There are some things I simply will not do. Out of a sense of connection to everyone else and how we all share in the joys and failures of each other whether we realize it or not, out of a mutual respect, a sense of responsibility, a sense of community. Whatever the reason. I have an internal list of things I WILL NOT DO.
I violated one such thing. The shame of it lingers. I am a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad person. This is my confessional and I beg you for your forgiveness. I have sinned.
Here is the situation: our air conditioning went out. We live in the desert. It was 107 outside. So while we waited for someone to figure out how to close the gate to hell that had opened in our house, we shipped the child off to the grandparents to stay and we managed to cool the house down a little and stayed the first night of this apocalypse. Big mistake. So hot we tossed and turned inside a channel of our own sweat and frustration, we did not sleep at all. We went to work only to start a three day long stretch of impossibly little sleep. What's that? Air won't be fixed until the next day? Maybe? Ok. Well, it is too hot to stay there and too hot to have animals stay there.
So we get our heads out of our asses and pack up, get the pets, and head to a local pet friendly hotel. Ahhhhh. Better. Everyone is cooling off. Now we can sleep. This is good.
NOPE.
The dogs are freaked out, there are people going in and out all the time. They decide they have to go out to go potty a thousand times. We oblige. Fuck it, they have had a rough few days. We understand.
My 90 pound dog takes a shit on the hotel room carpet at 5 am? Ugh. No biggie. We'll just clean that up. We don't need sleep. The cat is insecure and nocturnal. It's ok. She is just trying to get through this whole thing too. The pets don't know what is happening. They aren't sure why we now live in this room with two beds and no kid. Why we suddenly don't have a refrigerator or backyard.
It is ok. So far so good. It will be over soon. They are installing the new unit now. It is going to be ok. Just a little longer now. Hubby has to go in to work. I'll wait at the hotel with the dogs and their incessant bitching until it is time to check out and hopefully they have that thing ready. Maybe I can get a nap in. Let's make one more trip out to potty, just to be safe.
I take the dogs one at a time because they are crazy. On a hunch, I take the big boy first. Even though he is behaving better, I think- nah, let's get him out there. This was my lucky break. It was to be the only one I would get. And I am forever grateful.
He gets out there and proceeds to dispense a gigantic pile of chocolate fro yo to rival a world record. Sleep deprived, I watch this happen in a mixture of disbelief, while also quite impressed and feeling a fracturing sense of helplessness. I know, in that instant, I cannot fix this. I cannot remove this. I have to leave this mess. I am dying here. What can I possibly do now? I'm not this person. They have dog poo bags. I need a hazmat crew.
So I go get my other dog and take her out. She goes potty, not realizing I am in a trance of fear and self loathing about the mondo dog patty hanging out over there, mocking me with its unclean status. I re-enter my hotel room a different person. THAT person. The one that would leave their dog's over sized poo puddle sitting in the manicured lawn like an asshole. I wash my hands, my arms, but its not enough. You can't clean yourself enough to remove the stench of who you are now. They don't make that kind of soap. Don't even try.
I think through my options, trying to come up with something that will work. In my sleep deprived state, I decide, you know what? It could be hosed off. I'm sure it has happened before. I'm not the worst person who has ever stayed here. At least he didn't do that to a bed. I salvage what is left of my dignity and try to forget this ever happened.
My husband gets out of work, we get word that the house is ready, we pack up and check out of the hotel. I notice on the bill that they don't have a charge listed for cleanup of an enormous dung beetle colony. Its only a matter of time before they realize my transgression and charge that to the credit card. I live in fear of that moment. That is my payment for what I've done. I got home to a house with air conditioning. This should have been bliss. Instead, I slept the fitful sleep of the fugitive. Its my punishment.
I'm not sure what kind of community service someone does to repay for this kind of thing, but karma decided to move quickly and help me feel someone else's pain on this one. We had a little time while the house was cooling down and my husband says that he hasn't picked up the backyard poo since we've been in and out so much over the last several days. He asks me to help him clean up. I say sure, go get some bags and head out there.
People, our backyard grass really loved the recent rain. It is jungle height. Then I find out that by 'a few days' he actually means two weeks. I assist in the clean up of a metric ton of dog shit. Systematically, we scoured the yard to clean up every last bit of nastiness these animals are capable of. I don't know if I'll ever even the score, but I feel like I got pretty close. Tonight I will sleep soundly, and dream of redemption.
Thursday, September 19, 2013
There Are Two Kinds Of People
You know what I'm talking about. Not the "you either like Niel Diamond or you don't" diametric opposition. No Red State/Blue State comparisons. No combination of people who like The Beatles or The Stones. This is the one you experience all the time. You know which one you are. I desperately hope that you are all the same type, but my chances on that are only 50/50 at best. Anecdotally, it plays out more like 80/20, and for the wrong side. I beg of you, if you are on the 'other side', switch teams now.
Still struggling to see where you fall on the line of humanity? I understand. Let me paint the picture for you...Imagine if you will, you are walking through a department store. You are perusing the rack of clearance priced tops, skimming through the hangers quickly, scanning for a color or print that catches your fancy. A cut that you love, the right size....skimming...boom. There she is. The other team. She stands there, unmoving, coming your direction. Instead of going around to the other side, instead of abdicating her position as you were clearly there first, she will do one of two things. She will stare you down, probably with an expression that says you are in her way, OR she will not make eye contact, and continue to touch the rack, making sure you have to go around her.
Depending on what kind of person you are, the scenario finishes only one of two ways. You either demure, move out of her path and onto another rack or around her to finish skimming, OR you look straight at her briefly, continue skimming and then she moves. It is a bit like two dogs, strangers to each other, meeting for the first time on neutral territory. You are meeting an alpha. This time, alpha = B.
This plays out every day in every department store, marketplace, workplace, parking lot, hallway, escalator, elevator, and freeway. Any time you have to interact with a lot of other people, you will be able to quickly make a distinction about which side that person plays for. This is important. You need to know who you are, who they are, and sometimes...just sometimes...you have to switch teams. Briefly. More importantly, you need to know when.
I live in a city with blessedly wide, flat roads for the most part. Lack of winter maintains these roads to a nice clean palate with nary a broken painted line in sight. But come across a Team B player, and you will find yourself getting pushed out of the way, nudged by someone for whom the world always splits their rivers, for whom their individual personal problems, issues and insecurity are the basis for which they believe you will live your life as well, if only when they are around. Nothing matters to Team B but Team B. Knowing that, as our wise friend G.I.Joe was known to say, is half the battle.
When you find yourself deciding between a car accident caused by a bluetooth headset wearing douche knuckle and driving up onto the curb to make yourself as small and out of his way as possible, you have a short period of time and an instinct to survive that is going to get in the middle of you leaving the comfort of Team A. Totally understandable.
But the next time you are shopping and someone is making that hard faced, dull eyed, gestapo march into your personal space, (with the unspoken but very loudly understood expectation that you will move out of the way so that they can continue doing what they want to do), just stop moving. Don't get out of the way and don't rush forward. Stand in place, look up at your natural eye level and scrunch your face into the expression for "Yes? Can I help you?" The results will change your life. No longer will you be moving out of the way, shifting your shopping cart for a yoga pants clad bitch too busy on her phone to realize she just raped you with her purse. No longer will you scuttle across the hall out of the way of the five people walking shoulder to shoulder like they are posing for the front of their album cover while heading to class.
And when you come across the Team B player who thinks they fucking invented Team B? Subtlety is not your friend. Stop in your tracks and start heading straight towards them. Right into their way. Human nature will take over and they will bolt out of their own declared path to avoid the collision. Look right at them and smile. They just witnessed the miracle of the switch and they are too hollow and entitled to know that they saw something amazing. They saw you not taking their shit. Go ahead, take a selfie now and Instagram that shit. You're the boss now.
Still struggling to see where you fall on the line of humanity? I understand. Let me paint the picture for you...Imagine if you will, you are walking through a department store. You are perusing the rack of clearance priced tops, skimming through the hangers quickly, scanning for a color or print that catches your fancy. A cut that you love, the right size....skimming...boom. There she is. The other team. She stands there, unmoving, coming your direction. Instead of going around to the other side, instead of abdicating her position as you were clearly there first, she will do one of two things. She will stare you down, probably with an expression that says you are in her way, OR she will not make eye contact, and continue to touch the rack, making sure you have to go around her.
Depending on what kind of person you are, the scenario finishes only one of two ways. You either demure, move out of her path and onto another rack or around her to finish skimming, OR you look straight at her briefly, continue skimming and then she moves. It is a bit like two dogs, strangers to each other, meeting for the first time on neutral territory. You are meeting an alpha. This time, alpha = B.
This plays out every day in every department store, marketplace, workplace, parking lot, hallway, escalator, elevator, and freeway. Any time you have to interact with a lot of other people, you will be able to quickly make a distinction about which side that person plays for. This is important. You need to know who you are, who they are, and sometimes...just sometimes...you have to switch teams. Briefly. More importantly, you need to know when.
I live in a city with blessedly wide, flat roads for the most part. Lack of winter maintains these roads to a nice clean palate with nary a broken painted line in sight. But come across a Team B player, and you will find yourself getting pushed out of the way, nudged by someone for whom the world always splits their rivers, for whom their individual personal problems, issues and insecurity are the basis for which they believe you will live your life as well, if only when they are around. Nothing matters to Team B but Team B. Knowing that, as our wise friend G.I.Joe was known to say, is half the battle.
When you find yourself deciding between a car accident caused by a bluetooth headset wearing douche knuckle and driving up onto the curb to make yourself as small and out of his way as possible, you have a short period of time and an instinct to survive that is going to get in the middle of you leaving the comfort of Team A. Totally understandable.
But the next time you are shopping and someone is making that hard faced, dull eyed, gestapo march into your personal space, (with the unspoken but very loudly understood expectation that you will move out of the way so that they can continue doing what they want to do), just stop moving. Don't get out of the way and don't rush forward. Stand in place, look up at your natural eye level and scrunch your face into the expression for "Yes? Can I help you?" The results will change your life. No longer will you be moving out of the way, shifting your shopping cart for a yoga pants clad bitch too busy on her phone to realize she just raped you with her purse. No longer will you scuttle across the hall out of the way of the five people walking shoulder to shoulder like they are posing for the front of their album cover while heading to class.
And when you come across the Team B player who thinks they fucking invented Team B? Subtlety is not your friend. Stop in your tracks and start heading straight towards them. Right into their way. Human nature will take over and they will bolt out of their own declared path to avoid the collision. Look right at them and smile. They just witnessed the miracle of the switch and they are too hollow and entitled to know that they saw something amazing. They saw you not taking their shit. Go ahead, take a selfie now and Instagram that shit. You're the boss now.
Monday, September 16, 2013
The Only Way To Do Great Work....
is to do what you love...... Steve Jobs
What wise words. You can do GOOD work. You can do GOOD deeds. You cannot do GREAT work unless the work is where your heart is, what you feel connected to, what you would spend hours doing and learning to do better. That work, that specific thing that you do well and / or are passionate about and want to do well...that is the only thing you will ever do that will be GREAT. Hear me out.
I had this all wrong. I thought that I could make any work great by association. By being a generous person, by giving of my time and talents, I could affect the change I wanted. I could make the work great simply through the virtue of doing it, especially if I did it better than anyone else.
They say you affect far more people than you will ever know, in ways you could not begin to understand. I believe this is true. I carry an iphone, I work on a Mac at home and I use an ipad to watch and read as the world burns, but this is not really the way that Steve Jobs impacted my life. They are the windows through which I watched, sure. But the change in my life is something you would have thought I could have realized all on my own. I could not. I couldn't see that nothing had 'happened', I had merely taken a road that didn't lead to greatness. I never allowed the thought that there was such a thing. I believed it belonged to the fortunate, the lucky, those hit by the lightning strike of greatness. Not me.
I started out thinking that you worked up from the bottom.Nope.
I believed that hard work + any job = success. Nope.
People told me I had to pay my dues, then I could do what I wanted. Not true either.
That hard slap in the face came at an enormous cost; my time. I cannot get that back.
Now I know all the ways in which I was wrong. And I know the one that I could be right. That I was right about all along. I knew that I knew, and yet I listened to the voices of other people instead of the one that rang loudest and truest in my mind. I paid attention to the imaginary voices that cast shadows of doubt onto my abilities and desires. I thought they knew more than I did. I thought wrong.
You know, right here and now, what you are. What you really are. Where your heart lives and your imagination runs and the place and situation that would create the wide open space you need to run wild with success. You are thinking of it right now. You can see it. Your passionate dream. You keep your hand around it, sheltering it from the wind, lest it blow out your tiny little candle of hope. I am here to tell you that you can move your hand away, the wind is only created by your depressive sighing, and if you let it see the light, it will glow bright and strong and true.
You already know where your great work lives.
The question is... are you going to go live there with it?
I have tried the other way. I have tried to make jobs into great work, then settled for a job well done. Nothing great ever comes from settling. Like everything important and wonderful, it will be hard and risky and treacherous. There will be difficulties and bad days. Nothing I am doing right now justifies the risks I will take for the one true place where I can do great work. If it is not worth risking anything for, it is not worth wasting your time on either.
Go do the great work your heart desires. Follow the one passionate dream you have. There will be costs and there will be greatness. You already know what this path holds. Imagine the world you could live in if everyone was their greatest self. If we did the work that made our hearts sing.
Don't wait for something to change. You have to change. Don't wait for someone to tell you its time. They are stuck figuring out their own time. Go be who you really are. And I'll go be who I really am. And when we meet again, we'll have so much to discover.
What wise words. You can do GOOD work. You can do GOOD deeds. You cannot do GREAT work unless the work is where your heart is, what you feel connected to, what you would spend hours doing and learning to do better. That work, that specific thing that you do well and / or are passionate about and want to do well...that is the only thing you will ever do that will be GREAT. Hear me out.
I had this all wrong. I thought that I could make any work great by association. By being a generous person, by giving of my time and talents, I could affect the change I wanted. I could make the work great simply through the virtue of doing it, especially if I did it better than anyone else.
They say you affect far more people than you will ever know, in ways you could not begin to understand. I believe this is true. I carry an iphone, I work on a Mac at home and I use an ipad to watch and read as the world burns, but this is not really the way that Steve Jobs impacted my life. They are the windows through which I watched, sure. But the change in my life is something you would have thought I could have realized all on my own. I could not. I couldn't see that nothing had 'happened', I had merely taken a road that didn't lead to greatness. I never allowed the thought that there was such a thing. I believed it belonged to the fortunate, the lucky, those hit by the lightning strike of greatness. Not me.
I started out thinking that you worked up from the bottom.Nope.
I believed that hard work + any job = success. Nope.
People told me I had to pay my dues, then I could do what I wanted. Not true either.
That hard slap in the face came at an enormous cost; my time. I cannot get that back.
Now I know all the ways in which I was wrong. And I know the one that I could be right. That I was right about all along. I knew that I knew, and yet I listened to the voices of other people instead of the one that rang loudest and truest in my mind. I paid attention to the imaginary voices that cast shadows of doubt onto my abilities and desires. I thought they knew more than I did. I thought wrong.
You know, right here and now, what you are. What you really are. Where your heart lives and your imagination runs and the place and situation that would create the wide open space you need to run wild with success. You are thinking of it right now. You can see it. Your passionate dream. You keep your hand around it, sheltering it from the wind, lest it blow out your tiny little candle of hope. I am here to tell you that you can move your hand away, the wind is only created by your depressive sighing, and if you let it see the light, it will glow bright and strong and true.
You already know where your great work lives.
The question is... are you going to go live there with it?
I have tried the other way. I have tried to make jobs into great work, then settled for a job well done. Nothing great ever comes from settling. Like everything important and wonderful, it will be hard and risky and treacherous. There will be difficulties and bad days. Nothing I am doing right now justifies the risks I will take for the one true place where I can do great work. If it is not worth risking anything for, it is not worth wasting your time on either.
Go do the great work your heart desires. Follow the one passionate dream you have. There will be costs and there will be greatness. You already know what this path holds. Imagine the world you could live in if everyone was their greatest self. If we did the work that made our hearts sing.
Don't wait for something to change. You have to change. Don't wait for someone to tell you its time. They are stuck figuring out their own time. Go be who you really are. And I'll go be who I really am. And when we meet again, we'll have so much to discover.
Tuesday, September 10, 2013
I'll Take The Overdose, Please.
My most recent weekend was spent with the stinking drunk hooker we call stomach flu. You can call her Gastroenteritis if you are trying to get lucky. No one ever wants to take responsibility for letting this transient into your house, but you know that you probably just picked her up and brought her home, not even paying attention. This whore wrecks your whole life but she brings some good drugs to the party.
Somewhere in one of your hallucinations you will decide that you are finally done getting sick for a while. Nice change to be sure. During this time, you will still be confined to your bed, sore, bored, but not strong enough to do anything else. Then you realize that you have an ipad, a wireless internet connection and a Netflix account.
Here is where you make decisions that change the course of things.
What do you want to watch? it sheepishly asks, dangling all sorts of crazy wares from its house of horror shop windows.... Want a cartoon? Want some drama? How about the portal into your own personal hell of freebasing all of the craziest shit you've never even thought about and normally wouldn't occur to you? Yeah, we thought so too, so we put it in your suggestions list. Go for it. What else are you doing, right?
You pick a documentary that, while basically terrible, and low budget, manages to insert yet another virus into your life. The virus of what if. What if there is any truth to this? What if these people arent' all totally crazy? What if the people responsible for the greatest attack on US soil were not actually brought to justice, and we don't totally know if we got the right people?
I am not normally this person. I claim temporary insanity.
After this foray into madness, I take a nap. I need to rest. That was some crazy shit, bro. Let's have some ginger ale and call that a day.
Except no.
I wake up, immediately searching my brain for ways to make what happened next not an attractive choice. Too late. I spend the next 24 hours immersing myself in all of the information and reports and articles and ways and reasons why I have been duped. In and out of a feverish sleep, I wake to find myself diving into yet more photographs, questions, interviews, chemical information, charts, graphs, everything telling me that I am looking at the greatest puzzle and simplest trick ever performed live for a one curtain only event.
My fever broke. I ate solid food. I got real sleep. I went back to being a normal person, got out of bed, and went to work.
I am not the kind of person that watches back to back episodes of shows, snorting them up in succession instead of in the weekly version they were meant to be viewed in. I need time to settle thoughts on things, check them out, before I can react.
Recently I have found myself very interested in research. Following a clue along its logical path until I find what I am looking for, often finding what I had no reason to suspect. I seek to know more, to hear it all, to listen and learn. I feel almost powerless, like no amount of information will ever truly be enough. I finally understand the plight of the addict. I am addicted to the truth, and when I think I've heard a lie, I will bleed myself dry trying to find what is real.
But this is no fever. There is no cure. You can't drown the kind of crazy I have in chicken soup and pedialyte. This is deep in my DNA. I am both victim and carrier monkey. I hope to infect everyone with the kind of curiosity to seek for the truth where someone is hiding it from you. So help you, whatever deity you pray to for salvation if I catch you lying to me. My actions are born of a type of sickness, the kind of mental disease that keeps people kissing meth pipes and loading heroin in syringes. You are not equipped to stop me. Neither am I.
Tuesday, August 6, 2013
Prostitution, Justin Bieber, the List Goes On
Lady Gaga, lax gun laws, drugs moving over the border faster than ever, or whomever or whatever else you don't like - all have something in common. There is a supply and demand curve, much as with any consumable or commercial good or service out there. This is an inevitable part of life. Whenever I hear someone going on about some shitty food or shitty music or whatever terrible fly has fallen in their ointment, I want to remind them of this.
You see, there will be nothing on the shelves in a store no one shops in. If you don't like tomatoes, that doesn't mean they won't be sold. But if everyone were disgusted by the sight of a tomato, you'd be hard pressed to get your hands on one. Notice how many novelty mustache-on-a-sticks you've seen in Facebook photos lately? Yeah, that's supply and demand at work. Ever see those ten years ago? Exactly.
Don't get all up in arms because you hate Taylor Swift's cloying voice belting out some insane lyric- change the channel! Pass by a store selling kinky sex items and get worried for the fate of children who might have looked up from their electronic game in the backseat for two seconds and caught site of a mannequin wearing a teddy? Don't sweat it, just drive up to your church and pray for them.
There is a force at work greater than all your worry and greater than any of us. It is vital that we understand the fundamental basics of this so that we can free ourselves. I know, you think its God. Its not. It is money. If it makes you feel any better, we mention him on the money. He is there as it changes hands to pay for sex.
Prostitutes would not be selling their ass if no one was buying. We sell what people will buy. The force of money is great enough to burn a hole in your pocket and convince fugitive swindlers to commit suicide. We are pushed and pulled to the brink and back by the number of bills with which we can buy the comforts of life.
The worst part is that we just don't seem to get it. Until you make something monetarily worthwhile, no one will do it. Want a greener earth? Make plastic unbelievably expensive and start packaging in sustainable, recyclable, compostable packaging. It will cost less, so everyone will seamlessly move over to that. You don't have to ruin the economy to save the environment. And you don't have to get rid of the 2nd amendment in order to stop senseless mass murder. Who needs an AR-15 in their house? You can't load, aim and shoot it in time. A 9mm will do wonders, a .45 is even better. Make assault style weapons ridiculously expensive and make key components cost even more. Yes, there will always be a black market. But just think about all the ways you can use supply and demand to create the world you want AND make more money. Which creates more jobs! Republicans, I'm looking at you!
You really want to change the world? Make a list. Include everything you wish wasn't part of your existence. Figure out NOT who sells it, but who buys it. Change the supply and demand curve, keeping in mind that you cannot change demand. We sell what people buy. Ever wonder why companies spend billions figuring out what people want? Yeah. Good luck competing with that.
You see, there will be nothing on the shelves in a store no one shops in. If you don't like tomatoes, that doesn't mean they won't be sold. But if everyone were disgusted by the sight of a tomato, you'd be hard pressed to get your hands on one. Notice how many novelty mustache-on-a-sticks you've seen in Facebook photos lately? Yeah, that's supply and demand at work. Ever see those ten years ago? Exactly.
Don't get all up in arms because you hate Taylor Swift's cloying voice belting out some insane lyric- change the channel! Pass by a store selling kinky sex items and get worried for the fate of children who might have looked up from their electronic game in the backseat for two seconds and caught site of a mannequin wearing a teddy? Don't sweat it, just drive up to your church and pray for them.
There is a force at work greater than all your worry and greater than any of us. It is vital that we understand the fundamental basics of this so that we can free ourselves. I know, you think its God. Its not. It is money. If it makes you feel any better, we mention him on the money. He is there as it changes hands to pay for sex.
Prostitutes would not be selling their ass if no one was buying. We sell what people will buy. The force of money is great enough to burn a hole in your pocket and convince fugitive swindlers to commit suicide. We are pushed and pulled to the brink and back by the number of bills with which we can buy the comforts of life.
The worst part is that we just don't seem to get it. Until you make something monetarily worthwhile, no one will do it. Want a greener earth? Make plastic unbelievably expensive and start packaging in sustainable, recyclable, compostable packaging. It will cost less, so everyone will seamlessly move over to that. You don't have to ruin the economy to save the environment. And you don't have to get rid of the 2nd amendment in order to stop senseless mass murder. Who needs an AR-15 in their house? You can't load, aim and shoot it in time. A 9mm will do wonders, a .45 is even better. Make assault style weapons ridiculously expensive and make key components cost even more. Yes, there will always be a black market. But just think about all the ways you can use supply and demand to create the world you want AND make more money. Which creates more jobs! Republicans, I'm looking at you!
You really want to change the world? Make a list. Include everything you wish wasn't part of your existence. Figure out NOT who sells it, but who buys it. Change the supply and demand curve, keeping in mind that you cannot change demand. We sell what people buy. Ever wonder why companies spend billions figuring out what people want? Yeah. Good luck competing with that.
Discrimination
Discrimination is the worst. A conscious action to treat someone differently, to exclude them, to make them less of a part of the whole, to remove them from their rights or dignity. Simply due to the difference there is between you and them. Maybe because they are a different gender and you don't like the change. Maybe they are a different skin color, and you have ideas about how that means they will act, work, behave. Maybe they speak differently, come from somewhere other than where you are and you are just so uncomfortable you cannot deal.
Maybe, though, because even though they look just like you, speak just like you, but they don't have the same exact circumstance, you feel threatened. You feel that you need your voice to be heard loudly. That they are a threat to your needs. So you ostracize them.
As someone discriminated against, you think that you are unique, that you are special, protected. You think that by belonging to a group of any kind, that you at least face this discrimination together. It is no longer you against the world- it is all of us versus all of them. But there is infighting in all groups. If you have a group, you have a clique within. There is no escape from this simple truth. Ask any middle schooler.
This is especially true for the gay community.
You see, the world as a whole is moving towards embracing the idea that not all people are born the exact same. Thousands of years of human history and we are finally coming to the conclusion that it is not a fad or a trend, people are really attracted to other people, just not always other genders. Sometimes they are attracted to both genders. We don't know everything and that scares some people. Their worldview depends on the knowledge that "right" and "wrong" can be applied to anything and therefore they can decide how to feel about it. Usually based on an ancient text. Because thinking logically for themselves is just too much.
But even within the gay community, there is a divide.
The world is coming to a new dawn. The acceptance is coming, albeit slowly, like any big change. The world is trying to say "it's ok to be gay". The unspoken second half of that is "As long as you are male."
Lesbians are still a sore point. People of all orientations feel threatened by lesbians. They are somehow not ok. They represent something fearful and dangerous to us. Here are the people that have the power of reproduction in their hands and yet they are choosing not to be with a man? Or GOD FORBID! raising a child with another woman?!?! What will the children think? Oh the humanity! Gay men often feel that they have their own fight to win, that things are 'worse' for them, so they don't have time to fight for lesbians.
History has not let go of the woman. Its tight talons are deep into the female flesh, telling women what is right and wrong for them. Got raped? Probably because you had more than one sexual partner and you are a slut! Men treating you poorly at work? Dress more conservatively. Dress sexier. Work harder. Don't show the men up. Don't try too hard. Less makeup. More makeup. Jewelry. Anything other than- wow, that is total and utter bullshit. Or- How dare that man force himself on you- what can I do to help? Let's prosecute him. Let's make men responsible for their own actions and not women for 'not tempting them'....
Refreshing, huh? It IS nice when you can feel the breeze without your burqa on...
Gays have fought hard and are still fighting. There are anti-sodomy laws still on the books in 13 states, even though it was ruled constitutionally illegal by the Supreme Court over ten years ago to enforce any of those laws. The states are enforcing laws just to prove the point that they don't agree. I can see how gay men are specifically targeted for these 'crimes' and how the AIDS crisis really brought home the enormity of the fears surrounding gays-specifically men and the effects on gay men's health.
But lesbians are just brushed to the side. If a gay man is stereotyped as being effeminate, lesbians are stereotyped as being 'butch'. Television and media have brought the plight of the gay male to the forefront with a number of television shows, movies, and role models who show the 'great, shining gay'.
Lesbians, on the other hand are often an inside joke. Treated as nothing more than a male fantasy, two women who want to be together, but who secretly really just want a dude to come have sex with them to 'straighten them out'. When was the last time you heard someone say of a man who was gay "He just needs a good woman, that would fix that!" Of course not, no one would say that. That would be rude, discriminatory. Lesbians hear it all the time. Their discrimination is suffered more quietly, their heartaches over raising children done in solitude. If we don't protect lesbians, we are not serious about protecting women at all.
I believe this is in large part due to the nature of sexism. As we feel comfortable putting women in second place, I can see how lesbians have been relegated to punch lines. This is the place where we are saying we are comfortable with women. Especially women who dare to tread a different path. Hidden. Forgotten. Representative of a threat. Gay men are often seen as subservient. Lesbians are a problem. A rogue woman who doesn't need a man? Not hard to see how the fragile egos of insecure men are rankled by this.
As a feminist, I think people associate women who will not sit there and listen to this garbage (and who raise their girls to think for themselves) with lesbians. We are not agreeing with the man so we must be interested in having sex with women, right? Otherwise we would subvert ourselves to the male worldview and admit that they know best. The only acceptable reason is that we are into chicks. Which is, of course, because we are 'confused'.(see above)
To combat this, some women try to align themselves with other strong women. And sometimes in doing so, we discriminate against other women. In the fight for who can be the most feminine and strong, we waged 'The Mommy Wars' and I watch as lesbians fight this same battle, who is doing the most for the cause, who is eschewing makeup, who is being their 'truest self'...infighting that hurts the group that needs solidarity the most.
I am not a lesbian, but I feel for them. Not only are they women, but women who (some of the white/cis/male haters believe) have :chosen" not to have sex with men. As if hetero men or anyone for that matter, could CHOOSE to love differently if they just tried hard enough....The most focused laser beam of hate is pointed at them, by those too insecure to have anyone else in the conversation. This is too bad. We are missing an opportunity here to do more for feminism by protecting the weakest of the group. To rise above by lifting another. Isn't that in your special book somewhere?
Maybe, though, because even though they look just like you, speak just like you, but they don't have the same exact circumstance, you feel threatened. You feel that you need your voice to be heard loudly. That they are a threat to your needs. So you ostracize them.
As someone discriminated against, you think that you are unique, that you are special, protected. You think that by belonging to a group of any kind, that you at least face this discrimination together. It is no longer you against the world- it is all of us versus all of them. But there is infighting in all groups. If you have a group, you have a clique within. There is no escape from this simple truth. Ask any middle schooler.
This is especially true for the gay community.
You see, the world as a whole is moving towards embracing the idea that not all people are born the exact same. Thousands of years of human history and we are finally coming to the conclusion that it is not a fad or a trend, people are really attracted to other people, just not always other genders. Sometimes they are attracted to both genders. We don't know everything and that scares some people. Their worldview depends on the knowledge that "right" and "wrong" can be applied to anything and therefore they can decide how to feel about it. Usually based on an ancient text. Because thinking logically for themselves is just too much.
But even within the gay community, there is a divide.
The world is coming to a new dawn. The acceptance is coming, albeit slowly, like any big change. The world is trying to say "it's ok to be gay". The unspoken second half of that is "As long as you are male."
Lesbians are still a sore point. People of all orientations feel threatened by lesbians. They are somehow not ok. They represent something fearful and dangerous to us. Here are the people that have the power of reproduction in their hands and yet they are choosing not to be with a man? Or GOD FORBID! raising a child with another woman?!?! What will the children think? Oh the humanity! Gay men often feel that they have their own fight to win, that things are 'worse' for them, so they don't have time to fight for lesbians.
History has not let go of the woman. Its tight talons are deep into the female flesh, telling women what is right and wrong for them. Got raped? Probably because you had more than one sexual partner and you are a slut! Men treating you poorly at work? Dress more conservatively. Dress sexier. Work harder. Don't show the men up. Don't try too hard. Less makeup. More makeup. Jewelry. Anything other than- wow, that is total and utter bullshit. Or- How dare that man force himself on you- what can I do to help? Let's prosecute him. Let's make men responsible for their own actions and not women for 'not tempting them'....
Refreshing, huh? It IS nice when you can feel the breeze without your burqa on...
Gays have fought hard and are still fighting. There are anti-sodomy laws still on the books in 13 states, even though it was ruled constitutionally illegal by the Supreme Court over ten years ago to enforce any of those laws. The states are enforcing laws just to prove the point that they don't agree. I can see how gay men are specifically targeted for these 'crimes' and how the AIDS crisis really brought home the enormity of the fears surrounding gays-specifically men and the effects on gay men's health.
But lesbians are just brushed to the side. If a gay man is stereotyped as being effeminate, lesbians are stereotyped as being 'butch'. Television and media have brought the plight of the gay male to the forefront with a number of television shows, movies, and role models who show the 'great, shining gay'.
Lesbians, on the other hand are often an inside joke. Treated as nothing more than a male fantasy, two women who want to be together, but who secretly really just want a dude to come have sex with them to 'straighten them out'. When was the last time you heard someone say of a man who was gay "He just needs a good woman, that would fix that!" Of course not, no one would say that. That would be rude, discriminatory. Lesbians hear it all the time. Their discrimination is suffered more quietly, their heartaches over raising children done in solitude. If we don't protect lesbians, we are not serious about protecting women at all.
I believe this is in large part due to the nature of sexism. As we feel comfortable putting women in second place, I can see how lesbians have been relegated to punch lines. This is the place where we are saying we are comfortable with women. Especially women who dare to tread a different path. Hidden. Forgotten. Representative of a threat. Gay men are often seen as subservient. Lesbians are a problem. A rogue woman who doesn't need a man? Not hard to see how the fragile egos of insecure men are rankled by this.
As a feminist, I think people associate women who will not sit there and listen to this garbage (and who raise their girls to think for themselves) with lesbians. We are not agreeing with the man so we must be interested in having sex with women, right? Otherwise we would subvert ourselves to the male worldview and admit that they know best. The only acceptable reason is that we are into chicks. Which is, of course, because we are 'confused'.(see above)
To combat this, some women try to align themselves with other strong women. And sometimes in doing so, we discriminate against other women. In the fight for who can be the most feminine and strong, we waged 'The Mommy Wars' and I watch as lesbians fight this same battle, who is doing the most for the cause, who is eschewing makeup, who is being their 'truest self'...infighting that hurts the group that needs solidarity the most.
I am not a lesbian, but I feel for them. Not only are they women, but women who (some of the white/cis/male haters believe) have :chosen" not to have sex with men. As if hetero men or anyone for that matter, could CHOOSE to love differently if they just tried hard enough....The most focused laser beam of hate is pointed at them, by those too insecure to have anyone else in the conversation. This is too bad. We are missing an opportunity here to do more for feminism by protecting the weakest of the group. To rise above by lifting another. Isn't that in your special book somewhere?
Down By The River
I cannot go a whole day without thinking about it.
Like any good addiction, it claws at the edges of my thoughts, chewing, cutting, brittle snapping sounds emanating from the places where conscious thoughts were once laid out like clothes on the bed the night before a big day.
I ignore it and go back to what I was doing. It takes a flying leap into the center of my thoughts, like a cat you have not paid attention to and now it is sitting on your keyboard. No longer demurely purring and looking for my attention, it has now slammed itself into the whole of my worldview so that it is all I can see.
It is done waiting for me to acknowledge it. It is here. The time is now. What are you going to do about me? it asks.
I know what I will do....I will think about it. Until it is my every thought. Then I will sulk, after I've given it the attention it needs and I will resign myself to the thought that it cannot be. However desperately it wants to exist, it cannot. Or can it?
The dream of just chucking it all, selling off everything I own, buying a used (because they aren't made anymore) VW bus and living in that, travelling to wherever the weather is best for the time. This dream is the most reality there is. The ability to shed convention and go where your heart takes you. Spending the summertime in sweltering heat in Phoenix? Not in your dreams! I'll be in Northern California, Oregon, really anywhere in the Pacific Northwest coast or somewhere moderate and dry. Wintertime blizzards in North Dakota? NOPE! I'll be down here in the desert, hanging around San Diego, Texas, Florida and Louisiana with the rest of the snowbirds. Hawaii, South America. Any place where I won't freeze to death in my bus.
This could be wanderlust, it could be that I know I can do good things for people without the constraints of my modern computer based life, and it could just be my flighty nature. No matter what, it is a dream I harbor seriously. I have looked at a LOT of travel trailers. I am a gypsy at heart. I don't think I need a lot of square feet in my 'home' to make me happy. I want to be in the world.
I used to think the best job would be to travel the country and then the world and getting paid. I always wanted to meet people with stories to tell. I saw travel photography and journalism as possibilities. In the end, I realized how much time they spent back at a desk too. The urge to wander was etched into my earliest dreams, and I've settled onto this island of desks. I know I can do better than this.
When I was ten years old, I told my mother that I wanted to be a stand up comedian. I was dead serious (and I kind of still am). She said "No, you don't want to do that. They have to live in a bus!" That was a mistake. I perked up..."BUS? You get to live in a bus?" I was already hooked.
Fear of instability and homelessness and not having warm showers has kept me from doing the most important, soul searching work of my life. I should have done this when I was younger, when it wouldn't have been as noticeable. Now if I wait too long, someone will catch me washing my clothes in a stream and call the authorities, thinking I've escaped 'the home'.
No worries, though. I will reel them in with tales of my life on the road, make them an amazing cup of tea, treat them to the best seat and we'll watch the water together. I'll tell them jokes. Maybe they'll go get their own van. Then I'll know I've done my best.
Like any good addiction, it claws at the edges of my thoughts, chewing, cutting, brittle snapping sounds emanating from the places where conscious thoughts were once laid out like clothes on the bed the night before a big day.
I ignore it and go back to what I was doing. It takes a flying leap into the center of my thoughts, like a cat you have not paid attention to and now it is sitting on your keyboard. No longer demurely purring and looking for my attention, it has now slammed itself into the whole of my worldview so that it is all I can see.
It is done waiting for me to acknowledge it. It is here. The time is now. What are you going to do about me? it asks.
I know what I will do....I will think about it. Until it is my every thought. Then I will sulk, after I've given it the attention it needs and I will resign myself to the thought that it cannot be. However desperately it wants to exist, it cannot. Or can it?
The dream of just chucking it all, selling off everything I own, buying a used (because they aren't made anymore) VW bus and living in that, travelling to wherever the weather is best for the time. This dream is the most reality there is. The ability to shed convention and go where your heart takes you. Spending the summertime in sweltering heat in Phoenix? Not in your dreams! I'll be in Northern California, Oregon, really anywhere in the Pacific Northwest coast or somewhere moderate and dry. Wintertime blizzards in North Dakota? NOPE! I'll be down here in the desert, hanging around San Diego, Texas, Florida and Louisiana with the rest of the snowbirds. Hawaii, South America. Any place where I won't freeze to death in my bus.
This could be wanderlust, it could be that I know I can do good things for people without the constraints of my modern computer based life, and it could just be my flighty nature. No matter what, it is a dream I harbor seriously. I have looked at a LOT of travel trailers. I am a gypsy at heart. I don't think I need a lot of square feet in my 'home' to make me happy. I want to be in the world.
I used to think the best job would be to travel the country and then the world and getting paid. I always wanted to meet people with stories to tell. I saw travel photography and journalism as possibilities. In the end, I realized how much time they spent back at a desk too. The urge to wander was etched into my earliest dreams, and I've settled onto this island of desks. I know I can do better than this.
When I was ten years old, I told my mother that I wanted to be a stand up comedian. I was dead serious (and I kind of still am). She said "No, you don't want to do that. They have to live in a bus!" That was a mistake. I perked up..."BUS? You get to live in a bus?" I was already hooked.
Fear of instability and homelessness and not having warm showers has kept me from doing the most important, soul searching work of my life. I should have done this when I was younger, when it wouldn't have been as noticeable. Now if I wait too long, someone will catch me washing my clothes in a stream and call the authorities, thinking I've escaped 'the home'.
No worries, though. I will reel them in with tales of my life on the road, make them an amazing cup of tea, treat them to the best seat and we'll watch the water together. I'll tell them jokes. Maybe they'll go get their own van. Then I'll know I've done my best.
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