this one's for you, Dr. Tate

this photo has absolutely nothing to do with anything.  except the fact that i can finally do it.  after lengthy coaching from a couple of good souls, the most faithful of whom was fdtate, from Progressive Musings, i have succeeded in getting a picture from the internet onto my homepage and then onto a journal entry.  it's a baby step, but for me it's a big one!  thank you, duane; thank you marcia ellen.  good people in this journal community.  patient, kind, willing to take some time to help. y'all come borrow a cup of sugar any old time. 

He springs eternal

so now i have just read (in the NY Review of Books) Margaret Atwood's review of the Studs Terkel book i was talking about in the previous post and i heartily recommend that you do the same.  it gives another view of the book, and it's a nice piece of the kind of writing that only Atwood can pull off.  she manages wry, adulatory, and critical, all in one review.  she loves the book, she loves Terkel, (in fact, she says "If Studs Terkel were Japanese he'd be a National Treasure.") but she manages to root out some flaws.  not fatal ones, not even close.  the fact that she makes me want to go right out and buy this book is the bottom line.

old populists never die, they just go on writing books

i've just come from Salon.com and  Andrew O'Hehir's delightful interview with Studs Terkel.  Terkel, at 91, has written yet another book to give us all hope.  literally, hope.  the title is Hope Dies Last:  Keeping the Faith in Troubled Times.  O'Hehir says:

        Ostensibly, "Hope Dies Last" is a book about dedicated
      political activists, the "prophetic minority" who Terkel
      says are capable of imbuing their society with hope and
      moving it, ever so slowly and gradually, in the direction
      of justice and decency.  It also feels like a summing-up,
      a tour of Terkel's great preoccupations: the labor movement,
      race, economic injustice, the generations who emerged
      from the great turmoils of the '40s and the '60s.  It's full
      of inspirational tales - Terkel is never ashamed of his agenda,
      and he's trying to convince his readers that social change is
      still possible - but it is never saccharine.

Terkel himself says "It's my tribute to what I call the 'prophetic minority,' those who've been activists since the Year One."  He also throws in a funny comment about his writing style:  "I work very improvisationally, in a jazz kind of way."  You gotta love a guy who can say that. 

read the interview, let's find the book.  Hope is the thing with feathers (or so says Emily Dickinson) that's just about flown out of my soul lately.  anything that offers help in restoring its nest sounds good to me.

whaddya think about this?

so, i just needed some technical help from AOL, and after i finally got connected to the right place i encountered a woman who spoke extremely accented english.  i had to have her repeat everything at least twice, sometimes three or four times.  we got the problem solved, she was quite helpful in her own inscrutable fashion, and when we were through with the technical part of the phone call i asked her where she was from  (india)  and where she was at that moment.  also india.  so.  my internet service provider is part of the great corporate program of  "outsourcing" jobs to the third world, where they can pay dog's wages to their workers and leave american workers jobless, in order to plump up the corporate bottom line.  this is something i rage about regularly.  i obtained the corporate address and am going to write a letter of complaint, but the only vote that really counts is my monthly payment to AOL.  i've had AOL as my ISP since i bought my first computer five years ago  (i still have my first computer, it's my only computer so far) and have routinely threatened to leave them for another service.  this may be the time i actually do it.  however, first i'll have to find out if every other ISP's phone number connects to someplace in india or pakistan or the philippines.  it's great to give jobs to people in these countries, god knows they need them.  it's not great to take these jobs away from american workers, and it's not great that a corporation can pay workers in third world countries a pittance. 

goddamn it.  now i'm in a serious funk.  would you like the AOL Corporate Office address?  
22000 AOL Way, Dulles, VA 20166     
a serious barrage of mail about this might make them pay some attention.

Call and Answer

Garrison Keillor hosts a delightful site called The Writer's Almanac.  he puts a poem up there every day.  they are almost always wonderful things. this one hit me right in the soul. 

Call and Answer,    by Robert Bly

Tell me why it is we don't lift our voices these days?
And cry over what is happening.  Have you noticed?
The plans are made for Iraq and the ice cap is melting?

I say to myself: "Go on, cry.  What's the sense
of being an adult and having no voice?  Cry out!
See who will answer!  This is Call and Answer!" 

We will have to call especially loud to reach
Our angels, who are hard of hearing; they are hiding
In the jugs of silence filled during our wars.

Have we agreed to so many wars that we can't
Escape from silence?  If we don't lift our voices, we allow
Others (who are ourselves) to rob the house.

How come we've listened to the great criers - Neruda,
Akhmatova, Thoreau, Frederick Douglas - and now
We're silent as sparrows in the little bushes?

Some masters say our life lasts only seven days.
Where are we in the week?  Is it Thursday yet?
Hurry, cry now!  Soon Sunday night will come.

Over the river and thru the woods...

no, not me.  i'm staying home.  and grandmother G has gone to Denver, from whence she called this morning surrounded by giggling grandchildren.  the oldest one (the girlchild in the above photo) was born, seven years ago, on thanksgiving.  it makes it a doubly special day for the family. 

i'm just popping in here to say that i finally have put up the somewhat impressionistic piece i did on American Woman  on my book journal, The Biblio Philes.  it's long, or  -  because of the space problem - because i had to do it in three parts, it SEEMS long.  it was a lot longer.  this space constraint is a pain in the ass, but it does make you reconsider those extra words.  anyway, check it out if you feel like it.  it's probably largely a chick novel, but because it is a political novel some of you political dudes might also find some interest.

be thankful, be happy, be full.  we're lucky to have what we have, which is still, after all, a lot.  renew your strength, la lucha continua..

Holy Matrimony, Batman

it's an issue that's not going away any time soon.  it continues to be discussed and argued, it's gonna possess and obsess the religious rightwing for as long as they draw breath.  it is, of course, the looming spectre of same sex marriage becoming legal in our great democratic republic.  anyway, here is a funny article from Slate, by one of the senior editors with the delicious name of Dahlia Lithwick.  i've actually always wished my name was Dahlia.  sometimes i give it as my name, for instance on a waiting list in a restaurant.  because i love to hear them call "Dahlia??  Dahlia?? your table is ready."  the piece is called Holy Matrimony, and it's a listing of many other things that endanger marriage far more than the looming spectre, etc.   she's absolutely right, and quite funny.  except, what about "the wiggles?"  after you read it, let me know how you think "the wiggles" are endangering the holy M.   okay? 

i'm thankful, so thankful, totally thankful

oh the bliss, the ease, the sweet abandon....four whole days of not-teaching.  four days of not having to explain anything to anybody, answer any questions, and since i gave no tests this week, four days of not even having to grade papers.  i'll be entirely alone this thanksgiving, G has gone to Denver to visit the kids and grandkids.  don't feel sorry for me, i'm certainly not feeling sorry for myself.  i have a sister and a brother with families within easy reach, also friends who have extended invitations.  this is my choice.  my vocal chords are shot, i have bronchitis, the silence of the cloister is what i'm aiming for these four days.  speaking only to the creatures, and only when absolutely necessary, and if i'm positive they won't answer me. a darling turkey breast is in the oven even as i type, i stopped at Whole Foods after taking G to BWI and hedonistically bought whatever i saw that looked delicious.  also wine.  so, i'll eat and sleep and read novels, maybe go to a movie or two, take the dog for walks.  and be very very thankful. 

speaking of thankful, mark morford's column today is titled Be Thankful You're Not Dubya, with an excellent list of juicy reasons to give thanks.  yeah, he's crazy and it's over the top, but it's full of lovely truth worth considering.

you might also want to check this list of the 10 Top Myths About Thanksgiving, in order to be historically accurate and have some potentially irritating dinnertable conversation for the big meal.  many people will not believe these items, and will hate you for destroying what they've been told all their lives.  it will make dinner much more fun.

a later p.s.:  i just visited Progressive Musings and found he'd already put up the list of 10 Thanksgiving myths!  it's great minds in the same groove, obviously.

cloudy, with a chance of sunshine

i'm working on a "review" of the novel i've mentioned here before, American Woman, and will be putting it up on The Biblio Philes pretty soon.  other than that, i'm trying to put one foot in front of the other until weds p.m., when the all-too-tiny thanksgiving break will start.  i try to sound newsy and cute and interesting and funny (sometimes) here, but the truth is i am none of those things.  in real life, i'm an exhausted depressive who suffers from panic attacks and insomnia and fibromyalgia.  when my SO reads this journal she is always amazed at how it doesn't sound anything like the tormented wreck of a person she knows.  so, there we are.  hello, it's me, the tormented wreck.  on a monday afternoon in november.

the weekend was pretty good.  the three movies were terrific, every one of them.  and we did see all three:  "Winged Migration"  "Whale Rider"  and "Bend it Like Beckham."  three very different movies, having only "artiness" in common.  and the fact that none of them came to the big screen in our area.  so it's good that there's blockbuster.  Winged Migration was stupyfyingly beautiful, spiritually overwhelming.  one of my  passions in life is birding. G and i have spent our best hours  traipsing through woods, across beaches, up hillsides, all over this country, with binoculars and bird books.  we have a dear friend in MA who is our bird mentor and guide, who got us started on this path.  i could happily do nothing but bird, and once we quit working, that's our plan. 

anyway, after we saw this film on saturday night, we got up early on sunday morning and went up to Bombay Hook, a wildlife sanctuary on the Delaware River.  (where you can look across to New Jersey and see the nuclear power plant puffing steam into the air.  appropriate symbolism for the age in which we live.  a wildlife sanctuary in the shadow of a nuclear reactor.)  we spent some magical hours there with the geese, ducks, herons, hawks...even a very close bald eagle sighting, and what may have been a juvenile bald eagle.  then to dover for an enormous amount of very good mexican food, and home to grade papers. 

A Gentle Reminder

my book journal feels sad and lonely.  come visit.  it needs friends, comments, suggestions.  The Biblio Philes.  it waits for you.

makin' your list

in case you're at a loss for what to give that person who has everything this year, here's a few suggestions culled from mark morford's morning fix column in the sfgate.com. (a good site for all kinds of things, mostly making me wish i lived in san francisco.)  but my question is:  how does he find these things in the first place?

so, first and foremost, to play barbie to your gwbushinflightgear action figure's ken, we have: the ann coulter talking action figure.  talking, mind you.  of course she's talking.  you can see a sampling of what she says before you order. (don't forget extra batteries!)

any expectant parents on your list?  or new parents?  well, here's the very thing to help them get that little one off to the best possible start. (or, as they say in the copy:  think of the impact this could have on a young family's life!) chew on that, junior.

this next gift is for your jet-setting friends or relatives who'll be taking off for The Islands during the holidays, it'll be way too cold to enjoy these in chicago or philadelphia or even dallas.  but those happy beachbums will thank you as they undertake their "beach evangelism and mission trips."  how beautiful are the feet of those who bring the good news!

the holiday shopping season officially opens a week from today.  my students who are new to this country are actually all excited about experiencing their first "black friday."  they're planning to go to malls.  you now have a headstart on shopping, from the privacy of your own homes.

p.s.    in another dickensian coincidence, at the happy chica's aol blog she too has a gift suggestion for you. 

call me ultracynical, yes, i'm ultracynical, la la la la la la la

........but does it seem like too much of a coincidence to be written by anyone but charles dickens?  the feds swarming into neverland ranch, michael jackson racing out of las vegas in a white bronco, oh wait, no, that was another movie, i mean...michael jackson whisking in and out of arraignment on his private plane, the Strange One in cuffs, primetime specials rushed into production, etc etc etc ad nauseum.  i don't know about where YOU live, but on my eleven o'clock news last night that's just about all the news from beyond about a 100 mile radius we were given to occupy our little minds.

not a glimpse of 100,000 protestors in the London streets "toppling" a huge simulacrum of bush  (just deja vu  all over again, huh?), not a peek at police in Miami firing rubber bullets into the crowd of FTAA protestors.  not even the horrors in istanbul (my turkish students are so upset) showed up.  so, i went from local Delmarva channels to Phila and B'more to see what they had to offer....and, it was all michael, all the time, there too!

ultracynical?  coincidence?  you be the judge.

flotsam and jetsam

without time to compose anything very thought-out, i'm just going to put together a few bits and pieces i've run across recently and found interesting.  from my D.C. sister: this NRABlacklist is worth a visit, to view some of those the NRA has placed on its anti-gun blacklist.  here you can also sign a petition for more, and more stringent, gun-control legislation, thereby putting yourself on the blacklist.  then you can click a link to the actual NRA site where you can see the entire list of organizations, corporations and individuals who are for greater control of guns in this country.  it's a list i'm proud to join.

lots of chat everywhere on the internet about the ruling from the MA supreme court.  we all know it's only the beginning of the discussion, the struggle, the backlash.  we know the "christian right" plans to make it the social issue of the '04 campaign.  in the spirit of "know your enemy" i give you this post from The Right Christians (not what you might think, motto is "it's time for the Christian Right to meet the right Christians," give it a look). the gist is that those we've known as the leaders of the religious right have faded from the frontlines (pat robertson, ken connor, ralph reed, jerry falwell) of power and glory.  here we get profiles of four new names and faces in the current generation of the christian right, those who will be playing prominent roles in the coming battles.  you'll most likely want to meet these folks.

and, if it's cold and windy where you are....we had the mother of all storms here last night...you might like to try this wonderful-sounding recipe from the foodblog, chicken squash soup (i can't get the actual entry to link right, but look for it, or any damn recipe you want, on the list of entries on left sidebar).  with apologies to the vegetarians and vegans among us, you need a chicken carcass to do this right.

time to pony up

perhaps everyone knows about this.  or perhaps not.  i haven't come across any other posts on the subject.  it's a chance to do more than kvetch, either aloud or in writing, about the chance to put in Anyone But Bush in 04.  moveon.org is holding a huge fundraiser for their nationwide dump bush ad and PR campaign online, and George Soros will put in .50 for every $1 we give. don't know moveon.org?   hard to believe, but go check them out. don't know George Soros?  my sister thinks he's god or, at any rate, a god.  he is one of the world's richest men, and he's committed to ending an administration that's  "leading the U.S. and the world toward a vicious circle of escalating violence."  he's been waking up in the wee hours shaking "like an alarm clock" with his thoughts and fears about this administration.  he is, of course, writing a book, and is reeling out millions of dollars in what he calls "The central focus of my life...a matter of life and death."  hearing in the sound and fury of this administration and its policies echoes of his childhood in occupied Hungary, he'd be willing to sacrifice his entire fortune if someone could guarantee him doing so would result in bush losing the election.

you can read more about Soros in this washington post article, just don't let his toupee frighten you too badly.  good guy, bad rug.  and after you go here and find out more about Soros, the Open Society Institute,  and the Soros Foundations, you won't care at all about his toupee.  this is an impressive guy, doing impressive and much-needed work with his money.

we rant and we rave, but here's a chance to do something concrete about effecting change.  and a billionaire will help us.

here they are!

well, the happy chica has immensely cheered me up with her entry of november 15 on the radical cheerleaders (i can't seem to find individual entry links for marcia, help me if i'm missing something.).  it's an ray of hope in the dearth of radical protest that i was bemoaning several entries ago.  protest doesn't have to be just marching and chanting, as these young people show to good effect.  in the 60's and 70's protest also took many forms, street theatre, puppet shows and satire, as well as rioting in the streets and tossing blood on draft files.  go, rad cheerleaders, go, go, rah rah sis boom bah, extend your middle finger to it all!

fun in the blogosphere

or maybe i have a strange idea of fun.  anyway, this seems to have been all over the place in the past week, but i just caught up with it today.  through a twisted journey beginning with sapphosbreathing, through ampersand at Alas A Blog, i arrived at the original essay called (really) "The Pussification of the Western Male."  although at first read it might almost seem to be a joke, a satirical rif on neanderthal thinking, it isn't.  it's a warped misogynistic destroyed-frontal-lobe raving, or perhaps more accurately "whining," piece on the supposed total feminization/mother-domination of the Manly Man.  who is, therefore, rapidly becoming the girly-man. 

i have several regular journal buddies here on AOL who seem to be pretty fine exemplars of the male gender.  what do you think of kim dutoit and his ruminations?  i have a hard time taking seriously a man who can include this quote (he says he's quoting john belushi......???) in his essay: "Did we quit when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?"  

the guy seems very scared.  scared of women being in any way considered the equal of men, or having any power or influence in both private and public life;  scared of losing the false vision of entitlement most men let go of long ago.  it's not about hunting and big dogs and smoking cigars, it's about a really really deep sense of insecurity.

but, what do the rest of you think?  i warn you, it's a nasty piece of work.

all the leaves are brown

and the sky is grey.  what a wild and crazy wind is whirling those brown leaves everywhere.  as i went from one campus building to my next class in another this morning, i had to wade through piles of leaves in the corridor before i got to the door.  vacuuming won't take care of this!  they'll have to RAKE the carpets.  it sounds like freight trains constantly roaring by right now, outside this little room which has windows on two sides.  i keep expecting a locomotive to come charging through.

but what i've been thinking about is Ramadan, and those who observe it.  some of our muslim students are, some are not.  i don't really notice much difference in their class performance, though most of my students of all nationalities report not eating breakfast on a regular basis, so maybe it doesn't make a difference until later in the day.  thinking about food, reading the riverbendblog, where she has started a new blog with iraqi recipes for Ramadan. for myself i've gotta bet observing Ramadan would make me think about food all the time.  kind of the way a serious diet does.  although one usually does not diet for religious reasons.  anyway, there's riverbend, living in the chaos and madness  that is baghdad, writing about the chaos and madness that is her country in one blog, then moving over to Is Something Burning? and giving us a delicious lentil soup recipe.  life is a mysterious thing, isn't it?

Introducing the Biblio Philes

been listening to bob dylan all late afternoon and early evening, a trip thru time, nostalgia for nostalgia's sake.  although i have to say, "Times Have Changed," the most recent song in the compendium is one of the best.  the old boy still has it, in his own strange incomprehensible way. 

but that's not what i meant to say.  i meant to say i have done it, yes.  started another journal.  as i said. one for meandering bad prose about matters literary, endless reams of it perhaps.  i've already made two entries over there today. and yet i find myself wanting to talk about the book i'm reading right now, in this journal. (nostalgia again.) the book is American Woman, by Susan Choi. a novel about young leftist radicals in the militant underground of the 70's.  can you say symbionese liberation army?  so, listening to bob dylan, reading about the fringe left radicals of my youth.  and wondering, where are the radical youth of today?  where in hell are they?  are they somewhere?  i am a tribal elder now, but i have more rage, wrath, brainfrothing anger, than i had years ago as a protestor for civil rights, against the VN war, against the nixonion tricks and games. but what's happening now makes those years seem like the good old days. there were many young people (but as many older ones and downright elderly too) in the antiwar protests i attended last spring in D.C., but the universities aren't exploding with actions and protests, student protest groups don't seem to be forming. i'm not championing the SLA, don't get me wrong.  but i'd sure like to see some evidence the young are paying serious attention to current events. perhaps like the arrival of coffins from iraq, or any sort of protest in the area of a bush photo-op, student protest is happening on a regular accelerating basis and getting no media coverage or being shunted into a "free speech area."

or, am i completely out of the youth loop?  entirely possible.  quite likely, in fact.  send me websites, blogs, whitehot radical writing, send me hope.  if you're plugged into anything of the sort.  if it's happening i want to know about it. 

the sound of distant drumming

the moon now so bright and unshadowed, a spotlight rising over the chimney last night, shining down on us in the hottub.  so very cold, down into the low 20's this early morning. i don't yet know how the plants fared in the greenhouse.  i covered the things still on the patio and porch and they survived. 

i can't write about things political right now, it's too nonfiction for my exhausted heart and mind.  other aol journallers are covering the waterfront, fdtate, bruce miller, the happy chica. i'm reading them, i'm reading many other news sites and weblogs dealing with the myriad issues and questions spiraling on ad infinitum.  right now i have little or nothing to add to the chorus.  i'm lost in a strange black space and i need poetry, mystery, magic. not candidates' debate (everything's a song lyric, isn't it?  eventually?), not war issues (for a while, only a little while), jessica lynch, pollsters, opinions.  i need wine, sleep, a good novel.  and i think i've found one, American Woman, by Susan Choi.  inspired by Amused's second journalsite, ex libris, i am thinking of starting a second journal also.  a book journal, or at any rate, a journal where i can put my poetry and writing sites and blogs, literature and language, where i can talk and think about what i am reading, sometimes what i am writing.  a name for it has even floated into my mind.  so far it's only an idea.  but i think it's what i want to do.  news at eleven.  or, as it happens.

total eclipse of la luna luna luna

RUN outside right this minute and watch the moon disappearing into the earth's shadow.  i've just come in and will be going back out.  sky and telescope mag has a good article on it if you want to find out more, or if you want to participate in timing some of the movement of the umbra, or perhaps it's the penumbra,for reasons i don't quite understand.  my science is weak, but my mystical amazement is quite strong. and i love those words, don't you?  "umbra,"  "penumbra." dark, latinate, secretive words.

ok, going back outside now.  and it's deliciously cold too.

final thoughts, for now, on marriage

read previous two entries first.

so we made it through.  still unmarried.  still not interested in getting married, still kind of enjoying our outlaw status as a lesbian couple.  living outside the law, as it were.  i guess that's what outlaw means, huh?

and today more than ever aware of all human fragility.  of the need not to wait for a time "down the road" to make things right, to repair fissures we have created in the human fabric by our errors in judgment.  there is a blog out there in the blogoverse called "nobody knows anything."  and more and more as life goes on i see that this is the only true statement.  nobody really knows anything.  we do the best we can.  we make mistakes.  we go on. 

bad prose! endless reams of bad prose!    this has been a more confessional day than i am likely to have again soon.  although i will continue to muse upon this whole subject. it seems to have captured the imaginations of all realms of society: same sex unions, gay marriage  -  good? bad? necessary? evil? a necessary evil? our right as citizens? an intolerable excess? a chink in the armor of all decent persons? a simple realization of equality????????  

or, perhaps, as it often seems to me: a red herring to distract us from so many other enormous issues facing us as a society, a nation, a world, a planet?  although i am a member of this minority, i see the saving of the planet from the hideous environmental crimes being visited upon it by this administration and its corporate allies as a far more important issue.  if there is not water, soil, air to support life for future generations it won't matter a whit if they are married or not.  will it?

thoughts on marriage, 2

read previous entry first.....

since so many marriages, 50% i think it is, end in divorce, clearly the promises of "forever" have little or no meaning. the struggles and strains of a committed relationship are the same, whatever the external trappings, rules, regulations. the divorce rate shows that the supposed "supports" of society for "marriage" don't really help all that much.

the reason i can pick a mood (sad) from the pathetic roster of moods above is that something happened today which has made me reflect on an event in this lengthy relationship.  the event which almost ended us five years ago.  this is more personal information than a public journal should contain, but my mind is entirely overwhelmed by this.  during a time of extreme stress on both G and myself, i had an affair with another woman who had been our friend. a really stupid thing, a thing i regret deeply. everyone got badly hurt, and everyone behaved badly at some point. the woman (we'll call her M) involved ended up with a good friend of mine and moved across the country; G and i endured several years of hell working thru the pain of the affair plus the issues underlying my foolish decision.  for four years the two resulting couples have had no contact.  bitterness for some, bewilderment and confusion for others. feelings never resolved.

this morning a friend called to tell me M died last night, suddenly and unexpectedly, although she'd been in the hospital for several weeks.  she was only 49.  a painful situation ends painfully.  bad behavior will never be redeemed.  i am in shock, in pain, in disarray.  should i call her partner, my former good friend lost to me for years now because of bitter feelings?  should i let the dead past bury its dead?  i need time to let this sink in.  sad, indeed. 

if G and i had been "married," chances are we would have gotten a "divorce" over the whole thing.  as it was, we had to marshall all possible resources of heart and character to talk, fight, cry, yell, throw things, hold each other, spend time apart, talk to those who loved us both, threaten suicide, slam doors, etc. 

June 3, 2004
i'm back with a little addendum to this entry now.  because krobbie asked in her most recent entry a question from her Book of Why - the question is what is the biggest (worst?) mistake you've ever made in your life.  the above story is mine, hands down.  for so many reasons.  all the people i hurt when i had the affair, my partner, my longtime friend (who turns out to have been involved with M during the time she and i were having the affair), M herself, and in some terrible way i haven't yet recovered from - myself.  there's a poem in the play Colored Girls where the woman talks to a lover who has "run off wit all her stuff" and she wants it BACK.  her "stuff" is not material goods, her "stuff" is her ego, her self esteem, her sense of worth and dignity and goodness, her very self itself.  these are the things i lost in that episode of my life.  and have not really entirely recovered.  feel i may never recover entirely.  i never gave myself away in that total a fashion, and have never been injured that badly.  because M died, there is so much that can never be resolved in any way.

i did have a meeting, in March, with L, the friend who ended up in an actual realtionship with M.  it was short and strange and sad.  we have had to contact since then, but i think we should - and i'm trying to decide how to do it. 

i know people have affairs, relationships, breakups, etc all the time, every day, millions of people.  this was the mistake that felt like a dirty bomb that blew up the person i thought i was, that G thought i was, that i would like to be again.  and never will be.  G and i are in an okay place, most of the time, we have such a deep friendship that we cannot imagine life w/o one another.  there's bomb crater in there, though, no matter how hard we try to make it go away.

thoughts on marriage, 1

the happy chica has an entry today (11/6/03) detailing the prez candidates' positions on gay marriage.  or whatever we're supposed to call it.  some few of the candidates are okay with, apparently, everything.  some support civil unions, or partnership benefits, but don't support gay marriage. one in particular thinks all homosexual people should be packed into missile tubes and dropped in the middle of the night over "axis of evil" countries. 

what i want to know is this:  what, exactly, are we talking about here?  what is the difference between civil unions, and partnership benefits, and marriages?  why should candidates for government office have any position whatsoever on marriage, if by marriage we mean religious ceremonies in sectarian houses of worship performed by religious clergy of whatever stripe? and if that's not what we're talking about, what are we discussing? as a lesbian who has been in a relationship for 22 years, i'd love to be able to have access to the civil/legal benefits (tax, health insurance, medical visitation/permissions, survivorship, etc.) of what is generally known as "marriage."  these, i take it, are the "partnership benefits" that "civil unions" would grant?

i have no desire at all, however, to be "married." i really don't see why anyone has, straight, gay, or otherwise.  married by the church or by the state...all i can say is:  not me.  this seems to be an unpopular position in the GLBT community right now.  marriage has always appeared to me as an antique institution from the days when women were considered property whose ownership passed from one man to another, as symbolized in the changing of patronymic to husband's last name, at least in cultures of anglo-saxon descent. women no longer bring dowries of land, money, cattle to their marriages, but all the symbolism of the marriage ceremony still shouts "property transfer." 

 

what's it all about, anyway?

okay, because darling fdtate persisted in sending me instructions, and because i don't really feel up to doing anything else, i messed around some more with pictures.  yes, i DO have a collection of photos on my computer, none of them having anything to do with entries that i've made or ever will make.  but here are two of our grandchildren, this is sam - looking the same tomato color as his blanket - the other picture is rachel.  these are really old pictures, i just randomly clicked on something to see what i could do.  sam is two now and rachel is four, so you see - old pictures.  but cute.  so, there we are.  pictures. small, bordered, but still, pictures.  wow.