intellectual properties

OH: “no-latch”

OH some guy talking about how lucky he was to find a woman who was “no-latch”, and i thought:  why is it considered a fault, a mental obsession, to “latch” onto someone, even if just temporarily, who has been trusted enough to be literally INSIDE YOU in a carnal and intimate way?   i’m all for casual sex, but when someone gets a little infatuated for a minute afterward i don’t think it’s a sign of inscerity or instability.  it’s natural (literally biochemical) and i hate that a lot of women get painted with this “needy” brush because they want some attention after intimacy, when to me it seems actually sort of weird and sociopathic if you can fuck someone and then just walk away the next day and not think about them.  OTOH, stalking people and becoming unnaturally attached, especially if the feelings aren’t reciprocated,  is obvi not good and if you have a tendency to do that then maybe you should rethink whether or not you can handle casual sex.

At This Party

I don’t want to be the only one here
Telling all the secrets -
Filling up all the bowls at this party,
Taking all the laughs.
I would like you
To start putting things on the table
That can also feed the soul
The way I do.
That way
We can invite
A hell of a lot more
Friends.

–Hafiz

now that my mind is half cleared up and my body recovering from endless walks and dances and backyard barbeques and the weather has returned to its usual Cold July Fog, i can maybe say something in full sentences.  or not; this blog post is turning into one of those soups that simmers for too long and i’ve thrown too many ingredients into and it becomes unrecognizable as one thing. there is obvi a lot of intersection among these topics in my life, so please forgive the impending ramble.

first, the party.  does it need explanation again? this was the 6th year for Priceless, and the fact that we pack not only camping gear but also tuxedos and evening wear is now somehow de rigueur. like a matryoshka doll, there are parties within the parties within the party.  we were there for 5 nights/5 days, and i managed to only miss a couple of things.  i have become skilled at willed awakeness to the point that i didn’t even have to overdose on caffeine trying to stay up.  i just decided i would.  i got very very tired, but not cracked out.  it was nice!

speaking of which, today Ariel is quoted in this piece on NPR: How the Internet Transformed the American Rave Scene:

“I worked so much overtime trying to talk about how the rave scene wasn’t all about drugs,” says Ariel Meadow Stallings, who published and edited the rave zine Lotus in Seattle during the late ’90s. “It was very noble of me, and I still do believe it wasn’t all about drugs. But it is a drug culture. Even if you’re not on drugs, the culture of the party is determined by the fact that there are people there who are.”

i was thinking a lot about that topic at the party.  many of us have stopped doing drugs, but the mood and expectation of what happens/what music/what decor is still defined by when we WERE. is Rave now an aesthetic?

secondly, over the weekend i read this new yorker piece on internet dating, and while i have never internet dated, i have met many of my current BFFs (excepting jay) online before meeting in person.  so it really spoke to me that the article posited that internet dating is not so weird, as many people might initially find it, but actually a return to how humans used to meet:

“In a way, the online persona, with its lists of favorite bands and books, its roster of essential values and tourist destinations, represents a cheaper and more direct way of signalling one’s worth and taste than the kinds of affect that people have relied on for centuries—headgear, jewelry, perfume, tattoos…

…Fisher contends that dating online is a reversion to an ancient, even primal approach to pairing off. She conjures millions of years of human prehistory: small groups of hunter-gatherers wandering the savanna, and then congregating a few times a year at this or that watering hole. Amid the merriment and the information exchange, the adolescents develop eyes for one another, in view of their elders and peers. The groups likely know each other, from earlier gatherings or hunting parties. “In the ever present gossip circles,” Fisher once wrote, “a young girl could easily collect data on a potential suitor’s hunting skills, even on whether he was amusing, kind, smart.”

It wasn’t until the twentieth century that it became normal for young people to pair up with strangers, in real or relative anonymity. “Walking into a bar is totally artificial,” Fisher told me. “We’ve come to believe that this is the way to court. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. What’s natural is knowing a few fundamental things about someone before you meet.” Vetting has always occurred at many levels, ranging from the genealogical to the pheromonal. In her view, dating via the Internet enables, as she wrote, “the modern human brain to pursue more comfortably its ancestral mating dance.”

i couldn’t agree more.  i started meeting people online not for dating, but for social connections, specifically phish and the Phunky Bitches, in 1997/1998, and some of them to this day remain my best friends. our online community provided information and context for our relationship before we committed to doing what could be considered somewhat dangerous things together (historically speaking): road trips into the wilderness, intoxicated rendezvous. how many of my friends are of the hundreds of people i’ve met randomly at parties and night clubs? so few, and the thought of going on a date with a totally unvetted person makes me wince. but people i’ve met online have invited me into their homes, picked me up from the airport, sent me goods, and vice versa and in my experience there has almost never been a problem.

one other choice quote from that article not directly relative to this point but slightly:

I had a talk-about-dating date with a freelance researcher named Julia Kamin, who, over twelve years as a dater on various sites, has boiled down all the competing compatibility criteria to the question of, as she put it, “Are we laughing at the same shit?”

when anyone asks me again in the future, i will quote that right there as the key to happy LTRs (romantic, platonic, communal, or otherwise).

cognitive dissonance wrt dressing young and use of the word “girl”

britney’s new video (synopsis), which she starts by pseudo-rebelliously saying “Fuck you” to members of the fake press, lead me to comment that i think it’s sad that after all these years her interpretation of being “edgy” is using the F word and dressing like 19 year old hot topic salesperson while still singing in her baby voice. this video is supposed to be Britney responding to her haters, but to me it seems she got played right into the thing she’s supposedly fighting against.  the video does not scream “strong, confident, independent woman” to me.

this brought me back to try to finish my thoughts on this piece, which caused a lot of dissonance for me:  http://jezebel.com/5810735/dont-fear-the-dowager-a-valentine-to-maturity

“Women with master’s degrees who are searching for life partners, list “rainbows, Girl Scout cookies, and laughing a lot” under “interests” on their Match.com profiles…

When I shop now, I have to make sure that garments I think are dresses, are not actually rompers. If you don’t know what rompers are, they’re shirts attached to shorts, and they used to be called onesies.

The closest thing Madonna ever did to infantilizing herself was for her 1992 Steven Meisel Vanity Fair cover. Today, KATY PERRY IS POSING IN HEADGEAR. And despite the facade of cliqueishness, and female friendship, and the Romy & Michelle’ness of gal-pal fun times, let’s be real. We all know these manic pixie Muppet Babies are really just in it for the peen. And instead of acting like a woman who might remind a skittish bro more of his teacher or his mother, we’re going for the pubeless, twee, Anime-eyed version of whatever dream girl we assume they want or need.

It’s like how we used to hide our interests around boys (‘I hate math! It’s so hard!’). Now, instead, we’re singing the praises of Skittles Sours instead of emulating, say, Kathleen Turner? Barbara Stanwyck? …

It’s all to the same ends— women are trying to broadcast to men that we won’t bite their dicks off. It’s just that now, instead of lipstick, we’re wearing glittery lip gloss, or that shit you get in the drug store that tastes like Dr. Pepper.

…Because the larger issue is that it is a lot easier for men -or even guys or bros-to demean us, if we’re girls. It’s much harder to bring down a woman, or to call her a moron, when she’s not in pigtails and Ring Pops. Not that his idea of you should influence your style, or your sense of self-worth. But I feel like in a way, it already sort of has?”

this causes a lot of dissonance for me because as a woman who is almost 35, i still often dress what some people would consider “young”. but while i would never be one to say what women over X age should/should not wear, i too agree that it’s hard take a woman over 30 seriously if she’s demanding respect while she is dressed like a girl half her age, and i too have noticed that current mall trends are catering hard to what some would consider “infantilism”.  just the other day i was walking behind a female on the street who, from behind, i thought was probably 15-20 due to her slight build and because she was wearing a floral print onsie-romper thing.  then i passed her, and noticed she had a pack of cigarettes in her hand and so then when i looked at her face, this woman was at least 40. it was confusing. perhaps this is my social construct, but to me it signaled something about this woman that suggested she wasn’t quite sane.

on the other hand, i also am firmly against the “blame the victim” accusations against women who get raped and then someone says she was “asking for it” because of how she was dressed/she was intoxicated, and believe that a woman should not suffer negative actions based on how she’s dressed. however, i do believe that what you wear matters and how you dress sends messages (intentional or otherwise), so i’m with the Jezebel author in that i have found my self cringing lately when i see other women my age dressing like someone half it. a touch of cutesy – sure. i like playful. i like pigtails, i like striped knee socks and glitter. but there’s a blurry line there and somewhere (usually depending on context) it becomes hard to know if you are just holding onto your youth or if you’re really immature.

also, on this note, of late i’ve been irked by the ubiquity of the use of the word “girls” to describe women of ANY AGE.  i was watching a travel show on TV and this hiking guide was with two middle-aged WOMEN, but he kept referring to them as “the girls” and it was driving me NUTS.  i get that the linguistic pairing of “guys” and “girls” is basically equal to “men” and “women”, and therefore calling a 35-y.o. male a “guy” and a 35-y.o female a “girl” is the same, so then why is it that the reference to a grown woman as a “girl” seems so much more demeaning to me?

dreams/wasted youth

.::.beauty.::.
.::. this is how i dance in my dreams.::.
.::. this is the kind of dancer i have always wanted to be.::.
.::. this is the body i want to realize.::.
.::. how much dance would i have to do to make this dream come true?.::.

i said these things to jay after we watched this video and he got a “really?” look on his face. it’s one few places where we don’t connect. some of our ideas of beauty don’t match.

.::.
i am really starting to feel my youth lost.
for example:
as i’ve gotten older, i’ve become aware of how rigid i can be. such a stickler for rules. dogs off leashes. cars double parked in the bike lane. use of email headers. phones in restaurants. and so impatient, too. how is it that someone can stand in line for coffee for 10 minutes and then not have any idea what they want when getting to the counter? and isn’t it rude to sit and talk for another 10-15 minutes at a restaurant after you’ve paid your check and the table has been cleared and there is a queue of very hungry people waiting to be seated?

.::.
and how. HOW?! can anyone possibly believe that President Donald Trump is a good idea?

.::.
the world is mad and so am i.

i agree with Glenn Beck

“I’m not saying God is, you know, causing earthquakes — well, I’m not not saying that either. But I’ll tell you this … There’s a message being sent. And that is, ‘Hey you know that stuff we’re doing? Not really working out real well. Maybe we should stop doing some of it.’ I’m just saying.” — Glenn Beck

~via  Glenn Beck is a Message from God

i agree with Glenn Beck. “Hey you know that stuff we’re doing? Not really working out real well. Maybe we should stop doing some of it.”

like cutting social welfare programs and laying off teachers while launching missiles at Libya. not gonna work out real well.

or evangalizing misinformed political theories your television show.  maybe we should stop doing that too.

whether “God was punishing Japan” is ….well….my belief system doesn’t allow for those theories.

anyway, the irony is, that the thing that makes me agree with Glenn Beck – agree that America is no longer what it once was, that American culture is (hopefully reversibly) fundamentally flawed – is that GLENN BECK IS ON TELEVISION and PEOPLE LISTEN TO HIM. that’s what makes me agree with Glenn Beck about the f*d up state of the world and humanity, albeit from polar opposite worldviews.  that Glenn Beck exists. proof in the pudding, right there.

sage advice

(for those of you reading via RSS or facebook: please note: this item from February is being reposted as it was accidentally deleted during a server backup).

United States Food Administration poster, 1914-1918

truly randomata

small piece of random information i read once and have never forgotten:  the first stall closest to the door in a public bathroom with rows of stalls is usually the cleanest.

i have no idea whether this is true or not but i take note every time i walk into a public bathroom with stalls and now usually go in the first one if it’s available.

what random pieces of information have stuck in your brain and affected your actions, whether you know if they are true or not?

i’m a flexifeminist

speaking of hyperbolic publications, i have been quoted over at Jezebel.com on the subject of flexisexuality:

As for the word “flexisexual” itself, it’s also not new, despite the Mail’s headline (“the new word for the women who refuse to play it straight”). If we want to get liberal with our definitions (flexilingual), blogger Amy LeBlanc wrote a post dropping “flexisexual” back in March 2004, using the word as a potential synonym for a metrosexual vegetarian who ate free-range and organic meat (“flexitarian”). More relevantly, our friend the Urban Dictionary lists several like-minded definitions of flexisexual dating back to March 2008, when an anonymous Noah Webster-type defined it as a “straight, heterosexual person who flirts with gay homosexual people. Usually seen at clubs, part of the hipster scene.” A few months later followed a new definition: “a girl that is bisexual only on weekends.” Finally, a third person chimed in with, “a person of flexible sexual orientation.”

the piece then goes on, predictably, to discuss how the term degrades women.

.::.

semi-related, on the subject of what i perceive as an issue with having feminism as a focus point for a revenue generating website, namely whether or not that sometimes taints your ability to stick to a positive “empowerment” message and not resort to making things up/exaggerating for hits: Feministing vs. Jezebel:

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hobbit homes: the future

The Tea Party Targets….Sustainable Development?

First, they took on the political establishment in Congress. Now, tea partiers have trained their sights on a new and insidious target: local planning and zoning commissions, which activists believe are carrying out a global conspiracy to trample American liberties and force citizens into Orwellian “human habitation zones.”

At the root of this plot is the admittedly sinister-sounding Agenda 21, an 18-year-old UN plan to encourage countries to consider the environmental impacts of human development. Tea partiers see Agenda 21 behind everything from a septic tank inspection law in Florida to a plan in Maine to reduce traffic on Route 1. The issue even flared up briefly during the midterms, when Colorado Republican gubernatorial candidate Dan Maes accused his Democratic opponent of using a bike-sharing program to convert Denver into a “United Nations Community.”

…

In the tea partiers’ dystopian vision, the increased density favored by planners to allow for better mass transit become compulsory “human habitation zones.” They warn of Americans being forcibly moved from their suburban dream homes into urban “hobbit homes” and required to give up their cars and instead—gasp!—take the bus to work.

now, this is from Mother Jones, so yes, a huge helping of salt and hyperbole with that, so what’s interesting to me about this (particularly since i just watched The Book of Eli) is not so much the “tea partiers are total nutjobs” aspect but that as an extreme minority, this point of view provides a definitive shadow of overlap with extremely left wing conspiracy theorists who have been suspicious of all forms of government planned anything.  it’s possible the extreme right and left have each gone so far around they are now meeting face to face (is that part of the 2012 prophecy?), which is either hilarious or terrifying, depending on how you look at it.  in fact it reminds me of Marin County NIMBY planning conflicts, where the conservative ultra left fight over things like whether or not Habitat for Humanity should be allowed to build homes n their communities.

or maybe this is nothing new…politics as usual…yawn…trumped up for ratings/publicity, and in that case, isn’t Mother Jones just as guilty of misinformation and rabble rousing as the Tea Partiers are for spreading this around?

Gibbous Love

via kottke, i started reading this NYT piece on Courtney Love and her fashionista cred (it’s way more interesting than you might think) and was about 80% of the way through it when i was completely surprised by this:

After that Paris season, she went through what she describes as a “kook” phase, during which time she cut up her vintage dresses and some of the signature grunge pieces once worn by her and Mr. Cobain, and styled the scraps as ruffles and patchworks in the vein of Gibbous Fashions, a San Francisco collective that specializes in recycled fashion.

whoah! congrats to Selene for the mention!