Picking up on Dru's suggestion posted here and here, I spent Black Friday creating this fleece poncho for my grandson and learning how to create a pop-up image. That's in addition to creating a dozen new Blog Sisters, who read about us in the NY Times and emailed me to join. Not bad productivity for a cold and snowy Northeast day.
Today is my one-year blogiversary. I started my old weblog, which is still out there, a year ago today, after my son b!X got tired of my sending stuff (mostly political) to post on his site. With his urging and help, this non-techie tentatively reached out to Blogger, and Kalilily Time emerged.
I had planned to "create something" today, and I was leaning toward hand painting a rising phoenix t-shirt for Shelley as a gesture of support and encouragment, but, as official Blog Sisters registrar, I'm being inundated with requests to join. The article in the NY Times apprarently struck a chord in women all over the world. As a result, Jeneane and I have to come up with some policy guidelines and I have to keep responding to the requests. So, I guess my creative efforts today (as a counter-effort to Black Friday spending) is probably going to be sitting here at the keyboard creating new Blog Sisters.
My alternative creative project was going to be visiting an artist/teacher friend of mine who's been working at a New Hampshire college and commuting every once in a while to her home in NY, which she shares with the man in her life. We were going to play in her studio, scan some of her art work, maybe put together a digital collage -- my poetry and her images. We've been talking about doing that for years, but time goes by and bye and bye and bye. My favorite creation of hers is a little table that she adorned with plaster casts of her nipples and then painted white. Oh well, maybe I can find time to get over to her studio tomorrow.
Meanwhile, I celebrate today the way I celebrated November 29, 2001 -- at the computer, weblogging. Although tonight I might work on the booties-that-look-like sneakers for my grandson. I couldn't find a pattern that I liked so I'm inventing my own.
And so, for all those out in Blogdom who criticize women bloggers for posting about knitting. Stuff it!
Isn't it great to feel that there is nothing we can't do and that it is soooo OK to enjoy all kinds of activities that are productive and life-affirming! Yeah! Yeah! Go Blog Sisters.
As I was getting ready to run out and buy a few copies of the NY Times (and some beer, since I left what I bought yesterday in the bottom rack of the shopping cart -- and Cool Whip for the Key Lime cream cheese pie that's for dessert today since I like to start my own traditions), it occurred to me that all of the successes in my life were achieved by riding on someone else's coat tails. I have often credited my son b!X's for getting into weblogging in the first place. I'm running out to get the Times because I rode into this one on Jeneane Sessum's. The jobs I've loved the most were those in which I was someone's "Special Assistant," with lots of influence and no need to find the buck stopped on my desk. And my thanks to the great female archetypes of Lilith and Kali and the many-breasted Artemis for giving me the encouragement to get on in the first place.
So, my thanks to all of the coat tails of the world for the great rides.
I've got to start the Thanksgiving cooking. My brother has just walked in with the turkey.
Happiness is not getting what you want; it's wanting what you have. Have a Happy Thanksgiving.
That thought occurred to me as I was commenting on Blog Sisters, and it seemed important enough to mention here in terms of the "girlism" issue. And it ain't whatcha wear, it's how you abuse it to manipulate.
In a comment on Shelley's weblog, Frank Paynter says God I love a girl in a skirt and nylons and CFM shoes who smiles at me and makes me feel good to be a man.
There's nothing wrong with that (except for the CFM shoes, which are hell on the feet!) if it's just that -- that simple visual acknowlegment that we appreciate the visual gender differences. It's when the "girl" or "woman" proceeds to apply her female feminine wiles to manipulate that male's "good feeling" to get what she wants that it fosters sexism. And it's when the man confuses that "feel good" feeling with permission to treat the female in any way but as a human equal.
It ain't whatcha got; it's how you use it, how you abuse its latent power.
While Burninbird is posting here and here (I've repeated what she wrote at the end of this post), even my dreaming is filled with the same frustration!!!
In the wee morning hours this morning, I dreamed that I went with my mother to visit some family who lived way out in a rural area. While there, they suggested that I go and join a bridal shower going on for their daughter. Their (really cute) teenaged son was supposed to give me directions on how to get there (which was quite far away), but he kept telling me to get on roads I never heard of. So I asked if he could give me landmarks or major intersections that I would recognize because I probably knew how to get to those -- and then I could find my own way, even though it might take longer. In my dream, the young man continued to do it his way, even taking time to go to his computer and look for a map. At one point I remember telling his mother that I remember reading that women prefer getting directions that give them landmarks. The dream continues like this as my frustration and anger grows and the young man refuses to give me what I need until it's too late for me to leave for the party. ARRGGHH.
And this is what Shelley posted, in her frustration, while I was dreaming my nightmare.
Shutting down the conversation
What's particularly difficult about writing something such as my posting Girlism? is seeing the gentlemen in the community linking to Halley's post, but not my refutation. Huzzahs for Halley's refreshing honesty and blowing the lid off the terrible games we women play.
Perpetuating the myth by controlling the links, and thereby controlling the discussion. Well done. Is this another lesson we women should learn?
But then, I'm picking on Halley with my posting, aren't I? And members of the same community are not supposed to do this. We either agree, or stay silent. Another lesson to learn.
Why are more women's voices not heard in technology? Because men control technology's voice. I guess the same could be said for weblogging.
It's in the air, friends, it's in the air.
It is well known that an awful lot of bloggers are cat lovers. Dean Landsman does a great job of proving that fact. Like so many of us, he's a pushover for sweet helplessness – soft purrs, big eyes, pretty faces.
My cat’s a hellcat. Appropriate. Her name is Calli. Sounds like Kali. Appropriate.
She’s not pretty; her markings are asymmetrical, and a friend once commented that she looks like Groucho Marx. Except that she only has half a black mustache. She’s smart. Has taught me her language. She has identifiably different sounds that she makes when she wants to eat, or play, or cuddle. She has me trained.
She’s fat. Too fat. That’s what the vet told me.
She likes to sit on my lap as I type. Except she’s too fat. Gets in my way. I throw her off; she climbs on again. Persistent. Spoiled.
My first cat was one I got when my kids were little. Saffron was mellow yellow, and it was the 60s. He slept with the kids and let them do anything they wanted with him, but he only tolerated me. Eventually, when it was just me and Saffron living together in an apartment, he deigned to sleep with me. After he got old and sick and I had to have him put to sleep, for years after, I would swear, in the dark late at night, I could feel him jump onto my bed and settle in at my feet.
Calli doesn’t sleep with me. She’s a hellcat.
I rescued her from a small cage in pet shop when she was 6 months old. She was so big and the cage so small that the only place she had to sit was in her litter. I’m a softie too.
My next door neighbor, Clara, died last week, alone in her small apartment, with only her cat to witness the second most crucial moment of her life. When a friend couldn’t rouse her on the phone, the next day she stopped by and found her. Dead.
A small woman with a round, pleasant face, Clara always smiled but rarely spoke. When she did, it was in an almost whisper – tentative and shy. Every once in a while I would see her in the hallways with her walker, going to get her mail. Once, her cat got out, and I coaxed it back into her apartment. Last summer, I found her on the floor just inside the doorway of her apartment after I went to investigate an odd hammering sound coming from that direction. She had been banging on the door with her walker, trying to get someone’s attention. I knew that she had just returned from having surgery, and I didn’t want to take the chance of trying to lift her up myself. I called 911.
I think of her dying, alone, in her small apartment, with only her cat to witness the second most crucial moment of her life. I wish that she had been able to make a sound that I would have gone to investigate. I would have sat with her, held her hand, fed her cat. I am not afraid of death or dying (my father was an undertaker). I just don't want to die alone, with only my cat as witness to the second most crucial moment of my life.
Among his ongoing commentaries about the politics and poker in America today, bix links to Ellen Goodman’s article about Nancy Pelosi – but he left out something Goodman said that I’d like to highlight.
Goodman says
It's barely a week since Nancy Pelosi became minority leader, and there's already been a regime change of metaphors. Out with sports; in with food…… On ''Meet the Press,'' the woman who became head of the Democratic Household cheerily compared her postelection fate to the patriotic poultry…… ''You know the story. It's like the Thanksgiving turkey,'' she said. ''You bring it out, you get this great honor, everybody oohs and ahs ... and then they begin to carve you up.'
Having worked for almost twenty years for the CEO of a government agency division who is a woman and who made a point of using non-sports metaphors, I saw how a corporate culture is affected by the metaphorical language used by its leader. My former boss tends to use family and home-based metaphors, which reflect a collaborative, sibling approach to management. Most of the managers reporting to her are men, and their tendency is to use sports metaphors, which reflect competitive, hierarchical values. Over the years, her metaphors have reinforced the management messages she tries to communicate. The culture of the organization has become such that employees from other parts of the agency keep looking for job openings with her operation. And, under her leadership, the units for which she is responsible have gained great respect and support from the government agencies that provide her funding.
Language. Voice. Metaphor. More powerful than the sword -- for both good and ill.
(double-posted on Blog Sisters)
In a post on a new "humans first" weblog started by Jeneane Sessum (the originator of other weblogs such as Gonzo Engaged and Blog Sisters), Tom Matrullo says
Here's a human thing: boredom. Ennui. acedia. Spleen. taedium vitae. It is a great teacher and rewards study. If humans saw more deeply into ennui, perhaps they would have less tolerance for that which kills the spirit.
Existential ennui. Diminished spirit. Borrrredddommm. What happens to us that we find ourselves here? Of course, what I mean is, what's happening to me that I find myself here? I am bored with dancing. Bored with writing about dancing. Bored with reading the kinds of novels I've always loved. Bored with the people I know (except for my kids; they have never bored me and I doubt if they ever will).
My dreams take place in complex worlds that seem more real and much less boring than my waking times. My dreams are like watching Lifetime television from 8 to 11 every Sunday night -- all of those women struggling to stay healthy, stay ethical, stay compassionate, stay authentic, stay loving, stay alive. Stay Alive.
I used to find the world around me inexhaustibly engaging. Maybe it's that I'm now finding the world around me frighteningly alienating. Is it age? Is it the Age?
Maybe it's not boredom. Maybe it's the fear of/the feeling of being surrounded, overwhelmed by the inhuman. Maybe one of the human responses to feeling inhumanly alienated is to retreat into boredom. Into watching Lifetime television from 8 to 11 on Sundays. And Buffy. And Alias. And Judging Amy and Crossing Jordan and.........
My horoscope from Rob Brezny's Free Will Astrology:
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): "Dear Dream Doctor: I dreamt I
was caring for a beautiful golden fish in a room with two
aquariums. The fish kept leaping from one aquarium to another,
and my job was to scoop it up and return it to the water if it
missed. I felt bad for it because it couldn't decide which
aquarium it liked better. One was big and classy but sterile, and
the other was small and funky but had lots of cool castles and
toys. As soon as the fish jumped into one aquarium, it was
already looking longingly at the one it had just left. What does
my dream mean, O Wise Oracle? –Frustrated Piscean
Caretaker."
Dear Frustrated: In your next dream, relocate the fish to
a lake or ocean where it will have many environments to choose
from.
No, no. I don't want so many choices. I want to be a little fish in a little pond. I'm too tired of big oceans and big fishes.
The title of this post plays on many levels for me. Certainly, the tv series with Judi Dench is a favorite of mine, mainly because it portrays a relationship between an adult woman and man with a realistic and comfortable combination of humor and respect.
Over here and here and here, there are still conversations going on about sexism, and Drucilla links from Blog Sisters to a supposed study of women abusing men. I wonder if relationships between men and women will ever find that realistic and comfortable combination of humor and respect.
Time is also going by on this blog without much going on -- mostly because time seems to be going by so fast in my nonblog world. I swear, time goes by faster as you get older. I know that there's so physical reason for this; I know that there are some psychological explanations for feeling like this. It sure feels like it's a fact for me, though.
There's not much going on with lots of blogs lately. Shelley's been mentioning how so many seem to be taking a break. Maybe time is just going by for them too.
Too much of my time is spent writing, re-writing, and editing articles for the regional dance magazine. It's too much like my old job, which I retired from and hoped to do other things. I've got to get out of what I got myself into.
I want to spend more of my time making stuff for my grandson. I just sent him a soft fleece hooded robe, a pair of booties that look like sneakers, and I'm almost fininshed making him a totally un-Christmasy-looking Christmas stocking.
When my kids were little, I made a pink and orange one for my daughter and a turquoise and blue one for b!X. Yes, yes, I know that those are sexist colors, but what the hell. She still has hers. I wonder if he still has his.
And I have one more craft sale to do, so I'm working on more "indestructible, adjustable, washable crusher hats." And more of my original-design "spiral shawls." (A woman from California stumbled on the post of a photo of one of my shawls and she's already bought four so far.)
B!X is supposed to be working establishing a web page where I can advertise the stuff I make and some jewelry and quilted items that friends of mine create. My one-year anniversary for this weblog is on November 29.
My mother will be 87 in February.
And time keeps going by.
Earlier this month, I posted about my inability to successfully load McAfee Virus Scan onto my computer becauses of weird little McAfee files that were stuffed into unlocatable places in my PC. So, I packaged up the disk and sent it back for a refund, along with a letter that included the following:
Please credit my card with a refund for the enclosed purchase because I was not able to install the upgrade BECAUSE when I tried--
First, it told me to uninstall current copies of McAfee Virus Scan, so I used my PC's uninstall feature to try to do that.
Then when I again tried to install the upgrade, it told me that there were Virus Scan files left on my computer that had to be removed/uninstalled as well before I could install the new version.
Since I couldn’t figure out where those files were, I contacted McAfee’s chat feature and, after an hour of online conversation, was given the enclosed [six page] instructions sheets to print out, which I did. And I chose an option to keep my question open so that I could contact them again if I wasn’t successful in following their instructions.
Then I attempted to apply the instructions for the MS DOS uninstall – which I wasn't able to do because I couldn’t figure out how to put the codes in the way the instructions described or even how to exit the MS DOS prompt screen.
So, I got back onto the McAfee site but couldn’t locate the icon that was supposed to be there for me so that I could continue getting some technical chat support.
So, then I started to try to follow the very lengthy 6-page manual uninstall process -- but I am a 62 year old non-techie and finally just gave up.
Instead, I went and downloaded a Norton Anti-virus program that went in without a hitch (including the Rescue program) and which, as I am typing this letter, has just scanned my 70,000 files.
I copied McAfee with the letter I sent to SoftwareOutlet.Com, from whom I bought the disk and requested the refund. I wanted McAfee to know just how frustratingly impossible it was for someone like me to deal with the complexities of trying to install an upgrade of their software.
What I got back from McAfee today is a totally irrelevant form letter that sends me to various links in order to report a technical problem, register my software etc. etc. The letter ends with "McAfee.com, maker of award winning VirusScan Online, is a separate company from Network Associates. Network Associates makes retail products" etc. etc. I have no idea why they even bring up Network Associates; I have no idea who they are and never mentioned them in my correspondence.
So, now that Jeneane Sessum has created a new group weblog in hopes that businesses will hear what we have to say about how they should behave toward us, their clients, I WANT TO ADD MCAFEE TO THE LIST OF CLUELESS "LOSER" COMPANIES!!!
I passed up seeing 8 Mile and Bowling for Columbine in favor of Frida tonight, and I’m not sorry I did.
The movie itself is a feast – visually, aurally, thoughtfully. It’s the thoughts it brought to my mind that haunt me tonight.
In my younger days, I sought the kind of passions that drove Frida Kahlo both artistically and emotionally. The creative highs, the emotional lows -- feeding each other in an endless loopy ride. How boring to be ordinary. How deadening not to feel a persistent tremor threatening every step. Life and love careening along the edge.
But is the ride worth the life?
Somewhere along the way I guess that I decided it wasn’t. (Not that I’m considering my minor ride in the same league as Frida’s.) If I only go this way once, if my immortality lies in the legacies I leave behind in terms of the influence I’ve had on other people, what is it that I want to leave behind? Frida Kahlo left her art. Was it worth the ride? Did she have any choice?
I had a choice. I miss the passion. But I don’t miss the pain.
RageBoy’s post about playing, which links to several other playful male bloggers, affirmed what I was feeling all along in reading some of those posts on these guys’ weblogs. I don’t play the way these guys play, so their play doesn’t seem very playful to me. And I have a feeling that other women bloggers (and non-) feel the same way. Boys tend to love rough and tumble, sucker punches, messy wrestle on the ground get dirt in your mouth play. These male bloggers are playing like that metaphorically. Girls tend not to play the same way as boys. And women tend not to play like men.
So that’s why, when I read this, I think, wow, good blogging, great writing. But when I read some of his other stuff, I think, what a waste of time.
As I read some of the posts at Blog Sisters, I don't see much playfulness. What do we sound like when we're being playful? And why aren't we moreso in our blogs?
Personally, I suspect it's because while the boys are out playing, we're the ones who are dealing with the stuff of every day life survival that's not so much fun. Maybe if we had more support for those things from the men in our lives (and in "life" in general), we'd be more inclined to play more, and our weblogs would reflect this. But I still don't think our play would sound - or feel -- the same as that of our male friends. What do you think?
As we helplessly watch our country continue to slide on its conservative butt down into a new Dark Age abyss, what do we do now?
b!X is in the processof launching a new site as a way to stimulate interest in reinventing the Democratic Party into what it's supposed to be so that there's some chance of eventually reversing directions. That's what he's doing.
My therapist/healer friend is leading a spiritual pilgrimage to Greece, and this is what he writes in response to being asked if he's afraid to travel:
So what am I afraid of? Terrorism and dying? Yes, but not much. That is
just a symptom of our times. I am afraid of being terrorized by anybody
taking away my freedoms. Taking away freedom is the root cause of all
terror. I am afraid of any authority draining all there is of attention,
time, energy, tax money, our children's future, in the pursuit of
imagined gigantic horrors we now live to eradicate. I am afraid of
anyone trying to make me believe that all the world is not mine, that I
am not safe elsewhere on the planet, that I am a targeted citizen of
America. I am not. I am not even a citizen of this soul-sick America
creeping like a diseased empire around the planet. I am a free citizen
of the world. It is my planet. I just happen to live in occupied
territory right now -- once free territory occupied and controlled by a
political-corporate empire. That is why it is right for me to go --
because we are free. And because it is our world, all of ours. As
Sokrates taught us, doing what is right is good for my soul.
And me? I don't know what to do. In truth, my life isn't going to change much; it never does in response to political ebbs and flows. Suspended in the middle of the middle class, I'm not much affected by the stock market or interest rates or even taxes. But this is still my country, my planet, my human community. I want to do what's right. I can only try. I have to try because I am a free citizen of the world. It is my planet. I just happen to live in occupied territory right now -- once free territory occupied and controlled by a political-corporate empire.
If nothing else, I can keep reminding everyone that that is indeed the case. Let's not fool ourselves.
Well, I voted for a regime change in New York State, but I have little hope of that really happening. We have a superbly qualified black man running against a totally white encumbent for Governor. Miracles do happen, I suppose.
We definitely need reforms in the electoral process, and I send you over to The One True b!X - November 05, 2002 - Olbermann's Modest Proposals for some excellent suggestions.
This is why lots of ordinary people get so frustrated with the stuff that techies breeze through:
I decided I'd upgrade my McAfee anti-virus program with the new 7.0, which has a firewall as well. Except I couldn't download the new version until I uninstalled my old one. Except it wouldn't do a quick uninstall because there were little files stuck in weird places. So I got onto the McAfee site, which was not user friendly in getting help, but I did get to their tech chat person, who finally sent me a six page set of instructions on how to get rid of each file separately (and some might be in as many as 20 times in various places).
Well, being a non-techie 62 year old who gets an Excedrin headache when I have to program a tv or vcr and still haven't figured out all of the settings on my digital camera, I asked for a refund and went and downloaded Norton with perfect ease.
This is why ordinary people get to hate technology. If I weren't addicted to blogging, I probably would too.
not just a little ol' grandma raising hell at the keyboard
she is that which does not surrender
