feature image via Washington Post
This morning the local NPR guy was giving the weather report and he said it would be ‘cooler’ in the valley with a high of only — ONLY — 69 degrees, to which I was like, “That’s more like it, Arizona!” because we’ve been running the g-d AIR CONDITIONER lately, and I don’t even have to tell you how fucking insane that is. So I was super excited about a cooler day, but then! About 40 mins later he gave another weather report and this time he told me it would be a high of 80-something? Which is a huge leap to make in under an hour, right? I was so confused! He changed his story back to 69 degrees the next time around, though, and basically this is all to say that the local NPR morning guy is a real character. Sometimes he gets choked on nothing at all and you can barely make out what he’s saying, but he never stops talking! He doesn’t cough or anything, he just talks through the choking and I have to stop what I’m doing, like mid-cereal, and listen closely because what if this is it? What if this is the morning Dennis Lambert blacks out on the air? It would be awful! I really like that guy. Anyway here are some things we missed while I was making wedding spreadsheets and crying all weekend. What? That’s how everyone does it.
You Should Go or Do or Give
+ The Bay Area Solidarity Summer 2015 is now accepting applications! This is a summer political action camp aimed at cultivating
young South Asian American activists ages 18-23. Get in there!
+ Wanna go to NYC’s first queer comic con?? Yeah ya do! Flamecon tickets are on sale now, ya gnarly biatches.
+ Hey One of My Kind zine is accepting submissions for its fourth issue!
Theme: The Internet
Deadline 15th March 2015
The theme for issue 4 is The Internet, any written words or visual submissions related to the Internet are welcome. Here are some ideas: blogging, social networking, Internet art, GIFs, early memories of the Internet, predictions, experiments, virality, memes, time, identity, visibility, privacy and celebrity.
More general submissions relating to women, spirituality, creative practices and exploration are also very welcome. OOMK love surprises so if you’ve got something special send it out way!
Queer as in F*ck You
+ Oh here, you’ll maybe have feelings about this: I’m Gay. And I Want My Kid to be Gay, Too by Sally Kohn.
Many of my straight friends, even the most liberal, see this logic as warped. It’s one thing for them to admit that they would prefer their kids to be straight, something they’ll only begrudgingly confess. But wanting my daughter to be a lesbian? I might as well say I want her to grow up to be lactose intolerant.
Related, Slade used to wonder if he would be gay because I’m gay, and I had to tell him no that’s not how it works, and I’m not entirely sure he believed me.
+ Transgender Inmate Sues Georgia, Seeking to End ‘Gross Human Rights Violations’ in Prisons.
Doll Parts
+ Listen fuckers, Ruth Bader Ginsburg Has No Interest in Retiring, so just go ahead and preorder Notorious RGB: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg like the fucking boss that you are.
+ I want to spread this on a slice of olive oil cake and eat it with coffee: Where Are All the Women Hermits? by Rhian Sasseen, h/t Amanda at Skepchick.
But for those of us who want to be alone, who still crave it even after all the abuse and skepticism, there are few guides and even fewer celebrations of female solitude. Who is the female hermit? Does she exist? Who is the woman who can look out at the world and in all seriousness say: ‘I want to be alone’?
To be alone, after all, is to admit to that rare quality: a contentment with one’s self.
+ Karen Gardiner interviewed Silvana Imam, the Queer Feminist Rapper Who’s Taking on Sweden’s Fascists with Hip-Hop.
+ Miriam Zoila Pérez has this gorgeous takedown: By Comparing Doulas to Amazon Prime, the New York Times Seriously Minimizes Our Impact.
By portraying doula services as an extravagance, Hartocollis dismisses both doulas’ availability and potential significance. Doula care is not always expensive. There are many organizations in New York and elsewhere that provide accessible options, such as Ancient Song Doula Services (ASDS), a Brooklyn-based group that centers the experiences of women of color. They provide doula training and services at low to no cost. If I were writing that Times article, I would have followed ASDS Founder and Executive Director Chanel L. Porchia-Albert to one of her births, and seen the ways her support changes the experience of the women she’s working with—very few of whom live in lofts in the Financial District.
Which reminds me, I hope y’all are ready to have your socks knocked completely off by some new queer mom writers, because we’ll start working with them this week and they are fricking brilliant!
Saw This, Thought of You
+ Actually Stef saw this and thought of you: Oral Sex May Be a Life-Saver for Spider.
+ MSNBC is canceling The Reid Report. Quote: “It’s not yet clear what will replace Reid’s program in the afternoon for MSNBC. Another insider told TheWrap minority staffers are questioning why Reid is getting canceled instead of Ronan Farrow, whose ratings are worse and airs right before Reid.” Ummmmmmm I have a guess!
+ Here are The Five Best Podcasts By and For Creative People.
+ Tennessee and Chicago Move Forward with Plans for Free Community College.
Local Autostraddle Meet-Ups
Nothing this week! What’s wrong, are you all snowed in or something? What’s happening.
And Finally
MORE ABOUT THE GOOGLE/VIEW-MASTER MASHUP:
Dinosaurs! This is the only thing on my Christmas wish list.
