Deferred disability

I said last week that I wanted to spend a bit more time on disability. There are a few reasons for this.

Part of it is my own experience with diabetes. 

Three years ago I learned that diabetes was legally a disability, and wrote about feeling some ambivalence about that:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2020/09/identity-crisis.html 

It feels more real now. This is partly due to a medication change that isn't working out. We should be able to go back, but it has demonstrated that I don't snap back the way I used to. That's not uncommon with age, but it's not fun. 

I am starting to wonder if it is even possible for me to maintain healthy blood sugars while working this particular job. If not, I need to figure out what that means, beyond it just seeming very unfair.

Various organs -- including the pancreas -- not working as well as you age is pretty common.

It happens with joints too, where stairways and sunken living rooms can become much more dangerous.

Plus potential memory issues.

Speaking of my job, I talk to a lot of people of Medicare age (which is not as far away for me as it used to be), and there are some things you hear multiple times. A lot of people have retired to the coast, which is a common dream. The downside is that there just aren't a lot of doctors out there. 

For some people this has resulted in losing their Medicare Advantage plans without a sufficient network. They can still be on Medicare, maybe with a supplement, but they are often driving pretty far for their appointments. That may not be ideal for elderly drivers anyway, but if you had emergency situations or inclement weather, that can be much worse.

(Expect more inclement weather each year.)

Personally, I have never wanted to move to the coast, but you may find long wait times to get into doctors here as well. Lately, I have also had a lot of people getting the runaround at their pharmacy, because there are things that people can't find or don't know how to do. They are covered for the prescription and it is in stock (not always the case), so there shouldn't be an issue, but high turnover and inadequate staffing creates issues.

Of course, where I started thinking of it last week related to concerns about how we treat Covid, and the increase in cases of Long Covid we are going to see. The risk of infection is higher for many who are already disabled, but additional transmission is also going to increase the pool of disabled people.

The frustration in last week's post comes from so few people even paying attention to or caring about the needs of the disabled. 

That they have needs should be reason enough to care. 

That the improvements that we make -- like curb cuts or better signage -- ends up making life better for everyone else should be reason enough to care.

But also, know that the longer you live, the more likely you are to join their ranks and have similar needs. The longer we go without heeding them, the less likely it is that your needs will be acknowledged in turn.

Money can shield you from a lot, but it has its limits.

Daily songs for Native American Heritage Month

Two things (other than previous listening) affected my song choices for this last Native American Heritage month: musically focused reading and anger.

One of those was the Robbie Robertson reading. You can see that The Band gets two songs, "The Weight" and "I Shall Be Released", because those two were the songs I liked. 

The anger was at people tearing down celebrities claiming Indian lineage. 

It made me want to bring in every artist ever attacked, but it would be easy to do that from spite, which is not the best motivation. 

(You may also notice that Buffy Sainte-Marie has two songs, though partly that was that I started with her and then decided "Universal Soldier" would be a good fit for Veterans' Day.)

It also made me just want to go off on Indian identity. I am probably not the best person for that, white as I am. 

But, Testimony was not my only rock reading.

I also found a graphic novel about the band Redbone, of "Come and Get Your Love."

Redbone: The True Story of a Native American Rock Band by Christian Staebler and Sonia Paoloni, illustrated by Thibault Balahy

One of the scenes has Jimi Hendrix coming to the band and telling them that only white people would believe they were Mexican. He can tell that they are Indian (there are some Mexican roots as well), and he has his own Cherokee grandmother.

I haven't seen anyone attacking Jimi's roots yet, but maybe I haven't looked hard enough. 

Anyway, I am going to explore identity more in another post, in a cool and collected manner, but I did include some people that I had thought of including, and I will spend more time on them.

The biggest weakness that occurs to me now is that I really have not listened to enough Link Wray. I have used songs from him at other times, but I have not been doing anything more than casual listening. When I take an artist and listen to their entire catalog three times? I should do that for him.

(I could listen to Robbie Robertson more, but I could not go over The Band's catalog three times, and certainly not for when they were backing Dylan.)

Here are the songs:

11/1 “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee” by Buffy Sainte-Marie
11/2 “The Weight” by The Band
11/3 “We Were All Wounded at Wounded Knee” by Redbone
11/4 “Falling Rain” by Link Wray
11/5 “My Blood Runs Through This Land” by Black Belt Eagle Scout
11/6 “Star Dust” by Frank Waln
11/7 ”Soldier of Love” by Tracy Bone
11/8 “The Garden of Love” by Martha Redbone
11/9 “Hear My Train A Comin'” by Jimi Hendrix
11/10 “Light of Mine” by Mic Jordan feat. Jessica Vines
11/11 “Universal Soldier” by Buffy Sainte-Marie
11/12 “Honor Song” by Jeremy Dutcher
11/13 “Lemonadas Verde Cumbia” by Southern Scratch
11/14 “Tree of Woe” by Halluci Nation feat. Damian Abraham
11/15 “Book of Life” by Keith Secola
11/16 “Colonizer” by Tanya Tagaq
11/17 “I Got Paid Today” by Snotty Nose Rez Kids
11/18 “Keep On Living” by Arigon Starr
11/19 “Water Prayer Song” by Andrea Menard
11/20 “Meet Me At The Pow Wow” by Lightning Cloud
11/21 “Let 'em Know” by City Natives
11/22 “Drowning” by Natanii Means
11/23 “Land Back” by Halluci Nation ft. Boogey The Beat & Northern Voice
11/24 “Call Them Sticks Home” by Naca Charging Crow
11/25 “Not Your Mascot, I've Been Watching” by Michael Bucher
11/26 “(Your Love Has Lifted Me) Higher & Higher” by Rita Coolidge
11/27 “Believe” by Cher
11/28 “Something Beautiful” by Tina Turner
11/29 “Be My Baby” by The Ronnettes
11/30 “I Shall Be Released” by The Band

Sick Day

I called in sick Friday. It wasn't a lie, but it was also something I rarely do.

I didn't call in sick a single day when I had Covid.

Of course, for most of that time I did not think I had it, but I did not feel great.

This time a cold came around. I was still very functional, occasionally having to use the mute button to hide coughs, and going through a lot of cough drops.

Then Friday, I just couldn't. 

I know part of it was not believing my voice would last throughout the day. I still thought I could get a couple of hours in, but there was just this "No!" rearing up inside of me.

I was almost dressed for work, but I called the attendance line, got back into my nightgown and back into my bed, and stayed there for three hours. 

Having done so, I felt significantly better.

I have been going so hard (and hating it) for so long, I might just have given out anyway. However, I might have been influenced by Twitter.

Recently, Bernie Sanders tweeted about having Covid and isolating but still working through it. 

One person who is not particularly prominent tweeted a fairly scathing rebuke: this attitude about something that is "debilitating and deadly" is harmful. 

It probably would not have made much of a stir, except that podcaster Jon Favreau -- not to be confused with actor and filmmaker Jon Favreau (and even if we need multiple Jon Favreau's, do we really need more podcasters?) -- quote tweeted it deprecatingly, touching a nerve in the disabled community that he did not know existed.

He got several replies, many of them very helpful, about why the attitude is harmful, the problems with not resting and not taking disease seriously, and the specific affect on disabled people.

Favreau mainly responded by blocking them.

https://disabilityvisibilityproject.com/2024/01/02/disabled-outrage-and-podsavejon/

Please note that the sort of quote tweeting Favreau, with his 1.3 million followers, did to someone with fewer than ten thousand followers is a great way to draw abuse upon them. He certainly did not increase understanding. 

Well, the responses he drew may have ended up increasing understanding for some people, but he did a lot of doubling down before he started blocking. 

I think I am going to write more about disability next week. 

For now, it is possible that I would not have been able to log in Friday anyway. My voice was rough, there had been lots of weekend shifts in addition to the regular work week, and it has been very frustrating. 

I keep meaning to take better care of myself, and calling in that day may have been affirmative self-care.

It is also possible that seeing it mattering to other people made it possible to take that affirmative self-care for me. 

I am not always great at prioritizing my needs, and capitalism gives you a lot of reason not to.

So thank you Thomas, Alice, Aparna, Angela, and the others. 

Jon and Bernie, do better.

Native American Heritage Month: Spotlight on Robbie Robertson

The list originally appeared in December 2020, but I saw it later than that:

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/books-greatest-rock-memoirs-of-all-time-161198/ 

Some of them I have read and agree with, I disagree with others, but there were six that I added to my list from that. Three down; three to go. (I believe there will be a post on that when I get there.)

With Robbie Robertson, I was searching for Testimony at the library and several materials came up:

Music From Big Pink, an album by The Band
Rock & Roll Highway: The Robbie Robertson Story, a children's book by Robbie's son, Sebastian Robertson, and illustrated by Adam Gustavson
Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and The Band, a documentary
Legends, Icons, & Rebels: Music That Changed the World, a book by both Robbie and Sebastian, as well as Jim Guerinot and Jared Levine
The Last Waltz, a documentary of The Band's final concert

Also, of course, Testimony by Robbie Robertson.

Well, you know how I like diving in. 

One of the most interesting things for me was that I often don't find Robertson looking like himself, except when he's playing guitar. Somehow that just shows his essence.

The worst part of it for me was some difference in musical tastes. Largely that was because there was so much Dylan.

I do not care for him.

The Legends book goes over 27 influential musicians. I can't argue with any of them or their impacts, but not only did I have to listen to Bob Dylan more, there was a duet with him in the section on  Johnny Cash. Aggravating! 

(January songs are coming from that book.)

Even The Band is not exactly my taste, though there are songs that I like.

That being said, I found the documentaries and the memoir really interesting. There is so much rock history and fellowship there, as well as band dynamics and interpersonal relationships, which interest me a lot. 

I did get tired of the drugs though. If you're reading about music in the 60s and 70s, it feels like it never stops.

Regardless of my lack of enthusiasm for Bob Dylan (and The Beatles), I don't regret any of the reading, viewing and listening choices relating to Robbie Robertson. There are other thoughts though, and they relate to identity. 

I said last week that I would post about the November songs in this post, but it made sense to write about Robbie Robertson first. Then, looking at identity along with another band and a television personality, the songs I chose will make more sense.

Professional?

A while back -- not long after people started talking about "quiet quitting" -- I saw a thread about how loaded the term "professional" is, and how it gets used.

I thought about that quite a bit; I am often told how professional I sound, and I try really hard to do a good job. Reading about the kind of behavior that is considered "professional" and the way some employers will try and leverage it to get people to take on more work without paying more, though ... well, I could see the point.

I am thinking about it again because work is so terrible right now. We are overloaded and there is no time between calls. I briefly had to have four windows open because there were calls I could not finish logging before the next one came in. I had to do two e-mail escalations, and it took me at least six hours due to all of the interruptions. Honestly, it was amazing that I could finish them without forgetting what I needed to send.

Staffing issues are a real thing, and my employers could be much worse. There are also some things that I believe they could handle better and I will be giving feedback on that.

However, as much as I want to scream and cry and run away, and as much as I am dreading getting up in the morning and logging in, I still sound smooth and kind and "professional".

I actually had to think about back then, because I would hear myself sounding so polished and calm and caring... I kind of felt hypocritical, you know? Am I a big faker?

As it is, my job performance has a lot to do with my values, but it also has a fair amount to do with my damage. 

The rest of it is just capitalism.

I recently figured out that when the phone rings, it triggers my fight or flight response; that is why my rage builds throughout the day. 

Despite that, when I answer that ring, there is a human being there. 

I talk to a lot of seniors. Often there are things that are confusing for them and seem unmanageable.I am usually able to help with that.

Sometimes they are quite rude or annoying, but even then, there is generally a vulnerability there. Often when someone is droning on, I can tell that they are lonely, and I can sympathize with that. If there is hostility, it may be a sign of fear, or frustration. People may realize they were wrong and not want to let on. I can be sympathetic to that.

My smooth voice and calm manner helps reassure them.

Every now and then, someone is just a jerk, and there is a certain type of old bag that I hope I never am, but I am also a very practical person; responding to that in kind is not going to make anything better.

That is where it is part of my values, and who I want to be. It pertains to how I treat my coworkers too, because they are all people, and people are important to me.

For my damage, well, I still have this neurotic perfectionism that tortures me sometimes. I am still cringing about a book I misplaced. I found it in time, and all as well, but I won't get over it easily. 

That's a process.

So, that's where I am now. It's not great for my physical or mental health, and I desperately want to be delivered, though there only seems to be one possible solution and it's a long shot. 

It is important to me that I am behaving in a manner true to myself, such as it is.

But, allow me to add the reminder that much of the reason that there are so many people calling and not enough staff to answer the calls is that we have an unnecessarily bureaucratic health care system that places an unfair burden on those needing care, with diminishing resources due not only to obstacles to education but increasingly due to choosing profit over public health, especially in regards to Covid.

Capitalism! (Socialism isn't the answer either, because there is still dominator culture.)

Daily songs for December, mostly

This is out of sequence, as I have not written about November songs yet. That will be next week.

I had frustration for both months with not having a solid plan. It ended up being more personal for December; I could not bring myself to do Christmas music. I felt such an utter aversion to celebration I couldn't do it.

Well, I had been saving the "12 Days of Dim Sum" since May, so that was an easy starting place, but then I just didn't know. Christmas songs feel celebratory, and I don't.

My May music selections helped me again.

Youtube is always trying to get me to stay longer, but has to keep suggesting a wider range of songs, because I don't have easily discernible patterns in my listening. They offered me "Winter" by James Iha.

It occurred to me that songs about winter and cold weather might work, being seasonal but not Christmas-y, and often being real bummers. Maye with enough cold songs I might want to do some Christmas songs again.

I wasn't cheering up.

We didn't have a bad Christmas or anything, and some things were very meaningful, but my mother doesn't recognize me, and is in hospice, and work sucks. I feel that.

I thought I was going to run out of songs but fortunately I thought of searching on "December"; there's a ton of songs with that in the title.

A few things worked out unexpectedly.

First of all, I did find songs that I had not known that I really like. That was a plus.

Two of those songs came from Christmas albums that I did not know existed: Happy Holiday by Billy Idol and December by The Moody Blues.

Also, three of the videos did kind of have the vibe of weird Christmas specials (Fleet Foxes, Kate Bush, and George Michael).

George Michael's "December Song" -- subtitled "I Dreamed of Christmas" -- became the Christmas Eve song, followed by Christmas songs from Billy Idol and Ministry. 

(Ministry singer Al Jourgensen has his own version of "It's Always Christmas". I used the band version, but he came up with Cuban American singers in October.)

As the end of the year approached, I kept thinking about 41 by Reggie and the Full Effect. 

I reviewed 41 when it came out. Even though the album meant a lot to me, my writing is lackluster. The music affected me in a way that I could not write about then.

The album is based on a period of about a year where James Dewees lost his mother, his mother-in-law, and his marriage (while still being there for his soon-to-be-ex-wife and his mother-in-law.) 

The doctors' visits and hospital time (I think it was cancer in both cases) is best heard in "New Year's Day" (but also on "Maggie"). When I first heard it, I felt like I was hearing my future, though some of the other songs were my present. 

I think his year was worse, but for me it came at a time that was hard and getting harder. While it did get easier, it didn't end. I believe we are getting closer to that ending, so that song and some of the others were in my mind on repeat.

I remember an interview where he said part of it was that his mother had taught him music, which had been such a big part of his life that there was a question of "How" with the loss. How is this happening? How do I make it?

Again, not the same experience, but maybe some parallel feelings. 

Anyway, I had to use those three songs, except that it was also a year where I learned a lot, and was able to move past things. "Throw It Away" kept playing too. 

In November we watched the Arlo Guthrie episode of The Muppet Show (it was sort of Thanksgiving-ish), and one of his songs stuck with me, where solitude and journeying do not mean being alone or lost.

That's when the last few songs started to take place.

It didn't flow. There were two spaces that nothing seemed right for. With both "Each Tear" and "Move Along", I didn't figure them out until the night before, and I had to get to them through other songs. 

To work out right, it also needed to spill into January, so, this is messy, but that was true with the songs back in September and October too.

Ultimately what I have is a playlist that comes from exploring the new, sometimes finding great things, and sometimes just finding okay things, but then also needing to come back to the music that I love, often that I loved from the moment I heard it, and that helps me with the feelings that could be overwhelming.

Sometimes I like to do this sequence where there is a progression, but the sadder and more positive songs alternate in this.

My bad time is not over, but I am still here.

Daily songs

12/1 “12 Days of Dim Sum” by Only Won & Larissa Lam
12/2 “Winter” by James Iha
12/3 “Hazy Shade of Winter” by The Bangles
12/4 “Winter Marches On” by Duran Duran
12/5 “Love Like Winter” by AFI
12/6 “Wintertime Love” by The Doors
12/7 “Winter Sound” by Of Monsters And Men
12/8 “Valley Winter Song” by Fountains of Wayne
12/9 “Wintertime” by Norah Jones
12/10 “A Winter's Tale” by The Moody Blues
12/11 “White Winter Hymnal” by Fleet Foxes
12/12 “Misty” by Kate Bush
12/13 “Cold Weather Blues” by Muddy Waters
12/14 “Cold Chill” by Stevie Wonder
12/15 “I Felt the Chill Before the Winter Came” by Elvis Costello
12/16 “Snow (Hey Oh) by Red Hot Chili Peppers
12/17 “Angel in the Snow” by A-ha
12/18 “December (Again)” by Neck Deep ft. Mark Hoppus
12/19 “December” by Weezer
12/20 “A Long December” by Counting Crows
12/21 “December” by Collective Soul
12/22 “My December” by Linkin Park
12/23 “Decembers” by Hawthorn Heights
12/24 “December Song” by George Michael
12/25 “On Christmas Day” by Billy Idol
12/26 "It's Always Christmas Time” by Ministry
12/27 “The Horrible Year” by Reggie and the Full Effect
12/28 “Broke Down” by Reggie and the Full Effect
12/29 “Sailing Down My Golden River” by Arlo Guthrie
12/30 “Hourglass” by Mary J. Blige
12/31 “Each Tear” by Mary J. Blige ft Jay Sean
1/1 “New Year's Day” by Reggie and the Full Effect
1/2 “Throw It Away” by Abbey Lincoln
1/3 “Move Along” by The All-American Rejects
1/4 “Still Alive” by Social Distortion

Throw it away

One thing about my desire to keep books went beyond that I might not remember something. I also would often read a book and think that I would need to read it again after reading other things. I was not sure that I had understood enough, because sometimes they would reference background knowledge that I did not have.

There are still a few books where that probably applies, but what I have found is that the new knowledge fills in and makes me understand those books better without re-reading them. 

My brain worked better than I knew it would; that was reassuring.

It probably works better that I read groups of books together now.

This is something that I really care about, and it relieves some pressure. That should all be really great. It does leave one problem.

I am painfully aware that memories can go.

It could happen to me.

My grandmother had it. An aunt had it. My mother has it.

I could catch up on my reading (not very likely) and have it start fading away (more likely than I would hope).

I can bear it.

It probably helps some seeing that my mother has been doing okay with this. There were less peaceful periods and not everyone has the same experience.

On one of my recent visits, a different woman was crying, she said because she was stupid. 

I hurt for her.

But somehow I find that my mother is still sweet and engaging. Sometimes as she goes through these things that never happened, it feels like she is working out things that she wished happened. 

I don't know. I don't want to make it sound too good, because it has been very hard, and some of those better outcomes required a lot of sacrifice. 

It does seem to have been easier on her than on her children. Still, I would rather not.

But I can bear whatever happens, including whatever loss happens. 

I can bear it because I have borne other losses and survived. 

I can bear it because of my faith that those memories and relationships will come back.

I can bear it because -- despite whatever hardships there have been -- I like myself and am essentially happy with myself.

I can bear it because all of the struggles have shown me things that I needed to know, and led me to this place.

I won't say that I am exactly where I need to be; that implies a level of precision that I can't confirm. It's been messy.

But essentially, ultimately, I am where I need to be and I have peace with that.

While I am trying harder to remember to connect with and cherish people, I can let go of things and worries and fears.

Throw it away
Throw it away
Give your love, live your life
Each and every day

And keep your hand wide open
Let the sun shine through
'Cause you can never lose a thing
If it belongs to you.

-- Abbey Lincoln

 

La Raza Heritage Month: Stereotyping

Lone Star was a good movie, but there was a really awkward sex scene. 

I think there was a good reason it was so awkward, but that's a major spoiler so I will put it down at the bottom of the post. The possibility of it making sense came much later though, so while I was watching it, it was just "That's not sexy."

I would have remembered that anyway, but what drove it home was reading a reference to a review of the movie referring to the "sultry" Elisabeth Peña, noting that there is nothing sultry about Peña's performance.

(I believe this refers to a review from Janet Maslin referenced in De Colores Means All of Us.)

If I had not recently viewed the movie, I would have read the reference and agreed that sounded kind of racist. Having just seen the movie, what were they thinking?

It's a great performance. Pilar is a relatively young widow with two children (with one whose grief is turning into rebellion), a difficult mother, and heavy job responsibilities in the school system where white parents push back on the representation that makes sense for the many students of color. It is her time in a meeting that may give the best idea of life on the border.

She navigates all of this responsibility with dignity, a wry humor, and the needed diplomacy, and you never lose sight of how tiring it must be, even as you admire that she keeps going.

Add to that the awkward sex scene, and the only way we are getting "sultry" out of that is if you assume it should be there because she is Latina.

Let me add to this a quote I saved out of Border Matters: Remapping American Cultural Studies:

… from traditional Mexican views such as those espoused by Octavio Paz, who claims in The Labyrinth of Solitude that pachucos were inauthentic Mexicans. (p. 59)

Also add to that reading about disagreements about who could be Chicano or be allowed in MeCha and conflicts between pro-union and pro-environment activists... we shouldn't be fighting and gatekeeping each other.

I'm sure there are places where it makes sense to draw boundaries. If those boundaries are based on how someone in a certain class should be, or a way of looking down at others, then that seems bound to cause harm.

To avoid straying too far out of my lane, let me give personal examples. I am white, but I am also a woman, fat, and kind of poor (though there are different levels and in some ways I am very fortunate).

Of course it would be very easy for me to feel a sense of superiority to women of color and try and exert authority over them, perhaps by playing a victim whom men of color feel bound to defend; white women are notorious for that.

What I am referring to, though, is something perhaps less obvious, 

It could be very easy for me to look down on other women, judging their choices and assuming mine are better. This frequently comes up as "not like other girls" or disputes between "crunchy" versus "silky" moms, or "boy moms" against any other woman who might take her son or give birth to a daughter who takes her son.

(Sounds like she would be happier if her son were gay, but somehow, no.)

It could be very easy for me to believe that my economic status is simply bad luck, but that other people messed up, and I am not really one of those people. I do see how the system has worked against me, but it is abundantly clear that I am not unique in that way.

I could easily do the same thing with my weight, virtuously working to limit caloric intake and maximize activity, and judging anyone I happen to catch eating or resting. 

This type of attitude requires that the judgment on my marginalized group is just, but that I am the exception. I might even find people in the dominant group who would agree that I am not like the others, and possibly handsomely compensate me for assisting with their oppression.

Whatever satisfaction might come with that, I would be degrading myself. I would have this growing frustration as my exceptionalness did not pay off enough. I would be making the world a worse place.

I promise there would not be reliable loyalty from those I assisted.

We should be who we are in our own way. Ideally that will involve kindness, integrity, and self-examination. We might find excellent ways of inhabiting those identities, but they will still not justify trying to coerce others to follow our model.

There are enough people doing that.

And now... SPOILER ALERT!

*************************************************

It makes more sense that the love scene was so awkward when we find out that the reason their parents separated teenage Pilar and Sam was not mere racism or classism or being overly controlling, but because those parents knew that Pilar and Sam were half siblings, thus explaining that deep sense of connection they felt.

Disturbingly, once they both know they decide to keep dating, but not have children together.

It did strike me as weird, but I believe it was supposed to act as an allegory for this Texas-Mexico border relationship with a common parentage, that it is weird but it exists and is not going away, so a way needs to be found to deal with it.

All along the way

It may have felt like a weird direction to go when -- in talking about feelings of peace and security -- I suddenly turned to apocalypse and house fire.

My background with years of concentration on emergency preparedness makes me likely to think about worst case scenarios anyway, but also, I have had some pretty big losses of data.

While I have a few times lost physical notes, most of my data losses have been electronic files. That has included photos, journals, screenplays, novels, and pretty much every other writing project I've ever done, as well as some notes that I had saved for future projects.

Sadly, I am still not that great about backing up data.

For some things it just ended up being okay that they were gone. I don't generally go back to old journals. The experience of going through and writing them is very important, but then I have had the experience.

That is kind of true of the photos also, except that maintaining the travel blog has also become an important part of the process. Blogging about travel makes me to go through and look over the photos critically for which ones I like best and which ones are most representative of the place. Then the blog becomes an additional record I can share. Again, a terrible apocalypse or massive server destruction might wipe them out, but I will still have had the experience of the travel and processing of the travel into a shareable form.

The internet has served as a backup for many of the other projects . The 6 page screenplays and the comic script can be found on various sites. Some short fiction has been preserved on the blog. My self-published novels can still be found on Amazon, and I could still log in and print copies if I wanted to.

The two sequels (one in each series) that I started are gone, along with all of the screenplays except one that I happened to have attached to an e-mail. 

That was a worse loss. It felt like there was no point in writing again. 

Not long after that computer crash, someone asked me if I had been writing. I said I hadn't, meaning working on anything for sale, even though there still had been some blogging and journal writing.

It was harder to admit,  because it was someone who was always telling me I was such a great writer. I had to grapple with what part of my identity that was going to be. Here's where I landed:

I don't regret anything that I have written. Those experiences, and the knowledge and feelings they unlocked were important for me. I have experienced flow writing them. I can still slip into those worlds sometimes.

It is not how I am going to make a living. In fact, when I was trying to write for profit I wrote worse, because it hurried me and added anxiety.

Maybe part of my absolute hatred of asking for money is that if I am producing something that transmits knowledge well or helps shed clarity, I don't want to charge for that. 

Maybe that is why the computer had to crash; because the fact that I was getting nowhere financially wasn't obvious enough to permanently dash my hopes. Maybe it was a hard lesson that was needed.

I don't regret that I have written.

Some of them have moments where they touched people who needed them. Since a lot of them still reside out there on the web, maybe they will do some good again.

Right now, blogging is important for me. 

I believe I will eventually write books again.

It seems more likely that they will be non-fiction, and quite clear that they will not be a source of income.

That is fine, as long as I have some kind of income. 

Beyond that, there is a lot I don't know. I know some things to work on right now, and then I believe the rest will follow.

There is one more way in which I am thinking about worst-case scenarios. One more post, and then I believe I will change the subject.

La Raza Heritage Month: The Books

I included the original publication dates for each book read, because without planning a lot of it ended up being from the '90s.

I guess I started to notice when an essay on gendered work referenced the artwork of Carmen Lomas Garza. I recognized her style from remember Tamalada. 

While it would have made sense if I had seen it in a Spanish class, I think I saw it in a cooking article.

It is a painting of a large extended family all working together to make tamales. It made a big impression on me. I know someone whose extended Italian family makes multiple batches of ravioli and freezes them once a year. I have participated in a mass egg roll making session with a Laotian family. Maybe every culture has that one work party food?

As it is, looking through the books I see there was also a mass empanada making session, though that happened at her aunt and uncle's house. Maybe it depends on how many foods your family likes that are labor-intensive.

There was no intention to focus on this time period, and yet it made sense that it happened. This was a time when multicultural studies were growing and getting more attention, but I did not know how new it was. 

Earlier when I read about Cesar Chavez, I had not realized he died in 1993. He seemed much more in the past. The big thing I heard about -- the grape boycott -- was from before I was born, but he was still active and union rights were still important well into my lifetime.

On a completely unrelated note, I recently watched an episode of Qunicy M.E. where a doctor allows babies with Down Syndrome to die. This particular child had digestive issues, where surgery would have been necessary for feeding to even be possible, but the surgery wasn't done and IV feeding wasn't done and the child died.

That episode was from 1982.

I don't remember living in a world where that was possible. I went to school with people who had siblings with Down Syndrome who were totally part of the family, my sisters helped with a Special Olympics event, we saw other families on television, I saw "Welcome to Holland" in Dear Abby so many times...

It is the first time that I have wondered if maybe there should have been more people with Down Syndrome around. Did some maybe die or were they locked away? Because that's one way the doctor who allowed the death justified it; if they don't die, they just grow into terrible burdens we lock away!

The episode is seriously disturbing. It also has some outdated language that can make you cringe, but that is almost minor because there is a dead child.

Television is not perfect, but it can help us look back.

Certainly it is a reminder of privilege that just because you have not had a problem cannot take for granted that no one else has. 

Perhaps more importantly, changes don't inevitably happen. It takes people marching, organizing, writing letters, sharing their stories, and a multitude of other activities, repeated, often under great frustration.

Don't take them for granted.

Back to the reading list, I really liked Martin Espada and will definitely read more by him. 

It made me happy to find the rest of Lomas Garza's work.

Otherwise, the most recommended are probably De Colores and Fifth Sun. 

The other non-fiction books were a bit too pedantic, though they made valid points about groups with goals in common sometimes fighting against each other and needing to grow beyond that.

Picture Books:

Broken Butterfly Wings by Raquel M. Ortiz, illustrated by Carrie Salazar, 2021
Family Pictures/Cuadros De Familia by Carmen Lomas Garza, 1990
In My Family/En Mi Familia by Carmen Lomas Garza, 1996 

Poetry:

Cool Salsa: Bilingual Poems on Growing Up Hispanic in the United States, edited by Lori M. Carlson, 1994
Zapata's Disciple by Martin Espada, 1998
Floaters by Martin Espada, 2021

Prose/Non-fiction

De Colores Means All of Us: Latina Views for a Multi-Colored Century by Elizabeth Martinez, 1998
Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs by Camilla Townsend, 2019
The White Scourge: Mexicans, Blacks, and Poor Whites in Texas Cotton Culture by Neil Foley, 1997
Border Matters: Remapping American Cultural Studies by José David Saldivar, 1997

Winnowing through

Last week I wrote about gaining understanding about the conflicts I had with my mother. 

One of the big ones was the neatness of my room. It was not dirty, but it was cluttered; there were always stacks of books and papers and drawings. Sometimes I wasn't done with them yet, and sometimes, maybe I only thought I was done. What if I needed them later?

When I was born, we were pretty poor, and it was a time of grief. I think I have had this scarcity mindset from before conscious memory. Maybe that's why there was always a worry about needing something and not having it.

It was not always strictly that concern. 

Sometimes it was wanting to cover everything. I started a pretty serious needlepoint phase in high school, possibly related to working at K-Mart and discovering so many needlepoint kits. I wanted to do them all. I did many, but I still have a lot left. Eventually I did not have the time to work on them anymore. 

(I was still doing at least some in college, so that took a while.)

There there was building my imagined future, so I had a hope chest. K-Mart was a big part of this too, because I could find great deals on things there, and put them in the chest that I also bought there. 

Many of those things eventually became gifts, and some ended up being used by me, but setting up this dream home after I got married never happened. Having some drinking glasses and towels and a few appliances wouldn't have made that much difference anyway.

The biggest source of clutter was probably the desire for information, which for me is pretty much insatiable.

I have an old hymnbook because it has "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing" in it. I like the song and it is not in our current hymnbook. I wanted to remember the words.

I got that book in the early 90s. Now an internet search will quickly resolves the lyric question, though there's this middle verse coming up that I swear whoever posted it just made up.

When I was a teenager, knowing song lyrics required listening over and over again, unless they were on the liner notes, which did not happen enough. 

I have saved a lot of college textbooks. One of them is specifically a book on Roman history that briefly mentions the sister of one Roman emperor proposing to Attila the Hun to get out of an unwanted arranged marriage. Dramatic! There weren't many details, but I at least wanted to be able to remember her name.

Without remembering it on my own, if you type "emperor's sister Attila the Hun" into any decent search engine, you come up with Justa Grata Honoria.

I'm not saying that you always get great results with search engines, especially with lyrics (and especially with monetized search engine optimization), but there are options now that are amazing. 

I still want to keep the same kind of information that I always have, but it does not require an extensive personal library.

Yes, sometimes I return a book to the library, and then want to verify something that was in it. I may be able to find it online, or remember it well enough, or if needed I can check the book out again. 

There is a great calmness in that, and it allows me to downsize. I still care about not wasting, so I will try and find good places for everything, but that is a significant project for this phase of my life.

Of course, I  have to consider if that is secure enough. In some apocalyptic scenario, the internet could be wiped out. A house fire could wipe out the personal library.

In fact, I have lost incredible amounts of data before. 

That must be the next section.

La Raza Heritage Month: Movies

I watched four more movies from the list suggested by Michael Paarlberg:

https://twitter.com/MPaarlberg/status/1560397489156624384

That leaves me with six. It would be nice to think I could finish them next year, but sometimes locating them is difficult.

Also, there was one surprise addition.  

Here are the films I watched, listed from most recent to oldest. This is also almost the order I watched them in, which was mainly a coincidence. The change to that would be to put Lone Star second.

La Dictadura Perfecta (2014) (Mexico)

I was never able to find a subtitled version, but I did find a dubbed one on Netflix. It's not my favorite way of watching anything, but it worked out.

This is a dark comedy focusing on news and government corruption, which are shockingly aligned. Maybe the strongest message of all is how easy it is to end up dead.

Tropa de Elite 2: O Inimiga Agora e Outro (2010) (Brazil)

Terrible corruption and violence again, but with less humor. This time it is set in Brazil, where I know the least history and have the least language comprehension. I suspect that in the setting of Rio de Janeiro, the large population also has an impact. The setup of the favelas certainly does.

Perhaps the most interesting part is Nascimento, a devoted cop, having to learn to work with teacher and politician (and husband of Nascimento's ex) Fraga, coming to respect someone who has seemed to be a natural enemy.

Tropico de Sangre (2010) (Dominican Republic)

For this one, I have read In the Time of the Butterflies, so had some familiarity with the Mirabal sisters and their story. The film differed in that it focused much more on Minerva. Also, where the book focused more on their interior lives and relationships, in the film you saw more of the organizing they did, the torture they experienced, and difficult to forget images of their deaths.

For getting an idea of the background of the country, you see how the need to placate Trujillo keeps encroaching on freedom and life, not just for the Mirabal family but for everyone, even his friends and supporters. That arc with Antonio de la Maza is important for understanding Trujillo's eventual end.

The torture is not shown in great detail, but what you do understand makes a strong impression, making the movie effective. I also appreciated Trujillo's pallor. He just keeps looking more monstrous every time you see him.

There is a film specifically based on In the Time of the Butterflies, and that will be interesting for comparison.

Lone Star (1996) (border)

This is the one where I most understood how it gave you the feel for understanding the area. With the different people featured and their interactions, yes, that makes sense for how being right on the border would be.

The timing of my watching it also worked well with some of my reading, so that was a nice bonus.

Born in East L.A. (1987)

Shockingly, this is the one that was not recommended by the college professor.

When I was picking the daily songs for the month, and focusing on regions, I kept thinking about Los Angeles, and I kept thinking of the song. I knew there was a movie, and decided to just go for it.

Like many movies done by people who have worked in sketch comedy, sometimes it is uneven, and there are probably scenes that are unnecessary, though some of them are very memorable. I did not really appreciate the scenes with Feo, which was a shame to me because I am really fond of Tony Plana (who was also in Lone Star).

I must nonetheless concede that the sequence going over the hill to Neil Diamond's "America" was set up perfectly and really pays off.

Letting go

The e-mail backlog and the procrastination and everything is part of a broader story of gaining peace. I think the reason I was having so much trouble telling it is that I was trying to gloss over the pain on that path.

If I am no longer afraid of various losses, that was mostly achieved by having major losses and then surviving them. Maybe that means they weren't devastating, but there were definite feelings. I think I need to face that part head on. Maybe the easiest way to do that is going over the one that does still hurt, and that is still happening.

It hurts that I am losing my mother, and have been doing so for years. I don't even know when to start counting; there have been so many stages.

The first thing that I need to acknowledge is that she seems really pretty happy and peaceful.

She had been pretty cheerful most of the time, but there were moments where she would get really emotional. Sometimes it felt like she was working things out. Even if the way she presented them had not been how it really happened, emotionally it seemed to be part of a larger truth. Now she seems more peaceful, but is also slowing down a lot. 

I know there are ways in which we have been really blessed; this could have been much harder. 

It's been hard enough.

So, I have that mourning for the past decade or so, and the absence of that relationship with a lot of reminders of it, and this sense of impending finality, and I am depressed.

This is actually my standard version of depression. There have been two periods in my life that were much more acute. Currently, I just feel kind of held down. I am very functional, but the sense of loss is very present. I don't think I can move past it until she goes, and that moving past is probably not going to be immediate.

I am really grateful that I was able to make peace with the flaws in our relationship. I carried a lot of guilt for my dissatisfaction for her, like I wasn't a good enough daughter if her method of parenting was not enough for me. 

Gaining that perspective on what was missing and why was a huge weight lifted. 

It also left me able to be more understanding of ways in which I could have been a better child, and to make peace with that as well. For the most part we liked each other, and we loved each other fiercely, and that's pretty good.

And I wholeheartedly believe this is not a permanent loss. One day the pain will be gone, and the love will still be there, and that will be joyful.

Right now this holiday season does kind of suck. 

It doesn't mean I won't enjoy anything, and it definitely doesn't mean that anyone should try and cheer me up. 

It just is.

Related posts:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2023/09/the-next-mourning.html

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2022/10/what-mr-rogers-said.html

Transgender Awareness Reading: Until next time...

I cannot rule out that I may do a post about how some books read went along with other issues in other books read at around the same times, but specifically for transgender issues I am moving on.

It should come as no surprise that I did not completely meet my goals for this reading section.

Yes, I did read all of the books I meant to, but there had been some other things that I wanted to spend more time on. 

This takes us back in time to the first time I took a comic book MOOC: Gender Through Comic Books

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2013/05/gender-through-comic-books-my-first-mooc.html

Transgender issues were only a small part of the reading, because we also talked about stereotypes and perceptions, but there was some relevant material that stuck with me. 

That included the story of the Guevedoces in the Dominican Republic, though I had not remembered or understood at the time that they enzyme deficiency was genetic. I had thought it related to nutrition. Maybe some of that is better understood now, or I just might have missed it.

I also remembered an Indonesian group that recognized five genders, the Bugis. I think it was after the class that I saw something about seven genders in Judaism, except when I try to find that now I come up with six or eight, so maybe someone took an average. 

Anyway, I wanted to delve into those more, and how people relate to gender in general. I know the white supremacist way that infuses Western civilization, but it has definite flaws.

I did not end up really doing that. I am of course behind on other reading, which is sort of standard for me now. It felt like I should be moving on, but was it enough?

There are a few things that are reassuring.

First of all, there is one thing I keep remembering about that first MOOC.

One night on Twitter there was a young person expression frustration with gender, not feeling like they conformed, but maybe not feeling transgender either... like they just didn't match up.

I don't know that I was even familiar with the term "non-binary" then, and I don't know if that ended up being their answer. Sometimes, maybe the reason you don't feel like a "girl" is that there are two many qualifications put on what girls should be.

I was able to direct her to some of the materials I knew from the course, and it really helped.

About two years ago I was able to help someone else who had concluded that they were non-binary, but then started enjoying girly things, and felt a little weird about it. I had the most specific dream imaginable to reach out to her.

I mention them because I do know that you don't have to know everything to be able to help (fortunately), and that this matters, but also that there is guidance.

I feel better moving on now because I already have a plan for June 2024. 

I will commemorate Pride Month with at least five books and researching two other people. That reading list came together really easily and naturally from where I already was.

Maybe I will get into looking at cross-cultural gender comprehension then. 

Finally -- and this goes more to the guidance part -- the past couple of days I could not stop thinking about this actress who had a very limited run on the soap opera Loving back in 1992. I don't think I even saw that many episodes with her, and I could not remember the name of the character or the actress. 

Fortunately, her character had dated Roger Howarth's character, and he became incredibly popular in another role. The internet eventually delivered Staige Prince, played by Eden Atwood. 

She hasn't even done that much acting. She did, however, start the Interface Project, where people with intersex conditions can share their stories.

https://www.interfaceproject.org/

That has been an area where I really feel uninformed. This feels like a good starting point, and it would be so random a way to get that, but I don't think it's random. 

Things like that help me feel all right about my path, and my pace.

Related posts: 

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2023/10/terf-month.html

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2023/11/whatever-joanne.html 

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2023/11/transgender-awareness-reading.html 

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2023/11/transgender-awareness-reading-memoirs.html

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2023/12/transgender-awareness-reading-for.html

Lost health

I expected the old e-mail messages thing to be simply an interesting time marker; this is what's happened with Twitter over the past year, and moving on!

I keep not moving on. 

In the strata of the e-mail backlog I keep finding other things about myself, some that I have even written about already, but am apparently not done with. In various ways, it tends to focus on loss.

I have also recently undergone a new experience, but I suppose it all relates: yesterday I tested positive for Covid.

I have given some details on Facebook, but let me back up. 

This is the first case in my household of my two younger sisters and I. Two of us mostly telecommute, which helps. It was the one who has to work on site that brought it home.

We have still escaped it for almost four years now, but my sisters were being more careless with masking. The contagion happening right after Thanksgiving is not a coincidence; plan on increased risk through the New Year. People want to do things, I get it.

I also get that the mask is not fun. Wearing it around home, I notice that my nose itches a lot. I wear it anyway, but I was not wearing it at home while Maria was incubating.

Despite my efforts to be responsible in not easily catching or spreading disease, I was probably irresponsible in testing.

Maria got bad chills on Tuesday. She took her temperature and saw that she had a fever, so took an antigen test that came out positive. She left work and called to let us know on the way.

We immediately started masking and distancing. It's not perfect. Some people have basements or attics and can really isolate. We only have a crawlspace and it would have been cruel to put her down there. Julie and I were not testing, but we were taking our temperatures. We planned on testing if we got symptoms, including fevers. Then, after Maria's first negative test I wanted to test, and then two days later. If those were both negative, I would have considered myself in the clear.

Sunday Maria was negative, so Julie and I both took our first tests. Julie was negative, but I wasn't.

People have been great, but I felt a twinge when getting recommendations to take Paxlovid.

Maria had a video appointment the day after she tested positive, and her PA recommended against it. The reasons given were that Maria's health was overall good, and the PA said that with Paxlovid people tend to get really bad diarrhea and then catch Covid again a couple of weeks later. 

Internet research (not a perfect system) seems to bear out that Covid rebound is a thing with Paxlovid, but diarrhea seems to be more of a Covid thing than a Paxlovid thing. I would take that with a grain of salt. My real issue is that I suspect I had it earlier than I thought. 

That made me feel that I was irresponsible in waiting to test. The problem was, we didn't have that many left. I have ordered more free tests, and we bought more too, but we did not feel free to just keep testing. If I had at least tested on Friday, I could have gotten a hold of my doctor.

Of course I didn't have the fever, but did I have symptoms?

Well, I work in a call center for Medicare plans and it's open enrollment. High call volume always makes my throat raw, and this is the busiest time of year. So, some coughing and sore throat did not stand out. When the calls keep coming, with no time to think in between and then the tools slow down because everyone is using them and I really care and often I can really help but then there are old people who are really lonely or cranky... I start getting this rage building up inside me. Then, my brain is fried by the end of the shift where I can't really read or be social, but it is still too worked up to fall asleep easily.

When your baseline is exhausted, hoarse, and constantly suppressing urges to scream and cry and run away, maybe checking for symptoms loses some of its efficacy.

I might have been sneezing more.

That's why I was relying so much on the temperature, but Maria had just gotten her most recent Covid booster Wednesday night, whereas I'd had mine a few weeks before. Individual immune response can vary, but that may have played a factor as well.

The point is, if you are supposed to take the Paxlovid within five days of symptoms, I was probably too late. I felt better Sunday than I had Saturday, but I had also had an extra day off the phone (which Monday ruined).

So, there are problems there, with my job situation, the national health care situation -- in terms of there even being an insurance industry and the cost and availability of tests -- and the plight of the elderly. that may have made it harder for me to handle everything correctly. 

On the plus side, I am fully vaccinated which probably eased my symptoms, I can telecommute, and I have just had Covid without missing a day of work or exposing any coworkers. We still have to hope Julie stays safe, but we work on opposite sides of the house, which I hope will help.

And I have a big box of KN95 masks.

My goal is still to get two negative tests before heading out into public again, or eating with my family and things like that, but the time frame has shifted.

I remember so many times people saying "We are all going to get COVID", and I was mad at that nihilism. I wanted to beat the odds.

Maria is very sorry.

We are still here.

Transgender Awareness Reading: For younger readers

There was one thing I kept noticing as I read the memoirs; it always seemed to be around the age of four that the difference was noticed.

Sometimes the writer had very clear memories, and sometimes it came from parents or grandparents, but the age was very consistent.

Adding to that this refrain from Believe Me, about knowing but not knowing the words.

It is very hard to feel that something about yourself is wrong, and to not understand. I don't want anyone to go through that.

Because of that, I like that there are both children's books and books geared more toward teens:

My Princess Boy by Cheryl Kilodavis, Suzanne DeSimone
I Am Jazz by Jessica Herthel, Jazz Jennings, Shelagh McNicholas

Laverne Cox (Little People, Big Dreams, 86) by Maria Isabel Sánchez Vegara and Olivia Daisy Coles

Laverne Cox (Transgender Pioneers) by Erin Staley

The two on Laverne Cox are parts of series that cover many people. With I Am Jazz and My Princess Boy, those are coming out of family experience, but they are different experiences.

Jazz is very much a girl. It appears that the princess boy is not, he simply likes dressing in princess clothes. Maybe that will change as he gets older. One thing that we have frequently seen with the adults is that they reveal themselves in stages, perhaps testing the waters and seeing if they can be accepted.

We can do a lot to remove those concerns by being accepting and making that information available.

The common conservative objection is that you don't want to give them ideas. I know they hate changing their minds based on the lived experiences of others, but that lived experience demonstrates clearly that it does not come from them being given ideas. No amount of ignorance is going to keep someone from knowing. 

I did wonder how much of it is cultural. It seems clear that the gender identity is already present before four years old, but that is where they begin noticing and remembering the mismatch. I looked up the case of Dominican children where male primary sex organs did not develop until puberty, due to an enzyme deficiency:

https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34290981

They did not explore that part a lot, but it appears the real age of conflict there was five, not a big difference.

I can't help but think that if we did not put so much emphasis on conformity to gender norms -- which is very wrapped up in patriarchy and misogyny -- we could make everyone's life easier. It would not change their gender identity; it would just help them navigate things better, and make decisions that would make their life easier.

That's worth a lot.

We need lots and lots of books.

Related posts:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2022/12/read-loveless-and-gender-queer.html 

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2023/11/transgender-awareness-reading.html

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2023/11/transgender-awareness-reading-memoirs.html

Procrastination

One week later, my e-mail is down to 205, a net reduction of 25. 

The part about the mail backlog was really just context for why I was looking at those particular passages. As I wrote about it, and about making peace with the levels and means of connection, it felt like there was more there, and more that was relevant.

One source accounts for most of the backlog,the Indian Country Today newsletter. The oldest message is from July 6th, 2021, and there are generally two to three messages a week. 

It was easy to procrastinate reading them. I am usually rushed. That particular oldest message comes from a time when I was applying for jobs, getting hired, training... I mean, it makes sense if that's where I started losing track.

It's not all them; I recently went through all of my old Southern Poverty Law Center updates. The reason I did not finish them at the time I got them was because they usually linked to new reports or studies with more reading, and I wanted to give those adequate time. I now tend to think that just skimming would have been fine, and better than reading so much later.

In the things that I am working with now Marie Kondo has been a great help, but we are not completely aligned on saving things for later. She says that in general if you don't read something when you get it, then you are not going to, or possibly that if it is for a later time, it will reappear. 

I think that is true for a lot of people, but with my stubborn wish to know and understand everything, I will make myself get to things, and often I will enjoy it then.

Being able to let things go is a part of this process, and I will spend more time on that. 

This post is more about my tendency to dread things, and then delay them.

Catching up on these letters has been good. I have learned a lot. I am working backwards, so sometimes it is interesting seeing the earlier context, sometimes I don't need it, and sometimes it is more frustrating.

For example, I just read an article about protests on the refusal to search two landfills. This was from February, and I was still reading about the landfill issue in August. As far as I know, there is still no search. That is only one part of the overall Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women issue.

As that backlog was growing (it did briefly top 500), I did keep thinking that maybe there wasn't even a point in going back; that I should just commit to moving forward. I couldn't feel right about that.

I did start making a point of reading the new updates on the day they came in. That may have helped take away some of the apprehension about getting to the old ones. It was possible to keep up; it could be possible to catch up.

I had made a few attempts here and there, but they didn't stick.

As Native American Heritage Month was approaching, I started reading one message per day in October, then two per day in November, working backwards one month at a time. If in the process I encounter another old e-mail that I know is part of a trend (like SPLC), I go through those.

It isn't trying to do too much, and it is doing something.

Procrastination can have some ridiculous hangups behind it, that are not easily overcome. Once you start getting past it, though, it can be very gratifying, and make other obstacles appear smaller.

Looking forward to the pockets of permaculture and guitar messages!

Transgender Awareness Reading: The memoirs

I tried thinking of the best path to say the most important things to say. I am not sure this one is perfect, but for this post I am going to go over the memoirs in the order of least-liked to most, always keeping in mind that tastes vary.

Fairest by Meredith Talusan

One thing that I would like to read more about, and I don't really see it discussed much, is how much gender conditioning affects people. For example, does someone assigned female at birth still -- even after transitioning -- feel that compulsion to apologize and play nice that is hounded into women. 

While the influences are strongly cultural, Talusan was born in the Philippines as an oldest (for several years only) son, and was also albino, causing her to look white. There was a lot of doting on and spoiling by the grandmother. While there were definite sources of pain beyond gender identity, there is an extent to which Talusan is often really selfish and inconsiderate, and not a great child or friend. There are things I really sympathize with, and things that are not her fault, but this is ultimately why I didn't really enjoy the time spent in her book. Still interesting.

This was the only one I really didn't like, and the next two were pretty equal, where I am not sure about the rank.

Believe Me: A Memoir of Love, Death, and Jazz Chickens by Eddie Izzard (now going by Suzy Izzard)

If you enjoy Izzard's humor, with a lot of tangents and circling back, you should enjoy this book. I didn't mind that part so much, except it seems to require more repetition. 

A bigger factor for me was the certainty of rightness, which kept getting repeated, especially for Izzard's certainty that there is no God. I mean, I disagree, but over and over and over again. I appreciate that she still believes in kindness, and there are some amazing goals achieved, but at the same time it just gets a little tiresome.

She tells a story about a class where they had to impersonate each other, with the imitation of her being something like "blah blah blah theater, blah blah blah design" so perhaps she is at peace with it.

Because this book was written before Izzard clarified her name and pronouns, I also can't help wondering what difference that time has made, and if there might be some more relaxation, and less need to demonstrate authority. Perhaps we'll see.

Pageboy by Elliot Page 

The thing that made this book hard for me -- and this is not a reason not to read it -- is that there was so much exploitation and victimization of a young actor. That includes sexual exploitation, but there is some racism and dangerous stunts on the set of the Flatliners remake that were very frustrating. I read Maureen Ryan's Burn It Down earlier this year, so I shouldn't even be surprised at the Flatliners stuff, but the amount of creepy adults preying on minors and very young adults... it was just hard, and the knowledge that it can be and has been worse does not make it better.

Love That Story: Observations From A Gorgeously Queer Life by Jonathan Van Ness

This one is kind of not really a memoir, but a collection of stories after a memoir. Actually, I am not sure the other book is a full memoir, but being on reality shows may also make someone feel like there is more known, and less that needs to be explained. 

Regardless, the things Van Ness does write about are laid out with honestly and emotion, and it does make me want to read the first book. Lots of enthusiasm and tangents, often with gymnastics references, so Van Ness might be kind of tiring too, like Izzard, but differently.

Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More by Janet Mock

This is again one where I want to read the other book, but this book does cover the journey; I am just interested in what else she has to say.

I think compared to the others mentioned so far, Mock may have a greater analysis and understanding of her entire process.

Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography by Christine Jorgensen

I think I like Christine's personality most, but there are two other things that I believe make her story very valuable. 

One is that with her transition happening so early, there is a lot about the processes various doctors went through to try and make sure that it was reasonable to do the hormone supplements and then the surgery and that all of this could be good for her. It was interesting to see how much more energy she had after starting estrogen. I am not sure whether there was a hormonal imbalance for her as she was born that it corrected, or it as the relief in being able to become herself, but this was good for her. 

The other factor is that often in the other cases there is some tragedy or abuse or disconnect or something where transphobes are likely to point at that as an explanation for their being trans. That's not how it works, but those factors aren't present in Christine's life. She had a very happy childhood and a supportive family, but she was also always a girl.

Welcome to St. Hell: My Trans Teen Misadventure by Lewis Hancox

This one is separate from the normal ranking because it is a graphic novel, though in many ways it can function as a memoir. The focus really is on the gender disconnect, and then on being able to connect. This may be one of the better ones for showing the value of the blockers, because puberty is rough.

More next Friday.

Connected

It's been a little over a year.

I have a tendency to hold on to e-mail messages for a long time, even if I have replied. Maybe I need to write more, or act on it, or it would just be something good to remember. Even though I have a perfectly good "saved" folder, I am more likely to see it in my inbox.

That does seem to be less true when the amount of e-mail goes past 500.

It is down to 230 now.

The current layer included some messages that related to the fear of Twitter going away. 

I am set up to get an e-mail notification when I get a direct message. There really weren't that many messages from that, but I remember it was part of a bigger trend where I thanked people for ways they influenced me, promised to read their books, told them how much I appreciated them...

Mostly it was tweets, but there were a few direct messages and some replies.

Twitter is still here. Sure, they pretend it is called "X" and the button for "retweet" now says "repost", but the site is still twitter.com. Maybe that will be the next change.

There have been many changes, and none of them have been for the better. There are definitely more racists, and the ad insertions are a lot more intrusive. I don't send direct messages anymore because to receive them I have to receive direct messages from any blue check; that seemed like a bad idea since blue checks are the kind of people who think giving an egomaniacal emerald heir money makes them friends. I probably could still send messages to people who follow me, but if I can't see their replies, what's the point?

I don't think the algorithm is working in my favor at all, so I don't know that people really see my tweets. A lot of people that I liked are gone anyway.

Also, a lot of people have become a lot worse. That was something that was happening all along, where I would think someone was pretty cool and insightful, and then would slowly become disillusioned. That's happened with more people, but I don't blame that on Twitter so much as just the world (and dominator culture).

I had decided sometime ago that I don't have it in me to start on a new social media site, and I am sticking to that. The way I came to the Twitter I liked was so much a path that could not have been predicted but worked out so well... it couldn't be recreated. That wouldn't matter if I were optimistic about something else being created that would be worth the effort, but I don't feel drawn toward any of that.

I do sometimes think of increasing my participation on one of the other sites that I am on: posting on Tumblr again, doing more on Facebook, or maybe even installing Instagram on my phone so I could actually post. 

For now, that remains a "no". At the same time, as I sort through old e-mails and files and things, who knows where that winnowing will lead?

It is meaningful to me that a year later, I have heard from people I have met through Twitter, but been contacted via e-mail and Facebook. As important as a platform can be for connecting, no platform is the only means of connecting.

There are much more valuable aspects of Twitter for new and organization and activism that have been damaged.

However, I am still stubbornly sticking it out. At this point I am hoping someone will seize the platform from that guy, and maybe it can be good again.

Transgender Awareness reading

It is Transgender Awareness Week. 

Apparently someone asked for suggested books in their comments and posted the responses, then was criticized for transmisogyny due to what was missing from the list. Apparently the small account didn't get diverse enough replies.

On one level, you probably have someone being ridiculous, but possibly that hypersensitivity is based on historical exclusion; that's why I am not linking to any of it. I could not find the initial list, so that poster may have meant well and then been hounded into deleting. I feel bad about that.

However, I was going to post about the books I read today, and how I got there, and now it is posting my own list and in a timely manner! 

It started with a school board candidate telling lies:

https://preparedspork.blogspot.com/2023/05/do-they-know-or-care-that-they-are-lying.html

My Princess Boy by Cheryl Kilodavis, Suzanne DeSimone

Love That Story: Observations From A Gorgeously Queer Life by Jonathan Van Ness

I posted about those books that I had been meaning to read, but the transphobic attitudes of the authors was putting me off.

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2023/10/terf-month.html 

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2023/11/whatever-joanne.html 

Well, here were two books that could act as counterweights, but only two, and one was a children's book and the author of the other was non-binary, not technically transgender... what else?

I first thought of Laverne Cox and Janet Mock. That led me to a few books.

Laverne Cox (Little People, Big Dreams, 86) by Maria Isabel Sánchez Vegara and Olivia Daisy Coles

Laverne Cox (Transgender Pioneers) by Erin Staley

Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More by Janet Mock

I saw that Elliot Page's book was out, and then wondered about Suzy Izzard, and there was a book! 

Believe Me: A Memoir of Love, Death, and Jazz Chickens by Eddie Izzard

Pageboy by Elliot Page

There was another book, Brazen, that I didn't love, but it reminded me of Christine Jorgensen, and that she had written an autobiography. Score!

Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography by Christine Jorgensen

The other books that I read were kind of found by accident, but those are accidents that happen because you are looking up the books that you know exist, and other books related in some way or another appear. 

(With Fairest I was literally looking up something cooking related, but they had the same last name. Less probable, but it still worked.)

I Am Jazz by Jessica Herthel, Jazz Jennings, Shelagh McNicholas

Welcome to St. Hell: My Trans Teen Misadventure by Lewis Hancox

Fairest by Meredith Talusan

So there are eleven books I have read, at a variety of reading levels and I think with a decent amount of representation. I'm sure there is room for criticism, but it is a start; everyone has to start somewhere.

Also, a book I am reading now, Men as Women, Women as Men: Changing Gender in Native American Cultures, is on topic, but technically I am reading it for Native American Heritage Month.  

It is also very much an anthropology book, with the first few chapters about terminology and research methods, so it's not going to be to everyone's taste. I enjoy the memoirs more, but other types of books round things out.

Allow me also to mention some other books.

Alternate Channels: The Uncensored Story of Gay and Lesbian Images on Radio and Television, 1930s to the Present by Steven Capsuto

I made sure to finish reading this one before I wrote about Barney Miller, because I learned about it through a video on one of the episodes, but it does not look like I really wrote about it then. 

It was an interesting read, though mainly about cisgender gay issues. It did mention though, as we got to television stories about AIDS, about how the dramas portrayed the choice as between family acceptance or dying alone, ignoring the community support that existed. That made me want to read another book:

And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic

Again, that is primarily cisgender-related, though there are some transgender people who pop up.

Non-fiction books tend to open up new doors anyway. In addition, I saw that both Jonathan Van Ness and Janet Mock had other books. In the case of Van Ness, I think the other book would have fit in better, but hey, my reading started with a lying school board candidate, and that was the book that he mentioned. I don't regret reading Love That Story, but I think I need to read more.

So, at some point next year, I know I will be reading... 

Over the Top: A Raw Journey to Self-Love by Jonathan Van Ness
Surpassing Certainty: What My Twenties Taught Me by Janet Mock

as well as...

When We Rise by Cleve Jones
In the Form of a Questions: The Joys and Rewards of a Curious Life by Amy Schneider

I also know I will want to read more about Marsha P Johnson and Sylvia Rivera. I don't know what those books will be yet, but I am confident I will find something, because sometimes it doesn't even take that much effort to have more books come.

I will write more about these books, but for now, if you want to do more reading, I hope these options help.

Related posts:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2022/12/read-loveless-and-gender-queer.html

Grace notes

I've had two nice things happen recently.

For starters, I got to order Chipotle.

One of the things that I am not proud of -- back when I was caring for our mother full-time -- is that sometimes the thought of having to come up with what to make for dinner and then do it one more time would bring me to tears.

A big part of that is an executive function overload, which is why planning meals out several days in advance can help. Sometimes, though, you just need a break.

Working again and starting to catch up, I had started periodically ordering in, about once a month. I would order multiple things to make the delivery fee less outrageous and so I would have leftovers, but it allowed me to try different things and get that break.

Once the garnishment started, I couldn't justify it. Even if the money were there so it were technically possible, there were always more important things. 

I just really wanted Chipotle. Especially the chips and salsa. I haven't ordered in since August, before this all started.

It was embarrassing how much I wanted it. It's not like I am not ever eating or getting things that I like or going out. It was one specific thing that I was not getting, but also it was representing that I can't just do whatever I want, and I used to have more freedom in that way.

When Julie paid her rent, she gave me an extra $40 so I could do that. 

I still wasn't going to order, because there are so many places to put that money. I did anyway, because she wanted that for me, and it was good.  

I think I can go another three months now.

In addition, I have recently had two people reach out to me.

I have been reaching out more myself, but these were both from when I was kind of adopting depressed teenage girls. That is such a bad way of describing it, but there's not an efficient explanation that is not overly complicated.

Back in 2013 somehow I was finding hurting young women through Twitter, and just trying to be encouraging and supportive, and help. That's been enough time for most of them to be adults and have jobs, maybe have finished school, and most of them are long past those crises. The two who reached out aren't even on Twitter anymore.

They still remembered me and thought of me. 

Sometimes you are just in someone's life for a while, and that can be perfectly fine. 

Sometimes it is good to hear back.

Whatever, Joanne

The other "TERF" part of TERF month is that I needed to finish the Harry Potter series.

Well, "needed" is a strong word. 

I don't really remember the dates, but I think I read the first five between 2002 and 2008, based on which movies I saw and that I had already read them by the time I got onto Goodreads. I periodically picked up a $1 used copy at Powell's, at least for the first three. The last two were more expensive, but still definitely used.

I planned on getting to the last two, but they weren't a priority. Then Rowling started approaching her current form, and I had less interest.

Still, I like completion. I figured I would probably do it. She kept shooting off her mouth, and there are so many other things to read!

I read Timothy Snyder's On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century at the end of 2017. It mentioned potentially reading the last book of the series for inspiration. Okay, maybe I would get to it, but I would just check them out from the library. Still not enough motivation.

Then my sister gave me the last two books. She was trying to be nice, but they have been annoying me in my room for at least a couple of years now.

Okay, I was just going to put all of the TERF work together and get it over with. It was still hard to bring myself to do it, because they are so long, and I was just not looking forward to it.

Having it done is a relief.

I get why Snyder recommended it. With the underground radio and papers and the things that people need to do to resist, including choices about when safety is more important, or less... it is relevant and I believe that was especially a recommendation for younger people.

Some of my irritation with the moodiness, impatience, and lack of rationality about these teenagers is certainly related to me being an older person. Grow up and quit sulking!

I remember once in a movie review for the 1996 Emma, a bit about how it can be hard to have a character be annoying where you get that they are annoying, but that it does not take you out of the movie with your own annoyance.

I think Rowling is not a great writer with that, being overly repetitive to convey how hard it is for everyone. There are ways to change it each time to show growth and development, and there is also sometimes trusting the readers that they will get that it is hard. Theoretically there is also still listening to editors even though you are super successful and famous, because you can also get too full of yourself.

I think both Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows could be 200 pages shorter and be better for it.

It's not that they are terrible, either. Some of the passages are thrilling and there is some great imagination. 

However, knowing how Rowling has not only being ardently transphobic but pretty ableist and not being able to unsee the fatphobia once becoming aware of it...  I don't like her.

For this particular literary opinion, there will be people who agree and people who are aghast, and that's fine. Similarly, I had really expected to like A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but I kind of hated it. The reason that I kind of hated it was that I felt this contempt for humanity in it. 

Sure, there are legitimate reasons for that contempt, but I can't give into it. I tend not to admire works filled with it.

It was not a surprise to find that here. The scene early on where Dudley is saying goodbye to Harry and starting to feel things and Harry is such a jerk about it is a good example. You are supposed to agree with Harry, because this is Dudley, but it's like there is this latent cruelty. Of course the author is someone who is going to target the marginalized and feel righteous.

Next week I will get into the transphile books. One of the authors mentioned waiting at the bookstore at midnight when a new book was going to be launched. What a letdown! I'm sorry for those who have been let down. I'm just kind of "Meh."

(I can't be passionate about everything. Probably.)

However, I must make clear that the reason this is a separate post from the other TERF works is because there is a vast difference between the quality of the work and the quality of the feminism. Rowling is not a radical feminist and I don't think much of a feminist in general and certainly not one to have much to teach about equality. (Which is perhaps not surprising for someone who wrote a whole "chosen one" narrative.)

I have my disappointments with Alice Walker, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and Caroline Criado Pérez, but they are in a whole different league.

Of course Joanne has more money. That is no guarantee of quality, as has been demonstrated again and again.

Buffy

This may be more of a rant than I prefer.

Friday I briefly mentioned gatekeeping in reference to choosing what songs to feature for a heritage month. 

In fact, there have been issues with groups that could easily have common interests being divided for feelings of superiority or fear or resentment or something that doesn't help.

Going back further, I wrote back in January about attacks on the authenticity of various Native Americans, and that I'd heard they were coming for Buffy Sainte-Marie next:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2023/01/native-american-identity-for-white.html 

They did it.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/02/buffy-sainte-marie-documentary-controversy-indigenous-canada 

There are a few things that make this more of a rant than a cogent explanation of the problems.

The first is probably my disgust with how many people are just automatically accepting it.

Recently I wrote about how the internet -- including many Canadians -- rode to the defense of Martin Short when someone called him annoying. 

https://preparedspork.blogspot.com/2023/10/all-coming-back.html

I thought this would be the same, because so many people love Buffy. 

So many people turned against her so quickly.

Sometimes personal jealousy appears to have been a factor, like people who lost awards to her, because obviously it should have been theirs. 

Other times I don't know the motive, though I hope they notice that they are being joined by terrible people also crowing about "hoaxes" relating to boarding schools and missing women.

Here is one of the other things that make me angrier. One poster pointed out that they started the attacks on Sacheen Littlefeather close to the start of Native American Heritage month too. I had not thought of that at the time. 

Yeah, that doesn't seem like an accident.

Of course, as far as Jacqueline Keeler is concerned (she was not acting alone this time), you don't have to wait for any specific month; her attacks on Killers of the Flower Moon star Lily Gladstone were back in April.

https://twitter.com/mariahgladstone/status/1658887551212716034 

I can't help but think it might be more beneficial to look into someone like Oklahoma governor Kevin Stitt, who holds current political power and is not necessarily using it well.

https://apnews.com/oklahoma-governors-tribal-fight-raises-ancestry-questions-61f53c6a2094c89f90b1a4190f08a7db

People definitely have questions about Lakota Man, who seems like he might be trying to be the Native Shaun King.

But no, these attacks have been on a dead woman, a retired woman, and a young actress at an exciting time in her career.

Certainly, there may be times when there are questions. Buffy Sainte-Marie may have been lied to about her heritage, but I do not believe she lied. 

https://twitter.com/BuffySteMarie/status/1717609253199127019 

The irritating things is that so many times they have said that it is not whom you claim, but who claims you, and that DNA is not the point, but now there are all the calls for DNA tests. In fact Buffy has been claimed by the Piapot and has deep ties to them, so shouldn't that settle it?

Why be consistent when you can be spiteful instead?

Reading about this, I discovered a new term: paper genocide. It refers to the destruction of documents and records to erase history and culture. 

There are issues with tracking down who was stolen and who was adopted and why those words may both belong to the same person. 

There is a lot of good that could be done in trying to restore family connections that were lost over time, in both Canada and the United States.

There could be a lot of healing to be done, but I can't see that Keeler has any interest than that. 

Instead she attacks women of color -- even though she is one -- and she goes to estranged relatives and lies to them. Even that she questions the abuse of survivor, taking the perpetrator's word for it, without doing anything to mitigate or help or care...

I don't expect anything good from her.

I was surprised and disgusted that so many people accepted it, but working with the CBC --even with a sleazier side of it -- seemed to help. 

At least they got their highest ratings ever.

La Raza Heritage Month Daily Songs

I interrupt my writing on TERF month and the counter-programming because I finished something musically and I want to write about it now.

You may recall that I have struggled with what to call the time period running from September 15th through October 15th. As I was reading the books for that month, they focused on the issues with the names too. I can't promise it will stick, but this month I am using La Raza.

What does that mean? Well, really, they are Indigenous people living in areas of the Americas originally colonized by Spain (and Portugal?). The distinction is language, but of course racially there is a lot of mixing, and there are many different cultures there, not all of which relates to United States history.

I was thinking about those different cultures within the US specifically, and got this idea to do different regions.

Even then it's messy. I don't think "Chicano" has ever been specified as located in California, but primarily US residents of Mexican heritage. I focused on Californians because if you keep heading East from the Pacific, you find Tejanos.

Without it necessarily being fair, I left out Linda Ronstadt because she was born in Arizona. 

I started late, but gave eight days each (for a month of 32 days) to those two, plus Cuban-Americans (focusing on Miami) and Nuyoricans. 

I debated whether that should be Nuyoricans or just Puerto Ricans, from wherever, but I liked the fairly strict definition and it was my favorite music. (Due to the country influence, the Tejano was my least favorite.)

The confusion about whom to include -- and the potential exclusion -- spreads. Oscar Isaac is a Latino musician from Miami. I reviewed Blinking Underdogs in 2016, but he's Guatemalan, right? Maternally yes, but his father is Cuban, perhaps making his presence in Miami make more sense, but people from all over end up all over.

Other musicians that I did not use included B'Real, Irene Cara, and Rudy Sarzo. You could argue against using Rage Against the Machine, because really that was only for Zach de la Rocha. 

This is not the ultimate list, but the list I used this time.

As I get into the books in a few weeks, we may return to the problems of gatekeeping. For now, I think my answer is rotation. Zoom in on specifics and differences, then zoom back out on commonalities, and remember there is always more.

There were a few breaks due to travel, and then a few days filled in with songs relating to a concert I saw (Billy Idol), a book I read (Up, Up and Away by Billy Davis Jr. and Marilyn McCoo), and a show I was watching (Daria). Then, since we were close to Halloween, two songs about relationships with a dangerous edge.

Chicanx
9/23 “Born in East LA” by Cheech Marin
9/24 “Testify” by Rage Against the Machine
9/25 “Donna” by Ritchie Valens
9/26 “Risk It” by Alice Bag
9/27 “Don't Push Me Around” by The Zeros
9/28 “Tu Historia” by Julieta Venegas
9/29 “En Realidad” by Angela Aguilar
9/30 “Blue Sofa” by The Plugz

Tejanx
10/1 “Lemon Tree” by Trini Lopez
10/2 “Volver, Volver” by Piñata Protest
10/3 “Bidi Bidi Bom Bom” by Selena
10/4 “I Can't Stop Loving You” by Freddy Fender
10/5 “Estas Tocando Fuego” by La Mafia
10/6 “Wolves” by Selena Gomez
10/7 “Dance With Me” by Los Lonely Boys
10/8 “Quedate” by Emilio Navaira

Cuban-American
10/9 “Get On Your Feet” by Gloria Estefan
10/10 “Feel This Moment” by Pitbull feat Christina Aguilera
10/11 “Voices In My Head” by Al Jourgensen
10/12 “Cuban Pete” by Desi Arnaz
10/13 “Just Another Day” by Jon Secada
10/14 “My Old Friend” by Beato Band
10/15 “Un Nuevo Amanecer” by Angela Alvarez
10/16 “Yo Viviré” by Celia Cruz

Nuyorican
10/17 “Oye Como Va” by Tito Puente
10/18 “El Watusi” by Ray Barretto
10/19 “Mr. Trumpet Man” by Richie Ray and Bobby Cruz
10/20 “Pa La Ocho Tambo” by Charlie and Eddie Palmieri
10/21 “Bang Bang” by Joe Cuba
10/22 “Idilio” by Willie Colón
10/23 “Pa Que Se Lo Gozen” by Tego Calderon
10/24 “Believe In Me” by Circa '95

10/26 “Save Me Now” by Billy Idol
10/27 “Up, Up and Away” by The 5th Dimension

10/29 “You're Standing On My Neck” by Splendora
10/30 “Maneater” by Hall & Oates
10/31 “Shoorah! Shoorah!” by Betty Wright