Blogging Will Save the World!

Blogging will not save the world.

I'm going to say that again: screaming on the internet will not save the world.

But it can be a good place to start.

Blogs are great places, but I see them more as testing grounds - as initial steps, as consciousness-raising - more than I see them as real, solid activism. They're a form of, maybe, virtual activism. It's where you go to find your voice and speak to others who've shared some of your experiences in the world and want to converse about a common cause or interest.

The trick is to then use this voice you've found online and speak out in the real world. If something is fucked up, you need to be able to say it's fucked up just as easily in real life as you can online.

Because you'll find that it's a fuck of a lot easier to rip into the latest asshattery published by the Washington Post than it is to point out your coworker's blatent sexism during a morning meeting. It's a lot scarier to actually do than to talk about (like most things).

I remember standing around with some coworkers waiting for a meeting to start and having one of the guys make a "joke" about how one of our coworkers must be "shooting blanks" because they found out his wife was having "another" girl. For the first time in a long time, the not-coolness of it struck me deeply enough that I spoke up and said, "Wow, you've just offended every woman here."

And I spoke up in part because of the voice I'd found on this blog. How could I be the writer of a blog called "Brutal Women" and be too terrified to call out a simple example of blatent sexism?

He laughed about it of course, and there were efforts made to move on to another subject, but I remember how difficult and terrifying it was to say that in the workplace to people I had to work with every day. Nobody wants to lose their job or get shunned by everybody else and have their job made horrible because you're that fucking Nazi who "can't take a joke."

But nobody wants to live in the fucked up beat-you-down-somebody's-gotta-be-top heirarchy either.

I got tired of people saying they "just didn't know" something was not cool, offensive, abusive, etc. If you *tell* them they're being sexist, at least you can take away that particular excuse, and maybe your courage can give other people courage. When enough people say no, you have a movement. Behavior changes.

While at Wiscon this weekend, I had somebody introduce me to somebody else as another writer's girlfriend.

One sentence. Full stop.

I laughed out loud and said, "Wow, I can't believe you just introduced me that way at a feminist SF con when I have a story coming out in a Year's Best SF on Tuesday."

I tried to be very good-natured about it, and she was actually a little embarassed about it I think, because it was something she did without even thinking about it. It was a funny thing, too, to be at a professional con and have the entirety of my writing career erased and my identity boiled down to "that chick who's sleeping with so-and-so."

These are all little things, of course, personal things. But if we let these sorts of things go, what else will we let go? The first step to altering behavior isn't to ignore it or smile at it or make excuses for it. The first step is to change your own behavior and call out those normalized behavior in others.

I love to babble online, becuase it is, largely, safe. I can delete comments all I want. I can choose to share or not share things with certain people. I can control whether or not there are comments at all. I have yet to be fired from a job for something I said online (knock on wood). There isn't a lot of danger in it.

What's dangerous is speaking out at the office and confronting harrassers on the street.

It takes courage. It's fucking hard. And terrifying.

But it's the only way we'll ever change anything.

The alternative to speaking out is not speaking out, and that's worse. Silence in this culture implies consent (however fucked up that fucking fucked up idea is). By not speaking out, I am consenting. That's how it's read, no matter that I'm not speaking up because I'm afraid to be beaten, raped, harrassed, fired, etc.

It's going to be read as consentual, because the means of oppression in this society are just so damned normalized.

And you know what? I want to live in a world that's really different. And in that world, the sorts of sexist, oppressive people-like-me-are-better-than-you-and-we'll-force-you-to-fuck-us-to-prove-it stuff that people say everyday is *not* normal, and it's *not* OK, and if I can wrap my head around this idea - that the language of equality, of valuing individuals based on their humanity and not on their race, or class, or gender, is the *norm,* then when I hear these things spoken, they're all the more shocking. They're missives from another world where somebody's got to be on top. Where a woman's value is based on the man (always a man!) who she's attached to, and if you can't beat somebody else into submission then you'll be the one who's beaten.

That is not the world I want to live in. I have to speak from somewhere else.

Sure is a good thing I'm a fantasy writer.

Makes it easier to believe it can be different.

Traveling Sugar

I know my numbers are going to be "off" when I travel, but for some reason this particular con had me running particularly high numbers (I was 313 at lunch today. 313! I haven't seen a number that high since my pizza splurge at Christmas!). I blame some of that on the dessert thing last night; I probably should have gone with something like the fruit cup and the chocolate covered strawberries instead of the fruitcup and the chocolate cheesecake and then having dinner.

My mistake was not setting my alarm for 2am to re-adjust my insulin dosage. I was so tired I just thought, "oh, fuck it" and tested at 215 this morning.

I'm not going to bother logging any of these numbers, BTW. I know exactly why I got them, and the a1c doesn't lie, so there's really no point in logging them just so my new endocrinologist can wag her finger at me and say something brilliant like, "You should lose weight!"

No, what I should do is start working out at cons.

In my spare time.

OK, so maybe I just need to make better choices at the dessert bar and when I have to have the Governor's club pastry breakfast, stick to half a bagel and the fruit dish instead of a whole bagel and the fruit dish.

Subsequent cons should also be less stressful, which I think is really going to help.

Connage

I love me a good Wiscon, don't get me wrong, but I've never stayed Thursday-Tuesday before, and yes, it's Sunday night and I'm incredibly burned out. It takes a lot of effort to get ready for those things. After I blew through the first couple days of "I love all these people! It's so great to see them!" personal stuff started to wear me down, and I found I suddenly felt this desperate need to be interesting.

I'm stunned at the huge feelings of inadequecy by day three, where everything that comes out of my mouth starts to sound way too loud and stupid and all I want to do is drink liquor and burn something.

I knew this was going to be a stressful Wiscon, but it hasn't been as blazingly, gloriously, stunningly bad as I thought it would be.

It's at acceptable levels of screaming terror, which is all right.

I've met some great people and got to sit down and talk to others who I didn't know so well, and really, socializing and a couple of panels that inspire some note taking is all I want out of a good con...

What can I say?

I'm easy.

WEB MARSHALL [TM] (Dude, I Couldn't *Make* This Shit UP!!)

My flight here in Milwaukee is delayed by 13 minutes, but still scheduled to arrive in Madison on time. Fascinating.

I've been passing the time online checking up on blogs that I was unable to access at Dayton International Airport, which also has a WiFi service.

What's that, you ask? Why wasn't I able to access my blogroll?

IT IS BECAUSE MY BLOGROLL IS FULL OF FILTHY PORN!!!

And so Dayton's Web Marshall (TM) took me to task!


My favorite part is the fine print that says, "Your attempt to access this site has been recorded."

Next thing you know, I'll be hauled to prison on pornography charges for accessing my blog. Filthy fucking liberal blogs and their Lesbian Feminist Boxers!!!

Even those left-leaning "literary criticism" blogs are full of pornographers!



And Pandagon's been censored for - among other things - using the words "breast" (without mention of "cancer") and "lesbian."

Dirty, Dirty Pandagon!



And apparently, Livejournal - all of it - is just Dirty Dirty Dirty.


Filthy pornographers!!

Is our terror of young people cruising for porn in the airport really so great that we're willing to censor our media like DAY International is a communist state?

Oh, hell, who am I kidding? Just look at all the other shit we've been encouraged to put up with in the name of "terror."

Ohhhhh Pandagon is so full of Scary Angry Women, and that Matt Cheney, man, what a terrorist pornographer! I tremble!

In Case I Don't Get the Chance...

I'm heading for the airport in about half an hour, so in case I don't get the chance, remember that my story The Women of Our Occupation is going to be available for purchase on May 29th in the Year's Best SF 12 collection -



Buy it and ask me to sign it! That would be EXCITING!!!

Idol

Does the whole Simon Cowell poking at Paula Abdul (physically) thing bother anybody else but me? I realized last night that if I have to see Simon Cowell poking at Paula Abdul one more time, I'm going to fly to Hollywood and throttle him.

When she stands up and starts hitting him and telling him to stop touching her in the Ford theater on national television, it's probably a good indicator to Cowell that his actions aren't seen as friendly and amusing.

If he'd been doing that to Randy and Randy bashed him in the face, he wouldn't do it it again. Instead, he picks on Paula; even worse last night cause she's got the broken nose and bruised ribs. She's already maybe half his size.

And you know, it's got the same sort of whiff as the whole Harlangate thing. "Me and Paula are friends!" isn't an excuse. It's even more deplorable when it's so fucking obvious that you're being an ass. It does make you wonder: if Simon has problems backing off when someone publically tells him to knock it the fuck off and starts hitting him, what's going to keep him from "knocking it off" in private? Will she have to claw his eyes out?

This is why I find Twisty's whole discussion about "consent" (and... continued here) so damned amusing. What a different world we would live in. Not neccessarily a better one, mind, but oh fucking boy would it be different, and it sure does throw shitty behavior like this into stark relief.

In Which the Protagonist Has a Lot of Packing to Do

Oh my.

Also, I should be reading Wiscon-appropriate material, yet here I am, frantically devouring Gone With the Wind... what's the change, you may ask, as I've been trying to hammer through this book for months?

Well, I finally got to the Seige of Atlanta.

It is great.

Cravings

I had a wicked craving for a quesadilla or pancakes at 10pm tonight. Man, that sounded uber-tasty.

But you know, I'm working on staying in my clothes cause you know, clothes are expensive, and sweet fuck I just had to buy two pairs of size 18 - 18!!! - trousers for job interviews.

So I brushed my teeth and went to my room to shadow box with free weights and I realized that though the craving was certainly surprising, it was nothing at all like the carb cravings I used to get before I got sick.

I've always been a ridiculous carb addict, which I found out later was also sort of something that went hand-in-hand in diabetic families. Craving carbs is the reason diabetes still survives, I think. I think the two genes are linked; I mean, back in the day, living until 26, I would have popped out a handful of kids by then and spread those carb-loving diabetic genes all over the fucking place. Having an intense desire to scarf high-calorie food at all costs and being able to retain that weight would have put me at a distinct advantage.

My cravings used to be so bad that I would literally shake - shake, like a drug addict or alcoholic - during particularly bad cravings. This was one reason why the Atkins diet worked so well for me back when I was 18/19. After two weeks of withdrawl, I was finally able to live without those intense cravings. They didn't go away, mind you, but I no longer thought I was going to die if I didn't eat something loaded with sugar.

Food and weight are touchy subjects. We have very clear ideas about what sorts of people overeat, about what "fat people" are like, and I know that to some extent, having these incredibly out-of-control cravings (and, particularly in South Africa, some really awful bingeing sessions) has left me with a huge feeling of personal shame. Here I am, this out-of-control fat person.

But what's been worse is to no longer eat the way I did during the most stressful times in my life - the last couple years of high school and my time in Durban - and to still be gaining weight and struggling to get back into shape. I've said before that I'm pretty happy at 200 lbs. I have no desire to attempt a cool 155 lbs, which I don't think I've ever seen in my life, except maybe a brief period in fourth grade. No, I like being big and strong and tall. But once you get up past a certain size, it gets harder to find clothes, and not being able to maintain a steady weight - no matter what number it is - is fucking maddening. It takes all your self control to not beat yourself up about it.

And it's funny, you know, because I did work so hard to come to terms with this body, with what it can do. I like being powerful. I liked not having to think about my weight constantly. It's one of those big societal traps we get into; thinking about weight is a huge mental timesuck. It takes away time from writing, learning French, even getting a job. It sucks a lot of brilliant mind power into struggling with something that is, at the end of the day, rather trivial.

Yet, even knowing this, I'll catch myself shopping for clothes and I'll want to burst into tears. I'll think, "Oh God, I want to kill myself," and it's the intensity of that thought, the sudden brutality of it, that will stop me short.

Dear fucking christ, how important is another inch of flesh? How important is it for there to be less of me in the world? So important that I wish I wasn't here? There's this sick guilt you get when you *don't* feel guilty. What if you're too confident and outgoing and pretend nothing's wrong and then people come up to you and go, "So you know you're fat, right?" What do you say to that?

"I sure as hell am, and I love not being able to find clothes."

Or you laugh nervously and say you're working on it.

Honestly, I don't want to work on it. I want my weight to stay steady. I just want it to stop. I'll take a steady weight. I want my body confidence back. I don't have to be a size 2. I just have to be a size that stops moving.

Pretty please.

I need this angst for more productive things.

Parthenogenesis Among.. Sharks

"Only a species under threat would reproduce this way."

Well, then. That does give me some ideas for a few SF novels...

Alcoholoscope

CAPRICORN (Dec 22 - Jan 19)
Drinking style: Capricorn is usually described as practical, steadfast, money-hungry and status-thirsty -- no wonder they get left off the astrological cocktail-party list. But this is the sign of David Bowie and Annie Lennox, not to mention Elvis. Capricorn is the true rock star: independent, powerful and seriously charismatic, not too eager to please. And if they make money being themselves, who are you to quibble? But just like most rock stars, they're either totally on or totally off, and they generally need a little social lubricant to loosen up and enjoy the after party, especially if they can hook up with a cute groupie.

Check out yours... (just in time for a con weekend!)

Blast

As of today, I've gotten at least four calls for temp jobs that would take place over Wiscon weekend (the one I was called in for today would start... tomorrow. I have a 2:30 flight to Madison tomorrow).

Blast.

But hey, once I'm back from Wiscon, I've got nowhere to be until September. Then maybe somebody call give me money. Or maybe even health insurance!

Boy would that be exciting.

One for the Road (and then I'm really going to bed, I promise)

Small Town Living

I liked living in Chicago. I liked feeling young and hip and successful. I liked my shiny shoes and my corporate card. I liked having money. And spending it.

I didn't like worrying about how I was holding myself when I was walking home at night, being worried about coming home a little tipsy, hauling my bike up three flights of stairs at home so it wouldn't get stolen on the street and removing the seat downtown when I locked it up to make it less thief-friendly. I didn't like getting cat calls on the train plateforms, getting hit on or just plain harrassed on the train at odd hours, or any of my commute times.

But downtown was a train ride away, and there were some shows, and movies, and everything you could ask for within walking distance. There were amazing restaurants, which also involved shelling out amazing amounts of money.

It was a great experience, and I enjoyed my time there, but I won't say I'm incredibly unhappy about living in a small town for a little while after four years of City living. I got tired of being on my guard all the time. I got tired of watching how I walked, what I wore. In Fairbanks, I was friendly to everybody; in Chicago, being friendly meant getting stalked (Jenn made the "mistake" of smiling at a guy in a video store once, who tried to follow her home. The quick-thinking video store clerk called the guy back to "verify" something, and Jenn called the store later and thanked her. "Oh thank God you called," the clerk said, "I was really worried. He bolted out of the store after you when he realized you were gone.").

There were things I liked about Durban, too, but it's that constant threat of violence that gets to you. B and I once got into a screaming fight with some asshole outside the same video store who kept trying to hit us up for money in an altogether menacing way. In Durban, I once got stuck at a busstop with two guys intent on blurting sexually suggestive threats to the little blond next to me. I broke down and cussed them out, too. Without getting knifed, which I thought was great.

You get tired of living in fear. You can do it, yeah, sure, and a lot of people live that way, but it gets to you. After a while, it gets to you.

Some of that is probably hype: you hear more about crime, you worry more about crime, but you know, one of the girlfriends of the guys in the apartment below ours was mugged - on our front porch, and Jenn had stuff go missing from her car. And let's not even talk about all the parties in Durban where everybody traded stories about the latest murder, mugging, rape, robbery, or mutilation.

It gets to you.

I was walking into the kitchen tonight to get some water and I noticed that the windows were still open from when we were cooking and I thought, "I should at least pull them down and put on the burgler guard," (which is just these two pieces of plastic that keep the window from being opened more than three inches - probably more a deterrent than anything else), and then I thought, "Well, hell, it's probably no big deal if I don't. We do live in Oakwood."

This is probably foolish thinking, and I'm sure Oakwood's got it's fair share of thievery, but you know, my bike's been leaning against the back of the house since I moved here. And it's still there (knock on wood), and the only time any yellow tape is up around here is when somebody's repaving their driveway. The neighbors actually say hello to you.

Don't get me wrong, now - there *is* something a little Stepford about the whole thing, and I get weirded out a lot about the glaring... well... *whiteness* of this freaking suburb, but sometimes it's nice to just sit on the grass at the park and not worry about getting hit on by some creep or worry because you haven't locked up your bike.

Sometimes it's nice to just... not worry.

I don't like our culture of fear, and it bothers me that instead of confronting those fears, instead of fixing the places and situations that make us so fearful, we have, instead, these carefully tended little white ghettos; the children and the swingsets, the strollers and sports teams. Because even as I sit there in the park, I know it's a fake existence. I know that just down the hill is the Dayton where "everybody else" lives. Where most people live. Where I'll live again.

But up here in the hills you can walk to Starbucks and pay $8.99 for a pound of cherries and go jogging at night... without fear.

Well, without *one* kind of fear.

I have no fear that I'll be harmed for being white and female.

But I do have a fear of being ostracized for being Other.

For being Feminist, a tad on the queer side, left-leaning. If I died my hair purple and had a face full of peircings and tattoos and rode the train in Chicago, I'd get barely a nod.

But here in Stepford...

Yes, well, it's all about trading one fear for another, one freedom for another.

I enjoy small town living, but the small town I loved best was definately Fairbanks. We were all a bunch of fucking weirdos, and they would find the neatly trimmed lawns as strangely bizarre as I do, some days.

Yes. We trade fear for fear.

If you toe the line, look sharp, don't do anything out of the ordinary... the white ghetto is a good place to be. It's a safe place. If you're white and middle class.

It's safe so long as you're not too different.

It's like any small town. Once you belong, they'll love you forever. But don't belong, and you're in trouble.

There are days when I'm willing to pass, if it means living without fear of violence for a little while. Just a little while.

Because I'm Supposed to have 200 pages of "Black Desert" Done By Wiscon...

I'll just need to write a lot on the plane...

I Want to Eat Some Lilacs!

Mmmm... lilacs!!

Things Other People Did At My Age...

At age 27:

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. dropped out from his job at General Electric to become a full-time writer.

Henry David Thoreau went off for two years to live alone in a cabin at Walden Pond.

Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first person in space.

Memphis millionaire Frederic W. Smith, whose father built the Greyhound bus system, founded Federal Express.

Scottish botanist David Douglas discovered the Douglas fir.

Ernest Hemingway published his first novel, The Sun Also Rises.

Boston dentist William Morton pioneered modern anaesthesiology after learning that inhalation of ether will cause a loss of consciousness.

Jimi Hendrix choked to death on his own vomit after ingesting wine and sleeping pills.

Janis Joplin died of an overdose of whiskey and heroin.

How about yours?

One for the Road

Maleness as the Default Human Condition

Good stuff:

"Firstly, being female will always be a relevant detail about a woman in a way that being male is not a relevant detail about a man, leading to lack of attention to their more relevant qualities. This effect might be seen in the way that women’s literature is sidelined, as are women composers and women poets. A woman politician or a woman CEO qualities are less likely to be recognised as a male CEO’s are: the woman is thought of as ‘the female CEO’ while the man is thought of as ‘the confident CEO’ or the ‘the most experienced CEO’ but never as ‘the male CEO’."

Word Games

Select the correct definition for each word and see how many words you can get right in two minutes. Go!

Tonight's Exercise:

Shadow boxing with dumbbells.

This is hard, yo.