i am the problem.

I sent this email today.

I just listened to ‘The Inside Scoop on Lady Reporters’ and it stirred up the damn fire in my bones:

Like the second-wave feminists, I find myself annoyed and a little too disgruntled for my own good (ha-ha!) over the remarks about how “gender-equal” newspapers always were. Admittedly, it is possible to do worse than one in three bylines or one in five management positions, but at best that is still men having twice as many. Give any child’s sibling twice as much as them, and they will not be satisfied if you tell them that it is basically the same amount. I know it’s easy to not notice common injustices, but this culture is not kind to women. Either what a woman earns is called pretty close to what a man does, or it’s not close at all and is attributed to a short-falling on her part.

Imagine the opposite, though. If women were at an advantage, it would not last. If men did poorly in an undertaking women did well, the entire system would be discounted, not the men. Men are treated as valid, as the standard, and any way women deviate from that is seen as their degree of inferiority. Although, if women do well, that is seen as suspect. Men are accepted and praised, women are scrutinized and either criticized or regarded warily. 

No, this isn’t the case in every instance. But not being treated anywhere near equally is far more common, especially if you consider class, and hearing two women talk so offhandedly about the struggles of womankind is hard for me. Perhaps you don’t feel them, but I still do.

That said, I really enjoy your podcasts. I don’t like that I never bothered to email you when I was happy and now am disgruntled and commenting, but I still believe my words are important. 

Someday, I’ll live in a world where I don’t feel like a monster for adding my voice to the cacophony.

wontloversrevoltnow:

“do have the patience to wait ‘til your mud settles and the water is clear? can you remain unmoving ‘til the right action arises by itself?”

—

lao tzu
(translated by stephen mitchell) 

I love this quote and think Dez got it from The Tao of Pooh (or tumblr).

littleelk:

More about me being confused about dating.

As in some people I know use the term to describe ‘I just met someone and I am getting to know them.’  This, to me, sounds kind of like.  Uh.  MAKING FRIENDS.  You meet someone.  You decide if you want to keep interacting with them if you like them.  Yes?  

So..  I guess.. when people have the urge to ‘date’ this way (as in they specify that it is DATING and not FRIEND-MAKING), is it like… a compulsive urge to gain a fuck buddy, so it’s like fuck buddy tryouts?  FUCKBUDDY TRYOUTS, TODAY AT 4PM!

The resulting conversation with my friend went something like:

“So… you have a circle of friends and acquaintances who you are already in possession of but don’t currently want to date.  So you’re sending out a casting call for new ones?  Except it’s like THE SPECIAL ROLE where they’re your friend but they also have to meet certain criterion and have to be attractive enough to you that you want to have sex with them or what?”

“I guess?”

“So you’re testing out guys to see which ones you want to have sex with?”

“No, I don’t think I want to have sex with the guy I’m seeing right now but I think I want to date him for a bit longer.  Sex isn’t really the end goal.”

“Oh.”  *sits there staring*  ”Why do you only date men?”

“Because I’m straight?”

“But apparently this isn’t always about sex.  You’re getting to know people.”

“Err….”

“I think you’re just sexist-friend-making.  You sexist-friend-maker.”

“Uhhh….”

Sometimes I’m kind of an asshole when I’m socially observing with the goals of gaining knowledge about something, but I only kind of half care.

I’m really bad at navigating this whole fabricated cultural system of interaction and meanings created by people.  THINGS MEAN THINGS for some reason or another, but it doesn’t feel like it’s my first language.  It feels like I’ve learned it as a second language and I’m kind of shitty at it.

I’m vaguely intrigued and vaguely amused by the ‘let’s try people out until I find THE ONE’ dating process.  It’s like watching people try out toilet paper until they find their favourite brand that they’re going to stick with forever or until something better unexpectedly shows up for them to wipe their butt on.  Except with people.  Is that what dating is?  People compulsively going through people like dish rags until they find ‘a keeper’?  Man, that sucks.  It’s strange enough a process, and I’d understand it more if it was something that was just accepted if it happened.  But when people actively go out LOOKING for it, it’s bizarrely fascinating to me.  It seems an unnecessary expenditure of energy, like some malfunctioning animal.

But anyway, there’s a definite hierarchy in relationships between ‘friend’ and ‘dating’ status, i.e. ‘dating’ always trumps ‘friend’.  I feel like one of the differences between the two is that people assume that dating is inclusive of sex, and once sex is added to a friendship it can LEVEL UP and become dating.  There’s this distinct inclination that the defining factor is sex, BECAUSE EVERYBODY KNOWS THAT SEX IS WHAT ALL DATING PEOPLE WANT WITH EACH OTHER, LOLOLOLOL!  Except that it’s NOT.  Some people are asexual and they still have relationships.  They still date!  GASP!  AND SOME FRIENDS HAVE SEX WITH EACH OTHER!  WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOA!!!  Now I’m just blowing everybody’s minds.  

There’s that little thing when people say, oh don’t worry, we’re ‘just friends’.  It’s always rubbed me the wrong way.  It’s that tepid ‘just’ and what it’s used to signify.  

I don’t know about you, but if you’re ‘just friends’ with me, it could mean that we’re gonna go watch a movie and get some nachos.  It could also mean that we’re going to get some nachos and afterwards I’m going to finger you and give you the best blowjob ever.  Either way, I probably love you.  

When people say that I’m ‘just a friend’, it means that there are higher rungs on the emotional relationship ladder than me.  When you are ‘just a friend’, that’s the highest status you could possibly hope to achieve with me.

In conclusion, dating is one of those topics I’ve managed to water down into a puddle and it’s too cloudy to decipher or I just don’t really care because it’s been analyzed to the 10th power and stripped of any meaning to me anyway.

Also I hate it when people equate sex to being like a plot device.

Or maybe I just hate everything.  YOU DECIDE.

Another fun thing I’ve been thinking about is MARRIAGE.  And heterosexual people.  Why is it SOOOOOOOOOOOO IMPORTANT that only STRAIGHT PEOPLE get married if so many of them just stop having sex after a few years anyway?  How much of this partnership is ACTUALLY dependent upon the couple having sex?  THINK ABOUT IT 

1. HOORAY, ART TYPES!

2. Seriously, why do people try to find someone they don’t know to be their SUPER FAVORITE HERO PERSON IN THE WORLD. 

Also, I’m voting ‘Art hates everything’ and ‘Marriage isn’t actually about love or sex’.

Here is mostly what I’ve been listening to in recent months:

A mix I made for a friend

then, a mix a friend made for me

Now you can listen to them OVER AND OVER ALL THE TIME too.

(Also, Beauty Queen Sister and ALL THE STAR FUCKING HIPSTERS.)

Ps. HELLO.

THEY JUST PLAYED ‘SHARE THE MOON’ AND NOW ARE PLAYING ‘JOHN’ I THINK THEY ARE PLAYING THE ENTIRE THING OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMGGG

I am still so glad I am not in a romantic relationship

or any relationship at all that feels like a burden instead of a joy.

Little boys want to be Kings and little girls want to be Princesses.

“Yeah, i really like/enjoy you, and other than when i didn’t, i always have.”

Michigan is NOT very pedestrian-friendly. That’s not news, but this is: I almost got hit this morning when I was crossing at a crosswalk during the walkerman signal because a driver stopped, then turned right. Even though I was there. And would have been out of his way in a split second. Bitch would have run over my foot, had I not lept back.

I considered pummeling his vehicle with my fists (it was within arms’ reach, after all) but in the end did nothing more than exclaim ‘what the fuck!’ as I watched him look through me.

I would have loved for SNM to be there, though, so I could have watched her bitch him out. Partially, too, because if he had given her anything but deep reverence, I would have ripped his fucking throat out.