A guy, tonight, talked about how for years and years, he had relationships with women, but then at age 22 or something, he met this gay guy. The only apearnt gay guy in his town of 3,500. And they’ve been together for the three years since.

Despite all my efforts, I feel that I’m still really rather biphobic. Or at least not biphillic. Which is weird, because in some strange way I think I’m attracted to bi guys. But I think because, It’s the ultimate way to thumb my nose at the system. In a sense I can look at all the soccer moms driving around Ford Expeditions, with their white picket fences, and their 2.5 children and say, look here chica. I’m in love with, married to, this guy, who you so had a chance at and guess what. He chose me.

I’m a wierd one, I know. In some strange way, I live to be able to thumb my nose at the world, try it some time. Its really quite satisfying.

Somehow that made me extremely happy. And I’m not sure if that’s a good thing, but for the moment it just is.

Anne Lamont writes these books about her childhood, which wasn’t perfect, not by a long stretch. And kind of similarly, her life wasn’t smooth. And it provides her with a lot of just really wonderful material. And I joked this week, about how as someone with a fairly sane together life, I don’t have that kind of material source. David Sedaris has a lot of the same kind of material. Anyway, I was complaining about this artistic disadvantage, and someone said to me. You could write these stories about how much it sucks to be all together and stuff. (Ok, so he was a little more coherent, but still you get the drift).

To which I said. “Could there be anything more trite.” I have friends who already complain about how contrived and pompous I can be, but whatever, I can’t let that cloud my view too much.

But then he suggested satire, in a way I hadn’t thought of. And It has some potential, but I need to develop it a bit. Also one thing I need to do, is focus a little more closely on social commentary, because that’s what I think my strength is.

In anycase, I think this entry is going to mark a new age in TealArtistry.

Ya see, the forever problem with TealArt, is Chris and I reflexively sensor ourselves. It’s sick. I mean, some degree of censoring is good, but it’s almost to a point where we’re getting bland and it doesn’t work out. So I’m going to try and lighten things up a bit. So I’m going to start talking about gay stuff now. And not just complaining about how the movement isn’t really a movement, and how social justice stuff is so frustrating.

Because I spent so long out of human form in work crazed demon type form I’ve changed, understandably.

Just now I was running through what I had to do this weekend. Here’s my list:

Read 100 pages for a history. Write an English Paper. Write a scholorship essay or two Read a Zora Neal Hurston story for my African american lit class Write two 250 word, reader response entries for my english class Write a presentation in spanish

And you know what my response was?

Wow. Easyness. That’s nothing!

As one of my friends said, after realizing that even if college really is harder, which given the rigors of European (IB) standards we kind of doubt, We’ll only have five classes…. “Damn college is going to be borrrring.” And frankly. I concur. (We both have eight currently)

Cheers!

I was looking through a notebook for some notes that I made concerning a homework assignment, and discovered the following line lines of memorable text:

“I don’t think I’ll go to the store tomorrow, too” she said triumphantly.

“Ah,” he replied without missing a beat in his crossword puzzle.

“Because we have potatoes.” She declared, after a moment.

“That’s good,” he said, sounding far more exciting over a quantity of root vegetable than anyone disserved to be, even if the crossword puzzle was interesting.

Meanwhile their teenage son howled as he left the room fearing for the future of the family menu plans.

Most interesting. Clearly it’s something that happened in my house, but I honestly can’t remember it, and I also can’t remember why I felt it necessary to write down in my book.

Go figure. Anyway, back to the grindstone. I’ll revert to human form on Friday I think. I hope.

As regular readers of this website will recall, I’ve had a rather persistent computer problem for the past, oh, really long time. Seems it’s done this thing where it just freezes. First we thought it was a RAM problem, because it just felt like a ram problem, and indeed it would freeze up on block memory moves.

At which point we said, “well it could either be a motherboard or a processor” and after some deliberation (and a diagnostic that pointed to problems with the Real Time Memory Clock), we decided to replace the motherboard.

In the mean time I’d developed a system that worked fairly well. If I didn’t play music, and stuck to a fairly frill-free text editor, trillian, Internet Explorer, and Outlook, there wasn’t a problem, most of the time.

And then, I got the new motherboard, because ultimately I wanted my computer to work properly, I mean that’s not too much to ask, really. And it doesn’t. It doesn’t work with the old one either. So my computer is pretty much not useable. And I’m not particularly sure that putting a new processor in is going to fix the problem. It’s also the only thing left that I can replace. So we have to hope.

In the mean time, since my half working computer more or less gave up the ghost, I’ve swapped it out for this older iMac that someone gave me to dispose of. It works perfectly almost, despite the fact that the resolution is jokingly low, and it’s running a version of the operating system that’s circa 1997. But it runs AIM, Entourage (like outlook only macish), and Word. Ah, finally a real word processor. Life is good.

Or I’ll deal for a while.

What I am realizing is that, this whole Mac thing is really cool, and while I’d like a newer version (I’m working on it. Soon. All I can say is it will involve a swanky purple scarf) would be nice, the whole feel of this operating system is something I defiantly like. Now I just hope enough money can be gathered to get that powerbook, but we’ll burn that bridge when we get to it. Lets just say, I’m not going to leave home with a PC.

In response to something I’d written last night, Indi said something along the lines of, “you have a way of saying a lot without really saying very much.” This is a fairly valid criticism, and something I get with some regularity. The basic theme: “be more specific.”

Perhaps it’s because I’m extroverted, and by default process thoughts and ideas in writing or more often out loud. But then again, it might be because there’s a larger issue, and given that I don’t particularly agree with the idea that personality is that fluid, I’d like to act as if there’s something larger that I might have a chance to fix or improve on.

On the one hand I think a part of me has been like this (terminally unspecific) for a really long time, and that it’s been a coping mechanism for the closet, and because it’s easier, not to mention that it requires less effort.

Having said that, I think it’s a writer’s block-type dilemma. Not writer’s block as in “I have to write X today and stare at a blank page for 6 hours being devoid of inspiration,” but something more along the lines of “I don’t know what I want to write,” or “I feel like I need to write, but can’t bring myself to do it,” sort of like lethargy, And given that I have this massive amount of written material that I have to turn out every week for school, I don’t have the option of sitting and staring at a blank page for hours. So I write uninspired papers that only occasionally are ok (especially when the teacher has low standards.) I’ve gotten a little bit better at forcing my papers to be more specific, but it’s a laborious process and so far has only been accomplished when a parent has been there to keep me from running off into unspecific

The main break as far as I’m concerned is when I got back from Anytown, which was an experience I really valued, but before I went to Anytown (and really before I went to visit colleges in August right before Anytown.) Which is really when I stopped working on Another Round.

I should have someone look through Circle Games, but I’m pretty sure that I didn’t have this kind of a problem when I was writing that. Mind you, my school papers were still not specific enough but I think that is due to the (a) reason. And I defiantly didn’t feel lethargic about writing. I’d like to have someone look through the TealArt archives and see if the entries from a year ago (and before) are specific or not in comparison to the ones now. Any takers?

As for possible solutions, I clearly haven’t found anything that really works in a decisive sort of way, but, thus far here’s what I’m thinking:

I should read through Anne Lamott’s “Bird by Bird” which has a really helpful chapter on writers block, and is generally inspiring and wonderful. Revisiting that should be really good.

I’m not reading as much as I used to which is a definite short falling. As I can knit and read at the same time which is good and will probably encourage me to knit more, but I’d like to establish a routine where I can read fiction again.

I need to do more work at school. There’s a teacher who has a room that’s a very good work space, and I think by moving a lot of writing projects to school, I’ll be able to get more done. Perhaps not the final solution, but I think there is a definite “play” environment at home.

Any ideas?

So there’s a bill before the Missouri House at the moment, that attempts to legislate creationsim. This goes beyond just trying to legislate “morality” which is questionable enough, but this is actually trying to legislate scientific fact. (Maybe they think if they make it law it’ll become true.) This follows the “if i stick my fingers in my ears and sing, and stomp around, maybe it’ll go away” method of lawmaking.

In any case, under duress I’ve compiled a group of resources for both sides of this and I hope it helps someone. (As you may or may not know, my sparse and occasional class notes for Theory of Knowledge get posted to this site for your enjoyment. Or something.

The text of Missouri House Bill 911, summary.

A creation science resource page, and another, and another for good measure

And the other side of the coin: One. Two. Three.

I had and interesting exchange with my history teacher today that was a bit puzzling. The assignment it to write a paper, comparing the use of violence in the establishment of National Socialism (Nazism) in Germany and the Bolshevik (Communist, Russian) Revolution.

Ok. Its an interesting question, because it challenges, or at least can challenge someone’s emotional/rational responses. Generally speaking we’re expected to react badly to violence, and to Nazism. They are bad things, and because we’re trained to react to these words, serious consideration of these questions is difficult at best. So let us try for a moment to consider this issue.

Violence is a bad thing. People dying and hurting is a bad thing. Yes. Very bad. It’s also par for the course, and seems to follow humans everywhere we go. There is no avoiding violence. Violence represents our darkest fears of chaos, and the fear of personal morality certainly doesn’t help this reaction. The only problem is in order to argue against this (from any point of view) makes you (or me) come off as an insensitive jerk who doesn’t care or have compassion for other people. A person, who doesn’t care if “those people” die, as long as “we’re” safe. On the other hand, if someone’s to eager to die, then its overzealousness, which is equally as bad. So there’s a fundamental flaw in this argument, and lets tack on as a disclaimer, that the acceptance of violence is not a devaluation of life, but a realization of actual circumstances. Regardless of reality, I don’t think progress on this discussion can be made if we let emotions battle it out over this point.

Moving on.

The next point is that because of the Holocaust, and other clearly ReallyBadThings(tm) Nazism, like violence, provokes an emotional reaction, which isn’t good. I’m not saying that we should forgive Nazism, and try too look at all the good things it accomplished. But I do think that allowing the emotional reaction to overtake us without rational consideration is dangerous at best. I’ve taken to do a couple of things, that I think help a little, both of which are semantics related. That is, using the words National Socialism and SS, rather than Nazism and Stormtroopers. Minor detail, but it removes the initial instinct to react.

That accomplished, thought is now required.

Basically, what I have to do in a research paper, now, is say that Hitler didn’t use a standing armed force to obtain power, whereas, the Bolsheviks did. That basic over view hasn’t quite moved into the realm of rational thought, but that’s due at least to the simplicity of the statement. I also think that I can twist this objective to something a little more reasonable, so in the end I’m not terribly worried about this paper, but given what I said above, I’d like to ponder what my teacher gave me in a little more depth.

Because of the reaction to ‘violence,’ it seems to me that this question puts the Bolsheviks on a lower level than the German fascists. Perhaps. That’s something that I think is unfair and incorrect.

Other incidents and comparisons between Germany and Russia that have been made in this class that I feel twist and hurt historical objectivity, or at least rational consideration of history:

The six million or more killed in the Holocaust (the commonly quoted statistic at least) compared to the 20 million Stalin killed in the Purges.

The one million Soviets died at Stalingrad (during WWII) compared to the all time running total of US war dead (which are apparently, still under a million).

The fact that retreating troops were shot at Stalingrad. While certainly gruesome, I do belive that it’s always been standard military procedure to shoot troops that flee from a battle in a situation like this.

And there you have it. Not to be snobbish or anything, but that’s straight from the highest level history class available at Metro High School, in St. Louis, MO. The perennially highest ranked school in the state (according to the standardized test scores, which aren’t always the best marker of these things but still). I somehow doubt that the rest of the country is much better off.

Clearly thought isn’t expected or particularly desired, but aren’t we obligated?

For a while I’ve been chugging along through Virginia Woolf’s “A Room of One’s Own,” an essay that she wrote in 1925 about women and fiction writing. I’ll admit that I’m not yet done reading it, but this won’t keep me from offering commentary.

It’s a good deal of fun, well it’s a bit hard to get into, but now that I’m into it I’m very glad to be reading it. It’s one of those books that, I know, I’ll have to reread a few times because there has to be a ton of stuff that I’m missing, but that’s all a pleasure.

I really like Virginia Woolf for two reasons. One, stylistically she’s a gem, and the words and craft are just amazing even if you don’t feel like you understand what she’s saying or the point she’s ultimately trying to make (which is where I am right now. Two, I really like the ideas and theories she presents about women, men, their relationships and society. She approaches feminism from a balanced position, and doesn’t (or couldn’t have, more properly) take any political baggage.

Additionally, she completely avoids category theory, because men were men, women were women, and your “label” was accepted. And there’s a measure of rhetorical elegance to that. Category stuff is really important, and ultimately I think it helps larger gender theories to have some measure of proficiency with category theory, but too much and you get drowned in meta-talk.

Having said all of that, I don’t think that Virginia Woolf was much of a theorist in the first place. She was just a thinking person with a good deal of insight that was able to communicate the injustices that she saw. In one sense, that’s all a ‘movement’ needs, people talking and thinking, the truth and a little bit of momentum. Fancy language and talk of theory is really secondary. So if you present feminism, or any argument for social justice in the right way with the right kind of power, you can’t help but succeed. Good rhetorical ability is invaluable, but after a certain point, rhetoric alone serves no end.

I’ll leave you with that. Happy Solstice Holiday(s), to you all, and I’m sorry for our vacation. We have stuff in the works and more posts coming soon, I promise.