Fear of flying

This evening I head off to the airport for the first leg of my journey home. I'll be at home for just under a month so expect very very light blogging due to dial-up connection and a lot less internet time in general. I'm really looking forward to seeing family and friends but first I have to get through the flights. I hate flying. Hate it. I used to be okay with it but then I had a horrible 24hr (in two-legs) flight from the UK to Australia and I think that that really put me off. It seems silly for someone who flies as much as I do but I dread every take-off. For some reason I'm a lot better with short-hop flights but the long 'uns freak me right out. My stomach gets knotty, my hands sweaty and I never ever relax enough to watch the movie or really concentrate on a book.
So I'm all packed and ready now and just waiting for LJ to get off work and then we'll head out to the airport. I'm going to miss him lots. Lots and lots. Sniff.

A heartwarming post

from A Bird in the Hand (one of the craft blogs I read regularly). It made me wave my mental 'yay blogs' pom-poms that bit harder!

Carnival

The 11th Carnival of Feminists is up at Angry for a Reason. Go check it out.

I thought that it was kind of nice that one of the themes of this carnival is International Feminism given that today's date also marks the seven year anniversary of my departure from Ireland. It seems at once both a much longer and a much shorter time than that, if that makes any sense at all. I remember sitting at the airport in Dublin, crying into a cup of coffee and, almost twenty-four hours later, sitting on the floor of my friend's Sydney apartment (which I would share for eighteen months with a varying configurations of Irish adventure-seekers) crying again into the telephone as my mother reassured me that I had done the right thing, that living overseas would be a wonderful experience. Of course, at that point she thought I would stay away for only one or maybe two years.
Every year since I've taken time on March 22nd to be thankful for the experiences I've had and people I've met since that first plunge into the unknown. Last night I picked up my bedside copy of Julius Caesar and read the part just after the conspirators kill Caesar, where Mark Antony is speaking next to Caesar's dead body, but before he makes his famous 'Friends Romans Countrymen' speech to the masses. There are so many lines in this play that I love and discover again and again with each reading but the one that caught me last night was 'O world, thou wast the forest to this hart.' I thought that was a beautiful line, a great way to describe the historical figure who most fascinates me, and a great compliment, full stop. And I want to write more about it now, about world citizenship and adventure (both physical and virtual journeys) but I have to go into the Uni to meet with one of the members of faculty who I will (hopefully) get to know much better over the coming four years. And see my friend L-win who is about to set off on a very exciting adventure of her own.

Idealistic and hopeful

This fantastically well written, interesting and insightful piece at Slaves of Academe caught my eye today and I'm very glad indeed that it did. It reminded me exacty of where else I might have some chance to make a difference as an academic, apart from contributing to the particular discourses that interest me. With close relatives who teach at university and high school level, and with my own experience as a teacher in Taiwan, I have always been aware that my ideals about teaching and being a teacher are just that. Ideals. But I do believe that inside all of the competition and bureaucracy and politics of educational institutions there are nuggets of that ideal still floating around. I will, I'm sure, be swept away by the bullshit from time to time, but it is important to remind myself that the reason why I love being on university campuses so much is to be close to so much learning and so much sharing of knowledge and interaction. And in many ways I see that commitment to sharing and collaboration as a part of my own feminist identity. Not solely, but quite certainly.
I love to talk. I'm sure everyone who knows me would attest to that. And I love to tease ideas out, see where conversations go. I would say that I have most of my best ideas in dialogue. So the idea of mentoring really really appeals to me. To be guided slightly, to be given something to respond to. I'm sure that's also a part of what I like about blogs too - the response to other posts, the back and forth. I would hate to come to think of my ideas as some kind of commodity, to get really rigid about my 'intellectual property' but I know that it is at least somewhat likely that that will happen. I almost feel like tattooing myself a reminder to fight against this. Will I be able to do it? If there are other likeminded academics I think that I will. And posts like the one that sparked this response as well as blogs like these give me lots of hope.

Old Neuroses

Gah. Yesterday marked the single worst hangover I have had for a very long time. It was even more frustrating when everyone else was feeling fine, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed yesterday as I was sick sick sick over and over again. Along with the headache and nausea and general grossness my hangovers also seem to propell me into a state of Woody Allen-ish fumbling anxiety and self-doubt.
Onwards and upwards however. Just after I lie on the sofa and feel sorry for myself for another hour.

My oil painting or yours?

Feministe's Piny maps the derailment of this thread at Pandagon today. As the topic of the derailed thread was the same one I posted on a couple of days ago, I was especially interested. I started writing a comment on Piny's post but then decided to write some more here. And actually that's what I want to write about: the difference between commenting on someone else's blog or taking your point to your own and the significance of comments to me in general.
When I was writing my MA dissertation last year I thought about comments a lot, but largely from a positive point of view - what they could add to the text, how they could make blogs extremely collaborative texts, especially when the blogger and commenter develop a relationship. Once published, comments become an integral part of the blog text and in this way blogs can become collectively written texts even when ostensibly maintained by a single author. Coming from an academia, where collaboration can often be discouraged in favour of solitary research and individual accomplishment (think, for example of the PhD thesis), this opportunity for collaboration felt valuable. I also feel/felt that comments allow for a certain level of accountability and transparency when reader's additions are visible and attributable and bloggers can be taken to task as well as praised for their words.
Earlier this month, Daniel at Suitcasing wrote

You have no idea what a commenter might, earnestly or jokingly, decide to add to your oil painting.

Reading Piny's post this morning, I thought back to Daniel's analogy, and again it seemed to be a good one. Reevaluating my position I started to think about how comments might not only add to but actually both derail a discussion and essentially change a text.
Commenter ilyka writes in response to Piny

Dear Anitfeminists: please start your own blogs immediately with my blessing. It won't cost you a dime.

and

P.S And if you've already got a blog? STAY there.

My current take on this - well, I certainly still believe that the commenting facility is a very important part of why I love blogs so much and why I think they are texts that work for me as a feminist. And, to be honest, a lot of what I love about blogs in general has to do with their disconnection from the conventions and standards (and hierarchies) of other writing technologies/genres. But, despite my commitment to freedom of speech and my special love for how the comments/blog thing works, I do think that Piny's frustration and ilyka's proposed solution are important to think about. When is it appropriate to write a comment on someone's blog and when is it better to take the point to your own blog? Should we be more careful about what we do with the 'oil paintings' of others? I do think that when comments are spam or simply abusive that moderation is definitely necessary but I wonder if it is vital to the integrity of blog-ness that comments have minimal moderation otherwise?

Proud (and happy) to be a miserable feminist

Aspazia started talking about this yesterday and after reading and commenting on her post and then reading the later comments (this is what I love about blogs - the building of the text), I though that I'd post my extended response. Go and read her fantastic post first though - here.
I then went to the Slate article that Aspazia refers to but didn't get far before my jaw dropped and I gave a snort of laughter that even roused LJ from his WoWing. Check this:

Feminist ideals, not domestic duties, seem to be what make wives morose. Progressive married women—who should be enjoying some or all of the fruits that Freidan lobbied for—are less happy, it would appear, than women who live as if Friedan never existed.

So is that to say that those of us who identify as feminists and hold what are largely viewed to be feminist values are simply cursed? That we are less likely to be happy because of our pesky feminisms? It is just so much simpler and easier than contemplating the possibility that we are perhaps more likely to be offended and frustrated by situations that discriminate against us and skew power against and away from us. Or that we are just more likely to be vocal in our complaints. Seriously, I am shocked that the conclusions drawn from this study are so both superficial and offensive. I'm shocked that they can even be presented as sensible conclusions. But then, perhaps I'm not so shocked *wry smile*. Funnily enough O'Rourke does go on to say:

Of course, conclusions like these are never cut-and-dried. This study is based on surveys conducted between 1992 and 1994, and measuring marital happiness is a little like trying to quantify sex appeal. But the data are nonetheless worth pausing over, especially if, like me, you've long subscribed to the view that so-called companionate couples have the best chance at sustaining a happy partnership.

This is a complete cop-out. Present the ridiculous conclusions and then add in a neat little disclaimery type frou-frou to hide the extent of their ridiculousness, distract with some irrelevent gabble and then put in a little dig at 'so-called companionate couples.' WTF? Is 'companionate' supposed to be a kind of sarcastic euphemism for progressive? Or is it really supposed to mean 'harmonious and suitable' and in that case be a sneer in the face of compatibility (see, you think you get along great but just wait until those feminist value kick in, things will fall apart!).

Across the board, progressive women are less likely to feel content, whether they are working or at home, and no matter how much they are making.

We are such troublemakers. What on earth might we have to complain about?

The study's authors, W. Bradford Wilcox and Steven Nock, speculate that fault-finding on the part of wives makes it hard for men to do the emotional work that stabilizes marriages.

What?

Meanwhile, traditionalist women—a significant portion of whom are Christian—expect less emotional work from their husbands, Wilcox and Nock speculate, which makes it easier for them to shake off frustrations, and less likely to nag.

Don't get me started on 'nagging' (another word with negative connotations that serve to present it as an unattractive, undesireable, unnecessary activity - the preserve of the harried harpy - and we wouldn't want to be that now would we?).
By the end of this article I was close to putting my laptop on the table next to me and walking away from it, coming back and wagging my finger at it. You know, no, just no. I honestly haven't felt so annoyed for a long time. It's one thing to criticise feminist beliefs but it's another thing to blame those feminist beliefs and expectations for change and frustrations with lack of change for generating the dissatisfactions and unhappinesses of those that hold them. As a feminist who has for the first time in her adult life, been almost entirely supported financially by her partner, I absolutely know that the problems I've had with my new role stem from feeling that the work I do is neverending; that it can be, if not completely unrecognised, not afforded the same clout as 'work' done outside the home; that those who experience my work are often those upon whom I am somehow directly financially dependent as well as emotionally involved with.
My feminist beliefs do not make me unhappy or dissatisfied. I love my feminism very much and my values give me a great deal of peace and comfort. Rather, it is the society that supports the norms and dominant ideologies such as those that underpin this article, that frustrate and anger me. Aspazia hits the nail on the head when she says:

These articles are designed to scare women into giving up their quest to demand they be treated as human beings. The idea here is that if they continue on their silly feminist paths, they will wind up stressed out, pooped out, Prozaced up, and unhappy. So, give it up ladies. Just admit that its easier to stay-at-home and find a male provider.

I'll add to that: admit that if you do stay home the struggle to be also treated as a human being, as a working human being will cause you great anguish. But we know that frustrated and angry and even unhappy as we may be on some days, this particular struggle is worth it. So in this I will agree with Aspazia

Isn't the fact that we believe in something bigger than our own damn happiness more important than our actual happiness?

And add again - and this make me, for one, a lot happier.

I think something is happening to me

All of these rennovations are starting to make me desire stuff like this, which is really cool (via Feministing).
Now if I could just rustle up a roller and tray set that is easy to clean and difficult to knock over, I'd be really happy.

Lately

I've been really wanting to watch My So Called Life again.

Let the Music Play

So last night LJ and I went to see Opeth play at McEwan Hall at the Uni of Calgary. LJ had been very very excited about this particular show for quite some time and, although I never really cared much for what I heard of Opeth's music, I was willing to give them a chance because LJ has been so right about the other shows we have seen together over the past year (Godforbid, System of a Down, Megadeth). Plus I do like me some long-haired rocker action. Anyway, they sucked. Really. The night started off well, with some rabbit sightings on the campus grounds - white rabbits frolicking in the snow, I thought I would explode with the cuteness of it all. Then we got inside and met up with some of LJ's friends from work, had a couple of beers and hung out in the bar area. I really do like the crowd at heavy metal/rock shows. I've always felt comfortable in that scene - I used to listen to a lot of cock-rock/metal when I was in my late teens and the first bars and clubs that I went to played alternative/metal music. So we were having fun, checking out all the cool ink and styles on the crowd. And then the show started.
Snore.
The singer blathered on for about five mins in between each song, completely destroying any momentum or vibe that they managed to get going. Each song itself was about ten minutes long, and chock full of the kind of musical masturbation that turns. me. off. There was just no passion, no atmosphere that I could get into. I was bored, looking around, feeling my feet hurting from standing, which I never usually feel at a live show. I didn't say anything for ages because I didn't want to be whiny if LJ was really enjoying it, but then he whispered in my ear 'Godforbid were so much better' and I turned around, we looked at eachother and laughed our asses off. He was extra-disappointed because he had paid $40 for a tour t-shirt which is a big splurge for us at the moment. He was all 'I don't even want to wear this shirt again'. Which sucks. Anyway, we left during the last song, got our coats, and walked back to the train station, missed a train, got into town, missed the bus and walked the rest of the way home (not that long really) bitching about Opeth all the way!
It was still fun to go out and see a show but really really disappointing that it was so lame.
In good news (for LJ, as I will be away) Godforbid will be back in Calgary on April 15th, supporting another band (I can't remember who right now). Even if you're not a metal fan, these guys are really worth checking out, they are awesome and really politically motivated too.
When we got back home the first thing I did was check to see who had been voted out of American Idol and Survivor. To be honest, I couldn't care less about this season of Survivor, so my check was pretty perfunctory, but I am somewhat invested in AI (*guilty pleasure*) and was choked to see that Gedeon is gone. That guy could sing, and he did some lovely Sam Cook and Percy Sledge songs on the show. I'm a huge huge fan of the old soul-singers and their songs (got some Cook on right now - 'Bring it to Me'). When I was little and looking through my dad's records I remember my favourite albums to pick out for him to put on were The Drifters and Otis Redding. Later, when I was about fourteen, my best friend and I used to make compilation tapes of our favourite soul tracks, and I often return to those smooth sounds. I find the vocal gymnastics that go on in a lot of the music that is considered 'soulful' today really offputting and it was nice to hear someone on AI who brought back some of that genuine feeling and panache.
Good luck Gedeon. And Opeth - less with the talking, more with the playing. But nice hair all round.

Transamerica

It's been a busy week so far - I officially accepted my place at Uni for the Autumn and went to a fun International Women's Day celebration with LJ's mum last night. It was great to meet more activist women in Calgary and also to celebrate the day with my future MIL. She is really an amazing lady and though I've struggled with getting used to the whole having family close by again thing, I think we have established a mutual respect and affection. Anyway, I hope everyone had a great International Women's Day. LJ even took my advice and brought chocolates into his office for all the women he works with.
On Tuesday night I went to my favourite cinema in Calgary, the Uptown, to see Transamerica. A week or so before, I read piny's really interesting comments on the movie over at Feministe.

First of all, a transwoman in Southern California as desperate for surgery as Bree was would have been able to find a surgeon to perform it. Second, even had said desperate transwoman decided to go the standard route, it’s really unlikely that her therapist would have refused a referral to a transwoman who had transitioned socially and legally, started hormones, and undergone surgery. Third, had her therapist had any doubts about Bree, resolving those doubts would not have involved Bree going on a roadtrip days prior to surgery to track down the son she’s never met.

I really enjoyed the film, and thought the performances and dialogue were excellent, but I was grateful to piny for his criticism of the movie and insights in to the realities of the trans-experience. It helped me to watch the film without buying too heavily into its story of transsexuality and to look at how else 'Transamerica' might be read - the journey Bree and Toby make across America as well as the transition from child to parent and communication between generations. I also thought about how films that engage with characters and subject matter that are marginalised, are often looked to as points of reference for the 'real world', that they have responsibilities that other films do not have. I have mixed feelings about this - on one hand I really do think that films can educate and inform us and that this is good, but on the other I worry about tethering films (and literature, and all art for that matter) too tightly to 'truth' especially when this does not apply across the board. So, while I value piny's criticisms, and especially value the dialogue that they create and contribute to (read all the comments on his post), I also value the experience of enjoying a story for what it is.
I do think that Felicity Huffman did a great job, and I do look forward to the day when there are many more transwomen and transmen characters on our screens and many more transwomen and transmen acting on them too.
Nice to see an Irish connection with the wonderful Fionnula Flannagan as Bree's mother.

(Broke) Back again

So I'm online again after my little self-imposed hiatus. Though it was difficult at times to keep myself away from the 'puter, I found the break really refreshing. I actually started reading a book, yes a book, with real pages and all that jazz, that I bought at the local used book shop. In recent years the time I spend online has really consumed the time I used to spend reading books. So it was nice to reconnect with the little bookworm I used to be. On Saturday LJ went snowboarding and I relaxed around the house, okay - I did a little bit of work on the bathroom but not much. In the evening we went to A Bar Named Sue, a little pub/music venue on 4th street here in Calgary. We listened to some country music and drank some beers and wondered how long it will be before this absolute gem of a hangout has queues down the block. Yesterday we teamed up to paint the first coat of primer on the bathroom and to do some scraping and sanding on the walls and door. It was fun working side-by-side again, something we haven't really done since LJ started working and I took on the house stuff more by myself. The bathroom has been such a huge headache that I'm wondering if we should ever hire anyone to do anything for us again. I really think that part of the stress-explosion I was feeling last week had to do with having these dudes in the bathroom and all their equipment all over the upstairs all. bloody. week. I know I also got excessively snippy about it but I was/am just so sick of the sight of them and the delays and excuses and then looking at the really not-so-great work that was done. Chatting with one of our new house-mates yesterday he pointed out where my expectations were wrong: I had been thinking that if you wanted perfection you hired someone professional to do it, when actually if you want perfection you should really do it yourself! As it stands now, we have an almost usable bathroom which will be looking much better and fully-usable by the end of this week. Once that's done and the lower doors are on the cupboards in the kitchen we are going to take a break from this rennovations lark until I get back from my trip home in April.
In other news...
Ang Lee won best director! Yay!
George Clooney is just so hot.
Meryl Streep is fabulous.
The finale to The Bachelor made me feel physically sick. How gross. I'm really going to try hard not to watch this show again. The 'Bachelor' bascially said, not much more obliquely, that he saw the one woman as exciting fling fodder and the other woman as relationship material. From what I could see, this show and this particular 'choice' not only confirms the 'women you f***/women you marry' binary, but legitimises both the binary but the hierarchy that it supports. I guess it wouldn't have been quite so exciting, quite so 'will he/won't he?', if he had given any indication as to whom he would choose before the big moment ('the rose ceremony' - gah!), which just basically means that the woman he didn't choose was blindsided for the sake of 'good TV'. Crap. I've found Reality TV fascinating for the past few years and this show really knocked its star for me. I'm still going to watch the current seasons of The Apprentice, The Amazing Race, American Idol (yay Mandisa!), and Survivor although I considered giving The Apprentice a miss after The Donald's appearance on Regis and Kelly last week. The horrible-haired one was talking about how his current wife Melania is expecting their baby and in a moment of (one of many) vileness he blathered on about how he hoped she would lose her baby-weight as quickly as Kelly had hers(!) Add to which he then started pontificating about how he wouldn't be present at the birth because (and I'm paraphrasing here) a)childbirth is yukky and he doesn't want to deal b)Melania thinks childbirth is yukky too and wouldn't want her husband to 'see her like that'. Yeah. He's a charmer that one.

Halting the descent

One thing I've learned a lot about in the past couple of years is how to manage my anxiety - or at least that I need to do something when I start getting ultra wound up rather than let it take over my mood completely for a long time. I guess, typical crab that I am, when I feel bombarded I retreat inside my shell for some decompression time, but I usually this in a half-assed, feeling guilty for being anti-social or whatever, kind of way. The good news of last week has had a bit of time to reveal its implications and I think that perhaps a large part of my freaking out has to do with trying to process what this committment means to me (me who has not lived anywhere for very long in the past ten years). I really want to stay in the intellectual groove I was getting into at the end of my time at school last year too, and I need to figure out what kind of lifestyle I'm going to have when I get back from my trip home in April. Then I will, hopefully, have a student visa which will entitle me to work on campus and I noticed online that there is a new women's centre opening up there too so perhaps I can get some volunteer work aswell. What is very very clear to me at this point is that I need to do something that is outside of this house - another six months of life as it is now is just not going to cut it. So, I'm going to take the end of this week and the weekend to do some thinking, reorganising, and to get some quiet time. I absolutely wish I had some kind of pod thing I could crawl away into in order to do this but I'll have to settle for long walks in sub-zero temps. and perhaps a couple of solo cinema visits in order to replenish my chi. I'm enforcing a no blogging rule until next Monday, and especially a no-feeling-guilty-for-not-blogging rule.
Time for some changes. This is a whole new chapter and I need to get comfortable with it.

From Hero to Zero

In contrast to my last post, where I was full of the joys of spring, or at least of friendship, today I am at the end of my rope. Over the past two weeks we have had people in the house working on the bathroom almost every day. And everyday there have been problems and excuses and issues with almost every element of said bathroom, from water dripping through the kitchen ceiling because of an improperly secured valve to the longest bath and drywall installation in history. The plan was to have the bathroom finished before our new room mates L and R moved in but of course the weekend saw them half moving in with the bathroom half done. Last night their move was complete but the bathroom still not finished. Today saw more progress but no completion. The window has to be put back in, there is a hole in the wall, and I have to paint the entire room. Plus there is a little bit of tiling to do, a towel rack to varnish and some shelves to paint and put up. I know I'm going to love it when it's done (and I really can't wait to take a shower standing up instead of crouched in the downstairs tub with the shower attachement), and I know I have very little to complain about in the scheme of things, but I'm really out of patience right now. It has all cost about 1500 dollars more than expected too and, while LJ's mum is footing the bill (she is the landlord) I'm really conscious that I was the one supervising the work and that I should perhaps have managed to keep us better in budget. So I guess this post is a bit of a rant, which hopefully together with the tension tamer I'm sucking down right now, will serve to take my grumpiness down a notch.