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This morning everything was comin' up Dusty. I had a wonderfully brisk six mile walk and then joined Drew and Pattie for coffee. Pattie agreed to let me interview her for this site - which I think is wonderful. She is smart, passionate, and committed to doing good work. Now the onus is on me to think of intelligent, interesting questions.
I have plenty for which to be grateful, including the friendship of these two beautiful people.
I'm planning to take the grand-daughter to the Castro tomorrow so as to catch the original release version of Blade Runner. Re-reading "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep", the Philip K. Dick novel that it's based upon would be even more appropriate given the impending onset of the new millennium, but would present less of an opportunity to engage with the grand-daughter.
This morning's Chron had an article about Bush's choices for cabinet members. I was puzzled to read that Winnie Stachelberg, political director of the Human Rights Campaign welcomed Tommy Thompson's appointment for HHS. Contrast that with the words of Kate Michelman of the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League in the same article which said that "(Thompson) is even on record opposing laws that protect women from violence at reproductive clinics."
It was also scary to read in another Chron article that the nominee for Interior Secretary, Gale Norton, was a protege for that great environmentalist, James Watt.
With all this news, Blade Runner seems a cheerier movie choice with which to ring out the old year.
30 December 2000
Via the Village Voice, Richard Goldstein on The Year In Queer.
29 December 2000
Between work and getting ready for last night's outing I somehow missed Earl Ofari Hutchinson's op-ed piece on our Attorney General In Waiting. With the impending ascension of Ashcroft as Chief Sheriff, the next few years promise to be dismal for the rights of women and people of colour.
Bush's nomination of Tommy Thompson for head of Health and Human Services continues the placement of so-called social conservatives into positions of power over our everyday lives. But so much for my Bush Litmus Test theory. Thompson is another "pro-life" Republican....yet ironically he opposes the death penalty. One thumb up for irony.
On the other hand, His Bushness seems intent to name "pro-choice" individuals to cabinet positions where their pro-choice beliefs will be irrelevant. And there are other drawbacks as well. His nominee for Interior, while "pro-choice", is considered "conservative on environmental issues", according to the SF Chronicle.
Of course the Right is not totally depending on Bush's cabinet choices. One of the perks of the presidency is getting to name judges.
Thanks to the informative Book Notes for the links to the Salon and Slate articles.
29 December 2000
After trying on a new dress last night I decided that I definitely had to get back into my walking groove. So....packing up my walkperson this morning I headed up the hill to the sound of the Hilliard Ensemble's recording of John Dunstable's motets. Dunstable was a giant of his time but now his music is largely relegated to the playlists of early music enthusiasts. I find the music relaxing. It's all "sacred music" and perhaps the fact that it's sung in Latin prevents it from being distracting or disturbing to my secular ears.
During the walk I began to reflect on the power of naming. What others call us is important. Ditto what we call ourselves. What I call myself - my name - changes at times, dependent on the place and the people I'm around. And, I find myself different, dependent on the name I'm called.
28 December 2000
My quote for the day is - surprise! - from "Skin":
"If we are forced to talk about our lives, our sexuality, and our work only in the language and categories of a society that despises us, eventually we will be unable to speak past our own griefs. We will disappear into those categories. What I have tried to do in my own life is refuse the language and categories that would reduce me to less than my own complicated experience. At the same time I have tried to look at people different from me with the kind of compassion I would like to have directed toward me."
Let me repeat that last sentence:
"At the same time I have tried to look at people different from me with the kind of compassion I would like to have directed toward me."
Will GW use this criteria in doling out his "compassionate conservatism"? We will, alas, know soon enough.
27 December 2000
"When I am writing I sink down into myself, my memory, dreams, shames, and terrors. I answer questions no one has asked but me, avoid issues no one has raised, and puzzle out just where my responsibility to the real begins and ends."
So writes Dorothy Allison in "Skin".
I wish that I might say that about what happens to me when I write. But I can't. I have the buzz of too many editors in my head, saying "You can't write this", "Don't write that", etc. From reading Dorothy Allison, the way her writing evokes hard won truths pulled out, visible and squirming onto the page, I can see the proof of her statement for her writing. I've been getting that same feeling from reading Drew's web site lately. Not that his writing has ever seemed less-than-true...just now, though, with his recent postings, his writing has seemed to be in and from that place that Dorothy Allison writes about...."into myself, my memory, dreams, shames, and terrors."
I am, however, almost done with "Skin". I've the final three essays to read. Our group is going to read Leslie Feinberg's "Stone Butch Blues" next. Because it's also a book which my therapist had recommended to me, I already had a copy! But before getting into that book, I want to spend some time reading at least one of Joan Nestle's books, perhaps, "A Restricted Country".
26 December 2000
Bush Attorney General nominee John Ashcroft believes in the death penalty. He believes that women should not have final say over what happens to their own bodies, if that say involves abortion. He is for accepting honours from an "institution" that embraces racist beliefs so long as the "mainstream" press is not looking very closely. Bushspeak states that John Ashcroft will bring integrity to the Justice Department. From what I read in this morning's New York Times, Democrat Joe Biden agrees.
Yes, ahem...I guess that's why it was so important to vote Democratic and not for Nader, so that we might have..."a choice, not an echo."
26 December 2000
Tomorrow, the final two parts of "The Decalogue" are playing. I plan to see them, hopefully with my usual partner in this project. There's even hope for a bit of black comedy at the end.
26 December 2000
From the movie "The Long Hot Summer" on I've had a special fondness for Joanne Woodward. I can't help thinking of her in "Three Faces of Eve" as I near my therapy appointment on Thursday. My therapist asked me last week "who" would be attending? I think I know now but "I ain't sayin'."
26 December 2000
21 December 2000
Last night's combination potluck and queer reading group gave me plenty of food for thought. I'm trying to finish up "Skin" so to be ready for the next read. Pattie recommends Judith Butler's "Antigone's Claim". Tonight? More "Decalogue".
21 December 2000
Tonight, Drew and I caught the third and fourth parts of "The Decalogue", now playing at the U.C. Theatre. They were much less unrelentingly stark than parts one and two which we saw last Saturday. Still, walking out of the theater on my way back to some evening work, a sense of gloominess descended over my mood. Perhaps I'm still suffering from my post-presidential election flu. I think I'm not alone in that regard.
I don't think I helped my mood by taking a peek at the CNN web site. The top story there was about Bush's cabinet appointments. Looking at the list of possibilities listed for Health and Human Services and for Attorney General made me consider that perhaps the press ought to be asking candidates if they have any litmus tests for cabinet officers, like being "pro-life" and for the death penalty. Just a thought.
19 December 2000
One thing leads to another, and an essay in "Skin" led me to seeking out and obtaining a copy of Samuel R. Delaney's "Babel-17". Now, why didn't I read this sooner?
18 December 2000
Our Wednesday night study group is turning into a southern themed potluck. It's not quite the time for fried green tomatoes, so I'm going to have to do some thinking with another co-conspirator about "what to bring".
18 December 2000
I like the way that Drew has organised his web diary. That's why I changed the look of this page a little.
17 December 2000
Like my friend Drew, I've been reading Dorothy Allison's book of essays, "Skin". A BIG THANK YOU is due our friend Pattie for the recommendation and for the initiative to set up the queer study group which begins this coming Wednesday.
I am in total awe of the consistent way in which Dorothy Allison's writing speaks to my own feelings and experience of shame and sexuality. I am moved when she writes:
"I am certain that none of us wants to live with the fear, the sense of
loss, betrayal, and risk that I worry at all the time. I know that many of
us want...the ability to love without fear of betrayal, the confidence that
we can expose our most hidden selves and not have the women we love
literally disappear from our lives. I know, too, that we cannot inhabit
that safe ground easily. If we are not to sacrifice some part of ourselves
or our community, we will have to go through the grief, the fear of
exposure, and struggle, with only a thin layer of trust that we will emerge
whole and unbroken. I know of no other way to do this than to start by
saying, I will give up nothing. I will give up no one."
15 December 2000
Since my last therapy session, I've been trying to imagine a conversation with my mama, discussing how she felt about the first - and only time - she caught me wearing her clothes. At the time, she was really upset...but she never said anything else to me about the incident. Of course, I just became more careful.
Just what would it have been like to say to my own mama (who died of ovarian cancer the year after JFK died), "Mama, I am queer." Or to say, "I want to be just like you, mama."
Dorothy Allison writes:
"Our lives are not small. Our lives are all we have, and death changes everything. The story ends, another begins. The long work of life is learning the love for the story, the novels we live out and the characters we become....Disappeared, anonymous, the story we might have told then remade. She has become legend, I human in grief, and full of the need to grab what I can and hold on, to remake death and begin another tale."
As for me, I especially miss my mama today, right now.
15 December 2000
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