the utah thing started with desert solitaire, edward abbey’s book about wild places and humanity. my ex-partner, the american, gave me a copy when we were first in love, and after we broke up we decided to rendezvous in salt lake city for a week of adventure. our first night in town, someone stole his hunting knife while we cooked dinner in the hostel. we left the next morning, taking the bus to a spot just south of provo and then walking out to the highway. it was sunday: the minivans and suvs flew past us non-stop, but every seat was filled. after spending the night sleeping near a gravel pit, we managed to hitch five good rides (all stories in themselves), and were suddenly in moab.

i love utah.

i’m thinking about the desert, and trying to remember what it felt like to be so hot, to have so much sun that you’d actually avoid it. that first visit to utah, it was november and though the days were warm and sunny, it rained at night and i bought a sweater at the mormon-run version of value village. the second trip, when i drove down with another partner-at-the-time, it was june and we baked to the degree that it actually limited our activities: hiking could only be done from 3 pm to 7 pm, between the lessening of the heat and the arrival of darkness, and anything else had to be in close proximity to either ample water or air conditioning. luckily we found the creek that the bike punks in slc had told us about, and the moab library was not only cool, it has won awards for being an amazing small-town facility.

if you and i are in love with each other, chances are we’ll go to utah at some point or another.

This morning I made my throat achy and raw by retching over the toilet for a while, trying to throw up as neatly as possible. Luckily, I managed to not throw up at all, and so went to school despite lingering doubts about my health. If I had swine flu, I’d know, right? From what I hear, it’s a more sudden and violent affliction than this sort of creeping tiredness, nausea, absentmindedness, and headache that I’ve had on and off for weeks now.

I even forgot about tonight’s Billy Bragg concert until about 6:45 this morning, at which point I pretty much decided that I don’t want to go. I hadn’t even remembered to get tickets.

I don’t know what’s wrong with me, except that it’s been cold and dark and rainy for weeks now. Summer feels like it passed faster than ever before. It took me a while to realize that I missed the first couple months of sunshine and warmth: Instead, I spent April, May, and June in Melbourne, where it was cold and dark and rainy.

I already had my winter, and am not coping well with another one hitting me again so soon.

…unless of course he was 4 months old, 12 lbs, perpetually cold, and crazily skinny despite the fact that he’s consistently fed as if he were in the next higher weight bracket.

this weekend i knit mo a sweater.

that’s about all i did, aside from recover from last week, which was pretty crappy. given that, and the terrible weather, i almost skipped out on friday’s trans day of remembrance rally. then i thought to myself, “wait a second, a large part of why i feel so bad is due to ignorance of and hate towards gender and sexual diversity! a rally could be just what i need!”

and it was, in some ways, thought it also made me dwell a lot on depressing things.

the antidote to that was this morning, when oats and i spoke about being queer at a local unitarian youth group: these kids made me feel like being me, being us, being whomever *you* are, is definitely the raddest thing in the world.

I just told my partner that our beloved upstairs neighbour has nominated me for the 2009 Canadian Blog Awards, and her response was to smile.  “I did too,” she said.

Aw, shucks!  THANK YOU!

So, dear readers who *don’t* live at my house, here’s another reminder:  Nominations are currently open for the 2009 Canadian Blog Awards, and there’s lots of bloggers (who aren’t me) that deserve to win! Get your nomination in via the handy online nomination form at the CBA website before this coming Saturday, November 21st.

Not sure who to nominate?  Why not check out the Queer Canada Blogs blogroll, for excellent blogs written by talented bloggers!

Categories for which I personally am nominating my favourite blogs include…

- GLBT (Obviously! Though I’m not sure where this puts those of us who identify as queer…)
- Overall
- Blog Post
- Blog Post Series
- Personal
- Family
- Photo/Art
- Humour
- Political

More categories are listed on the nomination page at the CBA website.

And… Thanks for reading. No, really, I’m not being sarcastic: You’ve made blogging a very fulfilling experience.

It’s interesting that I’ve reached a point where I find the sexism in my classroom annoying but nothing worth addressing in any kind of serious way. It’s a study in comparative bigotry: The struggle to be respected as a queer has worn me down enough that I just don’t have energy for taking on the sexist crap.

However.

It’s quite tedious.

When I was in high school, I took part in an applied physics program. The courses were taught by a teacher named Vorvis, who was a stickler for details. Among other demands, he insisted that all assignments be accompanied by a neat drawing of the relevant apparatus, with labels written in perfect capital letters. If this was not done to his satisfaction, then the entire assignment was considered incomplete. Needless to say, this was an effective training tool that very quickly had me making all of my handwriting an imitation of Vorvis’.

Fast forward 14 years or so, and guess what? I still tend to write in all capital letters, evenly and neatly. BECAUSE I WAS TRAINED TO DO SO.

And yet! Almost every single fucking day, some idiot classmate looks at my schoolwork and makes some comment about my girl handwriting.

Sometimes they listen as I explain that actually, my gender isn’t nearly as relevant as my history as a physics nerd.

Usually, they don’t listen at all, and just go along their merry little thoughtless way.

TEDIOUS.

I realize such comments can sometimes be intended as compliments. Really though, if you want to compliment me, you should stick to my actual achievements: I worked damn hard in that physics program, whereas my gender is a more conflicted sort of ongoing negotiation that I don’t consider to be particularly praiseworthy. Otherwise, it’s just another one of the many ways in my intelligence and skills are undermined and negated, as a woman in this male-dominated trade.

Having said that, today has been a pretty good day, and I know that I’m here because it’s where I ought to be.

lately, i’ve been dealing with quince.

there’s a lot of them.

so far, i’ve tried two different jam recipes, and i don’t really like either one.

or maybe i just don’t like quince.

i guess i’ll have to figure that out.

it’s sunday and i’m doing homework, studying the canadian electrical code in preparation for a week of hands-on practice as i wire a few rooms of a demo house (aka “the shack”) with another classmate. it promises to be quite the experience.

with that in mind, i haven’t got much time to write, so instead i’ll just share this song with you. i dedicate it to my beloved, and her staunch disapproval of all creatures creepy/crawly, or what she calls “ugly things”.

i *heart* bobbie gentry.

(another post inspired by another blogger… vegan activist asked about my other bike trailer, which i mentioned in a recent post where i showed off the new one we got for taking the puppy on road trips, so here’s way more than anyone ever really wanted to know about it!)

this is my bike trailer, full of groceries and resting on its lower edge:

here’s another view, now resting on its hitch:

(as an aside, i must say that the hardest part of this post is showing y’all pics of my groceries, cuz i’m the sort of asshole who judges people based on what food they buy so i tend to expect the same from others… actually, that would be a really good sort of behavioural-modification exercise for me, if i posted photos of all my groceries… not so exciting for the viewer, but a chance for me to get the fuck over my issues)

i bought this trailer for $50 at a consignment shop seven years ago.  the guy was asking $65, i asked if they had a student discount, and he said he’d give it to me for the lower price if i paid cash.  done!  since then, it has been used for countless food not bombs servings, dumpster diving missions, and house moves.  it has carried individual large humans in a completely sketchy sort of way, and on several occasions, one or two small ones, nicely secured and contained.

i love this trailer because it is rugged: as you can probably tell, i almost always store it outdoors, but the only damage is some superficial rust.  though it does not fold up like other trailers, it has a narrow profile when sitting upright (see first photo) and can be leaned against a wall.  the wheels are quite large, allowing it to easily ascend bumps and curves.  i added the metal hooks around the sides and bottom edge, so that multiple bungee cords (or old inner tubes!) can be used to strap in a big load.  like all two-wheeled trailers, it has a tendency to flip if one wheel hits a bump, particularly at high speeds when there’s little weight in the trailer, but this can be avoided by careful riding.

the hitch goes around the bike’s seat post.  originally, there were just two carriage bolts held on by wing nuts, in front and behind the seat post, but this rattled quite a bit and damaged the metal.  i found the kevlar hitch in a random bin at the community bike shop, and replaced the front carriage bolt with the linchpin, simultaneously securing the metal outer ring and the kevlar inner band.  i like it because there’s so few parts that there’s very little that can go wrong.  also, the long shafts make the trailer very convenient to use as a wheelbarrow or hand cart, because seat post level is around hand level so it’s comfortable to pull/push the trailer to the grocery store like we did this morning.

i don’t like the fact that a child (or dog!) riding in this trailer faces backwards, but at least the solid plastic offers more protection than the tent-style trailers… better for a kid than a puppy.  however, there’s nothing to shelter a passenger from wind or rain!  with mo being so bloody cold all the time anyway, i think any attempt to get him to ride in this open-style cart would have him hating all bike trailers, which is why we’re happy to have gotten the other one for him.

luckily, he was happy to act as a model for this last pic: as shown above, the molded seats are quite good for holding boxes.

i don’t know if i’d ever take this trailer on a trip, though i’ve seen photos of the same one in the road trip section of a bike book… the cyclist had even strapped a whole extra wheel across the underside of the trailer’s hull!  it’s not particularly aerodynamic, and must be packed carefully to avoid having too much weight resting at the lower edge, which causes the hitch to slam up against the bottom of the bike seat.  also, it collects water, and requires a cover that can pull tight around the edges and some drainage holes.

however!  as an all-purpose, haul-everything, so-worthwhile-it’s-practically-paying-ME-every-time-i-use-it sort of a tool, this is pretty much the best $50 i’ve ever spent.

A while ago, Miz Moffat wrote a blog post in which she recounted the celebrity crushes of her youth and how they signified a future queer existence.

I didn’t comment, but I haven’t been able to stop thinking about this.

I didn’t comment not because I didn’t recognize my young queer self, but because the women to whom I was (and am) attracted are never celebrities: They are simply not visible in pop culture. The butch/genderqueer individuals who make my heart beat faster could not be found on the television screen or in films or even on stage. As I got older and into punk rock, there was some visibility, but before that? Nothing.

In fact, I think this is one of the reasons why I dated men for so long, despite knowing that I was queer: It was difficult to follow through on my hypothetical queerness when I was not attracted to Angelina Jolie or Lucy Lawless or Ani DiFranco or whomever else I heard the gay girls were into. I like ‘em butchy, and that’s a tall order for a young person.

Luckily, I was growing up mostly in Toronto, which is how I knew that I wasn’t straight: Even though the women I liked were rarely on teevee, I frequently saw them walking down the street, working in all sorts of professions, and generally being present. They were always older than me, and looked better in men’s clothing than any boy my age, and I’d see them and think, WOW.

Them I’d go back to fucking my boyfriend or whatever, trying not to dwell on the thoughts and feelings that had been brought up by the encounter.

I’m not saying it was harder than what was experienced by my peers who prefer femmes, just… Different.

I didn’t really recognize myself in a queer community until I was 17 years old and read Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold, which is a history of the lesbian culture in Buffalo, NY, in the 1930s-60s. It was a big moment for me, because though the butch/femme roles were presented as a coping mechanism in a homophobic society, I still saw myself validated. Not necessarily as a femme, which is a moniker that I’ve only come to adopt in the past year or so, but definitely as an appreciator of masculine women.

Soon after, I read Rubyfruit Jungle for the first time, and that didn’t help my confusion: The protagonist frequently expresses much distain for her female lovers who maintain their relationships with boyfriends for the sake of appearances, and I wondered, Am I doing that?

I spent a lot if time feeling bad, especially when I was single and secretly in love with a (non-butchy but out queer) friend. I don’t regret the way things went, but of course it’s always easier to see these things in retrospect: It made sense for me to be too scared to come out.

So my celebrity crushes? Well, the closest thing I can think of is when I was slightly obsessed with Amelia Earhart, at the age of 13. Mae Callen summarized the appeal quite well in her tributes, here and here. At the time, I was reading biographies constantly, looking for heroes, which meant that my love for AE had the main hallmarks of my future celeb crushes: I didn’t want to get with her so much as I wanted to BE her. Other people in this category include Diana Rigg in the 1965-68 seasons of the Avengers, and Pam Grier.

Other than that, I can’t say that pop culture has much room for the folks whom I consider to be crush-worthy. That’s a shame, because I know I’m not the only one who finds them to be sexy as all get out. But really, their invisibility is only a facet of the homophobia and strict gender rules that curtail so much of our lives: It’s another side of the same story in which I’m told I don’t look gay. The nature of celebrity reinforces ideas of who we should be, what we should look like, who we should love, and what our standards should be for beauty, of which gender is an extension. In a way, this is part of my attraction to butches/gendequeers: By simply existing and looking jaw-droppingly dapper in her grey wool suit, my lover is a walking/talking/thinking/feeling act of resistance, and I am dead proud to hold her hand as we walk down the street. She’s more crushable to me than any celebrity ever could be.

With huge thanks to Miz Moffat for getting me thinking!

***UPDATE:  All blogs are now showing up as properly updated!!!  YAY!  But I’d still like your input…

———————–

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!