For the first time in weeks I’ve spent several hours sitting in a chair reading. I’ve had a bunch of reading sitting over my head for almost three weeks, and while I’ve been able to stay on top of it for a while, I haven’t been able to read very much for very long, without a looming deadline. Anyway, I’ve found some sort of groove, which however dorky it may sound is really making me feel better about my self and my studies.

In other school related news, it looks like both biology classes are going to transfer in, which means that I have 6.75 units (27 hours) on the books, with another unit (4 hours) will transfer in as soon as I figure out how to get AP scores to transfer in. I think sophomore standing is 7 units and up. Junior standing is 14 units with the first tier of distribution requirements. I talked to the bio-professor who basically exempted me from every introductory biology class. There’s a “biological-issues” class that I want to get into, but it might be really hard to get into (because it’s a fluffy science for non-majors). Then again, having sophomore standing will give me a slightly higher priority. I’ve more or less decided on my classes for next semester. Introduction to Gender Studies; Psych 150 (Statistics); A feminist literature class (as a lit class); Some Biology Class that I haven’t chosen; and then either another psych class (Psychology of Women if it’s offered) or something like Weaving or something else.

Anyway. I think I broke out of my mid-semester/lunar eclipse related funk/slump sometime in the last few hours and I’m running up the hill.

At the moment I’m sitting in the basement of the library, taking a study break after a few hours of reading, using a desktop Mac, which is really cool. I’m slowly coming to terms with the fact that I probably need to supplement my computing situation I need to talk to Chris (cough, cough) about duel monitor setups. Part of me wants to get a desktop that I can use as a file server, the pragmatist in me wants to get a fire wire hub and a few fire wire drive enclosures and drives. I also like having a keyboard with real keys. Maybe I’ll break down and get an apple Bluetooth keyboard. I think I’m going to end up milking the work-study system for all it’s worth (especially next semester), which isn’t hard, and should give me a useable, though not excessive expendable income for technology and yarn purchases.

Speaking of work-study, I’m going to be the “program assistant” for women’s and gender studies, or something. It’ll be great. I’m also going to a meeting for people who want to be R.As. The professor I’ll be working for is only here for a semester, so I don’t know if that job will still be there (or be as awesome/sweet) when Catharine comes back from sabbatical. I should be able to get an R.A. job next year, (I think the possibility of getting a slot next semester is unlikely at best, but this place is known for some crazy stuff.)

Five hundred and some words into this entry and I’ve managed to not get to most of the subject matter that I set out. Lets try to change that.

The bulk of the reading I had to do for class tomorrow, is a huge chunk of a science fiction novel: Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson. It’s an amazing pice, and it’s kind of reminded me how much I really like science fiction. Which is an interesting thing to say on this campus, where the largest independent student group is “BSFFA” (pronounced phonetically: “bisph-fa”) or the Beloit Science Fiction and Fantasy Association. BSSFA is slowly taking over a dorm; it’s kind of funny. Anyway.

I like science fiction, I’ve discovered, and Robinson’s breed of the genre is just my kind of thing. My approach? Outlook? Perspective? Goal? Well whatever, I think that Robinson is trying to accomplish a lot of the same things in his science fiction that I would like to attempt. I think I almost want to work on Another Round again, which I haven’t had a desire to do in a while. I heard myself say, that I’ll probably finish the draft of that one before I graduate. In retrospect this is probably an unrealistic and foolish deadline. The only saving grace of this prediction is that I’m going to start a meditative writing circle, where me and a bunch of other folks, will converge on the spirituality room, talk for maybe ten minutes about what we’re planning on writing on, and then do a minute or two of breathing and relaxation and then we’ll write for an hour or two. I’ve done this kind of exercise a few times, and you’d be surprised how well it works.

As I think about it right now, it’d probably be best to avoid social theory. Maybe tomorrow.

I’m going to try to write entire entries in one sitting, so they don’t loose coherence after the fourth paragraph. Wish me luck.

With WWOTB out of my court for a week or more, I’m starting to think of other “independent” (of school work) projects that I can do. Everyone I’ve talked to about WWOTB has been really excited and energetic about it, which I think, is pretty darn cool. A year ago I might have said, “now I just hope people follow through,” but after so many years of working for Free-ePress, CollectiveArts, and even to a more limited extent TealArt, I think I’ve learned a few things about collaborative projects and how to organize myself to inspire (if that’s the right word, perhaps encourage) the response that I seek.

But I was thinking, of people I should ask here at Beloit, to contribute to this project. I sent the initial email out to one guy, and there are more than that, but I realized that there isn’t really any group or way for the gay men on this campus to connect and or relate with/to each other. The Alliance (GSA) type organization is mostly female. This is great, really, but it also doesn’t serve me terribly well (not that I’m going to stop going, I’m just saying). I think this feeling is similar to the one than Iris felt when she decided to write her book, rather than just rely on the original Ophelia Speaks collection.

Now of course the logical conclusion to draw from this is that I need to start some sort of affinity group for gay men on this campus. Now I really don’t want to go through student activities cause that’s a pain in the ass, using The Alliance is probably a good idea, but I think that carries a lot of bad connotations on campus, and funding something myself isn’t really an option. Ok so having said that, my current thought it to have some sort of brunch group, but I kind of feel if I did anything to formal, all I’d get is a bunch of girls. Excluding people isn’t a good idea, but at the same time, if you include straight guys and girls of any persuasion, then you don’t really have an affinity group now do you?

I think there are at least two major forces pulling on feminist and/or social justice movements. The first is clearly forming alliances between affected (or not affected) groups, under the idea that oppression is shared and that many hands make light work. Then there’s the idea that the affected group (women, lesbians, male homosexuals, people of color, people from the non-western world, immigrants, emigrants, transgender people, transsexual people, teenagers, teenage girls, workers, queer people, etc.) need to work together to empower themselves and build a nurturing community. Affinity builds the foundation for coalition work, and both are dependent on each other.

So this brings up another interesting theoretical concept for me. The struggle for change in order to be productive and successful needs to incorporate movement in at least two disparate aspects. These aspects are often contradictory, and by focusing on one the activist/theorist tends to forget the other one, which makes movements hard to manage. History is rife with examples of this.

In the example above, they are affinity and coalition. At Anytown, they are conscious and subconscious manifestations of oppression. In feminism/women’s studies programs, they are activism and theory. These elements need to move together, and that’s a huge problem not easily overcome.

I just got back from hearing a presentation by AIDS Activist Bob Bowers, which was interesting. He was an engaging speaker and he had a good point and I liked his approach. He’s one of the few survivors from the early eighties, and he reports being in good shape (undetectable viral load, and a t-cell count that was low a bit low, but still present). He was very candid and honest, and seemed to put a real face on the disease. I think it was a good counter to the sort of healthy but undetectably sick image that we’ve see far too much of. Nevertheless the one thing I wanted him to talk about that he didn’t (which was what it’s like to be a straight man infected with a “gay” disease), because even if infection rates are down among gay men and up among heterosexuals (which I don’t buy 100%) HIV is still identified with the gay community. Part of me wants to own that and make it my struggle, and part of me likes that it’s part of a broader struggle. It’s all good. But going to this talk, allowed me to think about a few other issues.

I just sent out my request for submissions, for the Affinity Story Project, to seven of my awesome-ist friends, so I should be able to get eight stories (there’s another guy whose email I can’t find) (I hope) to use as examples, or as a sample for publishers. I’ve decided to call it Where We Ought to Be: The Experience of Young Gay Men, for now. (Yes it’s a reference to “Simple Gifts,” the shaker hymn.) That’s still a rough title, so it may shift a little, depending on how post-structural I’m feeling. This is a really cool thing, and I think it may just work, which makes it an even cooler thing.

But it strikes me, what I’m really looking for in WWOTB is the pure essence of what it means to be gay and young in today’s world. What draws us together, what differences make us diverse and unique, how do we relate to the “gay struggle” of years past. What’s it like to wake up every morning?

I started writing this entry days ago, and I remember being so excited about it, and now, I haven’t a clue as to where I was going. Sorry for being so distant late. But I have been getting things done. Cheers. --sam.

Ha! Thought I couldn’t use “fraught” in an entry title. Well I can! Anyway, this entry is yet another brainstorming (ie. I want to think about the paper, and I want to feel productive without actually writing the paper yet, so I’m going to write about something that actually interests me) for a paper, sprinkled with a little gender theory thrown in for good measure.

So I’m writing this psych paper, and I’m really dreading it. Not because I think I’m ill-equipped to write it, or that I think I’m incapable, or even that I think she’ll grade harshly (because everything else I’ve written for her has a mean grade of 99%). Rather, I think I’m worried because I feel like I have to do amazingly well on this cause I want to major in psych. A.W. talks about a similar sort of pressure about needing to do perfectly on certain classes relating to his major. So I’m not that weird, ok, maybe I am, just don’t pick on me.

Psychology is really interesting, and I like it, but I do have some problems with how psychologists deal with gender issues. This doesn’t surprise me, but I think I should voice it. I think it’s particularly problematic now, when I don’t really have the knowledge base, or the authority to make the kinds of objections that I want to. In time.

On the most basic level, I feel psychology doesn’t make room for gender variance, and in general is to biologically bassed. But then my prof is a neuroscience, brain chemistry type, and I suppose I’d be worried if she wasn’t grounded in biology. Any “acceptance” of gender variance is quickly shuffled away towards transexualism, which despite its “unconventionality” reinforces the binary, and doesn’t really solve anything. The way that “The Book” (dr. george H___, that one, you know, the book) pathologizes gender varience isn’t helpful, and psychologists generally follow this general approach.

Moving on.

The other main objection that I have is that it seems to me that our ways of conceptualizing of human psychology (especially the neuroscience/cognative bits, but other things as well) are viewed in binary terms. Let me preface my example by saying that, I’m working on the understanding that any conceptualizing of difference as dualism is inherently gendered. Whenever we think of different ideas as being either/or, it reflects upon our understanding of gender as limited to two option based upon our understanding of gender. For instance I have this interesting diagram, which describes long-term memory and it shows one binary after another. Now I’m not saying that this is implicitly wrong, just that binary is pervasive (hence the title.)

So that’s where I am at the moment.

Enjoy, and I’ll try not to be such a stranger.

(Ok, So I wrote this entry a few days ago, and just got around to posting it now. That’s fine. Enjoy!)

This has been one of those weeks. Not bad, really, just hectic.

See, my request for a new room in a different hall finally came up. See I was living in the armpit of the campus, and some guy moved into TKE (the pretty boy frat) and left an open room, which while bearing a remarkable similarity to my old room, is on a much better floor in a better building. The new building is virtually identical to the old one, but it’s not as grody.

The end result of that is that I packed up all of my earthly belongings and moved them down. It felt good to see that I really don’t have that much stuff. If I worked at it, I could get rid of a box or two. I got everything in the new room and started to unpack which took a lot of energy. It was a struggle to find, and then put, the sheets on the bed before I fell asleep. It took a couple of tried. I woke up once, having wrapped myself in the mattress cover and fitted sheet.

Eventually though I got all the kinks worked out, and somehow managed to get the sheets on the bed. I even managed to wake up in enough time to get to class, which is itself a miracle because I didn’t set the clock. I even got up in time to eat a proper breakfast, which is better than I did on Monday.

On the other hand, I was in such a rush this morning that I put my underwear on backwards and it took me all day to notice.

Oy.

The main intention of this post as I embark on it, is to write about some of the knitting process that I’ve made of late, but there’ll be other related bits of news. I’m feeling kind of guilty about the fact that I more or less completely forgot about TealArt last week.

I’ve gotten a lot of knitting in of late, and believe it or not it has become a balanced part of my life. There were times in high school where I knitted while being avoidant of my work (both school related, but more often personal related), so I’d end up going through phases where I’d knit compulsively for a few days or a week, and then I’d put everything down for a while, while I got actual work done.

Since I’ve gotten here, my knitting progress has been steady, and I haven’t used it to avoid my school work (as you might have noticed, TealArt and Another Round have suffered, but alas.) I knit a little in class. All my teachers are quite alright with this, and I think it helps my absorption a little. This isn’t to say that my absorption rate is perfect, but taking compulsive notes (as opposed to the more limited kinds of notes I take now) is a lot worse than knitting during class. In addition to that, I knit during a couple of club meetings, and then I sneak in a little knitting time during movies, and other laid back sort of times.

I know what you’re saying at this point: That’s real nice Sam, but what cool things have you been knitting?

Well, I thought you’d never ask.

I finished the sweater I was making before school during convocation (I’d been in Beloit for a week at this point). While I suppose a technical re-evaluation of my previous statement will show that I said I wanted to finish the sweater before I got to Beloit, I don’t think it’ll be unreasonable to say that I really meant that I’d finish the sweater before classes start which I did. It fits really well, but the bottom band flares a little. I think it might block out, and if it doesn’t I’ll figure something cleaver out to do with elastic and ribbon. I still have to dye it, but I found a friend who said she’d help with the dying, so depending on our respective work loads, I’ll get that done soon and start wearing it soon.

I finished the funky shawl thing, and I might wear it once I get it dyed, which will happen at the same time.

I also made two and a half hats (which took about a week each): two and a half because, one is a double thick hat and while there are two hats, that I had to make, it’s only one hat in the end. Both of those hats are made out of the same yarn as the same wool as the sweater. So that’s cool.

When I finished the second hat, I was itching to start some sort of real project, something sort of biggish. So I cast on for a world famous circular shawl, using some mercerized cotton cone yarn that my mom going (in a huge quantity), and I’m going to use a third of it or a bit more on this shawl. I started it the Monday before last (tomorrow will be the third Monday that I’ve been working on it.) I’ll probably finish it on Tuesday or Wednesday. The last time I made something this size, it took me a month of serious knitting. The lace pattern makes it go faster. On the outer most section I’ve inserted 7 repeats of Snowdrop lace, a traditional Shetland pattern, which I really like, and I like how I memorized the pattern perfectly after the second repeat, and I know how to fix and fudge it, and I don’t even need markers to separate the repeat. I’ll probably make another shawl with lacey patterns soon again (possibly with the same yarn, but I need a break for my continued knitting health).

I am currently in ownership of a sweaters worth of very nice locally produced (or at least locally milled and dyed), wool/mohair (but it’s so soft!) in a wonderful red color. I’ll probably make a fun plain raglan pull over with it. The dye job isn’t perfectly even (an error) but I’m going to maximize it by showing off the yarn with the pattern.

I also got a 14 oz cone of fairly fine yarn (dk-fingering?) on eBay that I should get sometime soon. I’ll probably make a drop shouldered sweater out of it. (The alternative is to make a shawl.) Oh, and my mom I think might have found the perfect yarn to make the Turkish patterned sweater (and I can’t decide weather to make a pullover or a cardigan like it says.) But that’s down the road a bit.

There’s other news, but I think I’ll leave you all in suspense for a while.

Love! Cheers!

I have this paper to write, that basically asks me to address how an emphasis on the difference between the sexes, (and the concentration on the gender binary etc.) maintains systems of oppression. While this is a subject I’m interested in, I’ve found it hard to write about it in the past because I’m ambivalent about a couple of key issues.

Mostly the fact that to blur the lines between genders too intensely is to stray too close to the “I don’t see color” or “I don’t care if people are gay or straight” which I think is a position that should be avoided. At the same time, I completely agree with the idea that the gender binary is tool used to oppressive means. In fact, I could argue that the gender binary is perhaps the oppressive tool, but I don’t think I will at this juncture.

I don’t think that difference alone can create oppression, and even if it can, I don’t think that’s a particularly strong position to argue for social change from. See, people are different from each other. Entire groups of people are different from other groups of people. This doesn’t in and of itself create advantage and disadvantage or oppression. The other side of this “difference coin” is that despite all of the differences that people have with each other (on any social level), we ultimately have much more in common.

But difference, or at least perceived difference, remains the primary cause for a system of advantage.

Additionally, I think I have to examine the function of the binary form itself, separately from the issue of difference. Even though binaries claim to be supported by difference, and in a historical sense are caused by differences, after a period of time, the difference dissolves and blurs. This leaves a “superficial” kind of difference, and a very strong binary system/logic that creates and maintains patriarchy (and other systems of oppression).

For better or for worse we’re limited to a handful of sources which we read in class, and I think that the sources I have either agree with what I’m trying to argue, or can be interpreted to agree with what I’m saying.

Now all I have to do is pull all of it together in some sort of logical, coherent, and reasoned sort of way.

sigh

Cheers…

I have a couple bits of news/theories for the “Beyond John Wayne” category but I’ll keep them brief in favor of other forthcoming TealArt posts.

First off this Beyond John Wayne category is more than a year old now. I’m looking back at this last year plus and thinking, “my god, I’ve learned and changed a lot.” This gender studies/masculinity project thing that I’m forever enthralled with has gone from being a “what does it mean to be gay in the world today, to a what does it mean to be a man in the world today, to a combination of the two: this is the whole “Beyond John Wayne” idea, that it’s possible to be a man outside of “the man box” to some sort of weird where I am now place. I think more reflection on this transition is defiantly required, but that’s fairly low on my list right now.

Having given it a suitable breathing period, I’m going to go back and edit/rewrite/revise my proposal for the Affinity Story Project (I really need a better name, don’t I?) and see what I can come up with. It’s something concrete and something real, and it feels good to finally be working on something like this.

The third, and probably most important reason why I made this post is to express the following theoretical statement (which in typical form is a question) that I scribbled on the back of a paper in class today:

Is the claim that the differences between men and women arenatural, oppressive because “nature” is used as a tool for justifying the non-egalitarian distribution of opportunity and resources, or because of the nature/nurture dichotomy/opposition is inherently gendered.

Actually I wrote “is nature oppressive because it’s a (tool for) justifying “different but equal” or because of the nature/nurture dichotomy/opposition.” With the parenthetical written in the super-text. You be the judge of what makes more sense and is more coherent.

I’d explain more, but I’m not really in the mood for answers now.