An Oldie But A Goodie: Some Things Are Worth Repeating

Posted this back on Jan 31st, 2005

Today Was the First Day I Considered a United States Without the Right to Legal Abortion

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush told abortion foes on Monday he shared their support for "a culture of life" and claimed progress in passing legislation to protect the vulnerable.

"We need most of all to change hearts and that is what we're doing," Bush said as anti-abortion activists marked the 32nd anniversary of the Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion with a day of rallies, protests and other activities.

I finally decided to start thinking about it. I've been fobbing it of and fobbing it off for a long time now. I didn't think he'd outlaw partial-birth abortion, either. I don't seriously think he can get away with overturning Roe.

But I considered what I would do if that happened.

I've discussed before the great fertility of the women in my family. My fertility has always been a big issue for me, and I've negotiated all of my sexual encounters knowing just how great my risk of pregnancy was. I've never slipped up. I've never had to get an abortion. I never engaged in unsafe sex - not once.

But that doesn't mean that there won't be a future "oops" pregnancy. And no, I wouldn't hesitate to get an abortion if I got pregnant, say, in the middle of law school.

And today I seriously considered it: what happens if Roe's overturned?

Well, I'd spend a day or two sobbing in my bedroom, probably, out of sheer anger and frustration. All that hard work trying to get the world to see me as a person and not the incubater of some guy's sperm - all that work trying to change people's ideas about what children really are: they are created of a woman's body, a woman's breath. Yes, a man contributes half the potential child's DNA, but at the end of the day, the stuff that goes into the creation of heart and lungs and fingers and toes comes out of my body, is nourished by what I eat, how well I sleep.

So what would happen if I got pregnant without wanting to, without choosing to?

Well, likely, I'd take a trip to Canada. I'm one of those lucky people who could afford to take off to Toronto for the weekend if I had to. I could afford to stay in a hotel, afford to pay for the procedure. In fact, Canada would likely have a nice little business providing reproductive health services to American women hopping over the border.

I would be OK. I'm intelligent, I'm well-off.

But Roe V. Wade is about a bigger issue than just the abortion part. It's not about protecting life or fetal rights or any of that bullshit (again, if this was about life, we'd be putting all that energy into childcare services).

Overturning Roe V. Wade, making abortion illegal, is about controlling women. Always has been. Always will be. You won't convince me otherwise, not with all of your arguments about sacred egg meeting sacred sperm: a couple of DNA strands slathered in proteins that have about as much self-awareness as a can of coke.

So when I hear Bush & co. make these broad statements about "life" about "championing life" what I'm actually hearing is an old rich white guy telling me who has control over my body - his sperm. His agency. I will be forced to labor against my will producing a child of my body for nine months. Anyone who has given birth, whose wife has given birth, will be the first to tell you why it's called "labor." Making babies doesn't come easy, doesn't come without cost.

And that cost is not my biological burden to bear against my will. It is not something to be forced upon me by men, by women, by the President of the United States.

So though I will travel to Canada, fly over the heads of poorer women who cannot afford the luxury and instead submit themselves to risky and dubious back-street procedures in their god-given, natural right to control their own fertility, I will come back to a country whose laws still view me as vessel, as no better than an empty jug in want of filling.

That is what the laws will say I am. That is what all this talk of life, and packing courts with judges, means to me.

It means I go back to being a dumb body, a thing, a sperm receptacle, a baby vessel, and NOTHING else.

And soon after I will begin reading even more "studies" about how I can't do SCIENCE because ovaries get in the way of learning, and SCIENCE is bad for babies. I will be told I cannot drive a car, because I don't have the spatial reasoning skills. And if you're not careful, if you're not careful, if you begin to view us as things instead of people, if we become a means to an end instead of an end, an asset, in and of oursevles, then you begin trading women for cattle. Men begin hiding us from view like their best possessions. Men begin encouraging us to go back to finding our strength and identities in men, no matter if that man is weaker, stupider, more spineless than we.

Movie heroines will easily slide back to telling their beaus, "You'll have to think for the both of us!" and they'll mean it.

These gains, these little steps that women have taken toward being considered "real" people, are not very old. There have certainly been other times and places where women were treated as people, but none in our recent cultural memory, the Judeo-Christian one that most of the US comes from, and given any excuse, given fear, we'll slide back very easily to equating women with possessions, because it seems so much simpler, so much easier, so logical, so reasoned.

Life. Yes. We're protecting life. We're protecting the 50s ideal that never existed, the one we all pretended was truth, and was nothing so much as a bald-faced lie that everyone told themselves they wanted to live, they should live.

I want a life where I'm treated like in intelligent, informed, responsible person. I want a life where people look at me and see not a vessel, not untapped fertility, but just a person, just this, me. Not my womb. Not my ovaries.

It is never "one" thing. It will not stop at the outlawing of abortion, just like he didn't stop with outlawing Dilation & Extraction. It will not stop.

It will not stop.

This is why this issue terrifies women. Until you have grown up knowing that old men like these have the ultimate control over your body and what you do with it, over your labor, over how you choose to spend your body's breath and blood, you won't know this terror, this uncertaintly, this screaming, terrified anger at the co-option of all that you are for use by the state.

The closest male equivalent I can think of is the draft: being forced to fight a war you did not vote for, for a cause you did not want, at a time in your life when all the world's possibilities are spread before you. And there is no honor in it. There is no medal. Because you will be told that your purpose in life is just this: to live or die for the state. That is your biological burden, and if you survive this war, you will be forced to take home with you a burden far greater than merely serving the state: you'll be given a child that is yours, whose future, whose mental and physical health, whose deeds, will be forever your responsibility.

And there is no conscientious objector clause. There's no medical leave. There's no reprieve if you're mentally ill.

If a man has sex with you, and you become pregnant, you're consigned to the will of that man and his laws.

Your life is no longer yours.

That's the battle women fight. That's why it's such a brutal battle, and that's why we get so violently passionate about the abortion debate. Because what we're talking about is the co-option of our bodies, our lives, for the state. We're talking about giving up our rights, our bodies, to the will of men and their wants and desires.

And we're fucking tired.

We're not going to be non-people again in the eyes of the law. We're not going to be second-class, second-best, by virtue of birth.

Never again.

How I'll Be Defined in the Dictionary

Kameron Hurley -- [adjective]: Banshee-like 'How will you be defined in the dictionary?' at QuizGalaxy.com

I Always Knew All This Blood Was Good For Something...

ATLANTA (Reuters Health) - Japanese researchers have harvested stem cells from human menstrual blood. These stem cells could potentially be a source of specialized heart cells, which might be used to treat failing or damaged hearts.

That's awesome.

(via Feministe)

The Life I Want Wasn't the One I Had

After a great deal of angst and second-guessing, I broke up with B last week.

This wasn't a sudden decision. A couple months ago, I filled out a bunch of paperwork for the Peace Corps. Months before that, we broke up or nearly broke up because I wanted to apply for a game-writing job up in Edmonton. The resulting emotional turmoil made me quickly take this idea off the table.

From the very beginning, we moved very, very fast. We lived in different cities. He wanted a real committment. We had to fly all the time. We needed to know if it was worth it.

And it was always moving way too fast for me. I had to make big decisions very quickly, because when I didn't, emotional turmoil resulted. Sobbing, awful, nights of gut-wrenching soul-baring. I scrambled to figure out how I felt very quickly. Too quickly. Whenever I said what I wanted, I got it, and then there were emotional conversations, backtracking, second-guessing. Any answers I got were couched in emotional language, this terrible stuff that made me want to take back everything I said.

There was jealousy over my friends - and worse - my writing. Sure, I could always "do whatever" I wanted, but the consequences of that meant listening to how horrible and awful whatever I did made B feel. And when you love someone, you sure as hell don't want to do anything to them that will harm them like that.

It got to the point where I was on edge all the time, waiting for the next terrible thing I would say or do that would set off a big emotional reaction. Of the year I spent in the relationship, I can only think of about 2-3 consecutive weeks where we were both actually happy, really happy, and I didn't overly-worry about the next emotional blow-out.

When K moved out of the house, I thought all of my stress and jumpiness and health issues would stop. Instead, they hung on. I stayed depressed. Trying to write was like rubbing blood from a stone. I developed a terrible, recurring case of heartburn and bought my first bottle of Maalox.

And it occurred to me that I really didn't want to be in a relationship. I didn't want to move to New York. I didn't want to committ the next five years - let alone the rest of my life - to anybody. Not just B, but anybody. Not now. Maybe not ever.

It's like you look out at this life you've got, the happy hetero relationship. I'd never have to worry about money. We'd get a picket fence. We'd continue to bash heads over our communication problems. The emotional way of dealing with all things would continue. I would always be waiting for the shoe to drop. Waiting for the next rash of jealousy. And there I'd be, parked in that relationship, continuing to work shitty admin jobs while trying to write. Trying and trying to write. But I can't write when everything's been sucked out of me, emotionally. The books are where I channel all of that energy. If I'm spending every night trying to reassure a partner that I love them, that the world won't explode, I don't have anything left for my writing. All I want to do is go to bed.

There's no reason 300 pages of line edits should have taken me three goddamn months. That's fucking ridiculous.

Why did it take so long?

Because I wrapped myself up in other things.

I rebelled against the relationship for a long time, but B was adament that we were perfect for each other, and I didn't want to fail at a relationship. Not after being on my own for so long. We just had to work harder. Once we moved in together, everything would be all right.

That became our mantra when everything was bad: Once we move in together, everything will be all right.

And if that's not a big warning sign for you, I don't know what is.

I tried to bash away at the committment end. Likely, trying to re-work our relationship at the last minute had something to do with that, something to do with me trying to make it work for me when inside, it felt so wrong. I didn't want to go to New York.

I hate New York.

But I desperately wanted things to work. I hadn't dated anyone in five or six years, and B is a great guy in so many ways, but ultimately, we clashed over too many core things for me to be able to stay. If I have nothing left over to write with, I can't be in the relationship.

That's how it is.

Everything felt wrong.

But even so, I spent the night I finally ended it sobbing in my room, those great, body-wracking, Greek-chorus sobs that come up from deep inside of you, the ultimate expression of grief; it felt and sounded like death, so loud the neighbors probably heard me. Jenn certainly heard me, and came in to offer some kind of comfort, but really, there was no comfort to be had. I was mourning the relationship, certainly, and how much hurt I felt I'd inflicted on everyone by making the break, but I was also mourning a life lost. A whole life path, an entire mapped-out existence, just gone, obliterated, because it felt so stifling. It felt so wrong. No matter how much I tried to fix it, to make it right in my head, it never was.

And I fought hard.

That night, I slept like death, slept soundly for the first time in nearly a week.

I woke up and opened my eyes and felt... freer.

I had carried so many worries. I waited so many days for the other shoe to drop, for the next emotional grief-session. I would spend my days rapidly replying to emails in case silences were mis-measured. I would no longer have to repeat myself over and over again or talk and talk and talk about how I felt all the time.

I could get up and read, work on my books, sleep, without worry, without fear.

And best of all - I didn't feel boxed into a path that had become increasingly claustraphobic.

I could go back to relying on myself, on what *I* wanted. I could apply for the job in Edmonton. I didn't have to twist myself in knots justifying New York. I could go back to standing on my own two feet.

Just me.

I will never understand the media hysteria about women longing for partners. Having a partner has never worked for me. I hurt everyone I'm with, and without them, I always feel so much freer. If I just go around hurting people, what's the point of being in relationships?

I don't think I'm going to date again, really date, for a long, long, time.

Maybe casual sex isn't overrated?

In any case, I'm going to go work on some tDW edits.

Come Pick Me Up

Song on repeat today:

Ryan Adams, "Come Pick Me Up."

When they call your name
Will you walk right up
With a smile on your face
Or will you cower in fear
In your favorite sweater

With an old love letter
I wish you would

I wish you would
Come pick me up
Take me out
Fuck me up
Steal my records
Screw all my friends
They’re all full of shit
With a smile on your face
And then do it again

I wish you would
When you’re walking downtown
Do you wish I was there
Do you wish it was me
With the windows clear and the mannequins eyes

Do they all look like mine
You know you could
I wish you would
Come pick me up
Take me out
Fuck me up
Steal my records
Screw all my friends behind my back
With a smile on your face
And then do it again

I wish you would
I wish you’d make up my bed
So I could make up my mind
Try it for sleeping instead
Maybe you’ll rest sometime
I wish I could

!!!!

Line edits for God's War are complete.

Finally.

Now it's time to finish writing the damn thing. 100 pages to go.

Picking it Up

It's planting season. It was 66 degrees last night, and let me tell you - I'm ready for spring.

Spending the morning cleaning up the back porch area, getting the bins ready for planting basil and parsley, morning glories and peas.

Have about 90 pages of line edits left on God's War. Edits for The Dragon's Wall continue apace. Writing up a crit of a buddy's novel.

Reading a lot, looking forward to Wiscon.

Had a bunch of dreams about food. Thought that was odd because I've been doing my usual eating-when-hungry deal. Then I remembered I've been eating crap all week. I've been depressed, struggling with ending a relationship, and so ate take-out every night. Got back to eating better, and the food dreams abated.

Went out to a really good Italian place with Jenn last night, watched some movies. Bought 35 books from bookcloseouts.com. Ah, retail therapy. Will probably go hit Borders today, too.

Rambling, rambling. Had an omelette this morning. Finished reading a book about food obsession. I used to think that being a binge eater was something you just "were", like being an alcoholic, but I haven't binged in.. a long, long time. I'm starting to think it's something you work through and get over. My next goal is to learn how to deal with money. That'll be easier when I engage in less retail therapy.

My life, though, feels freer. The world opens up.

Gee, I Sure Feel Like Shit

And then the whole world imploded!

Just like I didn't want to happen.

I deserve no less.

In Which Exhaustion Kicks In

Wow, I'm tired.

The Clock is Ticking: I'm Up For A Campbell Award For Best New Writer

Sadly, I qualify this year for a Campbell award for Best New Writer for my short story, Genderbending at the Madhattered.

This is sad because

1) I haven't written a ton of stuff that would showcase my work because I'm bogged down in novels

2) I only have one year left of eligibility for the award

3) The nomination period ends March 10th, which is three days from now. Not much notice, eh?

Apparently, guidelines fore the award were relaxed, so SH stories now qualify.

Ah, well.

Anyway, if you're interested, here's my bibliography:

"Wonder Maul Doll." Forthcoming in the From the Trenches anthology, November 2006.

"Genderbending at the Madhattered." Strange Horizons, February 2004

"Holding Onto Ghosts." Talebones. Summer 2003

"Once, There Were Wolves." The Leading Edge. Spring 2003

"If Women Do Fall they Lie." Deep Outside. December 2000

Surprise! People With Low Expectations Tend to Be More Content With Their Lot In Life

Well, yea.

That's why you don't teach women to read. Or slaves. Or anybody else you want to control. They might realize there's something else out there. They might start thinking things could be really different.

Weight Hysteria

The regional VP stopped me in the conference room today and said, "Are we losing you? You've lost a lot of weight. Are you OK? You don't want to do anything dangerous."

It still bothers me when people do this.

"I'm just lifting weights in the morning," I said. "I don't really feel like I'm doing much."

"It's so strange how people losing weight just changes the, you know." He made a motion around his face, "You know, the whole way people look in their face and.." he gestured to my body, "Their body. It's just so strange."

"Uh, yea," I said, and I thought, Is this as close as he feels he can get to saying I look a lot hotter? Better be, cause if he goes there, I'm gonna snarl.

I'm startled a lot at the reactions to my weight loss, mainly because I don't really feel like I'm trying. I spent all day Sunday on the couch in my pajamas eating cookies and chips with that cheese salsa dip, reading and watching the snow. Five days a week, I do a 15-20 min morning weight routine. I walk a lot. But I haven't been to the gym in at least six weeks because of weather and personal issues. And I just went to Old Navy this weekend and bought size 12 pants because the 14s are falling off.

What a lot of people at work don't get, I guess, is that when I got to Chicago I was at an abnormally high weight for me. A 12/14 is where my body naturally sits. If I cascade below a 12, I'll get pretty scared, but for now, I'm really comfortable with where I'm at.

The problem with that comfort, however, is that I'm less likely to go to the gym because I'm not constantly thinking about weight. This is bad because being "thinner" doesn't neccessarily equal "being fitter." Weights or no, I'd like to go back to getting in a little jogging or bike riding everyday. If nothing else, it'll make our three flights of stairs easier. And you know, I still want to be really fucking buff, and no matter my pants size, that ain't going to happen if I spend all my time eating cookies on the couch. Though a day a week of that is probably good for me...

Anyway, I'm going to go and eat something. Every time somebody comments on how much weight I've lost, I get hungry.

I do feel that I have this psychological thing about weight: I feel more vulnerable without that extra layer of fat. I feel like more people are looking at me. There's this weird conflation with gaining weight and avoiding male attention, to my mind. Which is why I think that the only way for me to permanently stay at my natural size is if I feel strong enough to defend myself. When the VP eyed me over, I totally tensed up. I hate feeling like I'm on display.

I gotta get back into boxing. The urge to do so gets stronger with every size I drop.

Land of the Free!

MaBell

Didn't we break up MaBell because it was a monopoly?

So, wouldn't putting it all back together be rebuilding a monopoly? And, um, be illegal?

You know, like banning abortion?

Wait, sorry, for a moment there I thought I was living in another country! Like, say, America!

I'm moving to Canada. Brendan, how are grad schools in Toronto?

Here We Go!

Gov. Mike Rounds signed legislation Monday banning nearly all abortions in South Dakota, setting up a court fight aimed at challenging the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion.

The bill would make it a crime for doctors to perform an abortion unless the procedure was necessary to save the woman's life. It would make no exception for cases of rape or incest.

Makes me pretty pissed at all those people who kept reassuring me, "You're being hysterical. They're never going to overturn Roe v. Wade. You feminists, getting all worked up about nothing." And then they all went and voted Republican, patting themselves on the back for being so smart.

Yea, right.

This is how it's done. I bet it's going to ZOOOOOOM into the Supreme Court. I can see them all licking their lips already.

Animals Remixed With Everyday Items

As someone who writes about a lot of bug-tech ideas, I thought these were neat.

Quote of the Day

"Everywhere’s a small town if you do something that bothers enough people."

(via Jennifer)

The Wiscon Shuffle

Nailed down the hotel reservations for me and my posse (me, my boyfriend Brendan, Jenn the Great, and my awesome Clarion buddy Patrick of Bioware employ). We're three blocks from the con hotel, so all together, we may be able to hold each other up while we drunkenly stumble back to the hotel after the parties.

Madison is a great town for a con. It's already full of drunk liberal college kids. The drunk SF geeks fit right in.

Oh, These Haiku-Like Passages!

Good money, tho.

Distillery to revive 184-proof whisky

Fucking sweet!!

"A Scottish distillery said Monday it was reviving a centuries-old recipe for whisky so strong that one 17th-century writer feared more than two spoonfuls could be lethal."

Today's Message From Corporate:

Dear Peon,

I know you were expecting your 1K bonus this year - which would have been far more than last year because business has doubled! - but we've decided to get rid of bonuses for our Scheming Corporate Reasons. We need to cut our budget because we have a major acquisition coming up, and screwing over the peons was the best way to do that.

And yes, you heard that right! We're only screwing the peons, of course. We really don't care that you're part of a 4-person team who's produced over 50 million dollars of work for this company over the last two years and is currently working in the Most Important Market for our telecommunications branch and the client we're working for.

The upper-execs and CEOs are laughing all the way to the bank. You didn't expect us to cut bonues for the Big Boys, did you? Even though "saving money for the company" would have been far easier if we cut just a handful of exec bonuses instead of culling all the measly under-5K bonuses we send out to all the peons?

What do you think this is, Fantasyland?

Go back to writing books.

All the best,

Corporate America

Busy Busy

Yea. That about sums up my life right now.

CULT CLASSIC FINALLY OUT FROM MAJOR US PUBLISHER

Dude, that's such a great headline.

VanderMeer's City of Saints & Madmen is finally out for wide public consumption.

Go forth and consume. It's good stuff.

My God

Octavia Butler died on Saturday.

I'm stunned into silence at the moment.

Dorky Things Are Funny

ha ha

(thanks, b)

What I Owe

I've spent the last couple of nights getting my finances in order.

Counting credit card debt and student loan debt, I'm about $28,000 in the hole. I'll be 1K less when I cash my writing contract work check on Saturday.

About 3K of that is computer debt. No, more: about $3500 if you count all of the expense related to getting crap off both of my old hard drives. Maybe $500 in healthcare. The other $3000 I owe in credit cards is just fuck-off money. I had too much fun over the holidays, had to buy new clothes that actually fit as I dropped two sizes, and bought a *lot* of books and about $100 in CDs. Also, too many lunches.

I got it all organized using Quicken, and I'm trying to figure out how to have it all subtracted automatically when I pay my bills. I turned in my student loan consolidation paperwork today as well, so that should fix all the loans at a lower interest rate and bundle them into one payment, which I'd appreciate. I'm paying about $300 a month in student loans right now and $200 toward credit cards.

Seeing it all layed out calmed me down a little.

I've been having nightmares about work and bill collectors - the Citibank student loan people keep calling me because, though my parents graciously agreed to pay that loan for a couple of years, the payments were always late, and now that I've rolled all the bills over to my address (because I got sick of having the bill collectors call me), I'm trying to catch up on those payments so they're reasonable able (I owe $250 this month, which should then allow me to pay "only" $115 a month from then on, until the loans are consolidated).

I hated putting all that together, but I think that in the long run I'll have less nightmares and hopefully a better balanced checkbook. I knew things were dire when I bounced a rent check last month.

Oh yea. Time to put my house in order.

More Thoughts On Writing

The older I get, the more I write, the more I want to bash in the heads of those people who are like, "Yea, I'm going to write a novel soon, I just don't have the time." Or, "I think I'll take up writing."

I think I'll take up brain surgery.

Fall Down Seven Times. Get Up Eight: Or, Why I'm A Feminist

When I was eighteen years old, I spent a couple of nights a week standing in the bathroom at 3am thinking up ways to kill myself.

I had a few options. A bottle of sleeping pills in the medicine cabinet. The loaded gun my boyfriend kept under the front seat of his car. The apartment I shared with my boyfriend was on the third floor of the complex, and even though I knew that jumping off the balcony would probably result in nothing more than a broken leg, I still fantasized about that freefall, that excellent feeling of letting go, of making everything just stop.

Depression is one of those things that just sort of creeps up on you. You spend so much of your energy just trying to get through the basic tasks that keep you living that you don’t have time to reflect on why you feel like you’re looking at the world through a gray gauze. You stop noticing that nothing feels real.

I developed a number of crutches to get through my six months in Bellingham, Washington. I took up smoking and ate a lot. I hit somewhere close to 270 pounds and only had one pair of jeans that actually fit me. I could barely get up a flight of stairs or around the block without getting winded. My boyfriend was getting increasingly irate about my weight, but demands for sex didn’t lessen. I think a secret part of me was hoping that if I gained enough weight and dressed badly enough that he would break up with me for not being attractive, and I’d be free. When I did later get up the gumption to make the break, I realized my fears of doing the breaking were pretty well-founded – he kept calling me, waited around for me after classes, and threatened several of my friends that he would kill me and then drink bleach, or get plastic surgery so I wouldn’t know it was him. He started trying to date all of our mutual friends. He finally backed off when I threatened to get a restraining order.

But that was much later.

As for the sex, I started thinking about it as a chore – like doing the laundry, the dishes, cooking dinner. Close your eyes and think of England. A sorry state of affairs for somebody like me who does, in fact, really enjoy sex and has a pretty high sex drive (when it’s not pounded out into a passionless schedule. Some people confuse sex and masturbation). Sex was something I had to do because if I didn’t there was going to be a conflict, another angry night followed by a screaming fight, and when you’re really depressed, you don’t have the energy for much at all, let alone a screaming fight.

I got used to feeling stupid and unattractive. After all, I spent all of my time with somebody who patted me on the head and told me so. Spend all your time with an asshole who tells you you’re stupid and worthless, and you’ll start to believe it. Spend all your time in a house of screaming fights and broken dishes, and you’ll start to think it’s normal.

After a while, you’ll start to look for an easy way out. The only way out. When you paint yourself into a corner, suicide looks pretty rosy. I had no money. Kept a crappy job as a restaurant hostess that paid minimum wage (no health insurance, no benefits, etc. of course). Took a couple community college classes to try and finish up my AA degree.

I thought I should be happy. I’d gotten out of my parents’ house at eighteen. I was out there living with my boyfriend. I had an outside balcony where I grew plants.

I hadn’t written a word of fiction in nearly six months.

I’m now twenty-six years old. I’m sharing an apartment in Chicago with a buddy of mine from Clarion. I live in a houseful of books and plants. I work at a telecommunications company for about 42K a year (OK health insurance, 401(K), bonus, etc). I just got another couple of contract writing assignments that I’m using to pay off my credit cards. I just consolidated my student loans. I’m strong and back to a body size I’m comfortable in. I’m moving to NYC in July, a city I never in my weirdest dreams ever thought I’d live in. I’ve sold some stories. I’m rewriting a book for an agent. Finishing another book this summer. I have amazing friends. My parents love me. I’m working toward a number of personal goals. I read a lot of books. I have a Master’s Degree. I lived in South Africa and Alaska. I’ve traveled a lot overseas and intend to travel more (gotta live in London sometime!).

I have a good life.

When things get ugly around me, when I feel like I’m not moving forward as well or as quickly as I’d like, I remember this story. I remember looking in the mirror and thinking, “This isn’t the woman I want to be. “

I picked someone else, and decided to be her instead.

I’ve read about the stories of some feminists on other blogs who wrote about why they decided to be feminists. I didn’t become a feminist until I was 19. Until then, I was pretty much the biggest misogynist I knew. I didn’t think of myself as a woman, really. I was too smart to be a woman. Things that women did, the messes they “got themselves into” weren’t things I had to worry about: rape, abusive relationships, unplanned pregnancies, job discrimination - these things weren’t real threats to me. I was smarter than that.

But being smarter than that didn’t make me a man, and it didn’t take away those threats.

I learned that the hard way.

I’m a feminist because I woke up one day and realized that despite the fact that I was smart and strong and capable and believed men and women had equal rights and opportunities and were treated the same in the world, I was wrong. And I don’t want to live in a world where women not only get treated like dirt for being women, but take that abuse because they believe they’re dirt, too.

I have made a great, big, successful life for myself, and I did it with the help of some very supportive friends and family and through sheer, angry stubbornness.

I had a life I wanted to live and a woman I wanted to be - and that’s what gets me up every morning.

B says that I’m too hard on myself. This may be true, but it’s the only way I know how to go forward. I have to push, because I’m naturally lazy. I have to work harder than other people. I have to sleep at least 8-10 hours a night, hours that insomniacs are likely using to figure out their finances. I have to eat a certain amount to maintain all this muscle mass I’ve gained. I have to portion out workout times and writing times and work times and work overtime times and figure-out-my-finances times.

It’s called life, sure.

But there was a time where I went to work, ate, watched TV, and slept. And then I woke up and did it all over again, with no desire to do anything else at all because everything seemed so hard.

I don’t think any of it is any easier now, but I have something to push against. I have somebody I was, somebody I don’t want to be again.

And after two years of weight lifting and sporadic martial arts and boxing classes and jogging days and bike riding and figuring out how to eat outside the binge-and-purge cycle, I want to learn how to never go back. I want to learn how to maintain this.

I want to be better. I want to be smarter and stronger. I want to be a better writer. I want to stay in the same clothing size for more than two years at a time. I want to live forever. I want to fly.

There are women who’ve been through shit that’s a fuck of a lot worse than mine. There are women going through worse. There are women who’ve had it easier. What I hope about all those women, though, is that they know that if they want it, they can be better, too. They can close their eyes and decide who they want to be, and they can step away from all the bullshit. They know that they can be smart and strong and still make dumb decisions. And they know that making one dumb decision doesn’t mean they have to end it all. And it doesn’t mean their lives are screwed because of it.

When you do something dumb, you pick yourself up, you brush yourself off, and you start over.

You be who you want to be.

Fall down seven times. Get up eight.

Quote of the Day

"The fundamental intellectual level of humanity has and will always be low. New technological possibilities mean more experimental things can be forgotten in new ways. There are amazing filmmakers, like the Soviet Dziga Vertov. Who knows who this guy is and who cares? Who knows or cares who Joyce was? That means people who want to write at that level, and I include myself, are only doing so because we love it. In the end, what else is there? There is no prize, including the Nobel Prize, which can compensate you for the work you put in. If it's not a joy, you shouldn't do it. If you don't get published, that's unfortunate insofar as whatever else you must do to stay alive consumes and prevents you from doing what you really must do. When I wrote Rising Up and Rising Down, it took me 23 years, and my publishers all said if you want it to see the light of day, you have to cut it. And I said no. I fully expected that it would never appear. I was fortunate that McSweeney's agreed to publish it. Now it's out of print."

- William T. Vollmann

(thanks Jenn)

You Can Make It Up, Or You Could Just Read About the Real Thing

Wilfred Thesiger lived with and observed the Marsh Arabs of southern Iraq. Here's a quote:

One afternoon, a few days after leaving Dibin, we arrived at a village on the mainland. The sheikh was away looking at his cultivations, but we were shown to his mudhif [guest house made of reeds] by a boy wearing a head-rope and cloak, with a dagger at his waist. He looked about fifteen and his beautiful face was made even more striking by two long braids of hair on either side. In the past all the Madan [Marsh Arabs] wore their hair like that, as the Bedu [Bedouin] still did. After the boy had made us coffee and withdrawn, Amara [one of Thesiger's boat boys] asked, 'Did you realize that was a mustarjil?' I had vaguely heard of them, but had not met one before.'A mustarjil is born a woman,' Amara explained. 'She cannot help that; but she has the heart of a man, so she lives like a man.'

'Do men accept her?'

'Certainly. We eat with her and she may sit in the mudhif. When she dies, we fire off our rifles to honour her. We never do that for a woman. In Majid's village there is one who fought bravely in the war against Haji Sulaiman.'

'Do they always wear their hair plaited?'

'Usually they shave it off like men.'

'Do mustarjils ever marry?'

'No, they sleep with women as we do.'

There's also mention of a biological man asking for his penis to be cut of so he can be a "real" woman, since in "every other way" he was "a woman."

I've read about the same gender issues in colonial New England and among the Pueblo Indians.

But, as everyone knows, marriage has always been between one man and one woman, women don't go to war, and the existence of male transvestites and transexuals are a uniquely 20th century invention.

(via David Moles)

On Being an Afghani Warlord

Her eyesight has faded to the point where she can no longer shoot straight and her limbs have grown stiff, but Afghanistan's only female warlord is still unassailable in her remote eyrie high in the mountains of north-east Afghanistan.

Known as Kaftar, or "The Pigeon", 55-year-old Bibi Ayisha has fought off the Russians, the Taliban and a host of local rivals.

My favorite part:

"It makes no difference if you are a man or a woman when you have the heart of a fighter," she said. Kaftar claims to lead 150 men and her only concession to gender roles on the battlefield is that she requires a male relative to be present when she is fighting, in line with Afghan tradition for women outside the home.

Because one must keep up appearances...

And if there's another lame WisCon panel where everybody argues about whether or not women can fight and kill people, they really should discontinue them. It's like arguing about whether or not women can do math or plant vegetables. Not much of an argument if they're already doing it, huh?

What I've Been Doing:

Working.

At the day job.

A lot.

At least the overtime is nice.

In NYC

I'm in NYC this weekend for me and B's anniversary. Going out to see "The Producers" and actually look around the city a bit.

Yea, I've been commuting into this city for a year and.. haven't seen much of the city.

But hey, if you only saw your SO once a month, what do you think you'd be staying in and doing every weekend?

Broken Out & Busted Down

If I have to run one more report, I'll vomit.

Pretty exhausted. Left work early with the, "It's Valentine's Day," excuse. Got some food. Taking a nap.

Just too much going on over here to keep my head on straight.

Here's What's Happening

Survived my time in Indy - anybody know any good telecommunications CMs? We're hiring.

In other news, K moved out the rest of her stuff yesterday, and me and Jenn are hitting Ikea and Target today to re-stock the house with furniture (we have no couch, microwave, or kitchen island now). We've been trying to think of what to do with K's empty room, and I'm thinking I may make it a map room. I've been meaning to draw an updated wall map of the fantasy saga world for some time, but putting it in the middle of the house meant it got mud tracked in on it and got in everyone's way. So I may revive that project and make the extra room a drawing room.

The people at Best Buy managed to save the stuff on one of my computers, but not the other - which I anticipated, so I'm not too heartbroken, but it means I lost all of the music I stole from my buddy Julian in South Africa. That sucks, but is survivable. I should have a copy of one of the stories I need to get in the mail by March 1st, so I'm happy.

I'm spending my morning doing God's War edits, working on a writing contract passage, and copying all of my CDs to my new computer.

Things are getting better. Slowly but surely.

Knock on wood.

So, Where *Is* That Male Pill?

Administration of testosterone to men markedly reduces sperm counts and is a very efficient and well tolerated method of contraception. Combinations with progestogens or with gonadotropin-releasing hormone antagonists are even more effective and suggest that hormonal contraception in men is feasible and may be as effective as the currently used methods.

It Only Took 30 Years to Figure This Out...

The largest study ever to ask whether a low-fat diet reduces the risk of getting cancer or heart disease has found that the diet has no effect.

The $415 million federal study involved nearly 49,000 women ages 50 to 79 who were followed for eight years. In the end, those assigned to a low-fat diet had the same rates of breast cancer, colon cancer, heart attacks and strokes as those who ate whatever they pleased, researchers are reporting today.


AHHAh AHah hHAah aha aha haa

And, once again, it's a study composed entirely of women. Because it's really the fat women in this country that we're all so terribly scared of.

Last Day in Indy

For awhile, anyway. These are always long days. I'm behind on some other projects. I'll get caught up this weekend.

70,000 Dead Women

The International Planned Parenthood Federation estimates 19 million women worldwide will have an unsafe abortion in 2006; a similar number took this risky step last year - 70,000 died.

Off to Indy

I'll be in Indy from Tuesday-Thursday this week.

Oh, I can barely contain my enthusiasm.

Why is it I work at this job again?

Oh, yea, cause it pays me to screw off half the year. The rest of the year it's... Indianapolis.

Fantasy Novel Title Generator

It's not much better than the stuff I come up with myself...

Children's Mists
Heart of Darkness
Island Ruby of Trisilion
Secretِ Fireِ and Dream
Spell of Empire
Spirit of Pride
Stoneِ Rogueِ and Earth
The Isindaria Spirit
The Realm of Eltios
The Rune Herald

Link

The Times On Friedan

Nice overview of Betty Friedan and her work.

Re-Equipped

Last night, I maxed out my credit card and bought one of these:



Dropped the other two computers off with The Geek Squad to see if they can do any data recovery.

Gateway told me that Blue Screen of Death + Clicking Sound + inability to restart past the "Gateway" symbol page meant my hard drive was truly fucked. The other computer has a dead screen and is perpetually restarting, and after dropping $317 useless dollars on "fixing" the Gateway only to have it explode two hours later, I wasn't dropping another $500 on the other computer only to see it, too, die in some horrible way as soon as it got back home.

For the same amount of money ($700 +), I could buy a whole new system (This was $999. I paid the extra $200 cause this had a more comfortable keyboard than the one for $749. Since I spend anywhere from 4-12 hours a day typing on my laptop, comfortable keyboard was priority 1, followed immediately by how good the screen was).

So now I've got a new baby and a 3-year warranty. And I'm getting myself a back-up data storage service or an external hard drive, because this ordeal has been massively ridiculous.

Sometimes I have to learn my lessons the hard way.

Back to work.

Dear Mr. Grande Latte Enema;

Fuck you.

For Those Who Haven't Seen or Heard it Yet:

Pink's "Stupid Girl."

Is Romance Really for Guys?

What exactly is the princess of archetypal hero myths? She’s not a real love interest, since the reasons the hero loves her are never explored. She’s a symbol, possibly like today’s real-life trophy wife. An object of status to impress other men. Maybe that explains why the whole idea of women characters as “love interests” is such a turn-off to women. After all, it’s not much more satisfying to be wanted as a trophy than to not be wanted at all. This could also explain why more than one man has expressed sympathy for Sam (Of Stargate SG-1) that she can’t have her man: they’re extrapolating the hero’s quest onto her, and like a man, part of her prize package for heroic deeds should include the prince of her choice.

(thanks, Jenn)

You Need to Make A Decision

I had lunch with this one editor, she took me to this fancy restaurant, and she told me I had to make a decision...whether or not I was writing for black people or white people." - Danyel Smith

If you're a white writer, would you expect to get asked a question like that?

February's Black History Month

But, then:

For this bitch, every month is Black History Month but my ass can see the value in setting aside one month for deeper exploration.

Luckily We Live in a Tolerant, Peaceful Society Where No One is Killed - er - Discriminated Against. What the Fuck is Up With Shit Like This?

NEW BEDFORD, Massachusetts (CNN) -- Police on Thursday are seeking a man in connection with a gun and hatchet attack at a gay bar in New Bedford, south of Boston. Three people were wounded in what authorities said they suspect were hate crimes.

They "suspect."

Yea.

(via Angry Black Bitch)

Why I Love B

Because he sends me shit like this.

That is just frickin hilarious.

Oh, Nevermind

Two hours in, while working on a short story I was going to submit to an anthology, I got the Blue Screen of Death.

It told me to restart.

So I did. And got the Gateway logo and then... dark screen.

Nothing. And an odd clicking noise.

I restarted it again.

And again.

And again.

And it's dead again.

Once again, I have no computer. It's exploded.

I am so tired.

My Computer is Back! My Computer is Back!

Oh my sweet computer, how do I love you, let me count the ways!

Nice turnaround time from Gateway, of all places...

Get-Well Gifts

What my mom sent me to cheer me up:







and:













My mom is awesome.

Colonizing Other Worlds

Had a story of mine make it past the first cut over at Intergalactic Medicine Show.

Card makes the final cut.

That would be so ironic on so many levels. But then, I thought this was ironic, too, when I sold it.

See, I do have some stories where there's very little violence and no swearing! Really, I do! I just don't write them very often. They aren't quite as fun.

Some Thoughts On Weight

No, no, the other kind.

NancyP asked a number of posts back about how to increase the weight in her free-weight routine without getting an injury or creaking joints and muscles. For the real deal from somebody more experienced than me, I refer everyone to Mistress Krista.

But here's what my experience has been:

When I came to Chicago, I'd been using 5-lb free weights for years and years. I think I first picked them up when I dropped all of my pill/depression weight when I was 18/19. What I realized, at 23, was that I was doing insane amounts of reps with these little weights and seeing absolutely no results. I felt better because I had a routine, but it wasn't doing me any good I could see as far as building muscle.

I did something I don't recommend - I went out and bought 20 lb weights. Anybody in their right mind would have gotten 10 or 15 lbers, but not me. I started doing one set of 3-5 reps with each exercise. It was cool because I cut down the time it took to do my routine, and when I combined this with my twice a week martial arts classes, I noticed a big difference in strength in two weeks. Every week or two I would add one more rep, until I was doing 1 set of 15 of each exercise.

Because I increased by so much weight, I did have some overtraining pain (felt a bit like carpal tunnel in my forearms, actually), and had to slow down in the increase in reps. It took a couple months before I was pain-free again. Which is why I don't recommend going up more than 10 lbs at a time unless it's just a free weight you use occasionally for a few exercises.

When it was relatively easy for me to do two sets of 15 with the 20 lbs weights, I switched to 30 lb weights and dropped my reps to 1 set of 5 again, increasing by 1 rep a week until I got to two sets of 15 for all of my exercises but my bicep curls, which I'll be switching over to 30 lb weights this week.

Going from the 1 set of 5 with 20 lbs to what I'm at now has taken me about... a year and a half, I think. Which seems like a hell of a long time, but there have been a lot of down periods in there: sickness, stress, etc. where I did some backsliding and had to retrain. My ideal is to get up to using 50 lb weights at some point, which I think is doable so long as I ease up into the next weight range slowly and continue to eat enough protein.

Ah, and there's that protein thing.

Eat a lot of protein. Make it a point to eat eggs and lean meat and fish. Jenn was working out with 10 lb weights for months and was trying to figure out why she wasn't able to get up to 15 lbers. When she mentioned this to a friend who lifted weights regularly, he asked how much protein she ate. As I recall, she just sort of stared at him blankly. When she upped her protein, she was able to move to 15 lbs no problem.

As for the weight machines, I try to set everything as close to 100 lbs (or my body weight, for the leg press) for my lower body, and 70-90 lbs for my upper body. I do about two or three sets of fifteen. I do the gym twice a week. My free weights I do every morning.

I have a feeling a lot of this "inexplicable" weight loss I'm experiencing actually has a lot to do with my weight-lifting routine. I eat more now and do less cardio than I did the last time I was at this weight (and I was a few years younger), and I feel like it's pretty effortless now that I have the routine down.

I also eat really frequently - at least five times a day. Lots of yogurt and soup and protein bars, oatmeal, eggs, bacon, fish, pork chops, salad, sometimes some potatoes, etc. During the weekends I'm less structured, and only eat three times a day probably, but since I don't work out on the weekends (not even free weights), it doesn't bug me.

A lot of my success at sticking with this was by deciding I was going to do this to be stronger and kick ass - not to be skinny and weak. As a result, I've lost weight, but I'm not weak.

The other part is that every time I fucked up and didn't go to the gym (cause I was sick, stressed, lazy), or didn't eat the "right" things, or missed my morning weights routine, I didn't guilt myself about it. If I guilted about it, I'd binge eat and avoid the gym like the plague (which is what happened with my MA classes).

There's been a lot of forgiveness instead of self-hate.

That makes a huge difference.

Post script:

Switched out my bicep curls weight from 20 to 30 lbs this morning. I went from 2 sets of 15 to 2 sets of.... 2.

So it goes. You just build it up one week at a time.

Bill O'Reilly Gets the Smackdown

Dude. Fucking awesome.

(thanks, Jenn)

The New Single Woman

Natalie over at Philobiblion answers the question: "Is it possible to be a single woman in one's fifties with a full life and a lot of joy?"

Her answer: "Well, of course..."

(via Alas)

Where Are All the New Feminist SF/F Writers?

I reserve comment.

My Art Is A Big Bag of Dope

I wonder, you know, if fantasy - big, chunky fantasy with the politics and beliefs of naive teenagers - is not just another form of sedation. Another form of over the counter sedation. Shit, maybe literature and film and music has just become it, in a general way. Do we read/watch/listen for escapism? Our art will never be outlawed, but is it now performing the same task as a big bag of dope?

Ben Peek's writing in response to VanderMeer's essay about "real-world" politics in fantasy fiction.

This got me to thinking about why I haven't been writing a lot of explicitly "political" posts about, say, Justice Alito, the lack of a true progressive party in America, abortion rights (well, not lately anyway), Katrina relief, or/and etc.

I mean, the post that got me the biggest hit count was, predictably, one on abortion. If I was looking for hit count numbers, I could make this the all-about-my-opinions-on-abortion blog. That always gets a rise out of people. Or I could make it a purely fat-acceptance blog. Or pure SF blog. Or "pure" whatever blog. I could write a really cool women-in-war blog (and in fact, I should write more about that here).

The reason I've steered clear of posts that have to do with "timely" political issues like Alito and Bush's "oh duh" moment (yea, we need alternative energy resources! We've known that since 1970 you fucktard!) is that I'm burned out on approaching them in non-fiction. I see this bullshit on CNN and read it in other blogs every day. And unless they really piss me off, I'm not going to waste space here when so many other people are talking about Old White Dudes. I'll write my letters through NARAL and PP and keep writing posts about feminism and science fiction and keep writing SF/F stories and mix up this blog with a diversity of posts.

I don't want it to be all white guys in politics, all the time.

In fact, later this year when I get back into boxing classes and recover from the wackiness that's been my life for the last few months, I'd like to get back to talking more about women, weightlifting, boxing, and martial arts. Recording my own successes and failures has, I know, helped and inspired at least a handful of people, and that's something.

Changing the world in some small, secret way...

The truth is, I write about politics, about the world, every day. That's how I process it. It may not show up here, but it'll show up in my fiction.

Yea. Fantasy Fiction. About the Real World. What, you think you're divorced from it?

Silly rabbit.

I've had at least one editor call a story of mine, "too didactic." Yea, it was a story about abortion - only the one being denied the abortion was a man. It all made sense in the story, mostly. Sorta. I had another story that touched on the issue with a bit more skill, and that one sold pretty easily. I tend to work out my beliefs and politics in my fiction.

My story, "Wonder Maul Doll" (Yea, WMD) just finally sold as well. It's about a bunch of women sent off to a foreign country in search of deadly organic weapons in order to boost a president's election campaign, and it pretty brutally shows how many people are killed and ruined for one woman's (false) accusations.

Most of my stories deal with war and feminism to one extent or another. Even tDW (The Dragon's Wall), the fantasy saga, is a story about the genocide of an entire race based entirely on fears and fictions of who those people are.

Oh, but wait.

tDW, being a "big, chunky fantasy," must just be another of those dull stories "with the politics and beliefs of naive teenagers" and therefore "just another form of sedation." Like "Ender's Game," or "The Forever War." Totally removed from the real world. Another form of escapism. Doesn't get you to think about The Real World at all.

I certainly think that some stories - not fantasies in particular, but ALL writing (including lit, mystery, horror, romance) - are indeed forms of escapism. There are bubble-gum stories where nobody suffers much and everything turns out OK and nobody's going through a political crises or performing illegal abortions or running a country on anarchy. And yea, sure, there's a place for those stories.

But you know what? Some of the shit you might think is the most awful of fluff can surprise you.

I've been re-reading Mike Moorcock's Elric stories recently, and I've been struck by the moral ambiguity of some of the tales. What is good and evil? Is wholesale slaughter or random killing ever justified? How much power does one have over the expectations of the people around them? Should humanity be "saved" if it's really Insane, Evil, Corrupt? Is humanity worth saving at all? Are you willing to sacrifice yourself for your beliefs? Does that legitimate those beliefs?

S&S stories are notorious for being badly written tales of escapism, but there's some great stuff out there that will challenge you to re-think your positions on "real life" ideas if you give it a chance.

I don't plan to write pure fluff. I'm not keen on bubblegum. Will some of it be read that way? Sure it will. It might even be something Baen would publish! But if I'm writing doorstoppers and pulling you out of this world, it's to take you somewhere different so you'll be able to read about the issues of the here-and-now in another context. And maybe, just maybe, I can get people thinking about things just a little differently.

Because what I don't want to be faced with when I come home is another blaring night of CNN and hysterical left and right-wing bloggers screaming about the same issues. I want somebody who'll show me another way of looking at it, somebody who reminds me that history churns on, that we've been here before; we'll be here again.

I love adventure stories. I can go somewhere else for an hour, a day, and wake up the next morning with a view of the world that's just a little bit different.

Same Old Story, Only It's A First World Army - Ours

In a startling revelation, the former commander of Abu Ghraib prison testified that Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, former senior U.S. military commander in Iraq, gave orders to cover up the cause of death for some female American soldiers serving in Iraq.

Last week, Col. Janis Karpinski told a panel of judges at the Commission of Inquiry for Crimes against Humanity Committed by the Bush Administration in New York that several women had died of dehydration because they refused to drink liquids late in the day. They were afraid of being assaulted or even raped by male soldiers if they had to use the women's latrine after dark....

Sanchez's attitude was: "The women asked to be here, so now let them take what comes with the territory," Karpinski quoted him as saying. Karpinski told me that Sanchez, who was her boss, was very sensitive to the political ramifications of everything he did. She thinks it likely that when the information about the cause of these women's deaths was passed to the Pentagon, Donald Rumsfeld ordered that the details not be released. "That's how Rumsfeld works," she said.

That's certainly heartening. Shows real respect for your fellow comrade-in-arms.

Read the rest

Agent Drops Frey

Sure, being given the smack-down by Oprah's pretty bad, but you know you're in trouble when even your agent (who should be happy with all the publicity) drops you.

Still Feeling Down

If I don't cut it out, this is going to start sounding like Simon's journal... (ha. No offense, dude).

Trying to work on rewrite of fantasy saga today. Haven't been sleeping well all week, and the last two nights I've had horrible leg cramps that have literally woken me up from a sound sleep 3-4 times during the night. My credit card balance looks like the GNP of a small South American country (ah, healthcare costs and retail therapy. Wheee!). Still swinging on the relationship rope, not sure what to do, not sure what I want. Really burned out at work.

There are all these big decisions to make that make HUGE differences in the next large chunk of my life, and I really don't want to make them. I want to run away and join the Peace Corps or something.

Alternatively, I'd just like to write books and buy a beach house with a lot of land and a stream and put books in it. In the house, I mean. Not the stream. Or the beach.

I think I'm just tired.

My Home State Passes Gay Rights Bill

And conservatives are already freaking out and trying to overturn it.

What's this frightening bill all about? What "special rights" does it "give" to these troublesome gay people?

It's the addition of two words to an already existing state law:

State law bans discrimination based on race, sex, religion, marital status, disability and other categories. The bill, which takes effect 90 days after adjournment, adds sexual orientation to that list.

Yea, let's overturn that bill and bring back lawful bigotry! Fucking Washingtonians! What were you thinking with all this "banning discrimination" nonsense? Do you think you live in a free country or something?

"I Know Lesbians, and Lesbians Don't Act Like This": Or, I Don't Speak for all the Mostly Straight White Girls in America Who Eat Apple Pie

I went through Cheney's links about "Writing the Other" and read over Pam's essay on The Infinite Matrix on the whitewashing of SF and the "SF Media"'s responsibility to engage with these sorts of issues (I'd argue that blogs and message boards *are* SF/F's media, such as it is, but that's a debate for another day).

What I read were stories like this one of non-people-of-color writers who had gotten the smack-down for writing characters whose skin color or gender was different from theirs. I'm wondering how many black writers get banged around for writing white characters? Or gay writers get harragued about writing straight characters? I didn't see anybody harping on Michael Cunningham for "not getting the Straight Experience right" in his novel Flesh & Blood.

I ha-ha-ed these poor Clarion writers until I remembered an incident in my own Clarion class a few years ago.

One of our older (male, straight) classmates wrote a story with a lesbian character in it. When it came around to another (male, bisexual) classmate's turn to critique the story, he proclaimed, "I know a lot of lesbians, and lesbians don't act like this."

There was a stunned silence. I looked at the story in front of me again. I knew some lesbians, too, and I could certainly see them "acting like this" (I believe the issue was that the woman was aggressive or too smart or something. And I had worked with a woman who was very similiar in temperment - she'd smash you up on her way to the top of the heap - and also happened to be a lesbian). For the record, the lesbians in the room seemed pretty confused by this utterance of absolute fact as well.

"Lesbians don't act like this."

How did he know? Well, he had a lot of lesbian friends, and because his lesbian friends didn't act like that, no lesbians acted like that. There was only one Lesbian Experience.

It's the old, "But I have black friends!" argument. So all of your characters are limited by the handful of personalities you see in your friends of color? If I only wrote about the personalities I saw in my friends' group, I wouldn't be able to write about asshole misogynists or, hell, blade-wielding brown women.

The tension in the classroom was cut when we got around to my buddy Patrick, who ended his critique of the same story with, "You know, I have some problems with your male main character. I know a lot of straight people, and straight people don't act like this."

It was awesome.

I haven't written any books containing an all-white or even majority-white cast since Clarion. In fact, since Clarion most of my stories are full of brown and black people. My next stand-alone novel features an entirely black-skinned cast. In the world I'm building, that makes the most sense. Putting white people on that world would be like putting white people in Austrailia - watch your rate of skin cancer increase. I also want the root of these cultures in this new world to be southern Africa, with some North African influence. That's going to mean a LOT of research.

I also haven't written a book peopled entirely by straight characters since Clarion.

Why the sudden switch post-Clarion?

Well, I realized how much more interesting my fiction was when it wasn't white-washed and straight. And I realized the world wasn't white and straight, either.

I grew up in a little town, 98% white. Our "diversity" was a diversity of religion. Apostolic Lutherans, regular Lutherans, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Catholics - you name it, we had it. I grew up next to a family of Apostolic Lutherans - known derogatorily around town as "bun heads" because the women kept their hair long and usually up in a bun - whose social mores encouraged both women and men to marry as young as 16. They would then drop out of high school and their families would help them build their own house. The men were encouraged to get jobs where they worked with their hands - constructions jobs like carpetry, drywalling, pouring concrete, etc. Contraception was taboo. Families of 13-18 children weren't uncommon. They often married their 2nd or 3rd cousins, and primarily hung out with other people of their faith, and yes, even though they were "white," you could spot a "bun head" from twenty feet away. Hanging out with the girls from those families, well, let's say we all had very, very different views of what constituted a fulfilled life. And talking to them was really fascinating. I've never been a person of absolute faith in much of anything, and being able to talk to people who were - who really believed this was the best way to be - taught me a lot.

In high school, because I was involved in theater, it actually took me two hands to count the number of people I knew who were gay. That may not seem like a lot to people from a big city, but in a little town, that's a good number. And high school kids in theater talk a lot about sex, so throwing out a question to one of the gay guys, "So, being gay, how does that work?" when I was fourteen was pretty illuminating.

Throw on top of that the fact that I've been interested in race relations for most of my life, and it's constituted most of my academic work. I lived in South Africa for a year and a half. I don't know what it's like to have black skin, but I know what it's like to be the only white person on the bus, in the hall; the only white person on the street for as far as I can see. And I remember coming back to the States and sitting in the airport in Minneapolis waiting for my connecting flight and feeling like there was something really *wrong* about the airport, something really *off.* It took me a good ten minutes to realize what was bugging me:

Everbody was white.

I'd gotten so used to being a minority in a sea of dark faces that I felt physically "off" when I wasn't.

So I've read widely, talked to people who are very different from me, and even if I'll never "get it" that's OK - I'd rather "get it wrong" and have somebody go, "Uh, you realize you just did this racist thing, right?" than not do it at all.

Because I understand how important it is to see yourself in fiction, in media. I grew up seeing images of women who spent all their time shopping and gossiping about boys and playing with makeup. I saw women who were small and thin and had huge breasts like Barbie dolls. And for years I tried to conform to that ideal. I thought there was something wrong with me. I thought I needed to spend my time vying for male attention so I could be a "real girl." What I desperately needed was to see a big, strong, smart woman like me who could go out and write books and take kick boxing classes and be smart and still get laid if she wanted to. I woke up one day and thought, "It's not me that's all wrong. It's the society. Fuck this."

Jenn told me that after the first time she watched the Buffy episode where Willow and Tara get together, she was floating around for days on a wave of happiness.

It's so fucking cool to see the possible.

The first book I remember reading that broke down all of the cultural assumptions I'd been fed about women was Tamora's Pierce's book, Alanna. It blew me away. I think I was 10 or so.

For years I'd soaked up media that told women were all weaker (physically and mentally) than men (my parents thought otherwise, but I was very steeped in media as a kid). I was told women didn't fight in wars. They couldn't. They were weak and inclined to stay home and raise babies and clean the house. Staying home and raising babies might be a lifelong aspiration for some men and women, but it wasn't for me. And yet the options I saw weren't that great. If I was too smart, headstrong, and successful, I'd never get laid and I'd be socially ostracized ("Why aren't you married yet?" "Why don't you have a good man?" "Sorry, we're only inviting couples").

And here was this other 10-year-old girl who decided to say "fuck you," and dressed up as a boy and went through knight training. And you know what? She was good at it. She wasn't the best - she excelled at some things and not others. She wasn't perfect, afterall. But she held her own with the boys and became a knight and even got two or three boyfriends in the process. She did what she wanted to do and wasn't socially outcast for it.

Stories are important.

I want to see myself.

Jenn and I got into a series of conversations about the lack of good/happy lesbian films available at our local Hollywood Video, which morphed into a talk about good books with lesbians characters, and the ghettoizing of "gay/lesbian/black" fiction sections at Borders (Neither Sarah Waters nor Nicola Griffith's books are in the "gay/lesbian lit" section. Why is that? Cause they're good books?). And it reminded me again of the importance of being able to "see" yourself in fiction, in media. So much of what we're fed is blatanly directed at a straight white male audience that you can feel the walls closing in while enormous breasts jiggle at you on the screen. You feel like something's wrong with you.

I've been dying to see for big, strong, intimidating female heroines my whole life (Xena was just too cheesy a show for me at the time). However funny the idea of Buffy being a tiny girl without muscles was, she was still a tiny girl without muscles, as was River in Serenity. Not that little women can't be buff - my 115 lb, 5'3 former martial arts instructer would kick my ass for saying that - but she was *buff.* And you could *tell* she could kick your ass.

I'm tired of little-girl heroines who are supposed to be super-scary, but aren't. Because if they really were, guys wouldn't find them attractive or something, they'd be intimidated, and wouldn't watch movies or read books with characters in them who could kick their ass. There's a swath of fantasy over it - sure, yea, ha, she's a superhero, but in real life, I could crack her in half.

So I know something about wanting to see something that isn't there.

It's why I write what I do.

You write because you go out and look for something and don't find it. Somebody has to write it. Why not you?

There's a reason I love Russ and Griffith, but there's not enough to go around.

I would rather write a story about a big butch black lesbian woman who was 6'3 220 lbs and get a bunch of pissed-off letters from black lesbian women who told me where I fucked up than write about a little straight white woman whose "intimate" scenes with male lovers describe her as "child-like" and perpetuate the white-washed SF/F world.

When I write, I try to be aware of what I'm doing. I recognize that I've got a character in God's War who might be seen as "The Magical Negro." I personally don't think he is (and there are other black characters in the book, of course, and pretty much everyone else is brown), and I just killed off my gay male character knowing full well I'd just sacrificed The Gay Male Character (though there are lots of other gay people in the book). But you know, first and foremost, to me, he was a person. Which means that's how I write all of my characters: person first. And then he's also a half-breed gay guy with really good organic tech skills and an interest in Nasheenian politics. I'm a person too. I can relate. The rest I have to come up with through lots of talking and research, and imagining.

I'm a fantasy writer. That's what I do. You know, imagination and extrapolation?

If I can create whole worlds in my head but can't write a heavily-pigmented character, what kind of fantasy writer am I?

Nobody blinks when a woman writes from a male POV. That's just expected. Even men write female characters all of the time (who do you think writes 90% of those Hollywood scripts?). Some of them do it badly, yes. And I'll rant about it when they do. But would I rather get the opportunity to critique something badly done or just have 90% of all movies without any women in them at all? Better yet, why don't *I* start writing Hollywood scripts that kick ass like Girlfight? (now there's a woman I believe could kick my ass).

The trick is to be aware of what you're doing. If you know what you're doing but want to do it anyway, go for it. But know what you're getting into and how some people might read it.

To tell the truth, I *like* writing about race and race relations. There aren't any strange creatures in any of my fantasy books. There are culture wars. It so happens that one of the markers of race in my books is, indeed, skin color. I've got POVs in the fantasy saga from two white people (one male, one female, both "mostly" straight), one straight brown guy, one half-breed bisexual woman who can sometimes "pass" for white, and one black lesbian (I've taken out the brown gay guy POV and replaced it with hers for pacing reasons). There are also other markers: height, religion & other belief systems, eye and hair color and styles, facial features (and amount of facial hair and styles of such), clothing, transportation, mythology systems, diet (taboo foods, habits), fighting styles, and etc.

It ain't all about color. Color's often just the easiest to spot.

And, of course, I'm reminded in all of this that I *am* "The Other" in some circles. In business meetings. On conference calls.

As K once said to me, "You know you're in trouble when you're the Diversity in the room."

Just like an Other, I'm not writing about All Women any more than I'm writing about All White people (when they make an appearance). I couldn't imagine anyone assuming I was.

Like Duncan said:

Being gay is a similarly "othering" attribute to give a character, but you know what? When I write a gay character I'm not writing about the Other. I'm gay and I ain't no Other, thank you very much. So I'm not writing, as if for the edification of some heterosexual reader, about Gays! or Gayness!, Gay! life, Gay! culture, Gay! identity, like there's some great universal experience all us Gays! share in our day-to-day, Gay!-to-Gay! existence. I'm not waving the rainbow flag and standing up as spokesmen for the Gay! cause, for all my Gay! comrades-in-arms. I'm writing about a fukcing character, a gay character, this specific gay character, their life, their culture, their identity, their personal experience... The idea that by making a character black and/or gay you must therefore be talking about "the black and/or gay experience" is, not to put too fine a point on it, utter bollocks.

And when I write about a character of color, or a gay character, I sure ain't pretending to speak for "all people of color" or "all gays" anymore than I'm speaking for "all white people" or "all women" when I write white or female characters. It's absurd to think I would be.

I write books I want to read. They deal with my pet themes: war and gender - which includes feminism and definitions of masculinity - race and race relations, genocide, sexuality, ways of constructing families and extended kin groups and sexual relationships.

And if you think only white people deal with that kind of stuff, you're cutting off a huge range of experiences from which to draw from. And you're Othering a whole nother generation of readers by telling them that they don't exist, that the future's only for the straight white people, that only straight white people dream that things can be really different.

The Top 100

The top 100 best lines in lit.

Though I'd call them the "most popular" as opposed to "the best."

One of my favorites comes from a genre book:

"My mother was the village whore, and I loved her very much."

Target Pharmacist Fired For Not Doing Job

Imagine being fired for not doing your job!

It only took them five years!

Tomorrow morning, I'm telling my boss I can't use computer equipment because of my personal aversion to things that use electricty. Let's see how many years I can keep the paychecks coming.

My favorite part of the article?

Target declined to provide comment Thursday. But Williams emphasized that she was blaming Planned Parenthood — not Target — for her predicament. She cites Planned Parenthood’s heightened national campaign to persuade major pharmacy chains such as Target to agree to fill emergency contraception.

Those fucking baby killers and their "educational" campaigns! The nation shouldn't be "educated"! Then people who don't do their jobs might be fired!

Oh, the insanity!

Now You Need to Enforce It

Liberia's new rape law:

The new law... broadens the definition of rape to included "penetration by any foreign object not just a penis." Anyone under 18 is "automatically deemed not to have given consent". Gang rape carries a penalty of life imprisonment.

I'm concerned a tad about the under 18s automatically not being allowed to give consent, but I'm uncertain as to the context. Is that only if she comes forward with a rape charge? What if her family does?

Otherwise, great. Now I hope she makes it safer for women to come forward.

Recovery Weekend

Spent the weekend feeling like I'd survived a big, brutal fistfight.

Drank a lot of orange juice. Rearranged my room. Doing some re-filing/organizing because I've got to many projects going. Went to see "Brokeback Mountain" with Jenn (it's good, and I understand why it had to be Another Gay Tragedy movie, but still), ate some good food, did some line edits.

I'm still sleeping like shit, but I did have my first beer in months, and let me tell you it tasted good....

The Culprit is Revealed

The guy using the women's restroom here at the office and leaving behind puddles of urine and raised toilet-seats in his wake has been apprehended.

One of the women here in the office (not me) put the smack-down on him.

No more urine on my shoes. Yay!

I get enough of that bullshit on the train.

You may now return to your regularly scheduled programming.

The Dragon's Wall: Excerpt

Edits have finally begun. Should be making the rounds again by October, though if I could swing it this summer, that would be great.

_____________________________

Thirty-Six: The Cats

Zezili pulled back the sheet covering the body, still half-hoping the face would not be one she knew. The sheet stuck to the lips. Zezili tugged it free and saw the empty sockets of the bloodied eyes, the sharp cheekbones, the aquiline nose, the frosty face of eight hundred years of Dhorinian queens.

Zezili looked into the face of the last of them.

“He took her cat eyes,” Zezili said. “Tell me you have him.”

Sir Janvier stood next to her, her cropped brown curls squashed under a woolen cap. She kept her helm under one arm.

The body lay at the back of the inn’s big kennel atop a makeshift table. The cold room stank of dogs and red grass.

“We picked up tracks going south,” Janvier said. Her voice was raw, husky. “A dog, probably carrying two, and a set of footprints. Following them.”

Janvier did not say it, and Zezili would not. Not aloud. King Nathin, whore’s get of the south, had slipped a man into the queen’s circle.

Nathin of Lendynd, self-styled king of savages.

Janvier shifted her feet, wiped at the blunt mash of her nose. She opened her mouth, closed it again. There was another question to be asked, and she would not ask it.

Zezili jerked the sheet back over the corpse. She palmed her own helm lying on the table. She pulled it over her head, fastened the strap at the chin.

“I’m going to Daorian,” she said. She had already sent a runner, likely sent her into death, bearing news such as this, but that’s what dajians were for.

“Sir,” Janvier said.

“I’ll ask her to give you first of the legion,” Zezili said. “I’m serving her my head.”

“On a platter?” Janvier said.

“Silver,” Zezili said. “Is there another kind?”

Zezili went back out to where her big dog Dakar was kenneled. His shoulder was as tall as hers. She hefted the saddle from the pen bar, buckled it over Dakar’s shoulders, cinched it at the chest.

Janvier still stood behind her, motionless at the kennel gate. Zezili pulled herself up onto Dakar and regarded her Second.

“Anything else?” Zezili asked.

Janvier shook her head.

“Then get out of the way,” Zezili said. She kneed Dakar forward.

Daorian was a five day ride, but the snow was light, the roads clear, and way-houses Zezili stayed at were old haunts. She had failed the Queen of Dhorin. She had let the heir to Dhorin die. There was no other fate, no other path, and she went willingly. It would be a gift to take death at the hand of the Queen.

By the time Zezili reached the outer sprawl of Daorian, the city was already wreathed in red, the color of mourning. Great red banners flanked the tower gates, the spires of the distant keep. The city people had put out red kerchiefs in their windows, hung them from the snow-heavy awnings of their shops.

Zezili wound her way to the keep. She had left it over three months before with a dozen of the royal guard. She returned alone. She enjoyed the silence.

People knew her by her armor, the plaited skirt knotted with the hair of dajians and outer-islanders, the image of Rhea holding a sword over a dead dragon etched into the breastplate, outlined in flaking silver. Her helm had no plume, ended instead in a curve of metal like a snake’s tail. Her dog’s scars, the bulk of him, told all who she was as clearly as her dress, and the people came out to see her, muttered about her on their doorsteps, pointed. Some saw her and hid. Two old women made a ward against evil as she passed. It told Zezili something of the Queen’s silent ambiguity regarding her station that they did not spit at Zezili or curse her. The Queen had yet to post judgment.

The city waited.

Zezili brought Dakar up onto the hill of the keep overlooking the harbor, the black water rimmed in dirty snow.

Zezili whistled Dakar to a halt in the courtyard. A kennel girl darted out from the warmth of the kennels, took the reins of Zezili’s dog without looking Zezili in the face.

Zezili paused. She reached up a hand to Dakar’s ears and rubbed at the base of them. She pressed her cheek to his. The dog licked at her face with his hot tongue. She pulled away only to find that she had gripped the hair of his collar in both hands. She slowly uncurled her fingers. She turned away, walked up the loop of the outdoor stair and into the foyer of the hold. She met with the Queen’s public minister, a fat woman with the fey, beautiful face of a clean-shaven mardana man. Zezili could never remember her name.

“She’s been expecting you,” the minister said.

A little dajian ran ahead to announce Zezili. Zezili went to the long hall outside the queen’s audience chamber.

The dajian slipped back out the door, gripped the outer handle and leaned back with all her weight so she could pull it wide.

Zezili squared her shoulders. She concentrated on the length of purple carpet, but could not help but see the willowy length of the queen at the other end of the room, two red banners framing her silver throne. The figures moving at the edges of the room were not her officials, but her cats.

The sight of them sent a prickling up Zezili’s spine. The Queen’s cats were as tall as Zezili’s shoulder, sleek and black, with the queen’s eyes; they moved the way she did. They paced the length of the cold chamber.

Zezili walked onto the carpet. The dajian closed the massive door. Zezili still did not look at the queen. She walked to within a yard of the cusp of the Queen’s belled white gown, stared at the hem, and got down on both knees before her. She took off her helm, set it beside her.

The cats wound closer. A dozen, more? She imagined them chewing on her body, saw claws rent flesh.

She bowed her head forward, reached up to the tangled hair tied at the nape of her neck, brought it forward over one shoulder. She knelt with her neck bared and kept silent. One of the big cats yawned and stretched, lolled down beside her. Its tail caressed her legs, brushed the back of her head.

The Queen moved. A delicate hand alighted on the base of Zezili’s neck. The fingers were cold.

“I charged you,” the Queen said, her voice like a sigh.

Zezili trembled.

“The most important of my possessions,” the Queen said, and her fingers dug into Zezili’s hair.

“I failed,” Zezili said, and the words came out garbled. But the queen did not need her words to understand.

“Yes,” the Queen said. She released her hold on Zezili’s hair, smoothed it back into place, petted her absently.

“And the assassin?” the Queen asked.

“Her consort. The Thordon bauble,” Zezili said. “I didn’t watch him well enough. It is my head. My head and those of my house, if you will take them.”

“Yes,” the Queen murmured. She took her hand away, walked back around Zezili to the cat lolling next to Zezili. The Queen held out her hand. The cat licked it.

“Thordon,” the queen said.

One of the cats hissed.

“I tire long of Thordon.” The Queen stepped up onto the dais. She stepped back into the long curve of her silver throne, the fantastic menagerie of beaten silver rods and spires twisted into the faces of Delaraan demons. The first queen had had their faces set with emerald eyes.

“You have left me one child,” the Queen said. “You have left me the boy. These foolish choices are yours as well as mine.” And then, lower, to herself, to the cats, “I let the boy live.”

“Look at me,” the Queen said.

Zezili raised her eyes from the carpet. She did not know what she expected to see in the Queen’s face, but looking up she saw an unchanged visage, the face of the corpse in the kennels, unmarked by feeling; grief or fear or anger. The Queen was, as ever, a blank canvas, powdered in white, with the long, regal neck and supple form of her kind, the startling eyes.

“What are you doing this spring?” the Queen said.

Zezili could not speak. She looked for words, searched the floor, the carpet, let her gaze linger on the cats. She remembered Sir Kakolyn’s letter about the purging of the Drakish camps, remembered the last time she had knelt before the Queen, swore to cut out her own heart.

“Purging Drakes,” Zezili said, “if that’s your will.”

“I’ve changed my mind,” the Queen said.

Zezili kept her mouth shut.

“I don’t mind speaking,” the Queen said. “I was to take your head, yes, as you offered it to me. I have a platter, here.” She tapped the silver throne. “But my cats are not hungry.”

Zezili looked at the cats lolling about the audience chamber. They stared back at her with the Queen’s eyes.

“There is another use for you,” the Queen said.

Zezili shook her head. “My Queen –“

“I have told you.” She nodded at the cats. “They are not hungry. Another day? Until that time, I have changed my mind.”

“Your mind?”

“There are Drakish camps, yes. Kakolyn and Orianlyn will clean it. I have some… insects there. They need to be purged. But after, I have a task for you, one your death will not sully.”

Zezili bowed her head.

“You and Storm will go south.”

Zezili brought her head back up. “South?”

“Thordon,” the Queen said. “I want him. I want his country. I want it burned and routed, raped and maimed and mutilated. I want them scattered and twisted. And it is his head you will bring to me. On a platter, no less.”

“Pardon, my Queen, with only two legions?”

“Three. You will have Tanasai’s. I have contacted her.”

Zezili took a breath. Tanasai was dead, packed in snow in the storage house of Zezili’s estate. She tried to think of other things, but the Queen’s gaze had become keen.

“Or will I need to?” the Queen asked.

Zezili gritted her teeth.

“No,” the queen said softly, and her eyes never left Zezili. “No, perhaps I will not have to. Perhaps that time is done.”

“My Queen –“

“So your bauble has gone,” the Queen said, and a strange look came over her face, a turning inward. “Your bauble has committed violence and left you. Sought you out and could not find you.”

Zezili shifted on her knees. She had told no one about what the night keeper of the inn had told her: some hours after her departure, a strange person had come looking for her, too thin to be a woman, the voice too deep, his face hidden in a long hood. She had given him a room. He had disappeared along with the assassin.

“There were tracks leaving the inn,” Zezili said. “A dog carrying two. A third trailing.”

“Then it is both of us owe Nathin something.”

Zezili knitted her brows. “I don’t –“

“You will look. Your wife is south,” the Queen said. “And the killer. You owe Nathin something too, do you not?”

“Yes,” Zezili said. She would find her wife. And Nathin. She saw something opening ahead of her, beyond the throne room. Life. Pursuit.

“There were will be mercenaries from the outer islands. Three thousand Sebastyn pike men, five hundred Alorjan archers. This will not be your campaign, of course. I am giving it to Storm. He has first of the campaign. He decides his subordinates. You understand?”

“Yes,” Zezili said.

“Then we are settled.”

“I await your will,” Zezili said.

“Then rise,” the Queen said.

Zezili stood. Her knees ached. She bowed, turned. She put her back to the cats and the Queen. Her hands were pale, trembling. Cold sweat had gathered along her spine. She had not expected she would be allowed to rise, to leave the door. She had not thought past kneeling upon the carpet.

She saw the little dajian pulling back the door, leaning into it.

“Zezili?”

The tone was light. Zezili felt fear. She pivoted on her heel, regarded the queen. The cats were uncurling from the floor, stretching, yawning.

“Perhaps there is something else,” the Queen said.

Her cats crept up alongside Zezili, paced between her and the door. They circled her.

“My cats would like a token,” the Queen said. “Just a bit. You will give it freely.”

“Yes,” Zezili said.

The cats pounced.

She did not have time to bring up her hands.