yesterday’s weepy messiness continued through the afternoon, culminating with me accidentally slicing my fingertip on a knife while washing dishes. the ensuing blood and loud swearing made me feel a bit better, as did the event that immediate followed: i got a call from the local college, saying that they’d had a student drop out of the electrical foundation program, and asking if i’d like the spot.
YES.
it starts the first week of august: less than a month from now. holy fuck.
to be clear, i’m elated: while the program doesn’t guarantee me a career as an electrician, it’s a great introduction and also an opportunity to find out if i’d like to pursue the whole apprenticeship-to-journey-ticket adventure. when my spot on the waitlist was confirmed back in may, i was told that it would likely be 8 to 12 months before there’d be room for me. still i was hopeful, because when oats and i attended the college info session back in february, they’d mentioned that there’s often a burst of intakes at the start of august and december, simply because fewer students are ready at those times of year. against the odds, hope wins!
i’m also feeling a mixed sort of sadness. this time last year, on my birthday, i’d made it to the top of the waitlist of canada’s most prestigious urban planning masters program and was awaiting a phone call similar to the one i got yesterday, telling me that i had to get myself packed up and moved to vancouver so that i could begin my new life as a graduate student. that phone call never came. now, i’m very glad that it didn’t because if i’d left i’d never have gotten together with oats, and i wouldn’t have gone to australia, and i wouldn’t have done a lot of other rad stuff that made my 27th year absolutely excellent. aside from that, my professor and mentor at the local university told me that i’d have been eaten alive in that masters program, because they have little room for politics such as mine.
so, really, it all worked out for the best.
and yet it’s a goodbye of sorts, or at least a see-ya-later: to my academic life, to the vision of myself as a future university professor, to the classist notions that have surrounded me as a kid growing up among the intelligentsia. even this morning, when my mom called to say happy birthday and i told her the good news, she made a joke about how this’ll be great because someday i’ll be able to wire my own office at the university where i’ll be a professor. that hurt a bit, because she’s usually the most supportive of any of my parents.
still, i get it: for my parents, going to university was the way out of the working class, and they have worked hard to surround themselves with the accoutrements of a cultured life. they raised me to value books, travel, gardens, art and liberal social justice, and they taught me that it’s more important to work with my brain instead of my body. they have their own baggage around this, as three of them are the first (and only) people in their families to ever have education beyond high school. also, being educational professionals themselves (3 teachers, 1 librarian) and of older generation(s), they have a different idea about what my bachelor’s degree in geography (and indigenous studies!) means: shouldn’t i be able to make a career from that??? i think they honestly don’t understand my reality.
and it probably offends them a little, even though they may never admit it outright.
what i need to work on now is admitting to my own internalized classism. what’s wrong with being an electrician? nothing at all, except that capitalism says it’s not as socially valuable as being a university professor. or a corporate CEO. or a politician. which is stupid. right?
the crazy thing that i’m only just starting to dismantle is that due to my class privilege, i could feasibly be any or all of these things. i have the social cues down pat, can assimilate the vocabulary easily, and can move into these spheres simply based on my physical/cultural resemblance to the status quo. i would be granted permission by the gatekeepers, because i am white and educated and confident.
in a way, me choosing trade school is not a rejection of the privilege my parents provide for me, but a continued acceptance and manipulation of it. i can make this choice easily, because i have so many other options. even as i write this, i’m wary of denying agency and autonomy to working class tradespeople, which isn’t my intention (though… there it is!). i need to understand how my privilege affects my choice to enter the trades, because it can seem almost offensive: i took a graduate level course last fall, and it was incredibly challenging and exhilarating but the critical analysis and deleuzian theory were overwhelming, so i’m going to become an electrician right now, then will likely go to graduate school in another 10 or 20 years. just like that :: snaps fingers ::.
anyway. these are the thoughts that fill my head, and even as they are complicated, i’m happy that they are percolating because it’s giving me a chance to see where i fit in the world.
now, i’ve got to get a million and one things ready for tonight’s birthday party. we had a bad scare last night as oats’ cat plummeted from a 10 foot high ledge and seemed quite injured – an emergency trip to the vet proved otherwise, but i’m glad we made sure even though it shot our evening plans for bbq preparations… that really would have made yesterday more messy than i can handle.
i just returned from the library with a massive bag of books! hurrah!
homophobic software “bugs” aside, i really do love this electronic age because of how much it simplifies my access to that great analog joy: a paperback novel.
after the incident a couple days ago, i sat down at my computer and did some research. with the glbtq encyclodia’s excellent page on queer literature in australia and new zealand as a starting point, i then explored the offerings at our books (where they even have a facilitated borrowing system! that’s so great!), and finally, went through the listings from spinifex press. every time i came across an author who’d written a novel about australian queer women, i looked her up in wikipedia, and then public library catalogue itself. after an hour, i’d ordered copies of over a dozen books, most of which were available and so immediately sent to the local library branch.
picking them up this afternoon, i felt very triumphant… but this was quickly tempered by a lingering frustration, because i feel like it should be so much easier than this.
i realize that if this were 20 years ago, i’d be damn lucky to even have found these novels in the first place: yes, that’s true, and i’m grateful to those whose activism has preceding mine. but this isn’t 20 years ago, and i’m an uppity queer brat who has taken her liberal environment for granted, and i’m not prepared to settle for a small pile of books that were difficult to track down.
the local library has informational bookmarks recommending novels for fans of joanna trollope (ugh); how hard would it be to do the same for queer fiction?
rant rant rant.
on to the books! here are the contents of my haul:
- cold fever by lyn denison (1998)
- dreams found by lyn denison (2004)
- always and forever by lyn denison (2006)
- working hot by kathleen mary fallon (1989)
- figments of a murder by gillian hanscombe (1995)
- car maintenance, explosives and love ed. by susan hawthorne, cathie dunsford, and susan sayer (1997)
- all that false instruction by kerryn higgs (1975)
- love upon the chopping board by marou izumo and claire maree (2000)
- darkness more visible by finola moorhead (2000)
i cheated a little, because these are by a new zealander:
- the journey home/te haerenga kainga by cathie dunsford (1997)
- manawa toa/heart warrior by cathie dunsford (2000)
- song of the selkies by cathie dunsford (2001)
- ao toa/earth warriors by cathie dunsford (2004)
i also picked up the conversations of cow (1985) by suniti namjoshi because a) it sounds good, b) she used to teach at the university of toronto, and c) she’s published by spinifex and is partners with australian author gillian hanscombe (from the list above), therefore is associated with australia.
plus, one non-fiction to bump up the nerd factor: cyberfeminism: connectivity, critique and creativity (1999) by susan hawthorne and renate klein. i may be away from the internet for the better part of the next two weeks, but i’ll be reading about it.
in case you’d like to continue getting righteously angry regarding the accessibility of queer books through public institutions (or lack thereof), check out this link that julia posted in the comments of my last entry:
in other news, oats arrives tomorrow morning for a 3 week visit and i’m so excited i can barely talk. eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
Filed under: Activist, Critic, Feminist, Queer, Reader, Sailor, Scifi Fan, Writer
i like to read. not a shock, i know.
i like to read books from a variety of genres and on variety of topics. in fact, i’ll read just about anything available. when given options, i’m especially fond of science fiction, travelogues by women, non-fiction historical narratives, and how-to manuals.
lately, i’ve been reading about australian history, australian women in antarctica, aboriginal australian experiences, and bike trips in australia, with a harry potter novel thrown in to lighten everything up a bit. with a holiday coming up next week, when i’ll have 12 days away from my computer, i decided that i wanted some good fiction to enjoy at the beach.
so, off to the library.
i went to the fiction section, and was quickly overwhelmed, because it was all ordered by author and i wasn’t in the mood for the long browse that may have been necessary for me to find something appealing.
well, i thought to myself, what do i want to read? i want a novel, i decided, about australian queer women. i would like to have a better idea about the lives of dykes in this country, and anyway, if there’s romance in a novel, it’s easier for me to enjoy it when i don’t have to change too many pronouns in order to identify with a protagonist.
i went to the public computer terminal and entered “lesbian fiction” into the catalogue search field. a new page appeared, with a large black square in the middle: under the image of an exclamation point, it read “oops! you’re not allowed to look at that!”
wtf?
i went back, and tried just “lesbian”.
same result.
maybe it’s under “gay”, i thought… but all that garnered was a ton of results such as under “gay men – health” and “gay men – relationships”, etc etc etc.
i tried “lesbian” again.
this time, the warning message read “if you keep this up, there will be consequences”
consequences?
if by “this”, they meant being queer, then yes, there seems to be a “consequence”: i have to deal with homophobic bullshit from software at the public library.
for a moment, i was at a loss for what to do. on one hand, i wanted to just say FUCK IT, and leave, because i shouldn’t have to out myself in order to find a good book.
but on the other hand, what about the folks coming in to the library who are questioning their sexual identity, or supporting someone who is? they’ll be even less likely to seek out a librarian’s help… i know, because i spent most of my coming out days in the library.
i took a deep breath, calmed my righteous anger and fear, and found a librarian to join me at the computer. as politely as possible, i told her what i wanted and what searches i’d tried. she told me that it was “a bug in the system” for the public catalogue terminals, and tried the same searches, with the same results.
i gave an awkward little laugh and said, “a bug? hmmm… yeah, all i could think was that that’s kinda offensive!”
she tried on her own computer, where there are no blocks (or “bugs”), and said that all she could find were some short stories. i thanked her, and went to get them: it was a collection of contemporary lesbian love stories, all by american and canadian authors.
le sigh.
i returned to the public terminal and searched the catalogue for something by emma donoghue. her novel hood is just about my favourite book, but i’ve missed the rest of her work. happily, i found one of her books. also, a sarah waters novel: i’ve never read anything of hers, but it’s been recommended. in the catalogue, i saw that they also had laurie j. marks’ elemental logic trilogy, which i’m tempted to re-read.
after examining the catalogue some more, i realized that there were no subject tags on any of the fiction listings. this made me feel a bit better, if only because queer novels aren’t the only ones lost in the multitude of themes. however, it also annoyed me, because it is inefficient. what if i was on a real nautical kick, and wanted some sea-going adventures to compliment my love of c.s. forester’s hornblower? how would i find out about patrick o’brian?
that’s a misleading analogy, of course. there is a very big difference between wanting a book about sailors and a book about queers. last time i checked, sailors aren’t being mocked, abused, legally oppressed, or murdered for being who they are.
i believe that fiction plays a vital role for queers learning to accept ourselves. when i was coming to terms with my sexuality, a self-help book on “how to come out” (or whatever) was the last book i’d have taken from the library: it was too forthright and intimidating. but jane rule’s after the fire? that was easy, because the story wasn’t “real”: joining the protagonist on her journey allowed me to explore the concept of my queerness without forcing it into fact before i was ready. through fiction, i could delve into the lives of queer women and become familiar with them at a distance that still felt intimate.
we need queer fiction to counteract the stress of homophobia, which is linked to the over-representation of queers in treatment for depression. for the health of the community, queer fiction needs to be easy to access, and public libraries need to assist with this task. an easy solution is the application of subject headings to all fiction, which increases its relevance to all library users: the sailors as well as the queers.
back to the “bug”. if the public library software won’t allow access to resources associated with a sector of society which is currently struggling for equality in the face of severe oppression, THAT’S MORE THAN A BUG. even if the blockage of results from a search of the word “lesbian” is a coincidence, the results are offensive at best. at worst, they are damaging, because they discourage people from finding help they may desperately need. hell, i’m out and proud, and even i got shaky knees at the prospect of having to ask a librarian for queer books!
my roommate said that a “bug” such as this warrants a sign next to each public computer terminal, which 1) explains that certain valid search words may incorrectly garner a warning, 2) states that the error will be fixed within a given time frame, and 3) directs clients to seek the assistance of a librarian should the error arise.
damn right!
i’m going to go write a looooooooong letter to the head librarian right now.
then, i’m going to use the internet to find some novels about australian queer women.
The Charles Town Library Society kept its books and maps in a room on Union Street. The keeper of the books sat at a desk at the entrance. He glanced at me quickly and turned away, as if from something distasteful.
“Ah yes, Mr. Lindo,” he said. “I’m afraid we don’t allow Negroes here.”
“Mr. Jackson, don’t you have a brother in the indigo trade?”
The library man carefully closed a book on his desk. “I’m sure nobody will object this one time, Mr. Lindo.”
“Good. We need some books by Voltaire, and your most recent maps of the world.”
The keeper led us to a table at the far end of the room, brought us two of Voltaire’s books and some rolled maps, and left us alone.
“Keep that fan going,” Lindo said.
“He’s not watching.”
“Use it anyway,” he said, “it’s hot in here.”
While I fanned him, Solomon Lindo untied a string around a large scroll.
“I have never seen so many books,” I said, looking around and wishing that women and Negroes were allowed in the library.
“They have a thousand books,” Mr. Lindo muttered, “and I paid for half of them.”
“Where are we?” I asked, pointing at the map.
“This is British North America,” he said, indicating a mass of land.
On the edge of the land, right up against a huge swath of blue named the Atlantic Ocean, Lindo put his finger by a dot, beside which was the name Charles Town.
“And here,” he said, “is Africa.” Across the blue sea, I saw a strangely shaped mass, wider at the top, curving in the middle and narrowing at the bottom.
“How do you know?”
“You can make out the letters if you look carefully. See here? A-F-R-I-C-A.“
“That is my land? Who says it has that strange shape?”
“The cartographers who make the maps. The traders who sail the worlds. The British and the French and the Dutch and the others who go to Africa, sailing up and down the coast, mapping the shape of the continent.”
On the map I paused over some squiggles in the form of baseless triangles. Lindo said they were meant to indicate mountains. I saw a lion and an elephant sketched in the middle of the land called Africa. I saw that it was mostly surrounded by seas. But the map told me nothing of where I came from. Nothing of Bayo, Segu, or the Joliba. Not a single thing that I recognized from my homeland.
“Here on this side of the water, in British North America,” I said, pointing, “it says Charles Town. I can see where we are. But there are no towns written on Africa. Only these places along the water. Cape Verde. Cape Mesurado. Cape Palmas. How are we to know where the villages are?”
“The villages are unknown,” Lindo said.
“I have walked through them. There are people everywhere.”
“They are unknown to the people who made this map. Look here in the corner. It says 1690. This is a copy of a map first made seventy-three years ago. They knew even less back then.”
I felt cheated. Now that I could read so well, I had been excited by the prospect of finding my own village on a map. But there were no villages – not mine or anybody else’s.
“Is there nothing more?” I asked.
Solomon Lindo looked at his watch, and said we had time for one more map.
Mapp of Africa, the second one said, Corrected with the latest and the best observations. I checked the date. 1729. Perhaps it would be better than the first. The map showed land in the shape of a mushroom with the stem shoved to the right. Near the top, I saw the words Desert of Barbary or Zaara, and below that, Negroland, and below that, along the winding, curving coasts, sections named Slave Coast, Gold Coast, Ivory Coast, and Grain Coast. There were tiny words scribbled where the land met the water, but inland was mostly sketchings of elephants, lions, and bare-breasted women. In one corner of the map, I saw a sketch of an African child lying beside a lion under a tree. I had never seen such a ridiculous thing. No child would be foolish enough to sleep with a lion. In another corner of the map, I studied a sketch of a man with a long-tailed animal sitting on his shoulder.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“It’s a monkey,” Lindo said.
This “Mapp of Africa” was not my homeland. It was a white man’s fantasy.
“There is some lack of detail,” Lindo said, “but now you see the shape of Africa.”
I said I had seen enough. After all the books I had read, and all that I had learned about the ways of white people in South Carolina, I now felt, more than ever before, that these people didn’t know me at all. They knew how to bring ships to my land. They knew how to take me from it. But they had no idea at all what my land looked like or who lived there or how we lived.
the book of negroes
lawrence hill
the subtitle to this post is “why the book of negroes should win canada reads“. in the annual competition for top honours in canadian literature, avi lewis (forever loved by those of us in the co-op movement for his film the take, made with naomi klein) is proposing that every canadian needs to read lawrence hill’s the book of negroes because it effectively tells a gripping story that runs contrary to the smugness of how canada countered slavery in the united states as the destination of the underground railroad.
i’m proposing that everyone needs to read this book simply because it demonstrates the way that geography functions as a tool of colonization, power, and oppression.
up the geographers!
>>> vote for your favourite and join the discussion over at the cbc website…
the amazing oldandmoldy called me this evening, to invite me to his “gratitude potluck” this sunday. yeah, it sounds hippy, but this is the west coast… what do you expect? of course we have dinner parties centered around appreciating all the excellent things in our lives!
i’m stoked, because it reminds me of the old anarchist seders that used to happen every passover in our local activist community… we all were instructed to bring food, a bottle of wine, and something that represents freedom to us. good times, especially for goyish kids like me who don’t generally celebrate passover, anarchist or otherwise, but have often had lots of friends who do. it was a chance to share the magic, and i always left feeling like i was home.
aside from the dinner invite, oldandmoldy and i talked about other stuff, including my thoughts about calling people out on words and actions that are sexist, racist, ableist, and/or homophobic.
as a way of contextualizing this conversation, i have to tell you: oldandmoldy and i disagree almost constantly. at the same time, we love each other: not despite our disagreements, but because of them. he is one of very few people i’ve ever known who understand and appreciate the incredible value of discussing everything. he exhausts me, but in a good way, because i know that he respects and cares for me even when i’m telling him that he’s wrong. i’m pretty sure he knows that i feel the same for him. we enjoy the challenge that we bring to one another.
oldandmoldy has done a lot of work with non-violent communication and men’s groups, so has a few thoughts about conflict. we seem to agree that a successful confrontation of sexist, racist, ableist, and/or homophobic words and actions is one in which the discussion moves forward into sharing of feelings, ideas, and connections… or something like that. at the very least, it’s a discussion in which participants feel like they’ve learned something new and maybe gained a different perspective, or at least acknowledged that different perspectives exist.
actually, “confrontation” is the wrong word: i think what we want to see is more like a… negotiation.
oldandmoldy’s advice on how to have a successful negotiation of sexist, racist, ableist, and/or homophobic words and actions is as follows:
- own your judgments (even if you know your opinions are the truth, recognize that other people won’t see them that way, because they have their own truths; yours are based in your reality, and you need to take responsibility for this)
- ask questions (find out why people are saying/doing things, find out what their reasoning is, create a situation in which questioning accepted norms becomes a viable basis for conversation)
- speak from the heart (don’t rely on theory or logic to explain your point of view; focus on your feelings instead, and make it personal… for example, try approaching a homophobic remark with “as a queer, this makes me feel unsafe, because…”)
i think these are excellent ideas, and i’m looking forward to trying them out next time i’m engaging in this sort of discussion. obviously, they won’t all work all of the time, but hey: nothing does! it was good to talk with oldandmoldy about this, especially because i know how particularly guilty i am of going against that third item… dammit, i love logic.
for another great strategy for approaching these issues, check out Carmen Van Kerckhove’s “How to Respond to a Racist Joke”. (i’d link to the original article at new demographic, but it doesn’t seem to be working at the moment…).
anyone else got suggestions, throw them in the comments.
check your privilege! it’s fun and easy and just may change your entire life!
- White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Backpack (the original concept)
- Daily Effects of Straight Privilege
- Daily Effects of Able-bodied Privilege
***************
the thing about homophobia is that it wears you down.
i think anyone who challenges the status quo can attest to this: even when it’s not constant, the recurring need to validate your right to be present, to exist, to be proud of who you are as you are, to have opinions and be respected for them… is just damn tiring.
especially when you’ve got this headtrip going on, telling you that you can’t just walk away.
i really, seriously, truly believe that there are no enemies, only future allies. this belief, combined with my relative privilege, gives me a sense of responsibility to call people out on their oppressive language, ideas, and actions, and discuss it with them. for the most part, i think this is a good thing. most of the sexism, racism, ableism, and homophobia that we all encounter on a daily basis is the result of peoples’ habitual thoughtlessness as opposed to outright maliciousness. it’s not that we’re ignorant so much as we haven’t thought things through.
given an opportunity to talk about our attitudes, we can see the faulty logic and the hurt in our words and actions, and strive to do better. most of us choose to do this not because we feel a need to “help out” the victims of sexism, racism, ableism, and homophobia, but because on some level, we recognize that as long as we continue with our oppressive viewpoints, we are preventing ourselves from relating authentically with our community: whether we realize it or not, we’re stopping others from feeling safe around us.
usually, i feel secure enough in myself that i can enjoy facilitating these sorts of conversations, and quite often do.
but sometimes i don’t want to do it. sometimes i resent that i’m asked to educate others about how they’re oppressive, even when it’s me that’s asking myself to do this, especially when it’s me they’re oppressing. sometimes i don’t have the energy to cope with the defensive backlash that happens when people are told their words and actions are sexist, racist, ableist, or homophobic. sometimes i’m too drained to explain that we’re all oppressive and it’s okay to admit that, as long as we’re not accepting it, as long as we’re working on it. sometimes, i do just walk away, because my need to protect myself overrides my need to build community.
but even in those cases, the hurt simmers in my mind and heart, and i wonder what to do with it. often i rant to a friend or two, and feel better. when i’ve been a student, i’ve written a paper about it. at times, it has fueled my involvement in political actions.
today, it’s becoming this blog post.
a couple years ago, i was talking with a mentor and used a common colloquialism that denigrates indigenous folks: i realized the offensive nature of what i’d said the instant it came out of my mouth, and was overcome with shame and embarrassment. my mentor told me to calm down, and then said: “the decolonization of our language is an ongoing struggle, but a necessary one, and we all need to take part.”
i think about this all the time.
we can’t let our shame of our thoughtless hate get in the way of dismantling that hate.
******
(UPDATE: there’s a bit of a follow-up post here, with some constructive ideas for dismantling hate)
…by which i mean, of course, that the items to be given away are definitely great, it’s just that there’s only three of them, and they’re rather pre-loved. also, my dear readers aren’t that numerous, so i doubt the competition will be fierce enough to qualify as “great”.
at any rate…
while perusing my shelves yesterday, i realized that i have two copies of each of the following books, and i’d like to pass the doubles on to new homes. want one? just throw in a comment, and i’ll mail it to you! first three commenters win!
and if this goes well, next week i’m using the same tactic to pawn off the cat and an old couch.
the books are:
i have a job in which most of what i do comes from my interest or ability, and the corresponding lack thereof displayed by my coworkers. all in all, it’s a good position to be in, especially since it gives me a certain amount of clout that i wouldn’t otherwise have (not to mention the leniency of my boss when it comes to what other supervisors have referred to as my “attitude problem”).
thanks to the ongoing implosion of our organization, i’m now the most technologically-proficient person left on staff, despite having no specific background in these areas. i maintain a couple websites, i layout publications, i record audio/images at events and edit out the ummmmms/redeye, i send a lot of emails promoting things, and i show coworkers how to use the software on their computers. most of my computer skillz come from figuring stuff out, asking trained people for help, or reading about it in teh internets. i learned about wordpress from our former IT guy when i got this job, and i’ve picked up some drupal from him as well as here and there, and though my knowledge is full of holes, it’s worked out for the most part. i love problem-solving, i love feeling smart, and i love playing with things that beep and have wires coming out of them.
my boss is now hiring a drupal developer to finish off a website for one of our projects, and a new student is being hired to maintain the site. if i were sticking around, it would become my job, but since i’m not, it’s providing employment for a grad student. which is fine by me, especially since he’s a really rad feminist geographer whom i want for my new bff. however! yesterday my boss said that she’s going to pay the drupal developers to train this student. huh? excuse me? HOW COME I NEVER GOT PROFESSIONAL TRAINING???
i can’t decide: is it a classic case of this student being a boy, and therefore considered more worthy of expensive formal instruction than i am, as a girl? or is it a classic case of “oh, feral, you’re so competent, you never needed this training!”?
either way, i’m pissed off. if it’s sexism, well that’s nothing new and yet STILL fuckin’ tedious. if it’s due to my natural cockiness, self-confidence, and curiousity, then all i can say is fuck that. really. if i had had the opportunity to be trained by a drupal developer on building these websites, i would have been able to save SO MUCH freaking time and energy over the past 2.5 years of my job, it’s not even funny. besides which, i’d be leaving the job with an actual definable skill instead of the erratic and porous base of knowledge that gets me through my day. i thrive in structured learning environments! all this pick-it-up-as-you-go has been a huge challenge for me, and though i’ve enjoyed it, i wouldn’t wish it on anyone. so, if they want to train the new student, that’s good. at the same time, it’s absolutely infuriating that i was never given the same opportunity.
***
update: the new student isn’t going to get trained on drupal, or at least not on the site-building aspects of the cms. instead, the developers are going to redefine the user access levels, so that the new student and others like him can be admins and add/edit content, as well as moderate the comments etc., but not be able to change the layout or functions of the website. my own labour issues aside, i think this is a good thing, because though it makes my bosses more dependent on the developers initially, there will be few opportunities for the admins to screw up and get mired in technical problems. ideally, this means they’ll be able to focus more on the actual *content* of the website (novel concept!). with all the other IT people gone from the office, and me leaving in a couple months, it’s a better way for them to operate.
hmmm… though… as of this morning, rumour has it that the whole place is shutting down in june. but you didn’t hear that from me, okay?
[photo: where i'd rather be right now... st. leon hot spring, january 2008]
Filed under: Co-operator, Cynic, Dreamer, Family Member, Feminist, Friend, Queer, Reader, Scifi Fan, Student, Traveler, Worker
there’s nothing like hanging out with a regular reader to remind a blogger of all the things she’s left hanging over the past several posts. last week, i was lucky enough to share breakfast with the sagacious rrr (and his equally astute romantic companion), and the dude was all like: “ummm… aren’t you supposed to be in japan right now?”
oooh, right… maybe i shouldn’t use this space as a *partial* brain dump, considering that somebody reading it might be wanting continuity or an actual storyline or even just the odd tying-up-of-loose-ends. obviously, it’d be better it i simply downloaded all contents of my mind into these pages. or stop blogging. how about i compromise, and do a monday round-up post?
japan
i’m not going. reasons: i can’t afford it. my regular life is too full of stress as it is, and trying to make it in a country where i don’t speak the language will be very exhausting. my main reason for wanting to go was because i wanted to spend time with m., and really, we could easily do that right here in the city where we both live. my other main reason for wanting to go was because i wanted to live in a different part of the world, and i’m eternally grateful to m. for getting me thinking about this, cuz honestly: until that afternoon when we bumped into one another and she started talking about japan, i had forgotten that i could leave this island.
australia
i’m going. i have a plane ticket to melbourne: i’m leaving on april 3rd and coming back on august 10th. i have a work visa, and hopefully will be able to room with friends (if they find a big enough place!). otherwise, i’ll just find some rad unknown roommates, ideally bike geeks who are down with critical analysis, queers, co-ops, and DIY. from what i hear of the city, this should not be too hard. my friend who is living in melbourne has been recommending clothing choices, my mom sent me the lonely planet guide to east coast australia, and i’ve got a very wonderful person making plans to visit me there in june: these things make it feel more real, because suddenly it’s not all in my head.
job
i started a new contract today, and as per my request, it’s only three months long. this morning, i told my boss that i’ll be leaving after that, and she told me that she doesn’t blame me, considering the situation around here (currently, a power-struggle involving the five project directors… five!!!). so, i’ve got twelve weeks to wind up and document 2.5 years worth of publications and event coordination: a sincerely delightful prospect.
school
i took a class this past term, something you may not have known because i barely mentioned it. it was a graduate level course, though i was taking it as a non-degree undergrad… the only one in a seminar with 7 other students who were all working on their masters’ degrees. this could have been overwhelming, but was actually quite good. i do well with a small audience. the course was in feminist research methodologies: i loved it, i hated it, i was in frequent crisis about it… and i pulled off an A, as well as a general sense of relief that i didn’t get accepted into graduate school cuz otherwise my days would be full of that sort of thing.
instead of trying for graduate school again, i am back to thinking about my plan to become an electrician. i couldget some scholarships and start the 6 month foundation program next fall, with the long term plan of getting together with all my other rad tradeswomen friends and forming a feminist workers’ co-op contracting business. eventually, we’ll get our own reality teevee show, in which pink will act as host while we build affordable and sustainable housing, are damn clever, and look damn hot. we’ll mentor young women in trades, and generally be a successful community economic development initiative. yay, dreams! srsly, it could be fantastic.
carpal tunnel
my (hawt) acupuncturist went to india, and i’m no longer a student so don’t have extended health coverage and thus cannot afford the massage therapist. have not been to a doctor in months, and don’t plan on it. i wear the wrist brace (fake-honky-flesh-tone corset!) most nights while sleeping, and received a p0werb@ll gyroscopic hand-exerciser-thingy as a solstice gift, which i think has been helping. for the most part, i’m hardly in pain anymore: my wrist is just very stiff, sometimes the fingers are numb, and it cracks a lot when i twist it. i’m going to start a 12-week set of (queer!) yoga classes next week, to aid in strengthening muscles as well as relaxation.
new year’s eve
i spent nye waiting for my neighbours to arrive home from south carolina, because we had plans to eat dinner, drink wine, and fry some oliebollen. they never showed up (stranded in toronto), so i had an unexpected and delightful night with my best friend instead. we had such a good time, it’s surprising that we didn’t plan it. or maybe that’s partly what made it so good.
reading
current books that lay half-read next to my bed are alanya to alanya (2005) by l. timmel duchamp, marion zimmer bradley’s the winds of darkover (1970), and sappho was a right-on woman: a liberated view of lesbianism (1972) by sidney abbott and barbara love. i love sci-fi, i love feminism, i love stuff from the seventies. right on!
family
for solstice, i bought my 18-year-old sister some lube and a vibrator.
it’s long past my bedtime and i know i should be sleeping, seeing as i have a long day at work tomorrow followed by a long evening of the dreaded holiday staff party… but i’m on the very last page of michael tolliver lives by armistead maupin (one of the books i picked up secondhand in ottawa @ after stonewall) and as much as i’ve been enjoying it, something hasn’t been sitting quite right and i feel the urgent need to work it out.
so, here’s my figuring. the characteristics of the people in this novel are described thusly:
- page 1 – Stranger: close to (michael’s) age, “not bad-looking, in a beat-up, Bruce Willis-y sort of way”
- page 6 – Barney: forty-eight, muscle daddy, has a “big white marble ass”
- page 7 – Ben: blond, brown eyes
- page 8 – Anna: eighty-five, wears a turban, has “snowy hair”
- page 30 – Brian: sixty-one, cleft chin, white “sandpaper” beard
- page 32 – Shawna: twenty-two, black hair, dark-red lipstick, wears harlequin glasses
- page 45 – Jake: ~thirty, short, stocky, grey eyes, bearded
- page 79 – Bed and Breakfast owners: “a pair of retired Italian queens from Queens”
- page 80 – Lenore: ~fifty-five, girlish, petite, “careful hair”
- page 80 – Sumter: seven, delicate, “doe-eyed”
- page 91 – Irwin: has a comb-over, rugged
- page 92 – Nursing home receptionist: “a balding Middle Eastern man”
- page 98 – Alice: “meticulous” blue hair, blue skin tone due to illness
- page 113 – Patreese: “a solid-looking black bear nearing fifty”
- page 119 – Pot-smokers outside bar: ~forty-five, highlighted hair, fake tans
- page 142 – Waitress at Denny’s: “hefty young gum-chewing black woman”
okay, i’m bored of this, and even just above proves my point: the only characters whom maupin describes in a racialized manner are people of colour. no one is ever explicitly described as being White, with the possible exception of Barney, whose ass is described in a way that seems to imply he is caucasian (though he might not be). this is a classic example of the way in which whiteness is considered to be the status quo, the standard, the assumed-state-of-being-unless-otherwise-indicated. by only using racialized terms to describe the bed and breakfast owners, the nursing home receptionist, patreese, and the waitress at denny’s, maupin has indicated them to be “the other” because it makes them stand in stark contrast to all the characters whose descriptions focus on clothing, hair, and other features that are non-race-dependent (though, of course, are still indicative and important).
stuff like this makes me cringe.
especially when it’s in a very popular queer novel… and especially when it’s mixed in with some self-conscious attempts at decrying racism. when seeing the “balding Middle Eastern” nursing home receptionist for the first time, our protagonist responds:
I noticed the bumper stickers on his file cabinet- PROUD AMERICAN and SUPPORT OUR TROOPS -strategically positioned for the benefit of anxious visitors. Poor bastard, I thought. Guantanamo Bay must seem awfully close.
is it cuz i’m an educated white canadian, relatively far removed from common mindsets of the united states, that this seems like a pretty weird response to noticing some unknown person working at their job? here are my other questions:
- how does michael tolliver know this dude is “middle eastern”?
- how does he know that those stickers are there for the benefit of visitors? (maybe the guy is a soldier, or comes from a military family!)
- why would michael tolliver assume that visitors would be anxious? (are all visitors racist ignoramuses who jump to conclusions about complete strangers?)
this sort of shallow thoughtless pitying of a person of colour is… well, plain offensive, actually.
…ESPECIALLY WHEN IT IS IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWED BY THIS PHRASE:
Outside Mama’s room we held a brief powwow…
to be clear, no one in this novel has been indentified as indigenous: the “we” in the above phrase are all people who have been constructed as part of maupin’s assumed-white posse. so, in case you were wondering, these characters did not actually take part in a “…a specific type of event where both Native American and non-Native American people meet to dance, sing, socialize, and honor American Indian culture” ; they made a plan for their morning and that was all. this is not an appropriate use of the term “powwow”. it just isn’t.
there’s more, but i haven’t got the energy right now.
i’ve loved the tales of the city series since i was in high school. i think armistead maupin is a pretty good writer and i’ve loved being transported to his version of san francisco in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. the insights into the AIDS epidemic and the angsty lessons about love and romance were always fascinating to me, even if the characters seemed a little too white/healthy to be real, because at least there was queer content. my criticism of this final wrap-up novel is proof that it matters to me, because if i didn’t care, i’d just write the book off and not even bother blogging about it. but i can’t do that, cuz dammit: i was looking forward to this book and i’m too disappointed now to let it go quietly. why, armistead, why?
