***UPDATE: All blogs are now showing up as properly updated!!! YAY! But I’d still like your input…
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My suspicion is that our success is becoming our downfall: The Queer Canada Blogs blogroll now lists 217 blogs, but some of them are not getting bumped to the top of the list when they are updated. As one of the troubled blogs in question is that of my lover, and another is a favourite of mine (Rigo’s Open Letter!), I’m quite put out that things are not working as they should.
Is the problem simply that we have too many blogs for Blogger’s Blog List gadget? Or is it just buggy in general?
I’m now trying out the Link List gadget, instead of the Blog List.
I’ve also copied most of the blogs over into BlogRolling, but I don’t think that link can be ordered by most recently updated (the option is there, but apparently not functioning?), which makes it rather unappealing for QCB.
We have a WordPress version of the blogroll, but the WP blogroll (Links) widgets aren’t great so that doesn’t seem to be an option.
Does anyone have any advice on how we could make the QCB blogroll more functional, ie. with some sort of hosted blogroll site, or a thirdparty gadget/widget that we could plug into the Blogger or WordPress versions of the site?
Mae and I would like the project to eventually have its own URL, along with all sorts of nice stuff such as blogs sorted by category, blogger profiles, maybe a queer bloggers forum, and how-tos for wannabe bloggers. I don’t think the timing is right for that right now, given how stretched thin she and I both are in terms of our other commitments*, but I’m interested to know if any readers have thoughts on how that could work.
Thanks in advance for your contributions!
*In my case, to the point where I’ve neglected replying to recent comments on this blog… I’m sorry! I’ll get there soon! Please don’t give up on me!
It began to rain as I biked to school this morning. When I turned onto the road that takes me out of the city towards the rural-urban fringe where the trades campus is located, the sunlight that had shone earlier in the morning gave one last hurrah: A rainbow appeared across the sky ahead of me, with one end seeming to point to the college. Ha! I thought to myself. If there’s one thing I’ve learned these past months, it’s that rainbows are not particularly welcome around here, at least not the kind that celebrate sexual and gender diversity.
Of course, I’m more likely to wave a black flag than a rainbow one, but still. The point remains.
Then I was thinking of the other meaning of the rainbow: There’s a pot of gold at the end, right? Which I suppose is really a more accurate reading of this sign, if I want to take it as one.
For the first time in my life, I’m developing a career. When I was younger, jobs were only for the purpose of paying rent and careers were for sell-outs bowing down to the man. When I was a university student, and then afterwards when I worked at a research institute, concepts and critical analysis were what mattered, and jobs depended on who I could impress and what grants they could secure. All of my previous ideas for my financial future were either unsustainable or impractical: Silkscreening instructor, website manager, stained glass artisan, bike mechanic, graphic designer, radio show host…
I don’t mean that these aren’t great possibilities for some folks, but given my skills and my personality, none of them were logical choices unless I was going to simultaneously invest a whole lot of energy into expanding my knowledge. Which I wasn’t: I wanted them to just happen.
Even the idea of becoming a university professor: I think I’d be a rad prof, but you know what? I hate writing academic papers. Loathe it, in fact. Producing my honours thesis was a horrid experience, one that I’d question repeating. So really, while a return to academia is on my to-do list, it’s waaaaaaaay down at the bottom, after “have kids” and “bike across canada” and even “learn to speak Irish”. Why on earth was I considering making a living as an academic?!!!
Which is a long way of saying that even when trade school hasn’t been welcoming and I’ve felt frustrated by the way things are organized around here, I’m very happy to be on my way to being an electrician. Being qualified in a trade excites me, because I’ll be useful for both my problem-solving ability and my dexterity, and for the most part will be able to depend on making a steady living wage based upon those skills.
Also, I’m rather good at it: I am proud to report that I just scored 98% on an exam regarding calculating ampacities for different conductor applications.
I left my desk for a brief jaunt about campus, to grab a coffee at the diner and a new pad of graph paper at the bookstore. The bookstore is having a fundraiser sale of donated books, which I checked out on my way to the stationary section. It was mostly thriller paperbacks and some crappy self-help stuff, but I did manage to pick up a novel by one of my favourite authors, and it’s even one I’ve yet to read: Peter Duck by Arthur Ransome.
I suppose this book is considered a child’s story, one of many in Ransome’s Swallows and Amazons series. However, I missed out on this collection when I was a kid, and only got into it a few years ago, at which point I was promptly hooked.
The main characters are a group of (wealthy, white, able-bodied) British children in the 1930s who live the stereotypical life associated with fictional kids in that context: The majority of their year is spent at assorted boarding schools, but they come together in England’s Lake District for the summer (and sometimes winter) holidays. Think of the Narnia books (or maybe Enid Blyton? I’ve only read a few, so am not sure), except that these children are very obsessed with boats and all things nautical. With a host of parents/guardians who are either delightfully permissive or deliciously absent, the friends and siblings that make up the gangs of Swallows and Amazons lead a life of wholesome adventure with the occasional real danger thrown in for good measure.
In today’s parlance, these kids would be nerds: They’re always pursuing some new avenue of interest, from books or convenient adults, usually related to nature, do-it-yourself, and bits of technology that are no longer current and yet still charmingly interesting. Seriously, the novel Pigeon Post had me all dreaming of raising carrier pigeons, and at least half of my knowledge of sailing terminology and techniques comes from these books.
What makes Ransome’s books so worthwhile? For me, aside from the nerd factor, it’s the female characters: The young women in these novels are strong and adventurous and busy doing millions of things that go far beyond the typical care-taking role often given to similar protagonists. Every volume passes the Bechdel test with flying colours, which I feel is especially relevant in books meant for young readers.
What else can I say? Well, it seems that Peter Duck involves a sailing voyage to the Caribbean, and given the era of the novel, I’m guessing that there’s going to be some fucked-up racial stuff in store for my reading (dis)pleasure. But hey, maybe somehow that won’t happen! I can only hope.
As a final note, I just want to tell you that my very favourite Arthur Ransome novel is We Didn’t Mean To Go To Sea, in which the children find themselves sailing unsupervised across the Channel. They rescue a kitten from a shipwreck! ZOMG! It’s amazing!
Also, I recommend The Far-Distant Oxus, which is a novel not by Arthur Ransome but rather two young Swallows and Amazons fans who wrote it while they themselves were attending boarding school. Unfortunately, it has a whole load of crazy Persia-fixated orientalism that I find to be quite gag-worthy and renders the novel unsuitable for unaccompanied minors. However, this could be used as a great way of opening discussions about culture/ethnicity/etc with kids, and it definitely gave me a lot to the think about from a critical standpoint, in terms of how two young British women saw themselves in the colonial context of the mid-1930s. Yes, this is yet another thesis topic, to add to my ever-growing collection.
Finally: Someday I will get a tattoo of the Swallows and Amazons logo, because it is just so damn cool.
i feel like i’m planning a party, a surprise party, only the surprise isn’t for any one particular guest: it’s for all of us.
the intrepid mae callen has invited me to get involved with her queer canada blogs project, and i’m thrilled. at the moment, i’m working on expanding our geographic diversity by searching out blogs from every province and territory. this means skimming hundreds of blogs, which sets my mind reeling with a million and one questions about sexuality, identity, and place.
what about those LGBTIQ2 folks who don’t personally identify as queer, even though that’s the label i would use to describe them?
similarly, what about the canadians who no longer live in canada, or the bloggers who are only in canada for a brief job contract?
and by using “canada” as a boundary, are we not upholding a colonialist construct that flies directly in the face of my commitment to anti-oppressive practice?
besides which, how do we diversify the age range of our blogrollers and address issues of accessibility?
etc etc etc!!!
as opposed to being frustrated by all this problematizing of what at first glance appears to be a simple project, i am excited. i’m feeling the possibilities here, seeing the opportunities for dialogue, and looking forward to the conversations and debates that are going to come from this.
i must say it again: i am excited. the blogroll has now reached 111 blogs, and i am giddy at what i see on the feeds: we’re here, we’re queer, we’re blogging, and we’re COMPLEX AS HELL.
as a queer, i find that too often i am called upon to counter misinformation and plain ignorance about sexual and gender diversity. it’s an old story, perhaps more common when looking at issues of race: the oppressor calls upon the oppressed to educate them about their oppression, instead of taking the time to educate themselves about how they benefit from structures of power (here’s a bit of audre lorde to help you along with the idea). as part of this phenomenon, people seem to think i can speak for all queers… which of course i can’t, cuz i don’t even know very many: i only truly know myself, and my experiences. i can’t speak for the rest.
more importantly, it’s not my job, and i don’t want to do it.
however! i’d be pleased to recommend that any and all inquiring minds check out a single webpage, where they can get the latest in personal insight from many many MANY real-life queers… who may very well be living next door.
having a party.
***
got a recommendation for the queer canadian blogroll? send it to queerblogs at gmail.com!
i’m back from the epic road trip, in which oats and i took a camper van on a meandering adventure from brisbane up to the tropic of capricorn. i wanted to take my photo next to whatever landmark there’d be at the tropic, but guess what? there wasn’t one. wtf??? i know there’s one next to the highway at the tropic of cancer in mexico, or at least there was 15 years ago: it was a big concrete sphere, painted yellow. i was hoping for something similar at this tropic, but apparently that’s not how they roll in queensland. as a geographer, this bothers me: we musn’t take our latitude lines for granted!
actually, the disappointment of there being no landmark would have been easier to take, if the town at the tropic had been a little more welcoming to those of us with diverse presentations of sexuality/gender. rockhampton wasn’t the worst place i’ve ever been, and it’s not like the stares were anything new, but for some reason i couldn’t shake the feeling that in rocky, there might be more follow-through on some of the more narrow-minded beliefs. maybe it was the life size fiberglass bulls all over the place, reminding me of alberta.
it was a fantastic adventure overall, and i’m glad we did it. more stories will come. for now, i need to apply for two jobs that have come up in my home city. i’m not holding my breath for one of the them, but the other would be absolutely perfect for me… apparently other folks agree, cuz 5 different people emailed me the job posting. it’s nice to feel supported.
sun, wind, van, road... queensland!
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!
- this is the most important clarification that i need to make: though i used the singular personal pronoun “i” in my last post with regards to planning for a future with kids, i’m actually talking about a “we”. which is to say, i was researching options, but the execution of said options will also involve the thoughts, feelings, and energies of my beloved, oats. she’s an equal collaborator in this whole venture. as well, i suppose it’s worth mentioning that we’re also considering adopting older kids, in which case their opinions would be damn important too!
- when i say that i’m estimating $2000 per attempt, that’s specifically for intrauterine insemination with donor sperm at a clinic in my home city. it includes a mandatory counseling session, ovulation-prediction equipment, purchase of sperm from a sperm bank, shipping of sperm to the local lab, preparation of the sperm, insemination by a fertility specialist, and some paperwork fees. we could do it cheaper, definitely, but the chance of success may not be as high. on the other hand, it could be higher, because there’d be less stress. who knows? for now, i’m thinking of investing in a quality ovulation prediction machine, because part of the key here will be timing and i can use all the practice i can get. besides which, i’m a nerd: i love playing with gadgets and making graphs.
- i’m fairly certain that after we’ve been successful with the donor sperm and the child is born, we’ll need to go to court for oats to adopt the baby in order to be legally considered a parent, at an approximate additional cost of $800. which seems crazy. of course, now i can’t remember where i read this, and so i realize i might be completely wrong. i’ll go look for that info right now.
Filed under: Dreamer, Family Member, Nerd, Queer, Romantic, Student, Traveler, Worker
i just spent the last hour researching two goals of mine: how i can get a job in antarctica and how i can get pregnant.
and no, i’m not planning on attempting both at once.
though, the antarctic concentration of sperm-producing humans would be rather in favour of such an experiment… and, as a huge percentage of those residents are scientists, they would be what the sperm banks define as desirable donors, because they are university-educated. zomg, i should start an antarctic sperm bank!
but i digress.
as canada does not have a claim to the antarctic, being too busy using people as human flagpoles in an attempt to assert their ownership of the northern regions of the globe, getting a job in antarctica isn’t as simple as it would be if i were american or australian. or, for that matter, russian. the southern polar stations of these countries are associated with government and military operations, and so only their own citizens can be hired as the support workers. the scientists tend to be a bit more of an international crew. however, since i failed all of those science courses at the start of university and ended up becoming a human geographer instead of a biochemist as intended, it’s pretty unlikely that i’d get any sort of skilled research position.
…this thought had me run off for a couple minutes, and i’m back to tell you: there actually are a few academic articles about the social meaning of occupying antarctic space. see, for instance, “Cold colonies: Antarctic spatialities at Mawson and McMurdo stations”, by Christy Collis and Quentin Stevens (Cultural Geographies, Vol. 14, No. 2, 234-254 (2007)). who knew?
at any rate, my background in economic, colonial, and queer geographies hasn’t exactly laid the foundation for studying antarctic society, but i guess it’s possible. however, i’d do far better to follow through on becoming an electrician, and get cold weather experience in the northern territories. that way i could get hired as a specialty tradesperson, with qualifications that could compensate for my lack of appropriate citizenship.
pregnancy might be easier to achieve, but will be a bit more complicated. to be clear, i probably shouldn’t even call it a goal because i’m not craving the actual experience but rather see it as one of several possible routes to having kids. i think it’d be neat, but i also think adoption would be pretty cool too, just differently so. at this point, i’m just figuring out the options, because though i’ve always had this idea that intrauterine insemination with donor sperm would be expensive, i never knew the exact amounts. so, here goes: it’s about $2000 per attempt. that doesn’t sound like much, honestly… until i consider that it might not work the first time. statistically, i’d have an 80% success rate within 6 cycles. yeah. i’m glad this isn’t something i’m dead set on, because if i were i’d be depressed right now, rather than simply sobered.
snow! i woke up to snow this morning: not a lot, just a dusting, and a crunchy-icy sheen all over the road and sidewalks. if it were sunny, everything would be all sparkly, i’m sure. as it stands, the sky’s all grey… does this mean more snow on the horizon?
(the weather reports say no.)
growing up in southern ontario, i saw a lot of snow as a kid, and for the most part i loved it. my parents were firm believers in no-children-in-the-house-during-daylight-hours, so i suppose we had to learn to love it… but regardless, i was happy. my thoughts on the matter changed a little when i got into cycling, because even in the city, it’s hard to ride a bike through an ontario winter. that’s one of the reasons i moved west: i wanted to be able to enjoy my bicycle year-round. i still think this was a good decision, because being a part of the bike community out here has been amazing. but! but i dream of snow. as in, my dreams often feature snowy landscapes.
so when it actually does snow here, as it has quite often this past winter, i’m pretty damn thrilled.
talking with Oats this morning, we were speculating as to whether or not the climate is going to stay this way, if we’re going to have cold and snowy winters from now on. the funny thing is, i knew that i’d seen some old photos of this area under snow, during one of my forays into the archives. i fished around on the internet, and learned that there’d been a huge snowstorm in 1916: most of the snow photos that i was remembering were actually from that one event. however, there’s still a number of pictures from other years, showing at least as much snow as we had this year. so, maybe instead of getting more unusual and extreme, the weather is simply returning to a previous part of a long cycle. on the other hand, there’s also this global warming thing going on, and i could be completely wrong. i guess we’ll find out eventually!
in the meantime, it’s interesting to think about where we get our local standards for climate.
from my research, here’s a couple of my favourite pics:
i love this photograph because of the way the light shines off the water; it makes me think of good winter sailing. (189?)
this photograph reminds me of toronto, with its brick buildings and blowing flurries. (1937)
want to look at more photos? the bc archives has a great online database of visual records, guaranteed to provide hours of entertainment for all!*
*well, maybe all history nerds. up the nerds!
i saw this meme over at amanda’s and am quite amused by it… never having been the type to carry a purse, i think it’s funny how i still *need* to have a backpack or satchel. here’s my current everyday bag:
safety pins = punk rawk... or just lazy?
i’m not particularly fond of it, but it does the job very well and that’s enough. when i leave for australia, i’m going to ditch it.
i got this bag for free, and it was in perfect condition. i added a small strap and clip so that it would stay on my back while i cycle. my friend will gave it to me, as he was distributing many items picked it up from the overflowing campus dumpsters at the end of last spring term (we call this phenomenon “hippy christmas”). the patches are covering a logo of some sort; my friend em made the one on the right.
i’m pretty utilitarian, i guess… there’s nothing very exciting about my bag’s contents! if it reveals anything, it’s that i’m into media production and wealthy enough to own a bunch of electronics. first thing this morning i was downtown doing an interview for my radio show, and am doing another show for the women’s collective this afternoon; i don’t always carry around all this stuff. frequently, but not always.
counterclockwise, from left… i’ve got:
- a spiral-bound notebook
- 2 usb portable storage keys
- 2 pens
- cell phone (yes, the screen has an amazing radiating crack in it)
- a cd case containing two cds (one is an interview, the other is a whole episode of my show)
- an envelope of photos of me and my lover
- assorted papers, mostly radio show scripts and background notes
- headphone adapter so that i can use my headphones on mixing board at radio station
- headphones
- mp3 player
- soporific tea
- sinus medication
- 1 rubber band
- 2 hair elastics
- 3 hairpins
- digital recorder
- mesh bag containing ac power source, usb cable, extra batteries, and foam muffler for digital recorder
- digital camera (not pictured, obviously)
yep. that’s it. huh. i would have thought there’d be something more obviously bike-related or queer or literary. oh well.
i’m going to follow amanda’s lead, by not tagging anyone in particular to do this meme next… but if you want to, post the link in the comments so that we can all enjoy judging you and your possessions!
