When I Can Take A Breath....

I realize what's missing.

I haven't been writing.

Opening word files, staring at dialoge, moving around sentences. But no long stretches of writing. No long stays in somewhere-else.

How quickly I fall apart.

Gender Bias in SF

Jed's got some thoughts up on gender bias in the SF/F sub/accepetance rate. I found this tidbit a bit close to home for myself:

...it seems plausible to me (though I have only anecdotal evidence) that there’s potential for vicious circles here; if women perceive a magazine as not being a good place for women to get published, they may be less likely to submit there.

Ah. Yes. I suddenly realize I don't remember the last time I submitted to the Mag of SF/F, despite their speedy return times...

And then there are days....

... when I wonder why on earth I haven't deleted this damn blog yet.

EDIT: Oh, nevermind. *Now* I remember...

Hacienda Chicago

No email. No phone messages. No one in the house but me.

I realize it's been a long time since I had breathing space, time to just sit and be still. There have been moments; pale, fleeting moments where I believed that this time, yes, this time, I'd find my narrative, I'd piece together all of the random events of my life and build a new story out of them. A story with a purpose, a message - a story that gave me hope for everything that had been, and everything that would be.

It's that - that reflection - that you miss when you're trying so hard to function, to be strong for other people, to safeguard yourself from pain - your pain and the pain you inflict on others - and that's a tough thing, because it's that quiet space, those still moments, when you remember how to live.

I've gotten suckered into a dreadful system the last three years of my life, a system that ensures I have a steady paycheck and a lazy mind, and every step of the way, every sunny morning, I've told myself not to get too content, too complacent. I knew that the moment I was truly happy, I'd lose everything.

I have been happy here, and there are things I'm very happy with now, but I've learned that we're not here to be happy, or maybe that we're not here to experience long, uninterrupted spells of happiness. Just as peace is merely the time between wars, happiness feels like it's the time between woe, disaster, sacrifice, despair. It's longing for those moments of absolute happiness that keep you going through the worst of it; the dark nights, the terrible days.

I spent a week in Juneau after I graduated from the U of Alaska in Fairbanks. I packed up a backpack and stayed in a low-slung hotel along the waterfront and watched the rain come in and the boats go by. I spent too much money on steak dinners and carmel corn. I took the little sky car up the side of one of the big sloping mountains that met the sea. I ate a mediocre meal at the terribly overpriced restaurant at the top. I ordered a lot of alcohol. I went to museums. I slept in. I watched the rain. I was alone. There were moments of happiness, and moments of depression and despair. Here I was in one of the most beautiful cities I'd ever seen, and it was just me, and I was spending most of it sleeping. Why was that? Fear? Depression? Anxiety?

I have lived and breathed and shit fear for so long that there are some days I don't know how I would function without it. There's no time to be happy when you're always looking on and out, toward the next mountain, back at the hill you didn't climb, the path you didn't take, the road you should go down next.

This month, I was supposed to move to New York. The first year I was here, I'd decided to move to Denver. And yet here I sit in Hacienda Chicago in my perfect apartment, my comfortable room, this space I've carved out for myself in a new city so far from where I've come. I am still here because there is happiness in it. Some days.

There are no mountains to climb here, and all the paths are tired and worn. This was supposed to be a pit stop. This is not going to be the rest of my life. I needed a short break to recover from South Africa before I moved on. I wonder if South Africa hit me harder than I thought it did. I've been having a lot of dreams about South Africa, about hot nights and loud music and bugs. Always the bugs. I don't know what the dreams mean. I don't know why now.

I've been happy here. At times. Sometimes.

I'm not a fool. I realize the one thing you can never escape when you run off to new cities, new countries, new continents, is yourself. It's why I try so hard to be the best person I can be, to never be satisfied with what I am, but strive toward who I could be. Sometimes I wonder if that's dangerous. If I'm too hard on myself. And then I'm afraid of what I'll become if I don't push myself, if I don't want more, better, everything, the world.

Because I've seen who I can be when I just let myself be.

I think I'm all right with never being content. I'll be satiated waiting for those absolute brilliant moments of happiness, those shining moments between the long stretches of darkness.

I think that will be enough for me.

The Story of My Life (continuing with the "all about me" line of posting)

Sat on the bus on the way home and dreamed up who'd I'd cast in a movie about the story of my life.

The song I hope I'll be able to roll during the ending credits is The Beatles' "Baby You're a Rich Man."
Hey, I'm a fantasy writer.

This is what I do.

ABC Meme...

A – Africa, of course. I did my graduate work in South Africa from 2002-2003. I was based out of Durban, which is right there on the Indian Ocean and has a fabulous and famous waterfront area that you walk past a bunch of brothels and porn shops to get to (prostitution is legal: pimps are not). I spent a lot of time at the waterfront when I needed to unwind. It’s where I first read Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet. Also, I was first stung by a jellyfish out on that beach.

I traveled to Cape Town a couple of times, and Johannesburg, once. I flew into East London and proceeded to take several dubious modes of transportation through rural Africa and to the site of Fort Hare University in the tiny town of Alice. Alice has three or four grocery stores, a bank, and a gas station. Oh, and the university.

There’s not much in rural South Africa except cows. And people are only half-joking when they ask you what you think your worth is, in cows.

B – Books. I love books. I first had sex in a bookstore. Had most of my first sexual experiences in a bookstore. My boyfriend at the time had a grandmother who owned a used bookstore. He had the keys.

It was fun.

I find books terribly erotic now, though I don’t know if said eroticism of books predates my experiences in the bookstore. Could be, not sure.

C – Clarion. I went to Clarion West in 2000, after getting rejected two years before. I was on the waiting list. Luckily, somebody decided not to go, so I got in. It was one of those strange experiences that changes your life completely and utterly and forever.

I met a group of people who challenged all of my assumptions: about my writing, about myself, about my life.

And they have since become some of the best and dearest friends I’ve ever had.

D – Dogs. I worked weekends cleaning up dog kennels at a vet clinic in my hometown for about six months. Not a long time, and literally shit work, but there were times when I enjoyed it. I liked getting to know all the animals, especially all of the dogs. I’d take them all out to the outside kennels, clean the indoor kennels, and then trot them all back in and spray down the concrete outside.

There were these two regular dog boarders, these little Dachshunds called Lewis & Clark, who were always delightful to see. They were friendly and familiar and always excited to go out.

We had a couple of dogs at home: a German shepherd mix called Ranger who we had to give away because he dug holes in the yard and howled, and two golden retrievers, Sandy and Dusty, good dogs, both.

When I’d spin stories about living out my life in a little cabin in Alaska, writing books, I’d always include a mention of the two husky dogs I’d have around for company. Just me and a couple of dogs living out in the woods while I wrote stories… it sounded great at the time… Still does, some days.

E – Europe. I’ve been twice. The first time with my high school French class when I was 17. We traveled through France, Monaco, and Italy. We had a toga party, complete with red wine and a giant watermelon, and wandered the Forum and ate pizza and slugged through giant bottles of coke.

The second time, I went with my brother and his French class, and we hit London, France, Switzerland and Italy. I went dancing at a club in Florence and sat out in the piazza drinking black Russians and watching men juggle fire until late in the night.

They are good memories.

F – French. I’m French. Sort of. My paternal grandmother is from France, and my father and his three sisters were all born there. My grandmother lived in Nancy, France and grew up during the Nazi occupation. Her father was in the French underground, and was arrested numerous times.

Because my grandmother’s French, my cousins and I all took bare-bones French courses in high school or college. Well, I took French courses in college. There are eighteen or nineteen of us, all told, but of all the cousins, my brother and I are the only ones who’ve got BA degrees. We have a couple cousins who joined the army and are posted in Iraq, and thus far, only one of us has gotten married. Two have had children, including my sister.

G – Girls. It’s no secret, obviously, that I’ve had crushes on girls since I was 16 or 17 or so. It’s something that does come into play in my view of the world, and because it doesn’t happen that often, when I desire women it comes as quite a shock to my system, and it’s usually quite startling. Whether this is because it doesn’t happen often or it doesn’t happen often because of some kind of latent homophobia on my part that results in me only noticing women when they really do it for me, I don’t know.

Oddly enough, I may have no problem writing bisexual female leads (I was writing bisexual female leads before acknowledging I was a little queer), but writing out-and-out-all-girls-only lesbian characters as leads has proved to be a lot tougher.

H – Help. I’m bad at asking for it. I often say I don’t need it. When they threw me in the back of the ambulance, after I’d been lost to a diabetic coma for nearly half an hour, Jenn could still hear me slurring, “I’m fine! I’m fine!” to the paramedics as they put me on oxygen and started to try and dilute my acidic blood.

I’m not sure where I got this idea that I had to be strong and independent. My parents, I suppose. My mom had this thing where she wanted to raise, “Whole, healthy and empowered adults.” And I guess I took that to heart. I heard, “empowered” as “strong” and “independent,” and I worked very hard to not lean on them as soon as I was able. To the point where I only ask them for things if I’m in absolute desperate need, at the end of my rope.

Some of this may be because I’m also an oldest child, and was always the one told to “look after” my siblings, and expected to be responsible.

When we spoke of other people who still lived with their parents, or relied on other people, we spoke of them with scorn. Non-independence was a sign of weakness.

When Jenn asked if she should call my parents, when I was in the hospital, I told her no. I didn’t want to bother them. I didn’t want to bother anybody. I felt bad enough for having gotten sick and inconvenienced Jenn. The idea that I’d freak my parents out was just too much.

But when it looked like I was going to be in the hospital for awhile, I finally said yes, she could call them.

And I still feel guilty about it.

I – Injuries. Aside from the diabetes? I’ve never broken a bone. OK, well, I broke the tip of my right index finger when I was trying to clean grass out of the lawnmower, and one of the blades wacked the tip of my finger in two. The nail grew back a little funny.

I had chicken pox pretty late, when I was 13 or 14, and still have a couple of scars on my face from it. The most famous is above my left eyebrow, which one of my friends called my “third eye” for months afterward.

Most of my injuries have been cuts and bruises. I only ever needed stitches for the broken finger. I was a pretty resilient kid, all told, which is why the last few years of increasing sickness as my pancreas broke down were really startling.

J – Joking. My family is big on the harassment. Maybe I should have put this under “H.” We harass the shit out of each other. It started out as a form of affection, but it’s gotten far more biting over the years as we’ve all grown old and cynical.

You’ll always know how comfortable I am with you or how much I care about you by how much I harass you. Also, by how many silly songs I make up about you. When I start up with the silly songs, it’s all over.

K – That’s “Kameron. With a K.” Every time. I spell it out every time people are putting my name on forms, more often than I spell out “Hurley.”

“Kameron with a K” is supposedly a reference to my Aunt Karen, my mother’s sister who died at 16, and some movie star’s daughter whose name was “Kameron.”

It’s also a wonderfully androgynous name, and I still get a small thrill when people write to “Mr. Hurley…” Though that happens less and less these days.

L – Love. I’m a hopeless romantic. I’ve tried to get over that, because it’s gotten me into a lot of trouble, and tied me to a lot of people I probably shouldn’t have tied myself to. But I keep coming back to it, and I don’t know why.

I’m a fantasy writer, so I guess I’m just screwed.

I always had this idea of having this ideal buddy. See, we would be great friends in every way, and travel around the world together, having adventures. Motorcycling around Rome, drinking red wine in little cafes in Paris, hiking in Peru, that sort of thing. Only, we were really attracted to each other, too, so there were these long weekends having breakfast in bed in these little hotels in Bolivia (the “first time we met” scene in Mr. & Mrs. Smith where they get drunk and dance in the rain and then have coffee in the deserted hotel while smoke rises over the city at dawn… uber-hot. I did consider becoming a war correspondent for awhile) and fighting off big bugs and reading big books and maybe owning this house on a beach, that has a punching bag on the porch, and I could go jogging on the beach in the morning, and we’d argue about politics and talk about the best way to immobilize an opponent, and we’d have this big table outside and our friends would all come over and we’d have dinner parties where there was good liquor, good food, good coffee, and then we’d say goodnight to everyone and go to bed and have hot sex and plan a cycling tour of Tuscany… yea.

Yea.

I don’t know why I can’t get it out of my head, or why I want it so much, or why I still dream about it… I think maybe because I’ve very much created who I want to be by thinking about who I wanted to be, and then being that, and I think I somehow believe that if I’m very clear about the life I want, I can create that too.

Problem is, you can’t create someone who wants that life – and you – too. They’re either there or they aren’t. They either want you and that life and it works, or it doesn’t. Not that you aren’t going to have to fight hard for it, if it turns out you both want it. But it’s hard to find. And sometimes I wonder if it’s a life I’ll need to live on my own.

I think the toughest part, for me, is the realization that at some point, that person's gotta go from being a friend, to being a partner. And that's the scary transition part, for me.

But I have hope. Always, hope.

I’m a fantasy writer.

M – Matriarchs. My family has a lot of good ones. My mother’s mother swam across the Columbia River and took up rowing when she was 50 or so. She’s worked on the board of numerous charities, and was named “Women of the Year” for Vancouver, WA. She attends a ton of charities, and raised four kids and got an MA degree after her divorce.

I have a great-aunt who used to be married to my mom’s uncle who’s currently spending her summers traveling around the country and writing us all “Wandering Woman” emails every time she hits a library or friend’s house. She camps out in various places, spent some time in Alaska, and even visited here in Chicago once during her wanderings.

My father’s mother grew up in France during the Nazi occupation in WWII, and she has a lot of great stories. Raised five kids on a shoestring budget, and knows just how to get what she wants. Taught herself English.

My mom raised three kids, cleaned the house, and got her BA and MA while working full time at the same company my dad worked for, in the same position. She’s the one who had all the old feminist books, and after I retreated home after breaking off my first relationship, I found them.

And so here we are.

N – Numbers. Never been good with them. I wanted to be an astronaut for awhile, until the Challenger blew up, which made me reconsider but not abandon that hope, and then a couple years later I found out I didn't understand numbers and that whole idea sort of went to hell.

Not sure why I find numbers so confusing. I can sort out other symbols, right? I know how to put a sentence together. Not perfectly, mind you, but competently. I can read up a storm. Maybe it's the pairing of numbers and letters that throws me. I know how letters should be read. Telling me they're something else in addition to what they symbolize, for me - the sounds - just throws me off.

O – Open relationships. Tried this a couple of times. Never worked. I was also invited into a threesome once, but said no. I was partial to the girl, but not the guy. If only she would have married the guy I really did want to have sex with….

Oh well.

I think I’m too much of a hopeless romantic for much in the alternative romance department. I’ve tried, and I think I’m built for monogamy. Or, at least, serial monogamy.

It’s really a depressing thing, cause you know, I’d like to live this great radical life to match some of the interesting fiction I write, but... but… yea.

P – Passion. It’s what drives me, and what I’m attracted to in others. I have a passion for a great many things, but writing in particular, and being the best I can be at what I do. I’m in a constant competition with myself, and I have a belief in myself, in what I can do, that pushes me through the worst of times, and keeps me going long after I believe I can’t.

Q – Queer. I’ve always thought of myself as a little queer. Not just in the sexual sense, but in pretty much every way. I always felt too big and tall. I felt too smart. I felt not smart enough. I never saw a place where I really fit. I was always the square peg. I was always waiting around for somebody to harass me, to throw something at me, to steal something of mine because they thought I was weird or different or strange… queer. I read too many books. I had few social skills. I was either too traditional or not traditional enough.

You just can't win. May as well be yourself.

R – Ryman. There are people who say things to you that change your life. Geoff Ryman said something very simple to me, and very obvious. But, you know, I was 20.

If I wanted to be a better writer, he said, I needed to travel widely and read outside the genre.

And my life has never been the same since.

S – Siblings. I have two. My sister, Jacqueline, is 2 years younger than me. She works at my parents’ pizza place and makes ends meet with welfare checks. This is because she has a lot of credit card bills and a two and a half year old - my nephew, Christopher. We don’t really talk much because we don’t have much in common. We maybe exchange a few sentences a year, at Christmas.

We had to deal with a lot of the same issues, growing up, particularly about Weight and Boys. The two were mutually exclusive things in our world, so when she finally figured out how to lose the weight by not eating, and realized that now the boys would follow, she got a little carried away. As did they. Hence, I have a nephew. And she’s still often searching for a sense of self-worth in the arms of boys.

My brother Steven in five years younger than I am. My parents only planned on having two children, but my brother made it through a diaphragm and spermacide combo, forever proving that he is capable of overcoming any obstacle. He reads Time and Newsweek regularly and has a Bachelor’s Degree. He’s applying for an MBA program next year and wants to go into business for himself. In the meantime: he also works at my dad’s pizza joint for his tuition money. He’s a big gamer, and spent some time as a professional pirate. He runs six miles a day and puts half of everything he makes in the bank.

He and I get along pretty well. He votes Republican, but supports abortion rights and gay marriage. We differ on our attitudes about foreign policy and welfare reform…

T – Talented. I got used to hearing that word a lot. Never “brilliant.” Never “genius.” Just “talented.” “You have talent.” I heard this about two things in my life: about my writing, and about my acting in high school theater.

To really pursue theater, you have to be thin. Thinner than me, anyway. If you think competition in the writing world is cut throat, it’s about a bazillion times worse in Hollywood. Unless you’re uber-pretty. And then it’s just slightly easier.

And anyway, writing was my first love. I still enjoy acting, but it would have sucked up my life in the way that writing has, and I’d rather give all that to writing.

U – Ulcers. Foot ulcers, to be precise. You see foot ulcers in a lot in diabetic people because people with diabetes have sluggish blood flow, and you see that manifest itself a lot in problems with the hands and feet. If you get a sore on your foot, it’s more likely to get infected because it takes so long to heal. These are the sores than can reach to the bone, eat your whole foot, and result in amputation if left to fester.

I appear to have my first foot ulcer, which is just a little blemish on my big toe that I had assumed was a wart for some time. Now that I know what foot ulcers are, I realize that it’s probably an early stage ulcer as opposed to a wart.

I shall become very familiar with a podiatrist from now on. You treat foot ulcers by scraping them every few weeks, keeping them moist, and trying to take the weight off them by wearing special insoles.

Rapid treatment of foot ulcers means less chance of foot amputation in future.

So, like I said: I’m going to get real friendly with a podiatrist this month.

V – Vacations. Me and my family went on a lot of them. When we had no money, we drove to Reno and Disneyland and Bend, OR and Seaside. When we had money, we flew to Vegas and Disneyworld… and stayed at Really Nice Hotels in Cannon Beach. We saw a lot of museums. I soaked up a lot of history. I learned how to run into the bathroom at the McDonald’s while my dad ordered food at the drive through and got done fast enough so that when he pulled up with the food, I was ready to hop back into the car.

My dad used to time our arrival at our destination by the minute, and it was a big game to see how close to the allotted time he could get us there. We listened to a lot of radio stations. I had a lot of fights with my siblings. I read a lot of books by the light of the headlights of the cars behind us.

W – Wild sex. What’s the wildest place I’ve had sex?

I’m not going to tell you. Ask me some time. It’s a good story.

X – Xhosa is one of the 11 official languages in South Africa. I was more familiar with Zulu, living in Durban, but they’re similar languages. There are three letters in Zulu that you pronounce using “clicks.”

One is represented by the letter “c” and is a soft short click you make with your tongue pressed just behind your front teeth. Another is represented by the letter “q” and sounds like the popping of a cork. Finally, there’s the one represented by the letter “x” which ends up in fellow students’ names, like the “q” and the “c” so you gotta figure it out. The “x” is like the sound somebody makes when they’re urging on a horse, but you don’t open your mouth to make it, and it involves pressing one side of your tongue against the roof of your mouth. It was always the toughest one for me, and I still stumble over it.

Y – Yo-yo dieting. Weight was and is a big deal in my family. Real big. I remember someone commenting on my weight when I was as young as six or seven years old, and me not understanding what was wrong with me. The weight of me and my siblings was a constant discussion topic at family gatherings. We were the only fat kids in the whole flock of cousins on either side of the family, and we knew it. And just in case we didn’t know it, grandparents and great-grandparents and uncles and aunts liked to remind us.

We had fucked up ideas about food, I don’t argue with that, but we also come from fat folk. My dad’s a type II diabetic. One of his sisters just had gastric bypass surgery. My mother and maternal grandmother are obsessive about their weight, the gain and loss of every pound, and have been since the time I was small.

I was harassed endlessly in school about my weight, right up until high school when I got so wrapped up in theater than I forgot to eat, and even then, I was never small. My sister also figured out that not eating was a great way to lose weight, though she ended up doing it more purposely than I did, until she ended up passing out at a friend’s house. When she got pregnant, she started the weight loop all over again, and is still running that hamster wheel.

After my father’s heart attack, my brother started running three miles a day and measuring his food. He cut out all forms of sugary drinks and started living on diet Pepsi. In the last couple of years, he’s increased those runs from 3 miles to 6-9 miles a day. He’s now 6’1” and 180 lbs, and he works his ass off at it, every day, to stay that way.

My yo-yos have been equally extreme, and I’m still not sure where I’m going to end up yet.

Z – Zero. The number of times I’ve gone bungee jumping in New Zealand. I really, really need to remedy that.

According to The Diabetic Athlete, plenty of Type 1 diabetics skydive, so I figure there ain't nothing holding me back but a plane ticket...

Pain in the Ass

Bumped into Mr. T, one of the architects, in the breakroom. He's been on a "work imbalance" schedule the last few weeks, meaning he's not laid off, but he's only allowed to work a couple days a week.

"How are you feeling?" he said.

"Pretty good, actually."

"So what was it you had? You had diabetes, wasn't it?"

"Yea. I have no pancreas."

"So you have this for the rest of your life, right?"

"Yup. No pancreas."

"Oh, yea, you know, this woman who runs marathons with me wife, she got it. She has this little pump thing with her all the time."

"An insulin pump, yea."

"Yea, and she's out there running marathons. So it's manageable, I guess."

"Yea," I said, "it's manageable. It's just a pain in the ass."

Fat Bugs

I'm not sure how I feel about the idea of people taking up the idea that "being fat" really is a disease, but at least somebody's digging into some of the complexities of the what's going on.

The most unhealthy I've ever been was also the thinnest I've ever been.

Related note: Women who feel good about their bodies are more likely to eat well.

Gee, you think?

As a former binge eater, I can tell you that a lot of the binge triggers have to do with stress, carb addiction, and - a really low sense of self-worth. Why should I take care of myself, my body, if I'm fat and therefore worthless?

I really want the way we talk about bodies to change, because this shit is really counterproductive. Self-hate sells a lot of diet products, make-up and hand lotion, but it pretty much kills you in the quality of life department..

Too Rich for My Blood

So, I walked out of a grocery store yesterday without buying any groceries. For the first time in my life, I walked out of a grocery store because it was too expensive.

On the way to the Trader Joe's that I usually go to when Jenn's out of town (when she's here, she drives us over to a different one. I, however, am carless, so I ride the train and take a long walk while carrying a big backpack), I noted that there was a Whole Foods. Since the Best Buy I was visiting was right next to the Whole Foods, I figured I'd pop inside the Whole Foods and save myself the three or four extra blocks to Trader Joe's. I figured shopping somewhere else would be a nice change.

Now, I knew Whole Foods was pricer that TJ's, but... I didn't realize just how much more pricy it was until I got to the substantial cheese section (oh! A substantial cheese section! I was so happy!)

It was an amazing cheese section. I recognized several chunks of Spanish cheeses - David sent me a great selection of these a couple months ago, and they were damn good, so I figured I'd pick up a couple more. I selected a hunk and turned it over.

It costs $13.99.

It's a testament to just how damn good that cheese was that I did actually consider buying it.

But I put it back.

The next one?

$10.99

For a hunk of cheese.

Well, I thought, screw that, I'll just get my regular mozzarella and go home.

Mozzarella?

$8.49. And it was half the size of what I usually get at TJ's.

It's $3.49 at TJ's.

And, it occured to me, standing there in the cheese aisle, that I was going to spend 2-3 times what I usually spend on groceries this week if I continued shopping. I have thousands of dollars in medical bills that I still owe. I've been working my ass off to get my finances together this year, after three years of angsting about it. I want to be able to move next year, and that's only going to happen if I stop being an idiot.

I went back through the store, replaced everything to their proper shelves, and walked to Trader Joe's.

It was a strange feeling, to empty a cart and leave the store because it was too expensive. It felt vaguely humiliating. I feel like I've worked really hard so that I can afford to go out, to live well, and the idea that I had to walk out of a *grocery* store of all things because it was too rich for me was just disconcerting.

At the same time, I can't afford to pay $13.49 for cheese.

Someday, maybe.

Not today.

I Went to the Gym Today

And I didn't die.

Yay me.

Security, Security, Security

You know, I have some things vital to my own security, myself.

Like, say... insulin. Which I'm not sure how I'm supposed to prove is insulin. Will I have to shoot up right there at the security checkpoint?

Insulin can't get stowed in a cargo hold. It will freeze and die. And then I'll die.

And that will be bad.

Personally, I Always Felt a 4-6 Hour Workday Was Ideal...

I screw off the other half the day as much as possible. Sometimes, like now, I screw off all day. And boy, do I feel better!

Anyway, work is bad for you.

(via punkassblog)

12 Helpful Suggestions for Men Regarding Conduct in Feminist Spaces

I haven't had any trouble with the men who comment here, but I know some feminist bloggers do... So if you're a guy who's interested in posting there or here but a little nervous about it, here's some tips.

(via LJ Feminist Forum)

Things I'm Not Doing Right Now

1) Reading My Antonia

2) Finishing God's War

3) Working out

4) Learning how to belly dance

5) Boxing

6) Balancing my checkbook

7) Paying medical bills

8) Printing out a new, freshly rewritten copy of tDW

9) Writing a TipTree Award-winning short story

10) Writing email

11) Visualizing myself fitting back into all my old clothes

12) Fitting into all my old clothes

13) Getting a motorcylce lisence

14) Traveling through Belize

15) Sleeping in an airport in London

16) Teaching myself Arabic

17) Flirting with a cabana boy named Enrique

18) Drinking one of those fruity drinks with the umbrella

19) Eating cheese fries

20) Plotting to overthrow the world




What I AM Doing Right Now:

1) Finishing the last six pages of No God But God

2) Eating a nice chunk of low carb, low sugar chocolate

3) Contemplating World Peace

4) Reading "Finisterra"

5) Plotting the contents of two care packages to various friends

6) Wondering why Diet Dr. Pepper tastes so much like Real Dr. Pepper, and if Dr. Pepper can make diet taste like regular, how come no other cola flavors do?

7) Starting to get sick on the chocolate

8) Recharging my iPod

9) Coming up with witty dialogue for God's War

10) Reminding myself that I'm naturally this size, and the unnatural size was the size I was when I was slowly dying of diabetes

11) Being happy I'm not dying of diabetes (at least, not right away)

12) Putting my old transcripts together so I can sign up for a French class at Truman College in the spring

13) Wondering how long it's going to take me to get back to yoga

14) Admiring my new 0% interest on transferred balances credit card that just saved me from paying 29% interest on the same $1500 I've owed since the last time I went to Europe

15) Planning a trip to Spain

16) Pretending I'm brilliant

17) Savoring the last of that chocoloate

18) Reminding myself that life doesn't start tomorrow, or next week, or next month, or next year; life just is

19) So really, I should enjoy it

20) Getting back to it

When the LORD Attacks!

For all those who've felt, like me, that you've been STRUCK BY LIGHTNING!

(thanks, Jenn!)

These Are *Not* Short-Needle Syringes

I always worry when a pharmacist screws up and gives me something other than what I've asked for, even if it's "just" a shorter-needle syringe.

It always makes me wonder: what else are they screwing up?

The Cubicle Song

An Ode to my Typical Work Day.

Guess What I'm Going to Do At Work Today?

The original Oregon Trail. Play online. It'll remind you how to use a keyboard.

Freedom. Fun. Dysentery.

(via feministe)

Carnival of Feminist SF/F is Up

In case you didn't know...

"How Feminism Destroyed Real Men"

Oh, I love this stuff.

When women are equal, all men will be castrated and scattered to the four winds! Women's equality means all men will be dominated and suffer terribly in obscurity!

You know, just cause you're an insecure asshole doesn't mean that's what everybody should be.

At a dinner party recently, I encountered the depressingly familiar sight of a dynamic thirty- something woman accompanied by a nerdy male sidekick that she'd browbeaten into proposing to her.

Which, of course, would be the only way a "dynamic" woman would have been able to get a man to propose to her, particulary if she was "thirty-something." She had to beat him into submission.

The mismatch in power was obvious. She was successful, ambitious and confident; he was a diffident, overweight, shrinking violet who measured every word he spoke in case he said anything remotely contentious that might offend her.

If you switch their genders, however, you would have seen how much more "natural" a situation that was! Every good man should be the dominating one. Every good woman the shrinking violet.

Equality? Partnerships? I'm sorry, egalitarian relationship? That isn't in our author's vocabulary. If two people are fucking, only one of them can get fucked, apparently.

On her wedding finger was the most enormous, glittering engagement ring. A mutual friend later told me she'd initially been presented with a less garish but more exquisite diamond but had told her fiancÈ to return it to the shop and get her something bigger.

Seeings as she probably paid for most of it, I don't know that I'd complain about that. Maybe he worked closer to the jewelry store. In any case, everyone knows that the ring a woman wears has gotta be solely picked out and bought by the man, without the woman's input at all, before, during, or after. That would be the natural, proper thing to do.

That huge diamond was his declaration of surrender in the sex war. But I didn't feel sorry for the stupid sap; he should have been man enough to tell her to get lost and find some other dummy.

Huh?

Instead, he'd been sucker-punched into a lifetime of nagging and neglect, and looking at his bossy wife-to-be parading her huge rock, I felt a shiver of pre-emptive schadenfreude.

How much better it would have been if their roles were reversed! Oh, wait, you don't think he's going there? Oh, dear reader, read on!

One day she'll realise how dull and unfulfilling it is to have a man who doesn't answer back, who offers no challenge or danger - but by then she'll be over the hill and stuck with him for fear of being left on the shelf. Sadly, this is the state of many marriages today.

First, I resent the fact that he implies that nerdy guys are bad in bed.

Not. True.

Second, at this point I thought, well, you know, OK, I can see his point here. I mean, yea, who wants to be with somebody who doesn't have a spine, male or female? Somebody they can't argue with? Somebody who doesn't stand up to them for what they believe?

Yes, yes, I thought, certainly that's an understandable thing. But if so, why not argue that this unequality in relationships works both ways? I mean, sure, there are men and women who prefer passive partners, and people who prefer to be passive partners, but why not argue for true partnership? True intellectual equality?

I'm sure that's where he's going with this.

But the "stuck with him for fear of being left on the shelf" line should have tipped me off.

Back in the Nineties, emboldened by the successes of feminism, women sought to slay the dragon of patriarchy by turning men into ridiculous cissies who would cry with them through chick-flicks and then cook up a decent lasagne.

Slay the dragon of patriarchy! I, of course, love that line for my own reasons, but, um... the idea of feminism is not to turn men into children. God knows women spend enough time raising children.

But what's wrong with guys who cook lasagne? And is there something wrong with guys who cry? Or women who are "dynamic"?

Slaying the dragon of patriachy isn't about one sex "winning" over the other. It's about.. equality. That's the definition, you fucktard.

I'm still baffled at the idea that men shouldn't cook lasagne, though. I mean, how will they eat??? Unless women are always supposed to cook for them? But wouldn't that be equally unnatural? What if they're gay? What if they're single? What if they're celibate and have no female friends?

And who the fuck decided that it's up to women to take care of men? I think it insults men to assume they can't take care of themselves and express themselves emotionally. It's saying that men are "naturally" half-people.

Suddenly, women wanted to drive home their newfound equality by moulding men to be more like them.

Men are naturally like men. Women are naturally like women. It's natural. Naturally.

This velvet revolution was reflected in a series of broader cultural changes. After decades of uncompromising movie heroes like Marlon Brando and Clint Eastwood, we were asked to fall for stuttering, floppy-haired fops like Hugh Grant; touchy-feely and hopelessly embarrassed around women.

Hugh Grant is a bad example, my friend. Hugh Grant is a big time playboy with incredible charisma, so that even after getting caught getting sucked off by a prostitute, hordes of women still want to date him.

If you're arguing that Hugh Grant doesn't get laid cause he has floppy hair, you'd be wrong.

But I digress.

No doubt at the time, millions of misguided single women thought that having a man who could feel their pain and emote for Britain was a Good Thing.

What women should want (and as a man, he KNOWS this. He KNOWS what every woman really wants) is a sloppy asshole whose idea of emoting is driving his fist into a wall before raping his wife.

Yum.

Now, over a decade later, women are waking up to the fact that these men are drippy, sexless bores. The feminisation of men hasn't produced the well-rounded uber-males women were hoping for.

Ah, so he admits such men may be well-rounded... maybe more like real people and not half-people?

But apparently, women don't want actual men. They want fake men, the sort who are so insecure and have such a poor sense of self that they feel the only way to find some kind of identity is to perform monstrous masulinity.

Instead, women are now lumped with flabby invertebrates, little more than doormats, whom they secretly despise but are too proud to admit it.

Well, no. I think this idea that women like doormats is about as accurate as the old belief that men like doormats. I think certain men and women certainly get off on being with doormats.

In this case, our insecure young author is mistaking the issues that many SNAGs (Sensitive New-Age Guys) have to deal with. That is, how difficult it is to negotiate being a good person with being a "real man" in this culture. I mean, if you cook lasagne and cry at movies, other guys start freaking that maybe *they'll* have to do these things in order to be desirable, and that scares the crap out of them. On the other hand, SNAGs tend to freak out around women, and yes, often, in bed.

Cause there's still this mistaken idea that what women really find attractive are assholes.

This is not true.

Women are attracted to people who are confident. There's nothing more maddening than an insecure guy who's terrified in the bedroom and constantly worried about what you think of him, since it's how he gauges his self-worth, and you find yourself getting hammered three times a day with questions like: "Are you all right? Is everything all right? Are you mad at me? Did I do something wrong? Are you all right? What's wrong with me? Do you hate me? Are you sure you're OK?"

We all have our bad days. But when this is the entirety of the relationship, the person you're with is going to get really exhausted really quickly, and when you breakup with him, the guy will throw up his hands and proclaim that women just aren't attracted to "nice guys."

And then assholes like this fucknut feel vindicated, and we end up with bullshit articles like this one.

Rather than partnership, professional women tend to seek dominance in a relationship. They map their lives out early on and pursue their dream of 'having it all' with cold-blooded ruthlessness.

Well, no. Women don't seek dominance in a relationship any more than men do. All those men making 100K a year and more who marry their secretaries, admins, and flight attendants?

Totally not seeking dominance at all. Not terrified or insecure at all.

Young women have a crystal-clear agenda: they want the career, the wardrobe, the smartly furnished house, the 4x4 and the cute kids they'll ferry in it to expensive schools. No man is going to get in their way; and the men they choose for themselves are pliant and feeble enough to facilitate that programme.

And... reverse those genders again, and we're *not* seeing men with the same idea? Advertising for appropriately pretty but docile mates?

Concentrating so much energy on work and family matters requires these women to pick a man who is predictable and secure, who won't upset the apple cart by pursuing dreams and instincts of his own.

Ah, yes. Another either/or argument. Two people can't be in a relationship and both pursue their dreams.

If this was really true, I'd give up dating forever.

And if this was really true, who the fuck could blame a woman looking for someone who wanted to keep the home fires burning while she worked as Secretary of State? And what's wrong with a man who wants to keep the fires burning?

Men have been doing this sort of mate-shopping for years, and we called it "natural."

These are cardboard cut-out men who gush with empathy whenever their wives and girlfriends need to dump their professional stresses and female angst on them: weak and soulless men who haven't the guts to make a mark themselves, who take the passenger seat in their women's juggernaut journey to post-feminist Nirvana.

Take note, women: if you've got a male partner and he ever listens to you, he has no soul.

NO SOUL.

But having ticked off the various items on their life checklist, women are left with a nagging sense of dissatisfaction. Where was the drama? Where was the passion? Where was the stimulation and growth?

Absolutely! This could only really be achieved in a partnership of equals, right?

Wouldn't it be great if that's where this was going?

A true Amazon couldn't stand the company of a supplicant male, let alone marry one. Real alpha-women are the ones who can more than hold their own with an alpha-man.

Where does this leave all the betas? Let alone the gammas?

Deep down, women love men who stand up to them, who won't be pushed around. They love men who will look them in the eye and tell them to shut up when their hormonal bickering has become too much.

Ummmm... OK, wait a minute. You had me until "shut" and "hormonal bickering." Is this supposed to be satire?

Cause if I was arguing with some guy and he said I was engaging in "hormonal bickering" not only would he not be getting laid, I don't think I'd actually speak to him again.

But hey, whatever does it for you.

They love men who will draw a line in the sand and walk out on them when they've had enough. They love men who know their own minds and are man enough to stick to their guns.

Confidence, yes... confidence is great. But I'm still hearing "tell me to shut up" and "hormonal bickering."

I'm always telling my wife, the writer Liz Jones, to shut up. She gets into a prissy huff about it, but I know she respects me for not indulging her neuroticism. Long ago, I realised it is unhealthy for a man to embroil himself in arguments with women.

Women aren't smart enough to be worth arguing with. They're a bunch of hormonal cunts.

Ah, here it is!

While men want an argument to make sense and have a rational conclusion, women solely want the argument itself: it's a pressure valve for their emotions, and once they get started there is no stopping them.

Men are always logical and rational. Women are crazy.

Ever since I forced my wife to get her uterus taken out, she hasn't had the gall to be hysterical!

And I found my penis!

I have a very low boredom threshold; I can't bear having protracted discussions about where my wife and I 'are going'. Nor can I bear to listen to the gossipy, highly detailed 'He said, she said' monologues that women drift into when telling you about their day.

I don't like to "listen" to my wife. We just fuck. I have no interest in her life, her aspirations, her dreams, her desires. I'm a man, and if she doesn't like the way I fuck her, I'll just leave her.

Dumb bitch.

I deal with these elements of the female personality with impassive indifference. People might call me a sexist pig, but I am the opposite. I love women, and I love my wife because she is brilliant and incredibly strong.

I'm not a racist. I have black friends.

I am a true feminist, because I only want to be with a powerful and capable woman. No sexist could cope with having a wife as intelligent and independent as mine.

All the other women in the world aren't as fun to fuck. There's no challenge. If they're intelligent and independent, you can fuck the feminist right out of them! And think about how strong and manly that'll make you feel!

Our relationship would never have worked had I been an effete New Man, desperately wanting to sympathise with the female condition.

Because if I actually listened to a damn word she said, I might realize she's a real person!

My wife would have grown to loathe me for my fawning cowardice. She is a warrior and she needs to be with someone who is a match for her. Knowing the limits of what I will deal with in a relationship, I maintain my self-respect and, accordingly, gain hers.

Also, this guy's just a bad writer.

Men are now generally terrified of women. They hold their tongues for fear of being misinterpreted as sexist; they constantly attempt to secondguess their partner in order to avoid giving offence.

Yea, cause I'm always looking for new and interesting ways to hurt and ridicule my partner. Isn't everyone?

They preen themselves with groaning shelves full of beauty products so they won't incur derision and scorn. They suppress their masculinity and present themselves as cuddly Mr Nice Guys, and won't project self- confidence in case it's regarded as unreconstructed machismo.

Personal hygiene is overrated, really. Why shower? Women like the musk of a real man!

Here's a mind-blowing idea for you, dear writer: self-confidence doesn't equal asshole.

This backfiring feminist conspiracy has, of course, developed hand in hand with the march of raging political correctness in Britain. The two have combined like some potent chemical reaction to explode in the faces of a generation of women who thought that a 'moulded' man would make for a desirable one.

I enjoy being part of a feminist conspiracy. It makes me feel all warm and squishy inside.

In recent years, men have been trained like circus seals to be inoffensive to women, and no longer know how to entice them and turn them on.

The biggest turn on I've ever experienced: when some asshat offended me! It's the fastet way to a woman's cunt.

But women secretly long for a man with swagger, who is cocky and selfassured and has the cheek to stand up them and make fun of their feminine foibles.

Feminine foibles?

Only if I get to make fun of your little dick.

They long for the rakish charm of a man who knows there's a whole ocean of fish out there, who isn't afraid of being himself in case he is rejected.

What? Did I mention: bad writer?

The truth is, a real man doesn't care what any woman thinks of him. He doesn't care what anyone thinks of him: he answers solely to his spirit.

The same spirit that allows him to romp freely across the plains, raping and pillaging as he goes! With a rifle over one shoulder and blood on his mouth!

There's nothing sexier than a violent, uncaring asshole.

Yum.

Real men don't pretend or even try to understand women.

Women aren't actually people.

They simply love them for being the mysterious, capricious creatures that they are.

Like cats and bunnies and small forest animals.

And they don't take them too seriously, either. They know the vicissitudes of the female mind, its constant insecurities and the fluctuations in mood.

Silly woman!

Rather than pander to them, they simply watch them drift by like so many clouds on the horizon.

Or herds of antelope.

They don't get entangled in a woman's feelings and listen to her prattling on and on until she's talked herself out.

Women hate it when you listen to them. One mustn't show weakness in front of such a mysterious, unknowable beast. It may attack at any moment, and then you'll find yourself buying a really big engagement ring, and then you'll be really sorry, won't you?

Such strong and stoic men are exactly what women need to anchor themselves amid the chaos of their emotions.

Men don't have emotions. They have beer.

Sometimes my wife bemoans my detachment and laissez-faire attitude to our marriage and wishes I were more wrapped up in her. I tell her she would soon get bored of it, because men who put women on a pedestal can't make love to them in the way that women want.

All women want a certain kinda lovin', ladies. The more detached and uninterested you are toward your woman during sex, the more she'll LOVE it. Trust this guy. I mean, he's a writer!

A man who is too in awe of his woman isn't going to tear her blouse open and ravish her on the couch;

He's not?

This guy doesn't know the sorts of guys I know.

he isn't going to pull her hair and whisper profanities in her ear.

He's not?

Whenever my marriage is at a crisis point, and my wife's ego and mine are jostling for a position of supremacy, we inevitably have strenuous, battling sex.

Sex is WAR. Sex is a BATTLEFIELD.

Don't you forget it, boys. And if she cries rape, you just didn't get her drunk enough.

Oh, sorry, tangent.

My wife is older and more successful than I am, but the bedroom has always been the arena in which I have brought her down to earth.

I can just fuck the feminism right out of her.

I mean, I'm so insecure in all other areas of our life together: she's older, more experienced, and a waaaaaaaaaaay better writer than I am, and the only way I feel I can get back at her is to dominate her during sex.

Why didn't he just make the subtext text?

The female orgasm is the natural mechanism by which men assert dominion over women: a man who appreciates this can negotiate whatever difficulties arise in his relationships with them.

WTF???????

Gee, I'd love to know what man's dominating a woman every time she gets off with another woman, or every time she masturbates.

But then, that would be admitting that some women just don't need men around for anything at all, not even sex, and from the sound of this guy's relationship, he really, really needs to find a way to be useful.

And all he's got is the bedroom.

I would feel sorry for him - if he wasn't such an asshole.

Last Christmas, my wife threw me out after discovering I'd been cheating on her. On the night we got back together, I made strong, passionate love to her. Unfaithful as I'd been, I was not going to let her have me over a barrel for the rest of our marriage. I needed to keep a sense of self and not allow her to mire me in guilt and a desperate quest of forgiveness.

Why should I feel guilty that I disrespected my wife? I'm a feminist!

Believe me, in this guy's head, that all makes sense.

I needed to let her know what she would be missing if we broke up for ever. I gave her a manful bravura performance that night, and at the height of her passion, I asked her: 'Who's the boss?'

The boss? The boss??? WTF?

Sex is easy. Relationships are hard. This guy hasn't got that down yet.

The question threw her. Initially she wouldn't give me a reply, but I enticed it from her. 'You are,' she finally gasped. 'You are!'

And suddenly our insecure writer doesn't feel so insecure. This woman may be stronger, smarter, and more successful than he is, but he came make her come! He must have some worth after all.

Dude, when you're measuring your self-worth in orgasms, you've seriously got to start getting your life together.

I am a very difficult man to be with. I know I have caused my wife great pain and anxiety. But she is an adult, and ultimately it is wholly her choice whether she wants to be with me or not - I cannot be anyone other than myself.

I'm just naturally an asshole! I can't even try to communicate like a human being! I'm just a broken butterfly!

You know what, as someone who's not terribly emotionally demonstrative, I can tell you that I've been making a lot of effort to be more so. It's been really fucking hard, and I fall back a lot on the "I am what I am!" bullshit, but you know what? Ultimately, if you care about somebody, you figure out how not to be an asshole toward them.

And if you continue to be an asshole, it's *you* who needs to face up the fact that you're a fucking jerk and not good for somebody.

Get your shit together or get out.

I don't believe in working on relationships and making artificial efforts to give them substance.

I let the women work on that for me. They're the ones who are supposed to change, not me. I'm a man.

I believe in people being themselves and following their hearts towards whatever destiny lies before them.

Without any regard for anyone else in their lives.

Relationships between independent and assertive people will always be fraught with tensions, but they have enormous creative energy.

Notice that at no point does he say, "Equal."

Despite the many problems my wife and I have endured, we have both come a long way since we first met six years ago.

But I thought he didn't believe in working through problems? Except by fucking?

We have challenged one another to grow - professionally, intellectually, emotionally and spiritually. This would never have happened had she flaked out and gone for a softer option in her choice of partner.

Plus, he wouldn't be getting laid.

Bring back the real men, girls. You might just remember why you loved them in the first place.

Yea, girls!

Raise your sons to be assholes!

You know you want to.