What do you think?

My sisters and I once figured out we have a tendency to over-explain things, which we attribute to having a father who would always take things wrong. You had to be the bad guy in any disagreement.

I am also aware of many circumstances in my youth where I did not have the right words to understand and explain myself in a situation. It would be frustrating and it's why I write about things so much now. Realistically, those were people being toxic anyway and more concise language probably wouldn't have helped. That doesn't change my need to figure things out.

The day after the harassment and assault, I ran into Matt again. I literally have no memories of seeing any of them in school again, except once seeing Steve and the he looked really run-down - like the other person I have seen looking like that had a drug addiction spiraling out of control - but I am not even sure that they all didn't move away. However, that day I saw Matt, and I asked him something.

I don't remember exactly how I phrased it. I wanted to know if all of that meant anything. An apology could have been nice. Because his main thing had been asking me a hundred times to go steady with him, and because I had shouted "Yes" to get him to go away, it came out as mainly a question of whether we were going steady.

I may not remember how I asked, but I remember his answer really clearly: "What do you think?"

I didn't have the words to answer, but I can come up with a few now.

I think you just reinforced that no boys could ever sincerely like me. Maybe I have been afraid of that all along, but having it confirmed is tearing me apart inside. Can you please tell me I am wrong about that?

I think that I was at a table with other nerdy girls (and some others were overweight), and that you only picking on me means that somehow there was something worse about me - something less attractive and more repulsive and less eligible for any kindness, and I have never stopped believing that.

I think it's interesting that it happened on a day when we didn't have any boys at the table. Is that why it happened? If we were clearly marked as someone else's territory we could eat in peace? Some of the boys in my social group were real jerks, but if they were also protection maybe  I should have appreciated them for that.

I think it was stupid of me to say "yes" to get you to go away. I should have let the teacher handle you coming in and disrupting the room, but I was so embarrassed that I couldn't think straight. Then again, I think that it sucks that when my friends and I were laughing together that the teacher on cafeteria duty that day told us to pipe down and be considerate of other people, but that no one had a problem with what you were doing.

I think that in that school there were at least fifty boys that I thought were cute, and there were boys in my classes that were smart, and there were boys that I talked to that were nice, and there were probably even some that were all three, so I can't understand why my most significant interaction had to be with you.

I think it's pathetic that there was nothing more interesting to you that you even have time to pick on someone.

I think I'd like to know that the problem really was you, but at least one of you got married and had children, and I never did, so I'm afraid I that am the pathetic one. And I think I'm pathetic that I got so scarred from this when it meant nothing to you.

But I didn't have the words then. I didn't even know how deeply it had affected me then. I didn't figure that out until much later.

So I swallowed it up inside and tried not to think about it. I became good at sarcasm, which doesn't require any depth or understanding, but it doesn't fix anything either.

My sexual assault

There are two problems with the title.

It implies that there was only one. That's not true. This one isn't even the worst, really, though that gets us into the other problem.

I have a hard time calling it a sexual assault. I have given many excuses for that: it wasn't really that bad, it was just teasing that got out of hand, it could have been much worse. If you don't think it should be considered a sexual assault, pretty much any reason you have for it is one I have thought of and justified.

But it doesn't work. If it happened to someone else, I would not minimize it. Happening to me, it had a huge impact. It changed the way I saw myself and the world and how I interacted with the world in ways that are still issues.

I was in junior high and leaving school. It was after school had gotten out, so there was less supervision. Steve came up to me and ripped my shirt open. I assume the next stop would have been my breasts, because they were always the preferred destination. He did not get any farther, because I at least had good reflexes and kneed him right away. He laughed, but he also stopped. I snapped my shirt back up and kept going.

Usually that story focuses more on the harassment that had been happening at lunch. Jason asked me to go with him, and I ignored it, then Matt started repeating the question and wouldn't stop, following me to my next class. Steve was just egging them on at that point. The other two were there when Steve came for my shirt.

I have always focused on the verbal part because that was where the big lesson came from - if a guy is acting like he likes me, it's a joke. But there was another lesson with it, with that second part. It taught me that a guy doesn't have to like you to want to get under your shirt. It meant that the joke could be dangerous.

I think to fully deal with this, I need to refer to three conversations, and one event, so we'll be doing this tomorrow, Monday, and Tuesday as well.

The one conversation was short anyway, and it was that Jason didn't remember any of this. That was after a Facebook friend request decades later. He felt bad when I reminded him, especially because he has a daughter now, but it was not the milestone for them that it was for me.

Dealing with the legacy of that is part of any growth I hope to make, but there are several things that have me thinking of it more.

A lot of my writing about the Trump campaign focused on the racism, but there was a lot of sexism too, peaking with the release of the Access Hollywood tape. I posted on Facebook reminding people to be sensitive, because defending bragging about assault as something all guys do can be kind of hard on survivors. A lot of women liked it, some of whom I knew had personal reasons, and some of whom I found out later had those same personal reasons. I suspect that there are still more events that I don't know about.

There was also this blog post about how depression is not always strictly chemical:

http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2016/09/its-not-binary.html

I have carried some of those stories with me for a long time, but it was only putting them together that I saw the common thread: the women had all been sexually abused when young. There is an unspecified number in one group, but it's a lot.

Also there were two questions asked on Twitter by two different people, asking women about their assaults. Because they were phrased differently, they brought different things to mind. That is why I had to realize there was more than one, but it was also where I saw that they both quickly got hundreds of responses. Do you sometimes doubt those statistics about how many women get assaulted, and how many get raped? I wish they were inflated.

So the title is important. This happened and it mattered. I am acknowledging that and I am letting myself be angry about that. And I know I blogged recently about how anger isn't helpful as a long term strategy, which is still true, but it can still be important to feel and know that something is unjust. No matter who else believes in my value, I need to, and this really hurt me.

"Baby It's Cold Outside" and Consent

I will be going to a really dark place with tomorrow's post, and there will be at least a few more building on it. I didn't want to go right there without warning. Today's post is to intended to move us in that direction but give a little buffer.

I have seen arguments that "Baby, It's Cold Outside" is rape-y, and counter-arguments that at the time it was written it was clearly about a couple conspiring to flout society's rules and do what both of them wanted. Obviously the song is intended to be light-hearted, but that doesn't mean that the criticisms aren't valid.

Now I'm going to bring in a sketch from a conservative show. I'm sure I could find the clip, but I don't want to give it any recognition. They were mocking the process of teaching about consent by calling everything "rape", including a guy just asking the girl if they could have sex. Ridiculous, obviously, but also completely missing the point of what they were mocking. This happens a lot.

Here is a quote from Rush Limbaugh:

"The left will promote and understand and tolerate anything, as long as there is one element. Do you know what it is? Consent. If there is consent on both or all three or all four, however many are involved in the sex act, it's perfectly fine. But if the left ever senses and smells that there's no consent in part of the equation then here come the rape police."

My first thought is to tell Rush that the rape police are the regular police, but given the statistics we know about reporting, prosecution, and conviction, okay. What is more to the point is how he subtly uses condemnation of immorality to sidestep the fact that if one party in the sex act doesn't want to be there, that is a problem. This happens a lot.

This is where we bring in one of the books from the Long Reading List: Slut!: Growing Up Female with a Bad Reputation, by Leora Tanenbaum.

It wasn't a revelation like some of the other books. It was more that it fit into things that I already saw, though with many horrible examples to drive it home.

The slut label is a form of social control. It can be used to by men against women, but it is also used by women against women. One interesting aspect was in how many of the examples, the label came either because of a sexual assault, or because someone told a lie to get revenge. I do not accept a morality where lying for revenge and tormenting victims is superior to people choosing to have sex and then doing so. If their morality had any righteous base, there wouldn't be the double standard where behavior that is applauded in men is punished in women.

So let's go back to the hypothetical couple in the song, and assume that there is equal physical desire, but one of them is held back by social pressure concerns. This includes the anticipation of pressure from all family members. A respectful partner could listen to those concerns and address them, but the song just keeps changing the suspect. I would like a greater level of consideration from my potential partner - especially if the sacrifice is all on my side.

The song makes it all seem like a joke, and the sketch makes it all seem like a joke, but there are real issues there. Just by setting up an eternal conflict where men are expected to pursue sex and women are expected to decline the offer even though they really want it, then it becomes very easy for men to not take the "No!" seriously, and they can keep going and not feel like they did anything wrong. Hence the man may not feel like a rapist - he was just being a guy - but it is rape.

There is not always physical coercion or drugging, but often there is emotional pressure, where a woman may agree even though she doesn't want to. She may do this to preserve a relationship in which she is not respected but because she believes that is normal. She may give in because of guilt, or a feeling that she should never disappoint anyone. There can be a lot of reasons where a "no" that is not respected becomes a "yes". It does not stop the "yes" from being regretted. She let herself down. She surrendered, and put someone else above herself. This can lead to a lot of things, including self-loathing.

It was calling those situations rape that the sketch mocked, but no one is calling them rape. They still belong in a conversation about consent, because it matters. It matters for people to know that they have a right to refuse, and it matters for people to know that others have a right to refuse and that the only appropriate response to that is acceptance. If the types of confusion tend to mainly fall along specific gender lines, there's a lot of tradition that goes with that. It is not tradition that should be respected.

Some men only think about this when they have daughters, and realize that their girls' will now be in the position of all of those other girls. Their standard response is often a hyper-masculine threat to any potential evildoers, because they have guns and shovels available. It's not practical based on the many potential threats, but it also falls into the same culture. Their desire to defend their property merely perpetuates the system where a woman is only protected when she is under the protection of a specific man.

It's important to look at the system. Maybe you would never rape a woman using physical force or drugs. That is something, but then do you blame her when someone else does? Do you think she brought it on herself when maybe her first time drinking she miscalculated how much it would affect her? Do you laugh at the other dudes' stories? Do you assume she's lying because he's a "nice" guy?

Here is an article with some things to think about, even though I kind of hate how much I like some of the examples:

http://www.cracked.com/blog/how-men-are-trained-to-think-sexual-assault-no-big-deal/

Band Review: Rowdy City

On the Rowdy City Twitter account there are a lot of references to "Dope Lyrics Matter", which is a track from one of their members, Ready Rock Dee. His solo work at this time is overwhelming the Soundcloud and Youtube pages.

That is interesting to me, because based on their description the larger group has been very successful, with a lot of touring. However, one member had died, and it seems like that might have thrown off the balance.

That has made it harder to get a sense of Rowdy City, but also their music itself isn't doing it for me. The lyrics are not that dope, and songs are remarkably free of hooks. Nothing has stuck in my head the way some of Litefoot's songs - including ones I did not like - did. Even the music videos are dull.

So I can't really recommend Rowdy City as they are, but maybe what they really need is to regroup; who are they now, without HD? Is that something they want to preserve?

If they decide then to change to support for Ready Rock Dee, that can be okay, but it should be a choice and not a default.

https://soundcloud.com/RowdyCity

https://www.youtube.com/user/RowdyCityNation

https://twitter.com/RowdyCity

Band Review: Matt Steady

Matt Steady is an independent musician from Leicester whose music draws from folk and blues, with strong Celtic influences.

"Jack O'kent" sounds very Irish, but I am most interested in the more blues-infused songs. It sounds like the blues, and not country at all, and yet he still reminds me of Johnny Cash. There are at times a depth and richness to the Steady's performance that brings Cash to mind, without a strong musical resemblance.

(Steady does versions of "Ring of Fire" and "Hurt", and they don't sound the same there.)

So that vocal quality is what struck me most, and may be the best reason to listen further.

http://mattsteady.com/

https://www.facebook.com/MattSteadyMusic

https://www.youtube.com/user/matthewsteady

https://soundcloud.com/mattsteady

https://twitter.com/MattStoicSteady

Gender Stricture

I'll be starting with a completely unscientific and possibly offensive observation.

I had heard once that the percentage of the population that identifies as queer (and at the time it was "gay", but I think "queer" works better here) was ten percent. The last data I saw estimated it was closer to four percent, but I had ten in mind for a long time. However, among professional entertainers - especially dancers and figure skaters - that percentage seemed much higher, with maybe as many as fifty percent among the men. However yet again, that did not seem to be the case with the Russians, where there were many more straight men performing.

Other things I have read don't really indicate that Russian society is more accepting of homosexuality, so I didn't think that was the reason. It does seem possible that the Russian concept of masculinity is better at including artistic expression. Honestly, that doesn't require being that open-minded, because there is a lot of strength and athleticism involved in those pursuits.

My point in even mentioning this is that it seems likely that the demands of masculinity - at least in US culture - can discourage many boys from pursuing various artistic paths. There are probably many who could have been really great, and it would have been satisfying for them and edifying for the people who got to see them perform, but the possibilities get discarded, because it's for sissies.

This is where I write about Suzanne Pharr's Homophobia: A Weapon of Sexism.

A couple of things stood out early. Part of her early work was with domestic violence. Many of the battered women had been called "lesbians" by their batterers. Often they were not lesbians, but the term was used to justify the beatings.

Pharr started giving workshops on homophobia for both straight and lesbian women, and it was energizing for all of them. She asked them to visualize what the world would be like without homophobia, and it was huge for them. Part of that is that when you are surrounded by domestic crisis, so much time is spent in responding to damage that you don't get to spend a lot of time on vision. And a big part of it was just imagining taking away those restraints.

By imagining a world without homophobia, they were able to envision a world where children won't be labeled, or pushed into one direction or another. That would free children up to realize their potential. They imagined a world where people could be more affectionate - not just with partners, but with all kinds of relationships because you don't have to worry about it being misconstrued and getting you harmfully labeled. Women will be able to work any job without being called masculine. There will be less violence because men will not need to prove their manhood. People will be able to wear whatever they want.

That's one thing that people often seem to miss about social justice work. Feminism makes things better for men. Anti-racism work succeeding makes a better world for white people. Eliminating homophobia makes a better world for straight people. As important as it is to realize that marginalized people suffer more, the bigotry isn't good for anyone.

Some of my favorite male dancers have been straight, so going back to the opening, I have to admire them for persisting. I am sure there was name-calling and mockery, but they had gifts, and they developed them and shared them. That is great, and art is important.

Think about it beyond that. What do we lose by putting up barriers? Which mind that could have figured out a new technique for fighting cancer, or harnessing solar for cars, or cleaning up the oceans, was discouraged and discarded? If we weren't so consistently comfortable with marginalizing other people, pollution and disease wouldn't be allowed to take the toll they have even without new technologies.

If we want a better world, it will start with valuing each other. Each and every other one.

Utopias

One book that almost ended up on the Long Reading List was Sir Thomas More's Utopia. So many teens are looking for the place where they will fit in, and so often that perfect place is no place, that it felt like it could be relevant. I decided that More's ideal would probably be different enough from a modern teen's ideal that it wouldn't be a huge help.

Having now read Utopia, I can see some correlations, but it fits in better with the context of my current reading. (I really believe I have a good book sense of what to read when.)

The first thing I noticed was the enforced lack of individuality. Everyone is happy in Utopia because their needs are met, but they only play one of two games, they eat all of their meals together, they all dress alike, and they regularly move homes so that nothing is really theirs. Knowing that More really loved the monastic lifestyle and only refrained from choosing it because of his desire for a family makes it all understandable, but still not desirable for someone who values choice. I had to wonder whether that sort of conformity was even necessary for a tranquil society.

That became more interesting in reading Why We Lost the ERA, when this came up:

"Rosabeth Moss Kanter's study of nineteenth-century communes found that when communes institutionalized exclusivity they were more likely to survive. The most successful communes discouraged relationships outside the group through geographic isolation, economic self-sufficiency, a special language and style of dress, and rules that controlled the members' and outsiders' movements across the boundaries of the community. Three-quarters of Kanter's successful communes did not recognize the traditional American patriotic holidays. Half read no outside newspapers. More than a quarter specifically characterized the outside world as wicked."

I had some thoughts about limiting news sources anyway, and that was the part that stuck out when I first read it. Reading it again, the same manner of dress becomes not only a matter of conformity within the community but a marker of opposition to the world outside the community. No wonder the outsiders start to look wicked.

Then I moved into my Native American Heritage Month reading, and also felt compelled to start The Invention of the White Race, which has been fitting in well. Here we keep finding colonial societies needed to eradicate more communal societies, not just in the Americas but also in the British Isles. Here the more communal societies are welcoming to outsiders, and build strength by marriage, adoption, and foster relationships. This time it is the capitalistic society feeling the need to eradicate perceived threats. There may be specific roles that are necessary, and I have been surprised by some of the strong Yurok class distinctions, but still, there are things that seem to work better without turning the entire society into a cloister.

I mention that because it seems like whether your revolution was socialist or fascist it often ends up with the same results. That includes putting a lot of people on the trash pile. There does seem to be a deep-rooted belief that rooting out differences is necessary, but I don't believe it.

Someone who is actively hurting people, or destroying crops, or burning things down - there may be necessary actions there. Wanting to wear black instead of grey, or purple stripes that clash with green checks - that is not a threat. Listening to punk rock instead of classical is not a threat. Collecting coins instead of playing video games is not a threat. Not unless you are really insecure, and then it's not about them.

I admit I don't fully understand the need to have other people be like you and do like you. I get that it's awesome to find people who like the same things, but part of what makes that awesome is because not everyone does. Then finding your matches is a treat.

I do have some thoughts about cultural expectations for tomorrow, but for now I suspect the most perfect place for teenagers is that place where they can be accepted.

Becoming a Killjoy

Since the election - in addition to the very incendiary post - I have been posting a lot of articles that are pretty negative. On one level it is an angry response; we have done a terrible thing and we are going to face it! At the same time, I know people who find it all stressful and who aren't really to blame.

I don't feel good about that, but it still feels necessary to face this situation with clarity. That requires information, which for this situation is dire. So it occurred to me one day that I have really become a killjoy, but then I remembered that I had examples for that.

I have written a lot about The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys, and the music inextricably entwined with the comic, and their part in my creative reawakening. The "Ugliness" post may have been the most important. It's not even about something that happened in the comic, just in the arc of its creation.

http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2015/08/leaving-room-for-ugliness.html

Even if there is no Mike Milligram or blank cassette tape in the comic, the underlying issues are still there. And it all still relates.

Yes, we need to be able to be dirty. We need to be able to disrupt. We need to be able to face things as they are, especially when it's hard. We need art.

If I must be a Killjoy then I can only try and be fabulous.

Maybe I won't be emulating the characters, because you have people who are just ready to fight without it being for anything, and maybe one who is so anxious not to fight that he lets worse things happen, but somehow it feels like it fits.

I'm not even sure what being fabulous means for me, but maybe it works that this year is the first time I cosplayed, and this is the year that I accidentally dyed my hair coppery red when I was only going for kind of chestnut.

This has been the year of no good news. How's your job? I got laid off. How's your Mom? Her memory keeps degrading. How are you? So stressed I broke out in hives that seem to have no intention of leaving.

And now "How's your country?"

So be it. This is also the year of facing every weakness and learning what it's really all about. I'll face it and I'll have a soundtrack.

Art is the weapon.

Band Review: Litefoot

I remember first being interested in Litefoot's music after seeing him in The Indian in the Cupboard in 1995. I could not find a lot then, but seeing him again in Wacipi Powwow (viewed for my 2014 Native American Heritage Month) reminded me of him.

Rap is still not my favorite genre, and I found that the things I like least in general came through here. I kind of hate "My Chick", even though I have to admit that it's catchy. The sections that are more bragging in nature irritate me. Getting past that, then I find things that I can appreciate.

There is a consciousness to the form of his albums, often starting with a spoken word section that sets the tone ties the content together. This is true on The Messenger, but most touching on Native American Me.

As I seem to respond best when there is that extra consciousness, it probably makes sense that my favorite was Redvolution. It felt most powerful both in terms of the message and the music.

From the movie I was drawn to the chanting, and would gladly listen to that again, but the rap has its strengths as well.

http://litefoot.com/

https://www.facebook.com/litefoot

https://www.youtube.com/litefoot

https://twitter.com/litefoot

Band Review: Ulali

When I reviewed Pura Fé, I saw that she had originally started in an a capella group, and I wanted to check that out. There wasn't a lot to listen to, and they are no longer active, but there is always some guilt that the Thursday review the week of Thanksgiving might not get read much, so this seemed like a good match.

The group has gone through many incarnations and name changes, but calling it Ulali itself brings to mind the trio of Pura Fé, Soni Moreno, and Jennifer Kreisberg. Under the name Pura Fé it can also include three male singers, but that can also mean just Pura Fé as a solo artist. Without Soni, it can be Twolali, or with Pura Fé and Jennifer plus two other singers it can be the Ulali Project.

I was listening to just Ulali, with the three. Although that covers a limited time frame, with less specific work, they were still featured on movie soundtracks and recorded with Indigo Girls and Robbie Robertson. It is reasonable to appreciate what they did.

It does not sound specifically like listening to First Nations music. At times there seems to be more of an African and South American - maybe even Caribbean - influence. That is especially noticeable on Ma' Africa, recorded with Mahotella Queens. Fans of world music should check them out.

And then, if you like them, checking out their other forms can keep you busy for a while.

http://www.ulali.com/

http://purafe.com/ulali-project

Accelerating

I need to learn how to drive.

It was always part of the plan, but it was always the most difficult. It is difficult due to needing someone to practice with, and it is difficult due to all of the emotions that have been tied up with driving since I hit that car and my father got mad at me and stopped speaking to me for two and a half years, starting the day before my seventeenth birthday.

Because of the baggage, I always had in mind that driving would be the last thing to happen. I would fix everything else, and it would free up so much mental energy and strength and time that I would be totally ready for it.

Then Mom's car battery died.

We have been having her drive less anyway. She is still pretty safe, but she enjoys it less, and her reflexes are slowing down. We know that it will be something she needs to give up eventually, but if there are still a few places she can get to (mainly church), and doing so keeps one part of her mind open, that felt worthwhile.

It turns out that doesn't work the car that much. This is the sort of thing that can cause the exhaust system to not get dried out so that the battery corrodes and it dies. I think I've got that right. Anyway, the car was totally dead. No sputtering. No radio or lights coming on. It was dead.

This could be a reason to let the car go completely. We thought about it, but that didn't feel quite right either. Keeping the car functional (after a long charge to get it functional again) by driving for at least an hour every week puts a lot of pressure on Mom.

I think it needs to be me.

And then that opens a lot of things up. I can take her places where she would not be confident driving, which can provide more stimulation and enrichment for her. It means we can be more useful to the household in terms of accomplishing certain things while Julie and Maria are at work. It removes some concerns about our distance from her neurologist and the temple. For those reasons, it is the best solution.

It is also scary. I will be practicing in the dark rainy part of the year. I can do some practicing with her, but I should go places that she would not want to take me. If I am going to do this, I want to be good at it. Who will take me onto the freeway and into downtown and over bridges? Am I crowdsourcing that? Do I have reward tiers for hours of driving practice and where?

It raises financial questions too, like paying for insurance, but if I am only driving her around for now, I can stay on permit for a while. It looks like they are good for two years now, so that's helpful.

Still scary.

And scary in the sense that it is just one more thing being thrown at me, fast, and where I don't know if I'm ready for it. That was true before we elected a racist demagogue, but even more now there is this sense of needing to hurry up, to learn everything and heal everything fast.

It still ends up being one step at a time. Next week I need to go take my test. Then some time on a weekday in the church parking lot with Mom. Then... I guess I work out my crowdsourcing plan.

To Do: Writing a fat heroine

The dressing up goal had so many different possibilities with it that it ended up becoming a four-part goal that is still not quite done. ("Done" is kind of a loaded term for me anyway.)

Writing a fat heroine has been like that too, though in some ways it felt more like I was working my way up to it.

I gave Claudia and Morgan some extra padding, where confidence was an issue but not health. That didn't really feel like enough. If the heroine wasn't grappling with all of the issues of being fat, then I am probably not really facing my full issues. I still totally see the point in getting more body types represented in fiction, so it had value in that way, but it did not address my specific issue.

I do sometimes think about turning the fan fiction into a dystopian novel series. In light of that, I have thought about putting someone who looked like me into there, but all I could imagine was some kindly fat older person who sacrifices herself for someone who could actually run.

At the time that seemed reasonable, because the post-apocalyptic dystopian wasteland is a harsh environment where fitness seems advantageous. Since thinking that, I have had to remember that I was conflating weight and health - a common mistake. A different discussion since then reminded me that I have larger friends who are good runners, and I know thinner people who are pretty weak.

I am not fast, but I have good endurance - better than a lot people's. Getting regular meds would probably be difficult in said wasteland - which could hamper survival - but maybe if your access to food is really irregular, your access to insulin matters less.

Viewed in that light, I am probably not ready to create a fictional fat heroine until I have spent more time on exactly what my fat means to me. That is not merely how it affects my self-image (which I have thought about a lot) but also fully realizing what my body can do. I don't give it enough credit, and so that's not really truth. Honesty is crucial to writing, and it means seeing the good and the bad. I haven't fully done that. Fortunately, there are many steps and goals on this journey that do focus on my body and health and things that will be overall helpful to my healing.

There have been two other surprising developments. One is the other drawing project I am working on. I mentioned yesterday that I was drawing faces for "Powers". What I did not mention was that meant specifically drawing faces of Black women. "Powers" is set at a historically Black women's college. Not every student and faculty member is Black, but all the main characters are, and I had this idea that for the mini-bible when it goes over characters I could draw the student body cards and faculty badges to make it visually interesting.

I had given up the idea because I didn't think I could do a good job, but then it is taking me a while to complete anyway, and I want to draw, so I am at least trying. That means looking at women of different ages and physical types: one color, but with a lot of variety.

I am learning a lot from it. Drawing from my head kind of gives everyone the same basic features, only really changing the hair. There is a lot of variety in face shapes and noses and eyebrows. I will probably never be a great artist, but doing this now makes me more aware of how many different ways people can be, and that does not hurt for a writer.

(And I can totally see now how much the options would open up by adding color, and also know that I do not have the ability at this time to make that work, so am sticking with pencils and gray scale.)

The other part of that was finding that I could not envision a happy ending for me at my size. Having encountered great difficulty in changing my size made that particularly painful. My life script had always been built on thinking that part would change and then everything else would be fine. I could reexamine the idea of a happy ending, and the idea of bodily shrinking fixing everything else (both seriously flawed concepts) but there in my core wound there was still the problem of me (as I am) not getting happiness.

So the most important thing may have been writing out stories of things happening in my life, to me, where I was getting what I wanted. They focused on love, which may be worth examining. One dealt with the financial issues only by mentioning that things had come through at the last possible moment. I really regret that now because I am afraid it will turn out to be predictive, and exactly when is that last possible moment and how scary does it get before then? But at the time I didn't even think about it because I was so focused on love.

Still, I was able to visualize someone I loved loving me back, and in the stories it seemed plausible.

That is worth something.

http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2015/10/this-next-section-to-do.html

Inktober

The selfie-taking continues. There were some shots in October where I looked really happy, and a friend asked if it was working.

My first thought was "no", because I do not like my looks any better. Sometimes I feel like I am getting uglier every day. The purpose of the challenge is more to feel comfortable with your appearance than to make you rate the appearance as better, so if I care less about being ugly, that might count as working, but I still suspect that "ugly" should not be coming to mind.

We'll probably have a few other chances to ponder that before I complete the year of selfies on March 1st. For now, I think the real reason those photos looked happier was Inktober. I'm not even saying I did it right, but it was good for me.

"Inktober" encourages you to do one drawing in ink every day in October. For comic book artists who do so much on computer now, it is a reminder to return to ink and paper and whatever nitty-gritty, tactile differences that makes. I don't fall under that.

I had already been thinking I wanted to set some goal. I had been thinking maybe drawing a different superhero each day or something, and then just as September was almost over I saw some references to Inktober, looked it up, and found this:

http://mrjakeparker.com/inktober

None of the artists I follow used this page. I don't know that anyone else did, but it gave me a guideline, and a way to focus. Those two happy selfies were two days in a row when I felt pretty good about my drawings.

I am not good. I may be worse in ink because there is no erasing, but there is smudging, and not on purpose. It still felt good.

And it was hard! "Worried" and "scared" should not have been so close together. And it functioned as word association, because there were things I could only picture one way. "Relax" is a stupid hair joke, and I don't like that drawing, but I could not come up with any other simulation of "relax" that felt true for me then.

It was still good, and it got me sketching daily. Sometimes the images felt right, and I did them! This month I am back to a pencil, and I am drawing faces, which I hope will eventually make the mini-bible for "Powers" more interesting.

I remember a while back thinking that I needed to draw more, because there is a special energy that comes with it. I didn't get to it then. Oh, here it is!

Imagine if I start getting regular about learning bass.

 Noisy

 Sad

 Rock

 Flight

Slow

 Creepy

 Burn

Band Review: Martha Redbone

Martha Redbone is a blues and soul singer who has been featured on the Women of the Four Winds tour.

I detect jazz influences as well, in the ways that those musical forms influence each other. At times she reminds me a little of Anita Baker in her vocalizations, that shouldn't be taken as a way of putting her in a box. Too much range is covered.

Redbone lays down a bad funk on "Skin" and grooves on "Atlas". One can easily imagine her bringing a house down, but still many of the tracks are quieter and cooler, like "Talk About It" of "Just Because".

Her main page is temporarily under construction, but it appears she was recently playing in Hawaii, and next month will be hosting Martha Redbone's Indigenous Funk Party in New York.

That sounds like something she will do well.

http://martharedbone.com/

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Martha-Redbone/474870425872870?ref=ts

https://www.youtube.com/user/MarthaRedbone

https://twitter.com/martharedbone

Band Review: Tracy Bone

Tracy Bone is country and I don't mind.

I attribute this at least partially to her being Canadian, which may give her version of country a different (and better) flavor. Also, though, even when a genre isn't your favorite, often someone who does it well stands out more, and you can like and appreciate them more.

Her country of origin may also make her First Nations heritage come through differently. I found references to her tribal background much more difficult to find, and the abuse through the residential schools - which Canadians seem to have dealt with more openly - are more prominent in her work, especially on "Woman of Red".

Favorite tracks for me include "Lonely With You" and "The Air I Breathe". She infuses them with a freshness and sweetness that is found in many of the songs, coming from her voice and delivery. There is also often an element of fun, like on "Do It For Me".

Although I do not remember seeing Tracy Bone featured in For the Generations, she has toured with the Women of the Four Winds tour.

https://www.facebook.com/TracyBoneSongs/

https://www.reverbnation.com/tracybone

https://www.youtube.com/user/tracyandjc

https://twitter.com/TracyBone

The Snow White Selfie Shoot

Being a princess isn't all dancing around in long skirts and communing with nature. Often you are expected to develop artistic skills, making you more of an ornament to the court. Sketching and music are reasonable pursuits.

If you have a wicked stepmother, things are different. You may be expected to labor, with chores so difficult that it makes taking care of seven miners for room and board seem like a good deal. Fortunately, you can often get your animal friends to help you, or at least not get in the way.

Well, maybe not cats so much. Woodland creatures might work better.

But greyhounds are kind of like deer, right?

The witch with the apple looks awfully familiar. Is she really just my stepmother?

I thought apples were supposed to be good for you.

I was tired anyway.

I have to wake myself up, because there's still no prince.

Maybe that will be a different story.