Sad News

A friend of mine died today. Her husband said he woke up this morning to discover that she wasn’t breathing. Her official cause of death was cardiac arrest.

I didn’t know her for very long or very well, so I can’t say much. But she was the kind of person who could make even a reserved girl like me happily confess a few of my darkest secrets within the first five minutes of ever talking to her. I was looking forward to getting to know her so much, and now I can’t.

The Fourth of July

I handed 20 dollars to the pale Creek
Traded Jackson for Chinese sparklers
To burn, the smoke drawing infinity
Above the paved trail.

On each of my shoulders stood
My pale ancestors, pleading
Their case for the spider webs
Laid across each creek of this nation.

I handed 20 dollars to the Creek
Under the revival tent, striped
With red and the recent slashes of rain,
Traded Jefferson for 99 cent sprinklers
That spit their sparks on the ground
Of the creek. The lightning
Joins, blood to blood, and still
The 20 makes its way through, tax-free, away
From the dark-skinned.

—
This is the first draft. Feel free to suggest edits.

Orphaned Blogpost #1

In response to my confessional post, several people on Feministing expressed a desire to see further posts about the subject. The easiest way to do this, for those so inclined, is to click on the “privilege” tag on the right, but it also reminded me that a number of my blogposts have been orphaned at Daily Kos, where I started my blogging several years ago before finally deciding last year to start my own. So in the interest of continuity and gathering all of my work in one place, I will be posting some of my old blogposts here, as well as providing a link to my (now-abandoned) page there.

Originally posted at Daily Kos on April 30th, 2008.

I’ve been thinking about privilege lately. The impetus was my own privilege. I (and several others) had inadvertently supported a racist statement because I didn’t recognize the racism in it.

For A Little Break

For a little break in all the seriousness, a funny story:

ManPants and I were driving into our apartment complex a few weeks ago. It was sunset, so the shadows were long and tricky and the colors of the world a little distorted by the fading light.

“There’s a cat under that car!” I blurted out.

“There is? Where?”

“Under there, see?” It looked like a cat lying underneath a car with its white back to us.

We both got really excited.

We parked and immediately, both of us headed towards the cat. We are suckers for cats – we want some of our own but are too afraid of vet bills that we probably couldn’t pay – so anytime we see a cat outdoors, we do our best to pet it. So far, the only one in our neighborhood that has let us is a very friendly black cat who lives across the street.

But we approached it carefully, ManPants in the lead since he has a talent at convincing strange cats to not run away. We tiptoed, crouched low. We clicked our tongues and called “Here kitty, kitty!”

I Am A Racist, Sexist, Ableist, Sizist, Homophobe, Heterosexist, etc…

I love the blogosphere, particularly the lefty and feminist ones. It helped me survive the adjustment to my new (very conservative) region over the past 6 years. It gave me a sense of community when I didn’t have any in my real life and has provided me invaluable information that I used to be able to find by picking up the free anarchist newspapers at one of my local coffee shops.

But it can really grate on my nerves sometimes too – the biggest problem being, in my eyes, a sense of self-righteousness.

In Which I Demonstrate How Thoughtless I Can Be And Try To Make Up For It

Oops. Juneteenth was (barely) yesterday, not 3 days ago. I’m still late and on top of that apparently can’t remember the date correctly.

In other, spectacular but horribly underreported news, the U.S. Senate voted unanimously to apologize for slavery. It certainly doesn’t make up for slavery itself nor does it apparently acknowledge that the wealth and power of this country was built on the backs of African slaves without giving them a dime for it but it’s a step…

How I Write

For the sake of further transparency (that I must admit feels a bit like navel-gazing, but I don’t wish to insult any navels), I will explain my writing process for you.

Luckily, it’s short and humorous.

Laughing at Tragedy

My sense of humor is dark sometimes.

The Music Proof

Sometimes, my male friends (and I) will wonder why there aren’t more women involved in music.

Sometimes, I’m reminded of the little things that can make women feel unwelcome.

Grilling As A Girl

I grilled buffalo burgers this weekend.

ManPants and I (who’s birthdays are only three days apart) were supposed to have a birthday party with friends at his parents’ house on Saturday. For various legitimate reasons, four out of the five people we invited couldn’t come so we told the fifth not to bother and chilled with ManPants’ parents instead.

When ManPants’ dad teased us about our inactivity and our promise to them that they wouldn’t have to lift a finger for our party, ManPants grudgingly agreed to go learn how to run the grill. But I’ve cooked over an open flame more times than I can count (albeit over wood flames in a pit, not over propane flames with a specialized grill) and love it, so I suggested myself instead.