tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13292228306732959202024-02-08T13:11:46.854-05:00Dyssonanceone odd tgirl and a whole lotta strange stuff.:dyssonance:.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06671736966785541026noreply@blogger.comBlogger40125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1329222830673295920.post-4462379876786068412007-04-13T05:48:00.001-05:002007-04-13T05:48:35.307-05:00Blog has moved<p>The blog has moved: <a title="Dyssonance" href="http://dyssonance.wordpress.com" rel="tag">Click here</a></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">©2007 and on by .:dyssonance:. All rights reserved.</div>.:dyssonance:.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06671736966785541026noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1329222830673295920.post-62091920519445686732007-04-12T07:06:00.001-05:002007-04-12T07:06:04.821-05:00Purses and Pricks<p>Ok, I've now managed to <a title="My new wordpress blog" href="http://dyssonance.wordpress.com/" target="_blank" rel="tag">move my blog</a> (lordy, I am so freaking mercurial of late), and I'm sitting here on a Thrusday morning wondering why it is I just had to shove my stupid head into Topix in the first place.</p> <p>Oh, and shopping for a purse.</p> <p>My old purse is dead. </p> <p>Not surprising -- i sorta kinda inherited it, so it was not only out of style, but older than the hills.</p> <p>Which leaves me with a dilemma that I don't know how to survive.</p> <p>Were I to actually have something akin to readers, well, it'd be nice, lol -- I could ask them to assist me in this.</p> <p>I've never bought a purse before. Its my first time.</p> <p>My current purse's contents are in a disarray beside the desk. Reused altoid tins (my bad, bad habit of smoking is hidden within them). My trusty victorinox Ranger. A flashlight. Lighter. 'mones. meds. scissors. tissue. tweezers. Aother flarshlight (?), two wallets (I was lazy last time and had reason to present as male, so haven't bothered to switch back yet), insect repellent, pens, folded up scraps of paper. a pair of earrings I thought I'd lost, and, of course, makeup.</p> <p>I know have to add my cell phone to this mess (its recent, and I *hate* cell phones normally, but this one has saved my life).</p> <p>I know I'm anal and chaotic. So it needs to be a bag that's well organized but lets me still throw everything in there, lol</p> <p>And, lastly, it has to be cheap. In a few months I'll get a better bag -- this is my first one, and it just needs to get me through the hell of what I'm dealing with right now.</p> <p> </p> <p>I'm thinking of this one:<a title="http://www.target.com/gp/detail.html/ref=pd_ecc_rvi_1/601-8476212-9036924?ie=UTF8&asin=B000IHDXY0" href="http://www.target.com/gp/detail.html/ref=pd_ecc_rvi_1/601-8476212-9036924?ie=UTF8&asin=B000IHDXY0"><img src="http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/P/B000IHDXY0.16._SCLZZZZZZZ_SS260_V24258021_.jpg"></img></a></p> <p>Target, cheap, black, and should work ok for working in a call center. Yes, a call center. Not exactly glamorous work, but, well, you try getting a job as a TS.</p> <p>I'm lost though. I've got to stay under 50.</p> <p> Topix, on the other hand, is *really* pissing me off. I'm glad it is, htough -- I need to find a way to break away from it. Gain some sort of control over my interest in it. Drives me nuts though that there are people like "cam", who are intentionally postig all sorts of nasty stuff that's only hurtful to others. I really have a hard time really getting the mindset of someone like him figured. Pure FRI -- really sad.</p><div class="blogger-post-footer">©2007 and on by .:dyssonance:. All rights reserved.</div>.:dyssonance:.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06671736966785541026noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1329222830673295920.post-55539206345315855322007-04-11T21:02:00.000-05:002007-04-11T21:04:10.053-05:00MovingI like being able to write offline and then publish later.<br /><br />I like it a lot.<br /><br />FOr some reason, my tool no longer allows me to do that here. Therefore, I got annoyed.<br /><br />http://dyssonance.wordpress.com/<br /><br />Moved it.<br /><br />Again.<br /><br />*sigh*<div class="blogger-post-footer">©2007 and on by .:dyssonance:. All rights reserved.</div>.:dyssonance:.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06671736966785541026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1329222830673295920.post-79603051853806769472007-04-11T01:42:00.001-05:002007-04-11T01:42:06.744-05:00Little things<p>I'm bleeding today.</p> <p>Bleeding days are not fun days. They are not good days. They are interesting days. They are bleeding days. They are days when I lose blood.</p> <p>One would think that I'd be happy to do so, of course, I mean, hell, girls bleed all the freaking time, right?</p> <p>Except, my bleeding isn't a sign of fertility or propriety of plumbing. My bleeding is a sing that things are not remaining stable as they should. My bleeding is a reminder that I'm supposed to be avoiding stressful situations and getting upset, that I'm supposed to be enjoying a diet I cannot afford on a constant basis (you go try and eat salad every single day, twice a day, and tell me how cheap it is).</p> <p>Of course, I have a huge craving for all of it now, lol. I look at meat, of which I have plenty, and I'm non-plussed. This is a recent change, as well. One I am hoping is not long term and consistent (it is a craving, more than anything else).</p> <p>Bleeding days are like pictures of my children. Reminders that I'm 2500 miles away from home and that I would do damn near anything for the money to get back home faster than I'm getting it.</p> <p>And a reminder that I would do anything to get the money I need for what I am doing.</p> <p>I cannot talk to my doctor. They want to do tests, and they want money I don't have. Thanks to my particular issue, I can't look up local doctors because, well, the doctors around here are more likely to attempt euthanasia than to try and help me, I think. Although it might be the same to them...</p> <p>So I'm here, by myself, doing the things that I do, trying to scratch up enough stuff so that I can earn the money to head home. </p> <p>Once I get home, things will be easier. The situation whereby I ended up here was so comically preposterous and filled with kindness and coincidence that I would be a fool not to have taken it for the sign it was.</p> <p>But I don't have to like the lessons they teach.</p> <p>Bleeding days are days where I fear.</p> <p>I don't cry about them. The fear isn't of ending so much as its a fear of not reaching all the goals I've set forth. Its fear that I've overstepped my abilities and therefore not adequately understood all the odd little quirks about life as I know it.</p> <p>Its strange, really. The deaths of those I've loved have often been accompanied by a sense of loss for what *might have been*. And yet, with this one, I have no such issue. with this one, it is all about what *needs* to be, what I can make it be, now.</p> <p>Bleeding days are days when wondering about the past and the future becomes an examination of the present. When you see before you not <em>mortality</em>, but instead you see design, a puzzle, and sort of challenge to your sense of self and place within the greater scheme of things.</p> <p>You never get a set time. No one can sit there and say to you, in the rather austere and sterile confines of an exam room in a busy practice that you got into by calling up a favor, that you have so many hours, and tat your time is fixed.</p> <p>You get an estimate, a range. You get a set of markers along the highway that layout for you in no uncertain terms the slow and methodical approach that seeks to claim you.</p> <p>You get a choice.</p> <p>You can choose at that moment to let what lies behind dictate what lies ahead, or to let what lies ahead be dictated by what is now.</p> <p>Or you can choose to reach a tad further, and be prescient, and let what lies ahead be dictated by what lies ahead.</p> <p>On bleeding days, not a lot gets done. There are things to do, measurements to take, notes to write, analysis to perform. </p> <p>I put mine off all day. The day was overcast, and the damn Topix site was compelling me once again to enjoin and feed that adrenaline rush that I get from a sense of interaction.</p> <p>But I still had to do it. It is a bleeding day.</p> <p>And now I see that my interest in that adrenaline is indeed, well and truly, killing me.</p> <p>I won't stop, mind you. But I have to place it in its place, and take control over it.</p> <p>In the film "Under The Tuscan Sun", Frances is startled by a repetition of her own words: "I love terrible ideas", and those words conspire with a moment that's too wholly a function of omen to ignore that leads her into the purchase of an old villa.</p> <p>Its time for me to step back into the pursuit of my own terrible idea.</p> <p>And that one I'll save for a day when I'm not bleeding.</p> <p>For tonight, though, I keep as my company said film, and Chocolat. And, because it was so terribly ill timed, a trip into the past should time permit.</p> <p>We'll see.</p> <p>It is, after all, a bleeding day.</p><div class="blogger-post-footer">©2007 and on by .:dyssonance:. All rights reserved.</div>.:dyssonance:.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06671736966785541026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1329222830673295920.post-15316973887105037372007-04-09T18:11:00.001-05:002007-04-09T18:11:16.802-05:00Folly<p> </p> <p> <div class="wlWriterSmartContent" id="53357c8b-5919-4e32-8c25-305d27c17a37:ef397de4-58a7-4521-9ef8-87b336a0f03e" contenteditable="false" style="padding-right: 0px; display: inline; padding-left: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; margin: 0px; padding-top: 0px"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/sdUUx5FdySs" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></div></p> <p>Sometimes, we find ourselves in a position where we just can't take it anymore.</p> <p>Where a sadness grips us so deeply and strongly that we can barely grasp it, barely come to terms with it. Unless we act.</p> <p>Unless we take a few moments in our lives and build something.</p> <p>Something "impossible". Something Foolish. Our own personal folly.</p> <p>People use the words impossible and folly to indicate things that can't be done -- that shouldn't be done. Things for which the price or the consequence or the effort nvolved are too great for the reward that they see in it.</p> <p>Disneyland was one such folly.</p> <p>Getting on a wagon train and heading out west, young man was another such folly.</p> <p>Trying to reach for the moon was a folly.</p> <p>I have my own folly. I live it daily. And, like Kiwi, I'm doing it becuase I have only a few moments in which to find that single, small, heavenly slice of joy.</p> <p>There's a knowledge there, a certainty as the tale comes to its conclusion.</p> <p>we can all say there's a miracle beyond the credits, there's a new wonder beyond them. I'm going for that one, myself.</p> <p>But we know. Just as Kiwi knew.</p> <p>When you go up against impossible odds, and you succeed, even for but a moment, in standing for something that you believe in against the wave and tide and tragedy of impossible and foolish and selfish and insane, you come to a moment where there's something that *no* one will ever be able to take from you.</p> <p>Glory.</p> <p>And, for Glory, we all pay a consequence that's never too great.</p><div class="blogger-post-footer">©2007 and on by .:dyssonance:. All rights reserved.</div>.:dyssonance:.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06671736966785541026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1329222830673295920.post-6567434484344680092007-04-09T13:25:00.000-05:002007-04-09T13:26:00.051-05:00Mobile blogger test<div class="blogger-post-footer">©2007 and on by .:dyssonance:. All rights reserved.</div>.:dyssonance:.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06671736966785541026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1329222830673295920.post-50335014489713363042007-04-05T22:54:00.001-05:002007-04-05T22:54:43.990-05:00Hidden in plain sight<p>Sometimes, lol, you start to wonder about things that you encounter, and you feel this need to connect with something once again.</p> <p>I've mentioned before how a particular blog had had a tremendous impact on me, and that I ws feeling frutstrated that I hadn't bookmarked it effectively.</p> <p>When I asked around about it, I more or less got some suggestion here or there, but a few of them said to go to <a title="Amberspace" href="http://crystallinephoenixgroup.com/users/amber/index.html" target="_blank" rel="tag">Amberspace</a> and look there for the links. So, I did. And I followed the links she had there and hunted up differnet blogs and did his and did that and ... .. no dice, The mystery blog I had thought had been pulled down, and the the way that things went was lost. </p> <p>So, then I'm catching up at The Road To Venus, and Kara talks about how she ran into Amber. And something she said about Amber made me perk a second, and so I headed on over and I dug into the blogs therein, and ...</p> <p>Amber, thank you, should you ever have a reason to read this. :)</p> <p>--------------------------------------------------------------</p> <p> </p> <p>I stopped smoking.</p> <p>I need to work, to concentrate to focus on my ability to make something so I can make some money, and I quit smoking.</p> <p>For the second time since I've been here.</p> <p>I am an absolute idiot. I know how nasty my brain gets when I stop, and how distracted I become.</p> <p>If I make it through to morning, I'll feel sorta good...</p><div class="blogger-post-footer">©2007 and on by .:dyssonance:. All rights reserved.</div>.:dyssonance:.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06671736966785541026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1329222830673295920.post-44436289170110190282007-04-04T02:37:00.001-05:002007-04-04T02:37:11.905-05:00The New Colossus<p></p> <p align="center"><i><big><b>The New Colossus</b></big><br></p></i> <p align="center">Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,<br>With conquering limbs astride from land to land;<br>Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand<br>A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame<br>Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name<br>Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand<br>Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command<br>The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.<br>"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she<br>With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,<br>Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,<br>The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.<br>Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,<br>I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"<i><br>—<small>Emma Lazarus, 1883 av JC</small></i></p> <p> </p> <p>In general, I avoid issues of immigration.</font></p> <p>In Flatbush, Brooklyn, there stands a home built by a couple of indentured servants of Dutch extraction. It is the oldest frame house in America, iirc, and is known as the PIETER CLAESEN WYCKOFF HOUSE. My family traces its roots back to that home on one side, descended from one of the ten children of Pieter and his wife Grietje. While writing this, I googled a bit: <a title="http://depthome.brooklyn.cuny.edu/anthro/dept/wyckoff.htm" href="http://depthome.brooklyn.cuny.edu/anthro/dept/wyckoff.htm">http://depthome.brooklyn.cuny.edu/anthro/dept/wyckoff.htm</a></p> <p>I was raised to be proud of my family. To remember an care for my heritage. One of the more damaging aspects of my becoming something of a black sheep in the family is that with the passing of my mother, I became the custodian of the family archives. The full extent of our family history. IT made sense at the time - I knew it better than anyone in the family, and I'm told I have a penchant for bringing dry stuff to life and fire.</p> <p>That puts my family history in North America back to the early 1600's.</p> <p>On another side, the lineage falls back into the early 1800's, but literally dries up trying to go back before 1812, because bluntly, there's no information available.</p> <p>On my father's side, we have long questioned the authenticity of what little information we do know, and, since all the principles who did have any clue are dead at this point, well, its a bit of a challenge. But, it goes something like this: Around World War I, a Oglala Lakota Sioux member reportedly related to crazy horse joined the United States Army and traveled to Morocco at some point, where he met and married a wife that he then brought back home to the United States. Their son was my father. He was a singer, who had 1 little hit in the 50's ("G' ling G' ling Gee Gee", but also "tease me").</p> <p>That would put me into the category of going even further back in the United States. What's interesting is that thanks to my personal issues, I've had cause to have my schtuff checked, and the only trace to Africa for me is Moroccan. Nothing notably south.</p> <p>So I'm aligned as a native child (I consider myself an Arizonan first, American second), and then also a proud "old timer" family wise. I've got at least as much historical cache as the Mayflower folks in terms of immigration and settling.</p> <p>Then I up and married a second generation Mexican. :D Needless to say, my family hasn't ever really put much stock in the whole "own kind" thing.</p> <p> </p> <p>Lately, I've been involved in Topix a great deal -- I'll back off again here shortly, as there are money issues still popping up -- and, among the threads there, is one regarding an Ugandan woman seeking Asylum here in the states.</p> <p>In reading a couple of the threads, I am struck by some of the postings asking, basically, why we should grant her asylum. Her reason is persecution in her homeland.</p> <p>I'm an admitted jingoist. I love my country. I love the history and favor of it, I live the whole madness of it, the big things and little things.</p> <p>I love symbols, as well.</p> <p>One of our symbols is the Statue of Liberty. These days, most folks just think of her as "some big ass statue in new york". But she's a lot more than that.</p> <p>I've never been to see her. Its something I would like to do one day.</p> <p>She was brought to this country to celebrate Republicanism (something that many Americans these days have absolutely no clue about -- and believe me, it shows when you start to talk about rights and see the word "democratic" thirty freaking times in a row), but that's not what she ended up standing for.</p> <p>When She arrived in this Country, she was christened "Liberty Enlightening The World". Making her and getting her here was an enormous feet for the time and day, involving many years and a sea trip that was basically described as pretty much almost a disaster.</p> <p>She was built using donated money by French Citizens. The United States was unable to actually buy her. We had to build the base for her, though, and for years there was a great deal of concern over the waste of money or the reason for us to build something that was being built by foreigners who still hadn't figured out how to set up their own country.</p> <p>One of the more famous stories of the fund raising was the newspaper request for pennies. It's true, and William Pulitzer, iirc, was instrumental in getting those pennies.</p> <p>During that fundraising campaign, there was am Auction performed to raise funds. The poem, above was used then. It soon fell from memory, until just after dedication, and was affixed to the statue's base (inside the Pedestal) in 1903.</p> <p>She faces the sea. Intentionally. She is a symbol of Freedom and Liberty, and Hope, and Safety.</p> <p>She represents the United States. Who we are, and why we are here.</p> <p>I believe too many people have forgotten that. Too many people dismiss all of it as sentimental nonsense -- after all, those ideals are all nice and fine, but we do have a country to run here.</p> <p>I'm sure that Pieter Wyckoff felt the same. After all, who needs ideals. Like Liberty, Justice, Freedom.</p> <p>Hope.</p> <p>Safety.</p> <p>They say she shouldn't be allowed, these Americans. They say a lot of things.</p> <p>And I look to that poem above, and I shake my head. They say everything that shouldn't be said. Everything that is wrong and cruel and mean and so similar to the words once used so long ago to others, who had no source of refuge.</p> <p>And so they had to go and start anew, in a wild place. Many died. Entire Towns seemingly vanished.</p> <p>And as it grew, they remembered.</p> <p>As do I.</p> <p>It is unAmerican. We are the land of freedom, not the land of fascist border walls and denial. </p> <p>I just wish we'd remember it sometimes.</p><div class="blogger-post-footer">©2007 and on by .:dyssonance:. All rights reserved.</div>.:dyssonance:.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06671736966785541026noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1329222830673295920.post-3253540805604209852007-04-02T11:25:00.001-05:002007-04-02T11:25:19.183-05:00The Monday Melee<p></p> <p>I'm getting brave and joining a "thing". <p><strong>1. The Misanthropic: Name something (about humanity) you absolutely hate.</strong></p> <p>The lack of opposable toes.</p> <p>No, really. I'm a klutz, and usually my desk is crowded and cluttered and covered with all manner of odds and ends, and when I shift around or reach for something, I knock things off. And opposable toes would make it a lot easier to get those things. (although, I'm dextrous enough to pick up small things)</p> <p><br><strong>2. The Meretricious: Expose something or someone that’s phony, fraudulent or bogus.</strong></p> <p>ugh. tough one. requires me to actually look for new icky stuff, since all the good ones have probably been done.</p> <p>Ah well, we'll use a goody: the old argument that gays make bad parents is fraudulent. It relies on an emotional construct and familiarity to hold water -- but breaks down utterly under examination.</p> <p><strong><br></strong><strong>3. The Malcontent: Name something you’re unhappy with.</strong></p> <p>My waist. And the situps are working fast enough, and hurt too darn much.</p> <p><br><strong>4. The Meritorious: Give someone credit for something and name it if you can.</strong></p> <p>I give Trishous credit for being true to herself no matter what someone hurls at her :D</p> <p><br><strong>5. The Mirror: See something good about yourself and name it.</strong></p> <p>I'm wearing size 8 jeans. And I look good in them.</p> <p><br><strong>6. The Make-Believe: Name something you wish for. </strong></p> <p>A private 40 acre retreat in the desert that's fully self sustaining.</p> <p> </p> <p>-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------</p> <p>yes, I changed the name.</p> <p>Dyssonance worked better for me, lol -- its less vindictive than the previous, and has the same overall qualities, while being more accurate :D</p><div class="blogger-post-footer">©2007 and on by .:dyssonance:. All rights reserved.</div>.:dyssonance:.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06671736966785541026noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1329222830673295920.post-7822262387618324202007-04-01T00:08:00.001-05:002007-04-01T00:08:04.406-05:00Same Sex Marriage, I<p>You know what this is about? </p> <p>This is about denying the right of others to have a family. <p>Despite what many propagandists would like people to believe, marriage is not a union of a man or a woman, nor two people who love each other. <p>Marriage is the social convention for establishment of a family. That's all it is. That's all it has ever been. The rest is window dressing -- ancillary crap that floats around and makes it all look more desirable. <p>Why should it be desirable? Because the family is the core unit of society, the brick of which civilization is built. The more desirable it is, the stronger the society, and more durable, and longer lasting. The most powerful societies in all of history have had extremely refined and broad definitions and declensions of family and familial obligation, all surrounding the critical aspects of kinship. <p>Who is related to whom. <p>In our society, despite the window dressing of feminism and the artificial construct of the nuclear family foisted on the country in the 1950's and 1960's for economic purposes, when a woman marries a man, she "leaves" her family and joins his. <p>This is signified by her taking his name. The modern extension as it has developed basically has him "leaving" his family as well, and together they create a "new" family -- but she still joins him.<br>That's the patriarchy at work. <p>They become related to one another through the civil act of union, normally called marriage in English ( from old French -- prior to that it was a rite of kyning, overseen by the cyth or cythu in English).*That's* what people are forgetting in all this argument and pissing contest, and, well, I'm finally tired of it. <p>There are only three ways to establish kinship in our society. You have to be born into it, or you have to marry into it, or you have to be adopted. <p>For all the talk of preserving the idea of family, opposition to the right of gays to marry is, basically, denying them the right to found a family -- to establish kinship. In short, they are trying to destroy families in order to save a narrow and convoluted artificial construct they want to label as the family. Social engineering at its best (and, admittedly, that's actually part of the job of a religion in society). <p>Kinship is what says you are someone's child. You are the child of *two* people. No matter how hard you try to wrangle it, there is no legal means for two gays to set up kinship for a single child as being related to both of them. <p>And legally -- that is, within the eyes of the society at large and in a manner that grants the benefits and duties and lineage and all that good stuff that so many people take for fucking granted because it is so deeply embedded in their lives that they can't see it -- is all that matters. <p>Screw the whole "acceptance" crap -- that's about as true as the idea of a "gay agenda" -- and realistically, most folks know that. Being gay is not heteronormative. It will never be "accepted" in a heteronormative society, with its rigid gender roles and tight little comfy niches that people have to fit into. This is about something *more important* that acceptance. Something outside that. This is about a fundamental right that is being denied. <p>So all that expensive and costly paperwork, all those forms and dues and tradeoffs that aren't passable at the federal level or recognized outside the state jurisdiction that people say should be "good enough", and that have to be updated at the same costs each and every time there is a life change, can do all the pretend stuff. They can mimic -- though not provide -- the whole issue of family. <p>But they are not "good enough". <p>They cannot make a family. Because they cannot establish kinship. <p>And Kinship is what this is all about: denying it to others.</p><div class="blogger-post-footer">©2007 and on by .:dyssonance:. All rights reserved.</div>.:dyssonance:.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06671736966785541026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1329222830673295920.post-49642541348200555252007-03-29T05:53:00.001-05:002007-03-29T05:53:57.899-05:00Betrayal<p> </p> <p>Nothing stings quite so harshly, or quite so deeply as it. In the world of politics -- especially online -- betrayal is wicked and callous and uncaring and its ever so common.</p> <p>And, for TS folk, its an everyday occurrence.</p> <p>We get betrayed by our friends in thoughtless moments of conversation, betrayed by old habits during casual outings, betrayed by those who have stepped up to speak for us, betrayed by those who seek to legislate for us, betrayed by those who give us the very care we spend so much effort seeking or avoiding.</p> <p>Betrayed by our erstwhile Allies.</p> <p> </p> <p>I'm fairly vocal, reasonably erudite, and I like to think that I have some sort of miniscule impact on others by being implacably accurate and correct when I argue with not a small amount of passion in favor of gay rights.</p> <p>I'm not notably activist minded. I have little desire to exist before the cameras and within the press, to have my privacy removed from me. I am a one person at a time sort of girl, making a point of talking about it, and doing my best not necessarily to change minds, but to change knowledge -- and then hoping that it, in and of itself, will do the job for me.</p> <p>It usually works. Comparable success rate in selling things using the same formula is about 65% when they don't want it, 90% when they do. The rest, well, they don't want it and don't care.</p> <p>And I've been doing so for quite some time. At no small risk to myself, but, well, its worth it.</p> <p> </p> <p>As I've been doing this, ENDA has been slowly winding its way through different congressional procedures, drawing support and setting up for what everyone, naturally, hopes will be a big ole active deal come next month. And, given the President signs pretty much everything that crosses his desk, that's expected too.</p> <p>Except, you know...</p> <p>Every single time ENDA has gone through this before, at the last minute, to get that one single vote for passage, they made a deal.</p> <p>They, being the political action committee that does all of this work, compromise.</p> <p>They cut something out. They reduce the challenges. They make it easier for it to get through, because its *that* important.</p> <p> </p> <p>And the thing they compromise on is TS folks. They get chopped out, kicked to the corner, left in the dust. Like they have been for every single other major piece of legislation.</p> <p>Its so bad, so obvious, so reliable a tactic, that they have gone to great lengths to swear up and down that they won't do it again. They have to stand up and tell us they won't do it again. They have to sell it to us that this time we're going to be safe too.</p> <p>And it will be the same as before. They will still betray us. Everything else does.</p> <p> </p> <p>Our Allies in this cause are, nominally, other GLB folks.</p> <p>And, often, they are far more understanding, for more accepting, and far more able to deal with us. But, far too often, they are also far worse than those who we oppose on their behalf.</p> <p>These soldiers of gay rights blow their horns loudly and proudly and walk out and face the enemy and use words for their weapons and knowledge as their shield, and have zero understanding or comprehension of the foe they battle, and wonder, in private, why they are so unable to win greater victories.</p> <p>And then there are the TS people. Who do understand, and who do have sharper weapons and better shields, and who fight alongside them right up until they fall.</p> <p>forgotten.</p> <p>kicked off to the side.</p> <p>left to rot in the sun.</p> <p> </p> <p>My first, and most recent, experiences with transphobia have been with gay men. In both cases, they thought they had it all figured out. They felt that they, somehow, knew more about TS folks than we do. They call us gay men without guts, or lesbians who are too butch.</p> <p>The first time, I was the target. It started simply enough, but ended in a wicked display of how fast from my little perch I can descend, and how vile I, too, can become. I don't regret having said the things I said -- the purpose was to make him feel as bad as he had made me feel -- but I am ashamed as I had to use arguments akin to those I fight each day, that were far more personal and a hell of a lot stronger.</p> <p>Because, ultimately, there is a good, logical reason to deny gay rights. I've seen some folks come close, but they've never quite reached it, and I generally know why, but I will never, even to a friend, explain what it is until after they are secured -- or I switch to the other side.</p> <p>The most recent time I was wasn't. It was a friend of mine -- one that didn't deserve what she walked into. One that has done more with less cause than the clod who accosted her has done. He put far too much importance on his efforts there, and claimed we were all the usual things, and said it nastily -- not pleasantly, but nastily.</p> <p>It was infuriating. He blindsided her, and, in that moment, betrayed her.</p> <p>And me, and every other TS who has ever spoken out on behalf of gay rights.</p> <p>And every other gay man and every lesbian.</p> <p>But, like I said, we're TS. Betrayal is an every day occurrence.</p> <p> </p> <p>I just hope that, maybe, one day, betrayal itself with betray us, and we'll be free to be human again.Song: <em><a title="Rhapsody Song Search for Lost In The Shadows (The Lost Boys)" href="http://www.rhapsody.com/-search?searchtype=RhapTrack&query=Lost In The Shadows (The Lost Boys)">Lost In The Shadows (The Lost Boys)</a></em> by<em> <a title="Rhapsody Artist Search for Various" href="http://www.rhapsody.com/-search?searchtype=RhapArtist&query=Various">Various</a></em></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">©2007 and on by .:dyssonance:. All rights reserved.</div>.:dyssonance:.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06671736966785541026noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1329222830673295920.post-36481833556876157102007-03-27T15:15:00.001-05:002007-03-27T15:15:23.613-05:00Passing Time on the mountain<p>Been an interesting couple of days. Highly internalized.</p> <p>This morning, I said goodbye to a friend. </p> <p>I don't know her history that well. I don't *really* even know her name. In a strange quirk about me, I tend to remember and think of people in terms of the manner I was introduced to them.</p> <p>So, say, I meet someone online, and then get to know them, even after I know their real name, I tend to use their online name. This is easy when people use both, but in the world of forums, one tends to rather quickly take on a special "moniker", your webnym, and that belongs to you.</p> <p>Its stupid, I know, but I do it anyway. I'm odd like that.</p> <p>I had wanted to sorta kinda celebrate this passing for her -- her time on the mountain is over, and she's taking a rather large risk and actually crawling out into the world.</p> <p>For nearly two months, she's been someone I could talk to. Someone I could share things with -- talk about, listen, do the whole coffee thing. Which I *get* now. And enjoy. And I will miss her very much.</p> <p>Friendship is complicated. Friendship is something I give freely, openly, to all and sundry. I have friends I've only argued with online. I have friends who don't think of me as one. I have friends that other people think are enemies of mine.</p> <p>Friendship is free.</p> <p>And, since I am heavily into the whole solitary thing, that seems to mean that friendships -- especially those which somehow help to validate things -- are important to me.</p> <p>I like her. She's funny, she's smart, she's amazing at times and in ways that are hard to describe. And I miss her.</p> <p>So last night, I made a special shifting of my sleeping patterns to go over an see her, and she was gone. But, later, I found what time she would be leaving this morning and made sure I said goodbye.</p> <p>And now I've been freaking weepy all day.</p> <p>Its a kind of mixed weepy, as well -- sadness and loss from her leaving, but also a bit of thrill and hope and excitement that I have to temper.</p> <p>The second part is strange in light of the above, of course. But that's why its below.</p> <p>I looked at my face today.</p> <p>Probably seems odd to most people, I'd think, that doing so is noteworthy. Near as I can tell, people look at themselves all the time. I do know that a lot of the time its to look at a *part*: hair, lips, ears, nose, eyes...</p> <p>I looked at my whole face today.</p> <p>I don't do that often. I've avoided it since I lost my hair and the first damage from sun and smoking and piss poor diet kicked in. I don't like it. The nose is too big, the eyes seem hollow, the bald area on the top of it that offends me.</p> <p>And I noted, as I looked at that face, that it was different.</p> <p>I know it has to happen. Its part of the whole issue. But I wasn't prepared for it.</p> <p>Because, I saw new things. Things which weren't so bad.</p> <p>Including the fact that the old bald was now simply very thin.</p> <p>That was a shock. I knew that hairs had come in, and I had gotten excited when they did of course -- but that died soon because I knew they were just sorta pretend hairs. Not real ones, and they wouldn't do much good. But it made me feel good.</p> <p>And its been slow. And they have been growing.</p> <p>When I lost my hair (and I lost most of it in my early 20's) I was devastated. They didn't have the things today, and it was well known that anything you ever did was going to be, well, worthless.</p> <p>By the time they came out with them, I was too far gone, so, eh. </p> <p>The other options were expensive, and secretive, and confined to late night infomercials. And that money had more important uses at the time.</p> <p> </p> <p>But I had changed.</p> <p>And it looked better. Not perfect -- my nose wasn't smaller or eyes less shadowed and cursed by dark circles I've had since I was 14.</p> <p>but better.</p> <p>And I could look at it.</p> <p>right up until the tears blocked the view.</p> <p>this, on the heels of the day before, wherein a top that I adore fit better. </p> <p>Still growing there, but that also brought me to tears.</p> <p>Its good stuff. Slept with a silly grin on my face last night, that was only taken away by this morning.</p> <p>I also noticed I need to seriously stick to my old routine for skin care.</p> <p>And that when I get back home, some people are going to be rather shocked. That's bad -- but, well, that's tough.</p> <p> </p> <p>So good flight, my friend. Good flight, and good landing, and pleasant journey.</p> <p>I miss you. And I am ever so glad to have met you. I'm a better person for having done so.</p><div class="blogger-post-footer">©2007 and on by .:dyssonance:. All rights reserved.</div>.:dyssonance:.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06671736966785541026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1329222830673295920.post-44580110978788241712007-03-25T10:23:00.001-05:002007-03-25T10:23:07.454-05:00Reflections in a pane of glass<p> <a href="http://takingsteps.blogspot.com/2007/03/phone-booths-ii-green-room.html">Link to Taking Steps: phone booths, ii: the green room.</a> </p> <p> </p> <p>Little Light is an experienced blogger. That is, she's come to a point where her blog is fairly well know and she's fairly well read -- at least, so it seems to me.</p> <p>I'm new at all of this. I learn fast the greater things, but the subtleties often slip by me at first. So I'm catching up on the subtleties.</p> <p>Really new, to all of it.</p> <p>I first encountered Little Light in a thread that I no longer recall how it came to me. It was a comment thread on a feminist site. I had been reading the blogs for about three weeks at the time, and was alternating between tossing them all aside or diving in wholeheartedly (and I've sorta settled for standing here and casually sorta nonchalantly waiting to see if I get noticed).</p> <p>The comment thread had degenerated into a nasty, nasty flame war, and the subject of said flame war was TS folk. It hadn't started that way, but boy, did it devolve there. Toss in women of color, and a few others, and it got nastier than nasty, and makes for a great image of the difference between the WASP-y types and then pretty much everyone else in social outlook and conceptualization.</p> <p>Its pretty cool, on some levels, really, but, on a more personal one, its sadder than all get out.</p> <p>It was around the same time that I had been reading a blog that made all the difference to me, personally, in the world. I don't recall the name, and I lack the link, and I suspect that its no longer online (but for a programmer that lived in SF of Asian descent, I submit a huge thank you). There was a commonality of sensation between them.</p> <p>In any case, I began reading her, and then fell into the obsession with Topix, and stopped, and recently started again.</p> <p>I didn't link to de profundis, although it made me weepy, because that wasn't something I can adequately respond to. I could, prolly, but, well, that's not a place I want to go -- its angry and ugly and I'm so very, very tired of angry and ugly.</p> <p>Then I missed a cute little one, and then there is this one.</p> <p>This caught my attention.</p> <p> </p> <p>I'm not an actor.</p> <p>I did enjoy it, and did it in the usual way, appearing in pretty much every single school anything as a kid in grade and high school. Even participated in debate as well, and did fairly well there. But as an actor, I sorta suck. Much better stage crew. 3rd string fill in on an empty theatre night -- a wanna be at best, an example of how not to be otherwise.</p> <p>My problem,though, is that I'm a con artist.</p> <p>Not in the sense that I do major stings or anything remotely resembling grifting, but in the sense that I've learned very well the things she talks about regarding creating something that *seems* real.</p> <p>More real than real.</p> <p>It served critically as the means by which I wove my little shell around myself, created the presence that I have for others. But, always, there is a sense of guilt and regret as I moved through life, because that same capability, that skill at conning, led itself to other areas, and , in my youth, I was nowhere near as principled as I am now.</p> <p>Indeed, if I were characterize myself back then it would be as amoral.</p> <p>Amoral and possessed of rage. Closed off from others. Hmm -- any wonder I have a terror of being a sociopath? Despite the fact I almost certainly am?</p> <p>I know those senses of practicing, of blurring, of observing little details. I pulled mine from images larger than life, directly. Films and books predominantly, taking chunks of those iconic figures and blending them together.</p> <p>When you start to lie so often, so readily, so deeply, everything becomes a lie. You learn about the secrets of lies, how to take 90% of the truth and 10% of something else -- and, for a con man, that's always from the mook, the target -- and make it seem real, even though, ultimately, it is as hollow as an empty promise.</p> <p>You learn the value of packaging. Marketing. Salesmanship.</p> <p>And I am told I am a great salesperson. I have difficulty believing it, because I don't do closes that well. I do usually close, but it is *always* up to the person being sold to to make that final decision, and I never push.</p> <p>Another bit of the con.</p> <p>I developed a very distinct persona growing up. It was bracing -- one tends to either like me, or hate me. Very little in between, and when there is, its also based on something about me that is intentionally memorable, something that is decidedly out of place, that distracts and fixes attention.</p> <p>Something I pick for precisely that reason.</p> <p>And like her carefully practiced role, I developed this persona, this shell of a person worn as armor around my body, forged by clothing and demeanor and this weird ability I have of sorta figuring things out about people by looking at them (the Internet is good that way -- I can rarely see those I talk with, so I don't have to deal with that, don't have to use it).</p> <p>It was what they expected in part, and what they did not, in part -- but that was always something that was still within their grasp.</p> <p>I wore glasses when I repaired computers for living. I had two pairs. One of them was literally held together by solder and wire and black tape. The other was fine.</p> <p>Guess which ones I wore when dealing with customers as a geek.</p> <p>And what did they always remember?</p> <p>And every night I still wished. By my teens, I literally begged for the Devil to do it. Would have sold my soul. In my 20's, it was begging, pleading, deal making -- just a few years, and then I can come back to this hell, or even one year, just one, just, please.</p> <p>And I cried each morning as I put on my suit again. Letting it support me, letting it carry me through the day, a smiling and unpresuming person of no special interest that would almost always walk away with your money in his hands if you had it and he wanted it. And you'd feel good.</p> <p>While I felt dirty.</p> <p>Not because of the con, though. That's working or surviving and hey -- ultimately, everyone does that (I in turn would give that money to people who asked me for it -- groceries, gas, beggars, bystanders).</p> <p>And now, oddly enough, I not only have to take away that armor, strip off that shell, and discard those hard fought for tricks and little bits that allowed me to avoid the nastiest of things.</p> <p>I also have to find a way to jump through hoops of others' devising, hoops that the "old" me could tackle with little more than a smile and an aside. Without running a con.</p> <p>And then, from there, I get to start it all over again. Only this time, instead of the suit being too big, and too heavy, and too plastic, it will be genuine, </p> <p>authentic</p> <p>and organic.</p> <p>And I'll still be running cons, just to survive...</p><div class="blogger-post-footer">©2007 and on by .:dyssonance:. All rights reserved.</div>.:dyssonance:.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06671736966785541026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1329222830673295920.post-44199516224381545972007-03-24T02:41:00.001-05:002007-03-24T02:48:41.633-05:00Transition Stories & More...<p>Not sure how this one will come out. Could be short (feels like it), but that usually means it'll be long.</p> <p>Yesterday, after rising at the peculiar hour of 6:30am (the last week or so has played havoc with my usual sleeping patterns which are still struggling to reassert themselves), and actually managing to find myself connected around 8 ish, I worked pretty much non stop until about 6:30pm.</p> <p> </p> <p>When I say non stop, I mean that if you total up all the moments that I got up from this chair (potty, food, tea, stretch) and all the moments I did something not work related, you get a sum total of just under an hour.</p> <p>I mean, I sat down and I worked like I really work.</p> <p>Most of it was spent on my company website, although a bit of it was to spy on the community that I stepped out of without warning about 6 months ago as I cam to deal with this strangeness about me that has taken over my life.</p> <p>6 months ago, I was working hard on getting things set up for what was supposed to be, in the end, a New Year's release of the site. After the collapse of the last team of people working with me, I sorta lost the heart. Four years of constant, unending, nerve wracking effort, gone. And While I should accept some of the blame, I don't -- I put it all on the heads of two people who got all pissy and we up and had a massive catfight that took 6 months to wreak its whole fallout.</p> <p>And then I got hit with the collapse of my denial.</p> <p>So, for six months, the site has been, in the most mild of terms, dead. I have, at best, popped into the community itself about, oh, 6 times. Each time very quietly, and without trying to attract notice.</p> <p>And it appears that I somehow had managed (though God only knows) to have developed a whole crew of people who actually give a damn about me. I came across several threads asking, and, of course, no one had a clue. There was fretting. </p> <p>I'm rather startled, and exceptionally pleased.</p> <p>But wait -- it gets better, lol.</p> <p>As I worked on the new site today, someone noticed I was doing so. And then someone else popped in. and then someone else. There was a post saying "yay, you are back".</p> <p>Its a little thing. Really. The whole time I have been sorta absent, I've still kept in touch with my closest friends in a private group, but, well, they are close friends, lol.</p> <p>But that little thing -- that simple act of celebrating that I've returned when I haven't the foggiest clue of who they are, lol -- meant tons.</p> <p>So I have this little wave crest inside me, and once again I'm in the zone, happy and thinking and excited and ready to make it count like nothing else.</p> <p>Yeah. I'm back :D</p> <p>Oh lordy, they are *so* gonna be surprised.</p> <p> </p> <p>Now, among the things that are happening at the site is that my enjoyment of this one here has led me to consider actually setting up a blog there. For some of that "viral marketing" crap I talked about earlier. Also, it allows me to sorta set things up as a bit of a wild outsider who doesn't give a damn -- a rebel and a cowgirl, who takes the bull by the horns in one of the most politically correct places I've ever encountered.</p> <p>Don't expect a link, lol. That particular part of my life will remain separate from this one, forever.</p> <p>Which is where I come to the next part.</p> <p>I received an email.</p> <p>Emails don't come often to me under my main account at present. I like that. It gives more weight to them. My biz account, of course, gets about 300 messages a day, a third junk, another third stuff I don't give a damn about, and the last third mostly stuff that takes about an hour to burn through.</p> <p>What's more interesting, is that I don't give out this new email account.</p> <p>And I got an email.</p> <p>Addressed to me. Not by error, not by mistake. I hope to find out how and why at some point, but, in the interim, I should note the email asked a question:</p> <p>"Hey, trannie, I thought all you trannie bloggers had transition stories. Boo hoo's and bullshit about mutilating yourselves to make you feel better. Where the hell are yours, or are you faking it?"</p> <p>As you can tell, it was from someone who has a deep and abiding love of trannies, whatever the hell they are.</p> <p>I'm not a trannie. No, really, I'm not. I'm a transsexual, but I *despise* that word. I mean, come on -- look at it. It has all the visceral aesthetics of a lump of dirt, and that's insulting lumps of dirt. Its an ugly word -- bad combination of letters, no appeal. And then there's the whole definition, which is nasty as well, plus the connotations and stigma's associated with it and all that.</p> <p>Bleh.</p> <p>I'm just me, and I'm modifying my GUI. Yeah, GUI, lol. Gender-based User Interface.</p> <p>But, more to the point, why don't I talk about transition stuff?</p> <p>Well, that's because this isn't about a thematic presentation of life as a TS.</p> <p>This is about me. And transition, while it occupies a very large part of my life, is not all there is to me, nor will it be. This is about me living my life. Good, bad, indifferent, there it is. </p> <p>Mine are here, as well. I pulled old archived files and moved them around. They are are here, somewhere. The heartache ad misery and all that crap.</p> <p>I could write about how the other day my ex called and we talked like we used to do and she sounded really good and happy and then broke the news that my sons are still a little miffed at me for the timing of my current debacle. That was little bumming.</p> <p>I could talk about how I'm still practicing my voice, but that I don't like it at all, and need to start over again and find a new spot for it that isn't as "reaching" if you get what I mean.</p> <p>And, odds are damned good that when I reach a point of one of those things weighing heavily on my mind, I will.</p> <p>But, in the meantime, I'm going to keep on keeping on. :D</p> <p>Catch ya later :D</p> <p> </p> <p>-------------------------</p> <p> </p> <p>Update on the current goings on, lol.</p> <p>Yesterday morning hostess came and visited and suggested that come a few hours from the time I write this, we'll sit down and "talk about my future, and the building blocks of who I am".</p> <p>Which should prove interesting. I highly suspect that people don't *quite* <em>get</em> the whole thing about me liking myself. Hopefully, I won't find myself bereft of lodging as a result of what I believe will continue to be attempts at bettering me as a person.</p> <p>Related:</p> <p>1 - I'm posting this at a quarter to 4 in the morning. My inet wasn't shut off. That's a startling change of pace, and a most welcome one. As I endeavor to start my second round of caffeine intake, it will give me the ability to set up the blog, hopefully before they appear to start that whole concept.</p> <p>2 - THe reason I was able to sit and get so much done yesterday may, indeed, be due to the Rage. I mentioned that I use it to fuel everything, and suddenly I have energy again. I just hope that It doesn't ever build up like it used to, and that I'm more able to deal with it.</p><div class="blogger-post-footer">©2007 and on by .:dyssonance:. All rights reserved.</div>.:dyssonance:.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06671736966785541026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1329222830673295920.post-45631907999727236802007-03-23T10:04:00.001-05:002007-03-23T10:04:24.315-05:00Meeting a Tree<p>IF you ever chance to meet a tree</p> <p>With thick old trunk and wide canopy</p> <p>Stop for a moment and just make known</p> <p>How thankful you are that it chose to grow</p> <p> </p> <p>So</p> <p>You know how people are...</p> <p>There's something, well, different about this. Something unique and special and strange that I'm starting to find that I like. I'm starting to get a grasp of the whole Blog thing, and I'm beginning to realize the subtle intricacies of it.</p> <p>For the last three or four years, I haven't really paid too much attention to blogs. They weren't all that exciting to me, weren't all that interesting. The ones you often hear about generally fell into three groups:</p> <p>Politics<br>Gossip<br>Viral Marketing</p> <p>And, well, I just don't have a whole hell of a lot to say that I suspect would be of great interest to anyone beyond myself on those subjects.</p> <p>Poultices: I like small government, fewer entitlement programs, better accountability, more freedom, more defensive posture.</p> <p>Gossip: I kinda check in on American Idol when the headline is good in the little drop down, but I could care less who else is fucking up their lives beyond all recognition when they have bazillions of dollars and haven't given me any of them.</p> <p>Viral marketing: unless I'm doing the selling, no thank you -- I haven't the money to buy whatever crap it is you are hurling out that won't make me a better person anyway, and if I'm interested in it in the first place, then its likely already on my list or getting ready to be bought.</p> <p>But this whole Blogging thing I like.</p> <p>I like it because it allows me to be me. It allows me to vent my thoughts and see them there before me, and possibly work through a few things. I don't have to worry about the f'd up connection twixt my mouth and brain that works at about a 60th of the speed, and requires me to be retain a train of thought whilst effort is being made to derail said train by those I'm speaking to.</p> <p>It means that I can be a selfish little bitch all I want to be. It means that I can put up my silly little doggerel and that I can play with concepts and ideas and also that I can just say pooh to the things I want to say pooh to.</p> <p> It means I can cry when I want to cry, exult when I want to exult, share when I want to share. Its means that when someone wants to know about me, inside, they can come here and get one viewpoint that they will *never* get any other way.</p> <p>See, in person, I'm generally quiet. I sit there, and I smile. If the conversation is about something I have an interest in, I'll pipe up on occasion. When spoken to, I can be animated, but, well, if I don't know you, and I'm not comfortable around you, I generally become a wallflower of the worst kind.</p> <p>Once I am comfy, though, I'm a nightmare. I have strong opinions that I like to think are well reasoned and based in something less nebulous than some half assed argument tossed at me with a bit of flaire by whatever radio jackass happened to be on the station when I was stuck in a stall during rush hour. And I defend them passionately and forcefully, my body language kicking in and expression stern. </p> <p>But, mostly, really, I just sit back and watch. Its more interesting that way.</p> <p>here I don't have those restrictions of social interplay that I don't particularly care for. The people I do like to talk to are all odd anyway, and putting a bunch of odd people face to face in a room is a recipe for the fomenting of rebellions or the collapse of Civilization-As-We-Know-It.</p> <p>All of which, really, is to say this: I like to blog because it gives me a way to think that's best for me, and that isn't going to take up boxes and boxes of space in my storage that people will never want to read anyway.</p> <p> </p> <hr> <p> </p> <p>And yes, once again I am without inet as I write this. Last night seems to have been a bit of a reprieve, as I gained a bit of extra time that I made use of (roughly 4 hours more than the usual, which lulled me, and then was cut off).</p> <p>This whole thing has, basically, made me have to avoid Topix. Which, in part, is the Goal. I haven't posted because I haven't come up with a new name under which to do so, and I'm unwilling to plop down my efforts under a name that doesn't have at least some direct bearing on me as a person. I have to change name because if I don't, those who control my access (for the moment, at least) will opt to shut it out and down on seeing me post.</p> <p>eh. </p> <p>It has meant that I get to enjoy other things, though.</p> <p> </p> <p>Things that bother me:</p> <p> </p> <p>1 - Blogger doesn't let me upload files. I know there's an FTP thingy and all that, but, well, its annoying. The picture thing is cool. And there are other little bits and pieces I like.</p> <p>2 - I actually got to keep my hosting for another month, (or, 20 days, as the case may be) so while I write this, I also have a wordpress blog set up and ready to go, with three wonderful domains pointing to it. But nothing new going to it.</p> <p>I may, however, simply use it to host the files for here, and then perhaps do a repoint or something.</p> <p> </p> <p>3 - home is a long way from here, and I miss it terribly.</p> <p>4 - I keep retreating more into boymode. That realy irks the crap out of me, as it means I'm getting defensive, and I haven't pinpointed the way to step out of it yet.</p> <p>5 - Life isn't as colorful when you can't see.</p> <p>and that's enough for today...</p><div class="blogger-post-footer">©2007 and on by .:dyssonance:. All rights reserved.</div>.:dyssonance:.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06671736966785541026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1329222830673295920.post-88806167836970841092007-03-22T08:19:00.001-05:002007-03-22T08:19:03.796-05:00Tightening the noose.<p>When I lived in Tucson, lo those many years ago, and went to school, money was always something of a challenge. </p> <p>It came from the jobs I had at the time (7-11 clerk, Sizzler manager, some other one I don't recall), from the schools I went to at the time (the career college and the Uni), and from whatever odds and ends I could pick up selling off my library.</p> <p>After the collapse of the roomie sitch (4 bedrooms, 7 people) I went from place to place. Towards the end, I was living in a different apartment every two months, moving just ahead of the court system, until I finally crashed out in a tiny little furnished studio, living on koolaid, tea, and that standard staple, ramen by the boatload.</p> <p>As miserable as I was in a lot of ways back then, it actually wasn't bad.</p> <p>The last couple of years in the one bedroom in Glendale were actually pretty nice, as was the year in the Studio there back when.</p> <p>When I made plans to get here, I had determined I'd need 3 grand to get back home. That would give me enough to pay rent, deposits, and utilities for 2 months whilst I ran for the entry level job at the call centers I've chosen. It would, ideally, give me a tiny bit of breathing room, allow me to be less in a panic mode when I arrive, and give me a brief respite.</p> <p>The events of the last couple of days has made me rethink that well planned sitch out so that I am now going to go for the minimum needed to get there, get any place I can find (typically one of the arm and a leg monthlies), and pray I can keep going. Downside, is that this plan only cuts my needs in half.</p> <p> </p> <p>However, I am being handed lemons. And, as anyone who knows me is aware, lemonade is one of my favorite drinks.</p> <p>So, I will, barring forcible removal, figure out a way to stay.</p> <p>Doesn't help I've been been told I need to stuff it on one hand (I'm not against compromise, just against violating my principles), and on another hand I'm being reminded just how complex my principles really are.</p> <p>Ah well. Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, right?</p><div class="blogger-post-footer">©2007 and on by .:dyssonance:. All rights reserved.</div>.:dyssonance:.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06671736966785541026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1329222830673295920.post-35781141127206083342007-03-21T09:33:00.001-05:002007-03-21T09:33:17.900-05:00Rage And Illusion<div class="wlWriterSmartContent" id="0767317B-992E-4b12-91E0-4F059A8CECA8:109f2ba9-5900-4692-a074-c71619d9f331" contenteditable="false" style="padding-right: 0px; display: inline; padding-left: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; margin: 0px; padding-top: 0px">del.icio.us tags: <a href="http://del.icio.us/popular/Rage" rel="tag">Rage</a>, <a href="http://del.icio.us/popular/Illusion" rel="tag">Illusion</a>, <a href="http://del.icio.us/popular/help" rel="tag">help</a>, <a href="http://del.icio.us/popular/blegging" rel="tag">blegging</a>, <a href="http://del.icio.us/popular/bad%20day" rel="tag">bad day</a>, <a href="http://del.icio.us/popular/principles" rel="tag">principles</a></div> <p> </p> <p>Today was a bad day.</p> <p>It didn't start out great, but it didn't seem to be heading that way.</p> <p> </p> <p>Prior, I mentioned that I dwell where I do at the whim of another.</p> <p>This other, in the interest of saving me from myself, has taken it on themselves to become my teacher and parent, to elucidate the nature of my being (to which, one would nominally expect, I would be the person of first response), and inculcate within my flesh things which they feel best represent the direction they have for me. Forget my right of self direction and determination -- I am in their debt, and so must accede to their wishes, correct?</p> <p> </p> <p>Have I noted before that I have 3 particular problems in my life, of which one I had thought was solved, and the other two I'm working on?</p> <p>The first problem I have had since I was but a wee chile, a peculiar lass (to be sure). It is told as legend among the family, an example of the wilfulness and power inherent in that child. It appears that, at some point in my earliest life, one would ascertain around 72/73 for the timing thereof, my dearest mother (aye, she of the two spoonfuls previously) did something unto me which struck so deep and fierce a chord in me that a kernel was lodged behind my breast bone, in that space I have spoken of before, that metaphorical heart.</p> <p>This kernel was built out of resentment and frustration and enforced denial. Fairly heady stuff for a child of that age who, until said time, by all accounts, was mercifully without either temper or tantrum, and was, I was assured, like unto an even more angelic version of mine own son.</p> <p>I spoke, literally, not a word unto my mother for 6 months. Some accounts claim a full year, and that it was shock and wonder that I ever actually did. Not to ask for something, not to do something, not to know something, not to express something, not to acknowledge something. If she said dinner was ready, I went to eat. If she said it was bed time, I went to bed. If she asked me a question, I shrugged or ignored it.</p> <p>I have, myself, been paid in kind for such behavior -- my youngest daughter did the same to me for some three years, and still retains a reticence of verbal interchange in the extreme.</p> <p>Such things are fundamentally deep.</p> <p>Since my nebulous memory is already fragmented and timeless, one might note that this was around the time that I blacked out all prior thought from my life, and that it was a good five to 6 years later than my ability to store and recall personal details was somewhat improved (earlier postings demonstrate this).</p> <p>To that core, which, as a child, I neither understood nor could comprehend, I added each and every further occurrence of such things. Piling denial and frustration and resentment in a sort of massive ball of twine that one could physically feel within one's core, like focusing your attention on your hand and noting that it is there, I could feel it with each and every breath.</p> <p>When you put that much anger and negativity into one place, such a small place, when it is filled to the brim, it leaks out.</p> <p>It started full.</p> <p>And thus was born my <strong><font color="#ff0000">Rage</font></strong>.</p> <p> </p> <p>The second problem is that I am, likely also as a result of the event aforementioned, inherently predisposed to defy authority.</p> <p>Despite my ongoing efforts and my firm belief in the principles of this nation, my willingness to accede to the demands that it makes of me are based solely in the manner in which I live my life, and when its principles conflict with mine, I always choose mine. Like my opponents who claim that their God's law is of greater import than those of the US, I claim that, for me as an individual (and no further), that my Laws are of greater import as well.</p> <p>I'm just lucky they both get along so well, truly.</p> <p>Whenever anyone presents themselves to me with authority (and, to be fair, it is only when they use that authority on me, personally, not others) it becomes a sticky wicket.</p> <p>I have a very quick temper, and short fuse (fault of the red hair I lost), and it leads right down into the bomb that is my <strong><font color="#ff0000">Rage</font></strong>. When I was young, I did not deal with it in a mature manner: I released, and the subject of my ire was usually fairly well targeted but bystanders were usually affected as well.</p> <p>As an adult, I developed the principle of withdrawal -- the better part of wise valor, for while I can be (and often am) wrong, I am more often correct, and I learned to use that very same rage as I grew to enable me to learn faster, do more, and, ultimately, prove my point. In the work world, this usually led to my getting fired, but occasionally also resulted in my promotion -- was a roll of the dice, and the odds always seemed good.</p> <p> </p> <p>The third problem is that I am, generally speaking, a loner. That is to say, I am happiest when alone, in solitude. I dislike loneliness, but that can be solved with simple discourse and companionship of some sort -- its the interchange I like. If I need a crowd, I can venture to the mall, and sit in the food court or on a bench and make my never ending observations. If I need a touch, and love, and sharing, well -- I've often been luckier there than I care to admit, but I have had long and sad periods without such, and I suspect the ones going forward will be longer and sadder -- but, in the end, I can hang with that. Not well, but, yes, I can hang. However, being alone does not, in and of itself, make one lonely, and often the solution is little more than five minutes of contact with someone else, when I should need it.</p> <p>This works well for me, as an individual, as well. I am a writer, first and foremost, before all other adjectives that one might grant as appellation, that is what I am in my core. I am artistic of temperament, and solitary of function, and I prefer by far the demesne within my head to the wider world around it; although, ultimately, what occupies that space is, indeed, the world around it.</p> <p>As a person of artistic temperament, I am not particularly given to routines not established by myself, and as one might surmise from the foregoing, I am extremely independent and not well suited to the daily task of cleaning or whatnot, until and unless it annoys me (which, typically, I allow it to do about once a week, otherwise relying on whatever is handy at that time).</p> <p> </p> <p>These three factors, and their concomitant extrapolations, make me something of a difficult person to live with. Or around. </p> <p>Now add my being TS into that.</p> <p>I happen to like myself, on the whole, rather a lot. I know myself well, and although I'm still subject to the human foibles, as a result of having heeded that age old admonition, I can take them in stride and deal with them as they come along. Sometimes good, sometimes bad, but always deal with them -- and in my own way at my own speed and time.</p> <p>But, that notwithstanding, I would not want to live with me, if my world was constructed around routine and security.</p> <p> </p> <p>I am not safe.</p> <p>I have committed assault and battery on several people. Never once my wife or children. I have come close to such, on occasion (the older boy, notably, but also to my mother when I was younger). I have assaulted someone who was my best friend at the time -- a bad thing, since I usually keep my circle of friends small and compact. I am familiar with physical violence. It comes readily, easily, simply. It feels good.</p> <p>It scares the shit outta me. </p> <p> </p> <p>For the overwhelming bulk of my life, I have had to constantly be aware of this little dragon nestled inside me. I have had to control it, to limit it, to channel it, to use it, and all those many things that are necessary when one has so called anger management issues so that its impact on my life (which was considerable) was minimized. Daily. Hourly. Moment by moment.</p> <p>So good was I at doing so, that I taught a course in it. A course I was supposed to be taking. I taught more methods of anger management and channeling than the good doctor overseeing the course had ever heard of. And, truly, there is nothing more empowering than anger. Harnessed, anger is like a nuclear generating station with the output of the sun. It can power thought, muscle, creativity, learning, and more. With it, one can perform feats of physical prowess that are astonishing and outside the norm without much harm, and that's uncontrolled. Imagine being able to harness it.</p> <p>It was more all consuming than even transition is, more ever present on a daily basis than anything else I've ever dealt with.</p> <p>I used it to drive my binge writing, channeled it into my need to keep moving, developed my stubbornness around it, and let it hurl me forward more often than not. It allowed me to do more than most other people did, because I could exist with less.</p> <p>And, of course, the downside to it is that since I was burning so bright, it was, and is, inevitable that I will burn out sooner.</p> <p>Like so much of my life, it is killing me.</p> <p>Faster than the cigarettes I roar through far too fast at even a pack a day. But, fortunately, the <em>other thing</em> shall kill me sooner, barring damage to my heart and liver.</p> <p> </p> <p>I do not drink often. I can be either cruel or morose under such influence, and the combination of the former with my <strong><font color="#ff0000">Rage</font></strong> is a bad idea.</p> <p> </p> <p>I had thought it was gone.</p> <p>Anger is not rage. Frustration is not rage. Resentment is not rage. <strong><font color="#ff0000">Rage</font></strong> is all three of those things combined, and you toss in hurt and remove rational thought. Becoming enraged is to lose all knowledge, all thought, all humanity, and to become a thing of violent fury, like a tornado; without beginning or end, timeless, for all that matters is that shining, brilliant glory of pure and unvarnished malevolent madness. It feeds itself, like a fire at critical mass, and eats off of slights and injuries. It <em>delights</em> in pain and anguish.</p> <p>You cannot stop <strong><font color="#ff0000">rage</font></strong>. All you can do is either wait for it to pass, or kill it. And, like the werewolf, once you kill the <strong><font color="#ff0000">rage</font></strong>, you kill the person. You can <em>contain</em> it, but you cannot <em>stop</em> it.</p> <p>You can get all romantic -- music soothes it, love cures it, kindness defeats it.</p> <p>Its fiction.</p> <p> </p> <p>On that day when I finally broke through denial, I felt it fade away, that knot in my chest. Over three days, it literally seemed as if someone was pulling on some string that led into me, drawing it out in a constant stream (off to the right, no less). Like the worlds longest stitch being pulled out.</p> <p>It scared me, but, well, I accepted that. Although I had used it to power everything about my being, and I knew that without that <strong><font color="#ff0000">rage</font></strong> I was going to be weaker and slower and sleepier and <em>*less*</em> than I was before, I was ecstatic that it was gone. It made me a better person to lose it. And, after over 30 years of fighting with it, trying to get rid of it, it was akin to a dream realized.</p> <p>It stayed away for about three weeks, then came back for a few hours, but it couldn't hold on, couldn't find purchase within me, couldn't manifest the fire.</p> <p>And then it was gone.</p> <p> </p> <p>Or so I thought.</p> <p>I write this entry while I am offline.</p> <p>I am offline in order to disabuse myself of some notion that I am supposed to guess about.</p> <p>You will find I dislike guessing. I will do it, but not without effective information, and only when there is no source or means for me to find the actuality out -- and then, whenever possible, I will avoid making actions as the result of my guesses.</p> <p>I am not offline by choice. I would much rather be working hard and furious on the means by which I had planned, until earlier, to succor myself from the situation I am in.</p> <p>I don't play head games. Yes, I will debate and I am pedantic, but the purpose there is to explore and participate. I do not debate a great many topics, because there is no sense in doing so when there isn't common ground shared. Without common ground, I am unlikely to engage in much dialogue at all, other than to ask a question, usually.</p> <p>I don't have ulterior motives. Why I will leave for another post, but, in summation: I don't have ulterior motives because by not having any, I gain one: to screw with everyone's expectations. People expect you to have an ulterior motive, and, since I am odd, by not having one, I move outside of them. I am very Wysiwyg. Although I'm currently modifying the gui. Ask me a question about myself, and If I can discern the answer and it is not too private, I will answer. And there are few things about me which are private. Those that are, are so irrevocably. I do not, however, commony volunteer things I consider semi-private (save, perhaps, for this blog, lol)</p> <p> </p> <p>This is the second night in a row that I am so offline. Without explanation or warning. I am being taught a lesson of some sort, as if I were a child, at 42 years of age.</p> <p>I am 2500 miles away from home. At 10 miles a day, that is 250 days away on foot. I have a cell phone. I can call for rides. With a bit of luck, I can get home in 3 to 6 months - maybe less, but I'm not going to get my hopes up.</p> <p>And yes, I can do that.</p> <p>I can do that because in the process of trying to do what they seem to think is *helping* me to become a better woman or a more refined person, they have caused me harm.</p> <p><u>Grievous</u> harm.</p> <p>They have allowed the <strong><font color="#ff0000">Rage</font></strong> to return. They have brought it back, and yes, for a good minute it took everything I had to <em>contain</em> it, to not lash out and destroy, to hold back harm, to deny it egress.</p> <p>And it found purchase again. I can feel it. A black pit of cold, cold fire that even now nestles into the old, familiar ways.</p> <p>I've cried now, for 6 hours about it.</p> <p>And that fed it too.</p> <p>Tomorrow, which, for me, is merely a few hours away, there will be repercussions. I will post this. I will make contact with those few persons I know who know about me and who might be of aid.</p> <p>And I will begin heading back home.</p> <p>To be homeless.</p> <p>With my rage.</p> <p>But still my own person.</p> <p> </p> <p>Never again shall I confuse the illusion of aid for the reality of such. I can no longer afford trust such as that.</p> <p>Once I am free of my pit, once I have escaped from the situation I find myself in, I shall never allow it to happen again.</p> <p>I have to thank them, as well. Not merely for the kindness they showed in allowing me this brief respite, but also for showing me that I was wrong about rage.</p> <p>It never goes away. It just takes a vacation once in a while.</p><div class="blogger-post-footer">©2007 and on by .:dyssonance:. All rights reserved.</div>.:dyssonance:.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06671736966785541026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1329222830673295920.post-66449974275536212242007-03-20T09:50:00.001-05:002007-03-20T09:51:01.844-05:00Two spoonfuls<p>Tomato soup</p> <p>Its a peculiar thing for me, that essential concoction of broth and fruit-that-is-a-vegetable-but-is-not.</p> <p>Historically, things to which I have a negative emotional connection are things which I excise.</p> <p>This, that peculiar substance, is an exception to that rule -- and insofar as food goes, is the only one that readily springs to mind, given, how it does, that its presence serves to remind me so immediately of the loss that broke me.</p> <p>Two spoonfuls.</p> <p>Given after watching her struggle with the spoon for the first time, then unable to deal with the straw.</p> <p>The first, and last, time I would ever do for her what she somehow managed to do for me when I was but a squalling bundle. And the circle had been completed, for even as she had fed and changed and seen to my comforts, so had I done to hers.</p> <p>After the first, she smiled, nodded, affirmed that it was good.</p> <p>After the second, she died.</p> <p>The moment is ingrained in my essence. Seared viscerally into my being, such that I cannot consider the thought of partaking of that simple substance without recollection, cannot banish it away from me, cannot dispel the hex that surrounds it and the power of its presence.</p> <p>I like it with pepper and basil. Mostly with just pepper.</p> <p>I rarely make it from scratch. Doing so, using fresh tomatoes of several different varieties, adding in hints of little others, like a sort of cook's V-8, is enjoyable, but time consuming and costly, as soup, like other things full of complex flavors, takes time to set, and realize its potential.</p> <p>So, to the can I go.</p> <p>I'm not picky. I don't like to have to use a can opener, preferring the little pull tabs, but once in a while I still have to think ahead, and I know that the large can is able to provide me with a longer lasting and more filling meal than the small one.</p> <p>So, often, I end up with Campbell's.</p> <p>It warms one inside, slightly startling as it hits the back of the throat, and if warm enough (as I'm wont to like it) you can feel it as it slides down the chest, behind the hardness of the ribs, protecting that fragile little metaphorical heart as well as the real one, the heat passing into that heart and in a way that's similar to chicken soup I suppose, it suffuses it as well.</p> <p>From there, you can feel it land in the belly, and from there it spreads out into the whole body.</p> <p>The downside to canned soup, of course, is that you have to mix with an equal part water (though I confess that I am on occasion inclined to use *almost* one part water, in that eternal rebellion I seem so dedicated to continue in each and every way, filling it up to not quite the same height, or maybe just a dribble more, and then, because habit can be weakening, I even do exactly as I'm supposed to, measuring volume and matching it with the practiced and jaded eye of someone who has cooked since they were 5).</p> <p>Since it comprises so much of that reconstituted concoction, (she notes, as <em><u>take the long way home</u></em> begins to play in her headphones) the water adds to the character of the soup -- as it does for so many things.</p> <p>in the location I am presently finding myself, through the actions of agencies both my own and that of others, in ways that, one day, will point to something startling, I am sure, and life lesson establishing, the water is pulled from a well.</p> <p>The person at whom's whim I am graced with Internet and a domicile, has partaken of this water for a great deal of time, and declares boldly that one gets used to it, then rapidly caveats it with how people grant credence to all manner of curative qualities to sulfur springs.</p> <p>The water is reasonably clear. Left to sit for about 9 hours, it produces a slight deposit of mineral salts on the bottom of the glass that slowly precipitate.</p> <p>It smells akin to the end product of a week's worth of stress induced IBL release, a stench so beauteous that grown men have been known to stagger back in horror. Apparently, since the body holds it in for a wee bit longer than it should, it ripens considerably.</p> <p>I am also an absolute and utter tea addict. Coffee is suitable for dining out, and occasionally for the purpose of not being rude when entertaining or being entertained, or for when there is desperation, and it is available whilst tea which can be drank is not.</p> <p>Tea is even more affected by the water employed. Tea is subtle, especially as gently as I'm known to brew it, the little pekoe leaves swirling in their infusive dance that brings a smile of anticipation as the aroma of my blend rises up.</p> <p>But Tea is for another time.</p> <p>The taste of this water, after it has gone through yon Brita four times at the very least, is salty, and unpleasant, but tolerable (unfiltered, it is almost like sea water stored in a tank that's rotted).</p> <p>Coffee appears to slay the beast within it, thankfully, but I do not have a coffee machine readily handy myself, nor the ground beans with which to deliver myself.</p> <p>When added to soup, thoughtlessly, carelessly, in that half awake state where food is important but the mind is drifting off, one must remember to filter it. I did not, this time, more than once.</p> <p>The resultant soup is robbed of the most delicate aspects of its flavor. Indeed, the aftertaste is something one must struggle with. It rests on the top of the tongue, at the back of the mouth, a taunting reminder that yes, one has most certainly just committed a grievous sin.</p> <p>In all honesty, I believe that the water is not fit for human consumption. However, for some fool reason, I spent the day endeavoring to whack a fool instead of actually securing transport to get some water of the filtered variety, of which I consume roughly 10 gallons a week.</p> <p>Which, in this case, also left me with little in the way of vittles, so soup it was, willy nilly, without much thought.</p> <p>It is salty -- as if someone has added more to it than needed -- the downside of canned soup is the salt added, and tomato soup truly does need salt (I use a mixture of Mrs Dash, sea salt, and regular table salt when cooking it from scratch). But it is still soup, and I have managed to slowly consume portions of it, noting the bitterness that lies in it, and with each sip (for I drink it from a glass, instead of eating from a bowl), I remember, in detail as vivid and unprepared as when it first occurred...</p> <p>two spoonfuls, and then a passing.</p> <p> </p> <div class="wlWriterSmartContent" id="0767317B-992E-4b12-91E0-4F059A8CECA8:f18b0b15-1215-44cc-a8e1-a528d6f6c679" contenteditable="false" style="padding-right: 0px; display: inline; padding-left: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; margin: 0px; padding-top: 0px">Technorati tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Grief" rel="tag">Grief</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Soup" rel="tag">Soup</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/reflection" rel="tag">reflection</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Mom" rel="tag">Mom</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/cooking" rel="tag">cooking</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/loss" rel="tag">loss</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/memory" rel="tag">memory</a></div><div class="blogger-post-footer">©2007 and on by .:dyssonance:. All rights reserved.</div>.:dyssonance:.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06671736966785541026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1329222830673295920.post-33852108670966770242007-03-19T18:09:00.001-05:002007-03-19T18:09:55.964-05:00Survival of the fittest<p></p> <p>Imagine, if you will, a point in prehistory. I may be wrong, but perhaps you are a creationist, and if so, this will have to be a game for you. <p>At this point in prehistory, there is a small group of individuals, an extra large sort of extended family and kinship structures forming a group that we might call a tribal unit. <p>They are subject to predation, and are also developing a degree of predatory skills and tool working, and are embarking, like many of those similar to them who have done so before, and who will do so later, they are seeking a somewhat cooler locale where the living is not so readily subject to finding yourself eaten by predators that out mass them by often 5 to 10 times. <p>This tribal group, about right now, is around 4K people; they all possess a tenuous kinship with one another in that, far beyond their own recollection, they all effectively possess the same Y chromosome structure. <p>They venture out of the somewhat more tropical regions they are in over time, migrating north and somewhat west over the span of several hundred years, finding the predators notably fewer, and the prey notably more to their liking, as they handle certain other issues. <p>Among those issues, is that they must compete with nature's attacks, with the assaults of other tribal groups, and with their own slowly growing band, from which break aways and split offs happen every couple of generation, prompting a chunk of the group to move on yet again. <p>One of the reasons that this group is generally more successful that other groups, similar to them in many ways, but not quite so gifted, is the degree of social interaction among them. <p>They live in cohesive units where there is often pair bonding -- although not all pair bonds are of opposite genders or procreative. Some groups even include bondings of larger than a pair. <p>This particular group is composed, like any of the others, of individuals who are inherently selfish. They have strong drives to survive, and are, like anything else, in it for themselves. <p>They are wired, however, for kindness. And, socially, they prize altruistic behavior. As a result, doing something for someone else creates a sort of better feeling, a sort of internal energy that can leap about and among all of them, generated both within the individual and among the social group, where praise comes in. Sometimes its an unusually large kill, which means more for everyone. <p>This particular wiring allows them to do have the interest of others in place, sort of competing with their self interest. <p>Suddenly, in situations where the group is faced by an external threat, this gives them the strong advantage of not functioning as a group of single, isolated individuals, but rather as a cohesive body -- a unified front, which increases their odds of survival *as a group* (which, in turn, increases the odds of survival overall). <p>Among these groups are some who have the basic charge of protecting the children. Often those less physically capable and who are also capable of producing more children, this group typically uses a water based protection. <p>The rest are those who do not have children, and are more physically capable. They include some females, even, just as the other group includes some males. <p>Among these groups are some who are generally more prone to risk. They are a minority, roughly about 8% of the body, and include those who are of various genders (gender being a social construct), and the group does not limit itself to merely two, but likely recognizes three to five distinct gender categories. <p>These individuals among them, who are more prone to risk, are sometimes without the burden of children, but usually a spouse. They are found frequently among groups who have several male children, and often serve in the capacity of godparent, should, on a hunting or foraging expedition, or through natural or political accident, a sibling be slain, they become the keepers of those children. <p>When an individual member of the tribe is threatened, they are often among the first to come to the aid of that individual, and to summon others, which will often cause predators to back off, since suddenly their prey is not single, but multiple, and capable of swift attacks. <p>Since they are unburdened, they are able to range further, seek more, see more, find more. <p>Again, all of it coming back to improving the capabilities of the particular group as it grows and expands. <p>Now, let's let several thousand years move this group forward. <p>Success has caused them to multiply and spread out further and further afield, sometimes incorporating other groups encountered through attrition or subsumption. They are no longer a single tribe, but many, many tribes; each slowly creating variants from the original based on conditions and needs as they adapt to their environment and as they learn now skills and continue to advance. <p>They have even engaged in wars for territory on the steps that many of them now occupy, having moved over the intervening years out. Some kept going, some turned back, some stayed in place. <p>Arguments would lead to splinter faction after splinter faction, grudges would be held and become rivalries, and rivalries would become traditions. <p>Separation enforces shifts in language as new concepts and new thoughts are introduced. <p>Slowly but surely, they advance towards the establishment of permanent encampments, which, in term change some of the social structures as they adapt there, as well. <p>Until, one day, they have civilization, when one of these permanent camps trades goods with a distant other camp. <p>******** <p>That's not as imaginary as it might seem, either. <p>Its based on evidence of DNA, fossil records, sociobiology, neuropaleotology, and archaeological records of human conduct, as well as some well documented examples of social behavior among other species. <p>Multiplicity of gender isn't a new idea, either -- most tribal groups have considerably more fluid gender constructs, and especially third genders (reductionism). <p>The advantage is basically thus: they increase the ability of the social unit to meet risk and challenge to the social unit without as potentially great a loss to the unit. <p>They provide additional resources for the unit to ensure society without increasing the burden on that individual group. <p>Lets look at some basic underlying truths. <p>for one, based on twin studies, we know that it isn't wholly genetic, but that there is definitely some genetic aspect to it. We know this because, were it not genetic, then it would occur in less than 10% of twins sampled naturally, while if it was wholly genetic it would appear in 100% of twin studies sampled. <p>Since it appears far above the 10% factor, in the range of 45 to 65%, its absolutely genetic in some way, but not entirely. <p>Based on further studies, there is a significant correlation in morphology and endocrine systems that indicate an extremely strong likelihood of the variation striking <i>in utero</i>, during the developmental phase very early on (within the first trimester). <p>We know its biological, but we don't know its specific etiology. <p>We also know that normally, traits which do not advance the survival of a group are going to fade out over time if they prove to be a hindrance in some fashion. We know that most people on the planet can be traced through a specific Y chromosome genome with an astonishing accuracy, and we know that for us, evolution was a series of fits and starts with successful adaptations occurring among different populations over time until one group at least migrated out and kept going and growing. <p>That’s what we know right now. <p>So if it wasn't an advantage, we can be pretty sure it would have been bred out. Yet it wasn't.</p><div class="blogger-post-footer">©2007 and on by .:dyssonance:. All rights reserved.</div>.:dyssonance:.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06671736966785541026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1329222830673295920.post-35332790033296584872007-03-18T08:25:00.001-05:002007-03-18T09:19:13.240-05:00So what kind of feminist am I?<p>Thus was asked the question, and thus did I endeavor to consider it.</p> <p>and unto the question came the answer:</p> <p>hell if I know.</p> <p> </p> <p>An odd one, perhaps, is the full extent of the measure thereby which my feminist leaning might be considered.</p> <p>How can I be anything but such, with my painted nails a tipping away on my keyboards and my painted toes grinning through knee highs with with little white petaled flowers on a pink background on the big toes that still hurt from being shoved into shoes that I couldn't yet afford but want ever so badly?</p> <p>How can I be anything but when I still have sigh at the sight of my body when I pass by a window and think unto myself, yes, someday, but not today, despite all the wishing and trying.</p> <p>How can I be anything but when I revel in the drape of a skirt or bemoan the rise of a cute top that's just not long enough or hugs too tightly?</p> <p>How can I be anything but when I cry at the sight of myself without a wig?</p> <p>So and Odd one, yet again, for whilst I still revel in the simple pleasures of things I was for so long denied, allowing myself the significant luxury of enjoying the pink after so much blue, I am still very much an individual woman who feels that there is not enough yet done.</p> <p>But I am not the one to do it, either.</p> <p> </p> <p>Mayhaps I am <em>not</em> a feminist.</p> <p>Consider: I like men.</p> <p>I like the way they smile. I like the strength in their faces. I like the simplicity with which they move themselves about. I like the subtle deference they grant to me without thought, even as they scowl disapprovingly should I have erred in some way I have not yet learned whilst on this side of that peculiar divide I still occasionally bounce across.</p> <p>Consider: I have been a man.</p> <p>And I have built up in a multitude of layers so many strange and wondrous layers and complexities of behavior that often times I cannot see them until shown to me, having so utterly subsumed them into my own self.</p> <p>I have enjoyed those privileges of Man, and used them.</p> <p>Consider: I have been married.</p> <p>And in that marriage, I have done all that seemed expected of me in that position and that Role, and had the deference, however annoying it may have been at the time.</p> <p>And I tried, wholly, and utterly, and with all my being, aye, even that which I kept locked within, my own private little music box dancer inside, to grant that which I felt was obligation to she whom I married.</p> <p>And I did it.</p> <p>I feel remorse, and guilt, for what I did <em>not</em> provide. But I was not a failure thereby, merely not someone who achieved all that had been set forth as a goal.</p> <p>Consider: I see men suffering now, as their own restrictive expectations begin to choke them in the same way they choked women -- and I do not wish them to suffer in that way.</p> <p>How can one who was a man be a feminist, then?</p> <p>Oddly.</p> <p> </p> <p>Possibly uniquely, but uniqueness is a sum total, not a sum thereof, and I am only an incomplete equation still.</p> <p>I am a willing tool of the Patriarchy, who conforms as she might be willing on terms with which she is comfortable, and that might mean potentially degrading herself in deference to that man who has, thus far, claimed her heart, despite her certainty that he'll not be with her for as long as she might wish. Who waits patiently in a location miles away from me, and knows I have a long road yet to travel.</p> <p>I am also displeased and apathetic at cries of the harm still sounded as the blare of the horns and the beat of the drum call battle against the forces of an enemy that is not so simply overcome.</p> <p>Who is the patriarchy, one needs must ask. The answer to which is that all that surrounds us is such.</p> <p>Changing it is isn't going to be possible without destroying it, for the patriarchy lies at the root of the beast, where gender lies.</p> <p>Where I lie.</p> <p>And I'll not willingly thrust a spear into my own heart. Not without the conviction and sense of duty that bespeaks such a need.</p> <p>**</p> <p>30</p> <p>**</p> <p> </p> <p>unrelated, but occurring:</p> <p>Why do I blog?</p> <p>I don't expect readers, though I am pleased and thrilled to know a few have peeked.</p> <p>I do not share the blog's presence openly.</p> <p>So why do I do it?</p> <p>To express myself in the way that I know best. To think aloud and through, whilst coming to understand the things I am going through.</p> <p>To bitch and rant, moan and gripe, laugh and celebrate.</p> <p>To share, outside myself, without regard for form or force or function, those things which I happen, at this moment, to care about.</p> <p>And to enjoy them, in the days ahead, in all their sad and happy and peculiar oddness.</p> <p>In the end, that is what I am, and I am proud and unhumbled by it, and I shall wave it under the noses of all those who seek to humiliate and degrade me, to find a pigeon hole for me in their own minds and place me within it, alongside other souls of whom I know not one whit.</p> <p>Because I am ODD.</p> <p>I am off the beaten path, I am alone in the crowd, and I am alive in the world.</p> <p>I am me.</p> <p>Fuck 'em, otherwise.</p><div class="blogger-post-footer">©2007 and on by .:dyssonance:. All rights reserved.</div>.:dyssonance:.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06671736966785541026noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1329222830673295920.post-7934263192971093042007-03-17T06:27:00.001-05:002007-03-17T06:27:03.879-05:00yeah, I'm terrible.<p>Sorry. I wanted to get all my varied and misc crap in one spot that could, theoretically, survive financial ups and downs and access to the internet.</p> <p>Besides, it allowed me to bury those god awful long ones way down there, lol</p> <p>IT also allowed me to test out a feature I rather liked of Windows Live Writer. I can, using it, store and write multiple offiline entries, and also move entires from one blog to another.</p> <p>While I don't count myself a fan of MS, I do count myself a fan of stuff that works for what I want it to do.</p> <p>This works pretty well. I should probably try to hook it into yahoo 360, but, ya know, eh.</p> <p>It works great with wordpress and with blogger, so I'm happy enough.</p> <p> </p> <p>Now to just get a new battery for the laptop so I can get mobile again and compose out in the wild world...</p> <p> </p> <p>So, Current status:</p> <p>Homeless (staying in a second singlewide through the grace of another)</p> <p>Working.</p> <p>Total to save: $3,200.00.</p> <p>Total saved: 0</p> <p>Waiting on an 800 dollar project, and a 400 dollar project payments. Working on three 400 dollar ones, and one that I hope I can net 1200 for. Probably need to get a little busier.</p> <p> </p> <p>*sigh*</p><div class="blogger-post-footer">©2007 and on by .:dyssonance:. All rights reserved.</div>.:dyssonance:.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06671736966785541026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1329222830673295920.post-86058103273726521992007-03-17T06:17:00.001-05:002007-03-17T06:17:21.737-05:00Why didn't I do this sooner<p><strong><em><u>(note: Previously published)</u></em></strong></p> <p>My rapidly developed stock answer, a nice and pat and short one, is "I didn't know I could".</p> <p> I lacked the information that I needed, to quell my personal control issues, so that I could move into it. Its not as simple, however, as that.</p> <p> While it a huge part of the concept for me, its not entirely accurate.</p> <p> Recently, someone noted the whole concept of Privileged upbringing, and how, in a lot of ways, the expectations hurled on those who live lives in such a manner are sometimes bound by them. And there was, for me, a ring of truth there. </p> <p>I dislike considering it, but, ultimately, I was somewhat privileged in my youth. My family is a wonderfully complex creation of exceptional variance. For most of my life it was an effective matriarchy (yeah, I can hear the pundits crowing about masculine role models and crap and completely missing the truth). What I enjoyed most, though, wasn't the presence of privilege, it was the escape from it. </p> <p>I was always happiest by myself, without the pressure of peers or others around me to push expectations on me. I rebelled strongly against expectations in my early 20's. It cost me a great many of my potential supporters, and I became estranged as a result. </p> <p>By that time, as well, I was so deep in denial on the active level of thought that I wasn't able to see that the expectations I was rebelling against were rooted in this. </p> <p>Had I had the information I have now, well... I would have transitioned then. </p> <p> But the means of getting to it, a great deal of this information, and the methods of transitioning, were not as available then. </p> <p>When I read about Lynn Conway and her journey through the late 60's and 1970's, I am filled with awe and wonder -- in part, because I know very well the way the world was to women in those days and just how hard things were just in the academic sense -- and to add into that the secrecy of stealth... TO me, its amazing. </p> <p>I truly cannot adequately express how amazed I am by her. One day I would like to meet her, but I don't expect to. Life likes to rob me of such events (for example, when I was finally able to go and meet RAH, he up and died on me the week before. Sheesh.). </p> <p>How did she learn about this? How did she know to find these people? What miseries did she have to endure? </p> <p>Its all stunning -- the times, the days, the way of life... Devastating. </p> <p>My story won't ever be as dramatic. My transition won't be as hard. My contributions to society likely won't be as durable, either, lol. (hard to beat being instrumental in changing the very nature of the whole world, ya know?).</p> <p> Four years ago, my ties to my privilege unraveled. Soon, I had but two, and two years ago they began to fray. They are gone now. And I'm fully free. And I'm running headlong into the future...</p><div class="blogger-post-footer">©2007 and on by .:dyssonance:. All rights reserved.</div>.:dyssonance:.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06671736966785541026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1329222830673295920.post-73189074714025060622007-03-17T06:10:00.001-05:002007-03-17T06:10:09.313-05:00Well, that's over<p><strong><em><u>(note: previously published at my other blog)</u></em></strong></p> <p>Yesterday, thanks to trollie, I ended up getting paranoid over the potential that they'd find out my last little refuge money wise, and so came out to my DR.</p> <p>I've been doing contract work of late for a few of the Television stations, and I was worried that I'd lose some of the jobs I was up for.</p> <p>I was right, lol. But then, I was also rather surprised.</p> <p>My DR (whom I have met once) is also TS, lol.</p> <p>And, as a result, I have a new base and tomorrow I'll have a new contract.</p> <p>Not as well paying, but, well, it'll do the job.</p> <p>Spent most of today dealing with that in a series of emails that probably had the internet burning up. At one point, I sent off two and got back three all at the same time, lol.</p> <p>I've also decided to change my approach to Topix entirely. For one, as I noted in my previous post, there wasn't enough of a challenge anymore.</p> <p>For another, though, there is the difficulty of following so many thread's. So, I'm sitting back and reading what catches my eye, but not commmenting yet. I have a new approach in mind, but dislike the thought of potentially tipping my hand to trollie.</p> <p>At least they stopped the horrifically syrupy crap. OMG, I swear to heaven, someone could insult me in a syrupy way and I wouldn't see it, becuase I just gag at the thought.</p> <p>Since I won't be able to post tomorrow, I will find a new way to blog in the near future. THis site, and the others, will be coming down. And that has me somewhat saddened.</p> <p>I've worked for 4 years to build my company up. Watching it go away just tears me up. BUt I've got backups of the files, and who knows -- I hear blogger isn't all that bad.</p><div class="blogger-post-footer">©2007 and on by .:dyssonance:. All rights reserved.</div>.:dyssonance:.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06671736966785541026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1329222830673295920.post-87998084957001363632007-03-17T06:08:00.001-05:002007-03-17T06:08:05.768-05:00False Pride<p><strong><em><u>(Note: Originally published at my earlier blog)</u></em></strong></p> <p>interesting concept, that.</p> <p>Why a post on False pride? Because I've been accused of having it. Oddly enough, the last person to accuse me of that same thing was my brother.</p> <p>This time it was trollie.</p> <p>Let's pop over to wikipedia and take a look at what they say about pride.</p> <blockquote> <p><b>Pride</b> refers to a strong sense of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-respect">self-respect</a>, a refusal to be <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humiliated">humiliated</a> as well as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joy">joy</a> in the accomplishments of oneself or a person, group, or object that one identifies with.</p></blockquote> <p>Self respect I have. A refusal to be humiliated I have. Joy in my accomplishments I have. Not so keen on most groups, people, and objects. Usually just my work. <p>Ok, so I have pride. <p>Next they note Excesses. <blockquote> <p>"Pride" is also used to mean <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubris">hubris</a>, or excessive pride, which was usually the defining <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trait">trait</a> that leads to the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragic_hero">tragic hero</a>'s tragic downfall according to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristotle">Aristotle</a>. This negative connotation of pride often appears in a religious context. <p>Excessive pride also manifests itself as <b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrogance">arrogance</a></b>, the act of obtaining rights or advantages, including vainglorious or <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhetoric">rhetorical</a> advantages, sometimes through violence or threat of violence, or through verbal violence. <p>Pride is found in someone who won’t give up and someone who refuses to settle for anything less than respect.</p></blockquote> <p>Hmmm. Humility is *not* among my virtues, for certain. Generally speaking, I'd have to say I meet most of those conditions. Let's take a closer look at hubris, however, as I suspect that's what's actually being said of me. <blockquote> <p><b>Hubris</b> or <b>hybris</b> (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_language">Greek</a> ὕβρις), according to its modern usage, is exaggerated self <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pride">pride</a> or self-confidence (overbearing pride), often resulting in fatal retribution.</p></blockquote> <p>Readily overbearing -- aye, I often am, especially in battles of language and decidely so on the Topix forums. <p>So I meet the modern form of hubris, but not the ancient classical form -- although I have, already, created my own nemesis, apparently, via my overbearing ways within the boards. So, unwititngly, I've stepped into a sort of peculiar greek tragedy. <p>Which reminds me, distinctly, of a previous conversation with someone in a previous thread -- though which one, I doubt I'll figure out any time soon. However, it does serve to make me aware of the fact that I have engaged them on an alternative level in some way, and that I did indeed do something to shame them. <p>Twice, no less. <p>On informing certain other people of the events of the last few days (trollie has taken it on themselves to post in the names of people with whom I have either an acquaintance or a friendship), I was taken to task for responding to them. <blockquote> <p>In its modern usage, hubris denotes overconfident pride and arrogance; it is often associated with a lack of knowledge, interest in, and exploration of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History">history</a>, combined with a lack of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humility">humility</a>. An accusation of hubris often implies that suffering or punishment will follow, similar to the occasional pairing of hubris and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nemesis">Nemesis</a> in the Greek world. The proverb "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pride_goes_before_a_fall">pride goes before a fall</a>" is thought to sum up the modern definition of hubris.<sup><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/#_note-5">[6]</a></sup></p></blockquote> <p>Here is where the troll's assault on my nature fails. I have a keen interest in history, and a very thorough knowledge of it. But, outside of that, it still holds -- with trollie acting as the nemesis and bringing about my fall. <p>So, not only did I gain an undersanding of the accusation, I now have some insight into the motivations behind the trollie's actions, and a least a pretty good idea of what trollie is attempting to do. <p>This means that trollie is religious, reasonably knowledgeable, amoral, and obssessed with me to some greatish extent. <p>I'm inclined to think that the use of false pride indicates a potential link to Brian, but I'm unwilling to simply cast away the subject of my own obssession with the Bill/Sopot character. <p>its entirely possible I'm suffering from a sort of victroy disease. SInce most of the posters have been presenting the same arguments over and over again, I have been failing to sit back and adapt my tactics and methods. <p>I've even been beaten a few times of late becuase I walked into a logic trap and didn't see it coming -- charged ahead. <p>This is why I retreated back to the pattern of correction while I observed. <p>Some of the front page section, or the Business section threads I've been involved in might need to be revisited -- the debate structure in those locations is different, and may be of use to me. <p>Especially if adopt the new pattern I discerned that has been effective a couple of times. <p>Some of this will have to play out based on how the trollie responds to some of the stuff coming from those others now. I warned them, since they will be using the same connection that I am, that they will be mistaken for me --- but I suspect if they succeed in drawing the trollie out that they will find they are *most* different from myself, LOL <p>in the interim, much to consider, and several other posts to respond to that aren't quite as close to the bone and still have at least the joy of the challenge in them.</p> <p>So yes, I'm proud. And yes, there is hubris in me. It'll have to be my cross to bear, however, as without my fury to sustain me, it's pretty much all I got left, ;)</p><div class="blogger-post-footer">©2007 and on by .:dyssonance:. All rights reserved.</div>.:dyssonance:.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06671736966785541026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1329222830673295920.post-245808340475609962007-03-17T05:58:00.001-05:002007-03-17T05:58:15.448-05:00Civil Rights, again<p>Part of the reason that I posted all that crap is I had the time to assemble it -- inet was down.</p> <p>After doing so, I did a little more work on my list of civil rights, andding in some governmental duites and rights of work so far.</p> <p> </p> <p>After I get done with the basic list, I'll revisit the constitution.</p> <p> </p> <p>Something that some friends of mine have been noting is that many of the more truly left folks are already making arrangements to to expatriate themseles formt he country, and they've been making suggestions since I shared my thoughts on the Dominionist stuff with them.</p> <p>On the other hand, my old buds at U of A were actually intrigued by a couple of hypotheticals I put forth, so there's been some serious effort being put in towards figuring out not merely what the nation wold most likely be like in the early stages of actual rule (although the lefties believe its already there), but also how they woud achieve those goals given the social cycle's current movement.</p> <p>Oh, and to top it all off, I outed to them and they went "eh". At thsi rate, when I do get someone who freaks out, I'll be unprepared.</p><div class="blogger-post-footer">©2007 and on by .:dyssonance:. All rights reserved.</div>.:dyssonance:.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06671736966785541026noreply@blogger.com0