What is it about some men?

Last night I had a complex, cinematographic, technicolor dream that climaxed (heh) with an encounter between me and the man who had been the lust of my life. Since moving past menopause, I haven’t had much of a libido, even in my dreams – which is fine with me, since just about all of my past relationships with men have been driven by that fearsome fire. My absent libido has freed me from the need to pursue seductive satisfaction at the expense of deeper and more meaningful human activities.

But there he was in my dreams, as magnetically attractive as ever. Of course, I wasn’t the only woman who felt that way about him, and neither was I the only woman to whom he responded with such enthusiastic sensuality. Our relationship (such that it was) lasted almost three years. Having been married and divorced twice, he wasn’t about to enter into any contract. And I’m not really the long-term-commitment type either, so we were able to enjoy our adventures together, including a trip to London and Paris in April.

It’s been almost a decade since our amorous adventures, and I’m wondering why I dreamed of him now, in such tactile detail. I even felt the bed move as he got up to leave in the dream. Something must have triggered the connection – a certain sound or smell seeping into my sleeping brain. I remember the end of a poem I wrote near the end of our relationship. The poem ended with

But even in the darkest of corners
some things refuse to die –
some small husk still
riddled with seeds,
some insistent root
defying the dust,
some dormant dream
of a riotous clash of hearts,
curious clutch of minds,
a dance of hands that
hope and hold and, too soon,
let go.

She thought she was done with him,
except his voice
still pulls at her belly
like the insistent tides of the moon.
So when he calls
from places lush
with a thousand thriving things,
she sends him dewy lavender
wrapped in familiar black lace,
because, they say,
the sense of smell
is the most visceral,
holding even the darkening
memory of the dying.

It makes me wonder what it is with some men that, even when they’re long gone, there is something they leave behind to make you remember. Maybe some microscopic bit of pheromone that keeps washing around in those streams of our brain chemistries. Whatever it is, he’s one of those men. I wonder what (or who) he’s up to these days.

The Voice of Eva Cassidy

My 5-month old grandson is teething. The one thing that seems to take his little mind off his big problem is the voice of Eva Cassidy, and so that's how I just discovered her. I've posted a little about her here, and you can listen to some of her songs here. She's worth taking the time to check out. (It's possible that I'm just one of the very few people who hadn't discovered her until now; but I'm so awfully glad I did!)

The separation of art and state, courtesy of poet Adrienne Rich

I was surfing up poetry tonight, remembering old friends--not friends whom I knew, but friends whose poetry wrapped around me as a teenager, helped me stand on weak legs, helped me feel my feelings without declaring myself completely insane. One of those was Adrienne Rich. I came upon this site, and noted the following letter, written by Ms. Rich to President Clinton's White House at her refusal to accept the National Medal for the Arts in 1997:

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

July 3, 1997
Jane Alexander
The National Endowment for the Arts, 1100 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington 20506

Dear Jane Alexander,

I just spoke with a young man from your office, who informed me that I had been chosen to be one of twelve recipients of the National Medal for the Arts at a ceremony at the White House in the fall. I told him at once that I could not accept such an award from President Clinton or this White House because the very meaning of art, as I understand it, is incompatible with the cynical politics of this administration. I want to clarify to you what I meant by my refusal.

Anyone familiar with my work from the early Sixties on knows that I believe in art's social presence--as breaker of official silences, as voice for those whose voices are disregarded, and as a human birthright. In my lifetime I have seen the space for the arts opened by movements for social justice, the power of art to break despair. Over the past two decades I have witnessed the increasingly brutal impact of racial and economic injustice in our country.

There is no simple formula for the relationship of art to justice. But I do know that art--in my own case the art of poetry--means nothing if it simply decorates the dinner table of power which holds it hostage. The radical disparities of wealth and power in America are widening at a devastating rate. A President cannot meaningfully honor certain token artists while the people at large are so dishonored. I know you have been engaged in a serious and disheartening struggle to save government funding for the arts, against those whose fear and suspicion of art is nakedly repressive. In the end, I don't think we can separate art from overall human dignity and hope. My concern for my country is inextricable from my concerns as an artist. I could not participate in a ritual which would feel so hypocritical to me.

Sincerely,
Adrienne Rich

cc: President Clinton

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I admire her decision and her reasoning as much as I have always admired her poetry. I didn't hear about this at the time, probably because I was finishing up a complicated pregnancy, but I'm glad I found it tonight. Thought it might be of interest.

Words of Peace

A collective goal. It's time for a different set of solutions. this is an excellent article in the eugene (ore.) weekly, our free progressive newspaper, by ryan admunson. his brother was lost in the attack on the pentagon on september 11th. he is a member of peaceful tomorrows, a group of family members of september 11th victims who oppose war, he participated in the march from d.c. to ny with other family members of victims under the banner "our grief is not a cry for war," and has participated in peace protests and peace conferences across the country.

some quotes from the article:

"A Catholic priest in Pakistan said that using the military to catch terrorists is like swatting flies with a sledge hammer: You create a lot of destruction, but the flies are still around."
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"We can catch, we can kill terrorists all day, but it is not going to prevent more terrorists from being created, and actually it has created more terrorists."

"...I feel I have to speak out is because our grief has been used by our political leaders and others who only believe in the route of violence and war. They have used our grief to promote their cause."

"At the one-month memorial ceremony, there was no focus on the victims. Instead, Bush and Rumsfeld and others talked about extending accountability to others, and I am thinking that they are talking about killing people just like my brother. They are talking about extending it to other innocent people, to nations and the people who live in those nations. "

"So we are not united in war. We are united in memory, in our grief, and in a commitment to end terrorism."

"I knew that the people who killed my brother believed what they were doing was justified. But we know they were wrong, and I realized that we can make the same mistake too. So when my government starts discussing killing other people, I take that very, very seriously."

Three Cool Chicks

Time Magazine has named its Persons of the Year. They are Cynthia Cooper of Worldcom (who still works there), Coleen Rowley from the FBI (I think she still works for them too) and Sherron Watkins of Enron (who's currently writing a book). In what I thought was an "about time" twist, they're not referred to as women at all on Time's cover ('cause you know, that's obvious), but as whistleblowers: "They took huge professional and personal risks to blow the whistle on what went wrong at WorldCom, Enron and the FBI—and in so doing helped remind us what American courage and American values are all about." Of course, their courage hasn't really changed anything, it's not like we have sweeping reforms going on to prevent further corporate misdeeds or consolidate information among federal agencies. (In fact, the new Department of Homeland Security pretty much does the opposite.) But one can't expect these things to occur overnight, and I think it's encouraging that these women are being recognized (rather than vilified) for doing what they could.

The new holiday family

I know that there are many other divorced parents who are juggling the holidays so that both sides of the family get to see the kids. It's been like that every Christmas for me since the mid-seventies. Over the past few years, I've invited my kids' father to join us for Christmas Eve, but he's always refused. He refused this year, too, but now there's a grandchild involved, and I guess everyone's feeling another tie that binds. So, on the day after Christmas, we're going to gather in my mother's very large apartment. In addition to my daughter, son--in-law, and grandchild -- and me and my mother -- there will be my ex-husband, his female cousin (who is like a sister to him and with whom I've always gotten along), his former girl-friend-who-is-now-just-his-friend (after more years than he and I were married), and her mother (who's my mother's age). Aside from my mom, me, and his grandfather, no one has met little Alexander yet.

Actually, my ex's former girl friend is a very nice person. She's younger than I, slimmer, and wears Laura Ashley clothes. But she's always been good to my kids, and I have nothing against her. I'm actually looking forward to the gathering, as we all oohh and ahh over the new addition. Such is the new holiday family.

Dervala in Phnom Penh

If you're not reading Dervala's blogging of her trip to Asia, you should. It is wonderful for so many reasons. She writes recently of an experience walking down the street in Phnom Penh and having her breast grabbed.

"I've dealt with these kinds of minor assaults many times," she writes. "So have most women I know. I've been groped on the New York subway and on an Aer Lingus flight. I've been flashed at, heard lewd insults, endured unwelcome, lingering hugs. But despite all this experience, I can never get it together to shout, kick, slap, or ridicule. My first reaction is still always disbelief, followed by disabling politeness. By then it's usually (and thankfully) too late."

Dorothea wrote about verbal badgering in her Grunchy Stuff posts a while back.

Dervala's experience involved someone actually grabbing her--a physical violation rather than words and whistles. Still, Dervala's initial reaction is similar to many who have written on this--deciding to hurry along on our way, make it to the next place that's "away" from scene of the crime, a reaction of fear, disbelief, and/or embarassment.

What casts us into this role of runner/avoider in the ultra-second of an event like this? Certainly Dervala was no match for two locals. So high-tailing it away in case they decided to return was a smart move.

I like Dervala's vow to do things differently next time, though. To use her new-found arm cast from her broken wrist to knock the next guy who tries it in the teeth. I just hope she's a good aim and a quick runner the first time she gives it a try. You go, girl.

Since we're on the topic

I've always admired families that adopt children. Giving a home to a child who doesn't have one seems to me one of the noblest and selfless things anyone could do. I looked into adoption briefly (mostly over the net) after Jenna was born--my harrowing near-death experience made me pretty sure I didn't want to risk having another baby. The more I looked the more I found one thing--It's expensive. Does anyone know any good adoption resources? Any adoption sources where the process doesn't cost $20K? It seems like many couples lean toward international adotpions. I'm not sure as to the whys and wherefores of this. Whether it's more expensive or less, more complicated or less. In our case, obviously, race isn't an issue, background isn't an issue.

Can't believe I'm writing this outloud: I think I want a baby.

Jennifer Balderama Digs into the Legal Ramifications of Blogging

In a new article for the Washington Post, blog sister and weblogger extraordinaire Jennifer Balderama reports on the legal whatnots of blogging--an important article especially if you work for a company that might get queasy about what's written on your blog. What are the rules? Are we writing them as we go? Do we need disclaimers on our blogs? Something tells me a great number of pages could be covered discussing this topic. An interesting link off the article is Groove Networks weblog policy.

Good food for thought in a well-written article. Way to go Jennifer!

merry chistmas and a happy new year to all posters, readers and their familes :o)

The Neckar

This is the ship that my grandmother came to America in. The ship left from Naples in 1907, with my great grandmother Vincenza, 39, my grandmother (just a year old) Carmella, and a son Francesco (5 years old) on board. Now for the rest of the story: My great grandmother had been in America, living in Pennsylvania, when her homesickness got so bad--she missed her own mother back in Sicily so terribly--that her husband said, go then. Go visit your mother in Sicily. Did I mention she was pregnant for that journey back to Sicily? Yep. And do you think she had to take the kids with her? Of course.

So Vincenza took her two sons, then 2 and 5 years old, pregnant, by herself, and made the journey back to Sicily to see her mother. While Vincenza was there, the older boy became gravely ill and died. Two weeks after his death, my grandmother Carmella was born.

When my grandmother was a year old, Vincenza took her now-five-year-old son and her one-year-old daughter, boarded The Neckar, and journeyed back to America.

Just to recap, this woman--my great grandmother--had taken the arduous journey from Sicily to America to make a new life, had two children, travelled back to Sicily to see her mother, lost a son, given birth to a daughter, and journeyed back from Italy to America again with two children, in just a matter of years.

So what I'm trying to say is, no *wonder* I've had terrible cases of homesickness my whole life. I think it's in my genes! No, I'm kidding. What I'm really saying is how brave those early immigrants were. Especially the women.

lotts true colors

well, we've been watching it all week...

the washingnton post reported on it first, and common dreams got it over the weekend, where i got it from.. but as jill matrix reported, we queers already knew this guy was hateful...

now everyone knows it it. even the bbc is reporting it,time reports on lott's racist college days, cnn reports that in 81 lott supported tax breaks for a racist school, salon reports on lott's 4th apology (and if you have premium you can also read 'the real trent lott' and 'the ugly truth about republican racial politics'), found through the village voice: jesse helms defens lott (not surprised at that one), and finally, even after w. bush calls lott's remarks offensive, he refuses to resign!

money could be spent better...

cnn reported about 'cyberbegging' today. i became aware of this a few weeks ago when i read on someone's blog about savekaryn.com, a woman who asked for help paying off her credit card debt.

the other day i read an article reporting on famine in ethiopia. i can't find the article now, but i did find this, from a month ago: ethiopia: the warning signs of famine. this article and the article i read a few days ago both say that the famine facing ethiopia is potentially worse than the one back in the 80's. millions of people will die.

the tie in between the two subjects. i find it terribly selfish of people like karyn to ask for money to pay off credit card bills when the money that people donated to her could have been donated to charities that would help out ethiopia, or another charity. if people like karyn have the money to have a computer and own a domain name then they obviously don't need the help of strangers. karyn could have sold her computer if she were so worried about being in debt, she could have taken on another job, she could have done a lot of things besides beg for money, money that could be used for causes like the starving people of eithopia. the $13,000 that she raised could have done a lot to help out some people in eithopia.

it just leaves me frustrated. we are so blessed here in the west to have all that we have. i get quite humbled when i read stories like i read about ethiopia. i get quite humbled when my mother and stepfather send me their journals from what life is like living there (my stepfather is working with the government to help revamp their accounting system). sometimes i get embarrased at how much i have. actually, more than sometimes. stories like ethiopia, stories like the mother living on welfare in my building, stories like the families that i work with at our local relief nursery they all make me incredibly aware that i'm lucky to have a middle class family to fall back on if i need too. i won't ever starve, or be homeless.

cyberbegging. it just seems to me that people don't see what they have, they just see what they want.. and i know that not all 'cyberbegging' is like that of savekaryn.. but so many.. well.. i just see it as being selfish.. i see no awarness of what life could be like if they lived like the vast majority of the world population. and maybe i'm just a big ol' idealist, but i think its wrong to be that self involved.

The Problem with Girlism

I'm still playing catch-up on all the various femblogs (in the sense of both "blogs by women" and "blogs by feminists") coming on the heels of Halley Suitt's comments about "girlism" reproed earlier here on Blogsisters. So maybe it's too early for me to jump into the deep end of this, but I'll skim my rock across the surface anyway. Please bear in mind, none of this is designed to constitute any attack on anyone's opinions, particularly Halley's. Just because we disagree doesn't make one of us good and the other evil, it just means we, you know, disagree.

I think my particular warning bells came at reading Halley's opinion that, in order to achieve power in the workplace "...women want to be sexy girls and use all the tricks girls use..." First off, of course, there's always a danger in making broad generalizations, particularly generalizations of broads. Even by broads. Just because we share a double-x chromosome doesn't make our desires monolithic, even as it doesn't make our interests monolithic. (I've had to deal with this a lot in Friends of Lulu, explaining to folks that the goal of targeting comic books to women is tricky because women are no more a monolithic reading group than men are. So one can get oneself in a good deal of hot water by starting from a view of "women want..." (as we all remember from when that wacky Siggy Freud did it).

So following up on that, I confess I don't "want to be [a] sexy girl..." in large measure because I cannot be. I've never had that choice. I don't know what Halley looks like, but I imagine from her "it's just so easy if we do it this way" attitude she's probably young and vivacious and thin. She probably falls into the mold of what's acceptable in the default (i.e., male-opinion-dominated) society as "sexy." I don't, I never have, and I never will. I'm fat, I have thinning hair, I wear glasses, I'm loud-mouthed, I've got this Jewish honker... none of these things are ugly to me, but they don't scream "sexy" to most men in our society. Besides, the entire rule of judging a woman's worth primarily by her outward appearance seems to me a male thing - and when guys set the rules, they're in charge of the game, and there's no way a woman can "win" by playing a game she doesn't control.

I understand the concept of sex as power - at least I'm trying to. As I say, it's a game that Mom Nature never qualified me to play. But if sexual power is only identified with and discussed in terms of one gender, to my mind it isn't really power at all. It's pretend, it's dress-up, it's playing into the whole battle-of-the-sexes crap that perpetuates and traps people in gender stereotypes to begin with. It's like looking at a badgirl comic - "hey, guys, she may be 'powerful' wink wink but she prances about practically naked, that means she's really only kicking butt to give you a show and turn you on... hey look, a boob-and-crotch shot!" Oh, and you women who don't have the physical assets to allow yourself to be identified primarily through sex? Sorry, since nobody but obviously abnormal people wants to ogle you like an object (and therefore somehow bestow power on you through their benificent male gaze), you don't get to have power. But hey, you get to be angry about that and perpetuate the stereotype of ugly man-hating feminists and that'll do just fine because it helps marginalize feminism into irrelevancy and we still win!

I'm not good at games, whether they're power games or sexual games or whatever. I never dated normally, singles bars and personal ads and the like; both my ex (with whom I'm still friendly) and my current husband are guys I came to know through long-distance courting before I ever met either of them, and those courtships came about on mutual terms (the first through a zine I was self-publishing, and my current husband through Usenet). Even online, even in chatrooms, I've never done personas or fake handles. I'm capable of it, I used to write wacky articles and fictional bits in my zine under pen names, but I never saw the point of subterfuge when dealing with other people. This sort of stubborn honesty means I'll never get ahead in any realm which requires a particular talent for playing social games, but again, I knew that years ago and made my choice in favor of being a real person, with all the complexities that entails. And anyway, I prefer to believe that saying things like "my sexuality doesn't define me and is, by the way, none of your business" is far more subversive than trying to redefine feminism or girlism in the same sort of terms once used by the civil rights leader who opined that "the best position for women in the movement was prone."

Seems like a good time

We've had quite a few number of new Blog Sisters join us here over the last couple of weeks, and the discussions that have sparked lately have been fantastic. The velocity and quality of conversation has been downright exciting. To me at least.

It seems like a good time for me to mention, since there are many new faces here, that I'm working on a book about our experiences here. If you haven't participated and you'd like to, use the survey form to spark some ideas about your thoughts on women and weblogging and you and weblogging and you and your offline life and you and blog sisters and whatever else you feel is important resulting from your experiences writing online. Look forward to hearing from you!

Proposed Department of Peace

Have you heard about the Congressional legislation to establish a U.S. Department of Peace? According to its sponsor, Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich,
Domestically, the Department of Peace would address violence in the home, spousal abuse, child abuse, gangs, police-community relations conflicts and work with individuals and groups to achieve changes in attitudes that examine the mythologies of cherished world views, such as 'violence is inevitable' or 'war is inevitable'. Thus it will help with the discovery of new selves and new paths toward peaceful consensus.

Find out more here.

An Embarrassment of Riches

First entry here; howdy all! Wanted to give a short plug to my blog, particularly entries here, here and today, where I talk about fellow female (can one be called a "fellow female?") bloggers, finding Ms. Musings and Blogsisters, etc. Also a short plug for all you folks who read (and create!) comic books, for Friends of Lulu and Sequential Tart. Been involved in FoL for about a half dozen years now, and currently maintain their Women Doing Comics listing, among other resource pages. (So if you're a woman doing comics and you're not on the list, please e-mail me and I'll remedy that forthwith! Dang, I love words like "forthwith.") And the Tarts have a wonderful monthly e-magazine about comics, as well as a kicking message board! Looking forward to participating more as I catch up and read some past entries; as I said in my latest blog entry, I have a lot of catching up to do!

Are Fat Suits the New Blackface?

Weight is not strictly a feminist issue, but it seems to resonate especially with women, who perhaps are held to a more unrealistic standard than are men. Gwyneth Paltrow caught heat for wearing a fat-suit in "Shallow Hal" for various reasons, among them -- as explained in Bitch Magazine -- that fat suits are the modern equivalent of blackface. But Anita Roddick (full disclosure -- she's my boss and a fellow Blog Sister), went undercover in remarkably convincing facial makeup and a fat suit last week in Discovery TV UK's documentary "Skin Deep" in order to see what it is like to be fat in London in 2002 . She was stared at, couldn't find clothes, all predictable troubles. But she got in some trouble for what she wrote about the experience. The readers of BigFatBlog aired their beefs with her, and she responded. I'm curious where the Sisters fall on this one.

Here's a Good one.

I found another girl power story that, deals with the back lash of eservice growth. Just to be supportive of not only women in technology but women with talent!! Anyway I thought I would post this to keep the pot spicy.Success story

TechUpdate

Three new Blog Sister Bios have been added for Deborah Gussman, Elizabeth Lane Lawley, and Drucilla Blood. Also, Jeneane has answered some questions about the birth of her brainchild Blog Sisters. Check them out at the new Bio Page and FAQ Page.