Your Friendly Neighborhood Feminist

On "being" @wilw's assistant: I bought you a salad!

2011-03-10T10:36:00.005-06:00

No, I'm not actually Wil Wheaton's assistant. But last night I dreamt that Wil Wheaton worked for SJ Games and that I was his administrative assistant.

In the dream, I got into the office around 9:00 am, an hour or so before I expected Wil to come in. Someone had left a bunch of product (I don't know what position Wil was supposed to hold here or what product line we worked on. It wasn't all that important to the dream.) that I was supposed to put away at my desk and in his office. I spent the beginning part of the dream putting things away, thinking about where they should go, and being proud that I found a place for it all. I can't wait to tell Wil, I thought, I'm proud I found room for all this stuff. About an hour later, Wil walked in.

“Good morning, Angie.”

“Good morning, Wil.” I turned around to follow him into his office so I could tell him about the product I organized and put away and talk to him about what the rest of his day looked like. When I walked into his office, I saw that the entire rest of the building had managed to beat me to him. It was completely packed. Oh, I thought, it's going to be one of those days.

I hugged the wall and squeezed into his office. Just about everyone was talking to him, handing him things to sign, etc. At first it seemed normal. Busy, yes, but normal. Then I noticed that everyone was having him sign way too many things for a normal day at the office. Looking carefully, I saw that everyone was handing him personal items to sign – pictures, books, dvds – and they were all just chatting about his non-SJ work. What the hell is this?! I thought. This isn't a damn autograph line at a con; this is an office!

I looked at Wil. He looked tired. His desk was full of work, and I could tell he just wanted to have a moment of peace and quiet. He'd actually managed to sit down, but his bag was hanging open and I could see what was supposed to be his lunch/breakfast in it. Whatever it was, it was supposed to be warm and it had quickly cooled during the impromptu signing/meet & greet session. I tried to say something, but no one could hear me. He totally needs to eat something, I thought.

At that point our marketing director stuck his head in Wil's office and said, “Meeting at 11.” I flicked my eyes up at the wall clock: 10:55. I looked over at Wil. He just stared numbly at the clock and nodded. I looked down, upset that I couldn't do anything to help, and noticed that I was holding a cold, crisp, beautifully crafted salad. It was the best-looking pre-packaged salad I'd ever seen. I realized immediately what I had to do.

“WIL!” I declared. “I bought you a salad!”

I looked straight at my co-workers as I put the salad on Wil's desk. It was clear that they'd gotten the message. Slowly, one by one, they all got up and left. When the last person left the room, I closed the door and turned back towards Wil. He was staring at the salad. Slowly he looked up at me and grinned.

“Thank. You.”

--

1. My real life coworkers would never be that rude in real life. Sure, folks would be giddy if Wil Wheaton actually showed up to work at SJ, but I don't think anyone would harass him like this on work hours. But, dreams are dreams. My dream-land coworkers simply have boundary issues.

2. I clearly think too much about work in my off-time.

3. While no one has harassed Andrew for his autograph here at the office, this exact morning has happened more than once, down to the times Andrew and I get into the office and what makes up our morning routines. We're a busy place, what can I say? (I've never actually bought him a salad to make things better, though. Hmm...)

4. I think my brain was still processing this picture of Wil collating paper: http://wilwheaton.typepad.com/wwdnbackup/2011/03/this-is-for-thebloggess.html

5. I love that even in my dreams I'm someone's assistant. That said, being Wil Wheaton's administrative assistant sounds like it would be an awesome job.

6. If I thought for a moment that declaring, "I've bought a salad!" would actually help in real life situations, I'd do it more.

7. I remember distinctly feeling bad in the dream that I couldn't bring Wil something more substantial than a garden salad from the store. But it was a pretty nice salad, and after being bombarded with questions for an hour, I think dream-land Wil was happy with any kind of food.

8. I woke up from this dream around 3:00 am. I spent the rest of my dreams reminding myself of this story so that I could share it with the internet today.

9. I got up at 7am to type this up before work.

10. Now I kind of want a salad for lunch.

In The End: RIP Eleanor K

2010-08-17T12:04:00.001-05:00

My grandmother died this morning.

My grandmother died this morning.

My grandmother died this morning and I've been sitting here, staring at my computer screen for the past hour, trying to make the words that sounded so good in my head come out of my fingers and on to this page. My grandmother died this morning and I can't decide whether I'm sad, mad, or not that surprised. I think I'm all three.

I don't have a big family, so I haven't gone through this kind of loss before. My grandfather passed away some years ago, but we hadn't talked since I was ten. My great grandmother, my Nana, died a few years ago, too, but I didn't cry. But my grandmother? I was close to her. And it's tearing me up inside.

She'd been sick for years. She had her first stroke when I was 10. It happened as we were leaving the theatre after seeing Aladdin. She stumbled and fell onto a trash can. I helped her up and she said she was fine. She drove me home, drove herself home, and then called my mother and aunt for help. I don't know why she didn't just call for help from the theatre. I think she wanted to get me home safely. I like to think that she was trying to avoid scaring me. She was like that; she tended to do for others before herself. I wish she hadn't bothered; I was scared.

She'd been in a nursing home full time since my late teens. She'd gone through phases of doing well with her myriad of conditions – diabetes, high blood pressure, etc – and doing poorly. I haven't seen her as often as I should have or would have liked to due to the fact that she's hundreds of miles away. The last time I saw her, it was winter. I hope it won't always be winter when I think of her.

My grandmother was always there for me. She was the one who took me roller skating every Saturday and sat on the hard benches in the food court while I spent two hours skating in a circle and playing video games. I used to wave to her every time I passed her. She was the one who took me to Alladin's Castle, the only video game arcade in town, and sat on the benches outside the arcade while I spent my last penny each week pretending I was a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, a paper delivery boy, or an Italian plumber. It was her house I walked to after school everyday from the fourth grade through the ninth; where I watched the final episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation; where I had my first kiss, and promptly told her about it because I was embarrassed and mortified by the whole thing. My grandmother loved me and I loved her. It will never be the same without her.

Rest in Peace, Grandma. I love you.

Dear Diary: I love 10 year old me

2010-08-04T16:54:00.003-05:00

Especially when 10 year old me sets up a touching story and then ends it with a total non sequitur.

----------------------

Jan. 4, 1992

Dear Diary,

Nothing really happened today, so back to yesterday. At Pizza Hut after the pizza I wanted to play the games, but two boys were on them. So I waited. One boy asked me if I would play his game for him while he went to get more change. I lost. The other boy said “You play pretty well” and went back to playing. The boy who asked me to play wasn't even mad! After a while the 2nd boy (The one who didn't ask me to play) said, “What's your name?” I told him. “That's a pretty name” Went back to playing. Then the 1rst boy asked “Do you want to play,” he said handing me two quarters. I played. Soon, their pizza was ready. They let two boys play their game so they could eat. As I was leaving I waved at them, they waved back! Wow! The dentist wasn't different except the floride treatment I got a ring there.

Love,
Angela

"Girl" vs "Woman": The Great Debate

2010-07-30T23:09:00.004-05:00

A few days ago, Courtney Stoker (of From Austin to A&M) asked, on Twitter, “Anyone have any theories as to why geek lady communities use 'Girl(s)' in their titles to identify themselves as female so much? ” “Alliteration,” I replied, “if you work 'geek' in there. Also, 'women/woman' holds more power than 'girl' and I think it scares people. So, we use 'girl' in order not to scare others off b/c it's not as 'in your face' as 'woman'.” She asked me to further develop this idea and it got me thinking about what I really mean by the word “woman” holding more power than “girl” and why I think that we women are sometimes afraid to call ourselves women. Clearly, Courtney and I are not the only ones thinking about this issue, as this article from Jezebel.com just popped up on my reader.

Now, first of all, I don't want to even indicate that I have a problem with communities that are comprised of women using “girls” in their titles. I think that we all make decisions what words to use to describe ourselves and everyone's opinions are valid. There are times when I still use “girl” myself. And I regularly follow some groups that do use “girls” in their names (Here's where I give a shout out to Geek Girls Network). And this article isn't meant to look at groups that have participants who cover a large age range (and, thus, might actually be girls). But I think that, as women, there's a line we walk between calling ourselves girls and calling ourselves women.

At one point in history, the line between girl and woman was pretty firm and obvious. The life phases of girls in medieval northwestern Europe were “ultimately marked by bodily-sexual and social factors such as the possession of an intact hymen and the loss of it, the occurrence of the first menstruation (menarche) and the (first) pregnancy and childbirth, the state of daughter-ship, of wife-ship, of motherhood, and of widow-ship” (De Ras 149). Basically, you're a girl until you have your first period. Then, you get married and have a baby and now you're a woman. Done. In fact, according to De Ras, as a girl you weren't even a “girl”, you were a “daughter” “maiden” or “virgin”; “girl” emerged as a word in the sixteenth century (De Ras 152). It was around this time, the fifteenth and sixteenth century, that urban cultures started to develop. Immigration from the country-side into cities lead to an influx of “marriageable youngsters” in those cities and an expanded educational system meant more girls and young women entered schools and the labor market instead of being married off young or sent a convent (150). All of this leads ultimately leads to a new period in girls' (and boys') lives known as adolescence – where you're neither a child nor an adult.

Now, adolescence (or being a “teenager”) as a life phase is a relatively new phenomenon. It has it's roots in the college-aged flappers of the 1920s, and really came into it's own in the 1940s during WWII. In the aftermath of the war, the United States changed its educational standards and started mandating compulsory education through a certain age (source: The notes from my kick-ass “Girls' Media Culture” class). All those post-menarche young women (and men) developed a youth culture that turned into the “teenage years” we know today. (I know this frames “adolescence” and “teenhood” as an explicitly American event. I'm not a childhood/adolescence scholar and only have so much information to go on). But why am I going on about adolescence?

I think women's tendency to use “girl” in social settings comes from the notion of extended adolescence. It's hard to pinpoint when girls become women and boys become men and many of us adults don't run our lives in accordance to what has usually been the markers of adulthood – getting married, having kids, buying a house. A lot of us who are younger still don't identify completely as adults (I'd be rich if I had a dollar for every time I heard a fellow twenty- or thirty-something say, “Gosh, I still feel like I'm 16. When did I become [insert age here]?”) so we still feel, even in our twenties, thirties and forties, that we're still “kids”. Add to that the fact that our culture is obsessed with youth and many folks will do whatever they can to stay young. “Girl” implies youth, vivaciousness, cuteness, innocence; “woman” implies maturity and formality.

“Woman” is a powerful word. “Adult” had power over “child”, so “woman” has a certain amount of linguistic power over “girl”. So does “man” over “boy”. Men get around this power struggle by being called “dudes” or “guys”, but women are left with “girls” (or “gals”). If you don't want to be a girl, you have to exert the sometimes scary power of claiming “woman”. And exerting that power is not something that our culture really likes to stress. Sure, we've had “Girl Power!” But think about it: isn't it more fun to say “girl power” than “woman power”? Don't those two phrases imply different ideologies? “Girl Power!” is fun; “Woman Power!” is... strident. And goodness knows we don't want women to be strident. This is a general cultural problem, but it's sometimes worse in geek culture. There's a notion, and it's not universal but it is important to note, that “computer culture has become linked to a characteristically masculine expertise, such that women too often feel thy need to choose between the cultural associations of 'femininity' and those of 'computer'” (Heeter, et al 76). If we geek women want to be feminine then we have to be “girls”.

Let me give you an example of the girl/woman power struggle. About a month ago I went to a popular South Western comic convention. I was talking to a fellow geek, male, and showing him my geeky tattoos. He was looking at my forearm tattoos, but saw my first tattoo on my upper arm. It's the popular symbol for “woman/female” but has been redone to look like a blue, glowing computer power button. I got it to help motivate me to finish my degree in Women's and Gender Studies. It means, unsurprisingly, “woman power” (My tattoos are fun, but not the deepest things in the world). My fellow geek saw this tattoo and said, without a pause, “Oh, cool! Girl power!” I nodded at him, meekly, and agreed that's what I meant by the tattoo. I wanted to tell him that, at age 28, I'm far from a girl and that it's woman power, but I didn't. We were in the middle of the exhibition hall and there were a lot of people around us and I didn't want to be – wait for it – that woman. You know, the strident one who insists on correcting guys on the difference between “girls” and “women”. I was afraid of pissing this guy off and was slightly intimidated by the power aspect of asserting that I'm a woman, not a girl.

This isn't an exhaustive study of why we geek girls/gals/women often forfeit our adult statuses to call ourselves girls. I'm not a sociologist and I've not interviewed other groups of geeky girls/gals/women to get their take on why they chose “girls” for themselves instead of “women”. But I hope that I've begun to scratch the surface of the power choices we make when we choose labels for ourselves. And I'm interested in your take: are you a girl, gal, woman, all three? Does it matter to you?

P.S. Dudes/guys/men - feel free to chime in, too.

Works Cited

De Ras, Marrion. “Female Youth: Gender and Life Phase from a Historical and Socio-Cultural Perspective.” Women's Studies Journal. 15.2 (1999): 147-160. Print.

Heeter, Carrie, Rhonda Egidio, Punya Mishra, Brian Winn, and Jillian Winn. "Alien Games: Do Girls Prefer Game Designed by Girls?" Games and Culture. 4.1 (2009): 74-100. Print.

Love and War in the Dragon Age

2010-03-25T14:26:00.001-05:00

I have been annoyingly sick since Monday (Sunday if I were honest) and so have found myself unable to concentrate on much of anything, including the internet (I'm sorry, Internet, for not amusing you on Twitter this week. I know you've missed me so much), but mostly the work I need to get done. The sickness, coupled with some serious anxiety from the fact that my due on April 2, first draft 30+ page thesis is closer to the “not done” category than the the “done” category, has made for a pretty crappy week. What I've done with my week, though, is play Dragon Age.

I've explored about 53% of the world and managed to amass an army of dwarves, elves, and humans in some 40-odd hours of game play. It is an amazing game. I'm playing a dwarven warrior: a face-branded, casteless woman named Fréa. She looks like, well, me: short, stout, brown, pigtails. I've enjoyed playing her and living her story for the past few days and I'm excited to see where life takes Fréa and I in our battle against the darkspawn. Something happened two nights ago in the game, however, that took me beyond my normal immersion in a game.

Fréa is a Grey Warden, as any player character in Dragon Age would be, and has gathered a motley crew of followers so far: two mages, two rouges, two fighters, a golem and a dog. With her, also, is fellow Grey Warden and fighter, Alistair. While I'll try to avoid spoiling the details for those who have yet to play Dragon Age I will say that I've been trying to get my party to like me in order to unlock their special skills (the more they like me, the better leader I am and the better followers they are). While I was chatting up Alistair in Denerim the other night after a particularly nasty encounter with his half-sister (everyone has family drama in this game) I managed to, uh, flirt with Alistair enough to enter a relationship with him. It was probably when I told him that he has other people that care about him than his biological family and that I “cared for him more than he probably knew.” What read to me as “I care for you in a fond, sisterly kind of way.” the game read as “Sexytimes nao plz? Kthxbai!” So, great, Alistair and I am in a relationship. Awesome. Notice how I keep using first person pronouns? Yeah, about that...

Last night my party and I went into a ruin (naturally) in the Brecilian Woods to finish a quest that would get the Dalish (elven) army to join us against the darkspawn. After killing some skeletons and looting their bony remains I turned to my party members to touch in and see if we could talk about any new subjects. When I turned to Alistair he auto-generated a conversation about a flower he picked way back at the beginning of the game. He waxed philosophically about how it was such a beautiful rose and how he wanted to pick it so that it wouldn't be tainted and ruined by the darkspawn's not so sudden but still inevitable betrayal. Then he gave it to me, which was sweet of him. It must have indicated further growth on the “I like you” scale because after that conversation his stock greeting to me changed. Instead of a courteous “What do you need?” (or something like that) he started saying “Yeeeessss?” and squinting his eyes at me. This I, naturally, had to further investigate. I said I wanted to talk to him about something personal. He laughed nervously and said that while the ruins weren't the most private place in the world to go ahead. My options to that were “We need to end this.” and “(Kiss him.)” Kiss him? Kiss him?! I turned to my friend Ted, who was watching me play, and laughed nervously.

“Kiss him?” I asked. Ted looked up from his laptop.

“Unless you want to end the relationship.”

I felt Fréa deserved a chance at love. So I kissed Alistair. And then I felt really weird about it.

Let me take a moment to say that, of all the video game animated kisses I've seen in my day, this is the least sexy. It was emotionless (I've seen Sims have steamer encounters) and was made hilarious by the fact that, as they both went in for the kill, my dwarf was suddenly the same height as the hulking human fighter. (I think they missed a brilliant opportunity to script in a stock scene where both characters sheepishly look around for a box or chest for the shorter person to stand on. Did the thought of a dwarven female hitting on Alistair (who is only a love interest for women PCs apparently) never occur to the programmers?) Hilariousness of the kiss aside, I got some emotional pleasure from taking my character and another character's relationship to a new level. I felt embarrassed about it, though, because Ted was there. It wasn't Ted's presence specifically that made me blush about having Fréa and Alistair get some PG action on; I would have been embarrassed to do it in front of any of my friends. I realized, when the character that looks so much like me and through whose eyes I'd experienced so much kissed Alistair, how much I had internalized the character.

I think part of it is the fact that, yes, the character looks like me and as brown, female gamer I've played almost no characters that look like me (and a shit-load of characters that look like Alistair) so my attachment to Fréa is strong because of that. (I remember feeling a similar sense of personal attachment and violation when I created a character that looked like me in On the Rainslick Precipice of Darkness and got... attacked... by fruit fuckers.) But the identification with these characters is stronger than just identity politics – I really care about them because they're like real people to me (in a way). I kept saying “I went into the ruins with my party...” before because that's really how I feel about it. Dragon Age is such a large, expansive game and it feels extremely real. Fréa isn't just a character in a game – she's real, and she's me. (I get this way whenever I play a really good game of D&D, too.) It's magical when a game really makes you suspend your disbelief, especially when it's good enough to make me suspend my disbelief (a metric ton of media studies, playwriting, theatre, and film classes will give you all the tools to understand how films/television/plays/video games teach us about the world and get us to identify with certain characters but will also kind of ruin your ability to blithely watch a movie and not see how it works. I prefer understanding how stories work but it does take a lot to get me to totally forget for a moment how it's pulling me in). My embarrassment stemmed from the fact that the private moment Fréa/I had with Alistair was witnessed by someone else. I managed to get so immersed in the game world that whatever Fréa did, I did. I think that's amazing.

This incredible identification with Fréa/the other characters is also why I will never play a version of game in which I actively antagonize my fellow party members. I want them to all like “me” so much, even though they are not real in the slightest. I find it a little disconcerting that I care so much about wanting my character to have good relationships with the other NPCs for the relationship's sake alone, not the combat bonuses. But, hey, last night I got a rose from Alistair and that's the closest thing to flirting that I've encountered in quite some time. Why argue with it, eh?

So, that's where I've been this week, Internet. Cursing my sinuses, taking Benadryl, coughing up my lungs, and fighting and loving in Ferelden. I need to get better this weekend, though, because if my thesis adviser has not written me off entirely yet she will if I don't make my first draft deadline for this damn thesis.

Cultural activism vs "Real World" activism: Missing the point

2010-02-08T22:56:00.001-06:00

*Note: I swear an awful lot in this post. Yes, I consider under ten swears an “awful lot”. Yes, I should put on my big person underpants and learn to make my point without swearing. No, today is not that day.

I am really, really tired of people who put down critical discussions of pop culture.

Let me explain. No, there is too much, let me sum up...

Today is Monday and on Mondays, like all days of the week, I spend a portion of my morning catching up on a variety of websites that I find interesting/important. If you follow me on Twitter you know that one of my first reads is Jezebel.com, a sibling site of Gawker.com that focuses on, and I quote, “celebrity, sex, fashion for women. Without Airbrushing.” It is a great feminist minded website that talks about politics and entertainment in a smart and snarky way. But the comment streams are starting to bug the ever living shit out of me. It seems that some people have forgotten that they are on a website devoted to entertainment and seem to feel that feminist critical discussions on... entertainment are somehow not what the site is about.

I started the day with Jezebel's Super Bowl commercial recap. I didn't watch the Super Bowl but gathered from my Twitter stream that many of the commercials were trite, unimaginative, and downright misogynistic even to the point that I heard the word “misogynistic” used by people who I have never seen use that word in conversation before. I like Super Bowl commercial recaps because sometimes I don't watch the Super Bowl. Jezebel pretty much said whatever I had to say about the commercials and I wasn't going to think twice about the post until I started reading the comments. My friends, if I can impart to you the tiniest bit of advice regarding the internet I would impart this: Never, ever read the comment stream on the internet. In most cases it's where logic and tact go to die. (It is also where critical theorists get their sources to write papers about receptions studies without having to dick around with the IRB regarding “human subjects” for papers so comment away. God knows I do.)

There are some 684 comments on the post as I write this so I'm not going to give every example of what I'm talking about but there are a slew of comments that esstially all boil down to, “With [healthcare/Sarah Palin/Haiti/etc] happening in the world we're getting upset about stupid things like commercials where guys act like jerks and insult women. Who cares what someone says about lip balm!” Very often these comments go unanswered (mostly because “feeding the trolls” is against the TOS over at Jezebel) but there are a lot of them. I'm not going to lie to you Marge, I don't know what's more aggravating – that damn Dodge commercial or people who don't know why that Dodge commercial is so wrong.

Another post from today talks about Taylor Swift and how her songs and lyrics play right into America/the West's attempt to culturally privilege “purity” and “innocence” and how she sells a brand of being a “real teen” and “outsider” while in reality she's none of those things. I don't know if I'd go so far to call Swift a “feminist nightmare” (I reserve that title for women who tell me they are “anti-feminist” and then proceed to define “feminism” so wrongly that it's not even funny) but I respect Dodai's opinion and enjoyed the piece. But even though Jezebel is mostly an entertainment blog there are many comments in the 1093 comment stream that, again, boil down to “Don't we have better things to focus on than some celebrity? Who cares what her songs and persona sell to young girls! We should worry about global warming/Sarah Palin/abstinence only education!” And, in the end, despite my opinions on critical discussions and critical thought and not shooting down opposing viewpoints, all I end up wanting so say is, “Seriously, folks, STFU and GTFO. Why the hell are you on a feminist entertainment blog if you don't. Want. To. Talk. About. Feminism. And. Entertainment?”

This binary of “real issues” and “made up issues” annoys the fuck out of me. Yes, as feminists we should be concerned about healthcare issues and comprehensive sexual education in our schools. Yes, as feminists we should be concerned about the ever present glass ceiling. Yes, as feminists we should protest in the streets and do all sorts of radical shit. But what I think a lot of the “real issue” activists don't understand is that we have laws that keep comprehensive sex education out of our schools or mandate that marriage can only be between a biological man and a biological woman, etc because our culture supports it. And our culture is, big surprise here, informed by entertainment. Sure, the Dodge commercial is just a commercial and many people think it's stupid but you know what? More people agree with it than don't. How do I know this? Because if people didn't agree with the general tone of those commercials they wouldn't exist. The advertising team that worked on that commercial didn't just make it for shits and giggles. They didn't just make it because a minority of people would inherently agree with it. They made it because a majority of people would inherently agree with it. And because a majority of people still think that commercials like the Dodge commercial are “harmless” and “funny” we, as cultural activists, need to talk about. We need to investigate the ways it informs our American culture. We need to stand up and say, “That's wrong! Here's why!” to our friends and family. We need to start changing the way people think about the world. Because changing the way people think changes the way people vote. Want the laws to change regarding healthcare, rape prosecution, abstinence only sex education? Change the way people think about women. It's hard to tell a woman she has no control over her body when you respect her. It's easy when you think she's a controlling bitch who drags you out shopping (I'm looking at you Flo TV) and think “brotastic” commercials like Dodge's are “harmless fun.”

Changing cultural opinions is just as important as changing hard laws. I'm sick to death of feeling like I'm not enough of a feminist activist because I want to talk about gender, race, sexuality, class, etc in entertainment. Both types of activism are important. Don't we have enough opposition from anti-feminists? Why do we have to fight each other for which is the “best” type of activism?

I Luv the Alamo Ritz: PR done right (Or, how to be an awesome, ethical company)

2010-02-05T14:28:00.004-06:00

EDIT 2/10/10: I went to another Terror Tuesday tonight because I really wanted to add it back into my weekly schedule. While there were announcements of "beastiality" (a dog put its head up a woman's skirt for 30 seconds) and "transvestism" (a teenaged boy wore makeup for about 30 seconds) the two rapes in the movie went unmentioned (I actually think the beastiality and transvestism were played up for shock value but I'm not going to go there). Look, I'm not new to schlock movies (I know nude bodies will probably be involved somehow) and if I hadn't just sent an email to the Alamo about this issue I probably wouldn't have bothered talking to them about tonight's incident. But I wasn't fucking kidding; that shit needs to be announced. Forgetting to do it or just not wanting to say they don't want to do it isn't really good enough in my opinion. Everyone I talked to was very polite and I don't think (hope) it wasn't an intentional run around so I'm not saying "Rawr! I hate them! They suck!" but what needed to happened didn't happen. I love the Alamo locations. I still have fondness for Alamo Downtown. But Alamo Ritz is not the same Alamo that used to be down on Colorado.

------

I know I just posted a rape in entertainment entry but something happened this week that I just can't help but relate.

Last Tuesday Ted and I went to a screening of J.D.'s Revenge at the Alamo Ritz as part of their Terror Tuesday programming. Usually Ted can't be persuaded to watch horror movies but when they're b-level or below horror movies we'll go. From the description on the movie page and the trailer from YouTube I was expecting a terrible, dated “Blacksploitation” film. In reality it's a very good movie. It's dated by the quality of the film and it's special effects but it's well-directed, there were no weak performances and Glynn Turman gave a very nuanced performance as Ike/J.D. Walker. There is, however, a rape scene.

Now, I'm not talking about a “throw a woman on the bed and try to hit her before she scrambles up” rape scene. I mean an extended “beat her up, rip off her clothes and force her legs open repeatedly as she screams” rape scene. It comes from the violent, gangster character of J.D. Walker and while I'm not a proponent of rape scenes it didn't feel out of place for the character. I'd watch the movie again despite the scene. My only problem was that there was no announcement that the scene was in there. I was shocked by the scene and wished that someone had told the audience about it. As I said before rape scenes can be triggers and while I don't push for all-out censorship there needs to be a dialog about movies that use such scenes to further the narrative. I grumbled to myself about it for the rest of the night until I calmed down and thought to myself, “Don't dream it, be it.” What I meant by that was, “Don't hold a grudge and be cranky to yourself. Share your very valid opinion. Be the change you want to see.” So, instead of holding a grudge against the Alamo Ritz I decided to email a comment about it.

I was nervous about sending an email. I love the Original Alamo locations and Ted and I often go to regular movies and special programming at the Ritz, South Lamar, and Village locations. I didn't think that I'd get a dick response but that's always a worry. Not everyone responds well to being asked to think about avoiding or at least warning about sexual violence in entertainment (I'm looking at you Method). I just didn't know what kind of response I'd get. I didn't want to get a negative response and thus have to rethink my movie going habits. But these issues are important and if it's not worth it to me to potentially have to rethink my opinion about people/establishments I love then I don't get to call myself a feminist. I'm very happy to tell you that we can all breath easy – the Alamo Ritz staff really is as awesome as we all think.

The first response I got was from the manager who thanked me for my comment and said he'd pass it on to the programming department. “Awesome,” I thought. “Short, polite, professional response. No one called me stupid. I'm okay with this!” Later in the day I got an email from the TT programmer. It took me a few hours to open it. It could have said anything. It could tell me that they didn't see why that scene should need a special announcement since it's part of a horror film and the audience should be prepared for all sorts of horror. It could thank me for my “concern” and that they'd “look into it” - which is PR for “We disagree but want to appease you.” I could just not get any reply. These responses would be atypical for the Alamo, but one never know. What it said, though, was that they actually do make announcements when any of the films have scenes that are sexually violent or explicit like that and that, unfortunately, the programmer had forgotten there was one in this film. He apologized for the missing announcement and asserted that they are committed to being responsible about not showing misogynistic horror films (This is the truth. I've never had to comment about a previous issue like this) and to announcing films that have sexual violence in them. “Whew,” I thought. “I can still love them.”

I'm surprised that I held so much fear of the response that I would get to my email. My initial email, in my opinion, was short and polite and while I felt that it was the responsible thing to do is to make an announcement, that I wasn't upset at them and was not going to boycott them forever. But making a critical comment (Different than criticizing) about such a touchy subject can get ugly. It encourages me, though, that people and companies like the Alamo “get it”. I love you, Alamo Ritz, even though you moved to sixth street thus making me loathe finding parking to come see you.

There's nothig "edgy" about rape, Family Guy.

2010-02-03T11:07:00.005-06:00

Feministing has a blog post up today about a rape joke in a recent episode of Family Guy. It's a very short scene involving Peter and a bull. You can read the transcript over at Feministing and watch the scene on Hulu but basically Peter is a bullrider who is sexually assaulted by the bull he's riding. It's pretty disturbing. I'm not a survivor of sexual assault or rape and so it wasn't a trigger for me, but even my stomach was turned. Viewing anyone, even a ass like Peter Griffin, being attacked and having their pants ripped off while they scream, “No! No!” is not fun nor is it funny. I don't understand why Family Guy and its producers don't seem to realize that. Maybe they do and they just don't really care.

Seth Mcfarlane's point of view is that the humor of Family Guy comes from the fact that Peter is so oblivious to the horrible things he says. I get that. In fact that's what I generally use to defend Family Guy from some criticism that I don't think it deserves. But that defense only goes so far. Example 1: Peter saying, upon hearing that three college women were raped and murdered, that “Everyone is getting laid besides [him]”. Possibly funny because you're supposed to laugh at how asinine Peter is. Example 2: Stewie telling a human, alternate universe version of Brian that it's a good thing Brian is white because “that's kind of a big thing here”. Funny because it speaks a truth about how while it's supposed to be funny that Stewie thinks like that it's actually the truth. Example 3: Peter having his pants physically ripped off while he screams and scrambles to get away from a bull who calls him “fatty” and says they're “going to have a real good time”. Not funny because that shit happens every day. In this case we're not laughing at Peter; we're laughing at rape. (Example 4: Peter lassoing Meg, dragging her downstairs, pulling down her pants and attempting to brand her as his property. Not fucking funny partially because I'm sick and tired of seeing Meg physically beat up and I don't find it funny that Meg is treated like a piece of property. Isn't the humor that Peter's a jerk and we should laugh at him? No, the humor is that we're beating on Meg again because that's the “thing” to do in Family Guy.)

The argument that the humor is always that Peter is obtuse so he says horrible shit that no respectable person should say is valid but I really wonder how often it gets taken that way. I've obviously not done any reception studies on Family Guy viewers and I don't want to stereotype the 18-34 year old male audience that Family Guy is primarily aimed at but for all the people who understand that Peter is an ass and you shouldn't ever think it's okay to be like him there have to be people for whom Family Guy reinforces their existing ideologies about race, class, gender, etc. Shit like this rape scene is exactly what contributes to the rape culture in America. Sure, we all know rape is wrong and aren't going to go out in the streets and rape people just because we saw it on Family Guy. But when rape is put on the television as humor and entertainment it makes fun of the thousands upon thousands of individuals who lived through such real life horror and desensitizes us into thinking that “rape just happens” as if it's normal. Not cool, guys, not cool.

What I wish, though, is that more blogs outside of the race/class/gender/sexuality world would talk critically about Family Guy/other entertainment. It's great that feminist blogs will bring up these issues but these conversations would get a lot more attention if some straight white male blogger starting saying things like, "Hey, I like Family Guy but could we kill the rape jokes and start writing better stories for Meg? Would that kill us? No." It's not as if we need that proverbial blogger to take up this issue for us (And save us from Bowser even though we're in another castle) but the power of allying yourself to a community that you're not a part of is that it shows that an issue isn't just the concern of that one community, but is the concern of all of us.

Lay of the Land

2010-01-31T10:55:00.001-06:00

I saw Tim Miller's “Lay of the Land” last night. It really was a wonderful piece and if you have the opportunity to see it or any of Tim's work you really should.

I felt extremely uncomfortable at Friday afternoon's talk/mini-performance from him and at the performance last night. I usually tell people that I don't go to theatre in Austin anymore because I lack the money and time but that's a lie. I'm uncomfortable around the UT theatre community that I used to be part of but ceased to engage with after I graduated. I was so happy in 2003 and 2004, even though my LiveJournal from those years would tell you otherwise, when I was a theatre major and I was beginning to study performance studies and got to take classes with people like Jill Dolan and Paul Bonin-Rodriguez. While I was the quiet one, the nerdy one, the one that was never going to be a performance artist I still felt like I had a home and that people somewhat cared about my opinions. I love live performance even though I'm too awkward to do it myself. I always thought I'd stay in the theatre. Now when I go back to events in the theatre building on campus or into the vibrant live theatre I dread it. I don't want to see my former theatre professors or fellow students. I don't want to get into a conversation about what my life has become and I'm not sure anyone remembers my name anymore. Or, they might remember my name, but why would they really care?

That said, I am extremely happy I went to see “Lay of the Land”. Beyond chanting silently to myself, “NEA Four! NEA Four!” I got to see a preeminent performance artist share his craft. I've always been in awe of performers who can weave their own personal narratives into something bigger than themselves. I was not a little gay boy at age 10 but, damn, I feel like I have some idea of it. This is why I'm in awe of writers who can do the same thing. I always feel that when I try to write my own narratives into narrative non-fiction or performance that it comes out stilted and smells vaguely of TMI. I really wish I knew what was blocking me or how to overcome it.

Criticism vs. Critical Thought

2010-01-27T14:24:00.002-06:00

So, I'm not going to lie to you, Marge, I'm kind of upset at myself for blowing off the past two days of blogging. So much for Friday's resolution, eh? Well, I did post a 36 page zine on Sunday so maybe that counts for a few day's worth of blogging.

I'm slowing working my way through the last Prince of Persia game. It's very different to play a game for fun than it is to play a game for work. I'm working with a walkthrough just so that I don't spend an exorbitant amount of time trying to figure out my next move. It doesn't cut down on the pressure I feel when I accidentally run off a ledge or miss a jump, though. In fact playing the game for research and analysis makes those mistakes even worse because I don't have all the time in the world to figure out the game naturally or stop and come back to a boss fight later, when I've cleared my head about it. It's pretty stressful. Also, the Shadow Prince is a huge nag.

A few days ago I posted a link on Twitter to an article on Racialicious about “Nerds of Color”. I'm not sure how many people read it but I really, really like and appreciate this article. It articulates a lot of things that I've felt over the years but never really knew how to express. When Bao Phi asked the question, “But then how do nerds of color like me fit in, and how do we deal with fellow nerds who don’t want to talk about things like race and class in comic books, video games, role playing games, and movies?” I jumped up in my chair, pumped my fist in the air, and yelled, “YES! THIS! Thank you!” It's always bothered me how we, as a group of nerds, can talk about what it's like to be picked on and ignored for liking video games, Dungeons & Dragons, science fiction and/or fantasy, etc but when someone wants to bring up how the nerd community still sometimes reinforces gender, racial, class, and sexuality norms no one understands how any of those issues can be connected with nerd culture. Progressives, and I include myself in this group, don't really like to be reminded of the ways they're less than progressive.

I got one direct message from a fellow geek on Twitter thanking me for posting the article. She brought of the issue of the difference between criticism and critical thinking and how often people just want to hear the criticism. She is completely right. One of the biggest problems in trying to talk about RCGS issues within communities is that there's often a misunderstanding between criticism and critical thinking on both sides of the conversation. I've often seen people opt for criticism of something (“Resident Evil 5 is stupid and offensive because you kill black people!”) rather than aiming for critical thought (“Setting the game in a poor, rural village set somewhere in the 'generic' vastness of Africa reinforces the notion that Africa is desert, rural and monolithic, not a continent made up of many vastly different countries and communities. Also, there are some racist implications in the fact that the only zombies you, as the white player character, kill are ethnically African. A different way the game could have been set up was to set it in an urban city and have zombies of various ethnicities. The game isn't inherently racist but does reinforce some stereotypes we think we 'know' about Africa – it's the same terrain no matter where you go, the only people who live there are poor, rural blacks, and that it's a place that Europeans or people who are ethnically European need to save.”). I've more than often seen people opt for assuming critical thought equals criticism, however, and shut down the entire conversation (“You want to talk about some of the implications about race in Resident Evil 5! So YOU'RE the racist! I'm not racist for playing the game! I have black friends! It's just a game!”). I'm not sure what to do about this tendency in us, as a society, to opt for criticism over critical thought.

Criticism is easy. Thinking takes work. It takes less thought to call something stupid or to shut down someone else's opinion by assuming they're calling something stupid than it does to hold a deep, detailed conversation. It takes slowing down and truly thinking about a subject and the willingness to truly listen to others to have a useful conversation about these issues. It seems like such a simple concept but I think it's one that not everyone works under. That's a little depressing but that's why we keep writing articles and keep starting new conversations about these issues in media and other aspects of society.

In totally unrelated news, did you know that I won the internets yesterday? I did. It's official because it comes from the Secretary of Geek Affairs and everything. Why? Because I make weird things.

Okay, that's all for me for today. I'm going to keep reading old Questionable Content comics and throw myself even further into Northanger Abbey. Mmm... Gothic literature.

Disclaimer: I have yet to play Resident Evil 5 so neither of my criticism/critical thought examples are true. I'll play it when I upgrade my gaming systems.

OREOS... in SPACE! Vol. 1 Iss. 1 is out!

2010-01-24T22:39:00.003-06:00

So last semester I was given the opportunity to get creative and make something. For my final project in my Women's Media Culture class I had the choice of writing a ten page research paper or making a creative media project. In the past I've always chosen the research paper because, well, that's what I do. But this time I chose the creative project. I made a zine.

I was a little too young for the riot grrrl movement when it was in it's hey day in the early '90s. Actually, I probably would have been the perfect age but it takes awhile for things to get to Wisconsin and I never really heard about the riot grrrl movement until I was older and in college. A year ago, when I took the same instructor's Girls' Media Culture class, I felt that I had missed out on an important cultural movement and wished I had been part of the DIY culture. So when the opportunity came up to end class with a creative project the part of my voice that says “Wait, I'm sorry. Did you just say DIY is over? DIY is never over! You know that!” implored me to get a little creative and make something.

The point of the project was to explore gender and the media. Science fiction, and the world of Star Trek in particular, has been the media which has probably impacted me the most and has been the biggest influence on my understanding of race, gender, sex, sexuality, class, etc. So I decided to write about Star Trek. While I touch on sexuality, desire, and gender, race became the biggest part of the zine and when the zine started putting itself together in that way I choose not to fight it.

When I made the zine I wasn't sure if I was going to publish it outside of class or not. Academic classes are generally “safe spaces” and it was understood that speaking about race, gender, class, sexuality, etc was appropriate and important. “I can show this to my class because they won't judge me.” I said. “But I can't show anyone else. I don't want to be attacked by the internet.” But I've decided to publish it. It was well received by my classmates (Who don't have to like my work or think it's important), my professor (Who doesn't have to like my work or think it's important either) and Ted (Who, contrary to stereotypes about marriage, doesn't have to automatically like my work or think it's important). Maybe it will be well received by anyone who finds my blog by accident or came here from my twitter stream.

OREOS... in SPACE! Q&A

Q: What is the zine about?

A: How I came to think about race, gender, and sexuality through Star Trek, the media franchise that above all others came to define my life as a pre-teen and teenager.

Q: Can I show it to others?

A: Yes! I didn't release it under a creative commons license because I just didn't when I was writing it up. So Vol. 1 Iss. 1 is released as “All Rights Reserved” but here's the deal: You are free to distribute it electronically or in paper copy as long as you don't sell it (Non-commercial uses only; I'm not selling it so you shouldn't sell it), don't present it as your own work (attribution to me), and don't change it (non-derivative). Or, just email me and ask me if you have questions. Please. I love email.

Q: Do you want feedback?

A: Hells yes. It would make my day to know that people have read/are reading the zine. And if you take the time to create thoughtful feedback I will respond to you. What does thoughtful mean? Basically, don't be a dick. Telling me how much I suck or how wrong I am is a dick move. Don't do it. But if you want to say things like, “I liked [blank] but I felt [blank] could use some work.” or “I feel uncomfortable that you said [blank], can you explain what you meant?” then please feel free (Or, “You are awesome and I award you a thousand internets!” is nice, too). Feedback that tells me not to quit my day job or that I must have had a lot of time on my hands is not helpful or wanted. Feedback that is congratulatory and/or constructive in order to help me become a better writer and communicator is helpful and wanted.

That's about it for me for tonight! Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy the zine!

Sorry for putting it up in parts! I was fighting with technology all day about it!

Part 1 of 3

Part 2 of 3

Part 3 of 3

Blog for Choice Day 2010

2010-01-22T11:10:00.003-06:00

Every year on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade NARAL asks bloggers a question regarding reproductive rights and asks us to post them on January 22. This year's topic is: "In honor of Dr. George Tiller, who often wore a button that simply read, "Trust Women," this year's Blog for Choice question is: "What does Trust Women mean to you?"

This seems like almost too easy a question. Trusting women means not stopping them from making their own decisions regarding their body or mind. Trusting women means believing that they are smart enough to think for themselves. Trusting women is making sure there are resources out there so that every woman can live the life that she wants, making the choices she wants, and not being bound by what other people think she should be. Trusting women is pushing for comprehensive sexual education in schools so that women have the resources to make their own decisions. Trusting women is having social programs in place to teach women and men how to have planned pregnancies that they want and feel good about. Trusting women is minding your own damn business and quit trying to tell me what to do. Allow me (Allow me? Really, I'm not asking; I'm demanding.) all the options regarding my reproductive rights - birth control, planned pregnancy, abortion, adoption, everything - and trust that I will make the right decision for me. I trust other women will make the right decisions for them.

If you go to NARAL's Trust Women page you'll see a link to other blogs that are participating in today's Blog for Choice. However, my personal favorite is from @SharkFu at AngryBlackBitch. It's kind of hard to not just sign her post with "Ditto."

What does "Trust Women" mean to you?

The Not Necessarily New Year Resolution

2010-01-21T21:11:00.003-06:00

Take these broken wings. Learn to fly again. Learn to be free.*

The other day on twitter Jeph Jacques, creator of the fantastic webcomic Questionable Content, talked about how a cable guy told him that his house was not in their “serviceable area” simply because he didn't feel like installing cable at that time. Jeph tweeted that he “never woulda gotten to where [he is] today if [he] only did comics when [he] 'felt like it.'” When I read it I nodded along, as if people can see me nod in agreement with them over the internet, in outrage at those people who don't do their jobs simply because “they don't feel like it.” There have been many times when I didn't want to go to work or, while there, didn't want to work as hard as I should but I've never just ignored things because I “didn't feel like it.” I did fail to turn in one paper last semester because I couldn't organize my thoughts and I couldn't pull the paper together but that was more due to my freaking out, not my willfull decision to “just not do it.” But Jeph's comment about not being where he is today if he only made comics when he felt like it got to me. I realized that I'm a person who often doesn't follow through on the things I want to do in life because I'm scared, or tired, or "just don't feel like it." I will do my work when it's for a class or a job but I often fail to do things that don't have a firm deadline. I do not regularly blog anymore and I don't share the things I want to because “I don't feel like it.” Either I'm “too tired to write” or I “just want to veg out in front of the tv” or I tell myself that “no one will care what I think anyway so why bother creating anything.” It's kind of a bullshit line of reasoning, really. Why should anyone care about what I could create since I haven't created it yet. It makes me wonder where I could be now if I hadn't basically pissed away the last ten years never really pushing myself. I want to be a Captain Picard one day, not Lt. Picard. Things are going to change.

For as much as I hemmed and hawed last semester about the merits of going back to school to finish the degree that I'm not sure is going to be useful to me I went back. I'm taking two awesome classes. One on Gothic literature and how gender works in the genre – and one called “Queer Media Studies”. I'm kind of cheating taking the QMS class because it is far from my first class in GLBTQI Studies but I really like the instructor and, to be fair, we're reading a lot of articles that I've not read before. Also, we're going to talk about queercore and zines and media representation of the queer community. It made me feel as happy as I was five years ago when I was a theatre major and took classes about queer theatre performance and performance artists. (Although I've grown up a bit in the past five years. I'm not nearly as asinine as I was back then. I wish there was a way to apologize to my former theatre professors for essentially being crazy without being all weird and shit). It's like getting paid to go play. Wait, I'm paying for class credit. So I'm paying to go play. Wait, what? Well, anyway...

But going to class yesterday and then reading Jeph's tweets kind of lit a fire under me. Either I can continue to sit here and complain and mope or I can push myself to be different. Therefore, Monday through Friday there will be a blog post about something I've been thinking about. I am going to force myself to share my thoughts about the things I study in an effort to not only become a better writer but also to show the world – the part that visits blogspot and cares what I have to say – what I'm about. I have no delusions that I'm going to be the next “big thing” or that anyone past my small group of friends and acquaintances will really care about this thing but what else am I going to do? Keep talking to the cats? No way.

*Shut up. I can only quote U2 so many times before it just becomes obnoxious.

Webcomics Rampage: A squee and a thank you

2010-01-16T19:31:00.004-06:00

Whee! Look what the awesome @merbrat got for me at last month's Webcomics Rampage at Dragon's Lair:

Tai, from Questionable Content

PeeJee and Choo-Choo Bear, from Something Positive

I'm a longtime reader of Something Positive and a relatively new reader of Questionable Content but I really love the worlds Randy and Jeph, respectively, have made with their webcomics. So, this is a moment to squee and be happy but also to thank Barb for picking these and the first book from Girls With Slingshots up for me. That was really awesome of you!

What does "creative" mean anyway?

2010-01-16T17:36:00.007-06:00

So, I spent a good part of the day yesterday poking around the internet for resources to use on my next hobby project. I'm not telling anyone what it is because, well, revealing a big secret is kind of fun for me sometimes and I'd like to keep it to myself for awhile. But what I will say is that while I had a lot of fun looking for materials and I'm excited about the project I feel that it's kind of derivative. It's a project that's based on riffing on something that's already been created. This makes me feel a little apprehensive about the actual creativeness of it all. Can I really claim that I'm being creative and making something when it's based on other people's work?

Some of the people who know me might be aware of this thing I call the “Star Trek Musical”. I started writing it when I was 13 and, based on the fact that it is “copyrighted” to “Angie K****** Enterprises 1996”, I finished it when I was actually 14. This, in combination with the other Star Trek based short stories I used to write around this time, has always been part of my claim that I used to get creative and make something. But is it really being creative? Does creativeness imply that you create something mostly out of your own head and not have it be part of something other people made first? Can I be creative and claim to make things if I only kind of riff on what other people do? I don't feel terribly creative right now in terms of making something new (Creative works and academic papers for my classes aside). It makes me wonder what's wrong with me. No many people enjoy being around uncreative people. And I haven't spent much social time with anyone other than Ted recently so maybe there's something there.

The problem is that I really enjoy doing creative projects based off of stuff other people do like writing a new story involving television characters that I really like or making tongue in cheek handcrafts that riff on a theme that's sure to make people laugh (See “Paint By Number Wil & Velvet Wesley” and “Woodcut Wil & Wil & Velvet Wesley”). But is that enough?

Re The New Year

2010-01-14T09:54:00.000-06:00

So the new year hasn't been treating me all that differently than the old year did. I can't say that I'm surprised. It's foolish to think that all the problems that ailed you one day would suddenly go away the next day just because the decade is over. It's not a huge secret that I've had a bad couple of months. Things haven't really been right for some time. There's been this overwhelming feeling in my life for months that I'm not as good of an academic as I want to be, nor will I ever be. Personally, I blame turning 28. I mean, when I was a kid I thought I'd be an astronaut by now. Turning out to be a pretty average twenty-something year old with no obvious traits to her name and only her significant other to tell her that she has “smart insights” into media studies is kind of a let down. Especially when I'm working on my second undergraduate degree and I still don't know how to live the life I want, or even exactly what that is. Actually, I don't blame turning 28. I blame my lifelong friend, “Prove to my peers that I'm smart and not a failure”. “Prove to my peers” has been behind a lot of nervousness about doing what I do in life and has ruined a lot of friendships. It's only gotten worse as I've moved into my late '20s. I feel like by now I should have something big to show for my time on this earth. Younger people than I have done greater things and “Prove” likes to remind me of this almost everyday. The fear of failure, the fear of looking stupid or sucking, has kept me stymied for the better part of the past ten years.

There's a lot that got me down: peers who have stopped responding to my emails, the fact that, for reasons I'm not going into on the internet, I had to bail on an activism conference I was going to work on this semester, a general feeling of doubt about whether this degree means anything or whether anyone wants to hear my opinions on race and gender in video games. I really don't know how to proceed on any of this. It's gotten so bad in the past week or so that I've been literally waking up at 10 am, not showering, and spending all day in my pajamas watching Maury online when even daytime television drives me to insanity. (I have stopped being snarky about Dr. Oz or The Doctors. I am now used to their shows. In another few weeks in this manner I think I'd actually look forward to them.) Also, I've been making ghetto sangria. I don't even have the interest to read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies or start working through Prince of Persia: Warrior Within and Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones (I'm writing a thesis this semester on the POP: Sands of Time trilogy). People, I'm so depressed I don't want to read about zombies or play video games. Video games that count as academic research. (Seriously, I get academic credit for playing three video games and interpreting how the game represents gender and race. How awesome is that?!)

“Okay, great, whatever.” you say. “Why are you griping about this?”

“Hey, chill, overly anxious person from the internet.” I say. “I'm getting to it.”

My point in all this is to say that yesterday I changed all that. I got up at a reasonable hour. I showered. I put on real clothes. I did laundry and dishes and made headway on the filing I have neglected for the past three years. I turned Seesmic off on my phone and temporarily turned off the SMS messages from Twitter on the few people I follow on my phone. I resisted the urge to check my @ replies every few minutes to see if anyone in the internet world missed me and wanted to be my friend and talk to me. I tried very hard not to have imaginary conversations with various Star Trek actors. On this I failed (In my head Star Trek actors that I meet at conventions totally want to talk to me and think I'm awesome and smart and cool.) but I kept the “OMG! You're really awesome and that Star Trek musical sounds really cool and it was not weird that you Mary-Sue'd yourself into Star Trek: Deep Space Nine as a kid and wrote short stories about your character for your eighth grade English class creative writing assignments! Let's go to the bar and talk some more!” chatter to a minimum. (For the record, in my mind, LeVar Burton and Jonathan Frakes think I'm awesome.) And you know what? It felt good. It was hard, but it felt good.

I can get by without always being connected to the internet, waiting for that next email or tweet to convince me that people really do want me around. I mean, it was lonely, but how can I get creative and make things when I can't get up from the computer long enough to think about what I want to do in life? I mean, I'm still having a hard time, I still wish the people who have yet to respond to my emails would respond, and yes, it would be lovely to feel that someone out there cares about what I have to say or about me as just a nice person. But I took a step yesterday and I think that counts for something.

Now here's the interesting part: I wrote most of that two nights ago. I was up late, watching late night television and wavering between wanting to sleep and wanting to stay up. While I tried to understand the nuances of late night poker I began thinking about whether this is how I want all my nights to go. It was not. So, as I tweeted about hearing awesome new bands on late night television, I wrote up a blog entry for the following day from the point of view of the end of a good, yet realistic, day. It was like a plan or a creative writing exercise that involved me personally. I was determined to make it work and it did, for the most part.

Granted, the “reasonable hour” I got up at was still 10:00am but the rest of it – the showering, getting dressed and doing work around the house that needed to get done – happened. I did do the dishes, wash and fold laundry and handle most of the past three years of filing. It was also true that I tended towards talking to myself and after an hour of silence got lonely enough to put ST:TNG episodes on as background noise to focus my thoughts on. I didn't have a great day; it was still hard to get through. One of my old supervisors emailed me for my address to send me my 2009 W-2 form and all the emotions that went with my old job – frustration, depression, regret, longing for respect – came crashing back on me. I thought about how nice that extra paycheck would be right now and yelled at myself for not just being able to swallow working in an environment that I didn't fit into. I quit my job in a recession to follow my bliss? What the hell kind of nonsense is that? I repeated as I folded towels. I wanted desperately to check up on Twitter and the blogs I normally read and spend my day scanning updates without really reading them. There are fun, interesting, smart people on the internet. I wonder what they're doing right now? I mused as I tried to make sense of all my student loan forms. Can I be “from the internet” some day?

But there are things I'm proud of: In addition to getting a lot of housework done, staying off the internet, and avoiding daytime television I didn't have a single drink yesterday. I really wanted one – lines about “wine and beer!” from RENT kept floating through my brain every time I opened the refrigerator – but I resisted. I'm really proud of that one.

So, here we are. Day two. I don't have a game plan for today but I'm dressed and awake. And that's a lot to be proud of so far today.

Welcome to the 2010s.

2010-01-13T02:13:00.000-06:00

A new decade; a return to blogspot. Everything old is new again.