sundries

Last night it rained and today I almost feel human. Certainly I feel like I'm through the headache, but that doesn't mean my shoulders aren't literally swollen from how they were tensing or that I'm not two days behind on everything.

Even so, I did manage to write my WIAD last night. The hardest thing about WIAD is writing these things and sitting on them, and there's nothing more I can say about that.

Patty and I also managed to watch the first episode of the last season of Buffy. New principal is HOT. The mom thing is hilarious, and wow this show really, really, really is at its best when it's in high school. I didn't notice it until this episode happened. That almost says something to me about the American narrative and what our glory days are supposed to be. Buffy brings the meta, whether it means to or not.

We (I? I'm the paranoid one) think there might be something wrong with our refrigerator. There was water coming out from under it last night and it wasn't the first time, and I feel like it's having a harder time staying cool. I should probably call someone about that.

Pat Murphy is a novelist. She is being attacked by papers. So she has entered a contest to win 20,000 of custom organizational stuff from California Closet. If she wins, she might even write another book. Vote for her. (Note, this goes to Facebook, which I'm completely impaired at, so if the link doesn't work (but you do have to log in, I think) or you can't see it... well, let me know or something).

I don't watch Criminal Minds and we all know I have a lot of feelings about fan protest movements, but I still feel the need to alert you to this petition which protests CBS's decision to save money by basically eliminating female characters from the show.

Let's talk about Obama's oil disaster speech. First, CNN tells us that because it was written at a 10th-grade level it may have been too difficult for his audience. Pause and weep.

Okay, done there? Then, take a look at Rachel Maddow (who did it most overtly) and everyone else talking about how the speech should have been. Chase that with an episode of West Wing. I KNOW A CERTAIN STRIPE OF US ALL WANT THE WEST WING MOMENT OUT OF THIS. I know. We want the nation to suddenly come to heel and unity because of a righteous moment of eloquent rage from a deeply professorial president who causes us to cast our differences aside and come together in a new version of America.

But it's not going to happen. It can't in a society that thinks shopping is a moral obligation and that the best thing you can do for those in need to leave 'em on the far hill and hope someone else rescues them (not that they deserve it, *snerk*). It's not going to happen in a society that eschews science, hates education, doesn't want to know the difference between a fact and an opinion and has no remotely unifying concept of civic duty. THE JED BARTLET MOMENT ISN'T COMING. And a hell of a lot more people and history are to blame for that than Obama.

I'm nearly a professional optimist, but I pretty much don't know what to say other than stop holding your breath. Unless you're near the oil. Then you should probably keep holding your breath, but for other reasons.

Oil isn't just ruining the Gulf Coast. Look at what's been done to Nigeria.

I haven't even read this yet, but I can already feel myself twitching and not in a good way: Debate rages as to what the normal range of sexual desire is in women. Let me tell you though, I have a lot more "sexually satisfying events" than 4.5 a month. On the other hand, I'm not a normal anything. Article also includes this quote from an expert: "Women’s sex lives are often a struggle, a disappointment, an archipelago of regret." I don't even know what to say to that. Do you?

The Guardian is running a series on "transgender journeys".

Catios!

one inch

I was going to chuck this into sundries, but then some of you might miss it, and it needs to be talked about.

Over at Cornell we have a case of gender and body policing, unnecessary surgery, and stimulating 6-year-old girls with vibrators in the name of dodgy science.

Really helps to confirm my suspicion that the only good girl is one who knows how to disappear, doesn't it? And if she can't figure out the skill of it, don't worry, someone will hold her down and do it for her.

I won't ask you what this fear of big clits is, since we can all figure it out, but did you know that women with larger clitorises are also more likely to identify as gay?

Yup, that's right, one of the many HORRIFYING implications here is all about trying to erase queerness, erase the existence of people like me (and let's note the particularities of this particular act of hate, since there is also a correlation between larger penises and men being gay, but no one is cutting into these suspect little boys).

Things that will never make any queer woman less queer: hair removal, makeup, self-hatred, dresses, boyfriends, surgery, "therapy." My mother used to buy me electric razors, over and over.

All of this speaks with terrible eloquence to the suspicion I often harbour that the most inherently queer thing about me is my unwillingness to disappear.

If you don't get how all of this connects, you should probably go read Valerie's Letter again and again and again until you do.

An inch.

One inch.

Get it?

TW fic rec

Imperfect Promises by remuslives23.

It is ridiculously romantic. I also found it an extremely difficult read. I suspect it's not everyone's cup of tea, but I think remuslives23 knocked this one out of the park, and to say more would be to say too much.