your benchmark of where I’m at. Oh, and here’s a sample Table of Contents on the book.
Pagan Values Month
I do intend to participate in this, although my thoughts are considerably scattered on the topic – because it’s a scattered topic. There are few things that make me feel simultaneously hopelessly ahead and hopelessly behind as talking to other pagans, not just about values practice but about anything, really. While I realize those most into obtuse obscura are the most full of shit, I’m sensitive despite my tough demeanor and I occasionally end up getting conned for awhile.
I may not stick to this outline, but I think for this year, I may focus on a single aspect of pagan living/values and take it from there. Logically, a series on values surrounding divorce would probably be the closest to my wheelhouse right now, followed closely by values concerning marriage. Last year’s discussions focused on sex, but I did get a big sidetracked.
I guess I’d overall like to focus on the following:
1. When is divorce acceptable, and when is it required?
2. Why get married at all?
3. Perceptions of freedom within a marital agreement (or why I struggle in marriage more than I do in long-term relationships)
4. Life besides parenthood
There is also a discussion I’ve wanted to bring up: pagans are a community of people with strong values, but we are not necessarily a community of shared values. For instance, I know individuals who consider cursing the worst thing you could do to yourself and someone else – and others who see refusing to curse a wrongdoer as a moral failing in itself. See? The topic spreads like dropped marbles.
I’ll be rolling up my sleeves and taking part of this stuff on this week, so stay tuned. Just keep in mind that because I’m Wiccan, I am fully prepared for my values to change as my situation changes.
I’m out of town for a few days, heading for Columbus, Ohio tomorrow morning. Much like Minneapolis, it’s actually a fairly large city and yet persistently receives the reaction “that’s a city? Not just cows everywhere?” Yes, really, it’s a city, and just as Midwestern as my own – you just sit on the vowels more when you speak there, while here you clip the consonants and avoid eye contact.
It’s for Fat Chic blogging business, a little blog that started not so much in a fit of pique as in a fit of “here – peek – there’s more to life as a fat lady than elastic waist pants.”
In the meantime, enjoy the fruit of my new camera. I have bunny chasing-tail stories for you, in pictorial, soon.