Cool Shit

For your Sunday viewing pleasure:

Experiential Poetry: " Using a complex array of perforations, the pavilion’s surface allows light to pass through creating shifting patterns, which–during specific times of the year–transform into the legible text of a poem." (via kottke)

Why we Pay More. As a writer, I'm interested in how to make a living at writing in a world where text is increasingly free, and easily copied. This article talks about reasons why people will pay more (or, just pay) for things they could get free/cheap. (via cheap like me)

Another Way to Sell Out. Speaking of making money as an artist... how about writing for Lexus? From the website:

For our 2008 original fiction series, Lexus invited nine respected authors to help us tell the story of a young couple embarking on a cross-country journey. Along the way, love, loyalties, and the new IS F are road-tested.

(via After the MFA)

And, thankfully, it's not too late to catch Bret Michaels' tour. I bet you're relieved. Happy Sunday!

Project Update

I spent most of the day today working in the "backyard."* The raised bed I'll be using for veg is built, lined, and 2/3 full of soil (I messed up the square footage calculation somehow and I have to go back to the hardware store for more dirt).

I also completely turned over the section of the "yard" that will not be a raised bed, and pulled as much glass and trash out of it as I could. There was a sizeable pile when I was done: slivers of glass, spark plugs, tiny pieces of plastic, bigger pieces of plastic (including the remnants of a set of venetian blinds), bottle caps, plastic coating from wires, a couple of unidentifiable rusty metal things, several juice boxes, a sock, and innumerable nails. I know there's more in there, but it's more than 6 inches underground, except for the glass shards, which I know I will keep finding every time it rains. And I pretty much just left the chicken bones, etc., because I figured they were feeding the soil. I was encouraged to find some grubs and worms and bugs (not many, but some) because that means the soil isn't completely dead.

As I was working the next-door neighbor came out to tell me that the reason one corner smells pissy is because the last guy who lived here pissed on it all the time. Also that he used to dump all kinds of things, including motor oil, onto the ground. Sweet. I try not to think about how much of that dirt I inhaled while I was moving it around.

So I raked it all level and put down two bags of cedar mulch (I think I will need two more). It's looking decent, I have to say. Like I might actually want to spend time in it. I can't wait until there are things growing in the beds.

While I was working my friend S from upstate came by to visit and gave me a fashion show with the free clothes she got from the church up the street. And she's lent me an 80's-tastic dress that I might wear to the prom I'm chaperoning next month.

I also got a genuine sunburn and have dirt embedded under my nails. It makes me happy.

*It deserves quotations because the whole thing is maybe 10'X10'. A mini "yard."

Tweets for Today

• 12:56 taking the kiddos to earth day fun downtown. but we're driving there, which maybe means we'll go to earth day hell. #

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Unexpected Time

I spent almost the entire day on Saturday hanging out with some of the nicest people you can imagine in Ellsworth, Maine. That time, plus the driving time (about six hours total) counted as work time. And since I only work 22.5 hours per week, and there's a holiday tomorrow, so that leaves me with about 5 hours of work to somehow complete between Tuesday and Friday.

Fortunately I think I have an out of town guest taking up some of that time, and it's school vacation week. And I've created a list of projects for myself:

• build a clothes-drying space in the backyard (something like this that is about two feet wide because my yard, unlike the one pictured below, is about 10X10):
  
  
• bottle the apple wine I made in September
• build the raised beds in the backyard for herbs and veg
• go see Girls Rock at The Movies
• use the grill (got some chicken marinating as we speak)

Because it's unplanned, it's a delicious treat. Better than a full-on vacation with an agenda and lots of travel. Just hanging out at home.

English Major Fun

When you love grammar, you have to admit that this is one of your fantasies. OK, well, it's one of my fantasies:

The Typo Eradication Advancement League (TEAL) is dedicated to a more perfectly spelling union.

This March through May, we, sworn members of TEAL, will be taking a road trip around the country to stamp out as many typos as we can find, in public signage and other venues where innocent eyes may be befouled by vile stains on the delicate fabric of our language. We do not blame, nor chastise, the authors of these typos. It is natural for mistakes to occur; everybody will slip now and again. But slowly the once-unassailable foundations of spelling are crumbling, and the time has come for the crisis to be addressed. We believe that only through working together with vigilance and a love of correctness can we achieve the beauty of a typo-free society.

(via slog)

They have a website and a blog.

I, on the other hand, have a cold. I'm going to go sniff into some lotioned tissues and watch more of The Wire. Cuz it's like that.

Tweets for Today

• 12:48 Ate WAY too many 75%-off-Easter-Ducks-n-Bunnies-SweetTarts. #
• 09:05 My first real cold this year. Sniff. #

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Just Because You're Paranoid....

... Don't Mean They're Not After You...

I am a still susceptible to that radical activist lingo... Start talking about Babylon and Empire and I get all, you know, radical inside.

I got this warning from riseup.net, a collective that sponsors listservs, email, etc. and thought I'd share the paranoia.

But this makes a lot of sense to me, since I've just been watching The Wire, and that's exactly what those guys are doing to capture drug lords and crooked dock workers. Oh, jeez, I can't believe I just said that. Anyway, read on, and be sure to wave at the security cameras on your way out the door.

In the waning days of Babylon and empire, what will the US government think up next? According to numerous leaks from the intelligence bureaucracy to the New York Times, the New Yorker, and the Wall Street Journal, the government’s new fun toy is the ability to monitor our social networks by tracking, in real time, the patterns of email, phone calls, text messages, and financial transactions. This program is top secret, so you can’t take legal action because you can’t prove the program exists (according to the catch-22 logic of a February 19th US Supreme Court decision).

The Clinton and Bush administrations have said the program is entirely constitutional because it does not involve eavesdropping on the content of our communication. Instead, it focuses on the pattern of our relationships. In this way, individuals are not under surveillance, all of society is. If your social movement has nothing to hide, then what are you worried about? Plenty. This kind of map of our social networks creates a ready made blueprint for disrupting any social movement deemed to be a threat. In many ways, the government knows more about how we organize than we do. This issue is important to all organizers, because much of the world's email is routed through the US.

So, what can we do about it? For starters, get everyone you know to start using an email provider that uses StartTLS. For email, this is the only thing that can protect against the surveillance of our social networks. For a list of StartTLS providers besides riseup see:

http://help.riseup.net/security/measures/#use_secure_email_providers

What about phone calls, internet chat, and social networking sites? Riseup birds don't have all the answers, but we are working on it. One thing we know, privacy and security are not solved by personal solutions. If we want security, it will take a collective response and a collective commitment to building alternative communication infrastructure.

For more information, see:

http://online.wsj.com/article_print/SB120511973377523845.html
"NSA's Domestic Spying Grows As Agency Sweeps Up Data" by Siobhan Gorman. The Wall Street Journal, March 10, 2008.

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/05/29/060529ta_talk_hersh
"Listening In" by Seymour Hersh. The New Yorker, May 29, 2006.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-05-10-nsa_x.htm
"NSA has massive database of Americans' phone calls" by Leslie Cauley. USA Today, May 10, 2006.

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jyusZ2V1ACKGV2iJuGVmuPUERi_QD8UTICG00
"Court Rejects ACLU Challenge to Wiretaps." Associated Press, February 19, 2008.

Tweets for Today

• 19:58 Trying not to ascribe meaning to the fact that I heard the phrase "early adapter" for the first time today...and then I just heard it again. #

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In a Nutshell

"Writing novels is an exciting and challenging and somewhat surreal job whose cyclical nature causes an enforced manic-depression. After months or years of interior, self-doubting, tunnel-visioned, antisocial, obsessive labor, a kind of low-level bottom-feeding life in a parallel world of your own invention, comes the bright light of publication, if you’re lucky."

--Kate Christensen, who just won the PEN/Faulkner award for The Great Man , in an interview on Critical Mass .

O Shame

I've watched so much of The Wire this week that I got embarrassed to go back to the video store to rent more. So I sent a friend.

Now I'm halfway through season 2.

But I can stop whenever I want. You know.

Contagion

I honestly think that I might be operating under my own personal mercury retrograde. So, you know, keep your distance and don't rub my belly for luck, whatever you do.

I'd been not feeling well for about a week on Wednesday when I came down with a strange rash. Turns out it is shingles. I will spare you the health report except to say that I feel like my skin is constantly being rubbed with sandpaper. Daughter was hoping the rash looked like actual house shingles, but sadly, that is not the case.

I've been in near-quarantine since then, venturing out only to get my diagnosis, attend a few critical work meetings. I can give chicken pox to people, apparently. But I also had to take the cat to the vet (he had a giant abscess on his head), pick up the car from the shop (it blew a wheel bearing) and receive some money from my father because of the unexpected expenses above. I've resisted writing about it until now because I hate whining blogs EDIT: I don't want to be a whiner. (I actually like reading other people's whining blogs.)

On the plus side, I've watched a few more episodes of The Wire and some other movies (28 Weeks Later, Gone Baby Gone, and almost an entire season of Teen Titans courtesy of Daughter) and read a few books (Lemony Snicket's The Carnivorous Carnival, Brian Selznick's The Invention of Hugo Cabret). I also learned to do sudoku.

But I think being in constant pain has actually lowered my IQ. I can't concentrate on anything complicated and I find myself drawn to action movies and talk shows. I watched The View, for crying out loud.*

Anyway, until I have something nice to say I won't be back, so, uh, keep yourself busy with this, and talk amongst yourselves:



*No offense to lovers of action movies or YA books or soduku or The View. Well, maybe View-lovers. But that is all just weirdass shit for me.

Medicine

I was going to do something else here today, but I had kind of a long and intense day, so instead I give you this:



and this:



and also some of this:



And, aw, heck. One of these, just for fun:



From my heart to yours. There is goodness in the world.

Warning, Please

There should be a warning or disclaimer or something on articles like this (via slog), so that anxiety-riddled people like myself can avoid them. Of course, once you read the headline you kind of have to go ahead and read the whole article. And then spend the next five minutes imagining what it feels like to get eaten by a black hole. And picturing the general worldwide panic that would happen first. And then thinking that maybe the most important thing that could happen at a time like that is to have your daughter close to you. And then wishing you had some xanax. And then settling for some bourbon instead.

Happy Sunday.

Uncle

Dear Universe,

Whatever lesson it was that you wanted me to learn--Be Grateful For What I Have, Don't Take Things For Granted--I learned it. OK? Enough already. Really.

And next time, could I have my lesson in the form of, say, Having A Lot of Money Doesn't Make You Truly Happy? Or maybe, Scads of Public Acclaim Is Actually Meaningless?

Thanks so much! Your friend,
Jen

Like a New Caddy

I know, posts have been a little thin lately. That's because, as you know, I suffered a Terrible Computer Tragedy some months ago. This weekend, however, I purchased a new computer. As soon as I recover from the sticker shock I should be back to regular posting.

This new computer is swell, but I'm still deeply involved with replacing all of my programs.

Two In One Day!

I've been baking bread on the weekends to make it seem like my lack of social life is a choice fill the gaping hole that winter leaves in my heart save money. Plus I really like home baked bread.

Here is this weekend's project (via cheap like me). Come over for coffee and bread on Sunday?

No Knead, Dutch Oven Bread
1/4 tsp active dry yeast
1 1/2 cups warm water
3 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting. You may use white, whole wheat or a combination of the two.
1 1/2 tsp salt
Cornmeal or wheat bran for dusting
1. In a large bowl, dissolve yeast in water. Add the flour and salt, stirring until blended. The dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let the dough rest at least 8 hours, preferably 12 to 18, at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees.
2. The dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Lightly flour a work surface and place dough on it. Sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let it rest for about 15 minutes.
3. Using just enough flour to keep the dough from sticking to the work surface or to your fingers, gently shape it into a ball. Generously coat a clean dish towel with flour, wheat bran or cornmeal. Put the seam side of the dough down on the towel and dust with more flour, bran or cornmeal. Cover with another towel and let rise for about 1 to 2 hours. When it’s ready, the dough will have doubled in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.
4. At least 20 minutes before the dough is ready, heat oven to 475 degrees. Put a 6- to 8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in the oven as it heats. When the dough is ready, carefully remove the pot from the oven and lift off the lid. Slide your hand under the towel and turn the dough over into the pot, seam side up. The dough will lose its shape a bit in the process, but that’s OK. Give the pan a firm shake or two to help distribute the dough evenly, but don’t worry if it’s not perfect; it will straighten out as it bakes.
5. Cover and bake for 30 minutes. Remove the lid and bake another 15 to 20 minutes, until the loaf is beautifully browned. Remove the bread from the Dutch oven and let it cool on a rack for at least 1 hour before slicing.
Yield: One 1 1/2-pound loaf.
Adapted from The New York Times.

Lighter

Hey, anyone watch The Sopranos? I finished the series recently and I think I need to process.

Unfortunately Busy

I have two Big Gay Jobs, and I was representing both of them at a recent GSA (Gay Straight Alliance) gathering, trying to get some of the students interested in my projects. There were a lot of cookies and soda, and I was struck by what apparently good, clean, productive fun these youth were having. Pretty different from the fun I was having as a queer high school student, a lot of which involved tattooing myself and being intoxicated and wearing black.

But at this gathering one student said something that jostled one of my own observations back to the surface: that there have been 5 murders of transpeople this year. In 2008. Since January 1.

After the gathering I went to some online queer news sources (queerty, 365 gay) and my friend google, and, sadly, that number is true.

Here they are:

January 8: Patrick (Patricia) Murphy, 39, N
January 21: Adolphus Simmons, 18, SC
Feb 9: Sanesha Stewart, 25, NY
Feb 12: Lawrence King, 15, CA
Feb 23: Simmie Williams, Jr., 17

It's so horrifying I'm not even sure what to say, except that maybe it's worth noting that all of these folks are male-born, and expressing on the feminine spectrum (underscoring how much more dangerous--and visible--it is for men to cross gender), and how many of them are not white. And which one has an article in Time magazine, and which ones don't.

For My Sister

I'm not usually so into the memes, but I do love little sis, so here goes...

TAG - YOU'RE IT!!

Here's how you play:

Once you have been tagged, you have to write a blog with 16 weird, random things, facts, habits or goals about yourself. At the end, choose 10 people to be tagged, listing their names and why you chose them.

Don't forget to leave them a comment ("You're It") and to read your blog.

1. I haven't spoken to my mother in more than two years.

2. I am good friends with 85% of my ex girlfriends. I have contact with 0% of my ex boyfriends.

3. I am haunted by my hometown.

4. My debt equals more than twice my annual income.

5. I feel guilty every time I use a plastic bag.

6. I used to be terrified of spiders, but then I lived alone and there was no one else to kill them. So I got over it.

7. I don't know how to have down time.

8. I'm not really that into music unless it has lyrics that I like.

9. Nobody in my family has read the novel I wrote.

10. I was completely unprepared for and surprised by the love I feel for my baby niece.

11. I was 19 when my daughter was born.

12. I read about ten books a month.

13. I dream about living on my grandparents' land with my sister and her family.

14. I haven't smoked a cigarette in 15 days.

15. I've been in therapy for roughly ten years.

16. Last month I denied my daughter's request for a sled based on finances, and then later that day ended up buying her a whole stack of used books that cost almost exactly the same amount.

People who are tagged:
You! No pressure, but if you feel some disclosure coming on, please feel free...

Missing

I forget how much technology has become a part of my life until I don't have it. Hm... kind of like privilege in that way... you take it for granted unless you don't have it.

Case in point: my computer came down with a nasty virus despite my dedication to safe computing practices, and I had to send it away to get fixed. During the week and a half without it, I felt like every commercial with a website, every time someone said they'd email me, was an arrow directly into my chest. The world is a different place for people without regular access to computers. It's a good thing to keep in mind.

Which is just the short way of saying: computer, I've missed you. Don't go away again.

Morning Rage

This guy thinks he knows all about poverty because he left his home with $25 and not a lot else to see if he could make it. His goal was to have $2,500 in savings, a truck, and an apartment within a year. He did. Then he wrote a book about it. (via kottke)

He says, in that CSM interview linked above, that it's completely irrelevant that he has a college degree:

I didn't use my college education, credit history, or contacts [while in South Carolina]. But in real life, I had these lessons that I had learned. I don't think that played to my advantage. How much of a college education do you need to budget your money to a point that you're not spending frivolously, but you're instead putting your money in the bank?

Do you need a college education? I don't think so. To be honest with you, I think I was disadvantaged, because my thinking was inside of a box.

Damn skippy. But he should have stopped talking after admitting that he had those lessons he'd learned. And then gone on to acknowledge that he

1. is healthy
2. is white
3. has all of his teeth (I'm not being facetious: have you ever tried to get a job with one of your front teeth missing? kind of limits your opportunities)
   
4. is handsome (in the regular-features-on-a-pleasant-face kind of way)
5. is young/strong
6. is traditionally gendered
   
7. speaks like a person who went to college
8. wasn't actually "escaping my druggy mom and going to live with my alcoholic dad"
9. was only doing it for a year (what would have happened if he'd gone on? what if he got sick or missed work? what if his building got sold and his landlord kicked him out? what if his truck broke down? what if his girlfriend got pregnant?)

All this experiment proves is that someone, under ideal circumstances, can raise themselves up. But there was never any doubt of that, was there? Those people are held up as demonstrations that the American Dream works, and as reasons to blame people for whom it doesn't. But it's bullshit. BULLSHIT, do you hear me? Very few people are operating under ideal circumstances, and every single thing that strays from the ideal makes it harder.

Grr.

My Happy Place

Home Today

To all of you who think you might want to have children (I'm talking to you, J), I have just one word to make you reconsider: LICE.

That is all.

Sometimes You Surprise Yourself

I think I'm going to go to the Democratic Caucus today. I have been thinking about it for a while, all the time pretending that I'm not actually thinking about it by listing all of the reasons I can't go: I'm currently registered Green, I have no childcare, the frigging thing is scheduled to take four hours, there will be a snowstorm, the parking will suck, I don't like crowds.

All of those issues have since been resolved. Well, it will still be crowded and it will still take four hours, but the rest changed without any effort on my part. It turns out that Greens can change their registration at the caucus (which gives me a pinch of conscience, but looking at the Green candidates made me cringe), S is going to her best friend's house and I can walk downtown to it.

The crowd anxiety is somewhat alleviated by the fact that I will take my new digital recorder and might be able to use some of my experience in a piece for the radio or the paper. (Note to self: ask at the door about the rules for recording.) And I'll bring my knitting.

So, there. The radical becomes a democrat for the day. And why? Because I am in love with Obama. I secretly hate him too because he makes me have hope, and I know that I will be let down. But for now I do have it, and my internal optimist is making a showing, and I'm going to my first ever caucus.

Reading List

The National Book Critics Circle recently published their list of Good Reads of 2007, the result of an online survey of their members (800 of them) and writers (including John Updike, Cynthia Ozick, and others) and their member critics. The long list for fiction (alphabetically within the number of votes received--i.e. the first four received equal votes) follows.

Some of my favorite writers in here, and some new ones. If I had a million dollars... guess what I'd be buying? OK, first I'd be buying all of my debt. But then after that, I'd get these books and settle in until spring. And order in Thai food a lot. As it is I'll have to wait until our little library picks some of them up:

Michael Chabon, "The Yiddish Policeman's Union,"
Joshua Ferris, "Then We Came to the End,"
Per Petterson, "Out Stealing Horses,"
Philip Roth, "Exit Ghost,"
Alan Bennett, "The Uncommon Reader,"
Susan Choi, "A Person of Interest,"
Richard Price, "Lush Life," "
William Trevor, "Cheating at Canasta,"
Pat Barker, "Life Class,"
Brock Clarke, "An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England,"
Don Delillo, "Falling Man,"
Matthew Eck, "The Farther Shore,"
Anne Enright, "The Gathering,"
Molly Gloss, "The Hearts of Horses,"
A.L. Kennedy, "Day,"
Jhumpa Lahiri, "Unaccustomed Earth,"
Adam Langer, "Ellington Boulevard,"
William Maxwell, "Early Novels and Stories,"
Lydia Millett, "How the Dead Dream,"
Michael Ondaatje, "Divisadero,"
Manil Suri, "The Age of Shiva,"
Chris Abani, "Song for Night,"
Daniel Alarcon, "Lost City Radio,"
Sherman Alexie, "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian,"
Charles Baxter, "The Soul Thief,"
Amy Bloom, "Away,"
Charles Bock, "Beautiful Children,"
Robert Bolano, "Nazi Literature in the Americas,"
Roberto Bolano, "The Savage Detectives,"
Jon Clinch, "Finn,"
Jonathan Coe, "Rain Before it Falls,"
Annie Dillard, "The Maytrees,"
Stephen Dixon, "Meyer,"
Andrew Sean Greer, Khaled Hosseini, "A Thousand Splendid Suns," "The Story of a Marriage," Ha Jin, "The Free Life,"
Marina Lewcyka, "Strawberry Fields,"
James McBride, "Song Yet Unsung,"
Ian McEwan, "On Chesil Beach,"
Pascal Mercier, "Night Train to Lisbon,"
Ann Patchett, "Run,"
Meg Rosoff, "What I Was,"
Bernard Schlink, "Homecoming: A Novel,"
Matthew Sharpe, "Jamestown,"
Jim Shepard, "Like You'd Understand, Anyway,"
Michael Thomas, "Man Gone Down,"
Marianne Wiggins, "The Shadow Catcher."

I Win

My daughter told me yesterday that something that I said casually was "kind of racist." I objected at first, and then thought about it a little. She was right.

When I was her age I didn't even know the word racist. I'm not proud of that, nor of the continuing reprogramming I have to do to be aware of the ways in which I benefit from my white privilege. Nor of the things like yesterday when I don't even know I'm doing it.

But I am proud that S knows the word, what it means, and how to recognize it even in subtle forms. And that she's calling me on my shit when I need to be called on it.

Despite my terminal un-hip-ness* I must be doing something right in the parenting department.


*According to S, "I just think I'm so cool but I don't have any idea what's really cool." I really don't, especially if it has to do with Hannah Montana. She's right about that too.

Downloadable

I'm interested in writers who make their work available for free online. Kelly Link, Cory Doctorow, and Jim Kelly are three writers I know of who put their work online after it's been published elsewhere. It makes sense--you can't sell it again. And getting people interested in your work will only help sales of things that can't be put online, like novels. More importantly, though, as Doctorow said in an interview with Jason Kottke:

copying is only going to get easier. It's the 21st century, there's not going to be a year in which it's harder to copy than this year; there's not going to be a day in which it's harder to copy than this day; from now on. Right? If copying gets harder, it's because of a nuclear holocaust. There's nothing else that's going to make copying harder from now on. And so, if your business model and your aesthetic effect in your literature and your work is intended not to be copied, you're fundamentally not making art for the 21st century.

So here's another online writer, writing about online, for free: Julian Dibble's My Tiny Life (via, not surprisingly, kottke). I haven't read it all yet, but the first chapter, A Rape In Cyberspace, is something I came across a couple of years ago while doing research (for a book on sex, for a professor at USM)--I was interested in how an online event can have repercussions in the real world. This was before myspace and all, remember.

If/when I am ever a Real and Published Writer, you can find my stuff online, for sure. And in whatever new media are invented between now and then.

Passport, Please

I keep thinking about that ubiquitous frog. You know, that slowly boiling one that everyone uses in examples to talk about how we just adjust to gradual change that we would never accept all at once?

Today's Press Herald covers the changing rules for crossing the border from Canada to the US with a lighthearted story about what a "pain in the butt" they are. It looks like a birth certificate and a drivers' license are required for now, with next year's rules asking for a "single identity document"--in other words, a passport.

I got a letter from the State of Maine last week saying that we need to prove our citizenship or else we will lose our state-sponsored insurance coverage.

I've written about this before. I'm still thinking of all of the old stories I've read about people who have to carry their papers with them at all time. I'm thinking about countries at war. But mostly I'm thinking about my daughter, who is ineligible for a passport because her father--to whom I was never married--disappeared after signing her birth certificate but before we could set up a legal custody arrangement. Which means that she can't get a passport without his presence, in person, at the passport office. Which is about as likely to happen as me flying to work tomorrow on wings that have sprouted out of my back.

That's not even to mention the hassles this will cause for my transgender friends, or immigrants, or activists on whoever's watch list, or so many other people who for whatever reason will have trouble getting a passport. I had already resigned myself to the fact that we will not travel overseas until S is 18, but now I have to get used to the fact that we will also not travel to Quebec or Montreal. Not for field trips, not for anything.

Is it warm in here?

Expensive Hobbies

Well, not nearly as glamorous as skiing, or, say, a coke habit. But it is, officially, expensive. I've just purchased a digital voice recorder. It was on sale, blah blah blah. But besides its obvious uses in my new (paying) journalism-type habit and my (as-yet-unpaying) radio work, I really bought it because 1.) I got a graduation gift of cash from an aunt, and 2.) as I was looking at the recorders it suddenly became clear that I needed to make a choice for this kind of life I want to be living (i.e. working p/t and writing for money). And the recorder suddenly epitomized this choice.

Really I shouldn't be spending that kind of money on anything but practical things. We are really living at the far edge of what is financially acceptable--if I was out of work for a week we'd be totally fucked. A used washer & dryer would have been the more practical choice. Or keeping it in savings.

But I felt like I needed to jump, now, to make a positive choice towards what I want for my life. Or else I am a consumer like everyone else and now some Olympus co. executive is a little richer.

Either way, I could potentially be recording everything you say the next time we meet.

Reading the Signs

I am possibly disturbed by the fact that I had to create folders to better manage my feed reader. Am I that kind of person? >identity crisis! identity crisis!<

I did, in fact, take the day off yesterday (not literally; I already had the day off from work, but I stayed in all day and tended to the apt. and the fam). What that meant was that I cooked and hung out with S and facilitated a play date, but also mostly that I sat on my ass in front of the TV all day and knitted. We only get one channel, so I was pretty much at the mercy of WMTW. I even watched the soap operas, producing a kind of nostalgia for my childhood and the times my mom and I would watch Days of Our Lives together (it was on at 9:30 in the morning back then, and we sat together in our one-room cabin and watched it on our black and white tv in the middle of the woods). I recognized a lot of the actors! I wondered what it would be like to make a career out of acting on one soap opera.

I also (oh, the shame!) ended the day by watching Dance War. I actually kind of enjoy live TV. The mistakes that happened made me giggle, but also reminded me that those are real people up there. S and I are firmly for Carrie Ann, but I couldn't bring myself to vote.

Busy Weekend

New column up at The Bollard.

Also, I attended two public entertainment events this weekend: Saturday night I went to see Sweeney Todd, which was every bit as gory and dark and stripy as you could want any Tim Burton movie to be. And why haven't Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter gotten married and had pale, tangle-haired children yet?

Then today I went to see The Laramie Project, which was being performed near where I grew up. Honestly, I probably wouldn't have gone except that I was invited to be on a panel because of my job. The last time I saw the show I felt all soggy and sad for hours--like I'd been through some kind of ordeal. It's an incredibly moving show. This time was no different. Wrenching, I think I might call it. And now I'm so very tired... I'm glad I went, but I think it's the kind of thing I only want to do every couple of years. The show just makes concrete for me so many of the things I don't want to think about, like how fragile people's lives are, and how vulnerable being out and queer makes people, and that there are people in the world who hate people like me. That probably sounds funny, given that it's my job to be gay, and I'm about as out as a person could possibly be... but listening to the words of those people in that town gave me chills.

I might skip MLK Day events tomorrow and just stay in and make banana bread and chicken soup. I think I need to recharge after all that violence.

I'm a Sucker for Falsetto

This is captivating. (Performed as part of a contest to win tickets to the Broadway version of the Little Mermaid).




via radicalmuffin

Resolve

eat more locally. listen to my body. stop renting movies to impress the hip clerks at videoport. be open. subscribe to more magazines. send thank you cards. visit my family. believe myself. do work that i love. hang out with people i like. make the backyard garden. stop hanging out with people who make me feel bad. do nice things for myself. watch less tv. talk to that nice librarian. write ten new stories. keep a book log. visit out of portland friends. return library books on time. do nice things for my daughter. get out of the house. go to the movies. cook dinner.

you?

Hasty Pronouncements

I may be cursing myself by calling it too early, but I think that my eye twitch might be completely gone.

Which is good, because it's hard to convince people (least of all myself) that I am a competent and sane human being when the giant bag under my eye is disco-dancing all around.

In case you didn't get to see it, I assure you that this twitch was no ordinary "hey everyone I can feel my eye twitch but you can't see it" situation. This was a full-blown "ohmygod is she going to pull out a gun" kind of twitch. People--people who claimed to love me--would get distracted in the middle of our conversations to stare at the thing. Which was helpful in relaxation, I assure you.

Causes for the demise of The Twitch
Christmas Over
Presents Finished and Distributed
Sleep Averaging Seven Hours
Normal Food
Thesis Done
Deadlines Met
Family Met and Made Merry
Birthday Survived
Solstice Party Success

Thesis Head

Thesis due Thursday... can't two words string sentences to together make...

Book List of Graduate School Reading Experience, for aforementioned thesis:

Agard, Nadema. “Art as a Vehicle for Empowerment” in Voices of Color: Art and Society in the Americas. Phoebe Farris-Dufrene, ed. New Jersey: Humanities Press, 1997.

Alexie, Sherman. The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven. New York: HarperPerennial, 1994.

Allison, Dorothy. Bastard Out of Carolina. New York: Dutton, 1992.

Allison, Dorothy. Trash: Stories. New York: Plume. 2002.

Allison, Dorothy. Skin: Talking About Sex, Class, and Literature. Ithaca, NY: Firebrand Books, 1994.

Anderson, Sherwood. Winesburg, Ohio. New York: Viking Press. 1960.

Arizona Department of Education. “Causes of Homelessness: Substance Abuse.” Educating Homeless Children. March 31, 2007. <>

Auster, Paul. The Brooklyn Follies. New York: Henry Holt. 2006.

Baldwin, James. Giovanni’s Room. New York: Dell, 1956.

Baldwin, James. Going to Meet the Man. New York: Dial Press, 1965.

Balfour, Michael, ed. Theatre in Prison: Theory and Practice. Portland OR: Intellect Books, 2004.

Baum, L. Frank. The Wizard of Oz. New York: Macmillan, 1962.

Brockmeier, Kevin. The Truth About Celia. New York : Vintage Books, 2004.

Brown, Rosellen. Before and After. Boston: G.K. Hall, 1993.

Butler, Octavia. Kindred. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1979.

Butler, Octavia. Parable of the Sower. New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 1993.

Butler, Octavia. Parable of the Talents: A Novel. New York: Seven Stories Press, 1998.

Butler, Robert Olen. A Good Scent From a Strange Mountain: Stories. New York : Penguin Books, 1993.

Carson, Anne. Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998.

Casares, Oscar. Brownsville: Stories. Boston: Back Bay Books, 2003.

Chabon, Michael. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay: A Novel. New York: Picador. 2000.

Chabon, Michael. The Best American Short Stories, 2005. Boston : Houghton Mifflin. 2005.

Chabon, Michael. Chen, M. Keith & Jesse M. Shapiro. "Does Prison Harden Inmates? A Discontinuity-based Approach," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 1450, Cowles Foundation, Yale University. 2003.

Chevigny, Bell Gale. “Introduction: Doing Time at Century’s End.” in Doing Time: 25 years of Prison Writing. Bell Gale Chevigny, ed. NY: Arcade Publishing, 1999.

Chute, Carolyn. The Beans of Egypt, Maine. New York: Ticknor & Fields, 1985.

Chute, Carolyn. Letourneau’s Used Auto Parts. New York: Ticknor & Fields, 1988.

Chute, Carolyn. Merry Men. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1994.

Cisneros, Sandra. Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories. New York: Random House, 1991.

Coetzee, J.M. Disgrace. New York: Viking, 1999.

Crais, Robert. Demolition Angel. New York: Doubleday, 2000.

Crane, Elizabeth. All This Heavenly Glory. New York: Little, Brown, 2005.

Crane, Elizabeth. When the Messenger is Hot. Boston: Little, Brown, 2003.

Day, Cathy. The Circus in Winter. Orlando: Harcourt, 2004.

Erdrich, Louise. Love Medicine: A Novel. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1984.

“The Facts Behind the Faces.” A Fact Sheet from the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless. Winter 2004-05. Chicago Coalition for the Homeless <>

Faulkner, William. Go Down, Moses. New York: Vintage Books, 1990.

Feinberg, Leslie. Stone Butch Blues: A Novel. Ithaca, NY: Firebrand Books, 1993.

Flynn, Nick. Another Bullshit Night in Suck City: A Memoir. New York: W. W. Norton & Co, 2004.

Foer, Jonathan Safran. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 2005.

Gaiman, Neil. Coraline. New York: Harper Collins, 2002.

Gaiman, Neil. Smoke and Mirrors: Short Fictions and Illusions. New York, NY: Perennial, 2001.

Gibbons, Kaye. Ellen Foster. New York: Vintage Books, 1990.

Golden, Arthur. Memoirs of a Geisha: A Novel. New York: Knopf, 1997.

Goodman, Allegra. The Family Markowitz. New York: Washington Square Press, 1997.

Haddon, Mark. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time. New York: Vintage Contemporaries. 2004.

Harris, Thomas. Silence of the Lambs. New York: St. Martin’s, 1989.

How Many People Experience Homelessness: NCH Fact Sheet #2. June 2006. National Coalition for the Homeless. April 2, 2007. http://www.nationalhomeless.org/ publications/facts/How_Many.pdf

Johnson, Denis. Jesus’ Son: Stories. New York: HarperPerrennial, 1993.

Johnson, James Weldon. Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man. New York: Dover Publications, Inc, 1995.

Joseph, Cliff. “Reflections on the Inescapable Political Dimensions of Art and Life” in Voices of Color: Art and Society in the Americas. Phoebe Farris-Dufrene, ed. New Jersey: Humanities Press, 1997.

Kelly, James Patrick. Burn. San Francisco, CA: Tachyon. 2005.

Kelly, James Patrick and John Kessel, eds. Feeling Very Strange: The Slipstream Anthology. San Francisco: Tachyon Pub, 2006.

Key Data Concerning Homeless Persons in America. June 2006. National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty. March 30, 2007. http://www.nlchp.org/FA_HAPIA / HomelessPersonsinAmerica.pdf

King, Stephen. On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. New York: Scribner, 2000.

Kornfeld, Phyllis. Cellblock Visions: Prison Art in America. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997.

Lahiri, Jhumpa. Interpreter of Maladies. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1999.

Lahiri, Jhumpa. The Namesake. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2003.

LeGuin, Ursula. The Wave in the Mind: Talks and Essays on the Writer, the Reader, and the Imagination. Boston: Shambhala, 2004.

Lemos, Gerard. “More Than a Place to Stay.” Community Care 6/29/2006 Issue 1629. p 34-35.

Lethem, Jonathan. The Fortress of Solitude. New York: Doubleday. 2003.

Lewisjohn, James, ed. At the Ninth Hour: A Book of Prison Poems. Thomaston, ME: Maine State Prison, 1977.

Lewisjohn, James, ed. Out of the Depths… A Book of Prison Poems. Thomaston, ME: Maine State Prison, 1977.

Lewisjohn, James and William Hollifield, eds. On the Seventh Day: A Book of Prison Poems and Graphics. Ellsworth, ME: Downeast Graphics, 1978.

Link, Kelly. Magic For Beginners. Northampton, MA: Small Beer Press, 2005.

Lodge, David. The Art of Fiction. New York: Viking/Penguin Books, 1993.

Matalene, Carolyn. “Experience as Evidence: Teaching Students to Write Honestly and Knowledgeably about Public Issues” in The Writing Teacher’s Sourcebook. (Fourth Edition). Corbett, Edward P. J. et al, eds. NY: Oxford University Press, 2000. p.180-190.

McCarthy, Cormac. The Road. New York : Alfred A. Knopf. 2006.

McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics. Northampton, MA : Tundra Pub. 1993.

Miéville, China. Looking for Jake: Stories. New York: Del Ray, 2005.

Miéville, China. Perdido Street Station. New York: Del Ray, 2001.

Miéville, China. The Scar. New York: Ballantine Books, 2002.

Miller, D. Quentin, ed. Prose and Cons: Essays on Prison Literature in the United States. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co. Inc., 2005.

Minot, Susan. Monkeys. New York: Dutton, 1986.

Moore, Lorrie. Birds of America. New York: Random House. 1998.

Moore, Lorrie. Self-Help: Stories. New York : Random House, 1985.

Mosher, Howard Frank. A Stranger in the Kingdom. New York: Doubleday, 1989.

Mulvey-Roberts, Marie. Writing for Their Lives: Death Row USA. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2007.

Munro, Alice. Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2001.

Munro, Alice. The Love of a Good Woman. New York: Knopf. 1998.

Munro, Alice. Runaway: Stories. New York: Knopf, 2004.

Munro, Alice. Selected Stories. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996.

Murakami, Haruki. Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman: Twenty-four Stories. New York: Knopf, 2006.

Naylor, Gloria. The Women of Brewster Place. New York: Penguin Books, 1982.

Neal, Brandi. “The Long Road Home: Billy Woolverton Finds His Way Back—to a Long Lost Family.” in The Blue Room v2 i8 Feb/Mar 2007. p. 10-15.

O’Brien, Tim. The Things They Carried. New York: Broadway Books, 1998.

O’Connor, Flannery. Everything That Rises Must Converge. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1965.

Olsen, Tillie. Tell Me a Riddle. New York: Dell, 1989.

Ozeki, Ruth. My Year of Meats. New York: Viking. 1998.

Ozick, Cynthia. The Shawl. New York: Knopf, 1989.

Pelletier, Cathie. The Funeral Makers. New York: Collier Books. 1986.

Pelletier, Cathie. Once Upon a Time on the Banks. New York: Pocket Books, 1991.

Pelletier, Cathie. The Weight of Winter. New York: Viking, 1991.

Pettit, Becky and Bruce Western. “Mass Imprisonment and the Life Course: Race and Class Inequality in US Incarceration.” American Sociological Review, 2004. accessed at http://www.hawaii.edu/hivandaids/Mass_Imprisonment_and_the_Life_Course__Race_and_Class_Ineq.pdf on March 8, 2007.

Proulx, Annie. Close Range: Wyoming Stories. New York: Scribner, 1999.

Reagan, Michael and Donald M. Stoughton. School Behind Bars: A Descriptive Overview of Correctional Education in the American Prison System. Metuchen, NJ: The Scarecrow Press, Inc, 1976

Robson, Ruthann. Cecile: Stories. Ithaca, NY: Firebrand Books, 1991.

Roskelly, Hephzibah. “The Risky Business of Group Work.” in The Writing Teacher’s Sourcebook. (Fourth Edition). Corbett, Edward P. J. et al, eds. NY: Oxford University Press, 2000. p.123-128.

Rowling, J. K. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. New York: Arthur A. Levine Books, 2007.

Russo, Richard. Empire Falls. New York: Vintage Books. 2002.

Russo, Richard. Nobody’s Fool. New York: Random House. 1993.

Russo, Richard. The Whore’s Child and Other Stories. New York: Knopf. 2002.

Salzman, Mark. True Notebooks. New York: Knopf, 2003.

Silko, Leslie Marmon. Ceremony. New York: Penguin Books, 1986.

Solzhenitsyn, Alexander. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. New York : New American Library. 1963.

Steinbeck, John. Of Mice and Men. New York: Penguin Books, 1993.

Tartt, Donna. The Secret History. New York: Knopf, 1992.

Wagner, David. Checkerboard Square: Culture and Resistance in a Homeless Community. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1993.

Wallace, David Foster. A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again: Essays and Arguments. Boston: Little, Brown and Co, 1998.

Welty, Eudora. The Golden Apples. New York: Harcourt, Brace. 1949.

Welty, Eudora. Stories, essays & memoir. New York: Library of America, 1998.

White, Michael C. The Blind Side of the Heart. New York: HarperCollins, 2001.

Words from the Curbs: Writing from Preble Street Resource Center. v3 i1. Portland, ME. Fall 2005.

Words from the Curbs: Writing from Preble Street Resource Center. v3 i2. Portland, ME. Spring 2006.

All Joking Aside

You'd never guess it from reading this blog, but it's been a pretty serious Fall over at the Jen household. The implosion of my live-in relationship, health issues and surgery, some challenges at work and financial squeezing, and then the fucking darkness and ugliness of this time of year have all conspired to make me feel, well, more than a little blue.

I don't talk about it too much, because it's not often appropriate to work "so, hey, I'm experiencing depression" into a casual conversation. I'm trying to lean into the feeling, as a friend recently suggested, acknowledge the reality of what's happening and honor it. But it's a scary thing to lean into, friends, and I'm resisting that advice. Almost as scary as writing about it here and knowing that you will be reading it.

It also has to do with my connotations of this time of year. It's just death. Everyone I know who has died has done it in the late fall/early winter season, and with the dying garden, the browning world, the coldness--it all speaks to me of the temporary nature of our time here, of the sadness of things passing on. Today, for example, is the second anniversary of my friend Meg's death. S and I marked the day appropriately, I think: I lit some candles and then we danced and made brownies, because Meg loved fun intensely.

There are some good things happening this winter (my birthday, holiday gatherings, graduation) and I'm looking forward to welcoming back the sun on the solstice, but for now I'm just feeling... mortal.

And leaning... leaning...

If the Last Two Weeks of My Life Were Written as Headlines from the National Enquirer

Dramatic Neck Cramp Traced to Season 5 Sopranos Marathon

Sleepless Scandal! Long Dark Days Having Reverse Effect, Writer Claims

Not Taking This Squash-For-Dinner Abuse Any Longer, Daughter Declares

Denial December: Thesis Deadline "Not Really Happening"

Gay-for-Pay Expose: More Work Than Wages in Nonprofit World

Jen's Medical Nightmare, Not-Quite-Flu-Feeling Lingers

Ice Lady Change of Heart, Kitten Planned for Daughter's Christmas Miracle

But Of Course

At the Symposium a couple of weekends ago, the big idea that came out of all of that whole day's discussion was that the queers in this state need a website. And maybe a community center.

Back to the website: as I heard people talking about it, I kept thinking about all of the problems with that idea. Internet-based organizing and communication can be class-based (because who has access to the internet? And good access is another issue out of the cities, since a lot of people I know have dial-up, which leaves most of the internet inaccessible. Flash? Yeah, right.) I also thought, if there's a website, there's going to have to be someone to take care of it, make decisions, post things, and it will necessarily produce some variation of that person (or committee)'s tastes and opinions.

But--I realized today--not if it's a wiki. What we need here is a big queer wiki. Check out this one in Washington (sadly, not queer, but community-based and really used, apparently). Ours could be like that! But with rainbows! (Or not with rainbows if you don't like them--that's the beauty of a wiki.)

Doesn't take care of the class issues, but it would take away the power of the publisher and let the participants decide what it'll be. Yay for no hierarchy!

If You Have to Shop

I'm all for handmade presents... but in case you're, like, wicked busy, or un-crafty, or (like me) have family members who look at handmade objects like you stabbed them in the heart with it, check out these shopping guidelines so that your dollars go responsibly.

There is a website that does research for you, listing the best and worst retailers based on their responsiveness to 5 issues: Human Rights (sweatshops, 3rd world community exploitation, international health issues, divestment, child labor, code of conduct; the Environment (global warming, rainforest destruction, pollution, recycling, renewable energy, greenwashing, toxic waste, eco-innovations, illegal dumping, sustainable farming); Animal Protection (factory farming, animal testing, humane treatment, wild animal habitat;Community Involvement (family farms, local business support, volunteer efforts, sustainable growth, philanthropic donations, nonprofit alliances, establishing foundations) and Social Justice (fair wages, fatalities, union busting efforts, health & safety records, discrimination based on: race, gender, age, ability, religion, sexuality, ethnicity).

And the top ten winners are (drumroll, preferably on a recycled cooking pot, please)...


Shocking. OK, and the 10 worst companies are...Again, shocking.

OK, go forth and consume. (But I'd take a hat you made for me. Or some dilly beans. Or a gift certificate for some free babysitting.)

Thanks to Maine Gaynet for the info. :)

Only the Lucky Ones Get a Mug, William

William Gibson in Rolling Stone, on his career as a sf writer (via kottke):

If one had gone to talk to a publisher in 1977 with a scenario for a science-fiction novel that was in effect the scenario for the year 2007, nobody would buy anything like it. It's too complex, with too many huge sci-fi tropes: global warming; the lethal, sexually transmitted immune-system disease; the United States, attacked by crazy terrorists, invading the wrong country. Any one of these would have been more than adequate for a science-fiction novel. But if you suggested doing them all and presenting that as an imaginary future, they'd not only show you the door, they'd probably call security.

and

It could all go to gray goo. But it just isn't in my nature to buy a lot of canned food and move to Alaska and try to escape the gray goo.

and

on a good day, my career seems so utterly unlikely that I wonder if I'm not about to snap out of a DMT blackout and discover that I'm not actually a famous writer of William Gibson novels but that I'm working at a used-book shop that smells of cat pee and drinking beer out of a cracked coffee mug.