not quite…

so i haven’t managed to post every day in november.  and i’m going to be honest– I likely won’t post at all thursday-sunday of this week because Dreamboat and Dreamboat’s bestie (who is also one of my favorite people) are going to be here for T-giv, and we’re driving up to visit Dreamboat’s family, and driving to visit Dreamboat’s grandma in the hospital (send good thoughts to her please), and hanging out, and Dreamboat leaves way too early on Sunday morning, and I’m just not going to be able to give any time to this blog.

but i do want to say a couple of things that i’m grateful for in this reflective season.  i’m grateful for all of the people i’ve met online who make blogging a more rewarding experience.  i’m grateful for all of the people i met online via WOXY.  i’m grateful for my family, biological & chosen… i’m grateful for my friends, both near and far…  i’m grateful for my colleagues & staff.  most of all this year, i’m thankful for my sweetheart, the incredibly undeniably wonderful, adorable, amazing, kind, loving, patient, hilarious, sexy, brilliant Dreamboat.

 

putting our money where our mouths are

Hey folks, have you checked out The Brown Boi Project?  They’re in a fundraising campaign right now.  As you do your holiday giving, consider them for sure.

Another organization I have also supported in the past is the Trans Youth Support Network in Minneapolis.

What are your favorite organizations for giving?

 

on being a psuedo single person

sometimes i feel like a single person, even though i am in a committed, monogamous relationship.

when i am in situations focused on couples, or around a lot of couples, i feel like a single person.  i went to two family weddings this fall, and i felt like a single person.  when i go out with my parents and their coupled friends,  i feel like a single person.  when i hang out with my married or coupled friends, i am the third wheel. i basically live like a bachelor, hanging around in my boxer shorts and a t-shirt eating junk food and drinking coffee until 6pm.  being in a long distance relationship makes this so.

and then for two or three days a month, i get to be the best version of myself– holding hands, snuggling, being part of a mututally beneficial unit, being visible as someone who is loved by someone else, eating good food with someone i love, and it’s wonderful.

so i’m asking you to send some good thoughts to me.  i’ve been applying to jobs that would help me live a whole lot closer to my better half–and I need all the help i can get.

 

what we have here is a failure to communicate

I’m one half of a butch/butch long distance relationship. i’ve mentioned it here before, but just in case you’re new, my sweetie and i got together when we lived in the same place, but sweetie had already committed to a job 500 miles away.  i knew this when i professed my crush on Dreamboat, and I’d been trying to hold my crush down for months.  We were friends and it continued to intensify and I just couldn’t go any longer without saying anything, so despite the impending distance, we went for it.

I’m glad we went for it.  I’m totally ridiculously stars-in-my-eyes in love with my partner, and as I’ve mentioned here before, we have some communication differences because of our personalities and styles.  The MBTI is just one lens that i can look through…but another pattern that seems to be emerging is this thing where we don’t communicate well right before a visit.

What the hell!?  We should be excited, gearing up for travel, making plans, being thrilled, but it’s this stupid thing that seems to happen every time.  is it because we’ve been apart for awhile (almost a month this time) and we’re disconnected, out of sync?  Is it my crazy hormones (rough period, literally), or some kind of reuniting anxiety?

Do any of you have this problem in your LDRs?  don’t get me wrong– I adore my sweetie and want to do the work that it requires to manage our relationship at a distance, but I definitely need some tips about communication breakdown.

 

things I think are hilarious

1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDxoj-tDDIU&ob=av3e

2. wearing a brooks brothers sweater to walmart

3. cleaning the kitchen whilst listening to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDxoj-tDDIU&ob=av3e over and over

4. listening to 7 year bitch while i vacuum the wall behind the dryer

 

losers

trigger warning on the video: language, bullying.  may not be a good idea depending on where you work…or around anyone who doesn’t consent to hearing some bullying language.

when i was in middle school, the teachers put us in seats table style–5 desks in a cluster, by alphabetical order.  danny was new, and he picked on me incessantly.  he called me fat, nerd, know-it-all.  danny was actually chubby, and i was not.  he continued to pick on me for the next few years.

when i was in high school, people started calling me a dyke.  i was vociferously feminist at my conservative, private high school.  if i wasn’t being called a dyke, i was being called a bitch.

i’ve been called all kinds of things, bullied mostly for my gender and my appearance and my sexuality.  and you’d think that as you get older, it would be easier but there are just some situations that I really struggle with.

there’s a student living in my residence hall who has called me a dyke twice now in public, and it is possible that he doesn’t know that it’s unacceptable.  but i think it’s more likely that he does know that it’s not acceptable, because he has done it maliciously.

i am totally intimidated.  i feel threatened and unsafe and uncomfortable.  he is white, tall, and there is something threatening about his appearance.  everything about his attitude and demeanor reminds me of the person who hurt me the most in high school, 17 years ago.  half of my life ago, someone changed the way that i experience the world and right now, it’s impacting the way that i do my job as an adult with a masters degree in education.

i told one of my colleagues & my supervisor about the most recent incident, and they think I should send the student to university judicial affairs.  had he called someone the N word, that’s what you’d do, right?  yes, that’s what i’d do, so why am i so reluctant to hold this person accountable for the cruel thing they said to me?

 

bee listy is sick of this shit

I’m not perfect.  My feminism is not perfect, my queerness is not perfect, my understanding of privilege is not perfect.  I continue to grow, evolve, learn, try, fuck up, and try again.  My intentions are generally to share information that I think is interesting, and see what discussion comes out of it from people.  Sometimes I have to step away from conversations though, because I get really frustrated.

Today I’m grouchy about Dan Savage.  I wish he would take ownership of the critique that he harms more than helps when he uses words that don’t belong to him.

Today I’m grouchy about feminists who are openly transphobic.  I’m sorry, but I do not agree with you that sexism against women creates an environment that oppresses people into gender dysphoria. That may be true for someone you know, or some trans people, but it does something that I feel really uncomfortable with: it takes away people’s agency. Yes, I agree that gender inequality fucks us all over–but telling me how to express my gender without masculinity is no better than those who tell me that I’m only supposed to have one kind of femininity as a female-bodied person.

 

Ooh, that might be a longer post at some point.
Today I’m continuing to love Tiger Beatdown.  Check this one: http://tigerbeatdown.com/2011/10/10/my-feminism-will-be-intersectional-or-it-will-be-bullshit/

 

 

I know this isn’t a feminist quote, but it’s been on my lips all day.

 

There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can’t take part; you can’t even passively take part, and you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it stop. And you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all. -Mario Savio

 

gaymous?

in the last 24 hours, two people told me that I’m gaymous, and I think that’s crazy.

 

Over It

People are raping people at Occupy protests.

People are raping people on campuses.  In their homes, in parking garages, in parks, in hotels, in airports, everywhere you go, people are raping people.  So let me say it again:

Eve Ensler is over it, and so am I.

STOP RAPING PEOPLE.

 

 

 

 

Necessity?  Fuck you.  Hat tip to my friend J-Dub for sending this bullshittery to me.