Eredien's Journal

Taking a page from rax:

To buy sooner rather than later:
New SSHD for eee
Glasses (closeup and distance)
Digital Hygrometer/Therm. for Tokai's tank
Printer paper and Ink or professional business card printing 250 cards on order from vistaprint
Updated shade + finial + bulb adapter for restored antique lamp from great-grandmother K-Mart, of all places!
Sheets for my bed
Notary Public Exam Fee

Video games to buy eventually:
Wario DIY Wii
Replacement Pokewalker for the one I lost at the farmer's mkt
Pokemon Black or White?
Okami Wii/DS?
Fire Emblem Gamecube/Wii/GBA?
Gamecube controller for wii

Other stuff to buy eventually:
Silicon Dawn tarot 2x
An apartment
New modular bed+awesome futon mattress of awesome
Mac Webcam xBox Live webcam works natively in Mac for $10. Awesome.
Butterfly Socks

To find:
DS Charger Yeah it was in my DS case ...

To sew:
Dog coat + Hem B.'s jeans
Doll clothes
Baby hat for B. and L.
Bike basket
Redo world's worst-diagrammed crossstitch
Winter hat pack items
Mending

To list on ebay/craigslist:
Freaking model horse collection argh just break into your own storage unit by remembering that your parents' good intentions will never actually lead them to put aside the time to do things they said he would do with you
Spare piano (don't ask); remember shipping deal w/local piano movers Report craiglist scam to craigslist

To write:
Absinthe Writeup
TY notes to people for whom I have petsitted, for asking for a review
WWIA notes digitization
WWIA chap 5
WWIA chap 6
Email replies to friends
Write 3rd stanza Tesla in Love, don't worry about 1st stanza rewrite yet
Writeup and Submit Sumptuary to GURPS company
Movie/Book writeups: Philadelphia Story
Movie/Book writeups: all the crap I read this spring in the hospital (The Picture of Dorian Gray, Winter Triptych, Bird Friendly Building Design, Washington: A Life, Sex on 6 Legs, Jack Reacher novels, Sew-What Pattern Free Bags, Battle Hymn of Tiger Mother, Sound of a Wild Snail Eating, Animals Make us Human, A Fair Maiden, Goon Squad, America: You Sexy Bitch, Off the Cuff, One Man's Garden, At Home)
Ulysses writeup one good book
Gecko article
Revise sword in the hand
write up sword in the hand
post sword in the hand
Review of Dog Stars
Peachberry pie, 3-tomato eggplant parmesan, and stirfry recipe writeup + carrot-saffron risotto and sweet potato soup
Salty Mango Lassi Ice Cream recipe writeup + photo to flickr, LJ
Writeup of MWPAI exhibits

To read:
Finish Hare w/Amber Eyes
Restart Ulysses
Find public-domain bilingual copy of Brothers Dostovesky, read once Ulysses is done

To website:
Catification writeup + submission
Website design - doesn't have to be fancy, check pininterest re: color schemes
Addon website for Paws & Claws petsitting
Twitter design - should mirror website
LJ design - should mirror website - embed?
Upload final foxes video to Youtube, Flickr
Upload historical local house photos to Flickr in new set, email url to historic preservation people
Upload baby shower photos to Flickr, email url to C & B
1 hr Help mom with photo upload/CD burn
Upload B. bd party photos to Flickr, email URL to Bethany
Get Genderplayful setup with winter hat pack items
Email butter lady for mom
Fish photos, drop off camera to process scan in photos, upload to Flickr
Upload cat show photos to flickr
KeePassX

To design:
Business cards for Paws & Claws petsitting

To post:
Business cards for Paws & Claws
Return ASL DVD to library, get ASL book instead

Games:
Take Go books out of the library again, but this time one at a time
Continue playing through chapter-end book questions on Goban
Play Glitch again, determine if I still want my acct. there This game looks awesomer than ever; too bad it's too slow and keeps crashing my browser.

Jobs:
Notary Public Exam
MCPHS? list pro and con, talk with Peg J.
Check w/BMC CDO
IDG Copy Editor Framingham
Cooking vegan shit in Boston
Call back NH library though chances of hiring are slim since budget did not pass Yeah they hired people already
Catsitting gig 13th-Oct 1
Syracuse Public TV
Check out Peace Corps as a committment for various mental health and dietary reasons I don't think this would be a good idea for me at this time; something to keep in mind for future.
Sub. teaching
Hamilton Editing Position
Spring farm cares

Places to volunteer:
Call back zoo Docent Orientation Oct 14th
Call Boston zoos re: volunteer program http://www.zoonewengland.org/page.aspx?pid=242 apply for Keeper Aide when I am in the area
Get back in touch with BMC gender activism people - try emailing admissions again; get in touch with Wellesley & Holyoke alums
to this end call Rachel D. in Albany

Other things to apply to:
Financial aid for NBSS
Application for NBSS for spring 2013 pres. carpentry program
Tufts summer school session again should I again find myself in Somerville
Clarion 2013
Traditional Building Master's Deg. class at Boston Architectural College

Music:
Perform Für Elise for A. and B. while they are here This didn't get done
Finish composing "TimesNR" in Wario DIY & output to interwebs
Relearn Moonlight Sonata
Call Tina re: piano/organ lesson swap for vegan food? Left email for B.
Fix iTunes (Japanese & Russian transcription error correction, add correct composers for Holst & other classical for sort error correction. Upload entire CD library. Transfer cassettes not avail. on Amazon to MP3. Otherwise buy slowly w/change off of Amazon MP3. Sync iPod to use at gym.)

Exercise:
Go to the gym everyday. Use the time to listen to new music and relax. You don't have to prove any damn thing and if someone tries to make you guilty for spending time on yourself screw it.

Health:
Call foodstamps people and say your father is withholding necessary application info from you out of, apparently, sheer and total personal incompetence. Ask for next steps. Don't be embarrassed; It's not your fault the information has been withheld. Remember that getting rid of food insecurity and into food security will help you. You deserve to eat healthily. Read this article as many times as you need to to make the call.

Consult lawyer (K.?) to ask about statute of limitations on ENT doctor in Indiana who pumped me full of allergens after hospitalization Email K. again Look up stuff K advised me to

Call dojo that offers 1st month free + women's discounts to sit in on a muy tai or taichi class 6 pm beginner's class today Save up $ to restart martial arts

Call Alicia for Coffee

Pin down Brenda and mom for cat show times on 16th Sept. Hahaaa this is so not going to be decided until day of, but I try.

Call P. tomorrow re: catsitting 3 pm appt Sun done

Call D.K. re: fixing broken earrings Call Goldmine or Wilcox's jewelers & get rates Bring earring by, get estimate. Pick up fixed earrings

File:
Remaining stuff in filing cabinet.
Remaining email update list.
Combine buystuff email and personal email
Get new addresses for friends; update in Address book. Sync AB with iPod.
Sync AB with Google
Sync email list between private + personal email addresses.
Update all the accounts.
Stop Serbian hacker

Money:
List all accts in Manilia setup
List all accts in Mint
Balance checkbook + savings accts
Begin paying back remaining interest-bearing debts - call if necessary DONE
Begin paying back personal debts

Gender:
Tarot from Orion?
Consult self re: pronouns at end of year?

There is an awesome conversation about gender, identity, transitioning, schooling, and respect going on in the comments of this post re: BMC and trans issues. I still haven't heard back from the admissions office yet, but really am happy with how awesome and well-thought-out the comments are, and when I do hear back from admissions you all will be the first to know!

Also, I am going to try to connect to a bunch of Smith students working on these issues too.

I've been reading this piece about the Eddie Long scandal [summary: yet another anti-gay pastor accused of having gay sex with young adults in his pastoral care], and how the idea of the "prosperity gospel" of Long's church feeds into the scandal, over at Ta-Nehisi Coates' blog (the piece itself is written by Coates' friend Jelani Cobb though it's on Coates' blog).

In the comment thread there, people have been discussing the idea, the historical roots and the absurdities, of the "prosperity gospel" idea. For those of you not up on your Christian dogma and theology, this is basically the idea that you should pray to god for literal wealth, which makes you better able to reflect the glory of God to others who see you and know you've got it together because of God, which reflects well on God, etc. This great Chick-tract-esque comic about "Supply-Side Jesus," co-authored by Al Franken, pretty much sums up the whole movement.

Another commenter, Maretha2, summed up a dissertation she'd edited, giving a concise summary of the historical and social reasons why White Christians and African-American Christians interpreted, and still interpret, the idea of the "prosperity gospel" somewhat differently. Of the African-American interpretation of the "prosperity gospel," she wrote, The world says you can't get ahead--but with God you're more than a Conqueror. And the King wants his children to live well--it reflects well on God if his children aren't poor and pitiful.

And I thought about that, and realized how and why that theological idea,
it reflects well on God if his children aren't poor and pitiful, was drummed into me as a child in church in terms of clothing and appearance. I've never quite believed it, and always thought it patently ridiculous, but the conflict between this "it reflects well on God if you dress up for church" idea I was taught and how I actually felt is, as far as I can tell, pretty much the entire root of my conflicted thoughts about clothes, and my ambivalence about and joy in clothes, and a lot of my ambivalence and conflicted thoughts about the beauty inherent in my own body. I feel like I've just dug up one huge dandelion, and can see how ridiculously long the root was.

( Here was my response to Maretha2's post, which made me realize all the above as I was writing it. I swear it gets back to general theology eventually. )
--
And that is why I am going to get a tattoo of a deep-sea fish on my body, as soon as I can afford it, to remind myself, when I forget, that I am beautiful, until I don't forget anymore. Because I am beautiful, and I deserve to know that.

I might put some of the text in, too, about the bees or about the fish or about "didn't even have the eyes to see them," but I haven't decided on that yet. However, I am definitely getting a fish. I haven't decided which fish yet, though. Can you help me? (Vote is non-binding, since this is going to be on my body and not yours.) :D

Candidates include both glowing and non-glowing fish:
- Lanternfish
- Anglerfish (though maybe not, because damn those things are toothy)
- Daggertooth, which looks pretty awesome (this is a new species of Daggertooth discovered in '08 in Antarctica. The record-setting specimen of the Nettled Daggertooth species was hermaphroditic.)
- A Barracudina
- Rattail
- Tripod Fish [this is a video]
- Coelacanth, a fish of which I am terminally fond
- Stoplight Loosejaw, a kind of deep-sea dragonfish which hunts with a red (essentially invisible) beam of light and synthesizes chorophyll from its prey in order to see [damn!]

Feel free to point me toward other deep sea fish I've missed here (fish only please, no other deep-sea glowy things. Stingrays are ok, since technically they are fish. Also, I like stingrays).

In short: there's a seriously worthwhile discussion over at Coates' blog; go and read it!

From an article about a presidental straw poll at the recent Values Voters Summit:

Abortion was the leading determinant, followed by government spending, repeal of healthcare reform, protection of religious liberty and national security.

In a speech earlier Saturday, Gingrich outlined what he described as the two greatest threats to the nation: a "social secular machine" and radical Islamic extremism.

I find these these events, and the articles about them, interesting not so much for tracking what values they people who attend these events espouse, but because the people at these events are often in a position to use terms describing said values. You see a lot of newer coinages--words known in back rooms and in the halls of congress, but not on the street--brought into the public sphere for the first time during events like this.

Look at "social secular machine." That's going to take off on CNN soon, if it hasn't already. The GOP has talked a lot in the past few decades about what constitutes a social unit, what should constitute a social unit, the decay in the social unit, etc. But here, the idea of being "social" is becoming tainted through association with that bad-boy adjective, "secular," and the vaguely uncomfortable connotations of "machine." (Not to mention "socialism." It wasn't explicitly mentioned in Gingrich's threat-list, but the echoes are contained in the roots of the word themselves, and if people weren't talking about socialism as evil at the Values Voters Summit I'll eat my hat). There's no recognition that people are the ones who possess the quality of secular-ness; there's just this idea that groups of secular people are a machine. The word "machine" conjures up a lot of images--ants, production lines, shiny metal rivets--but none of the connotations of the word "machine" are particularly human, or particularly friendly. After all, humans create machines to do the work that they, as humans, don't want to do. So, as far as I can tell, the first danger is "groups of people who don't have a religion."

The second group of people, radical Islamic extremists, seems more forthright, but since this country can't decide what, exactly, constitutes radical Islamic extremism as opposed to normal Muslim belief or practice, in the meantime there's a panic about everybody who's Muslim. Nobody is paying much attention to the people who say, "I'm not a radical Muslim," except for the the people whose job it is to discuss the idea that those moderates may not be telling the truth. So, as far as I can tell, the second danger is "pretty much all Muslims, at least until we can figure out what our definition of radical is, which hasn't happened in the last decade."

Where does this leave us? We have "Christians," "Jews," and "other religions that are too small to matter to us in terms of votes and/or that have not yet committed acts of terrorism against America and hence come to our attention."

I don't understand how this same Values Voters Summit made "protecting religious liberty" a priority...

...Oh, wait. That's totally code for "we can't say 'oppose the homosexual agenda' anymore, because we have a few gay friends now, so we've started saying that our religion is attacked whenever those gay friends want to do something our religion tells us it's wrong for them to do."

That's what's been happening in the news and in the point/counterpoint columns we've been seeing for the past few years: once the cultural window shifted from "doing this is objectively gross" to "doing this is subjectively gross," the people who subscribe to that particular brand of subjectivity as part of their cultural identities gradually shifted to arguing for that cultural identity's right to retain that subjective assessment of grossness.

Here's the thing: I agree that people who subscribe to that particular brand of subjectivity as part of their cultural identities should have the right to retain that cultural identity's subjective assessment of grossness, even if I vehemently disagree with their particular cultural identity's assessment of grossness.

However, I do not think that the assumption of a cultural identity should shield the people who assume that identity from criticism of that identity's subjective assessment of grossness, or from criticism of that identity as a whole in terms of the policies and ideas it spreads as a group.

I also think that one religious cultural identity's subjective assessment of grossness should not take precedent over:
- all other religious or secular cultural identities' subjective assessments of grossness
- any other religion's cultural identity's subjective assessments of grossness
- any other secular cultural identity's subjective assessments of grossness

In America, separation of civil and religious law should ensure that:
- there are a multiplicity of secular cultural identities and their subjective assessments of grossness
- there are a multiplicity of religious cultural identities and their subjective assessments of grossness

However, this is not currently happening. Instead, we are being told that one (or maybe two?) historically and emotionally important and widespread religious cultural identities' subjective assessments of grossness (the Christian right's assessment, or possibly the "Judeochristian" right's assessment) should take precedent over all and any other secular and religious cultural identities' subjective assessments of grossness--because that one religious cultural identity is historically and emotionally important and widespread.

The members of that one historically and emotionally important and widespread cultural identity feel free to tell the members of all other religious and secular cultural identities that:
- their religious or secular cultural identities' subjective assessments of grossness are wrong
- their religious or secular cultural identities have no or harmful values in terms of the policies and ideas they spread as a group
- that particular religious cultural identity's subjective assessments of grossness should be given primacy over all other religious and secular cultural identities.

And the members of all those other religious and secular cultural identities would feel free to refute those ideas.

If that was what was actually happening, we would be having a debate on somewhat more equal footing. The historically and emotionally important and widespread cultural identity of Christianity would still have more of a foothold because of its historical roots and its widespread adoption, but that problem is at least a known bug.

But that's not all that's happening.

What is actually happening? If members of any other religious and/or secular cultural identities object to the cultural primacy of one religious cultural identity, they are told that because the people in question also have a right to their religious cultural identity and its subjective assessment of grossness (which is true). But they are also told that people with any other cultural identities, religious and/or secular, have no right to question:
- that religious cultural identity's subjective assessment of grossness
- the religious cultural identity's value as a whole in terms of the policies and ideas it spreads as a group
- the primacy of that particular religious cultural identity's subjective assessments of grossness over all other religious and secular cultural identity's subjective assessments of grossness.

That is untrue.

And that one religious cultural identity? It's already got power, enshrined in politics, law and culture, and is doing its best to ignore or defame all other religious or secular cultural identities in those arenas in order to retain its primacy and keep the other cultural identities from not only obtaining primacy, but from obtaining much power at all.

So we have Unitarians (for instance, among other religious cultural identity groups) unable to religiously marry (a religious cultural action) religious queer people (a religious cultural identity group), due to the political power of the primary religious cultural identity group.

We have judges (a secular cultural identity group) unable to civilly marry (a secular cultural action) atheist queer people (a secular cultural identity group), due to the political power of the primary religious cultural identity group.

We have Christians (the primary religious cultural identity group in the US) using their political power and cultural primacy to ~successfully argue that it is unfair that queer people are able to question their religious cultural identity's subjective assessment of grossness, their religious cultural identity's value as a whole in terms of the policies and ideas it spreads as a group, and the primacy of their particular religious cultural identity's subjective assessments of grossness over all others.

Yet what does the Christian right do when arguing for the retention of their cultural primacy and political power in secular American law? They question queer people's subjective assessment of grossness, queer people's secular cultural identity as a whole in terms of the policies and ideas they spread as a group, and try to argue that queer folks' particular secular cultural identity's subjective assessment of grossness has primacy over their own understanding (at the same time, they use language that implies that their own subjective assessment of grossness is still, and still should be, the most powerful).

Do I think that people in America have freedom of speech, such that the people with the culturally dominant religious subjective assessment of grossness may insinuate that I am a danger to children, and religion, and a menace to society, in their TV ads? Yes, but I should also have freedom of speech, such that I can shout about their lies.
I have this right as a queer person in this day and age and location, but I am consistently told, in words and in actions, that it is unsafe to shout too loudly, and I am constantly reminded that I just got the ability to speak.

Do I think that people in America have freedom of religion, such that the people with the culturally dominant religious subjective assessment of grossness may refuse to marry me to the person I love in a particular place of worship with a particular policy of believing that I am a sinner? Yes, but if I am religious, I should also have the freedom of religion such that I can go to another place of worship with a particular policy of believing that I am not a sinner, and they should be able to marry me to the person I love.
I do not have this right as a queer person, in this day and age and location, because the people with the culturally dominant religious subjective assessment of grossness have successfully used their power to defend their position that I should not be able to marry the person I love in a religious ceremony.

Do I think that people in America have freedom of religion, such that the people with the culturally dominant religious subjective assessment of grossness may refuse to marry me to the person I love in a particular place of worship with a particular policy of believing that I am a sinner? Yes, but if I am not religious, I should also have freedom of religion such that I can go to a place where civil marriages are performed, and they should be able to marry me to the person I love.
I do not have this right as a queer person, in this day and age and location, because the people with the culturally dominant religious subjective assessment of grossness have successfully used their power to defend their position that I should not be able to marry the person I love in a non-religious ceremony.

This is the most ridiculous, and dangerous, definition of "protection of religious liberty" I've ever seen.

And it's already becoming a buzzword, a shorthand.

Watch for it, and defend against it wherever you see it.

So, I need to apply to some jobs. But I'm stuck.

I can either:
1.) Apply to part-time jobs, or temp jobs for commission, that will leave me with time and energy to work a second part-time job for no pay (art and writing), which has massive happiness benefits for me. These jobs will not have health benefits.

2.) Apply to full-time jobs which will leave me with health benefits, but not have any energy or time left over for art and writing once I, say, have eaten dinner and cleaned the laundry. (I thought I could do this, and worked from 2005-2010 in jobs that I thought would let me do this, and it didn't happen. If I go this route, I will give up art as a career--I don't want to squander another half-decade of my life pretending like I'm going to write a novel, but knowing full well it's not going to happen because I've got no time or energy).

Oh, and I also need to:
- Get an apartment
- Move again, paying all moving expenses
- Figure out a way to afford grad school
- Pay for expenses, including special cat food that runs $45/bag

I'm secretly terrified of going to grad school. Remember that summer course I tried to take a while ago, the Urban Studies one at Tufts, which I was really excited about and was going to use to catapault myself back into academia and figuring out what I wanted to do for grad school for real?

I quit not because the workload was too much, but because when I tried to do the readings to do the work, the part of my brain that understands how to do hard academic reading shut down--and doing the work was impossible under those conditions. I was reading the words, but couldn't remember the ideas in the individual sentences long enough to follow a train of thought through a paragraph, much less from one paragraph to the next. I would finish an article, and have no ability to recall or summarize the main points of what I just read. And this is urban studies, not literary theory--the points are generally pretty straightforward, like "we can use these techniques to increase pedestrian safety; here's why America isn't using them."

That's also why the paper I gave a week later at Readercon was something that I was ashamed of--it felt like it kind of ran from point to point, and when Thrud asked a question that made sense given the paper's topic, I panicked because her question (about the trope of the flawed hero in early myth) literally made no sense to me. I heard the words coming out, in academic English, but I did not understand her question because I could not parse the sentence because I didn't catch the individual words. This was humiliating. I'd never written a paper that I wasn't proud of before, much less given one that I wasn't happy with at a professional conference.

I told everyone that it was the workload because I felt freaked out, confused, and ashamed, and had no idea what had happened to my brain or my ability to remember or think. I saw indications of the problem before--I thought that I was just rusty--by subjecting myself to things like independent essay-writing projects or summer classes, I would soon get back into the thick of things, and not have to worry about it, but the problem got worse as soon as I tried to fix it.

The same thing happens with novels. Unless I write down what I am thinking about the novel immediately after I read it (which is why I have been writing book reviews), I forget that I read it. I don't remember what it was about. I don't remember the characters very well. If it pick it up again I will remember that I read it, but it's like a transient experience.

That's why the only thing I've really been reading lately is political commentary and webcomics. The former is a few paragraphs that I can understand in a short burst of thought; the latter is not reading in the way that I usually understand it in that it is not entirely audio-based (when I read, I hear the phrases more or less spoken aloud in my head, and with comics, it's more like a movie, since a setting/scene is also provided).

For someone who desperately needs intellectual stimulation to keep her happy, I am pretty miserable, and I have no idea what to do about it. I've been miserable like this since I graduated college, when I felt intellectually at the top of my game and then took a minimum wage job working a call-center because that was all that was available, and then a job where I was routinely writing at top-speed, and editing, but not reading that much.

This is why, if you ask me to do something, sometimes I will stand there slack-jawed. I am not trying to be stupid. I am trying to remember what the word "washcloth" means.

This is why I haven't pursued grad school, while having dreams about screaming in horrible jealousy at a roomful of the people I know who are attending grad school (which just made me feel like an ass). This is why I constantly complain about going back to school and don't, well, apply for anything. This is why I've only written a handful of poems since 2005, and one short story finished. This is why I've switched to doing things with my hands, and why I've started complaining about it--I love doing things with my hands, but not as a main occupation; the fact that I feel as if I have no other choice but to do the things I still feel I can do has embittered me about those things, and I can't love them as much as I want to, or need to.

I am kind of terrified, as the only thing that really gives my life a deep meaning is writing and thinking and reading, and I appear to be losing my access to...whatever it is that gives language meaning in my brain. Sometimes I can think, and write, and churn out an idea, and manage to fix it on the page as a poem or something, or maybe part of a story.
But even then there's a clarity lacking that I know I am hieing after, and not finding. And I don't know what to do about any of it.

I'm really, really scared.

And I'm broke, so I need a job, desperately.

And I'm not sure which kind of job to pick. I desperately want to be able to do art and writing, but I don't know what to do about this problem where I read a page of, say, critical literary theory, or a long-form article, or a novel, and then want to go hide in a corner for the next hour because I can't understand it and don't remember it and can't...think...about it.

That's never happened before, and it's terrifying; I feel really broken in a fundamental way. I have no idea why. Did my brain just get through Bryn Mawr and give up? That feels really--not correct, as a theory, to me. I mean, I've been reading, and understanding and caring about reading, since before I cared about almost anything else in my life. But I could do it once, right, and do it brilliantly to boot--so why not now, when I need and want to?

Given all of this, what kinds of jobs should I apply to? Does anyone have thoughts?

It's taken me a really long time to talk about this--to think about this--because most of the people I know, and all of the people I care about, are really smart people. They value smartness, and quickness of wit and of mind, and that particular type of friendship that comes from recommending mutually agreeable books to each other, and the ability to have an intellectual discussion and follow a thread of argument, and valuing it when they learn a new word or idea. And I used to be one of those people. And I still care passionately about those things. And because I was surrounded--I surrounded myself--with people like that, like myself, it was harder to notice when I felt things going away; and once I realized what was happening, last summer, I was too scared to speak up because, well, things like that just don't go away, do they? And if they do, what will you be left with if you've spent your whole life being smart and thinking of yourself as smart and gradually feel like you don't know how to conduct a conversation anymore, and can't read your way through a text you'd read in highschool without losing a plot point?

It's why I've sat glumly through a lot of interesting intellectual discussions in the past year, while my friends kept looking over at me, wondering why I wasn't joining it, and why I declined to say anything if invited. I couldn't follow the threads of most arguments in book group, for instance; I couldn't understand the way that the sentences that people were speaking built up into a comment or theory or joke; it's been really hard for me to interact with people new and old.

I spent a lot of time thinking about this while putting together a puzzle in the gaming room at Anthrocon--a puzzle, simple, because I couldn't follow the rules for the new expansion of Race for the Galaxy, and kept losing my place when I tried to write the essay I was to present the following week--and feeling terrified that I was going to lose myself and the relationships that I cared about because I couldn't force myself to be intellectual enough for me to be happy, anymore. And now I feel like I kind of have lost those things, because my lack of pursuit of intellectual things and bitterness about working with my hands, which I loved to do before, ate into my life and my relationships. And I spent a lot of time thinking about it when I was outside, or constructing things with my hands, over the last year. That, too, was creative work, and worthwhile--so why was I so bitter about doing it? Why was I saying I hated it, and presenting myself to others as if I hated it, and complaining incessantly that it took up time from art, when what I hated was the feeling that I had to be working with my hands, because that was the only thing I was good at, anymore? I could easily have made time for art in my life, but was terrified that I would try and fail, again.

That's what I've been thinking about a lot, since that summer school session, and things have definitely come to a point where I can't ignore the question anymore.

Thoughts...would be really appreciated, here.

[Addendum: I first noticed this problem when I realized I was having a hard time remembering song lyrics, something I had always been able to do with no effort. This is largely why I don't sing anymore.]

I was reading rm's journal earlier today, and started thinking about something she wrote in this post. I was going to post the following as a comment in her journal, but it wouldn't fit in a comment no matter how I edited it, and I realized it would make a good standalone post. So, I thought I would post it here and also leave a link to this in her journal comments.

I am leaving comments open, but be nice to each other. I left comments open because I am hoping that people will have interesting things to say about geology and critical literary theory in relation to metaphors and language phrases as they are used in modern politics. I have no emotional energy to moderate a debate right now, and even if I had the emotional energy, I have other things to do. If you are nasty, you are going to get banned. Thank you.
--

rm wrote:
"Ground Zero" has been, since the beginning, a useful term to frame, not just what happened at the WTC as an act or war, but to frame this idea of ourselves ("The West") being at war with Islam (which we shouldn't be, and is what the terrorists are trying, successfully apparently, to trick us into), and that's not a type of useful I can support.

That made me realize something new about how language is used to empower those already in power. The idea of "Ground Zero" implies some kind of origin point--a ground--and some kind of spreading out from that origin point--if there's a zero, that implies a one, two, and three, and on. But there's no Ground 1 or 2; there's just this empty origin. Ground Zeroes happen all over the world, every day--but how many of those get named? And of those, how many get named as the central point from which everything came, but in which there is emptiness?

Just one, and it's in one of the largest, richest, most important cities in the Global North (I'm trying to ditch the concept of "The West" in order to use the different concept of "The Global North," after having read Stuffed and Starved). An incredibly privileged act: name our wounds, and name them as first--to name them as the origin of pain.

So now there's this literally empty signifier of zero, as blasted origin. Origin implies that something is supposed to be spreading out; but no one knows what is "spreading" or where it is going. But people always pour things into empty spaces; human beings are always compelled to construct meanings out of trauma.

Something foreign, unknown, terrifying, is spreading from a single point, a wound, in the Global North, and no one knows what it is...
Mosques are foreign, unknown, terrifying, and "they" want to build one on the point, the wound.
Oh my God! The terrifying spreading thing must be Islam! It must be Plan51 Park 51!
It must be...the Ground Zero Mosque! (With that one added word, appended, the empty lingustic place gets literally filled with the idea of a literal building, and one which encompasses all of the Global North's fear of The Other at that. See it?)

If you look at the op-eds, the articles, the texts of the debate, it's clear many people assume something "spread" out from a defined, empty "ground" "zero" into other grounds nearby. Those areas were never defined, named, (as the "zero" point was, had to be), so there is no structure for people to talk about anything except the "zero" point as being sacred ground. All the "correct radius in blocks" talk is actually a barely-understood struggle to retroactively name and define a "ground 1" or "2." We are having this debate--"should we define those areas? Why wouldn't we? What spread out? How far did it go?"--without recognizing that we are claiming sacred ground, and without understanding why: all because the word zero, which we have heard so much, implies that there must be a one and a two. The lack of same makes people subconsciously uneasy: zeroes need to be followed by ones; order makes sense of things that make no sense. We are trying to build order, but we appear to be unaware, or unconcerned, that we ourselves are laying foundations in the dark.

After earthquakes, geologists talk about the epicenter--the stress point, the origin--of the quake. But they also talk about aftershock areas, and zones of destruction, and seismic shadowing, wherein the ripples from one earthquake reverberate through the earth's core and are felt in the place opposite from the epicenter, on the other side of the planet. After a quake, you hear about seismic shadowing, and you suddenly understand why you have been hearing so much about tsunamis in Japan.
But saying the words "Ground Zero" invokes the idea of epicenter without mentioning the quake. As our house falls to pieces around us, we cannot know why unless we talk about the earthquake. As we count the dead that are our seismic shadow, we cannot have any understanding of why people fight halfway around the world unless we talk about the earthquake.

And we keep invoking the epicenter as the reason for the quake.
I wish they would get a geologist to advise the White House.

A serious question: would the Plan51 Park 51 project would have generated as much opposition if it did not have a number in its name? (Yes, the proposed center is/was also called the Cordoba Mosque Project, but that name people had to research, and people are presenting the meaning(s) of it in articles, and other people are debating those meanings. No one is debating "Plan51," "Park 51" which to my ear sounds almost generic--no, rather, it sounds like it was designed to sound almost generic, like the name of an upscale bar/bistro. "Ground Zero" also sounds almost generic, too.

There's some kind of seismic shadowing in people's minds, in the language; there must be.

I had started thinking about keeping a relationships and sex blog before rax 's and my recent breakup, and have now decided that it is more important than ever for me to start one.

I realize that to some of you the idea about blogging (rather than simply privately journaling) about relationships and sex may seem crass or too uncomfortably open, and I have to say that while I do not agree with your opinion--I think a blog, any blog, can be a tool for both private and public conversation and reflection in a way that a private journal cannot be--I don't want people who won't want to read about things that will make them uncomfortable to feel like the idea of my writing about this stuff was going to be sprung on them. So, I'm going to keep this post up top for several weeks, so people can really give consideration to whether they want to be on my new relationships and sex blog friends-list, or not.

I will probably start writing in said blog later today.

Please comment below if you would like to opt-ON to the friends list for the new blog. Otherwise, you will not be on it.

You can also ask questions, etc.

Thanks!