Widdershin Writings

Sex, Marriage, & Fairytales: A Response

2012-01-29T14:24:00.000-08:00

So I've seen this floating around a bit through social media, and I must say great video. Well, worded, articulate, inclusive, clearly influenced by feminist values in that it seeks to move away from the traditional patriarchal values that have led us to the current state of affairs [pun intended] when it comes to marriage.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4OK9DmLpCY

That said, this video is predicated on a Christeo-normative assumption that disallows for any other kind of successful marriage. The only way is through a foundation in Jesus Christ. And for those of you reading this who believe in the Christian god, great. Awesome, even. I hope you take home the fundamental message that there is sanctity in marriage. If we as a society are going to argue over other people's right to that expression of love and happiness we need to look in our own homes first.

But this video makes me uncomfortable. Because I'm not Christian. I don't ever see myself being Christian. I don't particularly want to be Christian. This may change and I reserve the right to make that change if I feel so called. And I'm sure I could find plenty of people (religious and not) who would say the same.

Given the viral nature of this video, then, I think it's worth calling out that Christeo-normativity that makes me uncomfortable. I'm naming it as something to note. Assuming anyone listening to you is Christian (the definition of Christeo-normativity if you didn't catch that) is wrong because if there's one thing I've learned about people, it's that not all of them are Christian. I recognize that when it comes to belief and religion, the conversation is fundamentally at odds with the postmodern plurality I'm working with.

Most religions by definition are mutually exclusive. You're supposed to spread the word and accept others into the practice that will save you. Only through this god will you make it to heaven [or whatever afterlife they teach]. You can't really be more than one at the same time. In a Christian context, this is commonly referred to as evangelism.

This is counter to the idea of plurality, that each religion is the result of a specific cultural and social causality and each has its own merits and reason for existence. They all have a right to exist and be treated equally. I can't tell you to follow my religion any more than you can tell me to follow yours unless we both mutually agree that we want to change our minds.

I think part of what differentiates between these two ideologies is faith. Or maybe Faith.

I struggle because I want to balance my foundation in plurality, in the knowledge and acceptance that there are many options, with the Faith that so many people have. If I were to make an essentialist statement about my identity, it would be that I thrive in liminality. I'm a human of in-betweens and I chafe under most dominant paradigms that enforce or too strongly advocate a way of thinking or doing things.

So the question that this post poses then is what is the goal of this video? Are we meant to turn to Christ? Are we meant to fix marriage?

"My hope in this poem is to highlight the most frequent and problematic issues marriages face today while also pointing to Jesus as the ultimate healer, redeemer, and restorer of every marriage. Whether single or married, my intention would be that this poem would allow you to look more deeply to Jesus to either better your current marriage, or prepare for your future marriage." -bball1989

The video description (and video itself) seems to imply both.

I'm left at a loss, and it seems the only judgement I can make is something akin to:

I'm glad that someone is taking time to address this issues for Christians, but this isn't for me by any means.

Appreciation

2012-01-26T11:48:00.000-08:00

"As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them." -JFK

Great leadership to me means constant gratitude. For the path you've taken, for those who helped us get there. For anyone and anything that does something for this world. For a leader is never alone.

There's an idiom that says never to ask someone to do something you yourself wouldn't do.

The gratitude of a leader is to recognize and exemplify when someone does something you've asked them (or volunteers themselves for it).

So don't just express your appreciation: Live it. Show it.

And to everyone in my life, keep being amazing.

2012-01-18T15:53:00.001-08:00

All day I've had this silly little grin curling at the corners of my mouth. So I said friend, time to let it all hang out. And I've been smiling ever since.

Culture Shock

2012-01-06T12:00:00.000-08:00

As some ofyou may or may not know, I am not just an English major. Indeclaring, I diversified and multiplied my options. I'm also akinesiology major.

This is myfirst quarter at Western taking mostly kinesiology classes.Previously, I've mostly worked on English classes and scienceprerequisites, and though it's only been one day, entering the worldof kinesiology and the PEHR (Physical Education, Health andRecreation) has been a bit of a culture shock.

Thedifferences in syllabi alone is worth mentioning. Compared to syllabifrom my English classes, these have been downright scientific. I'venever seen footnotes on a syllabus before. Granted a lot of theinformation is so detailed it almost feels like the professors thinkthemselves talking to dullards.

In class,the contrast between English and Kinesiology is as stark as afootball coach next to a science fiction writer. In some cases, Iwouldn't be surprised if that were actually the case. This isn't toderide my Kines profs, from what little interaction we've had it'sapparent they're quite intelligent. But it's so... targeted: physicsand bodies and athletics. Even in my survey course when suggestingpossible research projects, it was all optimized movement of legsduring running and analyzing arm reach during the swing of a baseballbat. Okay, I made those up, and it's not like the English department(or other humanities for that matter) is all that different in theirspecialization with their overlap of literature, philosophy andhistory.

I supposeit's mostly a culture shock. The personalities of the type of peopledrawn to both my majors just seem so wildly different.

Among theEnglish majors you can tell that the majority of them do so manyother things. They're in sports and active and have interests outsidebooks. Kinesiology majors I've seen are focused much more, oh how doI describe this? Physically. On bodies and sports and the like, butit's even hard to imagine them crossing the line in the otherdirection and talking about books or poetry and meaning. Which isn'tto say English majors are better. No, it's just a different kind ofintellect, a different side of the brain. And this is going to take a few weeks to habituate to.

Which meansagain, we find Danny bitching and moaning about straddling the fencebetween two disparate worlds. Though it's not an uncomfortable placebeing between. Liminality may be dusky, but there's always light.

BBC Skins

2012-01-05T09:43:00.000-08:00

[SpoilerWarning, do not read if you have not seen season one] SoI borrowed season one of BBC's Skins from my friend Chelsea. I'vebeen raved at about it for I don't know how long. My friend Nathaneven said if he were living in Paris, France, and I called him upsaying I wanted to watch the pilot episode he would (assuming he hadthe disposable income and free time) fly out to me and watch it withme. Needless to say, that wasn't necessary.

I ploughedthrough most of the first season in a one night marathon, thoughgiven the lives of the characters on the show, perhaps a one nightstand would be a better description.

I hated itup until about the last ten minutes of the first episode when theyaccidentally rolled a hijacked car into the harbor (with all the maincharacters in it). If there were an American version, and I'mcompletely ignoring the fact that there actually was a shitty attemptat an American version (or so I'm told), it would be full of richwhite people problems with one or two tokenized diverse characterswho never really get fleshed out or treated to the complexities oftheir sexuality or race. Much like the OC, Gossip Girl, Sex and theCity, and the host of other programs that consumerist America hasgobbled up because of the pretty faces and glamor.

This isn'tto say that Skins does much better. I lost count of how many cellphones, laptops, televisions, apartments, etc were completelydestroyed with no consequences and seemingly no financial hardship atall. The reviews gush that Skins is so authentic and real to theadolescent experience, but I have to wonder what fetishized ideal ofadolescence these media groups are playing into. I would poll themajority of my friends to ask how many of them regularly attendedragers where half the party ended up sleeping naked on the floor bythe end of the night, but I'm not sure I want to know that about myfriends.

But, thisis certainly no Glee and I'm willing to forgive some of the socialblindness for the sheer intelligence with which the characters arehandled.

They playinto stereotypes, especially in the first few episodes, yes, but themain cast of eight or nine are really fleshed out throughout theseason. Even the treatment of Muslim Anwar and gay Maxxie'srelationship is more about how Anwar's religious hypocrisy plays intoMaxxie's sexuality than it is the classic TV standard of gay boyfalls in love with best friend and drama ensues. That's brilliant iswhat that is.

See, whatseduced me into this show were the Stonem family (and oddball,Cassie, but I'll talk about her later). Our opening protagonist, Tonyand his younger sister, Effy. They're easily recognized as supposingto be the most hateable and the most beautiful (and therefore mostlovable) characters. They're intelligent and cold and manipulative,the top of their respective social hierarchies, frustrating becauseyou want them and want nothing to do with them at the same time.Their actions come about from boredom because they've never beentruly challenged and they're used to getting their way.

A quickWikipedia search told me that Effy doesn't really gain foregrounduntil the third and fourth seasons when most of the older charactersleave, but the setup and fall and reawakening of Tony, whichstory-arcs the first two seasons goes pretty much as expected. He's ahorrible person who causes all sorts of trouble, he's just about tochange his ways when something traumatic happens,

He got hitby a bus, how very:

suffersthrough recovery, changes his ways (with a relapse here and there fortension and to keep things interesting) and gets the girl.

It'ssatisfying to see him taken down. We want to see the high and mightywhom we hate so much fall so it humanizes them, so we can love themagain. And then we can allow them to have what they want so long asthey've suffered for it even if they're just as bad as they alwayswere.

Cassie,like her namesake from mythology, Cassandra, is slightly off from theworld. Anorexic in the first few episodes, she speaks in riddles andobscurities, it's that very absurdity that drew this character to me,and somewhere in that randomness is a purity of truth. Wisdom fromthe mouth of babes, but like her namesake she's cursed to be anoutcast, people don't believe her.

It's theplay on those kinds of tropes that makes Skins so addictive.

Still, Ithink I'm going to take a break after I finish season two. I can onlytolerate so many annoying teenagers having sex and doing drugs andgenerally being stupid and dramatic for so long, and if they gotcaught at the end of the episode and promised not to do it again allafter-school-special, well then this would be Degrassi, wouldn't it?

2012-01-04T22:54:00.001-08:00

Yesterday, I wrote a letter that I'm never going to send. I think the act of writing it was all I really needed to help me move forward.

Have HeART

2012-01-03T15:00:00.000-08:00

I've spentmy winter break creating, making thoughtful, personal gifts forpeople in my life. I don't bring this up as a way of bragging,tooting my own horn and saying how awesome I am, especiallyconsidering the majority of people got/will get clone gift bags withhomemade candy and a condom (free courtesy of the Sexual AwarenessCenter office where I work).

No, I bringup this act of creation because, as I was reminded in reading aletter from my friend Emerson, this is a form of heARTwork for me.HeARTwork so far as I know it is activism that comes from the heartand utilizes all the gifts we have to offer the world. It's speakingtruth to power. It's genuine. It seeks to make a difference. And forthe last few weeks for me, it's catharsis.

I feel hurtand heartbroken in a way I haven't for a few years now. I've hadmoments sitting in my apartment with only my roommate's cat forcompany, reading, where a word or a song played on shuffle on theother side of the room catches me off guard and next thing I know,I'm crying. In a sad way, it's kind of a beautiful thing, honestly.So beautiful.

And youprobably wouldn't know it looking at me, I'm very good at projectinghappiness. No, not projecting, projecting implies a level of falsity.It implies a covering up when this is a parallel. You probablywouldn't know it looking at me, because at the same time, I'm happy.Emotions are complicated, there isn't any kind of crazy paradoxicalcontradiction going on here.

There aredays when I feel so big I could rival Walt Whitman. I am both thehappiest and the saddest you will ever see. I am large, I containmultitudes: in this digital culture, I am multiplex, I exist onmultiple planes and levels. I can project and be so many thingssimultaneously.

But Idigress.

In the lastfew years I've been learning this practice of heART. It's a way ofmoving in the world that integrates art and action and love. You seeit in spoken word poets at performing at rallies. You see it in youthworkers pouring themselves into their service. Today I'm using thisas a gift for my friends.

Much likethe warriorship practice I wrote about yesterday, this is a matter ofintention. HeART is a flourishing, is a fostering, is a cultivation.

Cultivatev. to improve and render fertile.

It is aservice greater than ourselves gifted in something beautiful. Adistinction that I might make is that it is additive, always seekingthe greatest growth and joy. At times it might leave you feeling bareand reduced, insignificant and marginalized, but always with theseeds of power planted and ready to grow. To me, that's true heART.

Finding Shambhala

2012-01-02T11:57:00.000-08:00

Shambhala,I have a hard time with you. Again and again, my home, the Westmisinterprets, misappropriates, capitalizes on you, and this makes meuncomfortable. I do not understand you, dear Shambhala, though I haveheard your story.

Accordingto certain Buddhist teachings there is a mythical kingdom, anenlightened society called Shambhala somewhere near Tibet. In 1984,the Tibetan Buddhist teacher Chögyam Trungpa used the name Shambhalafor a book: Shambhala:The Sacred Path of the Warrior.

It's asecular book focusing more on the lifestyle of what Trungpa callswarriorship more than any spirituality, though it draws on manyprinciples of meditation and spirituality from religious practicesacross the world.

I firstcame across this book a few years ago. I was at a Power of Hope camp,I think my first year as a full-staff volunteer. One of the youth hadcome across a copy in the small library of Tierra Learning Center, orsomeone let him borrow it, I don't know. I learned a story that saysin a time of darkness in the world the Kingdom of Shambhala will walkthe world. These Shambhala warriors essentially will be harbingers ofpeace and goodness stepping out and teaching that there is anotherpath. It's an allegory because these "warriors" aren't somemythical people streaming out of a kingdom, but the angels, theordinary people who walk among us awakening to their own potential.

At somepoint in the last few months I acquired a copy of this little book. Istarted carrying it with me, reading a page here, a paragraph there,even practicing some of the teachings.

The end ofthis quarter has made me feel haggard despite my preference forWilson Library on campus. But then I have started to take steps backand examine my life through this lens of warriorship.

I wouldfind myself asking, where are my thoughts right now? What am Ifeeling? And I've been learning to appreciate these thoughts for whatthey are: thoughts. Stress is not a bad thing or a good thing. It's anatural reaction to our environment and thoughts.

My life hasbeen, is stressful. I spread myself pretty thin sometimes beinginvolved and active in my commUnities on multiple levels. To somefriends, it's exhausting even thinking about all the stuff I do, letalone actually doing it (and doing it well). Add on top of this thefact that I'd been pursuing a relationship with a gentleman of myacquaintance and grown rather fond of his company, but when wefinally “talked” we agreed that we had to be friends first. Whichis to say he told me it isn't going to happen like that and though Iwill admit I cried and I'm still somewhat disappointed and hurt, Irespect him enough to recognize I will not change his mind by forcinghim to like me. And so moving forward as friends first.

Leading twoclubs, working on campus, classes, living on my own, boys, thelaundry list never ends and I'm sure for some people it's longer andfor others it's shorter but no less difficult. I bring this up not tocompare, but to contextualize that for my circumstances I have everyreason to feel stressed and often do, but the key here is that I'mlearning to question whether or not such stress should stop me frombeing happy.

It's alesson I've been learning for years, and I think we're all learningit every day.

And sinceI've started this practice of warriorship, I've noticed a kind ofvulnerability in myself that has come with this learning. Having theluxury of time to myself the last few weeks, I've been working on mymeditation and my heART work (a topic I will post about tomorrow) andI've found myself prone to both random fits of sadness and randomfits of joy, often at the same time. A certain song will come on or Iwill read a sentence in my book and as I continue in what I am doing,I will notice I'm crying. I then take a moment to myself and Iexperience it.

Iexperience the hell out of those tears. What I've found is that yes,there's sadness. Right now especially there's a deep loneliness thathas yet to find solace. But there's also joy; joy so brilliantlybright it hurts. Sometimes there's anger. Sometimes there's laughterso innocent and pure. It's overwhelming; in ways it's exhausting.It's beautiful.

And that'smy gift to myself, because in letting myself experience this and inletting myself be overwhelmed, I'm accepting my strength. If that'swhat I can experience internally in just one short moment by myself,then imagine what kind of glory the world holds! I'm blessed to behere.

Though mylanguage may sound preachy, my place is not necessarily toevangelize. Because as I've said before, I'mat your service. I'm sharing this experience of warriorship, ofgrowth and learning just as much for my mental well-being in copingwith this as I am to help foster similar growth within the peoplearound me, regardless which path you take.

I thinkthat's what Shambhala has come to mean to me. In all senses of theword it is in part practice. Practice at life. And to me at least,life is happiness.

Gender Label

2011-12-23T13:22:00.001-08:00

There were probably a few things I missed... but here's a selection:

Hello
My gender is

ALWAYS!, active, activist, ally, anarchist, artsy, beautiful, bi-romantic, bitch, bottom, boy, boy in a skirt, brother, bubbly, caring, child, complex, counselor, creative, cuddly, curious, dog, dork, dude, dunno yet, etc., extrovert, eyeliner fag, fairy, feline, feminist, free, friend, friendly, gay, gay-friendly, gender bender, gender blender, gender fluid, glittery, human, indecisive, intelligent, LGBTQ, LGBTQA, LGBTQIOPPS, leftist, lover, loving, male-bodied, male-born, man, me, metrosexual, multifacetted, odd, open, passionate, philosopher, pomosexual, prettyboy, privileged, pro-sex feminist, queer, queer liberationist, quirky, right-brained, romantic, sassy, sensitive, sex positive, sexy, sissy, slut, snuggly, spiritual, student, sweet, trustworthy, understanding, whore, wife, XY

What's yours?

UV Rays in the Wintertime

2011-12-21T09:38:00.000-08:00

I used atanning bed for the first time the other day. It's not something Iforesee myself doing often, but given I paid $40 on a package deal soI could use a coupon and get two free sessions, I'll at least goseven times.

Theexperience made me realize among other things that tanning by andlarge is a white-people problem, or more precisely a problem forpeople with a range of skin tones between brown and translucent. Asthe safety disclosure agreement I signed before I was allowed in readsomewhere in the fine print, “if you don't tan in the sun, youwon't tan in a tanning bed.”

If I weretrying to get a tan, I have the perfect skin tone for it. I'm not sopigmentally-challenged that I burn easily and I'm not so dark that atan would go unnoticed.

Given thatit's December, I'm in my light time of the year.

Themachines are hardwired not to run for more than 20 minutes, as asafety precaution to protect stupid people from baking themselvesalive. As I was checking in, the receptionist said I could probablygo in for 14 minutes since this was my first session.

The friendwho'd convinced me to go had gone in for 14 minutes a few days beforeand come out just barely reddening. I think I could have gotten awaywith 16 minutes before I would have needed to worry about that, butwith all the worry bandied about around skin cancer and UV radiation,it's probably for the best that I didn't.

Eachtanning bed had it's own room. Throw in an intercom system, a fewcrying children and a six item limit, and we might as well have beenin the dressing room of some department store.

The wholeprocess was a little sterile. Metaphorically and literally, there wasa little tri-fold placard sitting on the towel next to my tanninggoggles that told me the tanning bed was sterilized. While businessis light this time of year, I couldn't help but imagine the kind ofhorrors the smiling receptionists have had to clean up after in thesetanning beds. Realistically, probably very little since there's abathroom for your convenience and I imagine the kind of clientelethat a tanning salon attracts would shower fairly regularly beforeconsidering climbing into one of these glass coffins.

I strippeddown to my underwear before shutting myself into a glowing doom. Iwould say I was too shy to go naked, but here underwear means fashionjock so I might as well have been naked.

Hitting theblue button on the wall turned on the body-length tubes that buzzedfaintly with the energy flowing through them. A fan at the foot ofthe bed whirred ominously the entire time. It made me feel like I waslying down in the eye of a small, strangely horizontal hurricane oflight.

At first Iwas worried that I would get bored. I'd forgotten my mp3 player in myrush out the door and even had I brought it, I'm not sure I was readyto figure out the plug and play system somewhere in the vicinityabove my head. But soon enough I let myself relax and fell into someof the deep breathing techniques I use during meditation.

After thefirst few minutes in this painfully bright, bluish light I started tofeel a slight warmth on my skin. Once I relaxed I might as well havebeen laying on a beach. A beach where the light comes from beneathyou as well as the sky, but sunny and warm and kind of pleasant tolay on if you don't plan on being there super long.

Fourteenminutes later everything shut off with a start. My session had cometo an end. I climbed out of the machine and dressed, meeting myfriends out in the lobby. As we walked away, I felt a smileinextricably pulling at the corner of my lips. This was an endorphinhigh of a different kind than you get from exercise or sex, it wasmore like a tall cup of yerbe mate on an empty stomach. For thatfirst hour or two afterward life felt exceedingly good.

Gay Fiction

2011-12-12T14:37:00.001-08:00

I've always been reticent when itcomes to LGB fiction, as if there's something about it that drives meaway. I've read my fair share and almost always come away from itwith a question: Where are the voices that speak for me?

If you look at most pop-fiction forgay male youth, it's either the tortured angst of coming out or someslightly less tortured, teen romance. Looking at a lot of theliterature for the older set, we come across pages written by thejustifiably angry gays who spent the 70s and 80s fighting forvisibility and the right to march in something as outrageous as aPride Parade, now a little bit older, a little bit settled in.

A long standing in joke amongst myfriends says I never came out as gay so much as I came out as Danny.That kind of intense romance was okay when my body was swimming inenough of its hormones that I even had crushes on a few girls. Havinggrown up in a culture where Pride Parades have reached enoughmainstream appeal that they can be sponsored by Budweiser, I thinkI'm what's called the epitome of Millenial apathy, at least when itcomes to a homogenized subculture that while I respect it's history,is the stuff of history books (or as is more likely the case,Wikipedia searches).

I'm among the first in a generation offairies standing on the shoulders of giants, bears, self-styledtrannies and assorted other woodland creatures to see at least hintsof equality in America. Yes, the racial, class and gender dividesmeanwhile are even farther from equality, but from certainperspectives we're closer than we've ever been.

We're here, we're queer and we're notsomething you've seen before. We're the generation saturated inpostmodernism from birth onward. I was part of a panel discussion myjunior year of college on what it means to be queer in community andone of the panelists could barely answer our questions because of thecontextual differences created by the age gap. The very fact that wecould ask about a “queer community” at all was astounding.

It's not apathy that we face; it's aparadigm shift. There is an intimate connection between generationtheory, activism and sexuality that I don't think current discoursehas completely taken into account yet.

So again I ask, where are the voicesthat speak for me and those like me?

They don't exist. Or rather, they'reout on the streets protesting the color/gender/class-blind ideologyand practices of reactionary mainstream movements. They're inclassrooms laughing at all the silly little boys and girls who stillhave this image of feminism as bra-burning and man-bashing, writingpapers and quoting names like Judith Butler and Michel Foucault.They're homeless on the streets. They're on social networking siteslike tumblr, aggregating information and resources and the occasionalfunny image so that others can stumble upon their tumblogs and makebetter sense of the world.

And really, when it comes down to it,do I want any other voices other than my own representing me? No, butI would like just once to find a story about a queer that I canrelate to without being sickened by the cliches and stereotypes andheteronormative tropes and the bad writing. It's a wonder people evenknow what queer is since the literature is hidden away in academiarather than mingling with the masses and making itself known.

Finals Week

2011-12-07T10:03:00.001-08:00

I woke up today and I felt stressed.

I felt worried and sad and hurt.

But then as I got up and walked to campus I looked around at the trees and the clouds and I decided that I'm not going to let my stress hold me back and keep me from being happy, beautiful, lovable me.

Since I have short break in the middle of my finals week, I'm getting STI testing done today. I'm not concerned that I have anything, but I've been sexually active for almost a year and a half and this is long overdue. Getting tested isn't just about me, it's also about the health and safety of my current partner, and that's something I'm trying to be responsible about.

Forgive this long-(short-)winded ramble, my mind is in eight and a half different places right now. Perhaps I should find somewhere quiet on campus since I'm up and about and meditate. Or exercise, that always helps.

I'm stressed, but I also feel calm, serene even.

It's still there, this stress, walking beside me, but I'm holding its hand, telling it thank you for reminding me I'm human. Thank you stress for reminding me that life is a challenge and I'm winning.

Rowing Dreams?

2011-11-30T09:31:00.001-08:00

Dreamt last night I was pledging some kind of frat. It was more a movie gaze than a

There were like ten of us in a barracks together and it was very clear either myself or one other guy would be the leader within our group, so to test us, they sent a sorority to kidnap us. Took us out on a lake where apparently the western men and women's rowing teams were having some kind of skirmish regatta.

I ended up on one of the coach barges but we hadn't been out on the water more than five minutes when it was needed for the regatta so myself and the boat driver got shoved into the back of a women's eight. Somehow they rowed with us sitting between them. We passed two men's eights warming up and two singles that looked mostly capsized racing. I remember seeing my friend Thomas in one of the eights. At first I thought he was coxing, but when I looked again, he was stroke seat. One of the singles had a blonde guy with long hair in it and he must have been defying the laws of physics to still be rowing at that point, the boat was so far under water.

We went past the finish line and exit launch and turned around. Somehow on the way back we took a wrong turn and ended up in a narrow canal with barely enough room for the boat, it conveyor belted us past the start launch and out of the water. We had to carry it back and it was mostly my friend Alix and I with it on our heads at opposite ends.If it hadn't been for Alix and I it would have been dropped multiple times, no one knew how to carry a boat.

It was a funky black shell that had fold away handles. Someone behind me mentioned Cy being short. Got it back to the water and the women took over.

Back in the barracks somehow it was very clear i'd won the leadership challenge but was still under scrutiny. I was showering when everyone walked in. Approached my counterpart since he looked really disappointed. He essentially hadn't made the frat-thing. I asked him how he felt about watching the rowers since he and most of the guys seemed fascinated. I told him that if he doesn't make it he should consider joining the team as an alternative.

Woke up feeling powerful and inspired, like I can do good in the world. Today will be a good day.

This Text is a Sheep in [Beo]wulf's Clothing

2011-11-28T10:08:00.001-08:00

Alrighty, lovely blog readers, as promised, here's a copy of the paper I wrote for my English 307 class.

Whenthe Roman Empire departed Britain at the beginning of the fifthcentury, it took with it the military might that protected the islandnation so that there was little resistance when the pagan Angles andSaxons invaded and took over, their culture quickly becomingdominant. In part because of the early Christianization of Britain bythe Romans, when mission work returned to England conversion became afar easier task. Beowulf, transcribed in the early years of 1000 butpurported to have been taken from an oral narrative with origins asearly as 700, reflects the competing influences of the dominantAnglo-Saxon culture and the Christian church in England.

While itpredominantly follows the hero narrative more traditional of theAnglo-Saxon paganism, the Christian influence on the written recordof Beowulf paints not only a Christ-like image of the titlecharacter, but an evangelical one to readers that serves to transformthe hero into an allegorical redemptive savior. By characterizingBeowulf as both a hero and a Christ-figure, he bridges the gapsbetween Anglo-Saxon paganism and Christianity.

Insetting up Beowulf to arrive as savior, the first part of the storytakes place in the Danish kingdom Hrothgar rules where the peoplestill followed the Norse religious practices that would be familiarto the Anglo-Saxons. When the Danes are first beset by Grendel, they

“offeredhonor to idols

Atpagan temples, prayed aloud

Thatthe [devil] might offer assistance

Inthe country’s distress. Such was their custom,

Thehope of heathens.” (175-179).

TheDanes prayed to their non-Christian gods because none of the Danishwarriors could defeat the monster besieging their kingdom. As anevangelical text setting the stage for Beowulf as a Christ-likesavior, it is important to characterize the Danes as bothnon-Christian and ineffective against Grendel. In his rebuttal toUnferth’s story, one of the first things Beowulf does is recognizethat the Danes do not resist Grendel's attacks (591). When Beowulfand his men land on Danish soil, they are wished “the almightyFather guard you in his grace” (316) as they continue their journeyto King Hrothgar. While grace in this line is suggestive of “almightyFather” as meaning the Christian God, given the pagan roots of theDanes, it is more plausible that “almighty Father” refers to theNorse god Woden who was commonly referred to as the “All-Father.”From such strong conditions of paganism attributed to the Danes, whoare unable to defend themselves, the poem begins to set the case thatit is only as an outsider that Beowulf is able to defeat the monsterin battle. This is developed throughout the rest of the poem up untilBeowulf’s battle with Grendel where it is ultimately proved true.Beowulf is distinguished as an outsider both by being a foreigner andby his Christian faith. Again and again it is emphasized that Beowulfis a Geat, both in the repetition of his lineage and in his address.

In his opening speech to Hrothgar, Beowulf, after establishing hislineage and knowledge of the Dane's plight, mentions putting “hisfaith in the Lord's Judgement” (440-441). Within Norse mythology,references to the gods were not as commonly related in terms of“faith” and “judgement” as is the case in Christianlanguage.The Geatish warrior is the first character after Hrothgar tomake reference to the Christian God. When Hrothgar tells hisretainers that “Holy God in His Grace has guided [Beowulf] to us”(381-382) it is tempting to make the same attributions to Woden aswith the sea guard, but the use of the Old English “Holy” here isreflective of the Latin use of sanctusmorethan the original Old English use meaning “whole” or “inviolate”(OED). The language Hrothgar uses here is indicative of a Latin andtherefore Christian influence. This characterizes Hrothgaras king being just above the pagan morals of his people. While he isof the Danes, his Christian faith alone is not enough to save them,it does not lend them the authority of the non-pagan influence neededto fight Grendel. It is in part the Christianity of the great heroBeowulf that allows him to defeat the monster where all others areunable.

Beowulfcannot enter the kingdom and defeat the monster without first provinghimself and in doing so converting the Danes. To save the Danes fromthe monster, Beowulf must first save the Danes from their pagan ways.When challenged by Unferth with the story of his race against Brecca,Beowulf counters with a list of accomplishments that while havingcaused him to lose the race, showed himself as a far greater warrior(529~). When Wealhtheow approaches, Beowulf’s words “well pleasedthat woman” (639). By his actions and words in the mead hall,Beowulf’s boasting impresses the Danes so that they will accept himas a hero of great renown. It is shown that they accept him whenHrothgar entrusts to Beowulf “the great hall of the Danes” forthe first time since he “could hold and hoist a shield” (656).This early in the narrative, it is harder to imagine the impact ofsuch a symbolic action, but in accepting Beowulf as their savior fromGrendel, the Danes are also accepting his faith and Christianity.Beowulf, taken as an allegorical figure, as the most Christ-likecharacter is Christianity so when the Danes accept Beowulf, they areaccepting a proxy of Christ.

Thischange becomes apparent when Hrothgar speaks at the feast followingGrendel’s defeat at the hands of Beowulf and is further shown afterBeowulf defeats Grendel’s mother. The very first thing Hrothgardoes is offer thanks to the Almighty and gives praise to the“Shepherd of glory” who works “wonder upon wonder” (930~).All of Hrothgar’s language after the defeat of the monsters byBeowulf is greatly saturated with references to God compared to thescant one or two mentions he makes before Beowulf’s victory. At theend of this first speech, Hrothgar gives honor to whatever woman had“borne such a son into the race of men” and says that “the Godof Old was good to her in childbearing” (945). While an indirectreference at best, this suggests a comparison between Beowulf andChrist through a blessed mother, i.e. Mary.

Beowulf’scharacterization to resemble Christ throughout the rest of the textfurthers this acceptance by Anglo-Saxon readers of Christ-as-Beowulfas their Savior. When Beowulf searches out Grendel’s mother, hecomes to a place that, to the Anglo-Saxon people, would very closelyresemble hell. In some respects paralleling the narrative of theharrowing of hell, Beowulf’s fight with Grendel’s mother is likethe story told of Christ in the days between his death on the crossand the Resurrection. Beowulf descends into the depths of thishell-place, defeats a devil and returns with a prize. While he isgone, he is assumed dead by the unfaithful Danes, but when he returnsit is as if he is resurrected and the faithful Geats rejoice (1600).In Hrothgar’s speech after the defeat of Grendel’s mom, he saysthat Beowulf’s “glory is exalted throughout the world, over everypeople” (1704). Coupled with a few lines from the very end of thetext where Beowulf is described by his people after his death “ofall the kings of the world, mildest of men and most gentle, thekindest of his folk and the most eager for fame” (3180-3183), wecan see how Beowulf is placed so far above normal men. Like Christ,he is a king of kings and is honored as such wherever he goes. Whenhe returns home, he is offered land for the deeds he has done andtreated as highly as nobility as any king or prince.

Thekind of glory that Beowulf seeks throughout the narrative brings himfame and wealth. This search stems from a Germanic tradition ofseeking glory and fame by going out and fighting monsters and wars toacquire wealth, but by virtue of Beowulf’s characterization alsocontains connotations of Christian glory, which is glory through andfor God. This duality is reflected in Beowulf’s last word when,after having Wiglaf go to the den of the dragon and bring sometreasures to show his dying lord, Beowulf first thanks “the eternalLord, King of Glory” (2796). Beowulf’s constant reference to theChristian God makes his self-sacrifice in giving up his life todefeat the dragon for his people makes him even more Christ-like.

Notonce does the text mention any attempt made by King Hrothgar todefeat Grendel for the Danes, so as a King in a similar positionlater in life, Beowulf does not need to face the monster himself.Like Hrothgar he could choose to send his thanes out to fight it orwait for an adventuring hero to do the work for him, but he choosesto give up himself for the higher good of his people. In doing so, heis ensuring their safety by saving them from the dragon; by defeatingthe dragon he is gaining immeasurable wealth, fame and glory; andlike Christ on the cross he is giving up himself so that they maylive thereby attaining for them glory through God.

Asmuch as he is characterized as Christ-like, it is where Beowulf failsas a Christ-figure that emphasizes the evangelical nature of thistext and makes his character a better bridge between theNorse/Germanic influences of the Anglo-Saxons and the incomingChristian powers. When Beowulf is introduced to Hrothgar's court, heis challenged, his authority and renown are questioned. To counterthis, he boasts of all his accomplishments (Sections 6, 8, 9). Whilesuch boasting defies the humility of Christian teaching, it would bea familiar cultural practice amongst the Anglo-Saxons. As discussedabove, Beowulf's journey is partly inspired by a search for treasure.He does his work as a warrior for fame and glory, to gain renown.Like the boasting, this material focus is un-Christian behavior, butis a perfect example of the Germanic tradition in Beowulf. While heis characterized as a Christ-like, he is still very much a product ofthe Anglo-culture familiar to Old English readers. Where Beowulfcrosses this gap and fits uncomfortably in both sides of thepagan/Christian duality he acts effectively as a bridge between them.Anglo-Saxons reading this story are more likely to accept thehero-Beowulf with all the aspects of Christian-Beowulf in tow.

Byportraying Beowulf as a Christ-figure, his actions and the relationshe has to the Danes and Geats serve an evangelical purpose. Withinthe text, Beowulf as an Anglo-Saxon hero is treated as Christ,turning the hero of a pagan tradition into the savior of a Christianone. This mixing of two legendary figures creates a common groundbetween the two conflicting cultures, making Christianity more easilyacceptable to the pagan Anglo-Saxon audience. Beowulf the text, likeBeowulf the character, inserts itself into the culture of the people,bringing with it a host of Christian faith to reacquaint them withideas and themes that would seem fairly common. It shows that bytaking in Christ, here represented as Beowulf, they can be saved.

Untitled Post

2011-11-27T15:32:00.001-08:00

As human beings,we spend so much of our time and energy screaming, “Understand me,understand me, for the love of God, someone please understand me.”We scream until we are hoarse, until we lose our voices and fall tothe ground of exhaustion.

And yet somehow wefail to hear the multitude of voices surrounding us, screaming intime with equal amounts of pain and frustration and longing. We failto notice the equal vacuum of need pulling at us from all sides.

It is a sad stateof affairs when we cannot acknowledge our own hurt, let alone that ofthose around us.

So I'm trying toretrain myself.

Whisper with me,“Help me understand you.”

It seems sosimple. Create a pocket of silence in this chaos and wait. Transformour own energy and need into something useful.

Recognize theworld isn't about me.

I need thatreminder from time to time. The world isn't about me, I cannot focuson my wants and needs alone, but this also means I cannot beeverywhere for everyone. We are not superheroes. It is selfish andarrogant to think that we must solve everyone else's problems.

Rather, and thisis something I've learned from social justice communities, we muststrive to empower people to take action for themselves, stepping inwith further action only when it is absolutely necessary.

So what is mostvaluable in a world where all anyone wants is attention, love,validation? How do we empower people to find this within themselves?

Start with leadingby example. Instead of adding to the noise, remove yourself from it.Turn down the volume even just a fraction. People are drawn tosilence, to the open heart and listening ear. It's something we canfeel from deep within.

To understandanother, you must first start by seeking to understand yourselfbetter. I don't think it's ever possible to understand yourselffully, but in coming to terms with the fact that we will nevercompletely understand and accepting this, we gain somethingimmeasurable. We gain the ability to move on and instead work onbeing ourselves.

If this soundsabsurd to you. If it sounds ridiculously easy, easier said than done,I am not challenging you. It is indeed easier said than done, butthis is no reason not to do it anyways.

So go out and findyourself. Come back to me with your findings. Help me understand you.

Why Don't We Talk About Sex the Way We Talk About Food?

2011-11-23T12:53:00.001-08:00

On Monday night,the Sexual Awareness Center office will be showing the documentaryLet's Talk About Sex. While I urge anyone reading this to goto that film showing at 6pm in VU 522, I am not writing this blogpost as a representative of that office. Considering we live in aculture that inundates itself with sex, where “sex sells” and“everybody's doing it,” we're awfully reticent to having frankand open discussions about sex and sexuality.

For eight years,we had a Presidential administration that almost exclusivelyadvocated abstinence only sex education,which given rates of sexualabuse, unplanned pregnancy, sexual violence, and sexually transmittedinfections (STI), completely ignores the fact that young people arehaving sex and under an abstinence-only model are having sexunprepared for the consequences of their actions.

The problem thoughis not merely systemic, it's cultural as well. We don't allowourselves a space to healthily discuss sex. Within the public domain,we rarely hear about condoms until at least puberty, and even thenthe focus is on preventing pregnancy with little to no mention of STIprevention. Few parents would be able to overcome their embarrassmentto bring up condom use to a teenager beyond surreptitiously leaving apack bedside and assuming they'll know what to do with it.

Even thisdiscourse completely ignores the range of emotional and socialpressures that come along with sex.

About six monthsago, I purchased a copy of the Guide to Getting It Onby Paul Joannides, an irreverent, comprehensive sex manual that withglossary covers 982 pages. At times it exhibits language that makesme uncomfortable for its misogynistic, heteronormative orculturally-incompetent connotations, but it attempts to be inclusiveand is reflective of the idiomatic culture that spawned it, so Iwould still recommend it for anyone interested about sex.

Myfavorite part about this guide is not its wide range of sexualpositions and detailed descriptions of what to do in bed, for thatkind of information I would actually recommend you to a copy of theKama Sutra or Cosmo, but the way in which this book emphasizes theconnection and communication between partners.

Mostsex ed that I've encountered deals almost exclusively with themechanics of conception and rarely STI prevention. This is your basicanatomy. This is how it functions to make a baby. This is everythingthat can go wrong. If you're going to have sex, use protection ordie. What's missing from this approach is pleasure. It tells younothing about how to make sex better, which comes most strongly fromresponding to what you and your partner want.

Now,I've been an advocate for good communication skills probably sinceabout the time I became literate. Sexual literacy and communicationis no different. A sexual relationship is still, first and foremost,a relationship. Even if it's casual hook-up sex, if only one partnerthinks of it that way, problems will occur.

Havingsex with another person is intimate. We're trained to keep it behindclosed doors both physically and mentally. So acknowledging thatyou're with another person who has wants and needs and boundaries isthe first thing we should be teaching youth.

Ifyour brain is the most important sexual organ, your ears are thesecond.

Partof what will help make this process of education easier is changingthe way we talk about sex. The other day I was at a presentation byCynthia Morrison from the Washington State Department of Health and aquestion she asked our scant audience of eight was why do we not talkabout sex the way we talk about eating.

Thequestion was mostly meant to address language use in a sex positiveculture. Consider for a moment the slang used for masturbation.Jacking off, beating one out, spanking the monkey, choking thechicken, ad nauseum, I would go on, but doesn't this list seem ratherviolent, and it only really talks about male masturbation. Or foranother matter, what does it mean that some of the worst insults arerelated to body parts?

Ilike to eat standing in the kitchen as I'm making food for otherpeople. Sitting down is a rarity.

Ilike to fuck in bed, being penetrated while on top, riding my partner.

Okay,so you wouldn't exactly talk about sex the way you talk about eatingand I apologize if that last sentence gave any of you far too graphicmental images of me, but the language we use is important. I wouldrather hear about spicy, succulent, delicate, aromatic, tasty thingsin bed than I would this pseudo-violent harder, faster,aren't-I-such-a-good-little-bitch, use me, rhetoric we most oftenascribe to sex.

Can you imagine if it were the other way around?You're a bad apple, I'm going to have to take a bite out of you andswallow you whole.

Yeah... this is still a developing series of thoughts.

The true-life account of a conversation I have at least once a week

2011-11-21T08:39:00.001-08:00

“So, Danny, what are you majoringin?”

“Um, I'm actually double majoring.”

“Oh wow, really? In what?”

“English Lit and Kinesiology.”

Short pause.

“That's an interesting combination,what are you going to do with it?”

How the conversation reaches this pointchanges, but the exact wording of the exact same questions issurprisingly stable for the number of times I've had to explainmyself.

I like English. I've known since aboutthe eighth grade that when I went to college I would most likelywould end up as an English major. Sure, there was a period in highschool where I considered a Journalism major, but this was onlybecause it was similar enough to English and would have allowed me tocontinue in my passion for journalism. I realized pretty quicklyafter getting to college that my passion wasn't for journalismitself, but for the journalism community I had build up around me inhigh school.

So as I neared the end of my sophomoreyear, I was struggling. I was running out of GUR classes to take andneeded to declare in order to get into the upper division classes Iwould take within whatever major I chose.

As I sat with this decision, I knew Ididn't want to be one of those people who starts at universitystraight of high school and takes forever to finish theirundergraduate degree because they waffled and wavered and switchedmajors five times. I didn't want to get so far in a program only torealize it wasn't for me with a year left before graduation.

So I looked around me. I had oneprofessor tell me that if I went into English I should be prepared towork in a non-English field. There are so many people majoring inEnglish out there, but only so many jobs related, and with thecritical thinking abilities you get through an English major you'reable to go into things like teaching or data analysis or even lawshould you apply yourself in that direction.

As an English Lit major I've learned todeconstruct a text, to pick it apart and analyze it in order to seeboth the broad implications and the minute interrelations betweenfacets. This appeals to me. I love reading something and just mullingit over until I see the socio-cultural, political, narrative,historical implications. For example, rereading books by Orson ScottCard with the knowledge of his conservative politics has completelyreshaped how I interpret them.

I'm a better feminist, queer andactivist because I can better understand the plurality of discoursesat work in any given conversation. That kind of bigger picture,holistic mindset is something I've learned to strive toward.

But at some point I realized this isn'twhat I want to do. I want to do this and I want to apply iteverywhere in my life, but it's not something I want to make a careerout of. So I looked at what else fascinates me and eventuallyconcluded that the only other fields of study that really held myinterest were related to human bodies.

There are multiple reasons for this,not the least of which stemmed from watching my mother go throughphysical therapy the latter half of my high school career. As anextrovert with an interest in serving people, a health-related fieldseems natural in a way. That and my experience rowing on the crewteam gave me an appreciation and understanding of myself I never knewI had.

Yeah, in all reality I was the weakestguy on the team, but I was consistent and determined and absolutelycaptivated by the dynamics of movement involved: the kinesthetics,chemistry, and physics behind each muscle contraction, the leveragenecessary to generate each little movement, all of them have capturedmy attention. And it taught me to be physical, that I can dosomething with my body beyond just move from place to place.

Growing up I was always a bookworm,eschewing the outdoors and ball games of my peers in favor of flyingthrough the works of Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and countless others. In asimilar way, I've come to appreciate the human body as a book I wantto learn to read. Not just muscles either; the whole thing, fromnutrition to psychology to immune responses.

And as a double major with English, Ican do that. If I take the time to understand material, I feel like Ican explain it and make connections clearer than I would be able tootherwise.

That's not exactly why I'm double majoring, which has far more to do with me being stubborn and wanting to be well-rounded. But it helps explain why I would choose such disparate majors.

"Squirrel!"

2011-11-20T13:24:00.001-08:00

I saw a squirrel today. It had picked up a discarded apple core, carried it up a tree, and sat on a branch to eat it. Something about this made me smile, so I walked back and took a picture.

Linguist Boy: A Missed Connection

2011-11-16T17:11:00.001-08:00

So I posted this poem to Craigslist earlier. We'll see how this goes.

http://bellingham.craigslist.org/mis/2706415366.html

Linguist Boy

Linguist boy,
I would forgive you your bilabial trills
if you would do the math
and make them quadrilabial.
Would you, for me,
cut down that Indo-European tree
so we can keep warm in its ashes?
Linguist boy,
save some sibilants
for my ears in the dark
and maybe I'll teach you
the anatomy I've been learning.
See, that fricative is begging me to stop,
but you left it unvoiced
and it got swallowed in the laryngal folds.
Linguist boy,
I want to explore that interdental space
and touch your alveolar ridge with my tongue.
The topography of your body
is a morphology I want to learn to read
but the phonetics contains sounds
I've never heard before.
Here's a clause, let's draw a tree:
"Linguist boy," that's a noun phrase
with embedded adjective phrase. Linguist describing boy.
"warm up my bed."
I admit the verb phrase suffers some
lexical ambiguity.
Do I mean warm as in heat
or warm as in ffffffuriction
between all those parts you linguists ignore?
We can blend our bodies like
two free morphemes to make something new.
Linguist boy,
do you consider "boyfriend" to be monomorphemic,
or are we two free morphemes
unbound by labels and only loosely
connected by word order?
These looks and smiles we share
have a semantics of attraction,
but the meaning gets lost in
a convoluted syntax of time and distance:
wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff.
Linguist boy,
have I said too much?
I don't want this to be the
false etymology of a relationship,
but maybe you can pause
and analyze my language variation.

The Western Front: Censorship and spending

2011-11-02T09:47:00.000-07:00

I've decided that if I want to call myself a former student journalist, I should start reading my campus publication regularly. Activists throw around words like solidarity, but I think it's equally viable to apply the term to other ares (and I think in many forms journalism has the potential to act as a stimulus for activism). It's also good policy for knowing some of what's going on.

So let's start with yesterday's Volume 156 Issue13, November 1, 2011.

I'm tempted to play a game of count the inaccuracies, but that's just mean and detracts from the content. So I'll focus on two stories that caught my eye.

The first, an unobstrusive seeming piece that starts hidden in the bottom right corner of the front page, has a headline that seems rather dry: “Resolution would ask publications to censor content in online archives” but blossoms into what must easily be a 1200 word piece when it continues on page four that is further continued in an editorial on page 12. This was my first clue that this was a story stirring up trouble in the WF offices. Journalists report the news, they don't make the news, why would they be writing so much about something they're directly involved in?

Ah, censorship.

It's a bane of the journalist's existence, more so of student journalist who have to deal not only with media law and ethics, but campus ethics and codes and policies. So what is this resolution that has our friends at the Western Front scared? Apparently there's a little something-something dancing around on the Student Senate floor saying that online content could be subject for removal or alteration.
In short, because of the ease with which it's possible to make changes to digital media, someone says it might be worthwhile to erase some of those ill-conceived comments made by students that could otherwise be construed as indiscretions.

I'm sorry, but I have no sympathy for that line of thinking. Assuming this isn't some kind of undercover operation that would never happen with a campus publication, if you're being spoken to by a journalist (and if they're interviewing you in such a way that you could be quoted, you'll know they're a reporter, they'll have said so), you should always triple think what you say before you say it.

If we were all minors, it would be one thing. The vetting and verification process for content would likely be a little more rigorous and permissions might be a sticking point, but this is college. We're supposed to be adults. In fact, any of us could be interviewed by national news organizations and all our stupid little “um”s and “like”s could be broadcast to the world. A college paper, not so tough cookies. If we need to limit what gets posted by our campus publications, what's the point in having them?

And that is what's scary about censorship.

The other story that caught my eye was a guest column about university spending during budget cuts that made me want to cry a little. Why don't people research how the system works? Buchannan Towers are not being remodeled, those things under construction were additions so we could fit more students (i.e. more freshmen crowding classrooms and helping split the cost of our ever growing tuition).

The money for that was likely budgeted and allocated to that project at least a full year before it began. I'm assuming a good chunk of the funding came from some kind of donations or government grants having to do with building maintenance and updates that while significant in amount tend to be fairly regulated and specific in what they're used for. If the state gives me ten thousand dollars but with the stipulation that I have to use it for shoes, if I try to buy socks, they're going to take it away, so I'm going to buy as many shoes as I can. That's a reality of the way these kinds of institutions work.

It's a similar story with the rebranding brought up in this guest column. The money was spent a while ago, we're just now seeing the results. And for a corporation like a university, because yes, the two are increasingly similar in how they're run (how long until I can call up CEO Bruce Shepard?), branding is important. It's how you get more of those out of state students (holla to my OSSA peeps) who you can charge higher fees to help offset the money you're losing from in-state students losing higher education funding from the state.

Rather than piss and moan about how Western is spending it's money, why not yell and shout (or send a polite but strongly worded email to) your state representatives who are allowing all these cuts to higher education? The AS Board, and especially our Vice President of Legislative Affairs (there's something so satisfying about typing out the entire title instead of VP of LegAff) Iris are working their asses off to get people riled up enough to show the state that Western has had enough.

When people say vote with your wallet, they usually mean give money where it's worth giving, but I also think it should mean vote with your wallet in mind and choose people who are going to represent you and spend your tax dollars the way you want it to be spent.

Anyways, that's my two cents on the news. Someone give me a dollar and maybe I'll write about the whole issue next time.

National Coming Out Day 2011

2011-10-11T13:43:00.000-07:00

While I respect the institutional and personal need for coming out that makes it an empowering experience for a lot of people, and I accept that because of this fact coming out has socio-historical significance for the majority of GLBT people, FUCK National Coming Out Day.

Come out when you're ready to. Don't let some nationalized agenda tell you that you have to come out today. Come out however works best for your situation be that to select people that matter or to the whole rainbows and glitter, campy universe.

The closet is full of more than just rainbows or childhood monsters and the door isn't always easy to open so once you're there, celebrate being out every day of your life by living out, not just today.

Think OUTside the box and challenge the normative institutions and thought systems that oppress you. OUTreach to the populations that will help you as well as those that need your help. The OUTcry of your actions will OUTdo any opposition.

This OUTburst is an exercise. Queer as in fuck you, shit gets complicated. I've been OUTraged and OUTfitted with the tools of expression to make it known:

Out requires an in.

But what about beside? What about around, encompassing? Even if I'd been in the closet, it couldn't hold me because this little nightlight is too damn bright.

Dammit if that in isn't going to be the best place to standOUT in a crowd. Twist and shOUT no need to pOUT, this is what I'm all abOUT.

Be daring and bold. Be warm and cold. Be so far OUT that the world is your closet and identity your clothes.

Am I making sense? Do these synapse connections collect inf(l)ections I don't mean?

I didn't think so.

There's a plurality OUT there. Thought you should be aware.

And if I'm flaunting a privilege, so be it. Humble me. Pride comes before a fall.

Coming out from sea to shining fucking sea.

I don't believe in out.

Only a socially constructed ideal of what it means to be gay.

Have it your way.

Anthems from the Collective

2011-08-22T14:37:00.000-07:00

Anthem n. A song with rousing, emotive, qualities, often one identified with a particular subculture, social group, or cause.

So over the last month or two I've been putting together a playlist I'm calling "Anthems from the Collective." But being that I'm only one young man, I'm kind of limited on the number of contributions I can make and be able to call this a collective endeavor. This, dear reader, is where you can be of service to me.

Do you have any songs that speak to you no matter your mood, no matter where you are or who you're with? Songs that scream and dance and hit you over the head saying, "Hey, you with the ears, we should do this together"? Send them to me so I can add your anthem to the collective.

2011-08-20T12:03:00.000-07:00

A preface: Though I speak them and share them, the words that follow aren't mine. They're yours, synthesized and stolen from the calmness of your eyes, the whisper of your breath from across the room, the gentle curve of your spine against the chair. They're our words. Feel this.

Paths
There is a path that leads nowhere,
leads to nothing.
It is not a path you follow
and it is not a path you take.
It is a path of Enlightenment.
Many will dismiss it,
ignoring the call of future-past.
Many walk it unknowing.
At times it is wide as the deepest river.
At times it disappears amongst the undergrowth.
As you walk with it,
You will come to know its many moods.
Some days it will caress you with falling leaves.
Others it will batter you with branches hurled by gales.
But keep walking. Always continue walking.
There is a lesson to be learned.

2011-08-16T16:18:00.001-07:00

"Life is one big collaborative art project." ~quote from camp this week

Thoughts on the "new" Spiderman

2011-08-04T09:59:00.000-07:00

Reading articles like this one about the new Spiderman depresses me for a few reasons.

1) The racial outrage that Marvel would dare to create a non-white hero.

C'mon America, your demographics are changing. There are more people of color in your borders than you're willing to recognize so shut up and let them do some talking instead of subscribing to the same kind of Western imperial ideologies that have silenced them and plagued us for generations. Miles Morales is half-black, half-Hispanic, this totally fits with the subversive history Marvel is known for (anyone care to remember how the X-men were/are originally a poorly done metaphor for racial tensions in the 60s?).

2) The ignorance of the fact that this is happening in the Marvel Ultimates universe, a separate continuity to reflect a more contemporary readership.

According to the Wikipedia page (a source I trust in this instance because no self-respecting comic book geek would let there be inaccuracies), Ultimate Marvel was meant as a new continuity for a new generation of comic readers, so the argument that having a non-white Spiderman flies in the face of the history of the character is invalid. This is not for the people who grew up with Spiderman, it's for the people growing up with Spiderman.

Peter Parker is alive and kicking in the standard Marvel universe.

This actually bugs me a little for other reasons as well. The fact that Marvel has to utilize an entirely separate universe to allow for something like the death of Peter Park and birth of Miles Morales shows institutionalized racism of the industry. This is a step in the right direction, yes, but the fact that it would be impossible to pull off in the "regular" or "original" Marvel universe brings to light some of the inherent problems with comic books when it comes to race.

As long as Miles doesn't end up being some kind of tokenized "ethno-diversity man" character, I'm happy for him. Though the way the "could be gay" comments by writers have been misinterpreted by the media and taken by the hoardes of internets, let's just say I don't have very high hopes. You go, web-slinger!

I give you FISH!

2011-07-05T12:01:00.000-07:00

Feed them and keep them happy for me? kthnxbai

Getting Political on the Fourth of July

2011-07-04T13:38:00.000-07:00

“The highest patriotism is not a blind acceptance of official policy, but a love of one's country deep enough to call her to a higher plain." - George McGovern

To everyone saying that we need to honor and remember our service members, I challenge that this does not mean we have to simultaneously honor and respect blatantly wrong wars and acts perpetuated by our government. Respect those who have fought for our freedom by using that freedom to tell your government to be a source of justice in the world.

As a starting point, here are some of our basic freedoms as outlined by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

"No law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," means not favoring one over another, means we cannot be a Christian nation any more than we can be a Muslim nation or a Buddhist nation or a Pastafarian nation. Separation of church and state is as much protection FOR the church as it is FROM the church.

"Freedom of speech, or of the press" means we can express ourselves. Not with full impunity because historically there have been court rulings limiting what kind of speech is okay. Things like the fuzzily defined obscenity, and libel, slander, etc are generally not okay.

The freedom to "peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances" to me is not just a right, it is a call to hold our government responsible. This does not mean immediately go out and protest, but also protest with your vote. Protest with your wallet. Tell the people you voted for that they owe a responsibility to you to work for peace, justice and equality; they need to protect your rights and your interests over some private entity. And if it comes to it, protest. Gather in numbers and let the government know that it has done wrong by its people.

For more information:
http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/
http://tinyurl.com/3zszy49

Yet another poem post so I can at least say I blog once a month...

2011-07-03T13:20:00.000-07:00

This piece has been bouncing around in my head for a few days and now I unleash it on the world. Any and all feedback is welcome.

Social butterfly:
a leaf trapped in the wayward breeze of impartiality
you fleeting flutter to and fro
caught not by the red rose of lovers' trysts
nor the painted daisies of the well-tended garden.
No, the butterfly dips and dodges clasping hands and gilded nets alike.
Do you taste the nectar of every conversation
or merely touch the surface before you're gone again?
Social butterfly, your wandering ways bewilder,
where do you belong?
"In-between! In-between!"
rally the cries of the extrovert elegant.
Then carry on, untouched by the dervishes of many faiths surrounding you.
It must be lonely being a butterfly, sometimes,
always surrounded but never quite there.

Slutwalk: Seattle and Beyond

2011-06-01T00:26:00.000-07:00

First off, let me start by saying that this is a difficult post for me to make, because SlutWalk is complicated. If people actually read this, I expect there to be controversy, just remember attack the issues, not people.

So let's start from the beginning. I'm going to copy and paste directly from SlutWalk Seattle since they have more experience telling the history of the event than I do.

On January 24th, 2011, a Toronto police officer gave some advice that is all too common: “Women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized.” From an 11-year-old in Texas being blamed for being gang-raped to a teenager in Seattle not being able to file rape charges because witnesses “portrayed the act as consensual,” this line of thought pervades our culture. As long as it seems like the woman might like sex, they’re made to take the blame.

Women of Toronto got angry and showed the establishment that this kind of language and treatment is not okay. And thus was born SlutWalk.

The SlutWalk Seattle FAQ page goes on to explain that SlutWalk as they interpret it is reframing the discourse on rape culture, specifically with regards to victim blaming and slut shaming. Again, I'll quote the page since they did a good job defining those terms.

Victim blaming is when the victims of sexual assault are explicitly or implicitly blamed for their own assault (for example, saying that a woman should have expected to be raped if she wore a short skirt). This wrongfully shifts the burden of prevention from the perpetrator onto the victim.

Slut shaming is when people, especially women, are made to feel shamed and guilty because of their actual or imagined sexual proclivities. Labels like “slut” stigmatize and dehumanize women, making it easier for society and the legal system to turn a blind eye to victims, make excuses for violence, and deny them justice.

Now I'm fairly frustrated with the discourse surrounding SlutWalk. Up until I started doing research into the critiques of the movement, all I (thought I) knew about the event was that it was held to reclaim "slut." Which I'm uncomfortable with, but I also recognize that as with any reclaimed (or as some would argue in this instance claimed) terminology it's a matter of personal choice. The event is not meant to promote a "slutty" lifestyle. It's a position that states that within a sex-positive culture, slut should not be assumed as a pejorative.

Reclaiming "slut" should be secondary to addressing the deep-seated institutional bias that exists when it comes to rape culture. But slut gets all the press and attention in the media. And from what I can tell, it's pissing everyone off. This is unavoidable and was unavoidable from the moment the first SlutWalk organizers named it SlutWalk.

So naturally I started digging. I've found multiple posts by radical feminists addressing the racial polarization around SlutWalk. And it would be a lie for me to deny the historical and cultural differences between many of the supporters of SlutWalk and women of color. In America the sexualization and objectification of women's bodies, especially along racial divides, has created a space where "slut" and the outrage around it is very much a matter of privilege. White women can be outraged because they aren't inculcated to a culture that devalues and sexualizes their bodies from birth. As one blogger put it:

It goes without saying that Black women have always been understood to be lascivious, hypersexed, and always ready and willing. When I think of the daily assaults I hear in the form of copious incantations of “bitch” and “ho” in Hip Hop music directed at Black women, it’s hard to not feel a bit incensed at the “how-dare-you-quality” of the SlutWalk protests, which feel very much like the protests of privileged white girls who still have an expectation that the world will treat them with dignity and respect.

In these instances, SlutWalk is not an appropriate venue through which to stage this conversation. The rhetoric and conversation around "slut" cannot and should not be used as a universal for women. It is culturally specific and should be treated as such. However, that doesn't mean SlutWalk should discontinue its efforts at inclusivity. If people of color want to participate, either in solidarity with a white movement, or because they want to reclaim "slut," that's their choice.

To ignore any of this would be racist and show the kind of privileged feminist views that erase or marginalize people of color. Further, a universalizing treatment of "slut" as a descriptor for women is colonialist based on Western ideas of sexuality that silence the experiences of people of color in countries and locales from a different social background. However, given the grassfire expansion of the SlutWalk movement, I think this assumes a unified agreement on what SlutWalk is. That is to say, it assumes there is a central SlutWalk organization coordinating the plethora of walks across the globe. To my knowledge, while the original SlutWalk Toronto initially sought to advise satellite walks, that line of treatment has all but gone out the door.

SlutWalks as they exist currently are the indicative only of the backgrounds and discourses engaged in by the individual organizers of each event.

Which is not to say that the people most likely to want to organize such an event aren't entrenched in hegemonic, white backgrounds, but ultimately the shape each individual walk takes will be determined by the people walking.

As Meghan Murphy writes, "‘slut’, is gendered." It is a term implicitly feminized by the patriarchy and used as a pejorative against men to imply femininity and thus weakness. I stopped referring to women pretty early on in this writing, because it is a matter of fact that more than just women-identified folk are involved in SlutWalk. As a queer male and self-identified feminist, I see value in the SlutWalk movement. In its potential to disrupt the dominant patriarchal discourse through a subversive reclamation of terms, SlutWalk can benefit anyone marginalized by patriarchal society. Does this mean it will do this? No, but it can if we as activists use it so.

Before I go further, I feel I must address the fact that I am male. Regardless of my sexual orientation or political affiliations, I stand to benefit from the kind of institutionalized patriarchy that privileges males. But I'm carefully straddling a line between accepting and celebrating the movement and between rejecting it for the kinds of issues inherent in a field ripe with potential for classist and racist discourse that further excludes and erases the experiences of people affected by this in ways not accounted for by the dominant language. I recognize the danger in my involvement and I care deeply about how my presence impacts the conversation.

I'm leery of "slut" but as I see it, the potential within SlutWalk lies in addressing those first tenets, that it bring attention to the culture that allows victim blaming and slut-shaming. To teach society not to blame the victim helps redefine our culture. It changes the attitudes around rape and hopefully will help spread the idea that we should be teaching people not to rape rather than "don't get raped."

SlutWalk hasn't even been around for half a year, as a cohesive movement, it's in its infancy, and I for one want to be part of its formation. I want to see SlutWalk (or whatever SlutWalk becomes) move past the valid criticisms leveled at it and I think more than criticizing SlutWalk, this means engaging in and participating in the organization of such events. There's a lot of contradictions and disagreements on both sides of the SlutWalk debate and no one will have a perfect answer, so I take these criticisms with me as I look forward to the fight yet to come.

As a last side note, I would like to thank friends and activists Ben C and Samuel S for involving me in this dialog. I would like to thank Laura G for giving me opportunities to speak out in solidarity with marginalized groups (though I'm still learning to find strength in that voice) and all the women in my life for whom this affects. You are my sisters, my mothers, my aunts and cousins. I hope this inspires and educates you as to why SlutWalk is important and how it can make a difference.

May 25, Summary of Class Notes:

2011-05-25T15:45:00.000-07:00

Part of postmodernism is a reaction to modernism. In ways, it subsumed aspects of modernism into the dominant culture so that what was once fairly radical has become regularized.

But prof started this discussion with the distinction that:

Modernism = ~1914-1960
Postmodernism = 1945 or 1960 - Present
But the present isn't quite postmodernism. Postmodernism has been around for a while and with advances in culture/society and technology our current situation could better be better described as digital culture, media & technology, atemporality or even post-postmodernism

If this last statement is true, then how has postmodernism or the ways in which it interacts with society/culture become regularized? How is our current situation reacting against postmodernism?

To be honest, pomo is kind of a downer a lot of the time. I respect it, but I think part of the reaction has been a yearning for praxis, how do you live or performatively enact this discourse? Yes, there's a lot of writing but when does this become practice?

I know this is happening, with Queer Theory when I go to events by the LGBT/Queer groups on campus we inevitably introduce ourselves and our preferred gender pronouns. This conception of gender as being separate from sex, attempting to subvert assigned, socialized assumptions of gender prescribed onto living bodies by performatively announcing our preferred gender, finds its origins in a Butlerian model of gender that questions the construction of a binary gender systems and "compulsory heterosexuality."

Or as was brought up in class, the entire construct of "hipster culture" is uniquely (ha) postmodern. It is based in a kind of nostalgia while maintaining a false pretext of being hyper-individualistic and original.

Often, it's subtle, but we've found aspects of that application. It's just the discourse used to describe it has to catch up, which is hard when you're working with what I would call a kind of meta-theory.

I'm sure I'll have more on this later, but this is a start.

Danny, tell me about the word "queer"

2011-05-01T13:23:00.000-07:00

I'm not trying to be too in-depth with this piece so while I encourage you knowledgeable-types to make factual corrections, please don't quibble over every minor detail I got wrong. If you'd like to read a slightly better researched piece, go here.

That said, let's start at the beginning. There's the obvious origins of the word queer as a synonym for weird, strange, peculiar that because they were seen as such, was then applied to gays, lesbians, ad nauseum. In a lot of areas it has as much vehemence as the word "faggot."

Then around I want to say primarily the late-1980s with some of the bigger pro-gay movements, people started to reclaim it.

Nowadays it's used by more radically liberal activist and academic types as this really weird construction where it is used as a umbrella term. By that, I mean that queer is used to denote the entire LGBTQetc community. But these very same liberal activist/academics also often have a LOT of problems with that use since it kind of homogenizes the community. By having one word mean everything you erase the connotations and diversity inherent to such a community. There's more than one type of queer person. Queer used in that way tends to favor images of your standard college-educated, white, middle-class, gay male. Leaving out all those other types of queers.

An even more contemporary usage of the weird queer comes from the more radical academic-types as meaning something closer to "a non-normative political identity."

Basically what this means is that by this definition being queer isn't so much a sexual identity as a political affiliation. It's an outcrop of the postmodern rejection of binaries, be they gender, racial, sexual, etc. Queer in that sense tries to look at the intersectionality of those identity politics to kind of go "hey, that way of thinking is stupid and marginalizes a lot of people and doesn't really benefit everyone long run."

Which is why you find queer as a far more accepted term by younger, West coast (for lack of a better term) queers. Because we didn't grow up with queer as such a strongly derogatory term. We grew up in a world of Queer as Folk and Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.

Here at Western, the LGBTA (Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Alliance) Office recently changed its name to the Queer Resource Center. And there was the same kind of split on this decision as you see among most of the LGBTQ population. There are those (myself among them) who were for the decision. Queer Resource Center more accurately reflects what the office is and does. I still have issues with queer used as an umbrella term here, but I think the strength of the Bellingham queer community in particular is that enough of the people who claim the term as an identity come from a diverse range of backgrounds that disavow a lot of the marginalizing effect of that queer homogenization.

We queers are feminists, male and female, people of color, people with disabilities, of a variety of socioeconomic backgrounds. For the most part we recognize where queer comes from (both good and bad) and often claim it as something beyond just the LGBT.

What do you think about reclaiming words? What do you think we can reclaim or can't reclaim?

I think some words can be reclaimed if they originally had a meaning, but you have to take into account their history. If they were created specifically as a derogatory term, then they can't ever really be reclaimed. Faggot for example originally meant a bundle of sticks... used to burn heretics and sodomites, though after a point the Church decided hanging was a better offense for those performing what would now be called homosexual acts. There's no way that can ever outlive its roots.

Queer on the other hand has much more tame roots and I for one embrace the idea of being a little peculiar or perhaps widdershins. Reclaiming queer, like reclaiming gay, is acceptable because it had a meaning prior to its use as a derogatory term.

When talking about reclaiming words, it's important here to mention the recent SlutWalk movement started in Toronto. Backstory: "On January 24th, 2011, a representative of the Toronto Police gave shocking insight into the Force’s view of sexual assault by stating: “women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized”."

I've talked with a lot of people who are uncomfortable with the SlutWalk movement because they see it as an attempt to reclaim the word "slut." Forgive my stretch into critical theory, I'm an English major, but as I understand it the idea behind slutwalk is to reclaim the signifieds of the word slut, not the signifier (the word s-l-u-t). The whole signifier/signified thing is basically splitting sound-image from meaning. Signifier is the words/pictures we use to represent concepts. Signifieds are the concepts themselves. If this doesn't make sense, read the first few paragraphs about semiotics (the study of signs and symbols) down to about the tree picture.

So dressing "slutty" does not make you a slut and does not mean you should get raped or deserve it. The SlutWalk campaign, especially street level, has problems communicating this complicated message though.

People get that it's a campaign to end violence against women, to end the rape culture mentality of blaming the victim. but they get lost by the word slut. It's a reclamation of the word slut as an ideological practice of sub-humanizing the feminine (because more than just women get called slut) and has, or at least should have, nothing to do with trying to enforce the thought that slutty is okay and lets start using this as a self-identification for everybody.

Slut started as a derogatory term and should stay a derogatory term that doesn't get used, but it should never be an excuse.

First Loves...

2011-04-22T00:29:00.000-07:00

My first love in college wasn't some boy. It wasn't a class, it wasn't a subject that made me reconsider my understanding of the world, no, my first lasting love in college was salsa dancing.

I have Charlie to thank for it. She's kind of my sister, and the most central part of my BellingFam. It's because she dragged me to Ritmo Latino Salsa Club the very first time that I started dancing.

My moves aren't the cleanest, and I tend to add a flair that's somewhere between hip-hop influences and swing, further muddling the lines between salsa and Danny, but I have fun with it. I own the dance floor no matter who else is out there, no matter who my partner is, and no matter what song is playing. Ritmo Latino is one of the places where I've always felt unconditionally safe and loved, where I've seen growth much in the same ways I see myself growing with the Power of Hope and Acts of Kindness Club.

Salsa to me isn't just something I do. It's something that resonates to my core. The rhythm rocks me, moves me, centers me in a kinesthetic euphoria. It's contagious and I've never heard anybody tell me that they didn't have fun dancing with me, usually quite the opposite. Even some of the other leads that I've danced with, while slightly chagrined in their masculinity to be pulled out onto the dance floor with such an outspokenly queer boy, always laugh and continue to dance.

So this is also love to everyone out there willing to dance with me. This is love for everyone who has danced with me and everyone who has yet to dance with me. This is love for the music, love for the people teaching me, and love for the people I'm getting to teach right now as one of the student instructors.

99 bottles of beer on the wall, 99 bottles of beer...

2011-04-16T20:34:00.000-07:00

No. I threw out this suggestion as a joke toward the end of my run with my roommate, Lucy, today. We're kind of looking for a song we can sing as we run together. Kind of like how in all the classic imagery soldiers have to yell out chants while they march. If we have a song that we can sing while pushing ourselves physically, we'll also be pushing our lung capacity.

Today we ran approximately the same route as we did on Tuesday. Down to Fairhaven, we made a pit stop in Village Books to purchase tickets for April Brews Day. We both wore spandex shorts because, well, if you got it, flaunt it, right? Plus Bellingham is starting to show signs of summery weather. It's a relief after the snow we woke up to on Thursday for it to be nice enough to go running in shorts and a tank top.

I'm really enjoying running with Lucy just because it's a fun time for us to bond and be around each other rather than exist as strangers sharing the same apartment.

My body is still adjusting to this whole running thing. I may be more physically strong than Lucy is currently, but I'm also readjusting to a semi-regular workout schedule when the extent of my time working out during winter quarter was dancing salsa once a week and getting sick and being stressed and on campus all the time (those of you who know me have heard all about this, so I apologize). After the last two runs I've done with Lucy, my energy has tanked in the hour after we finish. Today, once the endorphin high from running wore off, I actually fell asleep for a few hours. I attribute this to an erratic eating schedule that's resulted in me losing a few pounds since moving into an off-campus living space at the beginning of this school year.

Hopefully this is only temporary and the exercise will induce enough appetite in me that I will start consuming large enough quantities of food-mass to keep me up and going after we finish.

For all you Widdershin Readers, I apologize for not posting, I've kind of half-switched to tumblr at acelessthan3.tumblr.com. Find me if you have an account!

Hello Pacific Ocean

2011-03-21T10:56:00.001-07:00

Scenic route 101. That is all.

Over the bridge and I-5 south

2011-03-21T04:44:00.001-07:00

We've been on the road for almost 8 hours now. Almost to the Oregon/California border. At five we're going to find somewhere to stop and rest, not so much for ourselves, but so Skyler's lovable clunker of a car can cool down before we finish our journey south. The opportunity to nap will be nice and if the weather is permitting, we'll be able to watch the sunrise. All signs seem to point to clouds and rain. I should have expected this and brought my waterproof jacket with me. Ah well, c'est la vie. I'm a Washingtonian, a little sky water won't kill me.

Spring break

2011-03-20T22:02:00.000-07:00

I currently find myself in a car with friends Skyler and Riley driving south on I-5. We're headed to the Bay area. This is my first major spring break excursion since starting college, though it was astoundingly unplanned on my part, made the decision to leave approximately 24 hours ago. No regrets. I'll be blogging through my phone since I'm taking this trip sans-computer. All the pictures I take will follow once I'm returned to the land of internet access (B'ham). But in the meantime, here's to good friends, spontaneity, northern California and long hours in a car. ^_^

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French Bead

2011-03-12T15:18:00.000-08:00

So my friend Cara texted me earlier asking for the amazing delicious bread recipe I use so I figured I might as well share with more than just her. Simple french bread has become my go-to potluck contribution because it's not as hard as one might think and it's pretty cheap to boot.

There's something impressive about making a staple like bread from scratch that a lot of people really appreciate. It's tasty, it's useful, why not know how to make it?

The recipe I give below is inexact at best, but that's generally my philosophy with cooking. You improvise with what's available and play around with tastes depending on what you like. Even if it doesn't turn out perfectly, you know better for next time, which for someone not formally trained in the kitchen is the most rewarding way through the learning curve.

If you want spiced bread you can add things like rosemary or sage directly to the dough. Or I've successfully added whole cloves of garlic right before rolling the halves into tubes to make this into garlic bread.

I'll edit this post after finals to add some pictures of my handiwork (like a true culinary blogger!)

In all honesty, I'm just using this recipe http://allrecipes.com/recipe/french-bread/Detail.aspx following some of the suggestions from the comments and using what I've learned from friends. And even then I don't actually measure exactly most of the time anyways. A tablespoon is usually pretty close to a generous sprinkling straight from the can or a small palmful.

Ingredients:

So reduce the initial flour to 5 cups, though have a 6th cup ready if it's too sticky as you try to knead and as you're rolling it out.
2 packages of yeast or about 1 1/2 tablespoons
~2 teaspoons salt
~tablespoon butter or suitable vegan substitute (mostly for flavor)
2 cups warm water (hot from the tap is good enough)
1 tablespoon cornmeal
a couple tablespoons sugar

Directions:

Remove rings and bracelets unless you don't mind them covered in flour/dough!

Mix the yeast with the sugar and water and let sit for about ten minutes until it looks naturally frothy.

In a large bowl mix the salt, butter and flour together, stir in the water until it resembles dough.

If the dough is super sticky add a little bit of that extra flour. you want it to be moist and malleable, but not super tough to work with. I think a good rule of thumb is you want it to stick to itself, but not to you.

Once you have a dough that you can sort of form into a ball, dump onto a lightly floured surface.

Knead for about 8-10 minutes though I generally just knead for about three kickass songs. You want this to be "smooth and elastic."

Place the dough in a bowl lightly greased with olive oil, cover and let rise somewhere warm until about doubled. About an hour or two (watch a movie maybe?)

Punch the dough down and split in two. I never actually let the dough rest for 10 minutes after, but it probably wouldn't hurt if you do.

With a lightly floured rolling pin or something similar on a lightly floured surface, roll out each half of the dough into a large rectangle. The long (or short, I guess it doesn't matter) side should be just a little shorter than your baking sheet. Roll the flat from this side. Seal the outer edge with water and kind of squeeze the ends into a bread-like taper. These should be about as big around as a roll of wrapping paper or something similar.

At this step I usually also add a second kneading to the dough, rolling it out halfway then tri-folding (like you would a pamphlet) the flats and re-rolling out the rest of the way

Sprinkle the cornmeal on your baking sheet and place your two loaves seam side down. This prevents the bread from sticking.

With a sharp knife, make four diagonal slashes on each loaf. Cover with a damp cloth/paper towel and let rise until doubled (depending on how warm it is, half an hour to an hour)

Preheat the oven to 375*F placing a small/medium bake-proof bowl filled with water on the lowest rack (The steam from this makes the crust chewy and great without having to deal with brushing the loaves).

Bake the loaves for 35-40 minutes or until crust is golden brown.

Cool and enjoy!

Queer Body Issues.

2011-02-22T20:50:00.000-08:00

A friend asked me to write up a short piece for a zine they're making on Body Image in the LGBTQ community so I thought I'd post here as well. This will likely remain a work in progress for a few days.

Growing up, the remnants of the anti-drug movement of the nineties taught me that my body is my temple. I internalized this like so many of those early messages, but reshaped it and adapted it for my own use as I grew up. I'm also queer, which means growing up my body has been subject to a range of external pressures telling it to be perfect through various media (mis)portrayals since junior high onward.

I suppose I could tell you how since starting college I've lost weight, that more and more I find that I fit the stereotypical "twink" body-type: smaller, relatively hairless, more cute than hot, more harmless than imposing. And I could let you assume that there's a correlation, that it was a conscious decision to fit this mold, but that would be a lie. I started losing weight because I got involved, started living what the health world calls an active lifestyle. I found things that I'm passionate about and I've yet to let my metabolism (or eating habits) catch up. But now I'm faced with a different kind of dilemma: the image my body projects doesn't necessarily reflect who I am.

And I dislike the box my body is forced into, it tickles the back of my mind like a badly made woolen sweater. I know I'm being judged. My body image issues aren't between me and my body, they're between everyone else and my body. Well, my body is my temple, subject to change, open for business on a whim. I'm not some twink, I reject this assumption because I would be just as awesome no matter my size or shape.

To quote that infernally popular John Mayer song, "I'm bigger than my body gives me credit for." The more I'm immersed in the queer community, that sex-positive, open-communication, radical activist side of the LGBT spectrum, the more this is reinforced because we're taught that everything is culturally encoded, everything is socially filtered and policed for acceptability so you can either change yourself or change your surroundings. I'm lucky, I'm able to do the latter and find a culture that accepts and celebrates me.

2011-02-18T09:08:00.000-08:00

I have a friend, a graphic designer, who's always posting links and articles to artists and projects related to his work. It's something he's so passionate about he just has to share it with the world. Sometimes I check them out, other times I just skim over them, most of the time it's pretty cool stuff visually.

It's also pretty cool stuff mentally as a practice and as an art. The designer is putting themselves out there, working for themselves and for their audience. Their at is their life.

I want to make my life my art. I want to design my life. Which isn't to say I want to revolve my life around my art, no, I want my life to be something I'm passionate about; a life with intention that breaks the rules when it has reason to.

Anyways, just some thoughts.

February 14, 2011

2011-02-15T18:15:00.000-08:00

My day started at about 9am, though in all reality it began yesterday as I ran around town preparing for the day to come.

Chocolate. Hundreds of small kisses taped to pieces of paper declaring that the reciever is loved. I handed them out, smiling and dancing, a veritable whirlwind of positive energy. "Valentines," the word lost its meaning to me when I realized that we barely know anything about St. Valentine. I called them "Dinosaur Rememberance Day" chocolates, the terrible lizards substituting for the consumerist conglomerate of hearts and flowers.

People laughed, but I think they were secretly terrified. There's an instinctual level of our brains hardwired to fear even prehistoric threats to our safety. I shouldn't be frightening people, but unsatisfied, I continue with my haunting reminders.

A crowd, mostly in red, gathers around a view of the sky.

They dance with me, a wild, crazy dance that asks a question. What is love? There's something almost pagan about it to me. A flash flood of bodies brought on by the wind, by the rain, by the date. We converge from seemingly nowhere, cameras materializing out of the aether to capture us in this abandon. Four and a half minutes we are in solidarity. At the drop of a hat we disperse.

I find myself alone save this clinging February cold. So I embrace it, pull it toward me with a half step and a twirl, my arms flung high then low, convulsing in almost epileptic fury. I feel the eyes of passersby on me, but ignore them. I am not theirs. In this moment I belong to the music, I am another medium through which it expresses itself, my body possessed.

An eternity later I'm grounded again by the weight of a ticking clock, the music exorcised by the metronomic repetition of the face perpetually attached to the wall.

Brought back to reality, I find myself drawn once again down to the ROPs. The VU, my third home away from home, populated with dedicated, smiling bodies. We're slaves to the system seeking solace in each other as we attempt subversion, an infection of ideals put in stasis by the bureaucratic powers that remove our politico. Our opinions exist outside, but so long as we represent this space and act as agents of the organization.

So we left. Off hours of course, but mobilizing a small crowd and preparing the makings of a speech in under two hours we set out for the courthouse, intending to be denied an application for a marriage license. Two consenting, unrelated adults over the age of 18: check. Fifty-eight dollar application fee: check. Dressed nice: for me at least check. Camera crew to record expected refusal of application: check.

Our entourage captured the entire thing: me standing kind of thunderstruck with no room to get a word in edgewise as Outspoken statements fly. An article covering our activism appeared only to dematerialize with nary a word more.

We have to address the legislator, not the county auditor in order to change the laws concerning marriage of "same-sex" partnerships in Washington State.

Afterwards in the quiet of the drive home, I listened to the sounds of a broken stereo, its noise the music of rotating wheels and 30-40 mph velocities in a metal box. Dinner, fried rice that I carried with me all day, back in the ROPs as I finished my office hours.

The next few hours escape my memory, the word spelled correctly but somehow looking wrong (a trick perhaps of the liminal gods who rule my fate), though I know they existed online. Was I perhaps upstairs, in my usual perch overlooking the lobby? No, I joined a Cirque down in the Underground Coffeehouse. The name has always bugged me. The building is built into the side of a hill, there is no underground to be in.

He read House of Leaves, I among other things, started this post. Johnny Truant is a child, a child who dropped out of high school and has sex with pretty much every woman he meets, but he lacks passion. He talks about these many encounters in detail, but the details are dry, sanitized in their crassness. They have no meaning. Jesse laughs, winces at the deepening shadows.

Duty calls and I am off again, this time for a night of dancing, a night constituted of a chunky mixture of tomato and spices roiling around an open room for two hours. I sacrificed my vest to the gods of Latin rhythm, baptizing myself in sweat to be reborn. Salsero.

Home, I concluded with sent messages and open inboxes across many miles. Self-satisfied and a kind of happy. Something about this day felt right.

The tip of my right, index finger is numb from accidentally getting slammed in a door on Sunday.

Consider this a story of Coming Out

2011-02-12T10:19:00.000-08:00

I remember in 1st grade one day having a conversation about tomboys in my class, the teacher, her name now long forgotten (Ms. Quinn or something similar?), nowhere in sight. It was recess, perhaps, or lunch.

I wasn't familiar with the term, so someone explained it to me.

"A tomboy is a girl who acts like a boy."

I remember thinking about this for a moment before declaring that I must be some kind of tomgirl then because I was a boy who often acted like a girl and preferred doing "girl" things out on the playground.

Everyone laughed at me. But I didn't quite know why.

It's been a few plus years since this incident. I've grown up, learned a few things and for the most part lost touch with pretty much anybody I knew back in that period of elementary school.

I wonder sometimes how much of me is still that goofy 7-year-old running around with all the girls, proudly making up words to fit me because nothing else quite works and then I look at myself and my life and I realize I never stopped doing this.

My English professor loves to quote the Marilyn Chin poem The Barbarians are Coming:

"If you call me a horse, I must be a horse.
If you call me a bison, I am equally as guilty."

Adam was a namer. Adam was of the earth, of the ground. His legacy in humanity is our naming because to name something is to describe it. To quantify it, to reduce it down to its constituent adams (atoms?) and know it from the inside out.

But names are shadows.

"The whole is greater than the sum of its parts."

A name is a part. To name me separates me, divides me into a Self and Others. But I have many names, many symbols that cannot be said.

I'm queer. I'm here.

But that's only a picture of a piece of the puzzle.

"I am that I am."

But before I make a statement worthy of boasting godhood, let me say I exist in relation. We say identity is a social construct. Race, gender, sexuality, etc. are byproducts of the perceptions created and maintained by everything around us, reinforced by ourselves, our surroundings, everything.

To illustrate with a gem from a conversation last night:

Imagine two "bros" walking down the street together. You're driving by and you see them, what are they doing? They're acting like stereotypical bros of course. But why? What if by some chance these two young men love each other but are unable to because of how they have been culturally inculcated as bros.

Which isn't to say they were raised this way, though that is a factor. But what's more important in this instance is the fact that they might not be able to act the way they may want to because of where they are, because of who they're with, because you're watching, because of what they're wearing, because of who's not there, because of how old they are, because they're male. It's a whole complicated mess of influences.

What then are we to do about this?

To exist outside this system of identity politics doesn't work unless the entirety of your culture actively works to exist as such. But unless you're ignorant to how the system works, it's an oppressive, hierarchical abuse that limits you from being who you truly are or want to be.

Armed with knowledge though, we can work from within to corrupt the system. To make an overly simplified analogy (because for a lot of the identities I talked about above, it's not a choice), if you suddenly decide to you hate clothes and think they're oppressive, you don't simply stop wearing them. It's not socially appropriate to do so. Instead what you do is you change the culture that surrounds you. You frequent nudist-friendly areas and teach the people around you that it's okay to not wear clothes. You start wearing short cuts and fewer layers. And yes, maybe you participate in "subversive" activities that bring attention to the oppression but you also take advantage of the system.

2011-01-26T23:39:00.000-08:00

I appreciate the people in my life whom I can say I love. Not just the familial ties or the romantic, but the platonic relations where I can look someone in the eye and say with the power of a thousand declarations "I love you." Say it like it's nothing, like it's everything.

Most often on this blog when I talk about love, it's that kind of love that I talk about. It's that love that I'm trying to nurture and foster in my life.

Because that love is contagious. That love is unstoppable. That love doesn't move mountains, but it does cross continents and oceans, building bridges across, through and around the very mountains in its way. It loves those mountains for being in the way and for making the journey worth it.

This is an old love, a strong love. A new love like a stain on my heart. It may fade, but it lingers, purpling the pulsing organ with prescient promises of uplifting tales.

When I say I love you I want to mean it with all constancy of the nine point eight meters per second squared anchoring us to this earth.

So when I say I love you, look me in the eye and see my light reaching out to brighten the spark that is yours.

Such is life

2011-01-21T16:09:00.000-08:00

Sometimes like a slap to the face I am reminded: I am loved. I am love and it is my duty to remember this, to cherish it, to share it with the world.

Seeing friendly faces from a place and time of happiness, I digress into happiness myself, the power of memories overwhelming.

C'est la vie. "Such is life." It has become a mantra of my existence.

In this there is tension, for we often assume an essential negativity. A sense of "I accept that this weight exists in my life, that it holds me back, and I move forward anyways."

Such is my life. Joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain and all the sparkling in-betweens that color an otherwise bland existence.

Aye, c'est la vie, a kaleidascope of beauty unforetold by the passing of time. C'est la vie, a pain that time cannot erase. As one I take them in stride.

I am strong. I am resilient. I am growing.

I seek not to combat the negativity in my life, rather I want to embrace it, encompass it with all that I am, all that I can be. It is not wrong. The powers that oppose us are never wrong. I reject this binary existence. The powers that oppose me oppose me and I welcome them with open arms, for it is through them that I will grow. Through them I will transform and reshape myself.

C'est la vie, a revolution of self. The God on high and the god within communing for something beyond themselves.

This is what I aspire to.

Inspiration. Declaration. Intention. Dedication. Veneration.

I cannot share this with you. I cannot tell you about it or use it with/for/to you. No, I can only experience it actively and shine with it through the very pores of my body.

Take from it what you will. C'est la vie.

Why does gender-choice matter?

2011-01-19T09:23:00.000-08:00

This was originally a response to Ben's note on Facebook about why gender-choice matters. Because my response got rather long, and arrives rather late in an ongoing conversation, I've decided to post it here on my blog rather than as a further comment.

Why is identity interpreted, reiterated and perpetuated through sex and gender?

It's a combination of factors. Identity as a social construct must rely on the historical influences that have shaped society to where it is today. If as Foucault postulates our current views (and here I feel I must express that I mean the predominant Western views in America or risk assuming that fact as a Eurocentric norm) of sexuality and gender identity are formed through eighteenth/nineteenth century psychoanalytical and psychological exploration of the sexologies that cropped up as an empirical response to primarily religious discourses naming, limiting, and persecuting people based on their sexual acts, then it is because of the focus put on sex and gender at that time that we still focus on identity through these lenses.

I agree with Jeff that Foucault did very little other than regurgitate history, but disagree that he didn't say anything new (for his time). The biggest argument that he made is that attempts to repress sexuality by empirically exploring each tangential "deviance" actually multiplied the tools (language/discourse) available. From these discourses stem identities. That's why Foucault is important to queer theory.

The short version of what I'm trying to say is that our culture focuses on those aspects because somewhere in the causal network of history, someone latched onto gender as a relationary model through which to explore sexual identity and it stuck.

In this respect though I also very much agree with what was implied in Jeff's initial assertion regarding identities as signifiers of personal pride in a shared heritage that this interpretation of identity is not static but must even now be looked at in current cultural contexts. In doing so, we see that contemporary sexual identities are not exclusively tied to gender and sexual acts anymore. To think of them as such is a limiting conceptualization of not only sexuality, but identity as well, which is I think why Ben seems to disagree with the idea so much.

The queer community as it currently stands is a spectrum of identity, as it has been from the start, but the expression and use of those identities is where we reach this critical mass of proliferation and differentiation away from sexuality as identities exclusively regarding sex. I would argue though that as it is perceived from outside the queer community, this may not be the case, and it is from this distinction that we see current political tension.

In the Weekly Night Series event I attended last night, "Twinks, Flamers and Bears, OH MY!" we discussed sub-identities within the overarching queer community: things like lipstick lesbian, twink, gaymer, et cetera. What these identities so beautifully illustrate is the intersections of the communities we (inter)act within and the formation of identities around these interactions.

Identity is not mutually exclusive. Identities are socio-cultural constructions around the intersections of a variety of political, historical, social (which I'm using here to include class, religion, and race), and geographical sources.

I don't feel like this adequately answers Ben's original question, but it's what I've got.

Directive: Challenge Authority

2011-01-18T16:40:00.000-08:00

A common theme I've run into with English classes here in college is this idea of challenging authority, disrupting the status quo, subverting the established social order, questioning power and in short: thinking for myself. Postmodernism (poststructuralism, deconstruction, whatever you choose to call the greater majority of contemporary academia and critical theory) is all about shining the light on binary systems and showing how nothing is real. Nothing as we know it, from gender to life and death to sexuality to religion is based in a concrete, objective reality. The very idea of reality is false if we can augment and change it through thought, through will, through technology.

There are some who would say I'm oversimplifying, that this critique misses the nuances of the movement and that none of these things are the same and that using postmodernism as this kind of umbrella term to attack is wrong. I see it as this kind of amorphous octopoidal construction that serves its own purpose as a reaction to its own socio-cultural and historical influences

Paradox: If I challenge authority, I must challenge the original directive (to challenge authority), but in doing so I would be obeying and failing to challenge, risking complacency and blind following.

Feedback Loop.

We then cannot rephrase the directive with the potential implied meaning: Challenge all authority but mine. To take this Directive into the appropriate context, challenge authority is not so much a preconventional notion of "fuck the man, you can't tell me what to do" so much as a postconventional challenge to think critically and reason why something might not be worth doing. Ideally, it has moved beyond that kind of narcissism, that I, me, self that is incapable of thinking about the communal we or even further about the global we.

I'm in part being influenced by my reading of Ken Wilbur's A Theory of Everything, a thoughtful gift from my friend Emerson, and I think it would be irresponsible of me to ignore this contribution to my thoughts. I'm attempting to approach this reading critically, not blindly accepting everything Wilbur says, but I think it's important for my development of these thoughts to use the tools made available to me to critically analyze what I already know and see how it interacts and reacts with these new thoughts.

My biggest understanding so far is the integration of hierarchies. In order to understand how systems work, to understand how to affect them, you cannot ignore hierarchies and hierarchal thinking. Hierarchies may be false, they may be constructs of society that malign and marginalize identities and groups, but on some level they have to exist. They serve a necessary function in the social and psychological evolution of an individual and culture.

In my English class today, someone brought up the socio-evolutionary argument for why binary thinking exists, which is to say that from an evolutionary standpoint, which translates to mean from a biological sense, we are built to think in binary ways. The sooner you can make a snap judgement of friend or foe, the more likely you are to survive. The argument then was made that the power of literature and therefore education is to defamiliarize us to this instinct. Our current cultural climate and industrialized society allows us to train ourselves to overcome this instinctual process. Away from the false core of a self to a we and as we progress further from a humanist (which is egoist on a species level) to a global or what Wilbur would call a holistic level.

So on the holistic level, a hierarchy is part of a greater system of society and culture. A lot of styles of thought focus on this, but I think the difference is in the approach. The holistic approach is about integration, the nested realities that coexist.

New directive: Question authority critically.

Five People I Met in 2010

2011-01-01T23:31:00.000-08:00

How do you introduce a list of people who have had an impact on your life? How do you measure and quantify and calculate who should be on that kind of list? It's hard to imagine that I haven't even known some of these people a full year. So in no particular order:

Nathan Drake

Who knew we'd have just enough people randomly in common that we'd become friends. Between beating each other and ourselves up at the Rec, wandering downtown and just having nights in, this has been a fun winter break. You're wild and energetic and honestly hard to handle sometimes, but you're also a true friend that I know I can trust with anything, a friend who isn't afraid to tell things like they are even if it means calling me on my shit. You've given me fresh perspectives on aspects of my life I'd honestly never considered strengths before. I look forward to knowing you in years to come.

Jayne Godsil

Sure we've yet to meet in person, but that's only a matter of time. Sharing a (digital)room with you is a veritable steam room (because you know we're so hot). Other people inspire me artistically and socially, but you? You inspire me to kick ass. A conversation with you always reminds me that I don't have to take anybody's shit. I know this probably makes you feel old, but you're the kind of person I want to grow up to be (though the older I get, the less weight that kind of statement seems to carry).

Chelsea Hilborn

I met you officially in person mano a mano (or as was technically the case, breast to breast rather than hand to hand) when, like a kitty outside in the rain, I came pawing at your door one day to give a little bird a hug. You're proof to me that adversity builds strength, that being the better person is a choice. Thanks for the memories, for kidnapping me (with several hours notice) and being my lifeline to a different world while I was away.

JoeJack Kostylo

I'm not always sure about living with you, but you fill my life with music, with singing and dancing and the soundtrack that is the magic box. We're a strange pair to be sure, brought together by chance into this unusual apartment situation but on the whole I kind of enjoy it. I find myself disagreeing with the way you think a lot of the time, but that's good for me. The whole process of reconciling discourses makes me stronger in what I have to say and in how I think.

The Crazy-Haired, Glassed, Gender-Queer, Asian Poets

I probably left out a few adjective phrases here (or if I got them all, put them in a variable order), but at least a few of you out there know to which pair this is referring. You are what I'm all about. Life, change, it's about art, it's about creating something , creating life and living it. You inspire me. "You give me prophet vibes." Every time I read that, written down the side of a page in my Rendevous journal, I get shivers down my spine. I don't know what it means, but it speaks to something larger in me, something I'm looking to see grow. I don't want to be a prophet, I don't want to have followers, but I want to speak with the wisdom of one, to be a vessel for the messages of the Gods inside me. As an honorary Poet with you (the glasses part is my only deficit), I'm looking to the future.

Okay, so I technically had 6 people since the GHGGQAP is both Mandy and Henry, but I can't write about them singularly much the way I can't just write about ONE Power of Hoper. There are many names and faces missing from this list but these are the ones I've chosen to write about. I hope you all have a wonderful year and don't forget to look around you at the new faces you meet, you never know who'll end up sticking around.

Chocolatiers Take Heed

2010-12-29T00:34:00.000-08:00

Hey all you chocoholics out there, have you been following the news that says the rising price of cacao due to a decline in the continued viability of cacao production could mean a bar of chocolate may one day cost far more than the dollar you pay for that Hershey's bar.

But never fear, despite unsustainable rises in demand there is good news on the horizon.

Scientists in France recently released that they have almost finished sequencing the full genome of
Theobroma cacao which could result in stronger GMO strains of cacao that would make production easier, though ultimately it will take political stability in the Ivory Coast to guarantee cacao for the future since 40 percent of the international cacao production comes from this tiny, equatorial country.

Here's hoping we won't need to be millionaires to get our chocolate fix. The spoiled American in me shudders to imagine having to resort to indulging in carob chip cookies any more than I have to.

In the meantime, have you considered the possibility of stocking up?

In unrelated culinary exploits, I have yet more French bread success! And on Monday night during Dani/ny time, we made smoked salmon ravioli (of assorted shapes and sizes). I'll post pictures of that night up on Facebook in a short bit.

You Smell Good

2010-12-28T13:52:00.000-08:00

It's almost nine in the morning as I start writing this, I've been up for almost two hours despite having not gone to bed until close to 3am. Despite that, I woke up quite refreshed and will most likely need a nap in the afternoon.

But I feel like lately this blog has gotten a little too personal, a little too me-centric, but first and foremost, Widdershin Writings is about exploration and taking divergent paths. So today's topic? Pheromones, those tricky, hormonal, scent messengers that work within the plant and animal communities to trigger certain actions. They came up in a late night conversation with my friend Alex and have been on my to blog list for a few months now. Also, I got this lovely scent box as a Christmas present from my parents:

Hey, watch the Axe, you might chop off someone's nose with that.

If you do a Google Search of pheromones, after the obligatory wikipedia page, you find a host of pages advertising ways in which pheromones can be used to increase your sexual attraction or boost your power over other people.

Let me distract you with a video of a funny man talking about it for a moment:

A lot of studies have been done regarding the use of pheromones in the animal kingdom. There's a really interesting Radiolab podcast about bugs that talks about the pheromonal trails left by ants leading the nest back to sources of food (which is why they travel in such neat little lines). There are also certain types of hornets and wasps that leave pheromonal alarm triggers when they sting, signalling others of their species to attack, usually to protect the nest. So if you're out in the forest and don't want to attract bees, don't smell like a flower.

M. Night Shyamalan's The Happening is based off the premise that plants, threatened by the ecological destruction caused by humans, started giving off pheromones that elicited suicidal tendencies.

But my real interest in pheromones naturally comes with their affect on the human drives.

Does anyone else remember this viral video of a commercial for Vulva "the intimate smell of an irresistible woman?" Or how about any of the plethora of Axe deoderstank commercials?

The idea, as Dan Savage so rightly pointed out in the first video above, is that scent is powerful. Humans may have trained ourselves to be ocular/aural creatures, but the olfactory sense is one of our oldest and strongest in its ability to associate with thoughts and feelings. For a lot of us, certain smells are able to trigger certain memories. Lavender always brings me back to summers in Leavenworth. Apparently it's because the olfactory bulb is closely linked to the parts of the nervous system associated with memory. Given this powerful natural connection, the existence of human pheromones doesn't seem that unlikely.

For myself personally, I've been told I smell good on multiple occasions when I've been pretty sure I shouldn't, like after I've been salsa dancing for an hour or two. But so long as I showered earlier in the day and remembered to put on my unscented deoderant, I usually find myself liking how I smell.

Mmm, pheromones...

A 2008 article from the Journal of Neuroscience used MRI (note to all my readers out there, MRI imaging is like saying ATM machine, just fyi) to examine neurological responses to different kinds of human sweat. They roughly found that "sexual sweat" elicited more of a response in certain areas of the hypothalamus associated with olfactory control and sex and reproduction. Still, I take this with a grain of salt, this is only the result of one study with a very small testing pool though and I would like to see more in depth research done

Many of the above mentioned sites selling products with these human pheromones will mention at some point that androstadienone a chemical metabolite of testosterone and common ingredient in many of the pheromones on the market targeted towards men, increases the potential for women (and gay men apparently) to show interest in (i.e. find more attractive) the one wearing the pheromone.

It seems there are a few studies looking into this phenomena, so there at least seems to be some merit to the existence of human pheromone-like substances, but I think if you're that interested in finding someone to go home with at the club, having a drink or two and looking like a fun person to be around is likely to get you farther.

The point I'm trying to bring up here is if you smell good, you smell good. If you don't, take showers just a little more often. but honestly, don't worry about it.

And 27 hours later (give or take a little) we have a blog post.

Working out with Nathan Day 8

2010-12-27T19:55:00.000-08:00

The Rec center reopened today so we did a combination of exercises.

I think every time we've been to Wade King together this break, without fail I've managed to run into someone I know. Today it was Quentin.

We started with circuit training, alternating sets of weight machines with running laps around the track. I've always gotten a kind of pleasure out of doing circuit training, sprinting my one lap as fast as possible to keep my heart rate up as I force out a set of ten reps on whatever machine I happen to be using at the moment, my feet flying across the slightly padded, synthetic floor.

Nathan and I made ourselves hurt just a tiny bit, especially after yesterday's body weight resistance, which I know I at least was still a little sore from.

After doing that for the first hour, I started teaching Nathan how to erg. We didn't do very much, only 500 meters or so to give him a feel for the machine. Nathan's rowing form, to be absolutely blunt, was terrible, but with just a little bit of coxing, he picked it up pretty fast. Push with the legs on the drive and fall back to a nice finish with your arms and back. Relax forward into the slide so you're leaning forward before breaking the knees.

I guess I'm entirely too into working out right now because when Nathan asked if we should continue or stretch out so we could go home and EAT, I went with further working out.

Asking the rec center attendant to unlock the door for us, went into one of the rooms upstairs and pulled down the judo club mats into a makeshift wrestling space then proceeded with some light pummeling before teaching me some of the basic forms of some takedowns. I'm getting better at putting the movements together, but according to Nathan, the part that hasn't fully connected in my head is being able to use my partner's body and drop this inhibition against being unbalanced. But I'm working on it and getting better and it's damn fun in the process, even if I end up thrown to the ground multiple times each workout.

This is fun and I can't wait to see what we do tomorrow.

Working out with Nathan Day 7?

2010-12-27T02:29:00.000-08:00

I lost track of what workout we're on.

Because the rec center was closed Dec 21-26, we ran the last two days, so I guess that would put us at day 7. It really wasn't anything spectacular unless you count the bag full of books and the sketchy trail in the dark.

I liked today's workout.

With the rec still being closed and it being too bleh (and by bleh I mean raining) to really entice either of us to want to run out on the track as I suggested, we stayed in and did some bodyweight resistance exercises.

I wish someone had been there to take pictures. Imagine for a moment though myself thrown over Nathan's shoulders in a fireman's carry with him doing squats. Now imagine me attempting to do the same thing to him, but struggling because I don't really have the practiced balance to feel completely comfortable. That's the kind of stuff we did.

I especially liked the flies and for lack of a better description, horizontal pull-ups we did. There was constant resistance both down and up and there wasn't really a lot of rest even when one of us wasn't doing it because we had to provide resistance. And on top of the actual muscles we were working with each exercise, we were also building grip strength in the fingers and forearms.

Afterwards we dueled in Halo 3. I'm not sure if I should be excited to be getting better at working the magic box, or scared that I'm getting better at working the magic box. But then Nathan's girlfriend Ashley joined us and after a few more rounds we got tired and played Catchphrase which was quite a bit more enjoyable. Conclusion: the roommate's game console needs better party games and at least one more controller. Any suggestions? Xbox360, PS2 and apparently there's a GameCube arriving from Hawaii when Joe returns from his visitations with the family.

Working out with Nathan Day 4: I forgot to blog about Day 3

2010-12-19T17:55:00.000-08:00

I apologize for forgetting to blog about yesterday's experience, the excuse that I'm going to give you is that I didn't go home right after working out, but rather made a quick stop to snag a change of clothes, then was off to puppy-sit for my friend Nate who happens to live in the next apartment complex over from Nathan.

Here's photographic evidence.

Her name is Echo, isn't she so cute?

Today I lead us through a pretty simple, piecemeal yoga routine, prefacing our practice with the disclaimer that I am not a trained yoga instructor but merely a light practitioner. I started with some simple breathing exercises, explaining Ujjayi breathing or victorious breath. We saluted the sun, ironically facing away from the window with a beautiful view of the unexpectedly blue Bellingham sky, then moved into some more targeted positions aimed at our legs and chests.

Relaxed and stretched, we worked on some more wrestling, this time starting lower to the ground. Either I'm starting to get it, or Nathan is getting better at explaining how the process and interaction during wrestling works in a way that I can understand. It's still yet to click in my head, but that's the learning curve, a lot like dancing. As a lead in salsa (and I'm sure this applies to other forms of partnered social dance), you have to feel not only the beat, but also your partner and compensate for their weight/height/skill and for the most part it doesn't quite look or feel completely natural until you can balance those things internally and automatically.

Right about now you might be wondering to yourself, but Danny, why all the stretching and taking it easy? I thought this was a workout. First, stretching and keeping the mind and body centered are part of fitness. Second, we were both sore from Day 3.

So yesterday we did weights, which for me at least was the first time I've touched them since probably about May. We were both amused by the guys in the weight room, the ones who clearly visit there often and are able to lift more than twice their weight. Wrapped in glass windows on almost all sides, and mirrors on most of the walls, the weight room on campus is a case study in gym culture.

After a couple sets of a few different things, we went outside and did duck walks. They're kind of hard to explain if you've never done them, kind of a speed lunge walk if that makes sense.

They're the reason my quads and calves have a date with some arnica massage oil I happen to keep handy.

Hello, beautiful.

I may be "in shape" in that I have good cardiovascular health, but I don't do nearly enough speed and strength training for this not to leave me in mild pain until minimum tomorrow afternoon, when once again Nathan and I will be working out.

Working out with Nathan Day 2: Hiking with Trisia

2010-12-13T21:49:00.000-08:00

A picture blog seems like the most appropriate venue for today.

We hiked around the trails near Lake Padden.

The start of the trail.

Look! Trees and shit.

Do an epic pose!

This was marked on the trail-maps as being big fallen trees.

So of course Nathan and I climbed on them.

""It's like some kind of rod of power." "What if it belongs to one of the gnomes?"

Working out with Nathan: Day 1

2010-12-13T08:25:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was day one of exercise with Nathan over winter break. I was supposed to meet up with him at noon, but since we never specified where we were meeting, I showed up at the rec center on campus early.

So I ran in my black spandex leggings and sleeveless, white t-shirt with a panther printed around the side, going at a "I-can-run-at-this-pace-forever" jog. Made it at least a mile and a half before he showed up, but I wasn't paying attention to distance so much as I was checking out my reflection in the window to make sure my form was good at one end of the track and then checking out the window on the other end to see if Nathan was there yet.

I'm not sure if I quite understand the dynamics of wrestling yet. Conceptually it makes sense: you grab the other person, don't let them grab you (and if they do, don't let that stop you), keep your balance, look for openings, but as far as getting it, it just hasn't clicked yet. The feeling reminds me of my first few weeks salsa dancing, before my body and mind synced what I could do and what I should do and how to think ahead.

Most of our workout was focused on upper body, though I still ended up down on the mat a few times.

From one time I got pinned, a small spot on my shoulder started turning red from a very mild mat burn. You probably can barely see it in this picture. I'm not going to complain about it because I'm sure there will be plenty more.

All in all it was a fun first day. We went back to Nathan's place afterward and shared a cup of tea, then I was off to hang out with my friend Laura.

I'll post about day two when I get home tonight. We're going hiking with Trisia.

Check-in: Is this blog working?

2010-12-07T22:15:00.000-08:00

Widdershin Writings, I wonder what's going on here sometimes, what traffic passes by when I don't have a window viewing this little e-ecosystem called my blog.

I paint a picture in my head of a little room full of trophies and thoughts, a storage space for my past. I look back at old posts and I'm tempted to edit, to revise and change, go antiquing with my words and restore everything, covering it in a layer of glossy paint so you can't tell it's even the same thing.

But that defeats the purpose, revision is erasure. I cannot deny my past and so will instead let myself stand in all my imperfections. This scar comes with a story. This post is a story. I will pull a Walt Whitman and let my multitudes contradict themselves. I don't have to like it, but the only change that makes is that I don't have to remain like that.

I started this blog two years ago. And the posts come in waves, peaking in the March through June period (though I wonder how much of that has been influenced by taking a class with Tony Prichard during these times).

So this is a check-in. An evaluation where we see if this is working or if the experiment called my blogging is a total fail.

But first:

This is one of many songs I received through mix CDs from friends over the past two years. It's by no means my favorite song off this particular mix, but on this blustery, dark, rainy evening in the middle of December with my arm covered in henna, it feels somehow appropriate. It's finals week and by any means I should probably be stressed out, worrying about studying. That's not my style.

Henna smells kind of funny. It's reminiscent of grass to me, only sweeter.

This blog as an ecosystem is adapting to the stimulus in my life. Mainly classes and stress if the content is any judge. But it's tracking my journey, taking snapshots of my life and putting out there for the public to see.

I like this, because it's exactly what Widdershin Writings is about. This blog is not about me. It's about my journey, winding and backwards and off in every direction imaginable. Stay with me for a bit and we'll see where the road takes us.

This becamse too long for a comment

2010-12-06T12:29:00.000-08:00

So what I see happening here is the artificial creation of alterity. In separating yourself and dividing yourself, you create Others within that you are unable or unwilling to work with(which might explain your paranoid tendencies).

When Jack said, "I posit that we do not exist as the same person through time either. That can be crudely extracted from the ramble I had about it." I wonder if you meant person as synonymous with identity. From where I'm coming from, a "person" has multiple, multiplex identities (they exist across many media in many contexts) over time. These identities change and evolve and how we interact with them changes and evolves but the underlying person (though for clarity's sake I think I would prefer the term "existence") remains constant.

In comparing these existences at various points along a temporal curve, we find that they have differences. If I take the stance that a person is defined by their identities, then they are not the same person, but in that the snapshots I am taking of this existence are removed from the same curve the existence this person comes from is the same.

You create the alterity by removing the common context of the underlying existence.

---------

In writing this I've had to travel to the past.

http://widdershinwritings.blogspot.com/2009/04/i-keep-getting-lost.html
http://widdershinwritings.blogspot.com/2009/04/space-administration.html
http://widdershinwritings.blogspot.com/2010/04/acelessthan3-revisited-part-one.html

But I've also had to reach for what some people would call an attempt at the future:

http://www.wired.com/beyond_the_beyond/2010/02/atemporality-for-the-creative-artist/

I've also visited other sources:

http://cirqueduaugmentedrealities.blogspot.com/

My culture, or rather this post, is networked.

------------------

I have a jogging final to get to, so I'm going to continue this later.

Breaking out of my shell

2010-11-29T23:20:00.000-08:00

I've decided that for the duration of fall quarter (or what remains of it anyways) and for winter quarter, I am instating campus as a no-headphone-zone for myself. Everywhere from the Fairhaven dorms to Nash-Higginson during class hours is off limits for mp3 listening.

I'll admit that it's nice every once in a while to float through the world, existing in a sound-proofed bubble of untouchability. People see the dangling cords and are hesitant to interrupt. There's a power in your step as you walk to the beat of someone else's drum.

But aren't we supposed to have a song in our own heart, march to the beat of our own drum? Be original and blah blah blah.

So I say this to all you people on the Western Washington University campus, I'm pulling out the earbuds, I'm walking (and because it's me, dancing) to my classes sans-music and I'm going to look you in the eye as I walk past you. I'm going to smile. I'm going to nod. If I know your name I will say it. Hell, I might even stop and chat.

I'm grounding myself in you, offering my presence undistracted by the media mindwipe.

I'm not asking you to do the same.

I'm asking that you look back.

The Fourth Wall is Breaking

2010-11-28T21:45:00.000-08:00

There's a fetishization of high school happening in pop culture right now. It's called Glee, or rather Glee is the symptom of the larger pop culture movement perpetuating and stereotyping within the masses.

Granted, this obsession with youth and targeting of the teenage demographic has been a staple of visual media for almost as long as television as a medium has existed, but starting around the time of the High School Musical franchise, the global network of marketing genius known as Disney further transformed entertainment into the kind of consumer-based, multi-platform spend-a-thon that has paved the way for Glee.

Glee as a consumer item is no longer a product, but an interactive experience. The show doesn't stop with the rolling of the credits, like a virus, it has infected our day-to-day lives. The music follows us, a zombification of hits long past, chasing us down with the rich baritones and flutish altos of fresh young faces.

The bloated body of the Glee phenomenon reeks with the corpses of stereotypes and television tropes rehashed in every wholesome teen drama from the Brady Bunch to the failed remake of 90210. Every character, if not a stereotype of one kind is a mash-up of several. Every issue they face is taken directly from the files of every afternoon special since the original Degrassi.

But Glee isn't the only mechanism in this globalization of Western society. All of pop culture has followed suit. Music takes its place, shaping and reflecting the civilization that creates it. Lady Gaga?

Where postmodernism confirmed Shakespeare's aphorism that all the world's a stage and all the men and women merely players, the current shift in the pop culture clime not only seeks to reaffirm it, but to shape reality after it.

For the past year or two glee clubs have been popping up on school campuses across the country as the infection has spread. Gleeks rise proudly in misfit solidarity, singing their experience acapella and accompanied, performing to rabid audiences. Reality is becoming the fiction. We conform to these stereotypes in efforts to mimic the triumphant underdog status of our media heroes.

Earlier this month, there was a news story about costumed crime-fighters patrolling the streets of Seattle.

I titled this post "the fourth wall is breaking" because we're becoming the characters in our own story. We're reading about ourselves.

Love poem from flame to a log

2010-11-19T20:01:00.001-08:00

all I want to do is touch you,
consume you with each caress
lick you, stripping away flesh.
melt for me.
spontaneously combust, and I will grow --
blossom into a thousand tiny flowers
shedding petals to the air with
each passing gust
-- I lay you bare. exposed
for the cold carbon oxygen doesn't want.
ashes to ashes you fall,
swept beneath the rug when I depart
passion undoes us, the
exhibition breaking bonds
of taboo temptations
hold me tight and I promise
I will bring you out into the light

Walt Whitman, Privilege and my Frustration with my Peers

2010-11-17T20:28:00.000-08:00

I'm slightly unnerved in my 18th/19th Century American Literature class.

The last few days we've been talking about Walt Whitman's Song of Myself.

It's a great poem, kind of long and I'm never sure which edition people have looked at. For my class, we read the 1855 edition: http://www.naturalawareness.net/songofmyself.pdf

Over the course of our class discussion, we talked about how what Whitman seems to be trying to do is to deconstruct hierarchies within society and represent the "I" he refers to in this poem as an operative everyman. "I" am the working class, the lowly, mundane, earthly everything of existence, and "You" are me.

"E pluribus unum" or "Out of many, one." We are all equal. We are all beautiful in all our dirty little lives.

"I do not press my finger across my mouth,

I keep as delicate around the bowels as around the head and heart,

Copulation is no more rank to me than death is.

I believe in the flesh and the appetites,

Seeing hearing and feeling are miracles, and each part and tag of me is a miracle.

Divine am I inside and out, and I make holy whatever I touch or am touched from;

The scent of these arm-pits is aroma finer than prayer,

This head is more than churches or bibles or creeds."

But I think what Whitman fails to recognize in this inclusive, generalized optimism, is that he is speaking from a place of privilege. Whitman is an educated, white male of the upper-middle class. He can afford to deconstruct and challenge these societal norms. Where someone like Phyllis Wheately whom we read earlier in the quarter had to heavily veil her messages within her poetry and exclusively use a Christian discourse in order to even be considered the legitimate writer of her work.

As I understand it, the American Trancendentalist movement of the mid-19th Century as a reaction to the intellectual Empirical style of thought of the late 18th Century, transitioning away from Romanticism and creating a more "American" style of writing was still confined to the intelligentsia. Much as Whitman would like to pretend he's the ants and dirt and grass and his appeals are meant to represent one in the many, I can't accept it.

I realize I'm coming from a distinctly modern perspective, but to say "Look at yourself and look at me, we are equal" delegitimizes the differences of identity inherent between them and what's more, as a person with privilege, Whitman, in saying this, reasserts his privileged position. Thus, his entire discourse is a fallacy that contributes nothing towards the working, poor, socially stigmatized people he seeks to celebrate. He glorifies them without doing anything to change their position.

I will accept that for his time, Whitman was pretty radical in embracing and creating a wholly American style. And this was needed to pave the path for future discourses, but how is he so different from the 18th century abolitionists parading around freed slaves like Frederick Douglass?

Chains of love got a hold on me

2010-11-12T18:13:00.000-08:00

I reposted this video on Facebook the other day:

It's a message, a message of love, and more a call to action. Love is a verb. I will love you with all the strength of my being, love you enough to change the world.

This summer I did an independent study project about messages, messengers and the self. While I am by no means anywhere near finished with it, I remember mentioning the classic children's party game, telephone. And in reposting this video, I started a round:

I reposted from Khari. Stephany reposted from me. Rebekka reposted from Stephany. Sam reposted from Rebekka. And finally Bob reposted from Sam. And I'm sure there are branches, tangents from other people borrowing the link along the way that I'm not enabled to see. This isn't the first time I've seen these kinds of threads, a link travelling between common friends, some of these same people even for that matter.

This particular link caught me because of the nature and subject of the video. Love.

It's a simple concept with complex connotations, love.

There are days when I think of love and I feel like it's a chain. Not so much a shackle attached to my wrists or ankles, but we are links. In a great chain of being we are the products and progenitors of love tangled together like a litany of spiderwebs rolled together, the connections so fine you cannot tell where one ends and another begins.

This chain of embedded video links is just the start of our connections.

To paraphrase what another friend who I have often found in chains much like this one once said: "And Allah said to the whole of creation, are we not lovers? And we replied, Aye, we are love."

We are love courageous. Love fierce and proud and strong and soft and tender. We are love and love will change us and change for us and change with us. Because through love, we know. We know we do not stand alone.

Hide yo kids, hide you shame

2010-11-08T20:19:00.000-08:00

C'mon Bellingham, I expect better of you.

The number of "hide yo kids, hide yo wife" references I'm seeing on Facebook and other social media after this afternoon's attempted armed robbery is disgusting.

The references are tacky and socially inept. Funny (and catchy) as it is, the original "Bed Intruder Song" video was objectifying and appropriative of a culture and place most of us can never even dream of seeing in person. We're in Bellingham, people, which by virtue of being a college town directly translates to "privilege central" at least in the areas in question. The scenarios between this situation where a young man was assaulted in broad daylight and those presented courtesy of Autotune the News video aren't analogous at all.

As a fairly progressive area, I thought we could be a little more socially conscious. kthnxbai

Grocery Aisles

2010-11-03T15:56:00.000-07:00

dance with me down the grocery aisles
we'll
make the produce jealous with our tartan tangos
at the cue of the frozen entrée orchestras, we can
salsa sashay with hips so generous that
no lie would be big enough
and it will be ballerina twirls past boxes of cereal
canned veggies can do the tootsie roll
following at our feet in a two-step touch
the wheels may be stuck,
leaning leftward with the momentum of a grocery list long since forgotten
but it doesn't concern us
the grocery cart menagerie is the only audience that matters
if you dance with me down the grocery aisles

On National Coming Out Day

2010-10-10T21:42:00.000-07:00

For my Facebook status, I copied and pasted the following as part of showing my support for National Coming Out Day (October 11):

"I'm queer. And National Coming Out Day is tomorrow. I'm coming out for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender equality because it's 2010 and almost 90% of LGBT youth experience harassment in school, and too many lives have been lost. Donate your status and join me."

Though really, what is out? Do I need to say I'm gay to prove that I'm out?

Really, haven't I been so for years? Perhaps then it is better to live a queer life, unapologetically and prove to these youth that being queer and being strong is possible. Prove to them that it's something you can celebrate and live with joy.

Being queer isn't always torture because you grow with it, grow into it. In accepting yourself and forgetting what anyone else could say, what they do say (and they will say many things), you become something else, something stronger. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, right? So don't let it kill you. You have to make it your resolve to be better for it.

But at the same time, I have to recognize that I'm speaking about this from a place of privilege. Despite identifying as a queer person of color (color being loosely defined by an unknown mix of genetics to give me that off-white olive tone when I get enough sun), I can pass as a straight, white male.

I've never tried to pass, and so my identity has never been called into question. I'm queer. Period. Out of time, save your questions for another day. So in a sense I've never come out. What does it mean that we live in an age where there are people who can live vicarious, actively gay lives and never come out and actually say they're gay?

I'm lucky. I was never bullied, never harassed. Which is why it's all the more important for me to take part in these kinds of queer movements, to show that it is possible and make it more possible for others to have the kind of experience I did where being queer wasn't a struggle, where it was a personal norm (even if still not a societal one).

There's this mythology that coming out has to be a drama, a tragedy. And yes, it will always be a struggle to find yourself and figure out who you are and what you want and love that for all that it is, but I think that happens whether you're queer or not. It's my mission to help make a world that breaks this myth, turns it on its head and questions proudly, "What do you mean by out?"

Socially Aware

2010-10-06T11:36:00.000-07:00

‎"I saw a photo of a member of Maria in the Shower performing in Black face and feel hurt and dismayed by this image. I want to know why it is OK in 2010 for people to perpetuate stereotypes of blackness. It is hard for me to believe that this was done with the intention to harm, but it is a reflection of white privilege and the ability to not have to think about how we might be affecting our brothers and sisters." Khari

Photo credit to the Maria in the Shower facebook page

Privilege is it's own kind of oppression whether it be based in race, gender, sexuality or any of the other potentially minoritized aspects of a person's identity. One of my intentions after a Power of Hope camp earlier this year was to become more aware (and actively do something about) the privilege in my life.

A few of my friends and I joke about our 18th/19th Century American Lit class, calling it post-Revolutionary White Guilt because, well, it is. But I think there's a larger significance here. In class, we talk a lot about race and politics and how it's so horrible the way things were back in the Enlightenment era. It's progressive and forward thinking (though perhaps it's backward thinking since hindsight is 20-20), but I think it's missing that one step further, the critical level that looks not only at what we're reading, but our own reactions to it and why we react to it the way we do.

As a class of predominantly white, relatively well off (we are in college after all), educated college students, we know better than our predecessors, in fact most of us - and here I'm assuming rather a lot - were raised in what I imagine were pretty liberal environments and so at least have the rudimentary understanding of what it means to defy social norms or at the barest minimum be socially aware.

How then does it seem like we are ignorant of the very society we are creating in critiquing the discourse of a past age?

It would and should not be socially acceptable to use another group or culture's identity in jest, at the same time I would argue that it is equally wrong to put them on a pedestal as an ideal or a model. To critique a period is to risk creating a false sense of superiority that blinds us to our own created faults. This is the privilege of being able to see our own privilege, to see the oppression around us and choose to do something or to do nothing.

Being socially aware is not just about knowing, as is the case with all kinds of awareness, but using that knowledge. This is me using that knowledge to further educate others, to say that I don't think this is okay and change needs to happen.

I'm working on it, are you?

On recent gay teen suicides

2010-10-04T15:55:00.000-07:00

I've been relatively disconnected from a lot of the queer community the last few weeks, my information systems are down since I'm so busy working on other relevant causes in my area.

Partly motivated by the prospect of Mallard's ice cream, partly by the fact that everyone in the QPOC (Queer People of Color) meeting I'd just attended were going and partly by a desire to be more social in the WWU queer community, I went to the LGBTA Ice Cream Social on campus Thursday.

I saw people I knew, people I didn't know. I ended up volunteering myself to run the button making table because I know how to work the button machines. So I failed miserably at the social part, but I've just accepted that as the way my life works. You go places and you become a part of whatever you go to, the sociality is the action of being involved. My roommate will tell you it's me being a yes man, but I disagree. What authority do I submit to by stepping up?

In the wake of 6 suicides nationally by gay teens, happening just on the periphery of what I know is going on in the world, I find it especially heartening that Western has such a vibrant, diverse and open presence for the LGBTQ community. TRANSport, QAAFA (Queers and Allies for Activism), QPOC to name but a few closer to campus. I can take off the rose tinted glasses long enough to recognize that there are problems, it isn't perfect, Western and Bellingham have work to do to take meaningful steps towards true queer inclusiveness, but compared to a lot of places, we have resources.

So even though I have plenty of other things on my plate, I've decided to apply for an internship in the LGBTA offices. I don't know if I'll get the position, and I'm sure even if I don't I'll be involved in some way, but this is a step for me, taking ownership of part of this identity I create and showing exactly how much of an impact I can have by being the queer I am.

I'll edit and post my own video when I get around to making one. But it gets better.

I'm not going to list them here, because I believe that if you're reading this, you probably already care enough to have already looked up resources online. And there are resources out there.

On Walking By

2010-09-26T18:01:00.000-07:00

I am the infection,
the contamination,
the word that plants the seed of an idea.
And, like a weed,
I flourish in the spaces in-between.
If kiss is kill,
then kiss me deep,
but don't you dare kill me.
The inflection, Pontypool,
screams at me to tell you to shut up.
I'm in the thick and in the thin,
waiting inside the outside.
My roots are strong.
They are tendrils and strings that,
woven,
cross the divide.
This fabric a blanket forms,
and I wrap you in my love.
Hypothermia seeps into your bones,
Under heat disease
Take the pressure off and go to sleep

If any of you have read this blog in the last few months, you know how much I go on about silence. It's the ninja aesthetic that draws me there. Move in silence, strike with deadly precision. I'm no ninja, but I like the imagery.

I'm drawn to silence I think because I live a noisy life. I'm always busy running around, involved in something. I'm always thinking about something I care about. Silence is a retreat for me, it's where I want to come from.

I don't think silence is as bad a thing as we credit it in society. To be by yourself, to be present does not require speaking or noise or sound. I view silence the same way I view the concept of nothingness. It is a container and an inverse that we cannot exist without.

But at times it feels like a fool's errand because to seek silence is to make noise. It's like Enlightenment, to truly be enlightened, one must not strive for Enlightenment, right? So I'm at a loss because I'm not sure what to do with all this sound.

Perhaps I should make a:

The Fairy Tale Sermons: This too will pass

2010-09-16T10:44:00.000-07:00

"This, too, will pass."

Popular accounts give the origins of this aphorism with Sufi writers, a variation of which I've provided with below.

A Story from Attar:

A powerful king, ruler of many domains, was in a position of such magnificence that wise men were his mere employees. And yet one day he felt himself confused and called the sages to him.

He said: 'I do not know the cause, but something impels me to seek a certain ring, one that will enable me to stabilize my state.

'I must have such a ring. And this ring must be one which, when I am unhappy, will make me joyful. At the same time, if I am happy and look upon it, I must be made sad.'

The wise men consulted one another, and threw themselves into deep contemplation, and finally they came to a decision as to the character of this ring which would suit their king.

The ring which they devised was one upon which was inscribed the legend:

THIS, TOO, WILL PASS

This is more a fable than a fairy tale and it very clearly serves as a reminder of the impermanence of all conditions, so I wanted to take a moment and relate this to my personal experience.

The other day I was asked what I was afraid of. I couldn't really give an answer, which isn't to say I’m not afraid of things or that I don't experience fear, but I try very hard not to let one bad experience prevent me from attempting the same action again. You learn from your mistakes and your victories, but I do not believe learning should ever stop you.

Learning is adjustment to the actions, it is changing your perceptions and your approach, which does not necessarily change the goals. A bee stings you once or a spider bites you, so you learn to treat these creatures with respect, but fear, or at least rational fear, is temporary. It is grounded in the immediate world that faces us, a situational comedy of uptight clowns if you will.

Temporary shares the same root origins as tempo. We keep time to this pulsing beat, the up and down wave-forms of life. This is why nothing captures my attention; it is the perfect combination of the is and the is not.

Nothing, as an idea, carries its own weight because it is constantly negating and creating simultaneously. It may be a simple matter of wordplay and inflections, but nothing could be simpler. Nothing but nothing captures the immediacy of the temporary and translates it into a broader state of being.

The vacuum, the emptiness that nothing embodies is temporary. It gets filled, but ultimately what fills it is nothing, or at least inconsequential things. I'm not afraid of the temporary because I know this, too, will pass. They come, they go and everything returns somewhere else. You can rely on this, it is the nature of change.

There's a word for this in the body: homeostasis. Even if we disrupt the system, if we cause the heartbeat to palpitate, it finds a new equilibrium. The norms adjust. Societally, perhaps this is scary.

God is supposed to have a plan for us, right? That's part of the basis of so many faiths, trusting in the divine plan and it's hard to maintain that kind of faith sometimes when you can't see the big picture. I don't see the big picture, but I trust that it's there and that as a total it makes sense in the grand equation. All these cardiogram blips are insignificant compared to the line we begin with and the line we end with.

http://www.crestock.com/images/2130000-2139999/2130259-xs.jpg

Life. This, too, will pass. Enjoy it while it's here for both its good and its bad.

Unfinished empathy

2010-09-06T08:25:00.000-07:00

You make me fall in love with your stories and your cares and your worries and your stares. It's not you, it's me. It's not me, it's you. All these insecurities touch me, grab me, pull me in. I feel your love and it becomes mine. I love on your behalf where you can and where you can't.

You make me fall in love every time you fall in love with someone else. It's painful. It's terrifying. All these strangers piercing my heart though we've never met, I see them in a new light. It's blinding bright: hurting, heart-shaped holes the only shadows unrequited.

I want you to stop. Stop loving. Stop caring. Stop telling me about it. But no, that's not the way this works. I'm a conduit. I'm translating this experience, making it accessible , but I wonder for whom?

Catalysts, we are agents of change. Networked and hardwired to receive and act. I take this in, redirect it, funnel it down a different path of this spider's web woven. Self-identified as a hub, I stand tall in a center with no boundaries. Forever.

Left-side. Left-side receives and listens. Carries across, translates into form. Words? Images. Picture me this, standing, leaning in the doorway, waiting for you to realize you can come in. The door is open. This is home. Home because you have carried it here on your back.

Let it sit. Let it stand. Freedom songs of the snails and turtles belong here. Radiate outward. Breath in with my hands. Breath out with my hands. Feel them beat and break the knots that tie you down. Gulliver broke free from the grasp of such small worries.

When we care, it's a trade. Energy exchange in unequal expressions of entropic excess. I see red and blue at odds, polar offspring of the warm and cool emotional spectrum. I am blue: grounded, present and calm contrast to the lost red, the anger and fear that takes control . I take it and tame it, balance but I am no savior.

Reception is all about giving. Provide, provide, take you inside. A letter separated from the ultimate booby-trap. Sometimes we call it bait. Wait.

Redirect.

Positive spin. Clockwise or widdershins? The machine, perpetual motion, turns itself.

You Are Not a Number

2010-09-01T16:05:00.001-07:00

Spring of my eighth grade year, I remember during ASB elections one girl used the tagline "You are not a number" as a main tenet of her campaign. She was rallying against the administration, a straight-A star, the kind of girl constantly winning awards and recognition for her outstanding work talking to the C-average laymen, her peers if you loosely define the term.

You are not a number. You are not a test score or a nameless ID on a form to be scanned and filed with countless thousands of others until you move on and it gets passed to the next office. You are not what the WASL tells you to be. You are not your grades -- a lesson I've found many an over-achieving student needs to learn sooner rather than later.

No. You are a person. You are an individual with unique perspectives and views. You are an artist and an athlete and a student.

I voted for her, but despite her perfect message, she did not win the election. At the time, she came across as too perfect. Perfect grades, perfect image, pretty and most of all, nice so that even if you wanted to hate her for her perfection, you couldn't without feeling bad for hating her.

I was reminded of this the other day when not hours after moving into my new apartment, my roommate mentioned some app he had on his iPhone. It was some rpg-style calculator that takes different actions and converts them into points that can be added to different areas of self-improvement like strength or intellect or spirituality. Get enough points and you move up to the next level.

My initial reaction to this was a mild interest because it's kind of a foreign concept to me, but the longer I sit with this, the more I get this gut reaction of distaste and I want to reject it and push it farther and farther away from me. This is wrong to me, you can't measure a life. To chart progress is to lose sight of the point of progressing in the first place.

And I get it, I'm not a gamer, who am I to judge, blah-de-fucking-blah. I don't care, I refuse this philosophy. It's a symptom of postmodern Western culture that it's okay to think like this. In Buddhist traditions, even in the search for Enlightenment, it cannot be achieved without first giving up the desire to reach Enlightenment.

There's part of me that wants to mock him. Danny learned a new recipe! *cue horn doo-do-do-dooo* Danny moved up to level 6 in cooking! But what's the point? I'm not going to change his mind by doing that.

This whole level thing is just another form of labeling. It's not rating, like a caste system or a hierarchy, but it's a box to put ourselves and each other in. To level up is to move out into a bigger box, a different label and name. But you are not a number.

It's confining because it's never escaping the cycle. It's ungrounded and leaves you seeking, seeking the next step, seeking the next level. There's no time to accept the present because it's too goal oriented. Where mediocrity and stagnation lie in too much stillness and not enough growth, this takes on the opposite extreme. Happiness only exists in movement and because of this you can never be satisfied unless you keep climbing the spiritual ladder.

I've asked it before and I'll ask it again (and again and again), but why does silence make us so uncomfortable? Stop thinking, stop doing and simply be. Receive. Listen. Feel.

I'm not unnerved by this philosophy because of JoeJack, but because of the culture that allows it to begin with. We're immature in that we as a society never reach beyond this and attempt to see the bigger picture. By trapping ourselves in levels, we put a cap on how far we can go.

The frustrations expressed in this post are symptomatic of a deeper dissatisfaction with the noise around me. I'm being pushed and I'm being pulled, lifted and weighed down by the love I surround myself with. I keep telling myself I'm grounded, but I'm not so sure anymore.

I love. I care. I want. I need.

The past few weeks disconnected from the world, surrounded by love so strong the world will move out of its way, I felt present. And it was a conscious intention of mine to remain present for myself, for those around me, to enjoy the experience. But now, back in the "real" world, I find myself at times overwhelmed. Is it possible to remain present from a distance?

I volunteered at a second Power of Hope camp in beautiful Leavenworth, Washington. Nothing I can write would ever really do the experience justice. There's something about spending a week making yourself vulnerable and open within a community of beautiful, artistic people that makes you fall in love with everyone despite gender, race, sexuality, age, class, ideology, etc. Eight days that go from 7:30am (if you're so lucky to be able to sleep in past the sun) until 10:30pm or later, full of non-stop activity are guaranteed to leave anyone emotionally and physically exhausted.

I spent a lot of that week trying to figure out how I can bring this experience out into my everyday life. I took notes on all the name games and opening activities. But when it comes down to it, I think the biggest way I can continue to carry Power of Hope with me is to internalize that message. Change starts with a decision, with a conscious effort to make a difference. In a society that believes that if you aren't part of the solution, you're part of the problem, there's no room for any waffling in-between.

I've seen many different kinds of community over the last week and a half. As an organization, Power of Hope has created its own kind of community of individuals dedicated towards making that positive change in their lives. On the micro-level, there's also the community of our homes, the families who all to often are strangers to us. I've seen the beauty of a small-town community supporting and loving one of their fellows as a room of 40+ individuals sat together for an hour and a half and listened to him speak about the global community of which we all are a part.

I want this. I want this for myself and for everyone around me. And that's scary because it's one tall order. I don't know if I can deliver, but I'll be damned if I don't try.

Heart Doodle

2010-08-18T12:48:00.000-07:00

I keep returning to this little heart doodle. I scribbled it on myself with henna several weeks ago and now I'm finding I can't let it go, or perhaps it won't let me go.

While writing a letter to my friend Andy, I really looked at it and considered all the elements of this seemingly random doodle.

The inner part is clearly infinity. Only it's not ∞ infinity, it's broken. It's infinity opened. The "ends" are snapped and curled into spirals. And It's not opened just anywhere, it's opened within a heart.

The heart is clearly representative of the spirit heart. And what do we have coming from this opened heart? We have squiggly lines and dots radiating outward. They're like real veins and arteries from a heart, but they're also like light. The squiggly lines like waves and the dots like particles. Who says I never learned anything from physics.

So this heart that has been opened by the divine (for what else can count or change the infinite?) radiates light. But not just any old way, the overall structure is that of a cross or of a crossroads, the lines radiate at four distinct points, which is pretty standard symbolism for opportunities and change.

I wonder if perhaps this heart is supposed to represent me, but my first instinct is to reject that kind of egotistical thinking. But if it is me, can I live up to that? I suppose I want to, I want the light in my heart to create change. I want to act as a medium for something greater. I guess we'll see, and maybe, maybe this will serve as my reminder of what to strive for.

The Fairy Tale Sermons: Monkey King and the Five Pillars

2010-08-10T13:22:00.000-07:00

From Lucifer Issue 75

The Monkey King is your classic trickster god-fool, resident of China. As a hero, he entertained the masses, but to the gods, and especially the Jade Emperor, ruler of heaven, he was nothing but trouble.

Perhaps the best known telling of his adventures comes from Wu Cheng'en's 16th century epic, Journey to the West.

As the story goes, the Jade Emperor with all his armies and powerful generals was not able to placate the passionate and ambitions Monkey and so, reaching higher even than powers of the kingdom of heaven, sought the help of the Enlightened.

Buddha met with Monkey at the gates to the heavenly palace, where he waited admittance to the halls of the gods as an equal. Catching the interloper in his hand, he issued a challenge. If you can jump out of my hand, you can claim right to the throne of the Jade Emperor.

Unable to resist the temptation of such an offer, Monkey leaped and twirled through the air, flying on a cloud as he'd learned from a Taoist monk, flying far, flying wide, flying to the ends of the very Universe. He flew until he came upon five great pillars that held up the sky itself.

Proud Monkey thought to himself, aha, I have surely won this bet, but to be sure, I shall leave my mark upon these pillars. So we find the mythological Chinese equivalent of "Monkey was here" graffiti tagged on the middle pillar. And to further prove his point, Monkey pissed at the base of the first pillar.

Then he returned to Buddha, boasting of his great achievement, of how far he'd gone, but Buddha informed him he had never left the Buddha's hand. Shocked and angry, Monkey King could only look on as Buddha raised his hand and there, inscribed on his middle finger was Monkey's handwriting and the faint but clear smell of urine from the base of his smallest finger.

Now, of course Monkey protested. He screamed and raged and was just about to jump and flee when Buddha pushed him out of the Gate of Heaven and he fell all the way down to earth. Buddha then changed his fingers into the five elements of metal, wood, water, fire and earth. These became a five-peaked mountain that trapped Monkey, holding all but his upper half with its weight. Struggle as he may, Monkey King was not able to move.

Returning to the heavenly palace, Buddha told the Jade Emperor that Monkey King was well and truly taken care of and that he would remain trapped beneath the mountain for some hundreds of years until he had truly learned humility, whereby a travelling monk would come and unleash him.

Hubris, ladies and gentlemen, was a common theme amongst all the pantheons. Some upstart immortal (or mortal) would challenge the god/s with per feats of creativity or strength that were so beyond any other mortal man and boast of their achievements until it was heard all the way up in heaven. And inevitably they rain down with their subtle tricks or angry fire and they punish you.

In many ways, it's a commentary on social mobility. You do not rise above your station. A shepherd does not become a king. A spider does not become the creator. Dwarves do not stand with giants. Not unless it has been ordained by the gods, not unless you have truly earned it.

But what is it to be humble? What is modesty? Both of these prerequisite a conscious acknowledgement of one's own shortcomings, an acceptance of faults and station. Where humble denotes the absence of pride, modesty is the absence of pretension and boastfulness.

But like Desire's fickle relationship to Enlightenment, these are not things to strive for because in a way, to strive for them, to seek to be more humble and modest for humility and modesty's sake defeats the purpose. So then, what is one to do?

To seek modesty and humility is to self-deprecate almost to the point of losing self-respect. It is the inverse of pride and boastfulness to a fault. Rather than seeing how great you are, you project how horrible you are, how low you are. It's groveling at the feet of nobody.

While Monkey represents one extreme, the base, earthly desire, and Buddha clearly the opposite, the most divine, we as people stand somewhere in-between. Freud recognized some good tropes floating around when he talked about the id, ego and superego.

But as any good literary critic could tell you, even with the superseding ego to balance the two polar extremes, this still reinforces the binary system. If you have two things that are opposite, adding a third between them does not remove them, it does not displace them. It provides a fulcrum from which to balance them, a match point where they can coexist, but they are still separate.

It seems, always, that to unite two opposites will result in annihilation. What I see in this is the existence of not two, but one. Opposites are the same thing in that they require the other to define themselves. It is this modality that makes them so hard to see. Take for instance that memorable scene from Alan Moore's Swamp Thing where the universal force of darkness faces the universal force of light and rather than an explosion that destroys the universe, they instead shake hands and seem to come to an agreement.

Yin and Yang, the opposing intertwined. This is why Buddha doesn't kill Monkey King. Monkey King cannot be killed because his function as opposite of heaven is vital, but also because there is possibility for change. One can be more humble, more modest, but it isn't a matter of seeking to be so as much as it is a matter of simply being so.

Pied Piper

2010-08-04T18:13:00.000-07:00

If you look closely, there's a Racheloons
lurking in the background.

Oh Hamelin town, suffering of a folly of your own creation. You have to pay the piper, for he is a vengeful traveler. Broken hospitality to the wayward wanderer bodes ill for your already feeble reputation. He will take your children, but who is really playing the pipe? Take that and smoke it.

Who betrances us so unwilling that we would walk and wander a-way without cause or care?

This way, that way, here-a-ways and there-a-ways; it does not matter. Like the checked cloth we call the pied, they are all the same. Nothing is new but that in the now because there will always be a future that looks at this past.

Echoes of his melody ripple like Eros' missed targets on the Naiads' pool. He has the Sirens' song captured.

Moths to the flame we pound our heads on the wall in time to his 6/8 beat.

Even you, village elders, swoon to his haunting, tempted and taunted.

I'm not going to be enchanting anyone with my pipe playing, not by a long shot, but earlier this summer I made an intention to learn an instrument. I am determined to hold myself to that intention.

The next obvious question was what kind of instrument should I try to learn? I'm poor and essentially alone for most of this summer, I needed something simple and cheap that I could teach myself. Autodidactism FTW!

Then, in the same conversation with my friend Jonathan where he offered to teach me guitar should I acquire one, I realized exactly what I should learn to play: the pipe, tin whistle, penny whistle. I've always had a fascination with the story of Hamelin, and the song by Seattle band, the Senate, hasn't helped with that either.

So I dug up the little, bamboo pipe my aunt bought me in Thailand (Vietnam?), found some fingering charts and melodies online, and proceeded to start playing. I'm a little squeaky and I have trouble with the higher notes, but I'm determined.

Gratuitious butt shot!

It's helpful that I don’t drive and chose an instrument that's easily portable.

While I'm walking, I find myself playing simple scales, trying to play, from memory, whatever tunes I can remember. Hot cross buns and the intro lines to Disney's Part of Your World.

I'm not going to be performing with this. It's not about that. Learning an instrument is an exercise in self-improvement and self-discipline. How long can I keep this up? Can I really devote myself to becoming good at this? I want to. And even if I don't, I'm not proving myself to anyone else. This is all about me.

It's funny, too that I find myself gesturing and gesticulating wildly with pipe in hand. It becomes an extension of my hand, almost like a magic wand. I laugh at myself, but secretly pretend it is a magic wand disguised as a musical instrument.

I can have fun with this.

It's been a while since I've blogged something mundane.

2010-08-03T17:30:00.000-07:00

I'm making shrimp quesadillas for dinner tonight.

They should be delicious with a little bit of oregano mixed in with the cheese. Perhaps I'll hazard an attempt at a few homemade tortillas while I'm at it.

I'll edit this post with pictures later.

Egocentrism

2010-08-03T14:31:00.000-07:00

The more I learn about postmodernism, the more of an acrid aftertaste it leaves in my mouth. I guess my biggest problem with much of this postmodern progression is how very egocentric it is. Me me me. I want, need, think, feel. It is not ignorant of this, the postmodern Self knows exactly what neurosis and idiosyncrasies plague it, and this makes it jaded.

It would be a lie to call this calling out purely observational, hypo-critical even if I did not include mySelf among the masses I have a problem with. Despite my distaste of postmodernism, I revel in it. These explorations of thought: radical feminist, deconstructionist, Marxist, post colonial, et al. are the academic waters in which I swim. The ocean has lost its salt and I have a hard time seeing the humanity in these humanities.

Jaded in this academia, disillusioned by the yo-yo movements of what it means simply to exist (see Martin Heidegger's Being and Time or any offshoot related work for how complicated that can get) it seems like they forget to exist. Action versus Intention, Cause vs. Effect, I'm not advocating this. To exist with no thought, to act with no consideration of the consequences is irresponsible, but so too is the converse.

It's a balancing act.

But that's classic me.

"ace you have a formula for answering questions and it kinda bugs me the 'well lets think about it intelligently and use logic while respecting difference."

Reading that hurt, but I refuse to be offended by Cody's comment because it's true. I wouldn't be me if I didn't answer questions like that. If it makes me boring, makes me predictable, makes me infuriatingly passive, rational, what-the-hell-ever, so be it. I'm being the me I choose to be. I could have answered the original question (should I migrate to twitter) with a straight up no, but where's the fun in that?

To give my opinion as such is pseudo-altruistic. Pseudo because it is my opinion, but still somewhat altruistic in that it tries to provide something beyond that opinion. It allows for the possibility of other options.

This whole post is "respecting differences." I cannot simply dismiss something just because I disagree with it. I can't even make myself want to without first considering it as fully as I can.

I've talked a lot with theLittleBirdChelsea about introversion/extroversion in the last few weeks. ChelseaDagger and quite a few of our mutual friends are introverts. I'm very clearly an extrovert. It's a fundamental difference that I feel leaves me at a disadvantage since I cannot identify with certain thought processes and facets of what it means to be an introvert.

It's too incompatible for my sense of empathy to process. It is other not in the Heideggerian sense, the inclusive other, so much as the Sarterian reference. I am the exclusively excluded other from the introvert paradigm, and it is a symptom of society that this results in the ostracism of introverts unless they are willing to adapt and conform to a predominantly extroverted society.

At one point, in one of my conversations with Chelsea, I mentioned how in retrospect, I'm very clearly drawn to introverted personalities because -- and I think this is the exact wording I used -- as an extrovert, I can help bring them out of themselves. She went on to comment about how this is a common misconception and that most introverts don't actually need to be brought out and indeed, putting them in social situations where they're surrounded by people actually can cause them a lot of stress.

Much as I love her, I really just wanted to tell Chelsea to shut up right then. Ego time! I wasn't talking about socially. The way she was talking about the dynamic, I might as well have told her that introverts are broken and as an extrovert I can fix them. No.

As an extrovert with a desire to be more empathetic and therefore open to listening and attempting to understand the other side, whether I can or not remains to be seen, I have the ability to provide the kind of balanced social interaction that would not be overwhelming more so than general company. I am an outlet and a catalyst, a doorway that always remains open. I pressure you in that I am a presence you cannot forget or ignore. I include you only as far as you want to be included and resist the kind of pressures that make the introvert feel like there is no choice.

Put another way, I can act as a buffer. You can be yourself around me and I can bring that self with me. In short: Use me.

This life isn't about me. I don't want it to be about me. Screw ego. Screw "me/I." But to do this, to move beyond this ego, I need to create or perhaps recreate myself as something, as someone that is beyond ego, that is altruistic: marked by selflessness.

But as my friend JoeJack would probably say, "That isn't real though. That's false altruism. It's another damn performance, another role you make for yourself, it's not the real you."

I am whatever the hell I want to be and anyone who tells me differently can shove it. If you care, if you want it, if you have a genuine, sincere, authentic heart behind whatever you project to the world, that is what you are. Because that is what you make it, and it is what others perceive. Identity is not static. Who I am changes, so why can't I choose how it changes?

I fill these roles. Constantly I fill them and I shift from one to another to another. Seamlessly so that you would not notice the difference. Why aren't they who I am? Why aren't they a part of what makes me me? No one else fills the roles I do the way I do. Exist, let yourself exist. You're filling roles, you're always filling roles and you can't always change that, you can't always break out of those roles. I understand this.

To change roles has consequences. That's another thing Chelsea and I talked about. The consequences sometimes remove your choice or ability to change roles. As Chelsea stressed to me, for the introvert, to exist outside of your role is to ostracize yourself because unlike the extrovert, you cannot relate to people outside these roles that form around you and that kind of exclusion is tantamount to death. It feels like the world is attacking you.

I understand and disagree with this. Change has nuances and options, always. You can't change the way you think, not on the fundamental level, not in a way that will keep an introvert from being paralyzed by the consequences and locking them into the role they fill. But there is still the possibility for change. It just has to be subtle and there have to exist the kinds of supports that will remind and reassure you that the consequences will be dealt with.

Saying this is easy, but to put it into action is hard. Instead of changing yourself, your role, this requires changing the circumstances that put you in that role. And it's just as big, just as painful. It's constant, because change is constant but it is possible. You have to act where you do feel like you have control. You have to ask for help.

I wonder if I could make those kinds of changes. Somehow I don't think so. But I also think that to an extent, I am those kinds of changes, they are constant, they themselves are changing and I am integrated. I adjust, I react, I don't need to make those kinds of changes because I don't feel that conflict. I'm not threatened by the consequences because by the time I notice them, I'm already taking action for them.

This is me existing, taking them in stride. This is me reaching out and offering my help. This is what postmodernism needs. From one self to another, Acelessthan3 at your service.

Walking, it's good for the heart

2010-07-29T13:34:00.000-07:00

So I got in as argument with a sock puppet the other day. Things got kind of intense and Virginia really got up in my face, so I decided to defuse the situation and initiate some deep introspection by going on a walk.

I ended up at Wildwood Park where there's this wonderful trail with all kinds of exercise stations. Needless to say, I couldn't resist.

Sit and reach. Target muscles: Hamstring stretch

Parallel bars. Target muscles: Arms, shoulders, core

Monkey bars. Target muscles: Arms, shoulders, core. Also, monkey bars for the win!

Crunch bench. Target muscles: abdominals

Crunch bench. Alternate view.

Crunch bench. Panorama view.

I ended up being on my feet and moving for about four and a half hours. My calf muscles hated me when I finally got home and off my feet, but I needed it.

The Fairy Tale Sermons: Little Red

2010-07-26T21:37:00.000-07:00

This is the first in a series of blogs titled "The Fairy Tale Sermons" wherein I take the stories both familiar and strange of childhoods past and write sermons on them much like your Sunday school teacher would do with Scripture. I invite, no, I request that you question the morals I set forth in these sermons and consider for yourself what these tales mean to you.

There was once a little girl, loved by one and all, but especially her grandmother. When she was small, her grandmother gave her a red velvet cloak. She liked it so much that she refused to wear anything else…

Here we find the picture of innocence robed in the passion of fresh blood, a foreboding sign if ever there was one. I'm sure most of you are familiar with this tale in many of its macabre and watered down forms, Little Red Riding Hood, popularized by those brothers Grimm, so I'll spare you too many of the details.

One day her mother called to Little Red, asking her to take a cake and bottle of wine to her grandmother. "She is weak and ill, and they will do her good. Go quick, but don’t run for you might break the bottle and dear grandmother will get no wine. When you get there, don't forget to say, 'Good morning," without being a nosy little ragamuffin."

Nowadays, Red would probably be sent along with some kind of locally grown, organic, whole food veggie loaf and a bottle of medicine to make dear grandmother better. She would probably prefer the wine.

Along the way to grandmothers house in the wood, Little Red Riding Hood came upon a wolf who asked her where she was going. Not knowing the danger those wolves represented to the isolated, Germanic, village-person, answered truthfully.

The wolf, knowing full well the potential treat in store for him if he played his cards right, distracted Little Red with some flowers and ran ahead to grandmother's where the greedy lump swallowed her up in one gulp.

Little Red Riding Hood wandered in soon enough with a fresh bouquet in addition to grandmother's wine and cake. Then of course comes the familiar bit with the Oh what big ears, eyes, hands and teeth you have before Red, too, finds her way down the wolf's gullet.

Enter the kindly woodsman, passing by, who steps in to check in on the kindly old woman living by herself out in the middle of the woods. He cuts open the wolf, freeing Little Red Riding Hood and grandmother who "came out, alive, but hardly able to breath."

Little Red then fills the wolf with heavy stones so that when he wakes and tries to spring away, he falls down dead from their weight. Woodsman gets a wolf pelt; grandmother gets her wine and cake; and Little Red Riding Hood gets a lesson. "I will never again wander into the forest as long as I live, if my mother forbids it."

At first glance, we learn from this story not to disobey our mothers and perhaps if we paid attention closely, not to trust strangers. Which are good morals, sure, but it would be limiting to leave it at that. Fairy tales are not parables, they do not contain but one lesson.

Within the framework of the story, we never question why it is that Red's mother sends her daughter alone into the woods to grandmother's house. The story after all suggests that Little Red is still quite little, perhaps as young as the 6 or 7 year-old audience is when we first start introducing our children to the story.

We identify with our heroine because we remember being vulnerable and innocent. Before they became big, bad wolves, they were just funny looking dogs.

It's this very naiveté that makes Red perfect host to this mission. She delivers because she doesn't know better not to. She's not some teenager who's going to sneak into the wine along the way, topping off the bottle with water from the stream and she's not some incompetent little toddler barely able to walk.

So Red's mother is right to trust her, though perhaps too irresponsible or busy to simply do it herself.

Within feminist literature, I'm sure, Little Red Riding Hood gets a bad rap because the women are helpless. Red is deceived by the clearly masculine wolf and she and grandmother need to be saved from the belly of the beast by the woodsMAN at the end of the story. The sexism is an inherent crossover from a time when the patriarchal society in charge told the stories.

But what is interesting about Little Red Riding Hood is the lack of male figures. I know, it's hard to imagine a lack when there are only five characters to begin with. But for a moment, let's take stock. We have Mother, Red, Grandmother, Wolf and Woodsman.

Or to put it in other terms, we have the innocent maid, working woman and old crone, plus the polar male opposites of the Man and Beast. Three women, like that other holy trinity, the Fates: Moerae, Parcae, the Norns. As much as Wolf and Woodsman may have played their parts as archetypal Tempter and Redeemer, it was the ladies in this story who sealed their fate, so to speak.

It was they who set this story in motion, who sent Little Red on her mission to begin with. The Woodsman may have cut the wolf open, but it was the actions of Little Red Riding Hood in filling his now-empty belly with stones that caused his death and it is the at the end of the story that we find ourselves once again returned to that essential three. The wolf is dead, the woodsman gone home, but the three remain.

Perhaps the warning is not for Red after all, but for the Wolf whose folly was his attempt to deny his fate. In impersonating kindly, old grandmother, he defied the natural order, and as much as Fairy Tales are about the fantastical, the talking animals, witches and fairies, et al, there are some things that don't get messed with.

So there's another lesson in Little Red Riding Hood, one of consigning yourself to your fate, which is all well and good for the medieval peasantry of its original audience, where social ostracism could quite literally mean the difference between life and death, but to the modern -- though perhaps by that I should mean postmodern -- reader of fairy tales the lesson is moot. In the American dream culture of anyone can do anything if they work hard enough, the wolf can be the grandmother. There are no explicit boundaries keeping you from that kind of success.

Fate has been overtaken by free will and Little Red has strayed from the path.

Touched by the presence of the Lord

2010-07-24T13:33:00.000-07:00

While I was at the library the other day, I was interrupted from whatever internet browsing I was doing by a kindly seeming, middle-aged, Korean woman. She told me she'd felt called to come talk to me, like I was somehow open to what she had to say.

In a way, she had been right. I was open, I listened to her with my whole heart, which is probably why the experience ended up being so intense.

She started by telling me about an email her pastor sent her and some of the scripture he quoted, particularly a verse from Isaiah 60 about light in the darkness.

As we explored parts of the Gospels together, she had me understand how the Word of God, of Yahweh, was Jesus Christ and that He was the light in the darkness. And so on and so forth, Jesus died for our sins and so only through Him can I truly be forgiven and accepted into the arms of the Lord.

She told me about her 11 year-old son and reading scripture with him. Several times she interrupted herself to pull out a small, circular sponge like you would find in a makeup kit to use to wipe her nose of her allergies. And she cried. She cried for me, at the power of what she was saying, so strong was her belief.

While I truly did try to listen with an open heart, and even read aloud some of the scripture she passed in front of me, (John 6:44, Psalm 139), I cannot fully accept this sacrifice. God sent His only son, Jesus Christ, to absolve us of our sins so that His blood may show us the way to the throne of heaven. The part I cannot understand or perhaps cannot accept is why? And this is a very specific why in that I'm not questioning the motivation of why must He do this, but rather why must it only be this way?

To paraphrase Derrida, only I can be responsible for my life, and conversely, for my death. But examining the divine sacrifice within this discourse, we come across an intersection of the responsibility that is uniquely of man and the grace of that which we call God.

As an immortal being, God is exempt from the kind of responsibilities faced by man. He is beyond being good, being understood, morality. Who does He answer to for His actions but Himself? So for Christ to die for us, to offer to take responsibility for us and for our sins, creates a symbol wherein God accepts responsibility for His own actions.

To me at least, it says, I made this what it is. It's my fault and so I must be the one to fix it. Your failings in my eyes are because of Me, so your salvation must also come through Me, through Jesus Christ.

This is why I am not Christian. My faith is not put in Jesus Christ. I do not trust Him explicitly and wholly. The way I view it, I answer to a higher power than that, creation, that eternal force of life that moves us forward. In less secular terms, I suppose many would call this God, but that is one thing I deliberately choose not to do. How can one fathom to name and so attempt to define that which is, was and will be? Only man.

"All other sins, stealing, killing, etc, are secondary." To what? To the greatest sin which is to fail to honor your responsibility to your creator. For according to Psalm 139:13-16, we were each formed even before our birth, seen and witnessed before life itself. I cannot refer to this as God though. It's not disrespect because to me, every act of creation, which is indeed every action, is or should be a celebration and honoring of the original creation.

At the end of our conversation -- a term I use rather loosely considering I said maybe a total of 10 words of my own in the course of something like 45 minutes -- this woman prayed for me. She prayed for the Lord to bless me in all I do and to give me strength, but also to give me strength in Him. Perhaps I need that strength, but not right now, not until I'm ready to accept it.

And I admit, I felt it, what she would have called the presence of God. It was a pressure in my head given to the intensity of the moment. Something I felt physically and made me tremble. But is that God? I struggle to name and describe it, so I'm not going to rationalize with some attempt at a scientific explanation, but is it God? And if so, which god? Which faith and belief has that kind of power except that which we give it?

If I were Pastafarian, I would say in that moment I was being touched by His Noodly Appendage (RAmen). I'm not mocking faith in questioning this, I'm searching for my own.

There was one other thing she said that really struck me. Religion is dead, she said, to believe in Christ is to believe in the living spirit. This as she urged me to find a church in my area, a Foursquare where I could find Christ.

It struck me as particularly serendipitous that I should draw the attention of this woman, because I still remember rather distinctly the conversation I had about a month ago when a man stopped me in Red Square up at Western.

"I could tell the Lord had opened you to hear my message."

Perhaps I am touched by the presence of the Lord. Touched so that I may stay open to these experiences and listen and experience the diversities of Faith across our world. Religion is dead, yes, but the spirit is very much alive.

A journal entry: January 17 2009

2010-07-22T09:31:00.001-07:00

Today was/is a fun day. I basically slept in and hung out with Dani and Grace all day. Dani and I stalked our targets. She got hers but mine was a stubborn poopyface. He wouldn't come out of his room.
Then we went asploring downtown. Checked out the thrift stores. Got a few cool shirts.
And I shaved the 'stache. That's big and it's going to freak people's freak. I'm so excited.
It doesn't feel like just one day, there's been so much.

Obligatory post-Power of Hope Post

2010-07-20T15:15:00.000-07:00

I'm writing this to make one thing clear. I do not need Power of Hope, and for most of you reading this (particularly those of the ages between 16 and 19 who have been to PoH camps before) neither do you, or at least not as much as you might think you do. Sorry if that sounds harsh, but it's true.

Now, I'm not saying PoH isn't a wonderful, beautiful thing that we all can learn from, but there comes a point where you have to reevaluate. There comes a point where you have to look at where you are, where you're coming from and try to understand, how much do I need this?

It might be the moment where you realize that this doesn't quite rock your world the way it used to. It might be the moment where you realize you stopped coming because you needed it, but because you want to give back. It might be the moment you realize you can't quite connect with everyone else because you've started to own who you are in a way they're still figuring out.

Power of Hope is about creating change, right? It's about connecting youth in a safe, heart-centered, multi-generationally, culturally-diverse community where they can experience and grow into leaders through the arts and creative expression. Empowerment is a buzz word that gets used a lot and we've put a good focus on privilege and oppression as well.

But there's this myth that has built up around Power of Hope. There is this idea that it's so life changing. That it's so transformational. That it's so empowering. But when it comes down to it, Power of Hope still falls into the very traps it tries to steer us away from, it can still fail exactly where it attempts so hard to succeed.

Maybe these individuals are introverted. Maybe they're suffering mentally, physically, emotionally because of some outside reason and it keeps them from ever really connecting with the group. Despite the kindness and despite the love, there are those that fall through the cracks. Sometimes they do open up, they do grow more powerful in themselves from this experience, but they never quite internalize the message we're sending. Sometimes they never fully open up to begin with.

This was my second year as staff, my first year at an overnight program, and I saw degrees of this as well as the more positive transformations that glamorize this wonderful thing and make it into this myth. It was my first year where perhaps I jumped off the bandwagon long enough to really look at what we're doing.

We're doing good things and I would never dare put down the hard work, the sweat and tears and hours that go into making this happen and keep this non-profit organization afloat amidst one of the hardest recessions in recent memory, but I'm challenging this.

The last few days of camp, I very deliberately spent my time going around and asking youth one-on-one how they planned to bring Power of Hope home with them at the end of the week, and then often following up with the question of why they kept returning to PoH or why they planned to return. These are tough questions, and they should be tough questions.

Every year I have heard it said, "There are two types of people in the world, those that have been to Power of Hope and those that haven't." I disagree with this.

There is only one kind of people in the world: people. Whether or not you have been to Power of Hope means jack shit. Power of Hope does not make you special. What makes you special is what you do with Power of Hope. What makes you special is how you live your life, how you create change, how you use the power of Hope to better the world.

Power of Hope is a privilege, one that might not be around forever if we're being painfully honest. I'm dedicated to making it last as long as possible, but that means it can't be just a passive experience. Power of Hope does not change you. You change yourself because you see that it's possible and worth it and then you go on to support other people in their own change.

Sometimes true leadership isn't about stepping up. Sometimes it's knowing when to step down and let someone else step up and gain that experience. So I'm stating this intention now and I'm asking you all to hold me to it. Give me two more years with Power of Hope as a volunteer and mentor so I can give back everything I've gained from this program and then some, and then ask me to step down, to pass the torch to those who need to step up into that same potential everyone saw in me as a graduate.

I'm still learning, but part of learning is learning when to let go of your teachers and strike off on your own. In this case, I think it means living a full, heart-centered life and constantly inspiring everyone around you to do the same. Listen with your ears and your heart, no matter what's being said. Step up and down in your leadership positions. Make yourself uncomfortable and push those boundaries. Confront your privileges and fight oppression.

It means not stopping at the Power of Hope community, but going out and changing your own community.

It's not enough for me to merely tell you this though, it's the kind of thing you have to decide to experience for yourself. I could tell you all sorts of things, but it doesn't mean you'll learn them.

The challenge I am issuing is not to be someone that needs Power of Hope, but rather to become someone who Power of Hope needs and then filling that need. Do you support me in this? But more importantly, can you support yourself in this?

Follow Where You Will

2010-07-08T13:06:00.000-07:00

Part 1 of a short story I started writing a while ago.

“And if I don’t mean what I say

Don’t take me for a liar

I’m the Pied Piper, the rebel town crier

Follow me down to the sea

Follow where you will

Follow me to madness, let the water stand still”

Their song amused me. It was a madness of strings and passion; an angry little rant against the religious and political structures so stifling to the freedom of thought the lyricist so clearly believed in, dressed in the metaphorical guise of the tale of the poor residents of Hamelin.

I stepped back from the crowd, feeling their energy as they cheered, crowded around the stage that had been set-up in the corner of the small café. There was joy here, and perhaps some misunderstanding. Wordplay has always been a hallmark of the political, cleverly disguising the real messages in plain view. The nuances of the message were probably lost on half the group, absorbed and ignored as part of the musical experience, but music itself has always been a message. We speak in code to share what we mean with plausible deniability so as to avoid repercussions should the powers in charge decide they don’t like what we have to say.

I nodded to the barista/bartender as I stepped through the door and out into the summer night air. It was early by most standards, the bars and clubs were barely half an hour past opening for the night, but it was peaceful as far as my eye could see. The moon hung on the very cusp of being full, a fat, white, perfectly round maggot marring the perfect darkness of the night sky. As if from nowhere I pulled out my trusty pipe and played a soft little tune, echoing and playing with the song I’d so recently heard.

At my call, they stirred from their hiding places. Thousands of beady little eyes looked on from the shadows, drawn to the sound of my pipe. They knew this sound as surely as they knew the scent of the discarded sandwich in the dumpster behind the Starbucks. It was ingrained in their little rodent brains the way sweet-looking forest fauna instinctively know the song of the helpless princess as she waits for her prince charming whilst lost in their tree-filled home.

With a hop in my step and a half dance, we twirled our way down the urban streets as I led the unwitting rats somewhere far removed from their metropolitan love-nests. Who knew I’d still be in the business of pest control after all these years?