I'm doing this backwards, truly -- I should be talking about growing food before I talk about cooking with what you grow and preserving it. But the latter is what we did today, so that's what I'm going to talk about.
Ever read the ingredients on the back of a box of processed food? Don't, unless you want to learn how to cook. The number of things in your food that aren't at all food is truly frightening and I have to wonder how many of the first world's burgeoning medical problems are due to eating not-food.
I'll skim over the huge amounts of petroleum required, in one way or another, to grow food in the modern industrial manner and save that post for when I talk about growing food -- but trust me on this, between tractors, fertilizer, and all the gas needed to get food here from Guam or something (when, really, there are plenty of people in Guam or wherever who'd happily eat it too), it's a lot. Growing your own food, or buying it from someone who grows it locally using proper organic techniques, is just a better idea.
But this means learning to cook it. I didn't learn to cook from my mother when I was growing up as girls have done for millennia -- Dad wanted a boy he could teach to build things and didn't get one, so I was elected. I didn't learn to cook from my ex until very late in our relationship, either. I've learned a lot from Tim (and Julia Child!) but don't go thinking that I've been cooking for my entire life or any such. It doesn't take long and, frankly, it's not that hard. If I can do it, really, anyone can.
And cooking from ingredients instead of from a box or a can is so much more satisfying -- yes, it's a bit more work and more planning, but the food just tastes better. Think you don't have time? Bet you'll make time once you taste the difference. Think you don't have the money? The money you'll save on multivitamins and health care will cover whatever extra money you might spend on food made out of food and not chemicals.
Because I tell you what, I feel better. Not just from an emotional standpoint, the satisfaction of doing something I think is right and proper (though that's not a small thing), but straight-up physically. My allergies have lessened or plain disappeared. I haven't gotten a cold in nearly a year (previously every two months or so). The last cold I got didn't turn into bronchitis as they inevitably used to. My joints feel better. I have more energy. It's an astounding difference.
Today we cooked -- a Flemish vegetable tarte, two loaves of bread (and o, the scent of fresh-baked bread in your kitchen!), a quiche, pork and veggies for dinner, and four quarts of applesauce and three of salsa for canning tomorrow.
Which brings me to the other part of this post -- preserving food. Yeah, you can buy the stuff in cans and jars at the store and it's a lot less work, and you can buy it any time of year so why stock up? Apart from blizzards and such, preserving your own food in season just makes a lot of sense. You know exactly what's going in it -- I started on the thought of canning when I read the back of a can of stewed tomatoes and discovered that one of the ingredients was high fructose corn syrup. High fructose corn syrup? In tomatoes?
As I recall I said several awfully rude things, and threatened to throw one of the jars (Tim got hold of it so the windows and dog are safe). I was (and still am) furious. That's it, I said, I'm canning my own tomatoes so I know exactly what goes in em.
We found a local place that sold us twenty-five pounds of canning tomatoes for fifteen dollars, and added about five pounds of our own tomatoes, and spent the afternoon cutting them up, bringing them up to temperature, pouring them into quart jars, and processing the lot. Yup, a long afternoon's work and we all hurt some at the end of it. But now we have enough tomatoes to last at least the winter if not until next tomato season, and there's nothing in them but tomatoes and a bit of lemon juice to keep the acidity high enough.
That got us going. Three kinds of pickles, zucchini relish, salsa, goose stock, applesauce, and our cabinets are full of good, wholesome, fairly inexpensive food. We could be snowed in for a good long time and wouldn't be hungry. It's a lovely secure feeling.
As gas becomes more scarce the price of food, which depends so heavily on it, will only go up. Learning to cook and preserve what's available, what's local and in season and thus less expensive, will make things a lot easier as time goes on.
Also? Worth it if only for the flavour.
Saturday, November 3, 2007
Friday, November 2, 2007
NaBloPoMo, Day 2
Thought about NaNoWriMo, decided I'd be insane to try it. So instead, I'm doing NaBloPoMo: National Blog Posting Month. Post every day for the month of November. I think I can do that.
A lot of people are choosing a theme for their postings -- gratitude seems popular. I thought about that, but decided to go elsewhere for mine, to a concern that's dear to me recently, though I really haven't mentioned it here yet.
I'm talking about Peak Oil. I'm talking about global warming. I'm talking about the credit crisis, and the state of mind that led to it. I'm talking about the fact that the American way of life, powered by cheap and abundant energy and by the labor of a lot of other people in other parts of the world, which, it's rapidly becoming clear, isn't sustainable at all.
And by 'sustainable' I don't mean something to maybe think about doing something about eventually, when you've got the time and a bit of money to spare. I don't mean a remote ideal, a technicolour image of lions and lambs. I mean that the way we in the First World live is simply not going to work for very much longer.
Peak Oil is shorthand for the concept that we are, eventually, going to run out of petroleum products to power our electrical grid, to run our cars, to make our plastic ziplock bags and our prescription medications (did you know that? Many of them not only use oil to power the processing, they're made from oil as well). Most petroleum geologists agree that more than half of the oil in the ground is already gone, that we've used more than half of what's available. In other words, it's all downhill from here.
Think ethanol will save us? I did, too. Until I realized two things: If we put every acre of corn production in the US into enthanol, all of it, all of those huge rolling fields in the Midwest and the smaller ones elsewhere -- and do note that they produce, one way or another, most of what you eat -- they would produce enough ethanol to run seven persent of the nation's cars. Seven. That's all. And what are we eating again? (from this article originally published in the Buffalo News.)
The other thing I realized? There are people starving because farmers can get more money selling their corn to make ethanol than they can selling it for food. People are starving, right now, so that we can drive our cars. Here are a few links talking about that one:
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N02299550.htm
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/29/world/29food.html
http://www.financialsense.com/editorials/cooke/2007/0202.html
http://www.theglobalist.com/StoryId.aspx?StoryId=5518
Of course, you can make ethanol from things other than corn. But that has its problems as well -- if we're growing millions of acres of switchgrass, to pick a commonly-cited example, where are we going to grow the corn? And here's an article citing a lot more problems with switchgrass: http://littlebloginthebigwoods.blogspot.com/2007/10/fuelish-fantasies.html. You might be interested in reading some of the other stuff Greenpa has to say in his blog, too.
There's a lot more to the problem than that, and I have to get to work, so I can't go on about it at quite the length I could wish to (or the length I'd need to present my case sufficiently, either). But I will say that I don't intend to dedicate the month of November to doomsaying only. What I wish to do, every day of this month, is share what I'm doing about it. One tidbit a day.
So here's today's tidbit: I haven't turned on the heat in my apartment yet. And it's gotten pretty cold, but it's not bothering me, because I know how to deal with it.
Some of it's the simple stuff like 'wear a sweater' and 'eat something warm'. I'm also opening the curtains and blinds every morning when the sun's coming in, to catch that heat, and closing things up once the sun goes down (or I get home from work). I have nice thick quilts to hang over every window in the place, and a pillow to lean against the bottom of the balcony door where it leaks cold air, and a chunk of carpeting to block off the drafts from the front door. When I get home from work I make dinner, which helps heat both the apartment and myself. I do wear a sweater, and long underwear, too, if it's chilly enough -- but I've only had to do that once so far, because the other thing I've noticed is that I'm getting used to it.
Decent indoor heating is a very new thing in the history of humanity. For gazillions of years we put on a bit more clothing and maybe lit a fire. We don't need it. It's awfully nice, I agree. But we don't need it.
I'll have to turn the heat on eventually, if only to keep the pipes from freezing. But instead of 65 degrees like last winter (or 70, as often as not, with the ex) I'm going to turn it on as low as it'll go in this apartment, which is, I believe, somewhere around 55 degrees. And I bet I'll be perfectly comfortable. I'll be saving money, and more importantly to me, using less gas, eking things out a little longer.
More tomorrow.
A lot of people are choosing a theme for their postings -- gratitude seems popular. I thought about that, but decided to go elsewhere for mine, to a concern that's dear to me recently, though I really haven't mentioned it here yet.
I'm talking about Peak Oil. I'm talking about global warming. I'm talking about the credit crisis, and the state of mind that led to it. I'm talking about the fact that the American way of life, powered by cheap and abundant energy and by the labor of a lot of other people in other parts of the world, which, it's rapidly becoming clear, isn't sustainable at all.
And by 'sustainable' I don't mean something to maybe think about doing something about eventually, when you've got the time and a bit of money to spare. I don't mean a remote ideal, a technicolour image of lions and lambs. I mean that the way we in the First World live is simply not going to work for very much longer.
Peak Oil is shorthand for the concept that we are, eventually, going to run out of petroleum products to power our electrical grid, to run our cars, to make our plastic ziplock bags and our prescription medications (did you know that? Many of them not only use oil to power the processing, they're made from oil as well). Most petroleum geologists agree that more than half of the oil in the ground is already gone, that we've used more than half of what's available. In other words, it's all downhill from here.
Think ethanol will save us? I did, too. Until I realized two things: If we put every acre of corn production in the US into enthanol, all of it, all of those huge rolling fields in the Midwest and the smaller ones elsewhere -- and do note that they produce, one way or another, most of what you eat -- they would produce enough ethanol to run seven persent of the nation's cars. Seven. That's all. And what are we eating again? (from this article originally published in the Buffalo News.)
The other thing I realized? There are people starving because farmers can get more money selling their corn to make ethanol than they can selling it for food. People are starving, right now, so that we can drive our cars. Here are a few links talking about that one:
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N02299550.htm
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/29/world/29food.html
http://www.financialsense.com/editorials/cooke/2007/0202.html
http://www.theglobalist.com/StoryId.aspx?StoryId=5518
Of course, you can make ethanol from things other than corn. But that has its problems as well -- if we're growing millions of acres of switchgrass, to pick a commonly-cited example, where are we going to grow the corn? And here's an article citing a lot more problems with switchgrass: http://littlebloginthebigwoods.blogspot.com/2007/10/fuelish-fantasies.html. You might be interested in reading some of the other stuff Greenpa has to say in his blog, too.
There's a lot more to the problem than that, and I have to get to work, so I can't go on about it at quite the length I could wish to (or the length I'd need to present my case sufficiently, either). But I will say that I don't intend to dedicate the month of November to doomsaying only. What I wish to do, every day of this month, is share what I'm doing about it. One tidbit a day.
So here's today's tidbit: I haven't turned on the heat in my apartment yet. And it's gotten pretty cold, but it's not bothering me, because I know how to deal with it.
Some of it's the simple stuff like 'wear a sweater' and 'eat something warm'. I'm also opening the curtains and blinds every morning when the sun's coming in, to catch that heat, and closing things up once the sun goes down (or I get home from work). I have nice thick quilts to hang over every window in the place, and a pillow to lean against the bottom of the balcony door where it leaks cold air, and a chunk of carpeting to block off the drafts from the front door. When I get home from work I make dinner, which helps heat both the apartment and myself. I do wear a sweater, and long underwear, too, if it's chilly enough -- but I've only had to do that once so far, because the other thing I've noticed is that I'm getting used to it.
Decent indoor heating is a very new thing in the history of humanity. For gazillions of years we put on a bit more clothing and maybe lit a fire. We don't need it. It's awfully nice, I agree. But we don't need it.
I'll have to turn the heat on eventually, if only to keep the pipes from freezing. But instead of 65 degrees like last winter (or 70, as often as not, with the ex) I'm going to turn it on as low as it'll go in this apartment, which is, I believe, somewhere around 55 degrees. And I bet I'll be perfectly comfortable. I'll be saving money, and more importantly to me, using less gas, eking things out a little longer.
More tomorrow.
Thursday, November 1, 2007
Samhain, All Saint's, call it what you will...
Started a fire in my fireplace. First time this season. Got it going real well. (Took a while.)
Found the SCA favours I'd made for my ex years ago...which he gave back to me the last time I saw him, right before I moved out here.
I could tell they weren't going to be enough on their own, so I cut off about five inches of my hair, as well. Grab ponytail, snip, right across the back.
And tossed in the lot.
--
Maybe I'm not quite as entirely Christian as I thought I was.
Still mostly, though.
Found the SCA favours I'd made for my ex years ago...which he gave back to me the last time I saw him, right before I moved out here.
I could tell they weren't going to be enough on their own, so I cut off about five inches of my hair, as well. Grab ponytail, snip, right across the back.
And tossed in the lot.
--
Maybe I'm not quite as entirely Christian as I thought I was.
Still mostly, though.
Friday, October 19, 2007
A Prayer
Written in Boredom, at an Undisclosed Workplace.
Dear Lord,
I pray
for those with Little Enough To Do
At work, at home, at school,
or just stuck in traffic somewhere.
Lest they Get Up To Something,
gossip or slander,
kicking the back of Mom's seat,
screaming, or napping
where the boss will catch them,
or just long enough that they won't be able to sleep tonight,
building catapults out of office supplies,
or surfing the web until their eyes cross.
Give them something to Do, O Lord,
not something too hard (unless they're that bored),
something kinda fun or amusing or
at least interesting,
something useful, maybe even helpful,
so that not only are they not Bored Now
(at least for a while,
grant us this, O Lord!)
But at the end of the day they can,
perhaps,
look back upon their day and say, hey,
that was a good piece of work, there,
I'm glad I got that done,
kind of a tough job but boy,
how often do you feel that good about a day at work?
Perhaps even
(if we've been especially good or there's just
something that really needs some attention)
let us avoid boredom by being about Your work,
O Lord,
there's plenty enough of it to go around and
well I was kinda bored anyway.
Grant us, dear Lord,
the vision to see when we can do
just a bit of Your work
the attention span to notice when maybe
someone needs a helping hand
a smile, a kind word
even a rebuke, because sometimes
that's Your work too
(though I'm much better
at the smiles).
In the name of Your Son,
who was bored at school sometimes too,
I bet,
we pray.
Amen.
Dear Lord,
I pray
for those with Little Enough To Do
At work, at home, at school,
or just stuck in traffic somewhere.
Lest they Get Up To Something,
gossip or slander,
kicking the back of Mom's seat,
screaming, or napping
where the boss will catch them,
or just long enough that they won't be able to sleep tonight,
building catapults out of office supplies,
or surfing the web until their eyes cross.
Give them something to Do, O Lord,
not something too hard (unless they're that bored),
something kinda fun or amusing or
at least interesting,
something useful, maybe even helpful,
so that not only are they not Bored Now
(at least for a while,
grant us this, O Lord!)
But at the end of the day they can,
perhaps,
look back upon their day and say, hey,
that was a good piece of work, there,
I'm glad I got that done,
kind of a tough job but boy,
how often do you feel that good about a day at work?
Perhaps even
(if we've been especially good or there's just
something that really needs some attention)
let us avoid boredom by being about Your work,
O Lord,
there's plenty enough of it to go around and
well I was kinda bored anyway.
Grant us, dear Lord,
the vision to see when we can do
just a bit of Your work
the attention span to notice when maybe
someone needs a helping hand
a smile, a kind word
even a rebuke, because sometimes
that's Your work too
(though I'm much better
at the smiles).
In the name of Your Son,
who was bored at school sometimes too,
I bet,
we pray.
Amen.
Friday, October 5, 2007
Gnrr. Argh. Bleh.
That Crocs job? I made the mistake of gently pointing out to a coworker that the reason I'd done something wrong (for which she bitched at me quite a bit) was because she'd told me the wrong thing. And now, I am laid off. 'It's our slow season'. Um, yeah, with Christmas coming up, I believe that.
I am left entirely without income. I have effectively no savings and won't be able to pay next month's rent without either a job or borrowing Yet More Money from my credit cards. I keep getting interviews for jobs at the university, and then not getting them (though yes, eventually this will turn around -- it must). Today I filled out a job application at Wal-Mart.
I'm scared.
--
In other news, it's been a year today since I left the ex. It's been an interesting month or so; I've been reliving a lot of stuff I'd hoped I'd left behind. I'm once again dreaming about being back with him, trapped, like I was; waking up to relief at being in Colorado, safely away.
I have to talk to him. I have to tell him I want a divorce. I have to tell him I want half the Stuff. I look forward to none of this.
I'm thinking about sending him an email. It's a copout, I know. He won't care, though; an email, for him, is as personal as a phone call. And the idea terrifies me much, much less.
--
Even though I'm terrified, I'm also happy, and quite proud of myself. I've lived a year on my own. I've survived. I have my own place. I keep it pretty clean, and I like how it's arranged and decorated. I've paid all my bills and they're up-to-date. I may be barely scraping by, but I'm surviving.
I've grown so much, done so much I didn't think I was capable of. Learned so much. Gained so much.
I'm so very grateful for the past year. If I had any money, I'd treat myself to an Independence Day dinner out tonight; as it is, since I'm broke and Tim and Ray are off to a party without me, I think I'll treat myself to a good home-cooked meal. Seems more of a treat anyway.
--
I'm going to kill my computer. KILLS IT I TELLS YOU.
--
I rode my bike to Tim and Ray's new place Wednesday. Three miles. Then another three miles to the garden and back. Hurting? Yes. But not too bad. I had to ask for a ride home, though. Tomorrow I believe I'll do it again. Eventually (and soon!) I want to get to a point where I'm only using my car if something is out of town, or if I need to carry more than the bike can hold. Gas is expensive, and riding my bike is free.
--
Calling a halt on looking for a place to live until I have a job. This frightens me but not much for it. Any place that lets me live there without having a job or other source of income is probably not a place I want to live. And if nothing else I can get a storage place for most of my stuff and move me and the cats into Tim's spare room for a bit. Not thrilled with the idea, mind you, but one does what one can with what one has.
--
Remember that job description on my last post, God? Wouldn't mind one of those right now.
I am left entirely without income. I have effectively no savings and won't be able to pay next month's rent without either a job or borrowing Yet More Money from my credit cards. I keep getting interviews for jobs at the university, and then not getting them (though yes, eventually this will turn around -- it must). Today I filled out a job application at Wal-Mart.
I'm scared.
--
In other news, it's been a year today since I left the ex. It's been an interesting month or so; I've been reliving a lot of stuff I'd hoped I'd left behind. I'm once again dreaming about being back with him, trapped, like I was; waking up to relief at being in Colorado, safely away.
I have to talk to him. I have to tell him I want a divorce. I have to tell him I want half the Stuff. I look forward to none of this.
I'm thinking about sending him an email. It's a copout, I know. He won't care, though; an email, for him, is as personal as a phone call. And the idea terrifies me much, much less.
--
Even though I'm terrified, I'm also happy, and quite proud of myself. I've lived a year on my own. I've survived. I have my own place. I keep it pretty clean, and I like how it's arranged and decorated. I've paid all my bills and they're up-to-date. I may be barely scraping by, but I'm surviving.
I've grown so much, done so much I didn't think I was capable of. Learned so much. Gained so much.
I'm so very grateful for the past year. If I had any money, I'd treat myself to an Independence Day dinner out tonight; as it is, since I'm broke and Tim and Ray are off to a party without me, I think I'll treat myself to a good home-cooked meal. Seems more of a treat anyway.
--
I'm going to kill my computer. KILLS IT I TELLS YOU.
--
I rode my bike to Tim and Ray's new place Wednesday. Three miles. Then another three miles to the garden and back. Hurting? Yes. But not too bad. I had to ask for a ride home, though. Tomorrow I believe I'll do it again. Eventually (and soon!) I want to get to a point where I'm only using my car if something is out of town, or if I need to carry more than the bike can hold. Gas is expensive, and riding my bike is free.
--
Calling a halt on looking for a place to live until I have a job. This frightens me but not much for it. Any place that lets me live there without having a job or other source of income is probably not a place I want to live. And if nothing else I can get a storage place for most of my stuff and move me and the cats into Tim's spare room for a bit. Not thrilled with the idea, mind you, but one does what one can with what one has.
--
Remember that job description on my last post, God? Wouldn't mind one of those right now.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Interviewed! Like a celebrity! Only not.
The divine Mrs. M (can I say that?) was kind enough to ask me five lovely interview questions; now follows my attempt to answer them with equal thoughtfulness.
1. Where does the name of your blog come from? What does it mean to you?
It's from a Dar Williams song with the same title. Here's a link to the song on YouTube; I'm not sure it works, because I'm at work and can't check.
When I was born my parents planned to have another child a few years after me. Being the efficient types, they dressed me in 'non gender-specific' clothing (that is to say, boys' clothes) in case their second child turned out to be male. Well, I have a sister, and she got all the girly clothes one might wish.
I don't tell this tale to say that any gender ambiguity in my part is the 'fault' of my parents actions (though I'll admit I did tease my mother about it quite a bit when she finally told me). I don't think that 'crossdressing your child' will 'make him gay' or any such rot; there's no clothing that's 'inherently' male or female. But it's a funny story.
I think people are born with a physical gender (more or less), and that they're born with a gender they feel is right (more or less), and sometimes the two match, and sometimes they don't. And that's okay. I hang out with people who are firmly their birth gender, people who waffle between one or another (or neither), people who occasionally dress in clothing that's 'inherently' that of the other gender because they think it's hot, people who present as a gender that's not their birth gender because the one they are now feels 'right' and the one they were born with didn't, and people who've gone entirely through transition, including surgery, and are now the gender they feel they should have been born as. And all of these are okay.
Me, I was born female. Sometimes I feel girly. Sometimes I feel like a guy. Sometimes I don't much think about it because the bits don't matter at that moment. Sometimes I wish with desperate intensity that I were physically male (usually, I'll admit, when I have to pee and there's nowhere to go).
This song could have been written about me.
I won't forget when Peter Pan
Came to my house, took my hand
I said I was a boy, I'm glad he didn't check
I learned to fly, I learned to fight
I lived a whole life in one night
We saved each other's lives out on the pirate's deck
I grew up wanting to fly, to fight, to be in the adventure books I read and the movies I saw, not as the damsel in distress or the cute love interest, but as the one doing things.
And I remember that night
When I'm leaving a late night with some friends
And I hear somebody tell me it's not safe
Someone should help me
I need to find a nice man to walk me home
Somehow it's never occured to me that being a woman is somehow less safe than being a man. I mean, I know it, in the way that you know that Zimbabwe is in Africa and that traditional clothing in Germany includes lederhosen, but it never applied to me. I grew up walking my whole rural neighborhood at night; in college I walked Southside Bethlehem alone at all hours, never with a bit of trouble. Once I joined the SCA, people -- and it didn't occur to me to realize that they all happened to be men -- would offer to walk me back to my tent at night. I usually turned them down, since I was already attached to someone and why else would someone wish to do that?
When I was a boy, I scared the pants off of my mom
Climbed what I could climb upon
Still do...
And I don't know how I survived
I guess I knew the tricks that all boys knew
I bounced, like any other kid. And was perhaps a bit sheltered, and a whole lot lucky, and had happened on my own to pick up a lot of the tricks contained in the emails our mothers send us, the ones that say keep your head up and walk quickly and with confidence and always have your keys out before you get to your car.
And you can walk me home, but I was a boy, too
I've learned to accept offers to walk me back to my tent, or to my apartment, with some grace. It's not an expression of my helplessness, especially not from those who know me. It's a courtesy.
Of course, I'm as likely to offer to walk someone else home if they look like they need it. I open doors for people, too. Sometimes they look surprised. *shrugs* It's a courtesy.
I was a kid that you would like
Just a small boy on her bike
Riding topless, yeah, I never cared who saw
My neighbor come outside to say
"Get your shirt," I said "No way
It's the last time I'm not breaking any law"
I remember the last time I got to run around the house topless. I guess I was eight or so. It was the middle of summer and a thousand degrees, for some reason I was inside but moving at full speed. My mom reached out and stopped me, and told me to go put on a shirt. I didn't want to, but it was that tone of voice so I did. I hated it. I'll still run around naked at near any opportunity.
And now I'm in a clothing store
And the sign says, "Less is More"
More that's tight means more to see
More for them, not more for me
That can't help me climb a tree in ten seconds flat
My fashion sense? I know a lot about the clothing of France in 1405 or so...
And don't get me started on the fashion industry and the way they've warped the perception of the human body.
When I was a boy, see that picture, that was me
Grass-stained shirt and dusty knees
And I know things have gotta change
They got pills to sell, they've got implants to put in
They've got implants to remove
But I am not forgetting
That I was a boy too
I think she's still talking about the things people do to make themselves 'look right' these days, but this verse always reminds me of my transsexual friends, and all the pills and shots and surgeries they've gone through to make their bodies be right. I'm grateful that I'm comfortable enough in my body that I haven't had to go through all of that.
And like the woods where I would creep
It's a secret I can keep
Except when I'm tired, except when I'm being caught off guard
I've had a lonesome awful day
The conversation finds its way
To catching fire-flies out in the backyard
And I tell the man I'm with
About the other life I lived
And I say now you're top gun
I have lost and you have won
And he says, "Oh no, no, can't you see
When I was a girl, my mom and I we always talked
And I picked flowers everywhere that I walked
And I could always cry, now even when I'm alone I seldom do
And I have lost some kindness
But I was a girl too
And you were just like me, and I was just like you
I've rarely been shy about expressing myself like she is, here. I don't necessarily say 'bigendered' or 'gender ambiguity' or anything like that but I'll happily talk about what I do and don't like to wear, about climbing trees and falling out of them. It's an easier age for that kind of thing than most. I get a few odd looks when I show up to a wedding in a suit, but no more than that. I'm grateful for that, too.
And that guy? I know him. I know a lot of him. I bet you do, too.
When I started this blog I intended it as a place to discuss sexuality and gender, LGBT topics, some pretty edgy stuff. The place has gone in entirely different directions while my life has done the same, but I keep the name -- it's still who I am, and everything I was going to talk about still applies.
2. Where do you find God most easily?
In nature. In my friends. In the Eucharist. In what I write in my blog. In my cats. In my lovers. In a number of books, only a few of which are overtly religious, or even nonfiction. In a good meal, or a good conversation.
3. If you could write a perfect-for-you job description, what would it include?
Funnily enough, this is a question I've been agonising over for quite a while now...
When I was a senior and getting ready to go to college, my parents asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, so that I could decide on a major. I had no idea. Somehow I thought that everyone else did, and that I was the only one questioning what I wanted to do.
I think most people my age have at least an idea of what they want to be when they grow up. I think a lot of the ones who think they know have simply settled into something that works. I think that some of the ones who think they know are right, and are either incredibly lucky if they're actually doing that, or very unhappy if for some reason they can't be doing what they're meant to.
I'm still not sure. I know I want to make things -- real things. Almost nobody these days actually creates things as part of their job (or even at all); most jobs make naught more than ones and zeroes of one sort or another. That's all mine does.
I want to make food, to make bath salts and other herbal concoctions; I want to make good sturdy comfortable clothing and rag rugs and hats and socks. I want to make furniture and cat trees. I want to build houses like my father did. I want to make trophies, like I did when I was a kid, and when I worked for my mother as an adult. I want to make new, beautiful, useful, well-made things.
I want to minister to people. I want to listen to them when they have something to say, to hold them when they're upset or feeling alone. I want to be with them when they're giving birth, hold them when they're sick, be with them when they're dying. I want to help them realize how very much God loves them. I want to feed them, give them places to live, make them clothing. I want to help them learn how best to be themselves.
I want to learn about the Earth. I want to climb up into the mountains, to walk along highway cuttings, to crawl down into tunnels and see how the rock goes and figure out why it does that. This is both the oldest and most newly rediscovered of the things I want to do when I grow up, so it's not a lot more specific than that, but let's just say that Rocks Friends.
Not much of a job description, is it? Not one you'll find in the classifieds (believe me, I've looked). But that's what I want to do when I grow up.
4. Tell us about a time you felt deeply loved or cherished.
The first five things I thought of I really couldn't post.
Then I thought of my sister. And was a little surprised. We never got along well as children. She was tall, attractive, athletic; I was short, a little dumpy, geeky. She tried, intermittently, to help me be more popular, that being all she knew how to do. This involved her doing my hair and putting makeup on me, at which point I would go and look in the mirror, declare that I looked like a clown, and wash my face. Needless to say, this didn't go over well.
She's always been very protective of our mother, especially after Dad died. At times this manifested itself in anger at me, for not talking to Mom enough, for getting into fights with her -- stuff like that. But she was never protective of me, or so I thought, until I left my ex.
She told him over the phone that I wasn't there when he called my mom's place. She argued with him over IM, telling him that he'd frightened me and really ought to apologize for that. She told me to stand up to him, called him crude names to make me laugh. And when I had to go up to the house that he and I used to share to pick up a last few items, she insisted on coming along, offered to drive on the way home if I needed her to, and was so visibly protective of me while I was there that Lewis later said that he'd been worried she would beat him up.
This isn't as amusing a scenario as you might think. My sister is six foot three and played field hockey and lacross in high school. She probably could.
It felt really good to have my sister there keeping an eye on me. She did have to drive home, too, because I was crying too hard to do it. It occured to me, sometime between then and now, that she was trying to do the same thing in high school, in the only way she knew how. I haven't thanked her for that yet, but I really need to.
5. Tell us about the outfit (clothes) that make you feel most like you.
Old comfortable torn-up bluejeans. A t-shirt of mine, swirly tie-dyed blue, with the silhouette of a howling wolf against the moon. My father's old flannel shirt, navy blue and soft from years of wear. Good sturdy sneakers. Hair up in a ponytail out of my way.
Clothing, you'll note, for cooler weather. I don't like hot; I don't much like the summer. Fall and spring are my favourite seasons.
The moon and the wolf, of course. The wolf is me, the moon is when I'm out and about.
Clothing, as Dar Williams would say, which would help me climb a tree in ten seconds flat. That's comfortable and doesn't get in my way. Has pockets. Doesn't get hung up on things. Easy to take off the flannel if it's warm, or add more layers if it's cold.
Does it make me look good? I don't know, but it makes me look like me.
--
Thank you, Mrs. M! You made me think; I love that.
Anyone out there bored? Want to talk about yourself? We all like doing that, don't we? Well, I've gone on about myself long enough and it's only fair to give someone else a chance. So here are the rules.
1. If you are interested in being interviewed, leave me a comment saying "Interview me."
2. I will respond by posting five questions for you. I get to pick the questions.
3. You will update your blog with a post containing your answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.
1. Where does the name of your blog come from? What does it mean to you?
It's from a Dar Williams song with the same title. Here's a link to the song on YouTube; I'm not sure it works, because I'm at work and can't check.
When I was born my parents planned to have another child a few years after me. Being the efficient types, they dressed me in 'non gender-specific' clothing (that is to say, boys' clothes) in case their second child turned out to be male. Well, I have a sister, and she got all the girly clothes one might wish.
I don't tell this tale to say that any gender ambiguity in my part is the 'fault' of my parents actions (though I'll admit I did tease my mother about it quite a bit when she finally told me). I don't think that 'crossdressing your child' will 'make him gay' or any such rot; there's no clothing that's 'inherently' male or female. But it's a funny story.
I think people are born with a physical gender (more or less), and that they're born with a gender they feel is right (more or less), and sometimes the two match, and sometimes they don't. And that's okay. I hang out with people who are firmly their birth gender, people who waffle between one or another (or neither), people who occasionally dress in clothing that's 'inherently' that of the other gender because they think it's hot, people who present as a gender that's not their birth gender because the one they are now feels 'right' and the one they were born with didn't, and people who've gone entirely through transition, including surgery, and are now the gender they feel they should have been born as. And all of these are okay.
Me, I was born female. Sometimes I feel girly. Sometimes I feel like a guy. Sometimes I don't much think about it because the bits don't matter at that moment. Sometimes I wish with desperate intensity that I were physically male (usually, I'll admit, when I have to pee and there's nowhere to go).
This song could have been written about me.
I won't forget when Peter Pan
Came to my house, took my hand
I said I was a boy, I'm glad he didn't check
I learned to fly, I learned to fight
I lived a whole life in one night
We saved each other's lives out on the pirate's deck
I grew up wanting to fly, to fight, to be in the adventure books I read and the movies I saw, not as the damsel in distress or the cute love interest, but as the one doing things.
And I remember that night
When I'm leaving a late night with some friends
And I hear somebody tell me it's not safe
Someone should help me
I need to find a nice man to walk me home
Somehow it's never occured to me that being a woman is somehow less safe than being a man. I mean, I know it, in the way that you know that Zimbabwe is in Africa and that traditional clothing in Germany includes lederhosen, but it never applied to me. I grew up walking my whole rural neighborhood at night; in college I walked Southside Bethlehem alone at all hours, never with a bit of trouble. Once I joined the SCA, people -- and it didn't occur to me to realize that they all happened to be men -- would offer to walk me back to my tent at night. I usually turned them down, since I was already attached to someone and why else would someone wish to do that?
When I was a boy, I scared the pants off of my mom
Climbed what I could climb upon
Still do...
And I don't know how I survived
I guess I knew the tricks that all boys knew
I bounced, like any other kid. And was perhaps a bit sheltered, and a whole lot lucky, and had happened on my own to pick up a lot of the tricks contained in the emails our mothers send us, the ones that say keep your head up and walk quickly and with confidence and always have your keys out before you get to your car.
And you can walk me home, but I was a boy, too
I've learned to accept offers to walk me back to my tent, or to my apartment, with some grace. It's not an expression of my helplessness, especially not from those who know me. It's a courtesy.
Of course, I'm as likely to offer to walk someone else home if they look like they need it. I open doors for people, too. Sometimes they look surprised. *shrugs* It's a courtesy.
I was a kid that you would like
Just a small boy on her bike
Riding topless, yeah, I never cared who saw
My neighbor come outside to say
"Get your shirt," I said "No way
It's the last time I'm not breaking any law"
I remember the last time I got to run around the house topless. I guess I was eight or so. It was the middle of summer and a thousand degrees, for some reason I was inside but moving at full speed. My mom reached out and stopped me, and told me to go put on a shirt. I didn't want to, but it was that tone of voice so I did. I hated it. I'll still run around naked at near any opportunity.
And now I'm in a clothing store
And the sign says, "Less is More"
More that's tight means more to see
More for them, not more for me
That can't help me climb a tree in ten seconds flat
My fashion sense? I know a lot about the clothing of France in 1405 or so...
And don't get me started on the fashion industry and the way they've warped the perception of the human body.
When I was a boy, see that picture, that was me
Grass-stained shirt and dusty knees
And I know things have gotta change
They got pills to sell, they've got implants to put in
They've got implants to remove
But I am not forgetting
That I was a boy too
I think she's still talking about the things people do to make themselves 'look right' these days, but this verse always reminds me of my transsexual friends, and all the pills and shots and surgeries they've gone through to make their bodies be right. I'm grateful that I'm comfortable enough in my body that I haven't had to go through all of that.
And like the woods where I would creep
It's a secret I can keep
Except when I'm tired, except when I'm being caught off guard
I've had a lonesome awful day
The conversation finds its way
To catching fire-flies out in the backyard
And I tell the man I'm with
About the other life I lived
And I say now you're top gun
I have lost and you have won
And he says, "Oh no, no, can't you see
When I was a girl, my mom and I we always talked
And I picked flowers everywhere that I walked
And I could always cry, now even when I'm alone I seldom do
And I have lost some kindness
But I was a girl too
And you were just like me, and I was just like you
I've rarely been shy about expressing myself like she is, here. I don't necessarily say 'bigendered' or 'gender ambiguity' or anything like that but I'll happily talk about what I do and don't like to wear, about climbing trees and falling out of them. It's an easier age for that kind of thing than most. I get a few odd looks when I show up to a wedding in a suit, but no more than that. I'm grateful for that, too.
And that guy? I know him. I know a lot of him. I bet you do, too.
When I started this blog I intended it as a place to discuss sexuality and gender, LGBT topics, some pretty edgy stuff. The place has gone in entirely different directions while my life has done the same, but I keep the name -- it's still who I am, and everything I was going to talk about still applies.
2. Where do you find God most easily?
In nature. In my friends. In the Eucharist. In what I write in my blog. In my cats. In my lovers. In a number of books, only a few of which are overtly religious, or even nonfiction. In a good meal, or a good conversation.
3. If you could write a perfect-for-you job description, what would it include?
Funnily enough, this is a question I've been agonising over for quite a while now...
When I was a senior and getting ready to go to college, my parents asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, so that I could decide on a major. I had no idea. Somehow I thought that everyone else did, and that I was the only one questioning what I wanted to do.
I think most people my age have at least an idea of what they want to be when they grow up. I think a lot of the ones who think they know have simply settled into something that works. I think that some of the ones who think they know are right, and are either incredibly lucky if they're actually doing that, or very unhappy if for some reason they can't be doing what they're meant to.
I'm still not sure. I know I want to make things -- real things. Almost nobody these days actually creates things as part of their job (or even at all); most jobs make naught more than ones and zeroes of one sort or another. That's all mine does.
I want to make food, to make bath salts and other herbal concoctions; I want to make good sturdy comfortable clothing and rag rugs and hats and socks. I want to make furniture and cat trees. I want to build houses like my father did. I want to make trophies, like I did when I was a kid, and when I worked for my mother as an adult. I want to make new, beautiful, useful, well-made things.
I want to minister to people. I want to listen to them when they have something to say, to hold them when they're upset or feeling alone. I want to be with them when they're giving birth, hold them when they're sick, be with them when they're dying. I want to help them realize how very much God loves them. I want to feed them, give them places to live, make them clothing. I want to help them learn how best to be themselves.
I want to learn about the Earth. I want to climb up into the mountains, to walk along highway cuttings, to crawl down into tunnels and see how the rock goes and figure out why it does that. This is both the oldest and most newly rediscovered of the things I want to do when I grow up, so it's not a lot more specific than that, but let's just say that Rocks Friends.
Not much of a job description, is it? Not one you'll find in the classifieds (believe me, I've looked). But that's what I want to do when I grow up.
4. Tell us about a time you felt deeply loved or cherished.
The first five things I thought of I really couldn't post.
Then I thought of my sister. And was a little surprised. We never got along well as children. She was tall, attractive, athletic; I was short, a little dumpy, geeky. She tried, intermittently, to help me be more popular, that being all she knew how to do. This involved her doing my hair and putting makeup on me, at which point I would go and look in the mirror, declare that I looked like a clown, and wash my face. Needless to say, this didn't go over well.
She's always been very protective of our mother, especially after Dad died. At times this manifested itself in anger at me, for not talking to Mom enough, for getting into fights with her -- stuff like that. But she was never protective of me, or so I thought, until I left my ex.
She told him over the phone that I wasn't there when he called my mom's place. She argued with him over IM, telling him that he'd frightened me and really ought to apologize for that. She told me to stand up to him, called him crude names to make me laugh. And when I had to go up to the house that he and I used to share to pick up a last few items, she insisted on coming along, offered to drive on the way home if I needed her to, and was so visibly protective of me while I was there that Lewis later said that he'd been worried she would beat him up.
This isn't as amusing a scenario as you might think. My sister is six foot three and played field hockey and lacross in high school. She probably could.
It felt really good to have my sister there keeping an eye on me. She did have to drive home, too, because I was crying too hard to do it. It occured to me, sometime between then and now, that she was trying to do the same thing in high school, in the only way she knew how. I haven't thanked her for that yet, but I really need to.
5. Tell us about the outfit (clothes) that make you feel most like you.
Old comfortable torn-up bluejeans. A t-shirt of mine, swirly tie-dyed blue, with the silhouette of a howling wolf against the moon. My father's old flannel shirt, navy blue and soft from years of wear. Good sturdy sneakers. Hair up in a ponytail out of my way.
Clothing, you'll note, for cooler weather. I don't like hot; I don't much like the summer. Fall and spring are my favourite seasons.
The moon and the wolf, of course. The wolf is me, the moon is when I'm out and about.
Clothing, as Dar Williams would say, which would help me climb a tree in ten seconds flat. That's comfortable and doesn't get in my way. Has pockets. Doesn't get hung up on things. Easy to take off the flannel if it's warm, or add more layers if it's cold.
Does it make me look good? I don't know, but it makes me look like me.
--
Thank you, Mrs. M! You made me think; I love that.
Anyone out there bored? Want to talk about yourself? We all like doing that, don't we? Well, I've gone on about myself long enough and it's only fair to give someone else a chance. So here are the rules.
1. If you are interested in being interviewed, leave me a comment saying "Interview me."
2. I will respond by posting five questions for you. I get to pick the questions.
3. You will update your blog with a post containing your answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.
Memeidute!
Tandaina tagged me something like last week or the one before, and here I am, finally levering my tuchus free to do the meme.
Rules
1) You have to use your own belief system for the meme. No fair using someone else’s to make a joke or satire. Being humorous about your own religion is encouraged!
2) You have to have at least one joy and one trial. More are encouraged. And no, they don’t have to be equal in length, but please be honest.
3) You have to tag at least one other person. More are appreciated!
4) Please post these rules!
The joys of being a confused, intermittently church-going Independent Catholic with occasional pagan leanings:
1) The Eucharist. Every week. Three times a week if I really want to.
2) The freedom to think about what the Bible says, and what it means, instead of having to take someone else's word for it.
3) Finding the sacred everywhere, not just in a building someone's dedicated to God.
4) Drinking wine out of the same glass as everyone else.
5) Sharing a religion with some of the most wonderful people I know (that would be a lot of you who read my blog, y'all).
6) Having the freedom to think the rest of y'all are pretty cool too, even if you worship rocks or trees or something (kidding! Put down that pitchfork!).
7) Being able to be Christian, to follow Jesus, and show people who've had bad experiences with people who call themselves Christian that we're not all like that, and, as far as I can tell, neither was Jesus.
The trials of being a confused, intermittently church-going Independent Catholic with occasional pagan leanings:
1) Watching Dogma.
2) The Texts of Terror.
3) The concept of Original Sin.
4) Sharing a religion with a whole lot of people who really, honestly think I'm 'not fit to live'.
5) People who assume I'm one of the people in 4) when I tell them I'm Christian.
6) Trying to reconcile the thought of a loving, all-powerful God with all the horrendous shit that happens in the world.
I'll tag Plain Fool and Wulfila, cos I'm really interested in what they'll say.
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