An inappropriate observation for such a sad week

I never noticed how much I leaned on my elbows until they were covered with massage oil. That said, I still think a midday massage was a good idea.

Two lists inspired by my last post

Books we've read in my feminist book club in approximate descending order of how much I liked them:

• My Year of Meats by Ruth Ozeki 
• The Orchard: A Memoir by Adele Crockett Robertson 
• Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 
• A Cup of Water Under My Bed by Daisy Hernandez 
• Beauty Queens by Libba Bray 
• A Queer and Pleasant Danger: The True Story of a Nice Jewish Boy Who Joins the Church of Scientology and Leaves Twelve Years Later to Become the Lovely Lady She is Today by Kate Bornstein 
• How the García Girls Lost Their Accents by Julia Alvarez 
• Fun Home by Alison Bechdel 
• Necessary Lies by Diane Chamberlain 
• Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman 
• Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? by Lorrie Moore 
• The Space Between Us by Thrity Umrigar 
• The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison 
• By the Light of My Father's Smile by Alice Walker 
• The Awakening by Kate Chopin 
• The Round House by Louise Erdrich 
• I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem by Maryse Condé 
• Zazen by Vanessa Beselka 
• The Dispossessed by Ursula K. LeGuin 
• The Edible Woman by Margaret Atwood 
• The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender

Books that I would like to read by trans women, in no particular order*:

• A Safe Girl To Love by Casey Plett 
• Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity by Julia Serano 
• Nevada by Imogen Binnie** 
• I've Got a Time Bomb by Sybil Lamb 
• Redefining Realness by Janet Mock 
• Hormones by Amber Neko Meador 
• Run, Clarissa, Run by Rachel Eliason 

*I am very open to expanding this list. Add suggestions in the comments.
**OK, I've already read this one, and it's awesome. So good.

What did YOU mean?

I'm in a feminist book club. It's amazing and I recommend it.

Next month, it's my turn to suggest books for us to choose from. I thought we might like to read a novel or memoir by a trans woman, and although I have a few of them on my mental list already, I thought I'd see what was available easily through my public library.

This happened:



Which, first of all, no. Why would I mean transponder?

Second, my original search turned up 30 results, but out of curiosity, I tried out a search for "transponder." This happened:



So... why do you ask?

On a roll

I decided that if I'm going to start writing here again, and maybe I am, I should update what's in the blogroll for the first time in one million years. I've cleaned it up some already. A few of my old favorites are less interesting to me than they were, and a lot of them have gone quiet — especially, sadly, a lot of the social-justice based ones. I've added some to the list, as well, but there's room for more.

So, what are you reading? Where are you writing on the internet? What should I add to the list? What of the new stuff I've added are you so excited to read now?

Just a Second

There have never been a lot of people reading CMC, and when I go nearly a year without posting, there are fewer. But I am not quite ready to attach my name to this post. I'm still a little fragile. So I'm writing it here for now. If it disappears in the next few days, it's because I got brave enough to share it on my personal Facebook page.

I cannot believe I'm saying this after years of outrageous inaction around guns in this country, but... I think we might be moving too fast.

I get the impulse to get guns out of the hands of "bad guys," or whatever, but. But.

It sounds like what's being proposed is that people on "terrorist watchlists" can't buy guns anymore, while the rest of us can still buy as many or as few guns as we were buying before. That seems to be the compromise that people think they can get behind. And I think that seems kind of scary and possibly racist.

If we're really committed to this idea that gun ownership is a right in America – I don't think it's all right to deny that right to people who have not been convicted of anything because they are suspected of a crime or potential future crime. I don't go to Tom Cruise movies so I didn't see this one, but isn't that the premise of Minority Report?

America's done that a lot, historically and currently, and it's done that wildly disproportionately to already marginalized folks, mostly black and brown ones, but also queer ones, poor ones, immigrant ones, mad ones.

There are people imprisoned without charges for maybe having been involved in some act of terrorism, who have been imprisoned for many years. Not without a conviction — without charges.

I personally know one African-American man who was jailed for a long time before he was charged. Once he was, he was not convicted, because he did not do the thing with which he was charged, but after a long time in jail, his life was still very different than it would have been otherwise.

There are cities across the good ol' U.S. of A. who routinely deprive people of their legally held property (cars and cash and whatnot) under the auspices that they were used in the commission of a crime. There are police departments who have to build their budgets around those seizures. Without probable cause.

I don't like any of that. And if we think a second amendment is a good idea at all, if part of our American deal is that people get to have guns — I don't think we should plan to deprive people — mostly brown people — that right.

You want to talk about whether that right is a good idea at all? I'll have that conversation, when I'm a little more over my grief about the hundred of my family members who were shot a few days ago. I might be open to ditching that right entirely. But I don't think I'm OK with ditching it for just some (already marginalized) people.

Right? There have to be some lawyers and libertarians out there, as well as some passionate gun-control types. Do you all have thoughts?

How My Weekend Was, An Open Letter

Dear well-meaning and generally kind and supportive straight coworkers,

I am writing this once so I don't explode, because I know you don't mean anything by it and I have stared at two of you in disbelief already, which is not an appropriate response to a totally regular Monday morning question.

But.

Here is how my weekend was.

Friday after work, I was tired, so my partner and I decided to I don't know something I can't remember where we ate or what we did there might have been some TV involved? Something. I don't know. Since then, 50 members of my family have been killed and another 53 injured, last I heard, so Friday seems like a long time ago.

Saturday, I spent most of the day at and getting ready for a Pride Family Picnic that the nonprofit I'm on the board of holds. I think it was great. I was in charge of grilling the hot dogs. I saw a bunch of people I love a lot, saw some new people. I brought Rice Krispies treats with Fruity Pebbles mixed in and called them "Pride Krispie Treats," but of course that was before someone shot more than 100 people in my wider community, so now that just seems stupid. But I think it was fun at the time, probably.

That evening, my partner and I drove down to my sister's place to join her extended family for my nephew's fifth birthday. On the way, I saw on Facebook that two friends from high school ran into each other at Boston Pride, so that's fun, and they posted about how I'd be jealous, which I was, a little. Then at my sister's, there was this really good beef that for some reason we may eat only on rice and not with any noodles — I didn't understand that part — and orange sherbet and presents — and a lot of talk about food safety, about whether it's OK to accept a meal from some stranger's home kitchen. I think it's probably as safe as anything. Who the hell knows what's safe? Someone shot up a sanctuary a few hours later. The beef and rice thing seems even more unintelligible, but it's probably the same amount of unintelligible that it was before.

We came home, tired, and went to bed when all 50 of those people were still alive. Some of them probably hadn't even gotten to Pulse yet.

Sunday when I woke up, my wider community was broken, devastated, but I didn't know it yet. I decided to skip church and I was very excited to go hang out with a group of (mostly straight) women with whom I planned to talk a lot about clothes. I planned to bring them Pride Krispie treats, too. First, I rallied a few of my very closest queer people (my partner and his roommate and his boyfriend) to go have breakfast at my favorite local diner, and we laughed and laughed like we always do at that diner, I think — it's a little hard to remember because there's been a family emergency.

I got home and worked on a puzzle a little before that Style School reunion, which I was so looking forward to, and then someone sent me a message on Facebook, and hearing the ping of that message is how I will mark the last moment I didn't know that 50 people were killed and 53 more injured in a night club that was also a sanctuary, on Latin night. It was unclear to me then as it is now whether that was a night for the Latinx community or a night of Latin music for mostly white people or a mix. Probably a mix.

And then I tried to do the puzzle a little more but I kept bursting into tears, and eventually it became clear that I was not equipped to deal with getting dressed in fancy clothes or talking to straight people or maybe talking to any people about anything at all or doing a puzzle or maybe even driving. So I didn't.

I tried to watch "The Office" for a while, because that's funny, and it sometimes worked a little, but each episode ends and then what are you supposed to do?

And I got a little mad at my partner, knowing I was being unfair while I was being mad, because he just lost 50 members of his family, too, and he wants to help me, but he doesn't know what I need, and I don't know what I need either, but whatever it is, he's not doing it. Turning back time, maybe? Making all the people less horrible? Being very close to me but not too close to me and never hinting that he needed some time and space to himself? Something like that, something impossible and unnameable. And eventually, I was frustrated and he had to make a phone call, so I got ready to leave and then go back to my own house, to leave the safe place that is his house, with other queers in it, for my own empty house.

And I stopped on my way out to talk to my sweet wonderful breakfast friends, and one of the first things we needed to discuss was who would be thrown under the bus. And I said, "Muslims," immediately, and I was right, but I stupidly forgot that there is this amorphous group called "the mentally ill," who always get thrown under the bus, and I should have mentioned them, too, and it never occurred to me to mention immigrants, because what do immigrants have to do with it? All of those are the people who get thrown under the bus when we get slaughtered in Florida. Apparently. What is the matter with the brakes on that bus?

And then I went home and, having decided that "The Office" wasn't going to work, watched a lot of "Sister Wives," which also didn't work. I watched "Sister Wives" when I got home at 3:30 and watched them still after I talked to my partner and told him I'd probably go to bed around 9:30 and watched them still when I was still awake at nearly 2:00.

All the distraction in the world doesn't make the most deadly shooting in U.S. history not have happened. And really, "Sister Wives" is hit-or-miss at distracting anyway.

I alternated, in that time, between devouring Facebook and avoiding it. I couldn't really sustain either one.

I slept fitfully from 2 until 6:47, and then I woke up and still didn't do the laundry I needed to do and somehow was still late to work, a little. I don't know why.

So, yeah.

That's how my weekend was. And if you are not careful, I will tell you so, even though you don't deserve it when really what you want to know is whether I will sign that form. Yeah, I can sign it. Seems good.

How was yours?

Love,
bzzzzgrrrl

Things that would not happen in Washington (but would happen in a movie)

Hello, friends. It's been waaaaay too long. Maybe some of you are still using RSS feeds, and will see this.

I've been feeling pulled to come back and post some things here again, frequently, and have put those feelings aside.

But then something so completely in the original spirit of City Mouse Country happens here where I live now that I cannot help but share it, and it feels like a (kind of violent) sign from God that I need to return here.

From the local paper: Plane, deer collide at Keene airport

Parodoxy

Sorry it's been so long again, folks. Been thinking about you, and this space, lots. We should talk about what we're going to do around here.

Meanwhile, I had a CMC-appropriate thought.

It is a totally valid life choice to declare, "I'm too old to ever help anyone move again."

and

It is a totally valid life choice to date a person in their 20s.

but

You probably cannot maintain both those life choices at once.

Metaphorical malpractice

This evening, I'm keeping a friend company in the hospital.

He's fine.

But I just overheard a healthcare professional saying to another healthcare professional, about a patient, "She's healthy as a baby. Healthy as a clam."

Neither of those are expressions.

UPDATE: AIM high

Just got the following email from my Rock Star Friend:

Remember the cute dating blogger that I saw in an elevator many many years ago and my friend gave him my number and I was mortified and I think that maybe you even wrote about it on your blog?
Well, now he's a speechwriter for the mayor.

Morals of this story:

1. Dreams really do come true. Not for my friend in the way of dating the blogger, but in the way of the blogger seemingly getting a job he likes better than competing with hair models for stories and women. 
2. The story can always get better. 
3. If you tell me your funny stories, I will not only blog about them, but I will blog about them again six and a half years later if you give me more fodder. 
4. Other things that count as sufficient cause for me to use "OMG" on the blog now, when a few years back I couldn't imagine ever using it: Trapped in a Closet, a frustrating experience with Goodwill, forgetting to blog for an hour and a half, being late, a story about RS's office parties, and what I'm wearing to my high school reunion.
5. Any excuse is a good enough excuse to remind you how funny this blog used to be.

One true correct

Today on Facebook, a friend of mine posted, "Every religion thinks it's the one true correct religion. Assuming there is one, they can't all be right."

She herself is not religious, and she is not the first person I've heard say this — or the hundredth. I think it's a pretty common perception about religion. I didn't say anything on Facebook, because I'm not interested in shaming people or getting into a battle about it.

But in case I have readers who deeply believe that to be true — it's not.

Some religious people (including a handful I've met) think their religion is the one true correct one. I've met some of those folks.

But I don't.

Almost none of the religious people I know think that.

Most of the religious people I know think their religion is the one that works best for them, right now. Many, many of the religious people I know have shifted religions, embrace folks of other religions or no religion or something in-between.

And there are lots of religions that are pretty explicit that that religion itself does not exclude other religions or religious doctrines, even among its own followers.

Like I said, not looking for a fight on this — just correcting a misperception I see a lot. Be careful of words like "every" and "all."

In other news, it's 35° here. Feels like June.

I'd wave a white flag, but you'd never see it

Sorry I keep talking about the weather.

This winter is KILLING me; it's led to car issues and house issues and travel issues and a weeks-long bug that I am finally over. I have never been so ready for spring.

Temperature when I checked it this morning: 9°.

That is 20 degrees warmer than it was that time yesterday.

We have had one day in February during which the temperature rose above freezing at any point.

And should you dare to walk outside at all, you're walking in a maze: at least butt-high snowbanks on either side, often more like waist-high or higher. There's no "just cutting across" What's underfoot is mostly snow (the consistency of sand or granulated sugar) over ice, with unexpected patches of pavement just to ensure maximum unevenness.

Here's one of the better weather-related jokes making the rounds on Facebook:

And up here, we have it so much better than Boston.

If you sometimes consider donating any money to a shelter in the northeastern U.S., or speaking up when you see someone who is likely homeless being kicked out of your favorite coffee shop or bagel place or art gallery — this seems like a good time for that.

Stay warm, friends.

Cold snap

This morning I brought RI to work because otherwise, he'd have had to walk, and it was -11° outside, and that is unreasonable. But it still meant I was awake and outside at 6:50 in the morning in -11° weather. I am so sick of this winter I could punch it.

Related: Thinking of changing my name to brrrrgrrrl.

City Mouth Country

Things I got used to in 8 years of city life that continue to disappoint me after SO MANY years not in the city: restaurants that are open on Mondays. I just want a damn Cobb salad.

How's the weather up there?

Woman leaving a building ahead of me yesterday, brightly: Oh, look! It's snowing! We needed it, really.

Genderalized Anxiety

To discuss, with as much or as little anonymity as you choose:
What is your gender?

An essay on that topic was assigned someone I know as homework. You don't have to write an essay, but I'm interested in your answer.

I have had several answers to that question that I could explain briefly or at length, but right now, I don't have one. That doesn't mean I don't have a gender, obviously; it just means that the words I used to use seem inadequate or inaccurate.

So, whatcha got?

Mercurial

So it's been more than a month. Sorry.

Also, although I haven't had a lot of Big Stories or even Deep Thoughts I wanted to share here, I do, frequently, find myself with a quick thing to say. I shouldn't even try to tell you I'll do this thing or I'll post that thing here anymore, because usually when I do, I then definitely don't, but it may be that quick thoughts, almost Tumblr-style, is what'll happen here for a bit.

Here's the first one:

I used to think Mercury being retrograde was nonsense, like Mercury was basically always retrograde and people just used it as an excuse for miscommunication. Then I read anything at all about it and realized that whether it's nonsense or not, Mercury's not retrograde that much of the time and if I notice it when people are miscommunicating, well, that just is what(when?) it is.

Sentence of the Day, Social Justice Edition

"If you're not at the table, you're on the menu." — A friend of mine in her role as a panelist at a social justice forum yesterday. It's not original to her, but boy howdy, did it resonate in that context

Shaming Santa

WARNING: This post is inappropriate for younger readers. Younger readers, if you read past this point, you may find things you do not want to find.

OK, so I'm just going to admit it.

I don't understand what's supposed to be happening in the world of the song, "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus."

Like, does the kid think she's caught her mother cheating with Santa, but really, it's her dad dressed up as Santa, so, adorable? If so, why would parents go to the length of dressing up for their sneaky kid only to break the magic by making out?

Or in the song, is Santa real, and the kid has actually caught her mother cheating with Santa?

Or is someone else dressed up as Santa?

In any case, why does the kid think it would have been a laugh if her father had only seen?

Is the context putting presents under the tree? Or some kind of grown-up party the kid's supposed to be in bed for?

Does kissing Santa not count, because he's Santa?

Or does kissing under the mistletoe not count, because it's festive? This is the only explanation that makes any sense to me at all, though even there, the tickling is just weird, right?

Maybe Mommy and Daddy and Santa are in some form of polyamorous relationship, which everyone's fine with, but then why's the kid making such a big deal out of it?

Seriously, this song has troubled me literally since I still believed in Santa, and I haven't figured out anything that makes it less troubling since. Fortunately, I mostly forget it exists. But once I hear it once (and I did, Saturday, in a nail salon), it's enough of an earworm that it bugs me for weeks. If any of you folks has anything that can resolve this, I'd welcome it.

Errand Grrrl

We haven't talked a lot about the advantages of living in a small city, over the other kinds of places I've lived in: small towns and big cities and even medium-urban non-city census-designated place counties.

But here it is.
At 12:58 p.m., I was pulling my car out of the work parking lot.

I then:

• Drove to the bank
• Parked
• Went into the bank
• Endorsed two checks
• Deposited them
• Drove to the library (narrowly avoiding hitting RI's step-grandmother as I went)
• Parked
• Went into the library
• Applied for and received a library card*
• Found the book I wanted
• Checked it out
• Drove to the dry-cleaner
• Parked
• Dropped off a comforter for cleaning
• Walked to the fish market
• Bought lunch
• Drove back to the work parking lot
• Parked
• Walked back into my building and up the stairs to my office.

At 1:29 p.m., I was sitting at my desk, eating phenomenal seafood chowder and writing this post.

Thirty-one minutes, friends.

*I already had a college library card, which lets me take books out of either library. Today, I decided it was high time I had an actual city library card.