Blegh! Stagnant! It's time for some damn springtime and to let go and move forward. This image is all of that. 50 Watts, I love you.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Movement
Blegh! Stagnant! It's time for some damn springtime and to let go and move forward. This image is all of that. 50 Watts, I love you.
Saturday, December 18, 2010
For the Armenian
The last weekend before Christmas. I am glad my mother instituted secret santa in our family, so the stress of buying gifts is gone. I don't even miss getting presents. I am just looking forward to being in St-Adele and reading books, playing cards, skiing, spending time with my family...
But, still three days of work before I can do all of that. And work is irritating. Everything is slow and I keep on running into roadblocks in all of my projects. I try to remember that I don't even like this job, but I still want to accomplish something. I'd like to have what I do for the majority of my weekdays go somewhere, even if in the end I don't consider my work to be fulfilling satisfying. And my carpool, which used to be both fun and very convenient, is now irritating due to the driver. We went to my coworker Karine's birthday party and he got slurringly drunk. He kept on grabbing my arm and knee quite hard, and at one point he, I imagine, went to emphasize whatever crap he was slurring on about by grabbing my arm, but grabbed my breast instead. Hard enough to make me yelp. And then was offended because I embarrassed him when I said, somewhat loudly, That's my boob! and everyone at the party heard. His reaction, I realized, was one of the first genuine things I had ever heard/witnessed from him. And that fact made my skin crawl. The next night was a party that I didn't go to, as the Russian was in town and Art was going to attend, and they both swore there would be a fight if they were in the same room. Hard to imagine that...
Anyway, he waylaid my friend, again completely drunk, and showed her text messages that I had sent him in reply to his about carpool and the party the previous evening: No, I am here already. Carpool tmmrw? And was convinced that I must like him. I know these two events seem minor and silly, but they offered me a glimpse of an aspect of this guy that I find repulsive. He is disingenuous. A quality I really don't like, but which I dislike even more when it comes from a desire to be liked, not by someone he genuinely finds interesting, but my anyone and everyone. I am not sure why that bugs me so much. So he was just this person operating somewhere in my orbit but once I realized he would say anything, even have an argument with me, to be what he thinks I want him to be, all interactions took on a tone of insincerity. I hate insincerity. Maybe I am being too hard and have closed my peripheral vision on him so that all I see is this weakness, but it has soured me! But carpool is essential for the winter months, so I just have to get along with him.
That was a long bit about something not that interesting. Although the grabbiness was icky. It quickly brought to mind other times when I have been in situations that I would much rather not have been in, that left me feeling dirty and a little ashamed (much how the women accusing the wikileaks guy must feel, if the article I read today can be believed). This has been on my mind a lot these days, since I am getting involved with a group called POWER (Prostitutes of Ottawa-Gatineau Work Educate and Resist). I found them originally through contact with a similar organization in Montreal, Stella, and they just published a thorough and moving report on sex work in Ottawa. I will post a link to it when the website is back up. They are a rights group, and don't offer any services to sex workers. One day, maybe I will be able to be able to make my living filling that gap.
Anyway, sex work, violence, sex, consent, stigma have all been on my mind for the past little while. At my work Christmas party I was sitting next to a man I know slightly and after telling him that I was planning on going to the vigil at the Human Rights Memorial to mark the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers (Dec 17) we got into a discussion about sex work. I told him I had been a cam girl, but mostly we talked about stigmatization. This was something that came up throughout the POWER report as well, that sex work becomes the worker's identity, not their job. They are defined by it, and any heated discussion about it becomes a defense of who you are, not what you do. I remember feeling like that, and how exhausting it was. Because sex work is already something, whether you choose it or not, that requires introspection- how do I feel about my body, am I respecting myself, am I being taken advantage of, how does my sexuality relate to my identity... I think this is because it is something that is not socially acceptable. So to never be able to have a break from defending your choices unless you avoid telling people about your job or outright lie about it seems to me to need a strength that I don't know if I have, in any case.
Of course, there is a difference between middle class me choosing to do cam work, and working on the street, for drugs, getting harassed by police, but the report actually makes clear that what POWER calls whorephobia does exist in every line of sex work, and that it profoundly affects all the workers the authors interviewed.
I think Jon had never thought about sex work, and that his initial position was somewhat neutral...that perhaps the laws that make sex work difficult should be changed for the safety of the worker (which is true, but it isn't only about safety; working in a coal mine is hazardous too, but miners don't have laws that violate their human rights written into the Criminal Code). So I wasn't arguing against a moral stance. That is a lot harder to reconcile. The idea that sexuality can be sold like anything else is repulsive to some people, and I think maybe primarily women, but I don't know. I don't know why I have never felt that repulsion. And that brings us back to the introspection.
In any case, I am glad that I am exploring this, because it is something that I feel really strongly about. Although I am uncomfortable with the idea of being an 'activist' and I did feel idiotic holding my candle in the cold, surrounded by people who feel exactly the same way as I do about sex work. But perhaps that is where strength comes from. I also feel like a little cam work doesn't really give me too much insight. But maybe it is enough.
In other news, the Russian has been in serious wooing mode. He came to Ottawa last week, ostensibly to bring me my Christmas present (a very beautiful, but not very functional teapot). I have put both him, and Art, on ice for the time being (though of course I sleep with the Russian whenever we are geographically close enough to do so...) The truth is, though, that I love him. It just isn't enough. Though, if he quits his job and takes the job he is interviewing for in Ottawa, and does that with no guarantee from me, that is convincing...
It is so odd that I sought out someone who has no idea how to want what he wants and feel like he deserves to have it, as compared to the Russian who is just learning how to balance what he wants with what I want and need. Art says that it is just so much easier to give his wife what she wants, that if she doesn't care or care enough that he doesn't actually love her, that she loves him enough for the two of them, then maybe he owes it to her to stay and try some more. When I asked if he wanted to be with someone he didn't love, he said no. And I said, doesn't that count for anything? His response was that he didn't know, maybe not. My reaction to this revelation of his character was to turn into an armadillo and enjoy our conversations.
Okay, one more thing: I love these dioramas. I wish I could see them to get a sense of their scale.
Oh, and what is it about being in love that makes me want to almost ingest the object of my affection. I have been thinking about this all week because the Russian has been sending me adorable animal photos. This might be the least adorable, but still my favourite:
and I love this image too:
Okay, I am done for reals now.
But, still three days of work before I can do all of that. And work is irritating. Everything is slow and I keep on running into roadblocks in all of my projects. I try to remember that I don't even like this job, but I still want to accomplish something. I'd like to have what I do for the majority of my weekdays go somewhere, even if in the end I don't consider my work to be fulfilling satisfying. And my carpool, which used to be both fun and very convenient, is now irritating due to the driver. We went to my coworker Karine's birthday party and he got slurringly drunk. He kept on grabbing my arm and knee quite hard, and at one point he, I imagine, went to emphasize whatever crap he was slurring on about by grabbing my arm, but grabbed my breast instead. Hard enough to make me yelp. And then was offended because I embarrassed him when I said, somewhat loudly, That's my boob! and everyone at the party heard. His reaction, I realized, was one of the first genuine things I had ever heard/witnessed from him. And that fact made my skin crawl. The next night was a party that I didn't go to, as the Russian was in town and Art was going to attend, and they both swore there would be a fight if they were in the same room. Hard to imagine that...
Anyway, he waylaid my friend, again completely drunk, and showed her text messages that I had sent him in reply to his about carpool and the party the previous evening: No, I am here already. Carpool tmmrw? And was convinced that I must like him. I know these two events seem minor and silly, but they offered me a glimpse of an aspect of this guy that I find repulsive. He is disingenuous. A quality I really don't like, but which I dislike even more when it comes from a desire to be liked, not by someone he genuinely finds interesting, but my anyone and everyone. I am not sure why that bugs me so much. So he was just this person operating somewhere in my orbit but once I realized he would say anything, even have an argument with me, to be what he thinks I want him to be, all interactions took on a tone of insincerity. I hate insincerity. Maybe I am being too hard and have closed my peripheral vision on him so that all I see is this weakness, but it has soured me! But carpool is essential for the winter months, so I just have to get along with him.
That was a long bit about something not that interesting. Although the grabbiness was icky. It quickly brought to mind other times when I have been in situations that I would much rather not have been in, that left me feeling dirty and a little ashamed (much how the women accusing the wikileaks guy must feel, if the article I read today can be believed). This has been on my mind a lot these days, since I am getting involved with a group called POWER (Prostitutes of Ottawa-Gatineau Work Educate and Resist). I found them originally through contact with a similar organization in Montreal, Stella, and they just published a thorough and moving report on sex work in Ottawa. I will post a link to it when the website is back up. They are a rights group, and don't offer any services to sex workers. One day, maybe I will be able to be able to make my living filling that gap.
Anyway, sex work, violence, sex, consent, stigma have all been on my mind for the past little while. At my work Christmas party I was sitting next to a man I know slightly and after telling him that I was planning on going to the vigil at the Human Rights Memorial to mark the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers (Dec 17) we got into a discussion about sex work. I told him I had been a cam girl, but mostly we talked about stigmatization. This was something that came up throughout the POWER report as well, that sex work becomes the worker's identity, not their job. They are defined by it, and any heated discussion about it becomes a defense of who you are, not what you do. I remember feeling like that, and how exhausting it was. Because sex work is already something, whether you choose it or not, that requires introspection- how do I feel about my body, am I respecting myself, am I being taken advantage of, how does my sexuality relate to my identity... I think this is because it is something that is not socially acceptable. So to never be able to have a break from defending your choices unless you avoid telling people about your job or outright lie about it seems to me to need a strength that I don't know if I have, in any case.
Of course, there is a difference between middle class me choosing to do cam work, and working on the street, for drugs, getting harassed by police, but the report actually makes clear that what POWER calls whorephobia does exist in every line of sex work, and that it profoundly affects all the workers the authors interviewed.
I think Jon had never thought about sex work, and that his initial position was somewhat neutral...that perhaps the laws that make sex work difficult should be changed for the safety of the worker (which is true, but it isn't only about safety; working in a coal mine is hazardous too, but miners don't have laws that violate their human rights written into the Criminal Code). So I wasn't arguing against a moral stance. That is a lot harder to reconcile. The idea that sexuality can be sold like anything else is repulsive to some people, and I think maybe primarily women, but I don't know. I don't know why I have never felt that repulsion. And that brings us back to the introspection.
In any case, I am glad that I am exploring this, because it is something that I feel really strongly about. Although I am uncomfortable with the idea of being an 'activist' and I did feel idiotic holding my candle in the cold, surrounded by people who feel exactly the same way as I do about sex work. But perhaps that is where strength comes from. I also feel like a little cam work doesn't really give me too much insight. But maybe it is enough.
In other news, the Russian has been in serious wooing mode. He came to Ottawa last week, ostensibly to bring me my Christmas present (a very beautiful, but not very functional teapot). I have put both him, and Art, on ice for the time being (though of course I sleep with the Russian whenever we are geographically close enough to do so...) The truth is, though, that I love him. It just isn't enough. Though, if he quits his job and takes the job he is interviewing for in Ottawa, and does that with no guarantee from me, that is convincing...
It is so odd that I sought out someone who has no idea how to want what he wants and feel like he deserves to have it, as compared to the Russian who is just learning how to balance what he wants with what I want and need. Art says that it is just so much easier to give his wife what she wants, that if she doesn't care or care enough that he doesn't actually love her, that she loves him enough for the two of them, then maybe he owes it to her to stay and try some more. When I asked if he wanted to be with someone he didn't love, he said no. And I said, doesn't that count for anything? His response was that he didn't know, maybe not. My reaction to this revelation of his character was to turn into an armadillo and enjoy our conversations.
Okay, one more thing: I love these dioramas. I wish I could see them to get a sense of their scale.
Oh, and what is it about being in love that makes me want to almost ingest the object of my affection. I have been thinking about this all week because the Russian has been sending me adorable animal photos. This might be the least adorable, but still my favourite:
and I love this image too:
Okay, I am done for reals now.
Friday, November 26, 2010
Advice
The Russian sent me this today, after a conversation on the phone last night where there were things I wanted to say, but didn't find the strength. He said I was strong, stronger than anyone he has ever met, but what I was too weak to tell him to give up, that what he is feeling isn't real, it's jealousy and fear that he won't find someone he likes more than me. But I love him, and I couldn't. Maybe another time. Maybe I deserve to hear him tell me all these things, except that it could end up kicking me in the ass later on, when he does fall in love with someone else. I mean really, he is seeing someone, how does he expect to convince me he is a changed man if he can do that? But I guess I am capable of doing it.
And then there is the stupid, naked, hopeful sliver of me that is like, he's telling the truth, he found what he was looking for and it's me!
Which is all besides the point, which is...what am I looking for?
Art is so sweet. He was showing me photos of U of T campus that he thought I would like, and there were photos of his wedding and others with his little family, dogs and wife, and he looked so different than how I see him. He looks at me with wide eyes all the time, and when he bursts out laughing it is against his will. He says he is a little terrified of me, that he never imagined he would be able to get close to me and the fact that I like him is a constant surprise. And then I look at those photos and I see sarcasm and irritation and affection, but mostly he is really relaxed. I asked him about this, and he said it takes a long time for him to let his guard down, which I understand. I do it in a different way, but my armour stays up for a while too.
So...I have this feeling that telling them both to leave me alone might be a smart choice. I am not always so good at taking the high road, though.
Am finally going to see Sabina tomorrow for Christine's birthday. We are going to the polar bear club. I have to admit that I am exhausted from taking the bus to Montreal so often and sleeping on couches, being busy, trying to get regular tasks done when I keep on traveling to Montreal. Going to see Lev felt like going to my other home, but this is different.
I wonder how Lindsay is doing...it was strange giving her advice (Christine is right; everyone bullies her, for better or for worse, and we should be careful) that I should be taking myself: to not be scared to displease people, that if they care about her they will stick around and she should decide what is best for her, and not base it on what people want from her. I think the Sparkses in general could use that advice.
It felt like the first day of winter today. Not so much this morning, when the snow was still new and the frozen fall leaves were crunching under my boots while I paced around waiting for my lift- it felt temporary, awaiting warmer temperatures. But tonight when I left work the trees were bare and icy and it smelled like cold weather. I don't really like winter (winter freckles- why does winter give me bad skin?) but it was pleasant stepping out into the cold sunset.
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Waiting Room
Second long weekend in Montreal in a row. Also second funeral. And second dinner with the Russian. All were odd and overall, positive. And my sister's birthday.
The viewing was on Thursday, and it was warmer than most wakes I have been to. There were five or six photo collages of various periods in Mario's life, and the love that made them was touching. There were also some of his things- his driver, some stuffed animals, a mini bbq, arranged around the room, which I also liked. There is always awkwardness, seeing people you should probably have seen more recently, but it took a funeral to get you together, hugging and kissing a lot of people, witnessing grief. But there was a lot of warmth to compensate. The funeral the next day had the same feeling. It was not very religious. The only hiccup I noticed was that a version of Somewhere Over the Rainbow seems to be for funerals what Time of Your Life by Green Day was to graduations when I graduated. But I only noticed because the same song played at Pigface's funeral last week. It made me think that funeral directors get together at some conference in Boca Raton or Miami and examine trends and best practices in death rites. Talking about it with the Russian, I think I realized why I always notice 'errors' at funerals, because they are so ritualistic that if something exposes the framework behind the tradition, it pokes holes in the ritual that those in mourning need. But this funeral home was very careful to make sure the projector and screen worked for the slideshow, that the food was well presented and people knew when to go up to the urn and when to retire to the reception. They left supplies in the washroom: tampons and pads, hairspray and mouthwash, to avoid any awkwardness, well placed boxes of tissues and waste paper baskets. And it worked. It kept the tradition and ritual feeling familiar and comforting, to have those details looked after.
My cousin Karen was fragile and small and I felt like I wanted to help her, but I had no idea what to do. I just hugged her.
Friday night I met the Russian for a walk and dinner and he said he felt like he was going crazy, that he had made a mistake and maybe we are meant to be and by the end of the evening I think he was ready to propose. He kind of did. Meanwhile, Art texted me to say that he was going to have the break up conversation with his wife. I wish I could find the anger to hold out like a knife at the Russian, but it seems to have evaporated. I love the jackass. He asked me if he should give up and leave me alone, and I couldn't say yes. But I also know that I want time to try something else. It is so strange to love someone so much, and also feel myself falling for someone else. I have never experienced it before. I was thinking about falling asleep on Art's shoulder on the train and how happy I was.
Maybe I just like the attention? God, I hope not. I should be saying, what do I want? And the truth is, I have no idea. I want the time to figure it out. That is what I have asked of both of them.
I woke up on Friday night in a sweat and proceeded to ralph for a solid 20 minutes while on the toilet. It was awful and continued all yesterday. I couldn't help Christina move, which I really wanted to, just to see her and Sabina. I felt good enough by about ten last night to go and wish the Armenian a happy birthday. Saw some people (Jessica Rabbit among them) I hadn't seen in a long time. I was explaining this recurring awkward situation that I have with one of the Armenian's friends that I have known since cegep to another old friend from cegep and had this awful moment where I realized the awkward guy was standing directly behind me. Thank god he didn't hear, but I almost wish he would have and then he wouldn't be so obsessed with me and make me feel so darn awkward. The Armenian looked lovely and happy, and I was glad to see it. Hopefully Christine is having a good day today, too. She deserves a little lightness.
Overall, a good weekend, but I do feel like I am waiting for something to fall. But the waiting room is very nice.
This is a painting by Balint Szako. Art bought me a book of his drawings and paitings at MOCCA. I love them.
The viewing was on Thursday, and it was warmer than most wakes I have been to. There were five or six photo collages of various periods in Mario's life, and the love that made them was touching. There were also some of his things- his driver, some stuffed animals, a mini bbq, arranged around the room, which I also liked. There is always awkwardness, seeing people you should probably have seen more recently, but it took a funeral to get you together, hugging and kissing a lot of people, witnessing grief. But there was a lot of warmth to compensate. The funeral the next day had the same feeling. It was not very religious. The only hiccup I noticed was that a version of Somewhere Over the Rainbow seems to be for funerals what Time of Your Life by Green Day was to graduations when I graduated. But I only noticed because the same song played at Pigface's funeral last week. It made me think that funeral directors get together at some conference in Boca Raton or Miami and examine trends and best practices in death rites. Talking about it with the Russian, I think I realized why I always notice 'errors' at funerals, because they are so ritualistic that if something exposes the framework behind the tradition, it pokes holes in the ritual that those in mourning need. But this funeral home was very careful to make sure the projector and screen worked for the slideshow, that the food was well presented and people knew when to go up to the urn and when to retire to the reception. They left supplies in the washroom: tampons and pads, hairspray and mouthwash, to avoid any awkwardness, well placed boxes of tissues and waste paper baskets. And it worked. It kept the tradition and ritual feeling familiar and comforting, to have those details looked after.
My cousin Karen was fragile and small and I felt like I wanted to help her, but I had no idea what to do. I just hugged her.
Friday night I met the Russian for a walk and dinner and he said he felt like he was going crazy, that he had made a mistake and maybe we are meant to be and by the end of the evening I think he was ready to propose. He kind of did. Meanwhile, Art texted me to say that he was going to have the break up conversation with his wife. I wish I could find the anger to hold out like a knife at the Russian, but it seems to have evaporated. I love the jackass. He asked me if he should give up and leave me alone, and I couldn't say yes. But I also know that I want time to try something else. It is so strange to love someone so much, and also feel myself falling for someone else. I have never experienced it before. I was thinking about falling asleep on Art's shoulder on the train and how happy I was.
Maybe I just like the attention? God, I hope not. I should be saying, what do I want? And the truth is, I have no idea. I want the time to figure it out. That is what I have asked of both of them.
I woke up on Friday night in a sweat and proceeded to ralph for a solid 20 minutes while on the toilet. It was awful and continued all yesterday. I couldn't help Christina move, which I really wanted to, just to see her and Sabina. I felt good enough by about ten last night to go and wish the Armenian a happy birthday. Saw some people (Jessica Rabbit among them) I hadn't seen in a long time. I was explaining this recurring awkward situation that I have with one of the Armenian's friends that I have known since cegep to another old friend from cegep and had this awful moment where I realized the awkward guy was standing directly behind me. Thank god he didn't hear, but I almost wish he would have and then he wouldn't be so obsessed with me and make me feel so darn awkward. The Armenian looked lovely and happy, and I was glad to see it. Hopefully Christine is having a good day today, too. She deserves a little lightness.
Overall, a good weekend, but I do feel like I am waiting for something to fall. But the waiting room is very nice.
This is a painting by Balint Szako. Art bought me a book of his drawings and paitings at MOCCA. I love them.
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Sunday, November 14, 2010
Possibly Sailing
Two funerals in two weeks. Yesterday was Pigface's funeral, and I use that nickname as a term of endearment. There were hundreds of people there and the eulogy, by his godfather was moving and warm. The minister was less than stellar, and I find the traditions surrounding funerals strange. Though I guess they are for the mourners and not for the person in the casket. I just couldn't imagine Pigface ever wanting to have prayers said over him and have his relationship with his grandfather compared to Jesus and God. But, traditions provide structure, I suppose, and that's important when you are dealing with something that seems insurmountable.
On Thursday is my cousin's funeral. He had a heart attack and then went into a coma. I think it will be a smaller affair, but in some ways perhaps that makes it more intimate. I don't know.
I also saw the Russian. I went to his opening, and his show is really good. I was so proud of him I almost cried. It felt good to be there, to see him succeed, but also just to be around him without falling apart. Then I saw him last night and we had a good encounter as well. It was more...intimate. But it was equally warm and was a fitting bookend, I guess? I wasn't really ready to say goodbye, but now I know I am. He has met someone who makes him feel optimistic, and I think that is good. He told me he thinks I taught him how to care about people and that I will always have him to rely on, if I should need him. It was really nice.
Then, there is Art, which has snuck up on me and overwhelmed me with feelings I can't really process, but they bring me joy, so I am taking them. I guess he makes me feel optimistic.
Saw these two images and loved them both. They are not really related to this post, but, what the hey.
On Thursday is my cousin's funeral. He had a heart attack and then went into a coma. I think it will be a smaller affair, but in some ways perhaps that makes it more intimate. I don't know.
I also saw the Russian. I went to his opening, and his show is really good. I was so proud of him I almost cried. It felt good to be there, to see him succeed, but also just to be around him without falling apart. Then I saw him last night and we had a good encounter as well. It was more...intimate. But it was equally warm and was a fitting bookend, I guess? I wasn't really ready to say goodbye, but now I know I am. He has met someone who makes him feel optimistic, and I think that is good. He told me he thinks I taught him how to care about people and that I will always have him to rely on, if I should need him. It was really nice.
Then, there is Art, which has snuck up on me and overwhelmed me with feelings I can't really process, but they bring me joy, so I am taking them. I guess he makes me feel optimistic.
Saw these two images and loved them both. They are not really related to this post, but, what the hey.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Good Day
Great kickboxing class. I'm glad I went and I should have gone last week. Even though my sparring partner was 200 lbs and kicked like a battering ram. I felt like I might puke and it was hard to breathe, but I feel better now.
I feel better kind of generally. I feel like I will be able to heal, and tonight, walking out into the mild dark after my class, I felt like I wanted to heal on my own terms, the way I want to do it. Rushed then slow, or slow slow slow, I'm not sure how it will happen, but I will to listen to myself and let it happen. This is my life. I can do whatever I want with it.
What will that be? I want to be happy and I want to create something that helps people. I have been thinking about an organization similar to Stella. Sex work is one of the only issues that I have a strong opinion about, and I feel like I could help people. So there's that...
I don't want to stay in this job, but it is not a bad place to be for one or two years. I like the people. Yesterday Art and I had an email exchange prompted by my saying it was so cold I wanted to dive into my cup of tea. We imagined an exploratory safari in the glades on water that went from tea-dark to silty hot chocolate, African Queen style. It was silly, but I love that shit, and it makes the day so much lighter. I also feel like I should learn as much as I can while I am there. It might come in handy when I figure what I really want to be doing with this life that is mine.
Also, butternut squash lasagna is delicious. Even after I have eaten it for four meals straight.
Art also introduced me to Alasdair Gray. I haven't read his books, but after looking at some of his art and what a lovable curmudgeon he is, I am sold!
I feel better kind of generally. I feel like I will be able to heal, and tonight, walking out into the mild dark after my class, I felt like I wanted to heal on my own terms, the way I want to do it. Rushed then slow, or slow slow slow, I'm not sure how it will happen, but I will to listen to myself and let it happen. This is my life. I can do whatever I want with it.
What will that be? I want to be happy and I want to create something that helps people. I have been thinking about an organization similar to Stella. Sex work is one of the only issues that I have a strong opinion about, and I feel like I could help people. So there's that...
I don't want to stay in this job, but it is not a bad place to be for one or two years. I like the people. Yesterday Art and I had an email exchange prompted by my saying it was so cold I wanted to dive into my cup of tea. We imagined an exploratory safari in the glades on water that went from tea-dark to silty hot chocolate, African Queen style. It was silly, but I love that shit, and it makes the day so much lighter. I also feel like I should learn as much as I can while I am there. It might come in handy when I figure what I really want to be doing with this life that is mine.
Also, butternut squash lasagna is delicious. Even after I have eaten it for four meals straight.
Art also introduced me to Alasdair Gray. I haven't read his books, but after looking at some of his art and what a lovable curmudgeon he is, I am sold!
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Let It Begin
Friday was a mistake. I knew I wasn't ready to make small talk with the Russian, but wanted to talk to him so desperately that I did. The result was an outburst of sadness that began to leak out over dinner with Christine and then broke open in a flood on the drive home.
So.
Everyone goes through break-ups. Everyone gets over them, eventually. I will too. I realize that in my heart I wanted to stand apart, have this beautiful connection with someone no one thought I could have it with. Or I thought no one thought I could have it. Maybe it was just me. As if having something work against the odds, that because it is hard, because it took so much work and sacrifice, as if that made it more valuable than if it had come easily. The old horse with his head in the tree. Whatever is in there is probably the same as something that could be had without having to put your head in a tree. The truth is that the Russian is warm and funny and smart and handsome and made me feel special, and we like a lot of the same things, could spend a lot of time together, have the same sense of humour, clicked sexually, and genuinely loved each other. But he also made me feel bad about myself, judged me quite harshly at times, wasn't always there for me, lied to me, and took out his frustration on me, and could often be cold. So no matter how many good things we had going, there are some things that would continue to take us apart. He said it was his doubt, about a future with me, about his ability to be faithful, but I suspect it is really more about who he is. I was always waiting for who I saw inside him to come out.
It makes me so angry that I gave our relationship everything I had because I loved him so much, still love him, and yet, I still didn't get what I wanted. To be seen fully and to be loved by the person I love because they know who I am and they want to know more, to watch me grow, to grow together. But not this time. I feel like I deserve it, to get what I love. Maybe that isn't the way to think about it, though. I honestly wasn't sure if I had that kind of love inside me, and at least I know that I do. I just have to give it to someone who deserves it. But this talk of deserving...
I don't think I could have retrieved myself out of that funk without Christine and Bby. I need to be grounded every so often, because my emotion fueled rationality starts turning on me and my thoughts go bananas.
I cleaned my whole apartment today, and ran until I thought I would collapse, and watched both National Treasure movies and yesterday I watched the latest Indiana Jones movie. All three were much better than I thought they would be, or perhaps more accurately, I am the perfect audience for them at the moment.
I am ready to accept what happens next, which I think is letting time have her way with me.
So.
Everyone goes through break-ups. Everyone gets over them, eventually. I will too. I realize that in my heart I wanted to stand apart, have this beautiful connection with someone no one thought I could have it with. Or I thought no one thought I could have it. Maybe it was just me. As if having something work against the odds, that because it is hard, because it took so much work and sacrifice, as if that made it more valuable than if it had come easily. The old horse with his head in the tree. Whatever is in there is probably the same as something that could be had without having to put your head in a tree. The truth is that the Russian is warm and funny and smart and handsome and made me feel special, and we like a lot of the same things, could spend a lot of time together, have the same sense of humour, clicked sexually, and genuinely loved each other. But he also made me feel bad about myself, judged me quite harshly at times, wasn't always there for me, lied to me, and took out his frustration on me, and could often be cold. So no matter how many good things we had going, there are some things that would continue to take us apart. He said it was his doubt, about a future with me, about his ability to be faithful, but I suspect it is really more about who he is. I was always waiting for who I saw inside him to come out.
It makes me so angry that I gave our relationship everything I had because I loved him so much, still love him, and yet, I still didn't get what I wanted. To be seen fully and to be loved by the person I love because they know who I am and they want to know more, to watch me grow, to grow together. But not this time. I feel like I deserve it, to get what I love. Maybe that isn't the way to think about it, though. I honestly wasn't sure if I had that kind of love inside me, and at least I know that I do. I just have to give it to someone who deserves it. But this talk of deserving...
I don't think I could have retrieved myself out of that funk without Christine and Bby. I need to be grounded every so often, because my emotion fueled rationality starts turning on me and my thoughts go bananas.
I cleaned my whole apartment today, and ran until I thought I would collapse, and watched both National Treasure movies and yesterday I watched the latest Indiana Jones movie. All three were much better than I thought they would be, or perhaps more accurately, I am the perfect audience for them at the moment.
I am ready to accept what happens next, which I think is letting time have her way with me.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Smaller
I have dozens of draft emails. Someone was talking about a man who works in my building who is on parental leave. He has grown a somewhat wild beard. People were joking about it and I was thinking of the Russian's winter stache last year. Now I am sitting here and tears keep stinging my eyes, but they won't fall. But I feel miserable. I shouldn't have exchanged emails with him this week. I don't understand why I can't believe that he doesn't love me. It is in part him, what he says and has said, but it also feels like this stone inside of me that won't be eroded. I think of him moving from person to person at the opening last night, and then noticing a pretty girl and talking to her, remembering how much fun he has when he is in that moment, and it is like I am watching myself get smaller and smaller in his heart. I want to feel free when I think of those things, because it doesn't matter to me anymore, it doesn't affect me.
I hate my job. That can't be helping. What am I doing? Christine says it is all fixable. How do I do that?
I hate my job. That can't be helping. What am I doing? Christine says it is all fixable. How do I do that?
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
LalaLove
I had a nice time tonight. I went to see a play that one of my coworkers was in. My newish friend M was there. I was skittish. Titsy made a comment about us dating which I think he enjoyed. In any case, it was a fun evening. I laughed, and ate fish and chips and fried pickles. I tried not to think about the fact that I was missing the Russian's opening tonight.
It doesn't seem to matter how hard and far I run, or how many fun activities I pack into my day. I list all of the reasons that I am better off, and I even enjoy some of them. But I just want him. I want to be there tonight. I should try and keep my apartment cleaner.
It doesn't seem to matter how hard and far I run, or how many fun activities I pack into my day. I list all of the reasons that I am better off, and I even enjoy some of them. But I just want him. I want to be there tonight. I should try and keep my apartment cleaner.
Monday, October 18, 2010
Drowning Not Waving
Saturday I went to a folk concert that started at 11 in the morning for no reason I could understand. The drummer of the second act played the coffee table, a birdcage, a tupperware, a lampshade, and some other stuff with a mic and an amp. It was remarkable to watch. He was cute too. Which helped.
The third act fell apart. He played a ukulele and had a sampler. He looked battered. At first I thought he might be nursing a hangover. His lip had a healing cold sore or a cut on his lip, and it arched sort of strangely when he sang. In any case, I liked his first song, and I like him. For his third song, he tried to play Let's Stay Together. He blushed and then I think he started to cry. I was sitting about a foot and a half away from him, but everyone noticed something going on. He re-started a couple of times, but he couldn't get past the first line. I don't know why.
Whatever was making him waver, it got to me. My eyes filled up, but I was embarrassed. So I drank some water, which I choked on.
He made it through the Al Green as his last song. I wanted to tell him how affected I was by the whole thing. I bet he thought that he had failed, that whatever was making him unable to play sappy songs had gotten the better of him. The Russian has a quote he is using as a touchstone for the show he is curating: "One can make out of failure a powerful strategy for working, like the bad magician transcending illusion."
– Vik Muniz
The musician, his initials are AV, but I can't remember what his name, is created something completely unexpected and moving out of his failure. I kept it with me for the whole day. I should track him down and tell him.
The third act fell apart. He played a ukulele and had a sampler. He looked battered. At first I thought he might be nursing a hangover. His lip had a healing cold sore or a cut on his lip, and it arched sort of strangely when he sang. In any case, I liked his first song, and I like him. For his third song, he tried to play Let's Stay Together. He blushed and then I think he started to cry. I was sitting about a foot and a half away from him, but everyone noticed something going on. He re-started a couple of times, but he couldn't get past the first line. I don't know why.
Whatever was making him waver, it got to me. My eyes filled up, but I was embarrassed. So I drank some water, which I choked on.
He made it through the Al Green as his last song. I wanted to tell him how affected I was by the whole thing. I bet he thought that he had failed, that whatever was making him unable to play sappy songs had gotten the better of him. The Russian has a quote he is using as a touchstone for the show he is curating: "One can make out of failure a powerful strategy for working, like the bad magician transcending illusion."
– Vik Muniz
The musician, his initials are AV, but I can't remember what his name, is created something completely unexpected and moving out of his failure. I kept it with me for the whole day. I should track him down and tell him.
Friday, October 15, 2010
Let's Get On With It
What better time to rekindle blogging than in the midst of heartbreak? I chronicled the beginning of that relationship here, so it seems appropriate to try and lift this hurt up off my chest and put it somewhere else.
I have been thinking about how I have changed over the last two years, and I think it has not been much for the better. My coworker was telling me about a party she and her friends had because none of them went to their proms, so they decided to recreate it. They all graduated in the 80's, so it was essentially an 80's party. I remembered that I still have my prom dress my mom made me. And I am sitting it in now and it fits me. My tits are a little bigger, but everything else is just the same. The same as when I was 16. Except now all I see when I look at myself in the mirror are my thighs and ass and belly. I remember feeling satisfied looking at myself, and now all I see are its imperfections. Things I never even used to think were imperfections! I look at other women that I didn't used to be envious of, and I am jealous of their narrow thighs and length and height, their elegance.
That is just my body. These days, I am not sure how I think people should treat each other. I used to be a little bit more sure, or maybe I just trusted my feeling about it, without putting too much thought into it. I believed in honesty, but now I don't know if that is just because I am scared to not have control and it is easier to be made a fool of when you are caught unawares. I never thought I could make as many concessions as I have, enjoy pleasing someone so much and never really wish to be pleased. I have learned I never want to be in the wrong and will do a lot to escape it. I am scared that I stack up good deeds so that my bad ones can't be held against me, so I will always be the wronged one and will feel entirely justified making that claim. Who wants to make that kind of claim anyway?
Maybe this is what toxic relationships do to a person. They bring out all your weaknesses in the worst light possible and pry them open. I think it is good to learn about yourself. But it is better to examine them from a stronghold, no? From somewhere safe where they can't rush you in force and overwhelm your defenses. Or from the safety of someone loving them because they love you.
I sometimes feel like I brought out the worst in him. The best too, but I was always forcing him to confront ugly things about himself that he had never thought were ugly. But thighs and lies are not the same!
Shit. I don't know. I am sad and still sort of in disbelief that this has happened. I wake up every morning thinking we are still together.
I have been thinking about how I have changed over the last two years, and I think it has not been much for the better. My coworker was telling me about a party she and her friends had because none of them went to their proms, so they decided to recreate it. They all graduated in the 80's, so it was essentially an 80's party. I remembered that I still have my prom dress my mom made me. And I am sitting it in now and it fits me. My tits are a little bigger, but everything else is just the same. The same as when I was 16. Except now all I see when I look at myself in the mirror are my thighs and ass and belly. I remember feeling satisfied looking at myself, and now all I see are its imperfections. Things I never even used to think were imperfections! I look at other women that I didn't used to be envious of, and I am jealous of their narrow thighs and length and height, their elegance.
That is just my body. These days, I am not sure how I think people should treat each other. I used to be a little bit more sure, or maybe I just trusted my feeling about it, without putting too much thought into it. I believed in honesty, but now I don't know if that is just because I am scared to not have control and it is easier to be made a fool of when you are caught unawares. I never thought I could make as many concessions as I have, enjoy pleasing someone so much and never really wish to be pleased. I have learned I never want to be in the wrong and will do a lot to escape it. I am scared that I stack up good deeds so that my bad ones can't be held against me, so I will always be the wronged one and will feel entirely justified making that claim. Who wants to make that kind of claim anyway?
Maybe this is what toxic relationships do to a person. They bring out all your weaknesses in the worst light possible and pry them open. I think it is good to learn about yourself. But it is better to examine them from a stronghold, no? From somewhere safe where they can't rush you in force and overwhelm your defenses. Or from the safety of someone loving them because they love you.
I sometimes feel like I brought out the worst in him. The best too, but I was always forcing him to confront ugly things about himself that he had never thought were ugly. But thighs and lies are not the same!
Shit. I don't know. I am sad and still sort of in disbelief that this has happened. I wake up every morning thinking we are still together.
Monday, October 19, 2009
Discretion
I have four unpublished posts hiding away in my blogger profile. But...I have been thinking about discretion for the past couple of days, how I protect people, how I protect myself when I talk about people. I realize I am not Hercule Poirot (though I want to be him for Halloween), I am not discretion personified. I read Bby's post and it made me realize that I really don't care about things like that - it serves a purpose. When I moan and gripe about the Russian to anyone who will listen, I don't feel guilty. But the other day, I caught myself saying something that was harmless, but really unfair about him. And I said it to strengthen an image about us that I have in my head, with me as the tolerant tower, and him as a stray, someone I have pulled towards me. That's not really how we are at all.
Just to set the record straight.
I am at work right. Everyone is quiet. One too quiet, but I can't seem to pry her open. I went for my government French tests today, and through a copy and paste error in an email (not my fault!), missed the first exam. The second could have been a success and might have been a disaster, I'll only know when I get the results. My French is really abominable. Have to do an oral test next Monday morning. And then I am set up to become I'm not sure what. Eligible, I guess. It was mostly women doing these tests. I wonder why that is. Women, determined to move up the ranks, slowly, the right way, no cheating, no jumping the line. One woman told me smugly that she left comments on three questions she thought were questionably written. It was a weird experience, anyway. I had to get a security pass to go to the 3rd floor, where I got another pass, and then went to 8th floor, but then it turned out I should have been on another 8th floor. Like being in a short story by Kafka.
I need to focus on myself. Figure out something I want to do and begin doing it. My burlesque class was supposed to be that, but it seems that it was not meant to be. I hope there is room in the November session, so I don't lose my money. But I am slowly, so slowly, getting adjusted to being in a couple, and I feel a bit lost in it. Not unhappily so (thought I have a way better handle on the expression -like cats and dogs-) but I need to identify me.
Sabina is in town!
You can watch everything on YouTube. It's amazing. The Russian is going to be a great Hastings.
Just to set the record straight.
I am at work right. Everyone is quiet. One too quiet, but I can't seem to pry her open. I went for my government French tests today, and through a copy and paste error in an email (not my fault!), missed the first exam. The second could have been a success and might have been a disaster, I'll only know when I get the results. My French is really abominable. Have to do an oral test next Monday morning. And then I am set up to become I'm not sure what. Eligible, I guess. It was mostly women doing these tests. I wonder why that is. Women, determined to move up the ranks, slowly, the right way, no cheating, no jumping the line. One woman told me smugly that she left comments on three questions she thought were questionably written. It was a weird experience, anyway. I had to get a security pass to go to the 3rd floor, where I got another pass, and then went to 8th floor, but then it turned out I should have been on another 8th floor. Like being in a short story by Kafka.
I need to focus on myself. Figure out something I want to do and begin doing it. My burlesque class was supposed to be that, but it seems that it was not meant to be. I hope there is room in the November session, so I don't lose my money. But I am slowly, so slowly, getting adjusted to being in a couple, and I feel a bit lost in it. Not unhappily so (thought I have a way better handle on the expression -like cats and dogs-) but I need to identify me.
Sabina is in town!
You can watch everything on YouTube. It's amazing. The Russian is going to be a great Hastings.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Pie Lord
NIGHT- Ext.
ME
(run to the edge of a body of water, moonlit, and toss my phone into the dark)
*********************************
I have to get ready for work soon, and I am also putting off cleaning, because I don't feel like it. I feel like eating the blueberry and peach pie the Russian made yesterday and curling up with a book or a movie. But I like my job, and I like a clean apartment, so you see, I am at an impass. I have to start making lists again, and sticking to them. I feel off kilter, and I know it is from having my daily movements and routines dictated or commented on by someone else. Not that the Russian forces me to change, but everything is just less instinctual.
I miss my friends. I miss being the fifth wheel sometimes.
Monday, August 3, 2009
Sexssay
I have been reading a book by Catherine MacKinnon called Feminism Unmodified. It is the first feminist literature that has really made me think that perhaps my attitudes toward feminism are destructive, or at least passive in a way that makes me uncomfortable. It has convinced me solidarity, or a sisterhood of sorts, is important. I used to feel that how every woman constructs her sense of personhood, their sense of their own identity and her claim to dignity and respect from others is personal and private process. I am not sure if I feel this way anymore. I think that this is how it should be, but I am no longer sure if to just plunge ahead and live your life with no thought to how the world actually is, to how it has been, is the right thing to do.
I got to thinking about this because I was thinking about whether sex is a private or public thing, or both, and if it is both, how it works. On a personal level, I was wondering how it is that I can role play, and submit, and get to a place that is impossible for me to get to in a non sexual context because it would be harmful to my sense of self and downright degrading. I would never allow myself to be slapped or spanked or bitten or bound. I would have to be coerced. But if I put it away in a box labeled SEX in my brain, an entirely different set of feelings is provoked by those kinds of acts. Great feelings. So that exists. I exist and I do these things and feel the way I feel about them. I am one woman. There are others like me, and there are many more that are not like me. What we do in bed is really a private thing, and individual thing.
So, there’s that. But I also think that there are important connections between sex and dignity, sex and respect, sex and identity, sex and economics, sex and entertainment… and that these connections exist in a more direct way for women. I say this because there are far more women in sex work than men and because there are sluts and ho’s and the equivalent term for men either doesn’t exist or comes with a different set of baggage. I say this because the personal and individual act of sex speaks to a women’s sense of self respect, and respect from her partner, to her sense of dignity, to her identity in a pretty important way.
There are a mess of issues brought to mind by thinking about sex in this more public and general way. One, that if the connection between sex and all of those other things is more direct for women, they should have power over themselves as workers, over labels or what those labels mean, and over the relationship between sex and dignity and sex and respect. The problem is that they don’t. We don’t. Second, if we don’t have power and if sex is really connected to all of these things, than it is very difficult and very much not a given that women have control over or access to the process of self determination, or the construction of the self. This is not purely because of sex, maybe because of gender, but mostly it pokes holes in my thinking that sex can have its own little box and I can do what I want there and it doesn’t affect anything. Third, and this is a problem that I haven’t quite figured out how to communicate, has to do with the fact that the social world we all participate in changes us and affects how we perceive ourselves and so how we construct that self. Dignity and respect, for example, are not entirely individually determined things, and if sex is linked to them, then there is a public aspect to it as well.
So, as a woman, and an individual, is it problematic for me to think of my sexual activities the way that I do? It’s not as though what I put in one box ever really stays there and don’t inform other aspects of my life. Maybe that is what makes me nervous. I wonder what other people think. I'd like to know.
I have some other questions. Like, for instance, is it inconsistent of me to be grossed out by the Camp Bud advertising campaign but not by a strip club? This weekend, the Russian, his friend Pt from NYC, JL, and I went to a strip club and I was not uncomfortable in the least. I was actually thinking how much fun it would be to have a strip club, run in a non hierarchical way. Your game face would be a smile, because it would be fun to work there, not a pout or whatever it is that the strippers were doing while they were dancing (it was very poorly lit, so it was hard to even make out what they looked like). The Camp Bud advertisement, on the other hand, gives me the willies. The Russian says they both commodify women and women’s sexuality, which is true, but I feel as though there is something disingenuous about the Bud campaign. Obviously, it’s advertising, which is just that... It’s just that women in sex work are selling sex. They use their bodies to sell…their bodies. I guess that is what models do too, and yet, I feel as though a stripper knows what she is selling and the Camp Bud girl might not have gone into modeling thinking she was going to be rubbing herself against a sweating beer bottle. Or that she would be taking part in a subtle and pervasive system of using women’s bodies and sexuality to convince men that they can have access to those bodies if they drink enough Budweiser. Of the million and one problems that I see with that, one is that it removes the woman in question of any autonomy. It seems to say to the men that it is geared towards, this beer will give you permission, just in case you thought you might need it, to touch any titties you want, to access this woman in a red mini skirt or more frightening, any woman. That is what Bud can do for you. I am not saying that men don’t have access to women in strip clubs, or that it is the stripper who gets the majority of the money for that access and that that inequality is okay, but just that the transaction is straightforward, and I am much more comfortable with that.
Just for fun, and to mess up everything I've been talking about by posting a sexy photo:
And because Bby suggested I write a sex blog.
I got to thinking about this because I was thinking about whether sex is a private or public thing, or both, and if it is both, how it works. On a personal level, I was wondering how it is that I can role play, and submit, and get to a place that is impossible for me to get to in a non sexual context because it would be harmful to my sense of self and downright degrading. I would never allow myself to be slapped or spanked or bitten or bound. I would have to be coerced. But if I put it away in a box labeled SEX in my brain, an entirely different set of feelings is provoked by those kinds of acts. Great feelings. So that exists. I exist and I do these things and feel the way I feel about them. I am one woman. There are others like me, and there are many more that are not like me. What we do in bed is really a private thing, and individual thing.
So, there’s that. But I also think that there are important connections between sex and dignity, sex and respect, sex and identity, sex and economics, sex and entertainment… and that these connections exist in a more direct way for women. I say this because there are far more women in sex work than men and because there are sluts and ho’s and the equivalent term for men either doesn’t exist or comes with a different set of baggage. I say this because the personal and individual act of sex speaks to a women’s sense of self respect, and respect from her partner, to her sense of dignity, to her identity in a pretty important way.
There are a mess of issues brought to mind by thinking about sex in this more public and general way. One, that if the connection between sex and all of those other things is more direct for women, they should have power over themselves as workers, over labels or what those labels mean, and over the relationship between sex and dignity and sex and respect. The problem is that they don’t. We don’t. Second, if we don’t have power and if sex is really connected to all of these things, than it is very difficult and very much not a given that women have control over or access to the process of self determination, or the construction of the self. This is not purely because of sex, maybe because of gender, but mostly it pokes holes in my thinking that sex can have its own little box and I can do what I want there and it doesn’t affect anything. Third, and this is a problem that I haven’t quite figured out how to communicate, has to do with the fact that the social world we all participate in changes us and affects how we perceive ourselves and so how we construct that self. Dignity and respect, for example, are not entirely individually determined things, and if sex is linked to them, then there is a public aspect to it as well.
So, as a woman, and an individual, is it problematic for me to think of my sexual activities the way that I do? It’s not as though what I put in one box ever really stays there and don’t inform other aspects of my life. Maybe that is what makes me nervous. I wonder what other people think. I'd like to know.
I have some other questions. Like, for instance, is it inconsistent of me to be grossed out by the Camp Bud advertising campaign but not by a strip club? This weekend, the Russian, his friend Pt from NYC, JL, and I went to a strip club and I was not uncomfortable in the least. I was actually thinking how much fun it would be to have a strip club, run in a non hierarchical way. Your game face would be a smile, because it would be fun to work there, not a pout or whatever it is that the strippers were doing while they were dancing (it was very poorly lit, so it was hard to even make out what they looked like). The Camp Bud advertisement, on the other hand, gives me the willies. The Russian says they both commodify women and women’s sexuality, which is true, but I feel as though there is something disingenuous about the Bud campaign. Obviously, it’s advertising, which is just that... It’s just that women in sex work are selling sex. They use their bodies to sell…their bodies. I guess that is what models do too, and yet, I feel as though a stripper knows what she is selling and the Camp Bud girl might not have gone into modeling thinking she was going to be rubbing herself against a sweating beer bottle. Or that she would be taking part in a subtle and pervasive system of using women’s bodies and sexuality to convince men that they can have access to those bodies if they drink enough Budweiser. Of the million and one problems that I see with that, one is that it removes the woman in question of any autonomy. It seems to say to the men that it is geared towards, this beer will give you permission, just in case you thought you might need it, to touch any titties you want, to access this woman in a red mini skirt or more frightening, any woman. That is what Bud can do for you. I am not saying that men don’t have access to women in strip clubs, or that it is the stripper who gets the majority of the money for that access and that that inequality is okay, but just that the transaction is straightforward, and I am much more comfortable with that.
Just for fun, and to mess up everything I've been talking about by posting a sexy photo:
And because Bby suggested I write a sex blog.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Baby Talk
NIGHT - Ext.
ME
I think I want to be a baby
YOU
That'd be alright
ME
I'd learn 15 languages but I wouldn't have to use them just because I knew them. I could just cry and gurgle and smile.
YOU
But no one understands that. Why do you think colic is such a headache and rage inducing mystery?
******************************************
What!? Another post? But Vnss, you have so many other things to do. This is true. I made a list of them this morning. But maybe I am not the multi-tasker I always thought I was. I want to think about this problem I have with not talking. Sometimes I don't want to talk, or I don't have anything to say, or I don't want to share what I have to say. I can understand how this can be difficult for people, and by people I mean the Russian. But for anyone. I think my sister finds it hard sometimes too. It must be, to know there is something and then to have it not communicated to you, as if I don't trust you enough, or it was mean, or that I am holding back, or I thought it was too stupid to mention. This must be difficult, namely because the other person doesn't know the reason I am not talking. It is usually as simple as there is nothing to say, or I don't think whatever it was that passed through my mind was worth it, but they don't know that.
In truth, sometimes that isn't true, sometimes I don't think it is worth the hassle of responding to something that I think is going to inspire a conflict that I don't think is worth having. Or if it is worth having, I am not ready to have it because I don't know how I feel about it or what I think of it. Simultaneously, I do feel something else. I don't want to defend how I respond to things. I don't have to talk about everything, or respond to everything just because people expect it or desire it, and I don't have to feel guilty about not meeting those expectations. I do, anyway, but...
When I was in Spain with my mother, I would often have this little dilemma in my head, about talking or not talking. And I realised over time, and this is what makes me think that I should communicate more, that people around me can sense that I am having this argument with myself, because the tension escapes me and affects them, through my body language, my facial expression and what I do say and how I say it. My mother is the same way, but with less control over her verbalizations. I didn't always want to have a hard conversation with her when we were walking but we would end up behaving as if we had had it anyway, except with no resolution. When you spend that much time with someone, in the end, talking always seems better. I guess it is the same with living with someone.
It's a question of judgment though, I think, and if I don't even have the to talk or not to talk argument in my head, I think I should be able to keep my mouth shut just because I want to.
Why do I occupy the fence all the time? How do I learn how to be bold and right or bold and wrong?
We made hamburgers, or the Russian made hamburgers last night, with Kettle Chips. Delicious. Though we had a lamb, pork, beef mix, and I think all beef would be best. Would have been better without fruit flies everywhere? Is it me that smells like overripe fruit or are there just way more fruit flies than usual? Gross me out. Such a busy weekend coming up. J sent me money for an Osheaga ticket to see Josh Ritter. Wow. Continually overwhelming. The Russian's friend is staying with us this weekend, as well, and it is Bby's birthday. We are having some peeps over on Saturday, as well, to housewarm.
Nice to be busy. But I should get to!
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Deadgirl
I spent the day with J today, wandering around, very relaxed, ending up in the Old Port to have coffee with Bby and P. I drank a lot of different things today, finally found an excellent matcha smoothie which satisfied me. Met CM, the head of Forward House, this morning, and it was an excellent meeting. He has such an extraordinary capacity for speaking without expectation, for sharing I guess. I tried to talk about my recent desire to try and communicate on different terms with people, treating logic and reason, and emotion, as if they are equally valid and valuable. Not to say that I think people should run their lives ralphing their emotions onto others with no prep, but I do think it would create a kind of compassion and care for other people that is often lacking when you approach something from a rational and logical perspective only. I think it lends what could be an important and wrenching conversation a sense of detachment that is destructive or at least can obscure.
This didn't come out of nowhere, obviously. I was thinking of a conversation the Russian and I had about this movie we saw on Friday, Deadgirl. The plot is: two teenage boys, outcasts, who find a living, but unkillable nubile and naked girl chained to a table in an abandoned asylum. One wants to use her as a sex slave (and punching bag, as she can't be killed), and the other wants to free her, or save her, but is confused by the fact that this bad guy is his best friend. Goriness, rape, and violence ensue.
Granted, it is an awesome premise, and I liked the movie, I really did. But there was definitely something fundamentally disturbing about it. Beyond the rape, and the violence these boys inflict on this monster, who may or may not be a woman, or was once a woman, what really cut me was the way in which the movie completely silenced the female sex. The undead girl can't speak, she can only growl and hiss and fight back (not enough to free herself, but enough for the movie to have some intense and creative gore), and the only other female characters are a pretty, popular girl with no character except as a fantasy object for the good kid, and a woman the evil kid and another guy try to kidnap to create another deadgirl. The latter's brief appearance is actually awesome, but exists as a kind of aside to the narrative, or maybe, and this is what I hope, as a reminder that not all women are cum repositories or trophies, just in case anyone in the audience was getting the wrong idea.
This silencing made it much easier for me, as the audience, to accept the premise that the deadgirl was a thing, a monster, and not a girl, not a human. And this must have been even easier for male members of the audience. This, in turn, facilitated thinking about all the male oriented aspects of the film, and forgetting that they were all based on the subjugation of women. So I found myself talking about the teenage male social hierarchy and how the deadgirl becomes a means for the outcasts to improve their station, and how her body is a literal representation of teenage male desire/fantasy (or male desire more generally, regardless of age), male friendships, and the importance of power, dominance and ownership to all of these things.
I think the movie was pretty great in that I got a sense of all of those things. And yet, and yet, where are the women in all of this? Women are the people (and can I just emphasize that they are in fact, people, voiceless or not, vacuous or not) that those hierarchies are built on, they are the people being fought over and dominated and owned and fantasized about and desired. And that this does not define them, they are not defined against something else (a male something else). So when I was talking about this movie, I didn't want the Russian to relate to the deadgirl more than the teenage boys, I wanted him to relate to me. I wanted to be able to communicate the feeling of relating to the deadgirl, the fictional undead girl, instead of to the fictional teenage boys, and I wanted him to feel that. I didn't want to talk about it in way writing this demands me to, in a logical and rational way. I wanted to communicate that I didn't think it was right, that it didn't feel right, to talk about this movie the way we were talking about it. I told him that I wished I could slice open part of me and part of him, and press the raw parts together, and transfer the sick feeling the movie and the resulting conversation gave me. It was a feeling of voicelessness, not because I couldn't speak, but because the words were incapable of communicating what I wanted to say. I wanted to speak with something else.
The Russian said something really interesting, though maybe I am not remembering it correctly. It was about the impossibility of relating to another person or their experience or soemthing close to that. "Except, this movie did that." And it's true, it did, kind of, for both the teenage boys and for the feeling that I have had, sometimes acutely, and sometimes in a more foggy way, that as a woman, I am more accessible to men than men are to each other, as in, they think they have access to me that is their right, because they are male and I am female. Film is amazing that way. Or I guess, art is kind of amazing that way.
Anyway, it was a horror movie, and it scared me. Scared me good. I wonder what other women in the audience felt.
Ehm. Since the last post, I have traveled to Spain, met the Russian's family in Calgary, moved in with said Russian, been funemployed, gotten a job at Forward House, and graduated. Blanks to be filled in.
This didn't come out of nowhere, obviously. I was thinking of a conversation the Russian and I had about this movie we saw on Friday, Deadgirl. The plot is: two teenage boys, outcasts, who find a living, but unkillable nubile and naked girl chained to a table in an abandoned asylum. One wants to use her as a sex slave (and punching bag, as she can't be killed), and the other wants to free her, or save her, but is confused by the fact that this bad guy is his best friend. Goriness, rape, and violence ensue.
Granted, it is an awesome premise, and I liked the movie, I really did. But there was definitely something fundamentally disturbing about it. Beyond the rape, and the violence these boys inflict on this monster, who may or may not be a woman, or was once a woman, what really cut me was the way in which the movie completely silenced the female sex. The undead girl can't speak, she can only growl and hiss and fight back (not enough to free herself, but enough for the movie to have some intense and creative gore), and the only other female characters are a pretty, popular girl with no character except as a fantasy object for the good kid, and a woman the evil kid and another guy try to kidnap to create another deadgirl. The latter's brief appearance is actually awesome, but exists as a kind of aside to the narrative, or maybe, and this is what I hope, as a reminder that not all women are cum repositories or trophies, just in case anyone in the audience was getting the wrong idea.
This silencing made it much easier for me, as the audience, to accept the premise that the deadgirl was a thing, a monster, and not a girl, not a human. And this must have been even easier for male members of the audience. This, in turn, facilitated thinking about all the male oriented aspects of the film, and forgetting that they were all based on the subjugation of women. So I found myself talking about the teenage male social hierarchy and how the deadgirl becomes a means for the outcasts to improve their station, and how her body is a literal representation of teenage male desire/fantasy (or male desire more generally, regardless of age), male friendships, and the importance of power, dominance and ownership to all of these things.
I think the movie was pretty great in that I got a sense of all of those things. And yet, and yet, where are the women in all of this? Women are the people (and can I just emphasize that they are in fact, people, voiceless or not, vacuous or not) that those hierarchies are built on, they are the people being fought over and dominated and owned and fantasized about and desired. And that this does not define them, they are not defined against something else (a male something else). So when I was talking about this movie, I didn't want the Russian to relate to the deadgirl more than the teenage boys, I wanted him to relate to me. I wanted to be able to communicate the feeling of relating to the deadgirl, the fictional undead girl, instead of to the fictional teenage boys, and I wanted him to feel that. I didn't want to talk about it in way writing this demands me to, in a logical and rational way. I wanted to communicate that I didn't think it was right, that it didn't feel right, to talk about this movie the way we were talking about it. I told him that I wished I could slice open part of me and part of him, and press the raw parts together, and transfer the sick feeling the movie and the resulting conversation gave me. It was a feeling of voicelessness, not because I couldn't speak, but because the words were incapable of communicating what I wanted to say. I wanted to speak with something else.
The Russian said something really interesting, though maybe I am not remembering it correctly. It was about the impossibility of relating to another person or their experience or soemthing close to that. "Except, this movie did that." And it's true, it did, kind of, for both the teenage boys and for the feeling that I have had, sometimes acutely, and sometimes in a more foggy way, that as a woman, I am more accessible to men than men are to each other, as in, they think they have access to me that is their right, because they are male and I am female. Film is amazing that way. Or I guess, art is kind of amazing that way.
Anyway, it was a horror movie, and it scared me. Scared me good. I wonder what other women in the audience felt.
Ehm. Since the last post, I have traveled to Spain, met the Russian's family in Calgary, moved in with said Russian, been funemployed, gotten a job at Forward House, and graduated. Blanks to be filled in.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Friday, April 3, 2009
Countdown
But what about the normals? What about all the people that are just okay and not exceptional. What do they do?
ME
Don't know.
YOU
I guess being exceptional doesn't mean driven. Okay-ness could be coupled with ambition, and you could have exceptional people living in a 2 1/2 with only a blood stained mattress and a three legged chair to call their own, working for Mr. B-.
ME
You shouldn't focus on material possessions. They don't make you happy.
****************************************
Signed a lease with The Russian. It's official, we are moving in together. I know he doesn't have a good track record with the living together, and that I will be broke and jobless when I get back from Spain, and that we will have to live together for a month in his miniature den of filth (I exaggerate, a little), but it still seems like a good idea. And that is a comforting thought. Just have to make it through the five week separation without him, I don't know, not even sure what it is that I am afraid of him doing. But whatever it is, I hope he doesn't do it, because it will be a thing, a hurtful thing that will require reparation.
In other news, going to be a certified archivist in about two weeks, that's pretty exciting. But I am not so excited about it. I don't really feel capable of taking on a professional position. Iapply for them nonetheless, but so far Emory has sent me a polite letter telling me thanks, but no thanks, and I haven't heard from Washington, so I take they are giving their $6000 stipend to someone that is not me. But I will remain hopeful until Monday.
Something that is getting my juices flowing is thinking about opening up my own business. Not in the archiving business, but film distribution. Bby and I talked about it yesterday and it seems like an extraordinary amount of work, but interesting and worth it and something I could feel passionate about. I am going to research it more thoroughly to see if there is space for that kind of business in Montreal. I think the answer is yes, because I am always finding movies that I wish would be here and which never are. And if I like them, there must be other people who would like them too.
Anyway, it is an interesting time right now. Have to move, have to buy a bunch of stuff for Spain, have to finish all my school shit, and really all I want to do is read about film distribution, hang out with my peeps, spend days in bed with The Russian, and celebrate the little dude's birthday on Sunday with my family (The Russian is coming! Meeting the folks! Gah!).
I feel pretty relaxed, although I guess the fact that my eye has been jumping for about a week and I am not sleeping all that well probably means I am just not processing my stress all that well, but...
At least I don't have to think about Electronic Records Systems after next week. That'll be sweet.
I don't really have a good photo to post, but this is something that Bby forwarded to me the other day which tugged at my heart a little: http://www.billythekiddocumentary.com/
In other news, going to be a certified archivist in about two weeks, that's pretty exciting. But I am not so excited about it. I don't really feel capable of taking on a professional position. Iapply for them nonetheless, but so far Emory has sent me a polite letter telling me thanks, but no thanks, and I haven't heard from Washington, so I take they are giving their $6000 stipend to someone that is not me. But I will remain hopeful until Monday.
Something that is getting my juices flowing is thinking about opening up my own business. Not in the archiving business, but film distribution. Bby and I talked about it yesterday and it seems like an extraordinary amount of work, but interesting and worth it and something I could feel passionate about. I am going to research it more thoroughly to see if there is space for that kind of business in Montreal. I think the answer is yes, because I am always finding movies that I wish would be here and which never are. And if I like them, there must be other people who would like them too.
Anyway, it is an interesting time right now. Have to move, have to buy a bunch of stuff for Spain, have to finish all my school shit, and really all I want to do is read about film distribution, hang out with my peeps, spend days in bed with The Russian, and celebrate the little dude's birthday on Sunday with my family (The Russian is coming! Meeting the folks! Gah!).
I feel pretty relaxed, although I guess the fact that my eye has been jumping for about a week and I am not sleeping all that well probably means I am just not processing my stress all that well, but...
At least I don't have to think about Electronic Records Systems after next week. That'll be sweet.
I don't really have a good photo to post, but this is something that Bby forwarded to me the other day which tugged at my heart a little: http://www.
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