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.
oh my kingdom for just a taste of arizona weather. it is like -5 with wind chill here at the moment and we are supposed to get up to 10 inches of snow this weekend. what if i cant go on?
laneia heres what i need you to do if at all possible i know you are busy but hear me out: go get some delicious local citrus (arizona citrus is maybe the best citrus known to humankind) and some black sphinx dates (very impt that they are the black sphinx variety…trust me on this. have you had them? YOU NEED THEM) and eat them while basking in the sunshine. and then write back and remind us all what vitamin d and the will to leave your bed is like. thank you so much in advance for this sacrifice <3
WE HAVE AMAZING CITRUS HERE IT’S TRUE. i think i’ve had these dates! i’ve had some kind of dates that were local. they were amazing but the box was like 10lbs and we ended up not being able to eat them all! :anguish emoji:
So much citrus. Citrus is to Arizona what sand is to the middle east. (Okay, maybe I exaggerate, but at this time of year it seems like it. Anyone want some oranges? No? How about grapefruit? Lemons? Please god we have so many.)
It’s the same at our house with citrus tree that we had to make jugs of juice out of it and that’s from one big tree.
if the world needs more women hermits i am totally on that. can that be my beat? “woman hermit.”
yes do you need a helper because i can help
Well I do want a daughter one day and I am sure many other people do as well, even tho knowing that life would most likely be harder for them than if they happened to be a son. Also there are plenty of people that want their children to look like them and/or their partner, even if that makes life harder for them as well. This stuff maybe seen as selfish but no one gets in a uproar about them normally. So I can’t see wanting your kid to be gay is much different.
same.
What I want to know is, why Sally, a media expert, decided to bring the conversation about the sexuality of her SIX YEAR OLD, into the public domain. Why would you even speculate about a child’s sexuality in a private domain? Let alone public. It’s completely inappropriate.
What would happen if a straight pundit did an article with the headline “I’m straight and I want my kid to be straight too” there would be outrage.
I fail to see what point she was trying to make. If I am ever lucky enough to have children, I’d want the, to grow up healthy and happy, regardless of sexual orientation, and I certainly wouldn’t desire he/she be a certain one.
I think she probably brought the discussion into a public domain because she’s a public figure and she’s writing about her private life for the Washington Post these days? For a lot of people I know, being queer is way more than sex/sexuality — it’s something that informs and shapes our entire lives in both large and small ways, and it’s something we’ve been operating through/with since well before we were experiencing sexual attraction — so I don’t think it’s inappropriate to discuss the future sexuality of your own child. Alsoooo not to like, go on and on about this because I really don’t care what Sally Kohn does or doesn’t do but I really need to say that literally every child I’ve had the pleasure of meeting has been asked, often as early as 2 yrs old, if they have a boy/girlfriend and/or how many boy/girlfriends they have, always assuming that they’re straight and that their love interest is of the opposite sex, and the people asking the questions aren’t even their parents! I think that’s a hell of a lot more disturbing and telling than a queer mom publicly sorta-speculating about her own child’s possible queerness.
I think that if she had stayed in the hypothetical that because her child is young enough, it would be entirely reasonable. This to me is “her story” . But when she started talking about specifics of what her kid is doing, that’s when it starts to feel weird for me because that is her child’s story. (and that is not specific to queerness, but just a general respect for children’s privacy, individual identity, and agency to tell their own stories)
I guess, when I was a kid I was pretty sensitive about how I was referred to by adults
I didn’t realize that the google viewmaster was basically a smartphone with a lens attached. Considering how dangerous it is storing a smartphone next to your body, how is this a good idea for kids to have their eyes so close to the smartphone for extended periods of time? I think technology is going backwards… they could have made this much cooler without having to rely on smartphone to use it.
I have Google Cardboard, which is what the viewmaster is built on. Your eyes aren’t really that close to the screen – there’s quite a bit of space between your eyes and the phone. Also you wouldn’t play this all the time – VR tech like this exists already and has been for some time (e.g. Oculus Rift).
Wait. A woman who is content to be alone? Content to be with just HERSELF? Blasphemy.
I’m learning how to be alone and be completely ok with that. It’s a struggle.
I used to be so cool with being alone! I would just hang out and go do things by myself and it was great. Now that I’ve been in a relationship for over a year, I have to like relearn how to do this again. It is definitely a struggle if you’re not used to it.
Being alone is my jam. I’ve lived alone and stay alone most nights and weekends for going on 5 years now, and I love it.
Yo, thanks for the woman hermit article. It’s pretty applicable to my life right now, and it really assuaged some of the panic and anxiety relating to my postgrad plans that have been creeping in as I see my peers get jobs and visit grad schools, while I’m going to camp/live out of my car for 4ish months with no solid plans for after that (but I’m hoping things work out). Because 4 months is much longer than the three weeks I managed last summer, and most people really don’t get it. It was just a nice reminder that doing this is aokay and not an incredibly poor life decision.
…it’s totally ok! in fact it sounds awesome!
just be safe.
Reid cancelled and Farrow is not? I am shocked, shocked…
RBG is pretty much becoming my idol. Seriously, she’s one of the most badass people I can think of.
I’ve actually call myself a hermit on a few occasions, although a more accurate term is probably “introvert.”
Yay for Tennessee and Chicago! Hope Obama’s proposal for free community college becomes a reality for the entire US soon. I think this would be so wonderful if it happens.
I’m dead at the intro about Dennis Lambert! I listen to npr in Phoenix in the am and have heard him choking on nothing and thought I was just overly attentive when he’s on air. I’ve also heard him talk through said chokes! Haha! Thanks for that.
OMG LILLY
this is so validating thank you so much. kjzz solidarity.
I’m both a hermit (at times) and an extrovert. I need to be around people, that’s how I feel recharged, but I don’t need to be paired up with someone to do so – which is why I’m totally fine with going to shows or restaurants alone. Much better that way.
I know the duo who runs the Bay Area Solidarity Summer, they are amazing folks! Awesome queer allies (I don’t know if they themselves identify as queer, they’re a het couple that has done a TON of work with queer South Asian stuff), super passionate and knowledgable about what they do. If you are in the Bay Area you should also check out their Berkeley South Asian Radical History Walking Tour: http://www.berkeleysouthasian.org/
i laughed out loud like a hyena pop-up reading about the NPR morning guy
I’ve always wanted gay boys. Does that make me selfish? I know the world isn’t perfect for gay kids, but I wouldn’t trade who I am for the world and some of the most beautiful creative people I know are gay men and I’d love to have kids just like “them” and by them I mean Mic. I want a son like my friend Mic and even Jonathan…though I wouldn’t call Jonathan stereotypically creative, just awesome.
Also, I think for all the same reasons straight parents want straight kids. It’s the community you’re familiar with. Talking about same-sex relationships is the thing I know about and am the most comfortable with. Not that I am uncomfortable with hetero relationships, they’re just different. Keeping it 100.
Like, honestly honestly, as someone who very much views her queerness as a “choice,” I thought the article on wanting a gay child didn’t go far enough in some ways (despite the commenters saying that the author was “batshit insane” *eyeroll*). I would want my child to be queer, especially my girl child, because living as a straight girl under the patriarchy is awful, and I would want my girl child to grow up knowing that there are other options than having to constantly perform for, and make concessions to, the male gaze. Being queer has been such a powerful tool that has allowed me to do that, and I would want my daughter to be able to do that as well. Like, I know lots of badass, strong, give-no-fucks straight women, and I am so in awe of them because I don’t think that I would be able to be that if I were limited to desiring and being desired by men.
I’ve talked about this topic before with a friend of mine (a queer man), and he has had the same reaction as a lot of the author’s friends: “you would want your child to have a harder life?!” but I really see it as the opposite, and that my wish for my hypothetical daughter to be queer is a protective instinct and the opposite of selfish. (Also like queers have more fun guys we all know that)
-h
PREACH. eggplant you’re just speaking so much of my truth right now. also i feel like it’s glossed over that the “harder life” everyone keeps trotting out? usually comes at the hands of homophobic parents. so.
Mmmmhmmm…ironic that these same parents refuse to believe that they are part of the reason that it can be a “harder life”.
Ugh, this is incredibly disturbing to me. Being gay is not a choice for most of us and it feels like a violation, to have someone parading under an identity that isn’t a choice for folks. I know you used queer, I’m using gay, because that is my preferred terminology.
If were strongly sexually attracted to the same sex there is a gaze. I don’t understand this idea of “escaping” the male gaze. No individual should live for anyone’s ideal or anyone’s sexual attraction and women who like women have a f*cking gaze and it can be just as bad if someone is living for that gaze. It’s not all rainbows and processing and intellectual connection. It’s I think think you’re hot and I’d like to f*ck you. There is very much that component.
I don’t get political feminist faux gay/queerness and honestly I’m insulted by it. It’s so harmful when we fight this hard for people to understand our struggle and you’re choosing it? WTF.
Your daughter can be amazing and love men. There are amazing men out there as well. I don’t see the difficulty. Just do you, the appropriate man will follow.
I think there is a lot more nuance to this subject than you are allowing for. Not all queer people feel that they were born queer and not all of them later become queer for “political feminist” reasons. My ex, for example, happily dated men for years with no questions about her sexuality until she was pursued by a gay woman and decided to give it a try. She has since decided that she prefers the dynamics of same-sex relationships. She obviously has a legitimate ability to be sexually attracted to women or she wouldn’t have successful sexual relationships with them, so she is not “faux gay”. Her choice to identify as it suits her is nobody else’s business.
The idea that we must convince everyone that our sexuality is never a choice in order to preserve our rights is a dangerous and harmful argument. We deserve rights not because we can’t help being queer, but because there is nothing inherently wrong with being queer whether or not it happens to be a choice.
It’s not like men are another species – we are all human beings who are basically the same. Unfortunatly many men are socialized to disrespect women but that is by no means true of all men. There are plenty of good people of all gender identities (just as there are abusive people of all gender identities). I wish for any children I may have some day to live happy lives surrounded by friends, and, if they so choose, a loving partner or partners of whatever gender/s they desire. Hoping that your child has a particular sexual orientation seems very strange to me. Love is love.
+1000 lol’ing at the first paragraph