Dudz at the dog park.
More pix from the dog park below the fold...
Today's Edition of "Conniving and Sinister"
[Today's comic suggested by Deeky. Thanks, Deeks!]
See Deeky's archive of all previous Conniving & Sinister strips here.
[In which Liss reimagines the long-running comic "Frank & Ernest," about two old straight white guys "telling it like it is," as a fat feminist white woman (Liss) and a biracial queerbait (Deeky) telling it like it actually is from their perspectives. Hilarity ensues.]
Eight
"This person, right here."
That's what Iain says, sliding his long arm around my shoulders, when someone asks him what brought him to the US. Often, it's specifically a question about how this ginger-bearded Scotsman ended up in exurban Indiana: What brought you here, of all places? the expression on the asker's face seems to say, betraying the suspicion lurking in many a Hoosier subconscious that the state is inhabited almost exclusively by those who have yet to successfully plot an escape route.
Technically, it was an immigration policy that privileges our heterosexuality, ten metric fucktons of paperwork, a visa, and, eventually, a transatlantic jet that brought him here. But he is answering the question they're really asking, about what made him want to come in the first place. And so he gazes at me with this look, this look that I dare not try to describe lest I somehow compromise its exquisite complexion, and says, "This person, right here."
In those moments, I feel very loved.
I imagine I make him feel exactly as loved in ways I don't recognize, although he'd have to tell you about that. Both of us, for our individual reasons, aren't always great at receiving compliments—and there is perhaps no greater compliment than to be expansively loved by someone who has seen you at your absolute worst and decided to stick around nonetheless. So we have moments where we squirm at being loved, or reject it outright in a fit of self-destructive pique, but it is the moments in which we can wear comfortably the love that is being offered that hang lastingly in my memory, and his, forming a web of connected points into which we can fall, our safety net, whenever we stumble.
Love is a joint pursuit, but an individual practice, which is what makes it difficult to sustain. There are moments when one person loves the other more, is more committed, is more invested, is more present. In these moments—or hours, or days, or indefinite stretches of threadbare emotional reserves—the intimacy that makes conversation feel combustible in the first flourishes of a romance can be elusive, seemingly every trace of its existence vanished from all but the faintest recollection.
And in these moments, one can do naught but gaze from the swaying cradle of the safety net up at the highwire where love resides, and think, "I'm glad we had the foresight to build this fuckin' thing."
Once a year, Iain and I do a state of our union. This weekend, on the way to our favorite restaurant for dinner, we talked about where we are—as individuals, and together. It's the longest relationship either of us has ever had, and it seems to each of us like we have just met, and simultaneously as though there is a sense of permanence that only time can convey.
When we were still apart, living on separate continents and waiting for the piece of paper that would change that forever, time dripping by at an inconceivably slow pace, one of our most frequent topics of conversation was what it would be like when we were together. Sock feet on hardwood floors on a lazy Sunday afternoon. Curled up on the couch on a wintry day, under the same blanket, reading our own books. Sitting on the porch just out of the reach of the rain during a summer storm, with the wind blowing electricity through our hair. Holding each other whenever we wanted. Going to the movies. Making dinner together in our kitchen, bumping hips and sharing a glass of wine. Never feeling again the joy of being together cast in the shadow of knowing it wouldn't last. When we spoke about how we would never take for granted the chance of being together, even then I thought we would. I figured there would come a time when not every day felt precious, when the routine of life inevitably replaced our gratitude.
But that day still has not come. Every time he takes my hand, I remember a time when it wasn't possible. Every time we fall into bed and arrange ourselves in a tangle of arms and legs, I think about the time when we couldn't. Every evening, when he walks through the door, I am happy to see him, and the memory of seeing for the first time at King's Cross station in London lays itself across my heart.
"If I can't make a relationship work with you, I don't think I could make one work with anyone," I told him in the car, on the way to the restaurant. He laughed, and said he felt the same way. There is an inescapability to our partnership that would foment a strangled desperation if we were not so well-matched; but, because we are, our entrenchment yields instead a contented bliss.
We recalled the things that we first recognized as evidence of our befittery: We both loved Lord of the Rings, and Star Wars, and Omar Khayyam. But it was really the voracious desire that welled in each of our bellies to know what made the other one tick, to uncover and understand the affections we didn't already share, that was The Thing. Never had I felt such a craving, such a need, to know another person so urgently, nor had I previously experienced such an unreserved willingness to be known.
When we reached the restaurant, Iain requested a table in our favorite server's section. As always, we chatted with her lightly for a few minutes, discussing important issues like the last season of Lost, before she turned to me and asked, "And what do you want tonight?"
This person, right here.
Tonight, tomorrow, always. Happy anniversary, Iain. I love you.
[Previously: Seven, Six, Five, Four, Three.]
Monday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by Shaxco, publishers of the anthology: Conniving and Sinister: What You Gonna Do About It?
Recommended Reading:
karnythia: On Being A Black Woman and Happy With It
Echidne: The Mean, Lean World Of Blogs
Melanie: Sex Ed: The More You Know
Andy: Sean Hayes and Kristin Chenoweth Mock Newsweek Story with Hot 'Straight' Kiss
Renee: The Disabled Once Again Ignored in Canadian Health Study
Angry Asian Man: Red Dawn Delayed Indefinitely?
Leave your links in comments...
Today in Totes Important Online Polls
This morning, NBC's Today Show reported on a Christian school that fired a teacher after she had sex out of wedlock.
Do you know what'd be totally frightening and not-at-all informative? A poll on the matter.
If the poll is about the rights and obligations of the various parties involved (which is how the question appears to be worded), I really don't care what random anonymous people with internet access think of the myriad legal issues involved.
Quick Poll
Marbury vs. Madison was:
a) A national travesty
b) Awesome
c) Delicious
d) The best game of the season
Pointless, no?
If the issue is what random people think about a hateful person committing a hateful act, again, I'm not so interested in hearing about it. If you look at the comments (don't look at the comments), this is exactly what appears to be happening. This is what always happens. Thanks NBC, for creating a “dialogue” where there really shouldn't be one.
Nothing Bad Will Happen
I don't know what the perfect word is to describe the reserved happiness I feel on behalf of the many average people of Afghanistan who just want a functional country with a modern infrastructure bought by a stable economy, shot through with a steely bolt of panic that the very discovery which might allow that very thing will instead bring a whole new fresh hell for them as colonialists and warlords and corrupt members of their own government stake out positions around the vast reserves of minerals which have been discovered in Afghanistan by Pentagon officials and US geologists.
I'm excitascared for you...?
Meanwhile, I'm just flat scared for us, because there is no other way to describe an internal Pentagon memo saying that Afghanistan could become the "Saudi Arabia of lithium" besides terrifying, given the current architects of US foreign policy.
[H/T to eastsidekate.]
I Write Letters
To Whom It May Concern Among the Thin Women of the English-Speaking World:
Please stop saying you have "Fat Days," and/or days where you "feel fat."
Understand that I'm not asking you to deny or not talk about your experiences of feeling bloated with water retention, or feeling frustrated because you've gained just enough weight that your clothes don't fit right, or feeling unattractive, or feeling angry that trying on clothes in a poorly-lit dressing room in front of an unforgiving mirror can challenge the self-esteem of even the most body-positive among us.
I'm just asking you not to use "fat" as an adjective to describe these feelings.
"Fat" isn't a feeling. But if it were, it might feel like unadulterated joy (which is how I feel in and about my fat body some days). Or it might feel like the grim misery of carrying across your shoulders a sandwich board begging people to treat you like you're a stupid, slack-jawed, immoral, self-loathing wreck with no concern for your own well-being (which is how I frequently get treated because of my fat body). Or it might feel like the exhilarating surge of fucktheworldery that the radical act of being publicly, shamelessly, unshakably fat and happy can be (which is awesome) in the face of mooing passers-by or tsking shamers who fancy themselves arbiters of what fat people should eat in public. Or it might feel like all of these things, all at once, all the time. Or other things, for other fat people.
But it wouldn't feel like a thin person having a bad day.
And when you use "I'm feeling fat" to convey that you're feeling unattractive—or unfit, or depressed, or slovenly, or unlovable, or generally not your authentic self in some way or other—you're implicitly saying a rather lot of nasty things about fat women. Which is unattractive in a way having nothing to do with what one looks like on her outside.
I'd really just be ever so appreciative if you could resist appropriating a neutral description of my constant body to use as a negative descriptor of your fleeting emotional state.
Thanks.
Sincerely,
Liss
Two Minute Nostalgia Sublime
Tag Team: "Whoomp! (There It Is)"
There was a story bouncing around nooz outlets late last week that the seminal hip-hip video "Whoomp! (There It Is)" featured a cameo by a young Barack Obama. He appears, according to a story that has appeared on Fox and CNN, for fuck's sake, at the one minute mark.
For those less inclined to actually watch the video, here's the cap of the cameo:
Colbert has a great piece on the mystery:
Discuss. Or not.
Why I don't call myself an environmentalist: special, special edition condom edition
You could describe me as someone who's down with sexual health, and also as an environmental scientist. I like condoms. I like species. Yet I don't like the endangered species condom.
I own exactly this many condoms
Because I am a: a) monogomous b) lesbian with c) a two year-old daughter, the condoms in question have been lying around my house since forever, taunting me to write something about them. Maybe I'll send them to my sister or something (try to act surprised).
From the condom packaging, and the Center for Biological
Through the empowerment of women, education of all people, universal access to birth control, and a societal commitment to ensuring that all species are given a chance to live and thrive, we can reduce our own population to an ecologically sustainable level.Yes, I am on board with the idea that uncontrolled human population growth is a major (yet complicated) problem. Okay, I suppose that you could argue that passing out condoms is a step towards universal access to birth control. However, I think empowerment of women might involve a variety of approaches to women's and reproductive health care, including access to birth control pills and abortion (neither of which necessarily require women to ask men to do something for them, BTW), but I'm assuming the Center for Biological
Also, condoms are multi-use tools. A variety of sexual acts involving a variety of bodies could benefit from condom ownership, not just potentially reproductive sex. This is one of the things I like about the NYC condom. It's just a condom, and as far as I can tell, it doesn't erase anyone. Also, it uses less packaging. Ouch.
At the future home of Legoland Florida, Gov. Charlie Crist holds a Lego
Florida panther. Which is endangered because of your condomless lifestyle.
My guess is that some of you saw the endangered species condoms and said "Whaaaa?!? What does a condom (actually, they give you two) have to do with a beetle?!?" By now, you've probably figured out the link between concern about human population growth and biological conservation. This is a very old, and very divisive issue within environmentocological circles. For example, factions within the Sierra Club have occasionally been in the news for suggesting not only that society should reduce population growth, but also that the US should adopt strict limits on immigration as a means of protecting Americans' environment at home.
There are a bazillion things that are problematic with anti-population growth and anti-immigration approaches to environmental conservation. Permit me to mention a couple (all of which Noël Sturgeon covers quite well in this text, BTW):
As with much work in ecology, I'm not sure how humans fit into the “environment” we appear to be discussing. What (or why) are we supposed to be conserving? Are we hoping to get more stuff like Central Park (which my friend C. L. assures me Frederick Law Olmsted pretty much made up after reading a bunch of neat olde-timey books). Are we thinking of the Adirondacks (IMO, these are what really amazing mountains look like when you install water parks and a super amazing cabin for every nth monied white New Yorker)? Perhaps the goal is some sort of roped-off area, where the only humans allowed in are scientists and the occasional really awesome environmentalist looking for some extreme sportage? What, precisely, is our goal, and what precisely, is humans' role?
You've probably figured out that there's a racial component to all of this, too. I'm not going to mention the demographics of my neighborhood, but yeah, I did find the condoms' appearance therein to be curious. While it may be a given that middle-aged white folks are responsible folks who have precisely the appropriate number of children, I've frequently heard complaints about how those people are always getting pregnant, where those means some combination of young, poor, of color, foreign-born, and foreign (non US and/or non global North) -living. Giving out condoms to reduce the human population and thereby save the planet fits nicely into this context, intentionally or not.
If only we had used more condoms
Lastly, there's the issue of resource use. The primary driver of [anthropogenic] species loss is the manner in which humans use our environment. Folks in the United States, for example, use many more resources than do folks in the Global South.
Sturgeon points out a key problem with of the things that had been bugging me for years with the frequent environmentalist exhortation for all of us to 'pitch in', 'do the right thing', 'be green', or some such thing. I'm all for individuals doing their part to make environmentally-sound decisions. However, focusing on individuals' actions obscures both inequalities between individuals, and the importance of collective, systemic change in managing environmental problems.
While I may recycle, never drink bottled water, and use compact florescent light bulbs, there are a lot of things I can't do on my own. Despite living near a city center, I need to own a car to buy food, get to work, visit the doctor, or go pretty much anywhere else, because I live in a city (and largely a country) that's built around the premise of universal car ownership. I can't simply put solar panels on my house (let alone buy a house in the country off the grid), because I don't even own my house (nor could I afford the solar panels). In the US and much of the Global North, processed foods and products of industrial agricultural, as destructive as they are, are cheaper than sustainably (and often traditionally) grown food.
What I'm trying to say is this: stop blaming the unprotected, potentially-procreative, heterosexual sex that I'm not having for what happened to my pelican friends. I didn't do it.
Flickr Image Credits: Legos Pelicans
Hail to the King and Queen
On June 5, what began as a lark turned into a celebration of their courage to attend high school as openly gay young men. Seniors Charlie Ferrusi and Timmy Howard were crowned Hudson High School's prom king and queen in an open vote of their classmates.Blub.
"It was so cool when they called our names. Kids were screaming and cheering for us," recalled Ferrusi. "I gave Timmy the biggest hug ever. I was shaking with excitement. People were taking our picture. Everyone was going crazy."
"It was wonderful and totally surprising," said Howard. "It started as a kind of joke among our classmates. Instead of electing the typical king and queen, they voted for me and Charlie, these two gay guys."
...Ferrusi and Howard won by such a wide margin that principal Steven Spicer and Superintendent John Howe could only salute the outcome. They also had more time to prepare since Ferrusi and Howard went through proper channels and announced their intentions beforehand... "The principal and I are in full support of the outcome of the prom vote," Howe said. "The students had a great time and they selected the prom king and queen they wanted. We are a diverse student body and we celebrate our diversity."
...Ferrusi chose to wear the king's faux crown and Howard accepted the tiara and bouquet of flowers as queen. They posed for cellphone shots with ear-to-ear grins.
The jubilant winners joined 40 others who had hired a bus and paid $5 for a ride to the prom.
Laughter and hurrahs for the king and queen filled the big yellow bus on the way home. The driver happened to be Ferrusi's grandfather, Dick Tracy, a former mayor of Hudson. He may have been cheering the loudest.
[H/Ts to Shakers Constant Comment and Angelos.]
Doctor Who Open Thread: S5E08: The Hungry Earth
Okay you Whosers, time to talk some Doctor, eh?1
Just finished watching The Hungry Earth, Episode 8 of Season 5. This thread is for discussion of that episode, or any earlier episode in the Doctor Who franchise.
Please be careful not to give spoilers for episodes coming later in the season, as we are continuing to follow the US/Canadian broadcast schedule.
So? What's your Shake-take on the ep? Silurians, baby! Just a dozen or so...;)
1 This is funnier if read with a strong Ontarian (east-central Canadian) accent. Eh.
Open Thread
Hosted by a Welsh Corgi.
This week's open threads have been brought to you by the letter W.
The Virtual Pub Is Open
[Explanations: lol your fat. pathetic anger bread. hey your gay.]
And yes, I see I added an extra "o" in saloon. LOL. Wevs.
I'm too lazy to fix it now, so enjoy my knuckleheadery!
TFIF, Shakers!
Belly up to the bar,
and name your poison!
The OFFS Awards: The United States Department of Health and Human Services
The HHS has voted 9-6 against lifting the ban on gay men donating blood.
In the US, any man who has had sex with a man since 1977 is barred from giving blood.
It appears this policy will remain in effect for the time being.
Daily Dose o' Cute
For those who love and can view video, here are some recent feline and canine happenings in Lazy and Frisky at Shakes Manor, set to Björk's "It's Oh So Quiet." Still pix for everyone else are below the fold.
[Also at Daily Motion here.]
Matilda
Olivia
Sophie
Dudley
Very Appropriate
[Trigger warning for sexual assault. Avoid comments at source link.]
Following on the heels of my earlier post regarding the World Cup, sexual assault, domestic violence, and general misogynist shitbaggery, I see via Gabe that R. Kelly was selected to perform at the opening ceremony.
Notes Gabe caustically: "So good! It barely even reminded me of the time that he peed on a child."
I don't really have anything to add to that.
Except, perhaps: Fuck off, FIFA.
