Blogetary (Weblog + Commentary = Blogetary)

I don’t have the direct link to it yet, but Everyday Weirdness accepted a small poem of mine for publication. It will be up on Monday, August 3. If I’m near a computer on that day (and can remember passwords, etc for getting into my blog on a strange computer) then I will send up a flare and post a link. Otherwise, yay, me! I’m glad they liked it.

Quit listening to the scare tactics of big business and insurance companies. We need a strong nation full of healthy and productive people if we are going to pull out of this economic disaster. So, we all need to be able to have access to good solid health care, as well as wellness and prevention programs, so we can keep healthy.

When I did NOT have access to such health care I also lost access to a very specific medication I needed to keep healthy. When I no longer was able to get that medication, I was no longer able to work well. I could barely get up in the morning. I could barely make it across the room without that medication. However, while I couldn’t afford to pay for my insurance, having a full time job meant I made too much money to access help from a free clinic. Once I lost my job, I was poor enough to be able to access the services of the free clinic. They were able to get me back on that medication and I am now a productive member of society.

Scared, broke, among friends, but feeling alone, I had just moved to San Francisco. It was a city I knew well, but didn’t really know at all. My sister and my dad lived there, but they had their own lives. The place I found to live was tiny, but perfect. Best of all, the landlords let me have a cat and I could free Kiko from his stay in closed up places. He could run free, hunt, play, and prowl as he saw fit.

The only drawback was the rent. It was more than I could really afford, especially with what jobs I could find: $8/hour at Starbucks part time, $8/hour at different temporary office jobs around the city, never knowing how long they would last. What was worse was that I had taken to living off my credit cards during my jobless search around the city and when I was couch surfing with friends before I found a place. I had become habituated to sitting around a kitchen table drinking, smoking and talking about drinking and smoking, only to go out and drink and smoke some more. And then eat after that.

I would wake up the next morning and wonder if I would grow old doing nothing, or would I ever really do something with my life? Would I be a failure who had never gone anywhere because I liked hanging out so much I had no discipline to follow my dreams? Would I get lost in this city? Or would I have the strength of will to follow my dreams?

I suppose I could say the dream came from the Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee murder mysteries I had read. I had been reading these mysteries by Tony Hillerman on and off for years. Usually got them at the library or used at a garage sale. But none recently. Or maybe it was the sandpaintings my aunt had given me from New Mexico. One of the Blessing Way and the other of Bear fishing at a creek. But those were still packed away when I had the dream.

It began and ended in blue. Warm turquoise, cool teal, comforting and enveloping, like a mother rocking her child to comfort them. Blue Corn Woman comforted me. I didn’t know who she was or what she did or where she came from back then, I just new she was Blue Corn Woman and she had come to tell me I would be all right.

I tried to research Blue Corn Woman back then, but couldn’t find anything on her. At least, not at first. Over the years, I have found more and more information. She can be found among the Cherokee, the Hopi, the Tewa and other tribes all over. My sister found a carved Hopi Blue Corn Mother and sent it to me.

Last week I was having dinner with a friend of mine and told her about my dream and today she sent me this picture (which I had never found all the other times I’ve looked):

The picture is from Matrifocus. The background blue is the blue I remember from my dream.

So, today, I did another search on my own and found a lot more entries than I had found all those years ago, including this one, as well as this picture:

They are beautiful and I love being able to find more on it. But, the more I have found, the more I have realized I didn’t really need to look. Blue Corn Woman was just there when I needed her and maybe, one day, when I need her again, she’ll return. The figure, the pictures, they’re just there to remind me.

So, I have found a decent image of the current cover of Beyond Centauri (see below). My story, The Spider and the Crow, appears in this issue. As soon as I get copies in, I will be announcing another blog contest for anyone who’s interested! This is a great magazine for kids who are interested in science fiction and fantasy. It’s something they not only could read, but also submit stories and poetry to if they are so inclined. Check it out and see if you or kids you know may be interested.

Me introducing my HP Mini with Mi.

I’ve been listening to NPR cover the confirmation hearings for Judge Sonia Sotomayor and it really bothers me how much they are brow beating her for this quote:

“I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.”

Okay, first they never look at the end of that statement – “who hasn’t lived that life.”  Hello! It’s just common sense. If, for example, you grew up in a single parent home in a trailer park and know the possibilities and impossibilities of that life than you’re better able to preside over and judge a case on people with a similar background. MANY white male judges and lawyers in the system come from a middle class and upper middle class upbringing and still live in that level of society. Yet they are judging people who come from poverty. If someone has had those experiences gained from poverty then she knows the motivation. She knows what opportunities (or not) there are for change. She knows that recidivism in criminal behavior or drug use may happen as soon as some people are returned to that same neighborhood or level of poverty. She gets it.

SECOND – notice it’s all the old school white men who are hammering on about this. For CENTURIES white men have been in power. As soon as a woman (and one of color) makes a remark that says she might, in fact, be better at something than they are, they lose it. They’re afraid of losing their power. They’re browbeating her into public submission just as white men of privilege have often browbeaten women who have decided to be in charge of their lives and come into their own power.

There are some men out there who really are afraid of women being in power and having control of our own lives and our own bodies. And at a certain level it’s instinctual and I’m sure there are men who don’t even realize they have that fear until they meet a woman who doesn’t back down.

The fight for equal rights for women is an ongoing struggle. It will continue to be a struggle. As far back as the middle ages, when women of intelligence, such as Blenda, fought for their lives and earned their independence and freedom, to finally getting the right to vote here in 1920, to the non-passage of the Equal Rights Amendment (and women still don’t earn the same amount of money as men – in fact – the better the education, the greater the disparity – which is one reason why this amendment NEEDS TO BE PASSED) to the current hearings with Judge Sotomayor.

The questioning they are giving her reminds me that I can’t give up my own fight. When I see injustice, I need to say something, not just let it pass. Nothing good ever comes of just giving up and letting it pass.

Okay, I’ve been waiting to get the actual stuff so I could take pics and post them up for you, but that isn’t happening quickly and by the time the stuff does arrive, it will be old news. SO -

1) I know I’m impatient. I got tired of waiting for the tech world to catch up with what I think an eReader should be. In my mind, it should resemble a combination of things from The Diamond Age, Star Trek, and Andromeda. And it should be easy to use and relatively inexpensive and open source. And I wanted it over a year ago. So, instead, I opted for the HP Mini with Mi Netbook, which I will use as an eReader and also as a good second mini-email type machine. Due in any day now. I just keep missing the FedEx guy.

2) I have a short short story out in the July 2009 issue of Beyond Centauri called “The Spider and the Crow.” I really had a good time writing it. I began it whilst waiting for a grant writing class to start back in February or March 2008. Just wrote with the flow and really enjoyed it.

3) I finally got some junk out of my apartment! Yay! My old, huge, heave tv had quit working a while back. It was too heavy for me to do much with but shift a little. The speakers I’d used to create better sound (and that I’d had since college) were old technology and there was nowhere to hook in the speaker wires in my new flat screen tv. And then there are the futon mattresses I’ve been wanting to get rid of for a very long time. So, I called 1-800-Got-Junk, or went to their website, and they came and took it away (for a fee of course). But they were polite, checked in when they said they would, worked quickly, and were great to deal with.

4) I have a new futon coming next week, and a lounger chair coming the week after that. I am so happy!  I got rid of my old icky chair months ago. It had served me well over the years, but by the end, it was done.

5) I have heard back regarding a Christmas story that had been accepted but kind of got lost in the works and it’s back on track. That’s really cool.

6) I have finished editing and rewriting a story that used to be up online, but since that website is no longer viable, I decided to revisit that story. See what I could do to rework it, update it, and perhaps submit it someplace else. I am not sure who will be interested, but I feel good about the work I did on it. So, I hope it finds a home.

7) I am close to, what I hope to be, the final set of revisions for another short story. About half-way through. Hopefully I’ll get it done and spruced up this weekend and I can send it out into the wide world.

By this weekend, or the end of it, I hope to finally be able to say I’m caught up with my life – the writer meeting minutes will have been completed, writer club blogs updated, apartment cleaned and rearranged, all associated paperwork sent off to clients, laundry put away, and in general hope for a good, “ah, it’s done for now” feeling by Sunday night.

9) Next week, I will have been at Curves two months, which isn’t very long, but is longer than I’ve been at exercising in a while.

10) FINALLY, my friend Liz has just had her inaugural short story, Modern Love, published over at Every Day Fiction.  It’s a brief story, takes probably five minutes to read, but the rest of the day to appreciate. I recommend going over there and checking it out!

And there is still so much we still have not learned how to do – like treat other with fairness and compassion.

Did you hear about the day camp kids that got kicked out the swim club pool because they changed the “complexion” of the club? We have an African American president and people are still behaving as if skin color were a catching disease or something.  You would think, by now, that people would have gotten past that, be we haven’t.  According to many people, if you’re skin is the wrong color, you’re less than, you’re not worth knowing. In the language of the playground – you’ve got cooties.

That article kept me up most of the night. Can you imagine what those kids have gone through? They signed up for a fun daycamp. Their parents have paid money so their kids get to swim and play and do crafts. They made a contract with a private club to use the pool. And as soon as they showed up, they were shown the door. It begs the question why the club made the contract to begin with? Were they idiots? Or were they maliciously trying to hurt those kids and their parents on purpose?

I shouldn’t be surprised, I supposed. Hell, we STILL think the worst thing in the world someone can be is a woman. *sigh*

I had the good fortune of attending a taping of an Alec Mapa show for Bravo. If you haven’t heard of him, he’s a comedian who calls himself America’s Gaysian Sweetheart.  Like many good comedians before him, Mapa uses humor to bring up and get people to think about social problems. It’s a common practice that writers and others have been doing for centuries. Can’t get the English to pay attention to the Irish poor? Then write Castle Rackrent and have them laughing at a dark comedy while feeding them the reality of the situation. Can’t get people to accept that gay men and lesbians don’t have cooties? Write a sitcom about a gay man and his best friend and you have Will and Grace. Suddenly, everyone’s gay and it’s fashionable to be gay. (Can’t get married, but at least it’s fashionable.) The point is, when people laugh, they are more receptive, more willing to think about the other side of something.

One of the things Mapa brought up that got me thinking was that sometimes one gay man will call another gay man a “bottom” in a disparaging manner when he thinks the guy is too effeminate.  He was pointing out that it’s a form of self-hatred since, well, the definition of gay sex for a man is taking it up the bum. And it’s a good point. But it got me to thinking, to extropolate out past that. So, one gay man calls another gay man a “bottom” as if it were a bad thing (although, as a straight woman I can only assume that’s what many gay men want, isn’t it?). And those men use that term when they think someone is too “nelly” or too effeminate – too much like a woman, in other words. Check the gay personal ads sometime. It’s full of men asking for “Str8 acting” men.

So, okay, that’s just one population in the world and only some men who say that and don’t even think about what they’re saying – that the worst thing a gay man can be is a woman. And, I mean, it’s kind of assumed that in the straight guy community if a guy acts too effeminate, the male tribe will give him a bad time, and possibly beat him to death. So, then in the straight male community, the worst thing a straight man can be is a woman (which also doesn’t make any sense to me since straight men want to be with women and they like hanging out with their male buddies… i.e., therefore, ergo….what’s so bad about having an effeminate male friend, or a woman as a friend – which is another thing men can’t handle).

But then, there are women who do the same thing. They will try to be one of the guys and when a guy shows the least bit of non-masculine behavior (or what they perceive to be non-masculine behavior) these women will call a man an old woman, or “you’re such a woman.” Or say about a guy, “he’s too effeminate.” So, isn’t that a form of self-hatred, too? And that means, that in the female tribe, then, the worst thing anyone can be is a woman.

It just pisses me off. It really does. Yet, I find myself buying into it as well. The other day a friend made a joke and said, “just play the dumb girl.” I laughed along with it and didn’t think about it until later. He probably didn’t either. It’s a common saying in our society.

It starts young. There’s nothing wrong with telling someone to “play dumb.” That’s kinda funny in some situations.  But we don’t just stop at “play dumb.” We say, “play the dumb girl.” And then we women, we laugh at it, make jokes about it. It’s something we’ve had to do to survive. We let the disrespect continue. But do we really want to teach the next generation of women to put up with that crap? Do we really want the next generation of men to feel less than a real man because they happen to feel a tender moment or want to have a good cry or like pretty flowers? It seems to me continuing this societal habit does more harm than good.

There was a woman who had a coffee cart on State Street, in front of the old Food Co-op, in Bellingham, Washington, years ago when I lived there. And she had come to the conclusion that this habit we have of calling people disparaging words based on their gender is just as bad as calling them names based on their color or ethnicity. So, just as she didn’t use the N-word or call Italians WOPs, or tell Polish jokes, or anything like that, she also decided to cease using gender-based disparaging terms. No more “bitch”, “dick”, “prick” or any word that was meant to put someone down based on their gender or genitals.

That’s hard to do. There are a lot of terms out there that we use to disparage women and men, using gender as their weak point. I’ve tried. I’m going to keep on trying. I have no children, but I don’t ever want to make a remark around any of the children, or even adults, I know that may reinforce that it’s okay to put a boy down because he’s affectionate or put a girl down because she’s strong-willed.

Perpetuating this ingrained societal habit is wrong, and a detriment to each generation we teach that it’s okay to make a disparaging and thoughtless remark about someone based one their color or gender or sexual orientation.

And I’ve been fuming about it for a while and the story about the kids at the pool put me over the top, so there you go. I felt the need to say something, so I’ve said it. Now you’ve heard it.

Okay, for anyone interested, here’s another vlogging entry of me reading some poetry.

*Death gave me a teddy bear.

We were hanging out for the day in her flat, which was kind of funny cuz it was my dream. She had a pink slipcover on her couch, with some flowers on it. We were just sitting on the couch, talking about this that and the other, the way friends do.

Then her brother, Dream, came over. He was cranky and out of sorts, then again, he mostly is anyway. He made Death all fidgety and needing to walk around. Dream seemed put out that I was there, but it was my dream and it was Death’s flat, so neither of us could figure out why he was being so cranky.

There was this teddy bear sitting on Death’s couch; dark brown, with black eyes, a nice big snout, jointed limbs, and a dark maroon ribbon around his neck. His eyes twinkled the way Dream’s do when he’s not being a pisser. Death decided I needed that teddy bear and gave it to me. I loved that teddy bear and Death was so cool! We’d become good friends and I was so happy to have this gift from her.

“What did you do that for? It’s not like she can take it with her.” Dream’s eyebrows had become one line, his face all scrunched up as he glared at Death and gestured at me. I was kinda hurt. I’d had sort of a crush on Dream and he wasn’t living up to the hype. Death was getting a little pissed at him herself, at this point.

“Maybe she can, besides, she can have it whenever she’s here.”

Their voices faded as I woke up. It was Los Angeles, California, 1995. The sun was bright, peeking through the curtains. There was no bear in my arms, but I still felt him there. It made me smile.

Within a week, I’d found him, the bear, sitting all alone in his dark bear-ness surrounded by pink and yellow flowery things in the baby section of a tiny store. Just like Death to hide her teddy bear in the middle of life.

So, I brought him home and named him Boo.

I haven’t been to Death’s flat since, at least, not that I can remember, but her gift always makes me smile.

*Death and Dream are characters from Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series. See pictures below.
 

Above, Death and Dream. Below, Boo and friends.