Follow That Dream

Reaching out

2012-01-31T16:22:00.000-08:00

This is a difficult post for me to write, because I know so many people have worse problems going on than I do. But I'm writing it because I don't know what else to do.

I'm depressed, no matter what I do. I've been hospitalized twice and spent three months in a therapeutic day program. I go to weekly therapy, read good self-help books and take my medication faithfully. I won't hurt myself - I can't do that to the people I love - but I don't wake up with any sense that there's anything good to get out of bed for. I'm fine at work but I come home and I want to cry. I can see that people don't like or respect me and I know that it's because I don't like or respect myself. But I have no idea how to do that. I've been trying so hard.

I'm not writing this just to whine, but I'm a little bit desperate for some kind of help. Maybe someone out there will have the right words or know the right book or the right resource to help me. Maybe nothing can help me, I don't know. But I can't give up until I've tried everything and this is the last thing I know to try. Someone help me if you can. Please.

My Un-College Un-Curriculum

2012-01-11T19:16:00.000-08:00

I seem to be coming out of a prolonged, but necessary, sort of emotional and spiritual hibernation period. Now that I have energy again, life is starting to happen. And in some ways that life looks oddly like school... but in other ways it is very definitely not like school.

For much of my life I've struggled to pin down what kind of structure I need. I've always known that rigid, school-like structure makes me feel way too constrained and unhappy. I'm a floaty, flighty, right-brained sort of person who jumps quickly from one idea or topic to the next. (School-type people tend to call this ADD, although I'm sure it's the same quality that got me put in "gifted" class as a kid. Go figure.) So it doesn't work well to say, for example, that I'll work on studying physics from 9:00-10:30, because odds are I'm going to work on physics for 5 minutes and then be reminded of something from the I Ching or the French Revolution or Star Trek, and before I know it I have open two books and six tabs of Wikipedia, none of which are about physics.

And that's how it should be! If I'm studying a topic, and it's not engaging my imagination and sparking connections to everything else in the universe, what's the point of studying it?

So strict schedules, while appealing in their predictability, really don't work for me. On the other hand, being totally open-ended doesn't work so well for me either. What ends up happening when I have no plan at all is that I sort of spin in place, having a vague sense that there's stuff I want to do but having no idea where to start. Then I just end up refreshing Facebook a bunch of times, feeling bored and frustrated that I'm not doing what I want to do.

In the past, I've gone through a vicious cycle of doing nothing, getting restless, designing an elaborate schedule, doing it for two days, rebelling and being all "internet FOREVER", then starting the whole cycle over again. (I blame my years in school for teaching me that this is the only way to have structure.)

I think I've finally discovered a happy medium, though. See, what I really need isn't exactly "structure" in the school sense - someone to tell me what to do and when to do it - but focus. I don't need a route already planned for me, but I do need a map so I can decide if I want to go this way or that instead of drifting aimlessly from place to place.

So the way I'm approaching things this "semester" (because I do tend to think in semesters, and in the U.S. they break at somewhat natural parts of the year) is to establish some goals and gather some resources to help me focus my energy. There's no way to neatly break my focus down into "subjects". I guess in a broad sense you could say all my choices go back to self-care. For example, I want to figure out what I believe spiritually, so I'm studying art and astrophysics since I find both of those very spiritually enlightening.

But before I get too ahead of myself, let me list the resources I'm using:

-Classes-

Fencing (through a local adult ed program)
An art class called "Discovering Your Creativity" (same program)
Yoga (at a local studio, when I can afford it)

-Websites & Online Resources-

School of the Seasons - I find focusing on the changing seasons is a great way to add comforting rituals to my life, and I want to learn all I can about how to celebrate them.

Khan Academy - For the "hard" side of physics and the math I'll need to understand it.

Science, Magic & Religion - Humanities lectures from UCLA's open courseware.

By Sun and Candlelight - A school-at-home mom's blog full of ideas for organization and honoring the seasons.

-Books-

I have all these books on a special shelf, where I also keep my yoga stuff and some of the other resources I'll mention later on. Most of the books have activities or assignments, so they're a bit like "living workbooks". Most are also by "glorious generalists", for those familiar with Grace Llewellyn's use of the term:

Wishcraft, Barbara Sher
The Teenage Liberation Handbook, Grace Llewellyn

Life is a Verb, Patti Digh
Hello Cruel World, Kate Bornstein
The Artist's Way, Julia Cameron
Wreck This Journal, Keri Smith
The Gay and Lesbian Self-Esteem Book, Kimeron Hardin
A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson
Rise Up Singing (not yet purchased)
A coloring book of designs from cultures around the world

-Misc./Life Resources-

My job, working with kids

A ukulele (not yet purchased) and a clarinet (needs reeds)
My UU church and a local UU-based co-op
Various notebooks, binders, office & art supplies
A file crate to hold my most important notebooks
Therapy
Daily and weekly self-care worksheets
Herbal tea, incense, hot baths, cats
Guided meditation podcasts
A huge map of the world and a big, colorful, inspiring "Coexist" poster
People
Boston

That sounds like an awful long list of resources for someone who's trying to focus! But there's really a few areas of focus (art, music, physics, spirituality, and the places where they intersect) that tie everything together.

The Light Comes Back

2011-12-20T09:14:00.000-08:00

Tonight is the first night of Chanukah, a celebration of God providing light to his people against all logic. Tomorrow, in the northern hemisphere, is the winter Solstice, the longest night of the year. The solstice is celebrated by many as Yule, a holiday of gratitude for the coming return of the sun. Next week will be Kwanzaa, with its candles (much like those of Chanukah) symbolizing the ongoing life and strength of an oppressed people. And of course, millions of homes are glittering with lights in preparation for Christmas on Sunday.

At this time of year, much is made of the differences between people who celebrate different winter holidays. But I think ultimately, all of these traditions echo the same meanings:

We have faith that light will go on.
In the darkness, we must draw near and share the light and warmth that we have.
We will survive.

Whether you're celebrating faith that a God, a Goddess, nature, or humanity itself that will continue to provide light and life for us through the darkest times, the theme remains the same: Life depends on something larger than ourselves. Life depends on light, warmth, and love. No matter your tradition, this is the time of year to focus on providing those, to ourselves and the people around us. When the sun seems to have gone away, we find light and warmth inside ourselves.

This holiday season, whatever you're celebrating, may you find the light and love you need to thrive. Amen and blessed be.

*Unless you're in the southern hemisphere, in which case you should go barbecue and laugh at the thought of us Yanks shoveling snow.

This is a blog.

2011-11-08T08:45:00.000-08:00

I haven't written in ages because everything I try to write lately is crap, but I figure if I'm afraid to write crap I won't write anything good either, so here is some crap about nothing. Um, it worked for Seinfeld, right?

I have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. And a giant cup of English breakfast tea with two tea bags in it. I have not had any of the tea yet because it is too hot and I am already flitting around the house having detailed conversations with the cats and pondering the biological reason why people have the instinct to wiggle our toes. (I think it has to do with circulation.) Today is going to be an interesting day I think.

Plans for today, besides work, include drinking more tea and going to the library to look for books and do Khan Academy math. I live on the edge.

It is Tuesday, so I also need to inject manliness into my thigh, which isn't as dirty as it sounds, which I guess this is a good place to mention I have been on testosterone for a few (three and a half I think?) months. My voice is dropping but not enough that people just take it for granted that I'm male yet. The interesting thing about testosterone injections (needlephobic people SKIP TO THE NEXT PARAGRAPH NOW) is that the correct way to do it is to stab yourself as quickly as possible. If you inject it slowly and carefully, it hurts a LOT, but if you jam that motherfucker into your leg as fast as you can you don't feel a thing. I literally spent two months being coached by a nurse to stab myself faster. Fortunately I am not afraid of needles and I'm comfortable with medical-type situations.

I have a lot of plans coming up! This past weekend (I know that's not a plan, but it was the first of several weekends of doing things) I went to see an unschooling family in New Hampshire, and next weekend I'm going to an unschooling gathering in Massachusetts, and the next weekend I have game night with my Young Adults Group at church and then the Transgender Day of Remembrance. Then I have Thanksgiving plans with yet one more unschooling family, then the weekend after that yet another unschooling family is having a gathering. Also, some friends are planning a Doctor Who-themed gathering in the late winter. I don't care much for Doctor Who, but I care a lot about a lot of people who care a lot about Doctor Who, so I am excited for that. Plus having stuff to break up the tedium of late winter is always a good thing.

Okay I think it is time to go stab myself in the leg now. Kthxbai.

The Quick-Start Guide to Gender-Healthy Parenting

2011-05-31T08:11:00.000-07:00

As a follow-up to my last post on kids and gender, I thought I'd write a brief guide to what I feel is the best way to approach gender identity - both your child's and other people's - with kids. What I mean by "gender-healthy" is that your kid feels safe and comfortable with hir gender identity and expression, and understands how to extend that same respect to others. I write this as a person who has a lot of experience with both helpful and harmful attitudes toward gender. I am not a parent, and most importantly, I am not your child's parent. But I have been a child and there are many children in my life, and I have tried to write a guide to how I would most like to see those children treated.

Be prepared for your child to be transgender. No, I'm not suggesting that your child is going to become trans because of any parenting decisions you make. But that's exactly it: if your child is trans, they just are. Already. If you wait until you know your kid is trans before you start thinking about how your parenting would affect a trans kid, you've waited too long. And try to realize that this applies no matter how much of a princess your daughter is or how much of a jock your son is. There's a good chance that a child with a vagina who loves Disney Princesses is a girl, but maybe she's the next FTM drag queen in training. I used to ask my mama to do my hair up in pigtail braids so I could pretend to be Dorothy Gale, but I screamed if anyone tried to style my hair any other time. My point is, there's a lot more to gender than what you see on the surface. Assume nothing, and for God's sake don't be the mom who uses imitation of Judy Garland as proof that your child is not going to grow up to be a gay man.

Be prepared for your child to be cisgender. At the same time, don't get so caught up in your vision of yourself as a progressive, trans-friendly parent that you don't actually notice who your child really is. There's a good chance that your little boy is indeed the sort of little boy who is going to reject your ballet classes in favor of burping contests and throwing frogs on girls. I've heard far too many feminist parents sigh with disapproval when their sons picked up toy guns and their daughters picked up Bratz dolls. Please don't be the parent who praises your son for wanting a manicure (he's so secure in himself!) and shames your daughter for doing the same (she's conforming to the patriarchy!). Remember that the goal is to encourage your children to be exactly who they are, not to prevent them from ever doing anything that fits the norm.

Neutral isn't necessarily better. I happened to be the sort of kid who liked gender-neutral activities the best: playing on my swingset, watching shows like Rocko's Modern Life, making up stories, caring for animals, and playing Nintendo. Lots of kids love that stuff. But lots of kids would also feel horribly stifled if they weren't allowed to collect My Little Pony or participate in Nerf gun wars. Just because an activity doesn't come with a gender stereotype attached doesn't necessarily make it a healthier activity for your child. Again, no matter your child's sex or gender, the most important thing is to let them be who they are and do what they enjoy doing.

Gender can be fun. Play can be a wonderful way to let kids explore gender roles and expression. When I was four and asked my mom how I could turn into a boy, she said I couldn't. What I wish she would've done is hand me a baseball cap and say, "Put this on when you want to be a boy, and we'll call you Bobby." Then I would have been able to try being a boy whenever I felt like it without feeling like it was a big deal or a forever decision. As a teen I enjoyed playing male characters in school plays, video games, and cosplay. Encourage your kids to be any gender they want in pretend play. If your son wants to play house and be the mommy, or your daughter wants to be Darth Vader for Halloween, go with it. And let them screw with gender as much as they want. When I put on makeup as a preteen, I wasn't learning how to be a proper lady, I was imitating Marilyn Manson and Boy George! Kids pretend to be helicopters and ponies and that's just fine, so why on Earth would pretending to be a different kind of human hurt them?

Gender is serious business. On the other hand, remember that your child really does have a gender identity and it really is part of who ze is. Don't treat your child's gender as something cute that you can play around with for the sake of demonstrating how hip you are and how little you care about traditional gender roles. This is particularly true if your child is showing signs of "cross-gender" identification - meaning your kid with a penis really believes she is, or really wants to be, a girl, or your kid with a vagina really believes he is, or really wants to be, a boy. There is a point when it stops being about the cuteness of a little boy painting his nails or a little girl who runs around shirtless, and starts being a serious thing your child is going to need lots of support with. It's hard to know where that line is, but the basic rule of thumb is this: if your child is being serious, take hir seriously.

Finally, here are some useful phrases for talking about gender with kids. Their appropriateness varies depending on the child's age and the situation, of course, so use your own discretion. And try to bring them up in the natural course of life, if you can. Most kids have lots of questions about gender, but they will be confused if you sit them down in the middle of a busy Saturday, out of the blue, to tell them this stuff.

"Do you like boy words or girl words?" You don't have to wait until your kid is able to diagram a sentence to talk to them about pronouns. Tell them about the difference between "he" and "she", and let them know there are other choices too, like per, ze, sie, and ey. Let your kids pick whatever pronouns they prefer. Be as faithful as you can about using them, and make it okay for them to change them as much as they want.

"Most girls have [a vagina/breasts/a uterus/ovaries] and most boys have [a penis/testicles/a prostate]. But some boys have [a vagina/breasts/a uterus/ovaries], and some girls have [a penis/testicles/a prostate]. That's okay, too." Use this in place of "boys have a penis and girls have a vagina".

If your kid is upset about being misgendered: "You can't tell a person's gender by looking at them, but people sometimes use a person's clothes and hair to try to guess. Some people guess that anyone with long hair is a girl. I love your long hair, but if you're really upset about being called a girl, I can help you pick out a haircut that will help people guess better. Or you can keep it long and I can help remind people that you're a boy." Never tell a child they're being called the wrong gender because they look like that gender. Place the focus on other people making honest mistakes - your child's gender and appearance are not wrong! Let them know that lots of people get misgendered and have to correct people, and that it's the other person's mistake and not the fault of the person being misgendered. I'm not sure how this happens, but I've personally seen guys with full beards get called "ma'am" and women with DD cups get called "sir".

If a kid misgenders someone else, don't make a big fuss, don't shame them, and don't call unnecessary attention to the person being misgendered. A simple "That's a girl. Her name is Katie" or "I think Sam uses boy words" will do. Of course, you want to make sure you're not misgendering the person yourself! If you don't know how a person identifies, tell your kid that, and offer to help your kid find out what pronouns to say.

If you have a transgender friend: "Well, a lot of men used to be little boys, but my friend [name] used to be a little girl. At least, he looked like a little girl and everyone thought he was. But he always felt like a boy, so when he grew up he became a man." Make sure you have your friend's permission to disclose this information, and ask what specific language they're okay with you using to describe them to your children. If you can get a trans friend to talk directly to your kids about their gender, that's great, but don't expect the trans people in your life to be walking museum exhibits for your kids.

And if you're trans yourself? Use whatever words feel most comfortable for you, so long as they're on a level the child will understand. This weekend I had a kid ask why I have to wear swim shirts when I go to the beach. My answer was something like this: "Remember how you weren't sure if I was a boy or a girl? That's because when I was born, I had girl parts and looked like a girl. I still have a chest like a girl, and you know how girls have to cover up their chests at the beach? I do, too." Keep calm when kids ask you stuff. If you don't want to answer a question, explain that it's very personal and you'd rather not share that about yourself. But don't shame a kid for being curious. The more people there are who find out about us while they're still kids, the more trans-friendly the world is going to be. And you never know - you could be talking to a trans kid whose life might be saved by knowing other trans people exist.

Remind your kids that you can't always tell a person's gender just by what they look like. Remind them that it can hurt people's feelings to be asked if they're a boy or a girl, but that it's usually okay to ask what pronouns someone prefers if you're not sure. Respect your child's body autonomy and right to privacy, and remind them to do the same for others. Most importantly, remember that you are always your child's partner in navigating the world, and that includes the world of gender. Be willing to be the person who asks someone about their preferred pronouns, or to correct people who misgender your child. Allow your kids to wear and do what they want, but be available to help them find an expression that matches their identity. Remember that gender can be a scary and confusing thing even for adults, so kids especially need lots of support figuring this stuff out. But don't dumb it down or try to shelter them, either. Kids often understand this stuff better than grown-ups do, and if you keep your mind open, you just might learn more from them than they do from you.

Your baby's gender is a secret, too

2011-05-27T07:43:00.000-07:00

There's been lots of talk about kids and gender lately - the boy who dressed as Daphne from Scooby Doo for Halloween, the JCrew ad featuring a little boy with pink toenails, and most recently, the unschooling family that has chosen to keep their new baby's sex a secret.

As someone who is involved in both the unschooling and transgender communities, I naturally have a lot to say on this topic.

First, a bit of gender 101: Every baby's gender is a secret, to everyone, quite likely including the baby hirself. What these parents are keeping a secret is their baby's sex - the biological state of having XX or XY (or XO or XXY or whatever) chromosomes, of having a penis or vagina, testicles or ovaries, etc. Gender is a person's internal sense of whether they are male, female, both, neither, or something else. No one is fully sure at what age gender identity actually develops, but it is probably safe to say that newborn infants do not yet care whether they are male or female, because they do not yet know what being male or female means in their culture. And regardless of when a baby understands hir own gender, that gender will remain a secret to the people in the baby's life until ze is old enough to express it. If that child is transgender, then hir gender could remain a secret for many, many years as ze struggles to understand hirself. I did not know my own gender until I was 24 years old. Some people don't know until past middle age. But whether your child is cisgender or transgender is simply not something you can know when the child is born. If your baby is not old enough to say "I'm a boy" or "I'm a girl", then you don't know yet. Period. I don't care how many Barbies or toy trucks or pink clothes the kid has. I had dozens of Barbies and I hated sports and I still came out more male than female. Those things can be clues to your child's gender, but they absolutely do not define it.

Now that that's out of the way, here's what I think of this particular story. It is absolutely wonderful that this family has chosen to allow their children the whole world to choose from, without assigning gender-based rules to anything. If a child with a penis prefers pink clothes, that child absolutely should never be denied access to pink clothes because of that penis. That's something these parents are getting right. And it's something so few parents get right that I think this family deserves lots of praise for that choice.

But I am troubled by this quote:

"Because Jazz and Kio wear pink and have long hair, they're frequently assumed to be girls, according to Stocker. He said he and Witterick don't correct people--they leave it to the kids to do it if they want to."

This suggests to me that the parents are confused about the difference between gender expression and gender identity. It appears that at least one of these children is firmly male-identified and is troubled when he is mistaken for a girl. It also appears that his parents are assuming that because he prefers pink clothes and long hair, his need to identify as male is trivial.

I cannot speculate, based on a brief Yahoo news article, on the long-term effects of this particular family's choices on these particular children. But I am troubled by all the praise I'm hearing for "gender-neutral parenting", because it seems to be based on the notion that gender is a social construct - which is a fancy way of saying gender is not really a thing. As someone who has struggled a lot with my own gender, and someone who has many transgender and genderqueer friends, I can assure you that yes, gender is really a thing. True, I think it is irresponsible to force a child to conform to a gender expression that matches hir birth sex. Children born with vaginas should never be forced to wear dresses and play with dolls, children born with penises should not be forced to repress their emotions and purge themselves of all signs of femininity.

But the key word in all of this is forced. You are not being any more progressive if you force your child to live without a gender when she is clearly a girl or he is clearly a boy. And I think it is equally irresponsible to leave a young child to drift alone through the highly contentious world of gender without giving hir sufficient information or support. If you know good and well that your child identifies as a boy, and an adult comes along and calls him a girl, it should not be left up to him to correct them! As someone who frequently has to correct people regarding my gender, I can assure you it's not an easy thing to do, and often doesn't feel like a safe thing to do. One of your jobs as a parent is to protect your children's space in the world until they are old enough to do it themselves, and that includes protecting their sense of who they are. Allowing other people to misgender your child without defending hir puts an extremely unfair burden on the child.

Letting your child pick clothes from every department is good. Never explaining to your child that clothes carry gendered connotations is not good, because you are withholding vital information about the world from your child. If your teen came up to you and wanted to know if he could dread his hair, and you also knew that he wanted to get a job soon, it would be irresponsible to let him make that choice without ever discussing the way his hairstyle may impact his job search. In the same way, it is unfair to let your male-identified child wear a dress without any warning that most people will think he's a girl. Whether or not you leave the final choice up to your child is the difference between traditional parenting and unschooling; whether you offer your child the guidance and information they need to make that choice is the difference between unschooling and neglect.

So what do you do? How do you help your children be exactly who they are in a world with such rigid gender roles? There's no easy answer to that question for adults, let alone kids. I'll be writing a follow-up post giving suggestions for how to talk about gender with your kids in a respectful way, but the main principle to remember is to help children be exactly who they are. That's the basic principle behind unschooling, and if you're living that principle in other areas of life, it shouldn't be too much of a stretch to apply it to gender as well.

Black Hole

2011-05-19T15:31:00.000-07:00

I used to think I was a person nobody loved. Now I know that I am something far worse. I am a person who is loved without deserving to be. I am a black hole; people pour energy and kindness into me, hoping to light me up, but I am simply a void. I suck up energy and destroy it. People confuse my immaturity for childlike whimsy and they mistakenly see me as likeable. And then the real me comes out, and I am poison. And gradually everyone becomes tired of me and goes away.

No matter how much people insist that I am worthy and should love myself, I know I am a person who is dark inside. There is no love in there. I don't know if I was born broken or if something in life made me this way, but I simply have nothing to offer the world.

Were I less of a wimp, you would all be rid of me by now. But I am too cowardly to act on the feelings I keep threatening people with. This is only further proof of my failure; if I were a decent person I would not cry wolf without delivering on my promise. Perhaps a little blood would justify my constantly scaring the people who love me, but there has been none. All but a few people have stopped listening now, and it is no wonder. They have seen me for what I truly am; not a wishing well you can throw coins into in hope of making something better, but a bottomless pit that will never return your investment. A coward who only does harm and cannot bring himself to leave and allow the people he cares about to live in peace without him. People keep trying to save me - some people have been putting up with my shit on an almost daily basis, to the point where they can't take it anymore. All I do is break people. I don't want to break anyone else.

It's A Boy! (Wait... what?)

2011-05-04T10:55:00.000-07:00

In case you missed it, yesterday I posted the following status update on Facebook:

I realize this is not a format that everyone will see, but I am tired of trying to write the perfect eloquent thing, so I'm just going to come out and say it. I am transgender. I don't know if I'm a man but I know trying to be a woman never worked for me. Male pronouns until further notice, please. Questions are welcome as long as they are not about my wiener or lack thereof.

I got a lot of support, but because of the nature of Facebook, I know that there were a lot of people who saw it and didn't respond, and still more people who never saw it in the first place. So I wanted to post it again in a more permanent location. I also wanted to address some potential questions that people may be wondering but aren't sure if it's okay to ask. (For some reason, many of the people I've come out to have been deeply apologetic for asking any questions at all, even respectful ones such as "What pronouns would you like?". Guys, when you hear trans people say we are tired of answering questions we mean we are tired of being treated as freak shows and research projects. Asking questions to help you be more respectful is a good thing.) Rather than leave you to guess what I am comfortable answering, I'm just going to go ahead and write out a bunch of things I know some people will be wondering.

But I am only going to be answering questions that pertain specifically to me. If you don't have any trans friends, if you don't even know what I mean by trans, or if any part of your concept of trans people involves the phrase "the surgery", I'm going to ask that you read a more general FAQ, such as this one, before proceeding. If you've never even heard the word transgender before now, please also take a deep breath and get a nice cup of tea or something. Give yourself time to process the idea that I am not a woman before overwhelming yourself with a bunch of new and somewhat academic information about gender.

Ready? Okay, let's do this thing.

Q: How do you pronounce 'Elisha'?
A: Hopefully this is clearer now that people know I'm not a girl, but it's not pronounced like 'Alicia'. It sounds more like 'Elijah'. In fact, I considered the name Elijah, but Elisha was more gender-neutral, is part of my family history, and has since grown on me quite a bit :)

Q: What pronouns are you most comfortable with?
A: Ah... when you ask which ones I want you to use, the answer is male ones, please. I don't know that I'm most comfortable with those, though. I use them because they make clear that I'm not a woman. I've really never found a set of pronouns that I felt appropriately suited my gender, and to be honest, being called "he" still feels a little awkward (I occasionally look around to see who people are talking about, then realize they meant me!) But it's what works in my life right now.

Q: What do you mean you're not sure you're a man? How can you not know?
A: Some people have a very strong internal sense of what gender they are, and some people don't. Mine is fairly weak. Figuring out who I am has been entirely a process of trial-and-error, mostly involving taking gradual steps toward a more male presentation and finding that each of those steps made me feel a little better, even if I didn't think they would from the outset. I'm still in the middle of that process, and I don't know how far I'll need to go toward the role of "man" before I find the place that feels most right.

Q: But I've known you since we were practically both babies and you weren't even a tomboy and you had like 400 Barbies and...
A: If you were part of my circle of friends in elementary or middle school, think back to some of the boys we hung out with. The ones who did gymnastics and skipped rope with the girls? Did any of that mean they weren't boys? True, I never complained about not wanting to be a girl or about wanting to be a boy. Partly that's because I didn't have any sort of physical dysphoria until puberty (which is common). Fact is, some trans people know they're trans early on, some are fine living as the gender they're assigned at birth until they get older and the pressure to be a "traditional" man or woman increases, and some always feel vaguely wrong and never really know why. I'm a bit of both of those last two. (And some of the people who are quite sure they're boys still like to play with dolls.)

Q: Hang on. I never heard you talking about any of this gender stuff until you started hanging around [Michael/Kyle/Winter/those people you live with/the Tumblrs] all the time. Are you sure they don't just have you confused?
A: You've got me there. It's a well-known fact that if you hang out with trans people they will get their trans cooties all over you and turn you trans almost instantly. We are coming for you. Hide your children.

All kidding aside, it's true that over the past year or so the number of trans people in my life has increased dramatically, and for those of you who haven't known what was up with me, I can sort of see how it could look like I got all these trans friends and wanted to play too. But no, that's totally backwards (and kind of insulting). Since I realized I was having some questions about my gender, I've naturally become much closer to the trans people who were already in my life, and have sought out others as well. (This all seems pretty obvious to me, but I know it's going to come up.) That said, without support from my trans friends and housemates I would not have found the necessary knowledge or courage to explore who I really am. I probably would have just continued living unhappily as a girl, not knowing what was wrong. So in a way, yes, this is partly their 'fault.' But that's a good thing.

Q: Why didn't you tell me sooner? Don't you trust me?
A: I know some people are going to be hurt that I didn't feel comfortable enough to let them know what was going on with me. Really, it has a lot less to do with trust and a lot more to do with what knowledge level I felt people had about trans stuff. I've been the most open with people who have enough understanding of gender that I wouldn't have to explain a bunch of stuff to them, because a few months ago the idea of being questioned was just too daunting. I couldn't handle other people's confusion on top of my own. But I feel more secure in my identity now, so here we are.

Q: Is this why you moved to Boston?
A: I moved to Boston for a lot of reasons - I have a lot of unschooling friends in New England, I needed a new start after my mom died, the job prospects seemed better here, Florida is just too fucking hot for me (my friends can vouch for this - I start whining as soon as the temps go above like 70F), etc. More importantly, I couldn't pay my bills and I had people in Boston willing to give me a place to stay for free. But yes, I was drawn here in part because I knew I wasn't going to have any freedom to explore my gender in Florida, and I had a trans friend here who insisted things would be better if I moved north. I saw that he had a level of comfort and freedom of expression that I couldn't dream of in Florida, and I wanted that. So all of that combined to make Boston a really appealing place. But mostly, I moved here because something deep in my gut was screaming for me to be in Massachusetts (even before the gender stuff consciously came up), and my gut is usually right about these things.

Q: You've had some emotional crises lately. Is this what that was about?
A: Not directly. At least not in the sense of feeling that my life is going to turn out badly because of being trans, or being unable to accept myself as a trans person. I've got relatively good self-esteem about that. I'm also not terribly worried about people rejecting me because I don't want to be friends with anyone who has a problem with trans people in the first place. Most of my emotional issues lately have been a matter of being lonely. Some of that just has to do with being in a new city and missing my mom and stuff like that. Some of it does have to do with gender, in the sense that I've deliberately isolated myself in order to have a safe space to sort this stuff out. Some of it also has to do with hormonal issues which can make life hell for FTM-spectrum people, which then exacerbate the sense of loneliness and feeling trapped. So I don't think being trans is causing my problems, but it certainly isn't doing a lot to help them either.

Q: I thought trans guys were hypermasculine fist-bumpin' dudebros. You are clearly not.
A: *snort* You clearly haven't met any of the trans guys I know. I mean, yeah there are trans guys who are naturally very masculine, and there are probably trans guys who feel they need to 'prove' they're men by acting more masculine than they really are. (And no, it's not up to you or me to decide which is which.) But I have always been and will always be a sensitive queer little nerd, and most of the trans guys I hang out with are as well. Actually, most all of the people I hang out with are queer or nerdy or both. That's just how I roll.

Q: But why transition if you're still going to wear glitter and nail polish and listen to godawful synthpop and get called a fag all the time?
A: Transition isn't about making yourself fit into the most privileged cultural norm you can think of. If it was, trans women and gay trans men wouldn't exist. Transition is about making who you are on the outside match the person you feel like on the inside. I am transitioning to a person who is going to be seen as a fag because, to put it bluntly, I feel like a fag. Always have. I'm fully aware that I will lose certain types of privilege (and gain others that I don't necessarily want), but the tradeoff is that as I become more comfortable with myself I will gain the self-esteem and confidence to deal with that.

Q: Didn't you used to identify as a lesbian? Are you straight now?
A: Yeah, I did identify as a lesbian for a couple of years there. I think what happened is that I always had this powerful sense that I was somehow queer, and while I always identified with gay men, I didn't have access to that identity while living as female. At the time, "lesbian" was the best word I had for "I am very queer and proud of it". Meanwhile, deep down I was always aware that I was still often attracted to male-identified people, and that there was something queer about the way in which I was attracted to them. But I had no frame of reference to understand that about myself until I first understood that I wasn't a woman. I've been physically attracted to many kinds of people, but mostly only romantically interested in guys. I have no idea whether that means I'm a gay guy or what, and I don't really care. I love who I love, and "queer" is a perfectly fine label as far as I'm concerned.

Q: Are you just going to come out as a totally different thing a year from now?
A: Possibly. But if I do, that doesn't mean the identity I'm using right now isn't valid too. Ideally, labels are like clothing - you pick out one that fits, wear it until it doesn't, and then you get to go shopping again.

Q: I'm a guy and I used to date you or want to date you or we made out one time or something. Am I gay?
A: I don't know. Are you?

Q: I think you might be going to Hell.
A: No I'm not because Kate Bornstein made a deal with the devil on my behalf. (And yours too.) So there.

On a more serious note, I don't personally believe God creates people a particular way only to turn around and punish them for it. Not to sound snotty, but if there's really a God that hates queer and trans people, that means I'm more loving than that God, and I sure as hell don't want to worship any deity who is less loving than I am. So I'm going to bet on any God being more loving than me, because I can be a fairly judgemental person and frankly I think God can do better than that.

Q: So... what changes?
A: Honestly? Not much, beyond my appearance, name, and pronouns. (And I promise not to freak out if you slip up on my pronouns, as long as you are trying.) I might encounter discrimination and have some tough times, and I'll hopefully gain more self-esteem and a stronger sense of who my friends are. But ultimately I am going to be the same person I've always been, who is really goofy 95% of the time and occasionally says something profound and confuses everyone because I seemed to be mostly air and fluff up until then, the same person who eats too much Chinese food and prattles on about diseases and quotes The Simpsons out of context. All of that stays the same. (Whether that is a promise or a threat is an exercise for the reader.) I'll just look a little different and feel a lot better about myself.

Q: Why is this so long?
A: Because gender is a very complicated thing that most people have been taught to see as very simple. Also, I like talking about myself. Especially after nearly a year of hiding myself away.

I miss my community.

2011-04-02T20:17:00.000-07:00

Whenever I need to make changes in life, I have a tendency to be rather abrupt about it. I make clean breaks from anything that's tying me down, surround myself with people who will help me change, hide from everyone else, and focus all my energy on moving forward. (Not surprisingly, I also take a lot of naps during these times.) The year and a half since my mom died has been the most intense period of change in my life so far. I had to adjust to life without my mom or, indeed, any family at all. I picked up and moved to Boston after living my entire life in the same tiny Florida town. I even changed my name (not legally, yet, but that's mostly due to money.) And I've been changing in lots of other ways, too - some intentional, others just as a natural result of growing and living.

I am like an insect that must protect itself in a cocoon while undergoing metamorphosis. A tired metaphor, I know, but I'm not using it in an attempt to say romantic things about turning into a beautiful butterfly. When insects build cocoons, it is because their bodies are being rearranged so quickly that they cannot move and are too fragile to survive any sort of attack. I may not actually be rearranging my DNA (I hope), but I've needed much the same kind of protection and safety that a pupa needs in its cocoon. Unfortunately, this has meant that I've pulled away from lots and lots of people I love. Aside from a few close friends, I haven't seen or even directly spoken to most of my unschooling community since NEUC, which was over six months ago. I've also barely engaged in any blogging or discussion about unschooling. And that makes me sad! I really don't want to see myself drifting away from my community, especially since those are exactly the people who kept me afloat during the most difficult months after my mom died. It would be really unfair and ungrateful of me to leave you as soon as I'm on solid ground.

So I really, really want to reach out to my unschooling friends, both local and far away. I miss you all, and I hope I get to talk to some of you soon. But if I don't, please don't think it's because I don't love you, or because of anything you did or didn't do. I'm just trying to keep my space in the world small enough to hold all my parts together while I rearrange them. With luck and hard work, it won't be too long before I emerge.

Being Good

2011-01-07T19:41:00.000-08:00

When I was a kid, I was very "good." What I mean by that is that I was obedient, I didn't break rules, and I got good grades. I even got into the gifted program at school. My parents and teachers constantly told me how smart and how good I was, so I should've been happy, right?

I wasn't. I was miserable. I had panic attacks almost every morning and would often miss school due to anxiety-induced nausea, which just made me feel even more guilty because missing school was "bad". I once broke down in tears because I got a 100 instead of a 105 on a spelling test; another time because my conduct marker got moved from A to B for passing a note. I felt this pressure even as early as kindergarten, when I had a nightmare that I was arrested and taken to jail for not paying attention during field day.

This is the kind of behavior often associated with overbearing, achievement-driven parents, but that wasn't what was going on here. In fact, we had almost no rules at home and my parents never doled out any kind of punishment or reward for grades, other than saying they were proud when I got a good report card. But at that age I'd never gotten a *bad* report card, so it wasn't fear of having that praise removed that stressed me out. I was always naturally perfectionistic, shy, nervous, and eager to please. The plain fact was that the same personality traits that made me "good" at school also made it terrifying and unbearably stressful for me. Add to that the fact that being constantly told I was "good" and "smart" made me feel superior to the other kids, which made them find me annoying, which made me lonely, and you've got a recipe for a very unhappy kid!

It took me a lot of growing, healing, experience, and a healthy dose of rebellion to realize that this kind of "being good" isn't really much good for anyone. I wasn't doing it to make my life better or happier, or to make anyone else's life better or happier. I was only doing it to keep people from yelling at me, which is a pretty poor reason to do anything. I'd feel desperately sad if any of the youth in my life, or my future children, started making their decisions based on what would keep people from yelling at them. I don't want to see any kids having any nightmares about carrying their little Minnie Mouse lunchbox into scary grown-up jail. You can't be your authentic self when you're living with that kind of fear, and worse still, you start building your entire self-image around how "good" you are. When you're full on fake praise for stupid shit - "You colored the lion yellow! Good girl!" - you start thinking "I'm good because I color in lions like I'm supposed to." You don't learn that you are good because you give great hugs, or because you're very creative, or because you rescue bugs and put them outside instead of squishing them, or because you just exist.

And you don't learn what actually is good in life. I don't want any child of mine learning that "goodness" equates to making things the right colors. (I'm not so sure I want my children believing in right and wrong colors, for that matter. I definitely remember being firmly told in elementary school that human skin is "peach.") I don't plan to hang any sort of conditional form of "good" over their heads, but I'd much rather they concern themselves with doing good than with being good. I want them to learn that it is good to be kind to yourself, to other living beings, and to the Earth. If it doesn't benefit anybody, then what good is it?

Being good as a kid never made me feel good at all. But I feel good when I help someone find the right train on the subway, defend things I believe in, recycle, help mail newsletters to queer prisoners, interact patiently and respectfully with the kids I babysit, buy fair-trade chocolate, cheer up a friend, sing in the UU choir, and take good care of my pets. I also feel good when I'm kind to myself: when I do yoga, dance, spend time in nature, listen to soothing music, take a hot shower, eat good food, nap, give myself permission to pout and cry, dress how I want, meditate, pray, laugh, and drink herbal tea. I'm not perfect at remembering to do either of those sets of things! But those are the goals I aim for: the kind of good that feels good and actually makes the world a nicer place to be. Not just the kind that keeps you from getting yelled at.

Traditions, Routines, and Rituals

2010-10-08T12:33:00.000-07:00

With the crisp chill in the air and the tips of branches turning red to contrast with the bright blue sky, I can safely say that fall is well and truly here! Having lived most of my life in Florida, this autumn in New England will be my first "real" fall. And yet, even without a single red or orange leaf back home, autumn was always my favorite season.

Partly this has to do with the cooler weather, as I absolutely loathed summers in Florida. But partly it's because I find there's a natural rhythm, at least in this hemisphere and culture, to the last few months of the year. While I love feeling free and spontaneous in the summer, once I can see Halloween on the horizon, my thoughts turn to traditions and familiar routines. I get this powerful itch to spruce up the house in preparation to nest through the winter (even if winter will, in actuality, be just as busy as summer - my caveman brain doesn't seem to recognize that). Summer, to me, is a time for progress, moving forward, and embracing the new. But as the year dies away, I start looking toward the past and connecting with my roots a bit more. I feel more of a need to spend time in nature, to pace my life differently, to nurture myself and those closest to me rather than paying so much attention to the outside world.

Some of my favorite rituals and traditions as the year ends (which I hasten to add - I don't do everything every year!):

Going to pumpkin patches, corn mazes or apple orchards and enjoying the beauty of the harvest
State and county fairs, with all the lights, rides, terrible-but-delicious food, crafts, and so on
National Coming Out Day (Oct 11), LGBT history month (October) and the Transgender Day of Remembrance (Nov 20). Not "fun" holidays, exactly, particularly that last one, but important ones which make me feel connected to my queer brothers/sisters/siblings-of-nonbinary-gender.
Thrill the World, which I am not doing this year, but I had a BLAST at last year
Halloween and Samhain and all the fun stuff that comes along with that
ARGH, which I've only been to once and won't be back this year, but the fall gathering is so deliciously autumnal
NaNoWriMo, which I don't do every year (this year I am!), but I always plan on it, and so the forums are a big sign of fall to me
The return of Matt to regular, heavily-seasonal blogging, the Halloween and Christmas jukeboxes, and the annual Lego/Playmobil Advent calendar
Thanksgiving, with the food and the Macy's parade and the sense of "the holidays are on the way but people haven't started freaking out and gotten all bitter yet", is my favorite holiday
Doing a little something for Chanukah - I'm not Jewish, but Judaism has had a big influence on my beliefs, so while I'm celebrating a Christian holiday despite not being really Christian, I like to give a nod to Chanukah as well.
The winter solstice/Yule, which highlights the original "reason for the season" - celebrating light, warmth and companionship in the dead of winter
Christmas. Basically everything about Christmas, I do it all.

Why am I telling you all this? Well, besides the fact that I just feel like chattering excitedly, I also want to tackle a common misconception about unschooling. Many people think choosing unschooling for their family means throwing away any sense of routine, ritual, or tradition and just going wherever the wind may carry you. Some people find this idea very freeing, but for others, it's a turn-off. A lot of people feel anxious and disconnected when they don't have any predictability in life to anchor them, and a lot of these people may take one look at the apparently free-floating, hippie kind of life that unschoolers live, and go "Nuh-uh, no way, not for me!"

But unschooling doesn't have to mean throwing away all routines! What it *does* mean is that you don't force routines and traditions on your kids. It means you don't clap your hands at 10pm and announce that it's bedtime now, no matter what your kid is doing or how awake they are. It means you look at the things you do out of habit and examine whether they're actually meaningful and purposeful in your life.

But it doesn't mean you cannot ever plan anything. Not having bedtimes doesn't mean you can't have a special bath-story-snuggle routine in the evening, if your kids enjoy that. Not controlling screen time doesn't mean you can't all pile on the couch to watch The Big Bang Theory every Thursday, or House on Monday, or whatever your family enjoys. Not forcing your kids to eat breakfast doesn't mean you can't have a ritual cup of tea each morning (even if you have to sip it from a thermos while following a toddler around). If you have a routine-loving kid who needs to do X in the morning and Y in the afternoon and Z in the evening, by all means help make that happen! If your kid *wants* to do a math workbook page every day, give them a math workbook page every day! *Until* they don't want to anymore - then you let it go without a fuss. The difference between unschooling and other kinds of parenting is that nothing is forced, required, shamed or punished. That's it. So long as you're respecting and facilitating your kids' wants and needs, your family can structure life in any way that works for you, and it is Still Unschooling.

Unschooling doesn't mean the leaves don't change in the fall or the flowers don't bloom in the spring. It doesn't mean the sun doesn't rise in the east and set in the west, it doesn't make the Earth turn faster or slower (though on some of those late nights, you may not be sure). Unschooling doesn't mean you can't be the mom who knits her kids an ugly Weasley sweater* every Christmas - it only means you can't be the mom who gives your kid an ugly sweater *instead* of the Legos they wanted, and you can't force them to wear it. But if knitting the damn sweater (or other tradition your kids don't care about) makes you happy, do it! Just recognize who you're really doing it for, and allow your kids to opt out if they choose.

And if a tradition or ritual is making your family happy? Then keep it up, even if it feels silly. My mom and I kept dyeing Easter eggs until I was well into my 20s, because it was fun playing with the colors. I still make peanut butter and banana sandwiches on Elvis's birthday even though I'm not that big of a fan, just because we always did it when I was a kid. The actual meaning behind these activities is long gone, but they're still worth doing because they're still fun. When an activity is not meaningful *or* fun, that's when you throw it away and find something that suits your family better right now.

And finally, allow new rituals to pop up anytime. There was a period of time in 2009 where I got up at 5:00 every morning to watch Star Trek TNG (on DVD, so there was no concrete reason to be up this early) and eat breakfast, then went back to sleep. My mom was usually up during that time and would blearily watch along with me, then go back to sleep too. This went on for a few weeks and then stopped. This all sounds incredibly pointless from the outside, I know. But it was an important routine while it lasted, because it was predictable, comforting, and involved sharing an interest with my mom.

Make grilled cheese on Tuesdays, but be willing to cook spaghetti if your kids request it. Bake an apple pie on the first of every month. Wear pink socks every time you go to the doctor, if that amuses you. Why the hell not? Having fun and having routines don't have to be opposite goals. Saying no to fun because you haven't made room in your schedule - that's the thing you need to watch out for.

*Or ugly Wesley sweater? Nerd media is rife with ugly sweaters for you to choose from.

70 Ways Unschoolers Learn to Deal With Frustration

2010-10-03T10:53:00.000-07:00

One of the questions frequently lobbed at unschoolers is how kids who are "given everything they want" will ever learn to deal with frustration, as if saying "no" to things your kids know full well you can provide is some sort of exercise in character-building. (To me, this is the equivalent of asking how they will learn to deal with physical pain if you don't hit them, but I realize it is not generally meant with that level of malice.)

My parents never withheld anything from me that they were able to provide, and I promise, I have dealt with *plenty* of frustration. And I'm getting better at it - many of these things would have been the apocalypse to me, as a very sensitive child, but the more I live the more I learn how to laugh things off. I promise you, school and punishments are not how I learned this.

So, I am here to assure you that no matter how much you lovingly provide to your kids, they will still have to deal with this stuff:

1. Broken appliances

2. Broken computers

3. Rained-out picnics, park days, vacations, baseball games...

4. Not getting invited to parties

5. Video games you can't quite beat

6. Neighbors with small yap-type dogs

7. Rude people out in public

8. "Some assembly required"

9. Nightmares

10. Gravity, sleeplessness, and wind

11. The flu

12. Youtube comments

13. Long lines at the grocery store when you were ready to eat an hour ago

14. Pens that won't write until you scribble on every nearby surface and try to suck out the ink like a vampire

15. Not getting answers to emails

16. Having too many emails to answer

17. Basically any trip to the post office. (Goes double if you're not even the person needing to mail something.)

18. Check engine lights

19. "What do you mean, that was the last roll of toilet paper?"

20. Needing to pee while someone is in the shower

21. Boring Saturdays where you can't think of anything to do

22. Having to schedule time with schooled friends around their homework

23. Cat hair + favorite sweater

24. Favorite teddy bears that just can't be sewn up anymore

25. Not getting or losing a job when you've tried your hardest

26. Getting rejected or dumped when you've tried your hardest

27. Helium balloons that were let go prematurely

28. Depressing shit on the news

29. Any mention of politics

30. Being the last person to shower and having to take an ice-cold military shower

31. Pets that die, run away, or have to be given away

32. Contests entered and not won

33. Flat tires

34. Telemarketers

35. Clouds on the night of the meteor shower

36. That toy everyone wants for Christmas/Chanukah/whatever but it is completely sold out but how can you understand that when you're six?

37. Being too little to reach the light switch, see all the books on the shelf, pour your own juice, walk the doggie, help mommy carry stuff...

38. Being too young to drive a car, go out late at night, get a job, choose where you live, vote, have your opinions and feelings taken seriously by most people...

39. Bad first dates

40. Bad haircuts

41. Dealing with disabilities, illness, and injury

42. Dried-out magic markers

43. Power outages, phone outages, internet outages...

44. "If you are calling about a rabid badger attack, press 1. If your refrigerator mold has become sentient, press 2. For all other calls, please hold..."

45. Losing socks to the Underpants Gnomes

46. cl1ck here 2 make ur pen15 b1gger

47. Not making the team or passing an audition

48. Not realizing your favorite necklace/bracelet/earring that someone Very Important gave you is missing until you get home - from somewhere very large and crowded.

49. Queerphobia, racism, sexism, transphobia, fatphobia, classism, ableism, xenophobia...

50. Songs that get stuck in your head, forcing you to listen to them to make it stop, even if you hate them

51. Rubik's cubes, sudoku, crossword puzzles that keep making obscure 1940s movie references...

52. Tangled computer wires, ropes, and Christmas lights

53. "Thank you for calling [office]. Our office hours are [large span of time that definitely includes the time of the call]. Please leave a message and we will get back to you during regular business hours."

54. Not having more than two or three of your best friends concentrated in any one part of the country or world, so no matter where you go, you miss a lot of people

55. People who argue against unschooling by insisting that you, personally (or your good friends, personally) will Fail At Life

56. Being asked, "So, what do you do?" during a period of your life where what you're doing doesn't sound outwardly impressive. ("Um, I blog, and stuff...")

57. Your reed breaks right before a recital, your tights run on the way to a job interview, you get a charley horse right before the big game...

58. tryng 2 dciphr txt spk

59. "Hi, I noticed your hair looks like shit! Can I interrupt your shopping trip to straighten it?"

60. Puberty. And for people with uteruses, the ongoing joy of periods.

61. [Person you consider a good friend] likes [statement you find personally insulting] on <3

62. "Please allow 6-8 weeks for delivery"

63. Needing desperately to talk to a friend, but they're only allowed 15 minutes on the phone or an hour on the computer, No Exceptions.

64. Loud, persistent noises over which you have no control

65. Toothaches, headaches, stomachaches, growing pains...

66. Realizing a favorite DVD (or worse, video game) has an irreparable scratch only after you've become totally absorbed in it

67. Needing to leave the house FIVE MINUTES AGO and you/your parents CAN'T FIND THE KEYS

68. Being in the middle when two friends have a falling out

69. Those days where nothing sounds good to eat, nothing sounds fun to do, your clothes itch, everything is annoying, and nothing anyone says can make it right.

70. Losing a loved one

Artificial barriers not required. I promise.

(And I could've gone on longer. Feel free to post your own examples in the comments!)

It Gets Better.

2010-09-30T22:43:00.000-07:00

ACT I: Trapped

Scene I:

In a rural Southern middle school, a few dozen twelve-year-olds assemble in the science room before school hours, having been promised refreshments if they attend. It is a cold morning in a school with open hallways, and the allure of hot chocolate and central heat is strong. After all the students have settled with their snacks, the adult leading the Bible study group begins his speech.

"Now boys, just because you can't get a girlfriend doesn't mean you turn around and go get a boyfriend."

A sudden bolt of discomfort shoots through a kid sitting near the front. She shifts uncomfortably in her seat, wanting desperately to leave the room now that she knows the agenda, but fearing that if she expresses her objection, people will think it is because she is gay.

Scene II:

It gets worse.

It is late summer. A 14-year-old makes a phone call to the boy she has recently broken up with. "Yeah, the thing is... I think I'm a lesbian now." She doesn't know he has another friend silently eavesdropping via three-way call.

A group of tough-looking girls approaches her when school starts. "Are you a lesbian?" they demand.

"No, of course not!" she stammers in a blind panic.

"Why did you tell Joey you were?"

"I didn't! I'm not!" She does the only thing she can think to do, and escapes to the band room - the only room that is open before class. The bullies are not in band and can't follow her. She refuses to spend her mornings anywhere but the band room for the rest of the year, and she cannot tell her friends why.

Months later, in the lunch line, a classmate squints at her. "Are you a lesbian?"

"No!" she blurts out defensively, startled by the question.

"Oh. Well I heard some girl Bonnie was a lesbian."

"Wasn't me."

Scene III:

It gets worse.

A bunch of teenage girls float happily in a swimming pool late at night, after an evening of movies, truth or dare, and mixing up every soda in the house to see what it tastes like. The end result is called a "Suicide."

One of them gives a melancholy glance at a pretty friend of hers. She is seized immediately by guilt for thinking "perverted" thoughts and breaking the sacred trust of sleepovers. No boys are allowed, after all, because they will do just that. She is a wolf in sheep's clothing, sneaking among the flock. She sighs.

Her friend asks what's wrong.

"Oh, nothing really. I've just been... confused about some stuff, I guess." She knows better than to elaborate any further, but deep down, she wishes someone would recognize this as code for I'm queer and terrified to tell you. Someone who would be sensitive enough to tell her it's okay, and that she's not going to Hell.

That won't happen tonight.

After the swim, she accidentally walks in on a friend changing out of her bathing suit, and catches a glimpse of her breasts. She is wracked with guilt, not only for embarrassing her friend, but also for being turned on. Her friend thinks she has been seen only by an innocent straight girl - not a secret pervert.

ACT II: Majority

Scene I:

It gets better.

By some miracle, she finds a group of friends online, from places not so Southern and not so rural, who think being gay is just fantastic. One friend comes out as bisexual and says he likes to dress in drag. Another comes out as gay. Both are accepted by the others with open arms. She's stuffed her own sexuality down and stopped thinking about it, but the longer she's around these friends, she begins to wonder...

Scene II:

It gets better.

An 18-year-old locks her car and glances around nervously, wondering if anyone will see where she is going. She swallows the knot in her throat and clomps up the wood steps to the queer youth center. A cheerful man greets her and talks with her about her plans to get a GED. He seems to genuinely care, even though he's never met her before.

Later that evening, feeling at home among her kind, she performs a ridiculous camped-up version of "Baby Got Back", along with a boy she didn't know before, in the talent show. As the song ends, the other youth shower them with fake paper money, emblazoned with the faces of the youth center staff.

Scene III:

It gets worse.

While her boyfriend of two years is away at work, she clicks on the TV, and is suddenly enamoured by a beautiful woman in a commercial. God dammit, she thinks to herself, I thought those feelings were gone. Her boyfriend's greatest fear is being left for another woman. She wants him to feel secure, so she simply refers to herself as straight. After all, she's with a man now, so what's the difference?

But there is a difference, and it's never going to be okay with him. She gazes at the woman on TV, then frowns.

I'm going to have to leave him, she thinks as she changes the channel. Just... not now.

Act III: Emergence

Scene I:

It gets better.

Feeling inspired by a friend's recent coming out and an impassioned speech by Harvey Fierstein on TV, she makes an announcement to all her friends via a somewhat flowery blog post on MySpace. Not one single person unfriends her or attempts to tear her down. The worst she will have to deal with is a few tokenizing friends-of-friends who expect her to make out with girls at parties - annoying, but not dangerous. Mostly she receives complete support.

She realizes it is only this way because she's spent years carefully sifting and weeding her group of friends until it contains only people who will respect who she is.

Scene II:

It gets better.

She stands in the kitchen, silent. Now, cries something deep inside her. Do it now.

Nuh uh, no way, says her mind, but her voice acts of its own volition.

"I think I might be gay", she stammers, seemingly out of nowhere.

Her quiet, conservative, Southern Baptist mother pauses for not even a moment before flinging her arms around her. "Oh honey, I thought you might be. It's okay! You can even still have kids if you really want! I mean, I'd rather you be gay than be out drinking or something!"

She grins, hugs her mom, and makes a mental note not to put any Smirnoff in the fridge.

Scene III:

It gets better.

She's not sure what to expect, walking into the unschooling conference for the first time. She wants desperately to be liked by these people, but she knows most of the people there will be straight couples with kids. She doesn't realize there will be families with two moms. She also doesn't realize one of those families runs the conference.

For the first time in her life, she is able to be freely and openly queer without a single worry about what anyone will say. All the friends she makes here will be people who know, people she doesn't have to fear losing later When They Find Her Out.

One of her new friends, proudly and unapologetically queer and transgender, balks when she makes clear that she cannot get any job, anywhere, if her employers know she is queer. Another friend, one of the lesbian moms running the conference, reminds her she cannot even adopt if she continues to live in Florida.

"Move up north," they both insist. "Massachusetts is so much better."

A year later, she's hopping a train in Boston, on her way to join some new friends for a queer-friendly board game night. A hand-beaded rainbow bracelet glimmers on her wrist, a gift from one of those gay internet friends of her teen years. She doesn't even think of hiding here.

She has found the friends who will love who she is. She has found the surroundings that make her feel free and safe.

It's better.

Exactly

2010-09-24T19:06:00.000-07:00

I was just thinking today about some of the stuff that's gone down this year, and how I totally wouldn't have been ready for it a year ago.

In 2010, I have moved away from home. Really moved, not down the street, not into the city where I can drive home when I get homesick, but moved away. A thousand miles away. I've also dealt with some friend-situations I might not have handled well a year before, like two mutual friends having a messy breakup and getting back together. Currently I'm watching a good friend go through something I can't publicly discuss, but were it not for the things I've learned this year, I wouldn't have been ready to be there for them. And I've dealt with some internal changes and epiphanies I wasn't ready for in 2009.

Ah, but then in 2009, I gave up a well-paying job because it wasn't healthy for me, I began spending lots of time around unschoolers, and I lost my mom. I wasn't ready for those things in 2008. (I wasn't ready to lose my mom ever, but if it had happened in 2008, things would have been a lot, lot, lot worse.)

And what of you, 2008? I spent two weeks in Arizona, I sorta-halfway had a girlfriend, I became part of the unschooling community, gave up my dreams of being a teacher because I realized they were in conflict with my values, then (perhaps hypocritically) I went back into the school system as a teacher's aide, working a really challenging job that I could NOT have done in 2007...

...a year in which I came out of the closet, worked in an office, finished my AA degree, lived in a dorm, lost a favorite great-aunt, and worked as a caregiver for a kid with severe disabilities, who died just as I was getting to know him. Definitely couldn't have handled that stuff in 2006...

...when I broke up with my then-boyfriend, got my first paying job, became a Unitarian-Universalist, and accepted myself once-and-for-all as queer. I wasn't ready for that stuff in 2005.

Have these years been easy? Not really.

Were they painful? Extremely.

Were they fun? Oh hell yes.

But what stands out to me the most is that, when I follow my instincts and my interests, they almost always lead me to the tools and resources I will need to deal with the next challenge.

Even when I'm not exactly where I want to be, I am Exactly Where I Need To Be. I am always growing, always learning.

And so are you.

No sir, no bloggin' today

2010-09-22T09:25:00.000-07:00

Okay, I know "hey sorry for not blogging lol btw I'm still not blogging" posts are lame, but I also don't like to just disappear off the face of the Earth without warning. So this is your official "I don't feel like writing, for which I am sort of half-apologizing even though I don't actually feel sorry about it" post.

What's my life looking like right now? It looks like a whole lot of reading, taking shit in, bouncing all around Boston on the train, adjusting to a new place, looking for a job, typical young adult "where the hell is my life going to go" angst, lookin' at webcomics, hanging out with awesome people and eating large quantities of Chinese food.

Pretty standard 25-year-old stuff, yeah?

My writing has also mostly turned to other subjects and formats and forums (fora?). Oddly, I've been writing poetry (I say "oddly" because I typically don't like poetry), which is mostly too personal to share here, and I'm also making tentative plans for NaNoWriMo. So my energies are being poured elsewhere.

Fear not, gentle readers, I am not breaking up with you. I will probably still write here when the urge strikes me. (Given my proclivities toward fickleness, that may well be tomorrow.) But right now, I just don't have a whole lot to say.

We Don't Need to Escalate: 12 Steps to Heading Off a Crisis

2010-09-17T08:00:00.000-07:00

I wrote this several months ago in a discussion about aggression on a local unschooling list. It's written from my point of view at about age 14, which is when my temper was the worst, so some parts may not work quite as well with younger kids. Some may be particular to me and not apply to kids with different personalities. Still, I wanted to provide some perspective on what it's like for the kid who has lost control of their emotions, how scary it is for them, and what they might need in order to get them through to a better place.

Ultimately, the best cure for a crisis is prevention. Watch the signs that your kids are getting frustrated with things, do a HALT check (hungry, angry, lonely, tired), and try to solve problems before they reach the fight-or-flight stage. But if they do reach that point - and it happens sometimes, especially with kids who are highly sensitive or have difficulty communicating their needs - these steps should help.

(The first bit is in response to a question about where to draw the line in terms of kids who are trying to fight one another.)

---------

A great thing that Sandra Dodd always says is that the other child, the victim, has a right to feel safe in their own home. The aggressive child's "right" to be aggressive does not outweigh the other child's right to safety and peace. (The same applies to other adults in the house, of course.) So that is where the line should be drawn, I think, with regards to how much you tolerate.

However, that's about the expression of aggression, and I think it's important not to confuse the expression with the emotion behind it. You can communicate to the child that specific actions are not acceptable (a simple "Don't hit me/her/him!" is what I'd use - as opposed to "We don't hit" or "That was mean!" or things like that) while still validating their feelings. Usually a person who is behaving aggressively is flooded with adrenaline and cannot think clearly in that moment. They cannot think ahead to what consequences their actions will have. What we learn as we get older is how to slow that adrenaline flow, to breathe and calm ourselves down before we react. That's really hard for a kid!

When I was younger, I had a very bad temper, and often felt like I was going insane when I got angry. If I could have written a set of guidelines for people to follow when my anger reached "crisis" levels, it would have looked like this:

1. Don't ask me questions or talk too much. I am already overstimulated and more input will only make it worse, and in this state I cannot organize my thoughts into words.

2. Do not touch me, or any object I was just holding or using, unless you must do so to protect me or someone else. I may want a hug when I calm down, but if you come too close when I am raging, I will perceive it as a threat. My instinct will be to get you away from me in whatever way is necessary, no matter how much I love you.

3. Do not, under any circumstances, tell me that the reason I am angry is not a good enough reason to be angry. Don't tell me, in the heat of my anger, that I am being irrational, even if I am. Invalidating my feelings will only make me much, much angrier.

4. My adrenaline rises with the volume of your voice.

5. Make it clear to me that you still love me. I am just as frightened and unhappy about what is going on as you are, and I'm terrified that I will not be forgiven. If you make me feel like a terrible person for being angry, or you threaten me in some way, that only adds to my fear. Fear compounds anger.

6. Now is not the time for problem-solving. The thing that made me angry is no longer the problem. The anger is the problem. Once I have calmed down, we can solve the original problem, but not before.

7. I need to get this anger out. I simply cannot sit and stew in it. I need to yell, I may need to stomp, and I may need to physically destroy something (giving me some old magazines to rip is a good idea). If there is another person in the house who cannot handle my reaction then we need to be in separate rooms until I have calmed down.

8. Since I cannot think clearly in this moment, I need you to protect me from doing things I will regret. Don't allow me to injure people or pets, destroy anything that has value to me or others, or say things that will not be forgiven. Again, you may need to separate me from others and simply be alone with me until I am calm.

9. If I want to be alone, respect that. But do not force me to be alone against my will. I am frightened of my own anger and will become much more frightened if I feel caged and abandoned.

10. When I finally calm down (which happens remarkably quickly when all escalating stimuli are removed), I will be feeling trauma from the emotional stress we all just went through, fear that I may have made everyone hate me, shame and frustration with myself for losing control, and physical exhaustion from the adrenaline storm. *This* is the time when I need a hug - a long, close, "everything is okay, just breathe with me" hug. I will probably be sobbing at this point. Know that you are not rewarding my actions by comforting me - I am deeply remorseful at this point. You are giving me the security of knowing I can trust you in my very worst moments, and that is something I desperately need.

11. After I have stopped crying, washed my face, had a cool drink, and we've all laughed together, I'll be able to handle some gentle problem solving. After we've all been emotionally "emptied out", so to speak, it will be easy to talk through what happened and figure out what we could do differently next time. After what we've just been through, we'll all be eager to remember a better solution so it doesn't get this bad again.

12. At this point, one of two things should happen: Either I or the other people involved will be exhausted and want to be alone, or we will be eager to bond again to prove to each other that everything's okay. This is a good time for a quiet board game or a lighthearted movie together, some cuddle time, and some ice cream.

Alas, a meme

2010-09-10T12:48:00.000-07:00

My last post was all bitter and angry, so I decided to balance that out with a nice friendly meme, which came from Olivia.

Books I've read recently or am reading now:

I've been too busy to read much since I got to Boston, but over the summer I read My Gender Workbook, Wishcraft, some of The Impossible Will Take A Little While, and I kept trying to start Lord of the Rings but I think I just need to give up and accept that Tolkein's writing style is not for me.

8 Songs or Albums I listen to all the time:

"Call and Answer" by Barenaked Ladies

"I Palindrome I" by They Might Be Giants

"Ohio" by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young

"Giant" by Melissa Etheridge

"The Great Beyond" by R.E.M.

"One Man's Dream" by Yanni

"Trinity" by Paper Tongues

"Hallelujah" by Rufus Wainwright

8 Things I love:

My friends

Chinese food

Hula hooping

The Venture Bros.

Nerds (the people, but I also enjoy the candy)

Rainbows

Fall

Boston

8 Things I've learned this year:

It's stupid to try to get through life without other people.

If your gut is telling you to be somewhere, go there, even if you can't come up with a good explanation for why you're doing it.

Having a vagina does not obligate me to do anything.

If you are friends with both members of a couple and they break up, stay the hell out of that shit.

I don't need to fret over "not having a family" or the fact that my kids won't have grandparents and aunts and uncles and stuff, because I have lots of awesome people in my life and that is what matters.

If a person makes you uncomfortable and you can't place why, it may be your gut trying to tell you something.

Anger is a perfectly rational response to bullshit.

Love is a good thing, even if it's not in the form you'd prefer.

8 new recipes I want to try and make by the end of the year:

Mehhh I don't cook much really. My roommate makes some kickass lentil soup, I should learn to make that.

8 Favorite online hangouts:

Facebook

Twitter

Tumblr

X-E

Wherever the party's at, man

8 Projects I need to work on:

Getting a jeeerb

Attempting to salvage my Dell by installing Ubuntu on it

Figuring out how to make my stupid Gateway actually burn the Ubuntu CD

Somehow purchasing an entire winter wardrobe

Relearning sign language

Writing a post on "giftedness"

Compiling a list of books I wanna read

Learning some new hoop tricks

*I am pretty sure there was another thing I'm supposed to do and I can't remember what it was and now that is making me nervous

8 people I think should do this tag:

The ghost of Elvis

The one-armed man

RuPaul

Slim Goodbody

Sir Ian McKellen

Hermione Granger

My dog

LeVar Burton

but none of them read my blog, so I'll have to settle for you people. If you feel like it :p

What NOT having privilege feels like

2010-09-08T17:06:00.000-07:00

There's a lot of talk among social activists about privilege, and what precisely privilege is. There are many privilege checklists you can use to see the ways in which society may automatically favor you over someone else (or favor someone else over you.) A simple Google search for white privilege, male privilege, straight privilege, thin privilege or cis privilege should get you plenty of info about what it means to have privilege, from people more eloquent and well-versed on the subject than I.

I want to talk about what it means not to have privilege.

I am a white, English-speaking adult citizen of the United States, and none of my disabilities are outwardly visible.

That is where my privilege ends.

I grew up on welfare, raised by a mother who had multiple disabilities. I am queer, non-Christian, female-bodied, clinically obese, and currently unemployed. I am almost certainly somewhere on the autism spectrum, and I have medical problems that deplete my spoons. I have a hormone condition which means I will never appear "feminine", so that the mere act of cutting my hair prompts what the fuck are you stares on the train.

There are a lot of people who think the world would be a better place if I did not exist.

Let me repeat that, for people who have enough privilege that they don't know what that's like. I am inundated, constantly, with messages that say, underhandedly but quite clearly, you should not exist. Every day, I have to dodge news reports discussing the "obesity epidemic" as though the size of my ass is equivalent to the fucking bubonic plague. Every day I have to deal with people saying women who aren't thin enough, pretty enough, or feminine enough are worthless as human beings. Every day I have to deal with people saying I am going to hell, or that I want "special rights" when I have merely asked for the same rights as other people. Every day I have to see parents or expectant parents carry on as though having a child like me - or like my mother - would be the worst thing that could ever possibly happen to them. Every day I have to see shit on Facebook about how if you can afford cigarettes, you don't need food stamps, which implies that because my mother became addicted to cigarettes before I was ever thought of, I should have starved to death as a child. I get THAT one from my friends. My friends.

Do I think my friends are actively thinking "Golly, I sure wish Bonnie was dead" when they click on stuff like that? Of course not. But what they ARE thinking is that people on food stamps do not deserve the full freedom of choice in life that people who aren't on food stamps deserve, as if freedom to choose how to spend one's money only comes with a certain income level. And you cannot believe someone should have less freedom than you without, at least subconsciously, believing that they are somehow less of a person than you. You can't.

And that is what lack of privilege feels like. Knowing that people - even people who are supposed to love you - think you are less of a person than they are.

Knowing there are people who view you not as a human being, but as some kind of political rallying tool, an example of the "problems" in your country or the world.

Knowing there are people who think, at least in some theoretical sense, that the world would be better if you were never in it. Or if you died right now.

And knowing that you cannot defend yourself, because you will either be told to "lighten up", or have someone's political beliefs thrown in your face, as though they were more important than whether or not you feel that you deserve to be alive.

Ever feel like that? Like nobody wants you? Like the world would be better off if you just crawled into a hole somewhere?

Was it fun?

That's why talking about privilege is important. Because ultimately, this isn't about me. It's about the fact that whatever ways I may be different, there are lots and lots of other people who are different in the same ways. They don't deserve to feel like that. Neither do I.

And don't read this and come tell me how much you love me. I'm not writing all this because I'm sad. I'm writing it because I'm fucking pissed, and I'm tired of being made to feel like shit and then pretending everything is fine for politeness' sake. Everything is not fine. Making me feel like dirt is not fine. Making other people feel like dirt is not fine. I only have so many spoons. I only have so much time to spend with people, and I'd rather spend it with people who affirm and validate me, people who don't view me and people like me as symbols of Everything Wrong In The World.

This is dedicated

2010-09-08T09:13:00.001-07:00

To those who've lost a loved one they're not sure how to live without...

To those who've been told, directly or indirectly, that their bodies are unloveable...

To all the kids being bullied in the schools that are supposed to be "good for you"...

...and the kids for whom school is a refuge from the pain at home...

To anyone who's been emotionally, sexually, or physically abused, and those who are being abused even now...

To the gay, lesbian, bisexual, pansexual, asexual, queer, trans, genderqueer, intersex, polyamorous, sexually-confused, gender-confused people who've been told they are unacceptable or morally corrupt...

To the black kids in the city who've been told they'll never amount to anything...

...and the black adults who remember when things were much worse...

To the legal, and illegal, immigrants being used as scapegoats for every problem in the United States, and treated as though you were not fully human...

To all those whose ethnicity, religion, skin color or nationality renders them Less Than in somebody's eyes...

To the people whose lives depend on SSI, food stamps, WIC, Medicaid, and all the other programs derisively lumped together as "welfare" and treated as a "problem" by people who can afford BMWs...

To the people who are unemployed, and must live with the shame dumped on unemployed people even when that represents 10% of the adult population...

To the people whose bodies and minds don't work the same way as "everybody else's" (as if everyone else's bodies and minds worked the same way)...

To the girls being told their job is to be a pretty face and nothing else...

To those struggling with addictions and compulsions...

To those keeping secrets they fear would make everyone stop loving them...

To those who've survived natural disasters, fires, terrorist attacks, wars, and other kinds of hell-on-earth...

To those going through the breakup of a family, or the breakup of a relationship...

To those who love someone they can't be with...

To those who don't have any "serious" problems, but just can't seem to find the joy in life...

To those who hurt themselves because it's the only way to hurt a little bit less...

This is for you.

National Suicide Prevention Week

September 5-11, 2010

There is hope.

Metanoia

Hopeline: 1-800-SUICIDE

A Day in Back Bay

2010-09-06T09:11:00.000-07:00

I've been in Boston for over two weeks now, and I haven't really written anything about it! Probably because the first week was the "be totally overwhelmed and confused" phase of moving, and the second week was the "spend five days at a conference and two days recovering" phase. (You mean you don't go through that phase when you move?) But now I'm starting to settle in, and yesterday for the first time I took public transport all by myself! I'm a big kid now! (People who grew up in real cities are probably laughing at me, but the extent of public transport in Jacksonville was a bus system that basically only gets you from one Walmart to the next, and a useless monorail that was built during the Every City Needs A Useless Monorail trend some years back, so I never took a city bus or train till I came to Boston.)

What was the big occasion that led me to venture into the city by myself? Church, yo. Specifically a 400-year-old church founded by this guy:

Yes, that John Winthrop. Which is amusing, given that it is a Unitarian-Universalist church now:

The inside of the church wasn't too remarkable, because part of it burned down in the '60s and had to be rebuilt, but the outside was way cool:

The service itself was lovely, something to do with Labor Day and the Walmart effect and what it means to do useful, fulfilling work - I'm not really a morning person so I'll admit a lot of it went over my head, but I got to hear a guy playing a harpsichord in person, and that is all that matters.

Back Bay is an upscale, historic neighborhood that's really pleasant to walk through, full of gorgeous old brownstones, brick sidewalks and cute little gardens.

After church I decided to wander over to the library and see if it's open on Sundays (it isn't), and on the way there I stopped at the Commonwealth Avenue mall. (Mall as in "long, narrow park", not "place where you drink an Orange Julius and wish you had money".)

One thing I like about Boston is there are statues everywhere, so whenever I go out I always come home with some names to Google. As a history geek, this pleases me.

William Lloyd Garrison, a damn cool guy who I hadn't heard of till I saw his statue

Samuel Eliot Morison

Not sure who this was, but he looks rather unfriendly.

My favorite thing was the Boston Women's Memorial, right in the middle of the park:

Remember the Ladies

Phillis Wheatley

I like Abigail's posture here. She's all like, "The Leggs of a Lady are none of your fucking Business, John."

Inscription on Lucy Stone's memorial

After the park, I walked over by the library and took some pictures there:

Old South Church

This entire building, including the bit hidden behind the tree, is the library. Oh baby.

I will DEFINITELY be coming back here.

This is the sign on a weird "city toilet" thing outside the library. You can't really see the text, but essentially it says that you insert a quarter, and the thing (which looks like some kind of alien space pod) opens up, and you get 20 minutes to desecrate it. After 20 minutes, the door automatically opens. So if you're anticipating a major colon blowout or something, find a real bathroom. There's also a lot of instructions on it about how to call 911 by pushing a button inside, which I thought was slightly ominous.

So, I'm digging Boston so far! Lots of cool historical shit, lots of cool people, lots of cool, uh, donuts - and it's gonna be fall soon! Yay!

Don't Do It

2010-09-05T18:22:00.001-07:00

To this I would add that discrimination absolutely does include "jokes" and those stupid things people "like" on Facebook. Just because you're kidding doesn't mean it doesn't hurt.

(Please note I am not necessarily endorsing all of the language choices the person who created the poster has made, but I do think it's a really fucking useful poster overall.)

Leaving Narnia: What to do when someone comes out of the closet

2010-09-02T22:13:00.000-07:00

At the Northeast Unschooling Conference this past weekend, my good friend Michael gave a talk, which he asked me to help with, on what to do when someone you love comes out of the closet. (The topic was Kathryn Baptista's idea, and a great one I think, so props to her for that!) For several reasons it ended up being a small group, which was fine, because that gave everyone who wanted to say something a chance to do so. But since I feel it's such an important topic, I wanted to write down some of the things we talked about and maybe some things we didn't get to talk about, for those who didn't get to be there.

I wanted to write that. The thing is, every time I sit down to write any kind of guide to what to do or what not to do, what comes out is this really long ungainly list of specific mistakes I've made, specific mistakes other people have made, specific things people did for me that were wonderful, specific things I did for others which went over well, etc. Accept asexuality as a valid sexual orientation. Don't say "fag" or "tranny" or "dyke". Don't ask people how they have sex. I quickly realized that if I were to make this anywhere close to comprehensive, it was going to take a year to read.

Then I caught myself. My list was becoming ungainly because I was making a list of rules. Generally, anytime a list of ways you should or shouldn't act gets to many, many items long, that's a red flag that you're approaching it from a mindset of rules rather than principles. Unschoolers tend to emphasize that the problem with rules is how constricting and frustrating they are, how they ignore the needs people are trying to express. But an even more fundamental problem with rules is that they simply cannot cover every situation that could come up. In the same way that "no hitting" still leaves you plenty of room to kick, bite, or verbally abuse, "don't ask people how they have sex" still leaves you plenty of room to ask what their genitals look like or ask their ex-partner how they have sex. Making rules, even ones designed to be adopted voluntarily, is a bit like cutting the head off a hydra. For every problem you address, several more spring up in its stead. If a guide is based on rules, there can be no workable abridged version.

So I took a step back from my list of rules and tried to find the principles behind them. Most of these could be broadened quite a bit more - "respect people" would just about cover it - but in order to show how they specifically apply to a person coming out of the closet, I've tried to find a middle ground between abstract principles and detailed examples. (This may still take a year to read, but it will be a much more helpful year *grin*).

1. Every person gets to define hirself. You know a guy who dated three women last year, but now says he's gay? He's gay. Your friend was a girly-girl in elementary school, but now identifies as a transgender man? He's a transgender man. Someone you met at a party says they're asexual, and all your biology training tells you that's a method of reproduction? Science be damned, it's a sexual orientation now. A person you know has come out as every sexual orientation under the sun, and you're not sure whether to believe them next time? Believe them anyway. Your friend has asked to be referred to using pronouns you could swear they (or ze, or xie, or sie) made up? Use them. Above all, trust that people know the insides of their own minds better than you do - even if their minds change over time.

2. Every person has a right to as much (or as little) privacy as they desire. Just because your friend is out to everyone you know doesn't mean ze's out to hir parents or coworkers. Just because your friend is extremely proud of being queer doesn't mean you should necessarily talk about it on the train or yell "homo" in a crowded theater. By the same token, I don't get to ask my friend to cover up his transgender tattoo because I'm uncomfortable having that conversation with someone who might see it. I don't get to forbid my daughter from telling grandma about her girlfriend. Disclosure is the queer person's choice to make, not yours.

3. LGBTetc. people are just people. If someone comes out to you, remember they were queer or trans before you knew, and they are still the same person now (though the coming out process may liberate or grow them in lots of ways). Knowing about a person's queerness need not change anything about your relationship with them (though your reaction may harm or strengthen the relationship). If you would never ask a question of a cis or straight person, don't ask it of a trans or queer person. Having a gay or trans friend is not a novelty or a symbol of how cool you are, anymore than having a redheaded or left-handed friend is. And remember that being queer or trans is only one aspect of who someone is. True, some people are "culturally lesbian" or "culturally trans" or whatever, and are way involved with queer stuff, but even then they are still individuals with their own habits, hobbies, interests and personalities, many of which will have not a damn thing to do with their gender or sexuality.

4. Everyone wants to feel safe. Unfortunately even in this day and age, lots of queer people, and particularly lots of trans people, do not feel safe in lots of situations, or only feel safe if their sexuality or gender identity is well-hidden. Anything you can do to make a person feel safe - whether you know them to be LGBTetc. or not - will be appreciated. This includes honoring their privacy as discussed above, but it also includes things like not tolerating homophobic or transphobic jokes, and avoiding heteronormative or cissexist language and assumptions (i.e., asking people when they're going to get married/have a baby, assuming your tomboyish friend would enjoy a free makeover, etc.) That last one takes practice, because certain assumptions are so deeply ingrained in Western culture, but the payoff in terms of the other person's comfort is well worth it, especially if the other person happens to be your child. Even if you can't change the mind of everyone you meet (and you can't), standing up for queer and trans people communicates to us that even if we're not safe with any of the other people in the room, we are safe with you. I am not exaggerating one bit when I say that there are people for whom having just one person who doesn't think they're sick or a sinner is the difference between life and death. Even if someone never comes out to you, just knowing you wouldn't condemn them if they did can quite literally save their life.

5. Everyone knows someone who is queer or trans. Michael's talk was somewhat ambiguously titled, and so lots of people came in the room, asked us what it was about, and politely but quickly left the room. I don't begrudge people one bit for choosing an activity more in line with their interests, but I also got a sense that many of these people's lack of interest in the topic came from a sense that this doesn't really apply to them. I can pretty well guarantee that unless you live in Upper Glennbeckistan, the topic of what to do when someone comes out absolutely applies to you. (And even if you do happen to live in Upper Glennbeckistan, the topic of what to do when someone is outed to the media by their former poolboy applies to you. Also, say hi to my family for me?) If you are a parent, this topic really really really applies to you. Even if your kid is two, because lots of people "feel different" from an extremely young age. The point is, no matter who you are, someone you know is not straight, or at least is questioning their sexual orientation. Someone you know is not cis, or at least is questioning their gender identity. If you wait till you know someone is not straight or not cis before you start thinking about how to accept them that way, you've waited too long. They already were who they are. I don't think it's ever too late to learn how to be kind to LGBTetc. people... but it's absolutely never, ever too early - especially, I will reiterate, if you have or are planning to have kids.

6. Every person has hir own story. I suppose this could be an addendum to #3, but I think it deserves a mention of its own. There are lots of wonderful books, movies and documentaries out there which tell the stories of queer and trans people. (There are also lots of not-so-wonderful ones, so watch out for that!) I would highly recommend the film Ma Vie En Rose and the book And the Band Played On, for example. But I would also caution anyone who seeks those out to realize they are not necessarily telling my story, or my friends' stories, or any of your friends' stories, or your kid's story. By the same token, your best friend's story, straight from the horse's mouth, is not my story, nor is my story hirs. True, another person's story may share elements with mine, and may give you a jumping-off point to understand my story. But the thing to remember is that knowing someone else's story does not mean that you know mine. Knowing how someone else feels doesn't mean you know how I feel. Accept that you don't know a queer or trans person's story until they tell it to you, just as you don't know a cis or straight person's story until they tell you.

7. People need people. Often, what an LGBTetc. person needs most is to be around other LGBTetc. people, but sometimes those who have just come out don't yet know where to find people like them. Here's a few of my personal favorite resources you could connect them with:

AVEN - Deals primarily with asexuality, but there's much discussion of sexuality in general, and their wiki has the most comprehensive information on gender identity I've found so far.
Scarleteen - Particularly for teens and young adults, but the advice is good for anyone.
Genderfork - An overall celebration of gender variance and gender rebellion.
Livejournal, which has many, many communities covering LGBT topics.
Books: Kate Bornstein's My Gender Workbook and Kimeron Hardin's The Gay and Lesbian Self-Esteem Book are good starting points. Do use caution, however, in giving people books, particularly people whose living situation may be jeopardized if a parent or roommate found a queer-themed book among their possessions.
PFLAG/TNET - You need support too, right? Plus, who doesn't love a PFLAG mom? You will get so many hugs.
And of course, any local LGBT community centers, support groups, pride festivals, or welcoming religious organizations (if they're interested in that) you can connect them with would be a huge help. (If you're in the Jacksonville, FL area, I've had wonderful experiences with JASMYN.)

Lastly and most importantly: If the person coming out to you is suicidal, do not attempt to save them all by yourself. Your support is undoubtedly important to them, but it is not fair to you, or to them, for you to be their only means of support. Let them know you're there for them and you love them unconditionally, but also try to move them in the direction of seeking help from those who have been trained to help them. This isn't just for your sake, but for theirs - if you don't know what you're doing, you may unintentionally make it worse, no matter how much you love them. One resource I've found extremely helpful is Metanoia's suicide page, which has probably saved my life more than once. In the United States, there are also several hotlines a person can call, such as the Hopeline (1-800-SUICIDE) (which also saved my life) and the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (1-800-273-TALK). Finally, Metanoia's guide to helping a person who may be suicidal and their list of suicide warning signs are excellent. It would be a good idea in general to post some or all of these resources near your phone or computer so you can easily give them to someone in the event of a crisis.

I don't pretend that this list covers everything you could possibly need to know in order to deal with someone coming out. Every person is an individual, with individual needs. Every person has their own idea of what a perfect coming out would look like - some people will want you to sit and talk with them for a long time, others may prefer more of a "That's cool. Can you pass the salt?" response. Follow their lead. If they seem uncomfortable, think about what you could do differently. Ask them if they'd like to talk about it. Respect it if they'd rather not. Above all, know that even if you make mistakes, your support means the world to the person you love. Knowing that someone is at least trying to make me feel loved and safe will always make me feel more loved and safe than if they just didn't try at all.

Update: Even more trans-specific resources (thanks Michael!)

Trans Youth Family Allies

TransMentors International

T-Vox (which lists many, many other resources)

A list of gender-related communities on Livejournal

I kind of wish I knew more gay and lesbian specific resources, because my interests and my immediate circle of friends tend to skew me heavily toward the transgender, bi/pan/queer, and asexual sides of things (which is a lot of sides of things, as it is! Phew!) So if anyone knows any really good resources for gay men and lesbians, please contact me and I will be happy to add those.

Will somebody invent a time-turner already?

2010-08-31T12:51:00.000-07:00

I just got back last night from the 2010 Northeast Unschooling Conference. Because this is my favorite conference, I really want to say something about it, but I feel lost for words. Maybe that's because I haven't fully recovered from the lack of sleep and regular meals yet, or maybe it's because I just spent five solid days talking to a bunch of my favorite people and my words are all used up. Last year I came away with lots of new ideas and theories and navel-gazing things. This year, all I can offer is gratitude.

Things I'm really, really grateful for:

Kathryn, Beth, Julian, Jean, and everyone else who worked so hard on this thing to make it completely awesome, and were willing to give sleeping space and picnic transportation to lots of people.

Living thirty minutes, or an hour, or three hours, or eight hours away from people who I used to live no-fucking-way-in-hell far away from.

People who will happily give you a floor, a sandwich, or a ride most of the way home when you can't pay for any of them.

Early morning chats over accidentally-stolen coffee, and late night chats about stuff you just can't always mention in front of the sun.

Getting smiles and waves and hugs from people who were strangers until just moments ago.

Little kids who freely play, dance, express their feelings and their creativity, and go out of their way to find your watch and give it back to you when you drop it in the stairwell.

Friends who are willing to clean all the things, sing about bananas, make genetic waffles, pluck the still-beating hearts from squirrels*, shout about vajazzles and double dingos, find friends for Zombie Steve, and treat sandwiches like the serious business they are.

And lots and lots of other stuff! I won't say the conference was perfect, because nothing in life ever is. But it was sublime and supreme and lots of other superlative kinds of words, and listing every single thing I'm grateful for would take as long as recapping every minute of the conference. I think my only regret is that there wasn't nearly enough time to spend with everyone I wanted to see! The hardest part of a conference, besides saying goodbye, is being torn between wanting to spend as much time as possible with your closest friends, and wanting to make new ones. So until somebody gives me a time-turner so I can rewind and do multiple things at once, I'm gonna walk away from every conference with a little bit of regret for the things and the people I missed. But mostly, I'm just really fucking grateful to love and be loved by so many people that I can't see them all in five days.

*No actual squirrels were harmed in the course of this conference or the making of this blog post.

(Not) Back to College

2010-08-14T06:00:00.000-07:00

In less than a week, I will join thousands of other young adults in a traditional American ritual. I will cram my car full of as much crap as it will possibly hold, drive clear across the country to a place I have visited only once before, and move into a tiny room with another young adult. Sounds pretty familiar, right?

What makes my journey different is that I'm not going to college. The confluence of my transition with back-to-school time is a coincidence. I'm going, instead, to live in a pretty interesting neighborhood of Boston, with a friend and her family. And though this living situation will bear little actual similarity to college life, I think it's an interesting comparison. Because even though I won't have the curriculum of a formal program of study, the city has its own curriculum for me.

I will be studying:

Diversity, both ethnic (I will be staying with a Haitian family, in a neighborhood in which my friend says "you can walk down the street and hear five arguments in four different languages") and religious (Catholics and Muslims and Jews, oh my!)
Politics. I'll be going from a very conservative town to a very liberal one, which raises questions: What are the dynamics which make a city that is 40% Catholic also be 80% liberal? How do politics color the culture of a city? It'll be interesting to observe this stuff, especially with a major election around the bend.
History. Lots and lots and lots of history in Massachusetts. (Lots in Florida too, but the Massachusetts kind doesn't stir up so many icky feelings about my slaveholding ancestors, and is thus more enjoyable for me.)
Architecture. Nearly 50% of houses in Boston were built prior to 1939. Cool!
Weather. I've lived in Florida my whole life. 'Nuff said.
City Life. I am but a humble country mouse. Public transportation, knowing how to navigate on foot, personal safety - this stuff is new to me. Plus, I'll be exposed to all kinds of cool cultural stuff that Jacksonville, being more "America's most bloated suburb" than an actual city, does not have.
Diplomacy. I will be living in close quarters with a friend. That is always a learning experience in itself.

All of this is in addition to the things I will learn pursuing work and leisure, dealing with autism and chronic illness, and being a queer geek, just as I would anywhere else.

"Ah," say the naysayers, "but if you were going away to college in a new city, you'd learn all that plus a curriculum! So you're still missing out!" Oh, ye of little faith. First of all, I have lived on a college campus before, and I can say from experience that I am the sort of person who would simply cocoon myself up in campus life and never go exploring in the city. Second, anyone who knows me also knows that hellfire and dragons couldn't keep me from academic learning. I react to libraries the way Blanche Devereaux reacts to cheesecake. Third, if I were doing a formal full-time curriculum I would not have the time or inclination to sit and ponder about Catholicism and the Salem witch trials and the difference between sleet and freezing rain.

But most importantly, I will be learning about politics and history and diversity and architecture and the changing seasons because those are my interests. Those are the elements, in addition to friendship and good timing, that attracted me to a place like Boston in the first place. Were I not interested in those things, I probably wouldn't spend time thinking about them, and I may not have been excited to go to Boston in the first place. And none of those interests were sparked in me by any curriculum. Some of them were very nearly ruined by curricula, and even with the ones that weren't, I have never found a program of formal study that would satisfy my craving for them in just the right way. Going into a history program and studying whatever history they tell you to study, when your passion is for a specific aspect or period of history, is quite like going into a bakery and ordering a slice of lemon meringue pie when you were craving chocolate cake. You're in the right ballpark, but man, when you need chocolate cake, nothing else will do. You just can't enjoy that lemon pie like you would if you'd really been wanting it. Learning is very much the same.

So I'm gaining a lot of benefits I wouldn't necessarily have in college. As for what I'm missing? Let's see... there's the thousands of dollars worth of debt, the experience of living with a complete stranger who might steal your stuff or have sex on your bed, the pressure to join a sorority, the bad cafeteria food, the feeling of being babysat all the time despite being a legal adult... Oh yeah, and the Almighty Piece of Paper. Fine. If I decide I want one of those, I can get it. But for now, all the other benefits of college are coming to me, at far less cost, and in ways that are not artificially constructed by people who have never met me, yet claim to know what I need. Sounds like a good deal to me.

Why I am a socially awkward geek

2010-08-13T18:56:00.000-07:00

STAGES OF SOCIALLY AWKWARD CONVERSATION

Stage One: Excited Yammering

"Hi I heard you like Mudkips!"

"OMG I LOVE MUDKIPS! They're so like, blue!"

"Yes! And water Pokemon are the best!"

"I love Lapras!

"Yes! Lapras!"

Stage Two: Running Out of Steam

"So, um, I had a sandwich today..."

"Oh, cool. What kind?"

"BLT."

"Nice."

Stage Three: Person Says Thing Which Most People Would Have No Problem Responding To But I Have No Idea What in The Hell to Say

"There's a great sandwich place near my house."

"...cool"

Stage Four: Awkward Silence

[agonizing 30-second pause which seems more like 30 minutes and I am wondering if the other person hates me now because I didn't engage their sandwich thing, and now I'm not sure where to put my eyes so I end up staring into space and looking like I am about to start drooling and then I suddenly realize that and I get all self-conscious and stare at my shoes instead]

Next is the stage which is sometimes referred to as "repairing a conversation". This is the stage people with Asperger's are notoriously bad at. I am no exception.

Stage Five: Desperate Attempt to Salvage Conversation by Blurting Out Whatever is in My Head

"Did you know James Buchanan was probably gay? He was the president right before Lincoln. Some people think Lincoln was gay too because he shared beds with other men, but he probably just couldn't afford a bed. Also he had syphilis. But everybody had syphilis back then."

"...heh."

Stage Six: Panic Over Other Person's Lukewarm Response Coupled With Even More Desperate Attempt to Pull Conversation Back to Common Ground

"So anyway! Mudkips! Yes!"

"Mudkips are cool."

"Yeah."

"One time I caught a Mudkip and named it Fart."

"Hehe. Fart."

"Yeah."

And that's where the conversation usually dies its final, painful death. This is why I have learned to associate a) mainly online, and b) mainly with other socially awkward people, because those conversations go more like this:

Person 1: Remember Thundercats?

Person 2: I never watched Thundercats. I liked TMNT a lot though. And Captain Planet. Everyone says Heart is a sucky power but I think being able to command whole herds of buffalo to do your bidding would be pretty badass.

Person 3: Hey guys I made spaghetti

Person 4: [randomly quotes Cracked article]

Person 5: OH MY GOD I HAVE TO POOP SO BAD BRB

Person 2: [still yammering about 80s cartoons]

Person 3: This spaghetti sauce coulda been better, I don't think I used enough oregano

Person 1: Man I usually just use sauce from a jar

Person 4: [still quoting from Cracked]

Person 5: The poop, it was HORRIBLE!

Person 2: Nice

I made that transcript up, but just barely. It probably sounds like a horrible trainwreck to anyone with a remotely organized brain, but it is normal conversation for me. So if you ever try to engage me in conversation, and I end up staring blankly into space, it's not because I'm not listening. It's because I'm trying to think of a response that is appropriate and doesn't involve poop or Thundercats or randomly blurting out something about gay dead people or things I see out of the corner of my eye. This can take me an alarmingly long time, because I have to sift through all the contents of my brain like an unsorted toy box. The socially-appropriate response is in there, but it's usually underneath many piles of plastic dinosaurs, and often by the time I find it, enough time has passed that the response is no longer socially appropriate:

"I bought new shoes today!"

[almost a full minute passes as I sift through possible responses: I wear shoes too, I haven't bought new shoes in like five years, remember light-up sneakers?, non-sequitur Simpsons quote involving shoes, dude remember Thundercats, cool what kind of shoes... yes! That one!]

"Cool, what kind of shoes?"

But by then it is too late. I have already been staring into space, looking puzzled, for a full minute, and the other person has either wandered off or has begun to wonder if I am experiencing some kind of temporal lobe seizure. Or they just think I am retarded. Usually that one.

This is compounded by the fact that I frequently cannot decode what a person has actually said until several seconds after they say it. My actual hearing is fine, but someone has clogged my ear-to-brain tubes with their internet porn, or something, because the words get stuck on the way there:

What you say: Do you want a sandwich?

What I hear: Djoowamma sawitch?

My response: [30 seconds of unresponsive staring in which it does not occur to me to go "What?"]

My brain process: Someone is making noise with their mouth. They are talking. Are they talking to me? They are looking at me. Shit. What did they say? Dew in the subway? Jew on the sub-witch? No! Do you want... do I want what? Person is holding a sandwich. Do I want a sandwich!

Me, feeling as if I have won a gameshow: Yes! I'll take a sandwich!! :D

This is if I am lucky enough to be continuously in the same room as the person talking to me. If they say something as I am walking by, I may never respond. This is why I hate it when store employees say hello to me. By the time I realize a person has spoken to me, and figure out what they said, and figured out how to respond, they have long since walked by, and I look like a big fat jerk.

So if you ever meet someone who appears to be an idiot, it is quite possible they are experiencing some kind of mental process like I have outlined above. Or maybe they are a self-absorbed ass. There's really no way to tell. It may not be exactly reassuring to know there is no way to immediately discern whether someone is an asshole or just experiencing some kind of cognitive dysfunction, but um, yay neuroscience?

Yay.

*It occurred to me on rereading this post that I made it seem like I really, really like Thundercats, and now probably everybody at NEUC is gonna come up to me and be like "So! I heard you like Thundercats!" and then I will have to explain that I've never seen Thundercats in my life and it's just sort of a meme for people who were kids in the 80s to be like "omg remember THUNDERCATS?" except most of the people who read my blog weren't born in the 80s and wouldn't get that which means they also wouldn't try to talk to me about Thundercats anyway so I don't know why I even brought it up. And now I've said Thundercats like 75 times in this post and I will probably get an inordinate amount of blog hits from people looking for information about cheesy 80s cartoons and actually my blog is mostly about navel-gazing and they will be sad.

Accounting for Taste

2010-08-08T00:30:00.000-07:00

I was thinking about South Park today. Well, more to the point, I was thinking of a comment left on this entry from The Seventeen Magazine Project, a brilliant project undertaken by an equally brilliant teenager. The comment in question, or the part of the comment that got me thinking, was this:

"this is exactly why i hate southpark. i don't need a bunch of straight white males telling ME what i should and shouldn't find offensive, thanks."

The discussion wasn't about South Park at all, and the mention of it was somewhat incongruous to the rest of the thread, but I still found it relevant. Now, for those of you who don't watch South Park, I realize it looks like a crude, potty-humor cartoon suitable mainly for stoners. When it first came out (half my life ago - ouch), that's basically what it was, and I'll admit there's still that element to it. But over the years, it has also developed into a forum for biting political and social commentary. What interested me about this comment is that it points out the privileged viewpoint from which Trey Parker, Matt Stone, and many of the other South Park writers make their arguments. Indeed, the episodes sometimes espouse the kind of views that would make me switch off the TV in disgust if they came from the mouth of a serious political pundit. And yet, I love South Park, even when it offends me. Why?

I spent some time today mulling that over, and I realized that it basically comes down to this: Regardless of whether South Park makes me shake my head in disgust or clap wildly in agreement (and it seems to do both in equal shares), it is one of the very few shows that both makes me laugh and makes me think on a consistent basis. Thinking on that more, I realized essentially every show I watch is appealing for one or both of those reasons. I've been feeling a bit data-happy lately, so I decided to make a graph. Below is a plot of 21 shows I watch regularly, or watched regularly in the past, and my reasons for watching. (I was tempted to knock one off to make a nice round number, but a mother cannot choose between her children.)

(Click to embiggen.)

A few notes on this graph. First of all, this is obviously completely subjective. I can only rank how much a show makes me laugh or think; there is no objective measure of how funny or thought-provoking a show is. Which brings me to my next point: The shows which make me think the most are not necessarily "smarter" shows. I would rate Arrested Development, for example, as a "smarter" show than South Park, in terms of the humor being much more sophisticated. But South Park got a higher "think" score because it generally makes me question my views or reflect on things that are going on in the world. Arrested Development simply puts its smarts in a different basket.

I also feel like shows intended for children got shafted a bit because of my age. As a near-25-year-old, Rocko's Modern Life doesn't really inspire a lot of original thought in me, but when I was seven - and thus part of its primary target audience - it certainly did, and were I seven years old today, I'm sure Spongebob and The Fairly Oddparents would as well. So again, there is really no way to measure a show's ability to provoke thought.

The biggest thing I noticed, however, is that even ranking the shows as honestly as possible, not a single one fell into quadrant III. Nothing. Zilch. There are definitely shows I would put in that quadrant, I just don't personally watch any of them. But someone does, or they wouldn't last a minute on the air. So while "makes me laugh" and "makes me think" are my personal criteria, it occurs to me that other people may have completely different reasons for enjoying or not enjoying a show. Of course, it's probable that shows that I would put in quadrant III would be in another quadrant for somebody else. But I still suspect that other people's reasons for watching a show are not the same as mine. For example, there's a long list of things I don't really care about in a show:

The cinematography
The quality of the acting (I like William Shatner, for God's sake)
High drama/action/badassery
Fashion, style, and trendiness
Sex and romance
The hotness of the cast (Except for Hugh Laurie. And Rachel Maddow. And Leonard Nimoy*. And Jon Stewart. Okay, fine, so maybe this helps a little.**)

Those things can make a show better, mind you, but they're not going to draw me in to begin with; they're icing on the cake of shows I already like. But I recognize that for some people, these factors may be much more important, to the point of making or breaking a show entirely.

So tell me, internets, what do you look for in a show? I've put a poll on the sidebar of my blog, and would really appreciate your responses. I'd also love to hear your thoughts in the comments, especially if there is some factor I've left out of the poll. I think this stuff is interesting to think about, not only because it can help us understand our own preferences, but it can also help build bridges between our own interests and those of other people. It's much easier to find the value in what another person likes if you're aware of all the different ways a show can be appealing, and that can go a long way to prevent shaming and judgement over differences in taste - something that, I must admit, I am still working on.

*Do not question this. I will sic all of my Trekkie friends on you. It won't be pretty.

**Although I still maintain that there is a clear difference between smart-people hot and Hollywood-pretty hot. I would not find these people one bit attractive if they did not make me laugh and/or think, so I maintain that I have not actually diverged from my basic point here. Much.

How to Raise a Writer (A Choose Your Own Adventure Story)

2010-08-06T03:11:00.000-07:00

For anyone not familiar with Choose Your Own Adventure, they were a series of simple chapter books that were really popular with kids when I was growing up. The format is essentially that you get a little bit of story, and then must choose what happens next. Choose right, and the story keeps moving on toward a happy ending. Choose wrong, and you are inexplicably sent hurtling into space, or eaten by a dinosaur, or whatever. Most kids backtracked, of course, and read the whole book. That is how it works.

Once upon a time there was a little girl named Bonnie, who liked to do lots of things. She loved to play video games, swing on her swingset, play with her cats, go swimming, and play chess with her Granddaddy. But her very favorite thing to do, more favorite even than swinging, was making up stories. She would spend hours in her room, making up new stories about Dorothy and the Scarecrow, or Kermit and Fozzie and Miss Piggy, or the Babysitters Club. She thought that these stories were pretty interesting, and wondered if she should write them down.

Option A: Bonnie tells her stories to an adult, and asks them to help her write them so she can save them forever. Turn to page 2.

Option B: Bonnie feels very shy about her stories and does not tell them to anyone. She dislikes writing because it makes her hand hurt, and she doesn’t want to write anymore after writing at school all day, so her stories never get written down. Turn to page 4.

Page 2: Bonnie tells her story to an adult, but the “adult” turns out to be the SkiFree monster and it gobbles her up. THE END.

Page 4: Since Bonnie doesn’t like writing, she spends a lot of time thinking about her stories so she doesn’t forget them. This gives her a lot of practice rewording things until she likes the way they sound. She even goes around narrating everything she does in her head, saying “And then I got the toothpaste, and then I put it on the brush” to herself as she brushes her teeth. Occasionally other kids will catch her mouthing words to herself, and they think she is odd.

A: Bonnie’s parents become very concerned about her odd behavior, and sign her up to be tested for psychological problems. Turn to page 6.

B: Bonnie’s parents were also strange as children and thus do not notice anything unusual about her behavior. Turn to page 8.

Page 6: Bonnie is diagnosed with autism, and her parents are instructed to keep her on a tight set of schedules and routines. This leaves her little time for making up stories, and also causes the sun to explode and everybody dies. THE END.

Page 8: Bonnie does not have a lot of friends, but she likes to play by herself anyway, so this isn’t a big deal. She seems happy playing in her room alone, so her mom lets her do that as much as she wants. As she gets older, her stories get more complex, involving dozens of characters and complicated plots. She writes a story for 6th grade which prompts her teacher to tell her she should be a writer, and the other kids even ask her for copies of her story.

A: Bonnie is thrilled to be told she should be a writer, and decides to write lots and lots of stories and pass them out to all her friends to read. Turn to page 9.

B: Bonnie decides she must be really good at daydreaming and continues to do this all the time. She almost fails 6th grade because she refuses to write an important essay. Turn to page 11.

Page 9: Suddenly, ninjas. Thousands of them. You wouldn’t believe the carnage. THE END.

Page 11: Bonnie realizes that since she is good at tests, it doesn't really matter if her homework gets done, because she will still pull a C. She starts skipping whole assignments and even staying home from school a lot. But eventually she has to write essays, because her school decides essays are very, very important and should be written in every class, even band and gym. Fortunately, her teachers like her essays a lot, so much that they almost always give her 100s on them. People keep telling her she should be a writer when she grows up, but she really doesn’t like writing and is kind of offended by the idea that out of everything she does, her only special talent is being really good at homework. She would rather be outgoing and good at something flashy and interesting.

A: Bonnie meets a fairy who teaches her about how everyone is special in their own way, and being smart matters more than being popular. She decides writing is important and chooses to write more essays, both in and out of school. Turn to page 14.

B: Bonnie drops the fuck out of high school after one semester and proceeds to waste away her teen years reading Pokemon forums. Turn to page 16.

Page 14: The “fairy” was actually a hallucination brought on by a fever dream. Bonnie has died of dysentery. THE END

Page 16: Bonnie is not good at typing, but learns to do it quickly so that she can keep up with online chatrooms. Wanting to become popular at the Pokemon forums, she begins writing silly and barely coherent fanfiction to entertain others. As she gets more involved at these forums, she meets lots of interesting people with opinions she has never heard before. Some of these opinions piss her off, and she writes lengthy, organized posts responding to them. She occasionally notices these posts are the same length as the essays she used to write in school - sometimes even longer!

A: Bonnie realizes she likes writing essays after all! She decides to go back to school, because this will make her successful someday. Turn to page 17.

B: What? She’s not writing essays! She’s just talking to people! Piss off! Turn to page 18.

Page 17: Alligators bit off your face :( THE END

Page 18: Bonnie eventually becomes good friends with some of her Pokemon forum buddies. One of her best friends likes blogging on Xanga and Myspace, and convinces Bonnie to join those sites to read her posts. Bonnie thinks blogging is sort of stupid, but she likes the little gadget that says what music you’re currently listening to, so she joins and just starts posting memes. Eventually, she realizes blogging is an easy way to tell all her friends at once when something awesome or enraging happens, instead of telling the same story 20 different times. She’s also very opinionated and likes to rant, and sometimes people like her rants. She finds this to be a much more exciting kind of writing than she did in school, because she has a real audience giving real feedback. Over the years, she becomes completely addicted to blogging, because basically, she likes attention. THE END

Concern Trolls: A useful idea

2010-08-05T13:17:00.000-07:00

If the first rule of the internet is Do not feed the trolls, it follows that the second rule is Know thy trolls. Gotta know it's a troll to know not to feed it, right?

Usually trolls are easy to spot because they don't bother to hide their trolling. They're the loud, obnoxious assholes of the internet. They tend to get banned and blocked quickly. But there's another kind of troll that is more insidious, and sadly, not always recognized as a troll: the concern troll. I'm pretty familiar with these from queer, feminist, and fat acceptance discussions, but as unschooling is becoming more well-known, they're quickly cropping up there, too.

According to WiseGeek:

"Concern trolling is a form of Internet trolling in which someone enters a discussion with claims that he or she supports the view of the discussion, but has concerns. In fact, the concern troll is opposed to the view of the discussion, and he or she uses concerntrolling to sow doubt and dissent in the community of commenters or posters."

In other words, a concern troll does not want to understand your perspective. They just want to mock you and piss you off, but they're doing it passive-aggressively. So how do you tell them from people who are actually misunderstanding you and need clarification? A concern troll frequently:

- Has only just recently joined the site of the discussion, perhaps having joined specifically to post in the current thread. This is mostly applicable to forums and email lists, but concern trolling also happens on Facebook, blog comments, sometimes even Twitter.

- Persistently attributes ideas to you which you have not expressed, even after you have reworded your position multiple times.

- Claims to be a subscriber to your same philosophy, except for [insert idea which is incompatible with said philosophy]. For example, "radical unschoolers" who believe children must be controlled at all times.

- Relies very heavily on fallacies such as strawman, slippery slope, ad hominem, and so on.

- Invokes Godwin's law for maximum emotional impact, especially early in a discussion.

- Has no problem making ad hominem attacks (subtle or otherwise) which clearly apply to you, your family, or your friends, often while insisting that they think you are just lovely and they're only worried about those other people. When called on the fact that their attack applies to you, they continue to insist they did not mean you.

- When cornered, complains that we should all be entitled to our own opinions, after spending the entire discussion making it very clear that they do not feel you are entitled to yours.

- Leaves virtually the same comment on everything you post, even if your posts are not all on the same subject.

- Uses extreme worst-case-scenario examples in a persistent and insistent manner. This tactic is designed to convince you that your beliefs are "fair-weather" and that you'd drop them in a heartbeat when Shit Gets Real.

Now, not everyone who uses one or more of these unpleasant tactics is a concern troll. Some people are just bad at arguing. But when a discussion is going nowhere, draining your energy, and distracting you from things that are more important (including the original point you were trying to make - concern trolls are good at that), it's worth taking a step back and asking yourself: "Does this person actually care about my ideas?" A person who is worth engaging in a discussion, whether they ultimately agree or not, genuinely wants to understand where you are coming from. A concern troll does not. They are trying to undermine you. And you have no obligation to feed them! Go have fun. Let them feed somewhere else.

Chess Theory

2010-08-03T11:40:00.000-07:00

In chess, when one player is outmatched, the game is over.

-Mr. Spock

Life is not a game of chess.

I mean that in a couple of different senses. For one, much to the chagrin of our Vulcan friend up there, life is not as clean-cut and logical as a game of chess. Life is big and confusing and messy and unpredictable. In chess, the queen is the most valuable piece (save for the king), and you know to protect her. You can see all her enemies coming a mile away, and you have plenty of time to prepare. In life, a rook may sneak right up behind your back, and you often have no idea which piece was the queen until it's already gone.

In chess, everyone starts with identical pieces with which to fight their battle. Not so in life. In life, all the pieces are thrown into a bag and spilled out in front of you at random, so that you may end up with any mix of pieces. Some people have seven queens. Others have nothing but pawns. A certain few are born without a king; their game is over before it started.

But the most important way that chess differs from life is that life is in color. Chess has only black and white. It is clear who your enemies are; they are the ones Not Like You. Your goal is to destroy them. In life, you've got all the colors known to Crayola running around. I like to think I am a nice rich shade of purple, maybe Violet Red. When I look around the world, I may see other shades of purple and try to join with them, but very few will be Violet Red. And if I want to look for an enemy, what then? I never did like Cornflower and Yellow-Green, but if I look at them closely I'll realize we're both made of blue. And anyway, the goal of coloring was never to defeat the other colors, but to combine with them and make something nice.

But I may be getting too deep into the world of metaphor. What I'm trying to get at here is that a lot of people, using whatever measuring stick is most relevant to them, try to divide life up as if it were a chess game. They choose a team, choose an Other to oppose, and try to outmatch them. Sometimes it really is white vs. black. Sometimes it's gay/straight, old/young, liberal/conservative, traditional/radical, vegans/omnivores, lactivists/bottle-feeders, unschoolers/"Muggles"*, or whatever else you can think of. And then it becomes a zero-sum game. In extreme cases, it can slip into wild statements about wishing the other group would stop existing. Because remember what Spock said about chess: "When one player is outmatched, the game is over." The only way to stop the Others from outmatching you is to outmatch them first, to end the game. A world where I cannot "win" without defeating someone else is not the kind of world I want to live in.

I firmly believe that life-as-chess is the mindset that leads to all of the most heinous, reprehensible acts in the world, whether on as large a scale as the Holocaust or as small a scale as kids beating each other up over small-town football rivalries. But the life-as-chess mindset requires tunnel vision. It requires imagining life as purely logical, instead of wonderful and tangled and messy. It requires pulling only the black and white crayons out of the box and dumping all the others on the floor as if they simply didn't exist. It requires you to behave as if everyone had all the same pieces, and ignore the people who don't. If your view of the world includes only Us and Them, you're missing all the people who fall outside of that dichotomy. If your answer to all the world's problems fits on a bumper sticker, you're not seeing the whole picture.

I like chess, but if I have my choice of all the games in the whole wide world, I'd much rather play Beatles Rock Band. Let's get some harmonies going in here.

*I have to admit, I can't resist the cuteness of the "Muggle" metaphor. But I like it precisely because it is only the evil wizards who oppose the Muggles; the good guys respect the Muggles' rights, even if they cannot share their worldview.

Gay test

2010-07-31T13:20:00.000-07:00

Consider everything that's going on in this video... and I'm looking at the girl. Ahem.

Cool song though!

Edit: removed video because it was fuckin' up my blog layout. Video here.

How religion almost ruined it

2010-07-30T15:42:00.000-07:00

A few days ago I wrote about how cool my mom was. In that post, I hinted that she hadn't always been so lovely - didn't like black people or Jews until I befriended black and Jewish kids, didn't like gay people until her own daughter was queer, etc. While the fact that she ultimately turned completely around in her views, and the fact that she seemed to do it almost entirely for my sake, is amazing, it would've obviously been a lot better if she hadn't held those not-so-nice views in the first place. I had to grow up hearing them. I had to consciously choose different values from hers in order to feel like a good person.

So here was the icky side to my otherwise sweet mom: She was very Southern, in all the more unpleasant ways, and used the kinds of words very old-fashioned Southerners use, the kind which make liberals like me, who have no problem using "fuck" every five seconds, flinch. She was Southern Baptist, and for those who don't know Southern Baptists, that's one of your more, shall we say, brimstone-oriented churches. I don't remember learning anything in church about how to be kind or how to be a good person. All I remember was the word "saved". Get saved, or go to Hell. Get your friends saved too, or else they go to Hell, and it's all your fault. Get random strangers on the street saved. I was skeptical of this idea from the start, but my mom embraced it. She believed anyone who failed to be "saved" was going to Hell, and that meant they were evil. Now, I'm not against belief in a higher power, by any stretch. I'm not even against adhering to a specific religion for yourself. But I am against such belief being used to shame and control others, and that was the way it was used where I grew up.

She made some effort to try and force me to believe this way, but I resisted every time. I wouldn't read my Bible. Too hard to understand, was my excuse, although I was reading encyclopedias by that age. I argued with her about whether Jews would go to Hell if they were God's chosen people, because that didn't make any sense. And what about people way over in, I dunno, China, who maybe never heard of Jesus at all. They'd go to Hell? Really? Why?

My mom's successes in raising me came from the fact that when I asserted my own ideas, she listened. She took them seriously and discussed them, even when she didn't agree. She did not simply tell me I better do what the Bible says. She liked the fact that I was thinking about it. And when I said something that seemed a bit more, well... kindhearted than what we were learning at church, she tended to recognize that, and sometimes would decide she agreed with me.

Ah, but her failures... Every single one of my mom's failures as a parent came from the times she tried to force her values on me. The time she stole my Dungeons and Dragons manual and hid it because she thought it would somehow get me involved in the Occult, thus ensuring I would forever be secretive about what I was reading. The time I tried to convert to Wicca and she screamed at me that it was "devil-worship", thus ensuring that I would never share any of my religious thoughts or feelings with her ever again. The times she decided the music I was listening to wasn't "Christian" enough and told me to stop - this never lasted more than a few hours, but it ensured I would never again freely share with her the music that I liked.

This paints a pretty different picture from the happy-unschooly post I wrote the other day, huh? The fact is, my family was both. My mom was forever torn between a set of values that said her daughter should be free to make her own choices, and a set of values that said there is some higher power we all must obey, and that that higher power is not very patient or nice. I'd say 90% of the time, that first set of values won. But the second set was bigger and scarier, with a lot more institutional muscle behind it, and so even her kindest, most patient moments were tainted with a sense of "What if I'm sending her on the path to Hell?" It must've been really hard for her.

I see lots of people who want to call themselves unschoolers, even radical unschoolers, but they've got this other set of values hanging over them. Maybe religion, maybe the environment, maybe hardcore feminism, whatever, but it's a set of values that does to them exactly what my mom's religion did to her: It tinges their choices with fear and guilt. I am here to say, from experience, that if you raise your kids this way, it will affect your kids. There's a price to putting your own set of values above what your kids need.

The price you should be worried about isn't that somebody on Always Learning will say "That's not unschooling". There are no unschooling police. Nobody can stop you from calling yourself that. The price you should be worried about is that your kids will stop feeling they can be honest with you. They'll stop sharing their favorite music and books and games with you, they'll stop letting you meet their friends. They won't tell you they'd like to try Wicca or they have a crush on someone of the same sex. They will still DO all of those things, mind you, or at least they'll want to. But when they want someone to confide in about it all, it won't be you. You'll have lost that forever, and more importantly, your kid will have lost having a safe place to turn when they need someone.

That's what you need to be worried about.

Conspicuous Consumption

2010-07-29T11:43:00.000-07:00

Edit: It has occurred to me, upon rereading this post, that it potentially warrants a trigger warning for people with compulsive hoarding tendencies. As far as I *know*, no one I know has this problem, but people keep their issues to themselves, and blogs get around. So if this applies to you, consider this your trigger warning.

It seems that one of the more recent concerns that is driving people away from whole-life unschooling is the notion that unschoolers are wasteful, privileged, the Ur example of Western overconsumption. That we just buy, buy, buy, we waste gas, our kids are greedy and obsessed with stuff. That we are the people ruining the Earth.

With all due respect, this is a load of hot bullshit. I'll resist the urge to respond by snorting and saying "Have you met any unschoolers?" I will also (mostly) spare you my rant on how I believe the Earth is being destroyed by broad institutional and societal problems that will continue to destroy the Earth until they are changed, and that it is not fair to hold children responsible for society's fuck-ups. Instead, I'm going to try to clarify some things about how your average unschooling family lives.

First, let's talk gas. Consider that in the average American household, both parents work full-time outside the home, with an average total daily commute of 45 minutes. At 60 miles per hour, that's 45 miles a day = 1.8 gallons of gas in an average 25mpg car = $5.40 at 3.00/gal. x 5 days a week = 225 miles, 9 gallons of gas, $27 per week per working parent. These are conservative estimates; some people have less fuel-efficient cars, a much longer or slower commute, etc.

Your average unschooling family, if there can be such a thing, has one parent or caregiver working outside the home while the other is either a stay-at-home parent (or grandparent, or what have you), works from home, or works only a couple days a week outside the home. Supposing the mostly-home parent does not commute at all, that is a savings of 225 miles of driving per week over the average American family. Even when the "home" parent drives kids to activities, they have the flexibility to plan those activities so they don't require 225 miles of driving a week.

Does that put the occasional, few-times-a-year road trip into perspective?

But of course, having only a one- or one-and-a-half-income household comes with a price. How can unschoolers afford to give their kids all the things they want without going into huge debt or going broke? Two answers:

1) Unschoolers don't give their kids everything they want. Even higher-income unschoolers can't do that. I wanted to go over the rainbow, I wanted to live in the Mushroom Kingdom, I wanted to time-travel back to the 80s so I could be a teenager then instead of the 90s. Couldn't happen. I'm not trying to be difficult, but really, unschooling doesn't mean you can rope the moon or bend space-time, and kids understand that. If you explain money to them, they will understand that too.

2) When unschoolers do give their kids what they want, they are really creative about it. I've never seen any group of people that makes better use of thrift stores, yard sales, flea markets, Freecycle, Craigslist, eBay, bartering, etc. than unschoolers. With all the perfectly good used kids' stuff floating around in the world, telling your kids they cannot have something because you are anti-consumerist is a poor excuse. Getting stuff secondhand is saving it from the landfill. I know it goes against every "pay for every moment of joy with three times as much guilt" moral we are taught in this culture, but really, you can get stuff and help the Earth at the same time. Unschoolers keep a LOT of stuff out of the landfills, and their kids grow up knowing there is more than enough stuff in the world for everybody - and that there are better things to do when you don't want something anymore than toss it in the garbage.

"But kids in Africa don't have Barbies..."

First off, Africa is an entire continent made up of dozens of countries, each with its own economy and culture, and yes some of those economies and cultures do include Barbies. I think Africans as a whole are probably tired of being used as every white Westerner's example of the saddest most destitute people on Earth. Second, the kids you are talking about, the ones you see in Christian Children's Fund commercials with flies crawling on their eyes, also do not have medical care. They do not have reliable shelter, good food, good shoes, access to information, and plenty of other things any parent is going to make damn sure their kids have if they can. "Not everyone has this" is not a good enough reason to withhold something from a child. Third, I firmly believe the best way to make a child truly appreciate what they have is to foster a mindset of abundance in that child. The greediest people in the world are those who have been taught that there is not enough wealth to go around. These are the people who have billions of dollars, yet feel threatened by mothers getting $100 in food stamps to feed their children. Teaching kids that there is plenty for everybody will make them much more likely to feel a sense of injustice when they see people who have nothing.

I don't have any sort of hard concrete poll numbers to back this up, but I can say from experience that unschoolers in general are much more Earth-friendly than your average mainstream family, and that includes unschooling families who do not consciously practice "green living". There are lots and lots of unschoolers who grow their own organic gardens, raise their own chickens, have compost heaps, ride bikes, run their own businesses rather than working for megacorporations, buy local, buy used, handmake stuff, cook from scratch, and so on. I know lots of unschoolers and lots of not-unschoolers, and I personally see much, much higher rates of these activities among unschoolers. In addition, I don't know one single unschooler - and by this I mean the parents *and* the kids and teens! - who is not socially conscious in some way. Some are moreso than others, but in general the unschoolers I have met are very awake and interested in what is going on in the world. They have strong opinions and values and beliefs. They don't all agree on those opinions, but they've all thought carefully about what they believe. They're not greedy, they're not selfish, they do not blindly follow what society tells them to do. I can't prove any of this stuff with statistics. All I can do is invite you to really spend some time around lots of unschoolers and get to know us before you judge the way we live. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.

...but she was THAT mom?

2010-07-28T11:06:00.000-07:00

Wow! I have been totally floored by the response to my last post, about my mom. I knew she was That Mom, but I didn't know she was that mom. The kind of mom people want to be like. The kind of mom whose everyday actions make people cry. Because the sad part is, nobody but me ever appreciated my mom while she was alive. She had some mental and cognitive problems that meant she mostly just stayed home all the time, and she was very awkward socially. I was the only person who got to see her shine. Me and my friends. I don't think I ever had a friend over who didn't tell me my mom was awesome. But other adults... well they kinda just thought she was dumb. So hearing so many people say they wish they had my mom, or they wish they could be like my mom, has healed something in me. It's wonderful.

It almost seems like my mom was like Vincent van Gogh, and no one appreciated her work until she was gone. But if I say that, then I'll be calling myself Starry Night, and that's not what I mean at all. I just wish she could've been here to hear people say how cool she was. (She wouldn't have believed a word of it though. She would've just shrugged and said "I'll do anything for my daughter.")

The embarrassing thing though is that I sort of took her for granted. Not in the sense that I didn't appreciate all she did for me, because I did. I just didn't see it as unusual. Having a mom who loved to play Barbies and bake cakes and let me do pretty much whatever I wanted was just normal to me. When I got older and realized other kids got grounded for stupid things, or weren't allowed to do totally harmless things I was allowed to do, I thought THAT was weird. When I tried to get other kids to play in the dirt with me at recess, sometimes they'd say "I'm not allowed to get dirty", and I'd look at them like they had three heads. I was always like, "Don't you have a washing machine? That's what they're FOR!" I couldn't conceive of the idea of clean clothes being more important than having fun. (I realize now that they were probably going somewhere after school, but still. Birds fly, mosquitoes buzz in people's ears, kids get dirty. It ain't rocket science.)

So anyway, everything I wrote in that post just seemed normal to me. I keep rereading it, trying to see where the magic is that makes even unschooling parents see it as special, but I don't. It all seems like the same stuff you guys do! Maybe it just looks different through a kid's eyes. Maybe your kids will take your parenting for granted, too - in a good way. In the "this is just how you should treat kids" way. Hopefully the number of kids who grow up that way will keep growing and someday eclipse the number of kids who grow up saying things like "My dad always beat the snot out of me and I turned out okay." I always feel like a judgemental asshole when I say that conventional parenting, all of it, seems like child abuse to me, but well... if you treated your spouse that way...

I guess I just wanted to say that I think all you unschooling parents are awesome, and if your kids ever seem to take what you do for granted, take heart - it means they see adults treating kids well as no big deal, just the normal state of things. And that's a very good thing.

She Was That Mom

2010-07-27T10:22:00.000-07:00

Inspired by Ronnie's "I Am That Mom/Dad" blog carnival. I am not that mom, yet, but my mom was.

She was THAT mom, whose kid went around looking "like Gravel Gertie" because she couldn't bear to force a brush through a screaming, crying tender-headed kid's hair.

She was that mom who gave up trying to spank her kid because the kid always ran away and it ended in a giggling game of tag every time.

She was that mom who "wasted" her food stamps on soda and ice cream sandwiches, or sometimes Gushers, or Great Bluedini Kool-Aid, or whatever new snack her kid wanted to try that week.

She was that mom who could barely pay the bills, yet bought her teenager an electric guitar and never once complained that said teenager never learned to play. She was that mom who bought her kid an acoustic guitar, too, even though she still hadn't learned the electric one.

She was that mom who let her kid stay home from school everytime the kid had anxiety or a 'tummyache' because she hated school, too, and she knew how rough it could be. She was that mom who called up the school and told them her daughter would not be coming back, when they denied her daughter a homebound teacher while she was sick with mono.

She was that mom whose kid was GOING to have a Nintendo 64 no matter how sold out they were, or how broke she was, because it meant the world to her kid. She was that mom who picked her kid up early from school to go get one, because her kid's happiness was more important than the last 30 minutes of fifth-grade English.

She was that mom whose house was always a wreck because there were Barbies all over the den, books all over the living room, dressup clothes all over the bedroom and Play-Doh all over the kitchen table. She was that mom whose bathroom wall was fingerpainted with palm trees and beach balls because she wanted the bathtub to be "Hawaii".

She was that mom whose only rule was "No running in the house while there's a record playing or a cake in the oven". That mom who let her daughter paint her room neon green, and then deep burgundy, and then bright orange, without worrying about the future saleability of the house. That mom who let her daughter wear black lipstick and dye her hair purple and chat on the internet until 4 AM.

She was that mom who began life as a racist homophobic anti-Semite, but never turned away her kid's black and Jewish and queer friends. She was that mom who loved them all, in the end. She was that mom who couldn't understand when her daughter's friend tried to explain why he liked to wear women's clothes, but smiled anyway and gave him some of her extra purses.

She was that mom who let her daughter's boyfriend move in and live in her house for a year, even though he never paid rent or helped around the house, because he had nowhere else to go.

She was that mom who gave up every religious and political conviction she'd held for her entire life on the day her daughter stood in the kitchen and told her she might be a lesbian. She was that mom who gave her daughter a big hug and said "And you could still get married and have kids, even! Just wait until your aunt dies first", and turned tears into laughter.

She was that mom whose final conscious act was to fight like hell to squeeze her daughter's hand, even when she could barely move her eyes, because she wasn't going to die without trying, one more time, to comfort her kid.

I love you, Mama.

Cupcake

2010-07-23T18:30:00.000-07:00

Today, I ate a cupcake.

I know, you're thinking "Great big deal", right? True, the eating of cupcakes is not, in itself, usually a noteworthy event, though cupcakes are sometimes present at noteworthy events. In this case, the cupcake itself had no special significance, except that it triggered a memory.

Cupcakes, in my childhood, were a rarity. My own mother baked cakes frequently. I was always involved in the baking and frosting of these cakes, always got to lick the spoon afterward, and my access to the cake itself was never restricted. But cupcakes were a special thing, something I usually got at school or at other people's houses. Thus, I never encountered cupcakes until I was about six, and unfortunately, my earliest cupcake-memory is not a happy one.

For being only six, I remember it pretty clearly. I was in kindergarten, and it was some kid's birthday, which was always a happy occasion because it meant the afternoon could be devoted to a little party if the kid's parents felt like dropping by. In this case, they had brought cupcakes, more than enough for everyone. The condition for receiving cupcakes, as per my teacher's requirements, was that we had to finish our after-lunch work, in this case coloring a picture of McGruff (you know, "Take a Bite Out of Crime", that McGruff) teaching us about fire safety. For most kids, this was an easy task, but I had a pure, unadulterated hatred for coloring. I would frequently get back papers on which I had gotten all the answers right but lost points for refusing to color an irrelevant drawing of a puppy, or whatever, at the top of, say, a math sheet. Even being a small child, I knew this was unfair bullshit. So I was generally determined to color as little as possible, and that McGruff thing was no exception. I knew the fire safety rules. Why couldn't I just answer questions about those? Why did I have to color?

Well, on that cupcake day, I wasn't coloring. I was just going to sit there, because in a few minutes we were going to go sit on the sidewalk and eat cupcakes and celebrate that kid's birthday, and McGruff wasn't going to matter anymore. Except when it came time for the party, and I tried to join my classmates in filing outside, my teacher stopped me. She told me in a stern and unsympathetic tone that I must finish my coloring sheet or I was not going anywhere.

Though I wanted to cry, I didn't. This teacher had broken me of crying on the first day of school, when she threatened me - a child who had just walked in the door and had not previously been away from my mother longer than an hour - by saying she would send me to the principal's office if I didn't stop crying, and that I would be in Big Trouble. I had learned that school was a scary, unsafe and mean place, and I learned that crying was only an annoying weakness in my teacher's eyes. So I rarely cried in kindergarten, even though I frequently had reason to.

I don't know how long I sat there staring at McGruff and wondering why I didn't deserve to have a cupcake. It was probably only about 15 minutes, but to me, it felt like hours. I still wasn't coloring. I was too upset to color, and anyway why should I give in to someone who hated me so much? I could hear the other kids outside, laughing happily and saying that the cupcakes had silver "BB's" on them. Silver BB's were my favorite kind of sprinkles. The kid's mother took pity on me, and told me gently that when I finished coloring I would be welcome to join the other kids.

"Yeah," said my teacher with a sarcastic snort. "When and if."

I was not too young to understand the meaning of that if. "You don't know this kid," my teacher was implying. "We'll be lucky if she gets her shit together before they invent flying cars." I knew, then and there, that I was my teacher's least favorite student. I knew that the person who was solely responsible for my care for six hours a day, during which I had no access to my own mother, thought I was too stupid to color a goddamn picture.

Do you know how fucked up it is to do that to a six-year-old?

Let me be clear. It is not fucked up because six-year-olds are somehow entitled to free cupcakes. It is not fucked up because coloring a picture is beyond the grasp of your average six-year-old. Neither of those things are true, I will grant you that. No, it is fucked up because six-year-olds are just beginning to form their concept of what kind of place this world is. It is fucked up because six-year-olds have just reached the stage of development where they are noticing differences between themselves and other people. And you are teaching them that their willingness to color a picture of an anthropomorphic dog in a trenchcoat determines whether or not they are as worthy and deserving of enjoyable experiences, even of inclusion in important cultural rituals (in this case, a birthday), as other children their age. I did not learn any lessons about the value of hard work or following directions. Instead, I came out of this experience believing I was less-than, stupid, an outcast, a burden, and unwanted by one of the main people I had to trust to help me meet my basic needs. I believed that I was not as good, on some fundamental level, as the other children.

At the age of six. Six. Long before I was old enough to do anything but accept my inferiority as objective truth. Because I didn't like to color.

If this were just my whiny story about how my childhood sucked, I wouldn't bother telling it. But this sort of thing is done to children - by teachers, and also by parents, the people who are supposed to make a child feel loved unconditionally - every single day. And in those moments, what the caregivers are communicating to children is that their willingness to comply, to obey, to complete a task which serves no relevant purpose in the child's life, is more important than whether the child feels loved, safe, or worthy. It communicates that the child's access to such things as food, drink, exercise, and affection - essential human needs* - are contingent upon the child's performance. When such treatment is given to a circus animal, it is investigated by the ASPCA. When it is given to children, it is called education or discipline. The taskmasters are praised for a job well done, and given cooing sympathy - the kind they refuse to provide to their own small children - from other parents if the child proves difficult to train.

*That* is fucked up.

*I am not suggesting, of course, that cupcakes are an essential human need. But they do fall under the category of food, which a child understands to be an essential need. Indeed, it is a longstanding tactic of parents to deny their children real, life-sustaining food as a punishment - e.g., "going to bed without dinner."

A Day in the Life (of a "Humorless Feminist")

2010-07-22T10:48:00.000-07:00

This was my day on Monday. At first I wrote it down because I was in a silly mood and felt like writing about how I was spending my day swiveling in an office chair eating cupcakes. At some point during the day I realized there was some irony here, about feminists always being accused of being "too serious", "too angry", "humorless" etc. (And yes, I have personally been accused of having no sense of humor because I don't find racist/sexist/homophobic humor funny. Because I'm a very serious person who hates to laugh, you see. I am holding back laughter even now!) So let's have a look at my very angry, humorless day, shall we?

Me.

1pm - Wake up in a stupor caused by spending the entire day before doing housework and grocery shopping and making an emergency run to Walmart which involved standing in line for 30 minutes next to a lady who kept abusively yelling at her children and all I was trying to buy was deodorant and buttermilk but they didn't have a 20 items or less checkout open for some reason, and then I came back and baked cupcakes, and really the only time I sat down all day was when I was too exhausted to do anything so I watched some show about cougars. In the sexual sense.

1:13pm - Obtain leftover pork chop. Spend two hours watching Ivan Coyote videos on Youtube and using Twitter to harass Sarah Palin and post inane things about Blue's Clues.

3:38pm - Decide that I somehow still didn't get enough sleep. Go lay down. Decide sleep is for suckers. Read Dave Barry Turns 50 instead.

4:00pm - My friend Sabrina, who I am staying with, reminds me that tonight is acting class at the library and asks if I want to go. I tell her "no" through my door in a tone that sounds really rude but is actually mostly tired and disoriented.

4:50pm - I am still reading and I keep seeing statements in which Dave Barry is describing the 50s but could just as easily be describing the 80s. Sabrina is leaving for class so I get back on the computer and decide to write a bunch of those quotes down and compare them with my own childhood.

5:00pm - I am tired of Dave Barry so I mindlessly refresh Facebook for half an hour instead.

5:30pm - I wander into the kitchen for reasons I am not sure of until I get there and stare into space for five minutes. I decide I want coffee. There are forgotten packets of hazelnut instant coffee in the cabinet. Sabrina's mom wanders into the kitchen half-asleep (she works nights) and starts asking me if I need anything and I say no and she's like "Well if you need it let us know and we may not have it but maybe we'll get it" and I'm like "kay" but what I'm thinking is "I hope she leaves the room fast because I don't want her to know I am drinking her hazelnut coffee even though I've never seen her drink any and it expired in May and I doubt she'd care anyway." Because I am weirdly paranoid about other people's food.

5:40pm - Look at Facebook.

5:45pm - Look at Twitter.

5:50pm - Look at Facebook.

5:55pm - Look at Twitter.

6:00pm - Go on archive binge at Hyperbole and a Half.

6:24pm - Discover that laying way back in the computer chair with my legs on the couch and swiveling the chair is really fun because the chair moves fast because only half of my body weight is actually on the chair.

6:26pm - Remember that Sabrina is going to be home any minute and it'll be her turn on the computer and I am wasting the last bit of my turn swiveling the chair back and forth. Decide to write about how inane my day has been.

6:40pm - Writing this reminded me that I also watched another sex show where they said a guy had "sexual anorexia" and I wanted to Google that and also see what an asexual friend had to say about it because I personally felt equating the desire not to have sex with the desire to starve oneself was pretty rude. Wikipedia says this:

"In the view of some practitioners, corroborating the seminal work of Patrick Carnes, there are people who appear to have a sexual addiction which is expressed through a variety of behaviors such as the compulsive use of strip clubs, prostitutes, cyberporn sites, etc. but more accurately fit the definition of sexual anorexic in that they seem to lack the ability to have a relationship of a sexual nature beyond a paid-for or anonymous experience. The person does not have an aversion to sex but to intimacy."

Sounds pretty different from asexuality, although I still don't get the comparison to anorexia. Find an interesting article on Jezebel that is critical of the idea but never mentions asexuality. End up wanting to bang head on desk due to following comment:

"Query: When are most men going to realize that if they aren't getting any from their sig O it may be more about what they're NOT doing before they even get to the bedroom? More than what she's not doing FOR him when they are there. Do the dishes. The laundry, the bathroom floor - an exhausted partner really doesn't care if you get off, dude. In my experience, sharing the load almost immediately creates a sense of intimacy in women. "

Because women don't actually like sex, you see. It's just how they repay their husbands for a job well done, in order to train them! If we are ever turned on, it is only by your ability to do laundry! Also the article mentions "people of both genders" which could be forgiven on a mainstream site but on a feminist site there is no excuse really. Remember that this kind of thing is why I don't read Jezebel very often [I could rant on why these things bother me but it is far beyond the scope of a silly "what I did today" post]. Anyway Sabrina is home so I give the computer to her.

6:55 - Ask Sabrina how her class went. Find out they spent most of the time composing a poem that featured the word "diarrhea."

7:00 - Go to take a bath. See empty shampoo bottle in trash and realize I get to pick the next shampoo. Be irrationally happy about this. Almost choose Suave Ocean Breeze shampoo because apparently it tastes like lawn chemicals and I want to know how it smells. Choose other shampoo instead because it is moisturizing and I have terrible hair. Wonder why there is "clarifying" shampoo since that shit turns my hair into straw despite the fact that I am white, which means my hair becomes oily every few days, whereas everyone else here is black, which means their hair only becomes oily if it is 1982. Decide Sabrina's family probably knows their own hair care needs better than I do.

7:03 - Read Dave Barry Turns 50 in the tub. Be unable to get the phrase "hot diggety dog ziggety boom" out of my head. Get dressed (yes, at 7pm) and put on my new Old Spice deodorant because I refuse to let socially-constructed gender roles tell my armpits what to smell like. Smell like a very clean man. Be irrationally happy about this.

7:30 - Write in my journal with a brand new glittery orange pencil that reminds me of juice. Be irrationally happy about this. Decide I need juice. Wonder if it would taste good if I mixed orange juice with orange Fanta. It tastes okay. Add milk and vanilla to make something approaching an Orange Julius.

7:47 - Realize it is almost time for Star Trek TNG to come on. Turn on BBC America. Be bored by people on BBC World News talking about champagne. When TNG finally comes on, watch for 30 seconds and then be too antsy from drinking coffee and an orange Julius within two hours of each other to sit still. Offer to help Sabrina cook dinner.

8:15 - Cook while listening to Disney CD and singing along obnoxiously. While waiting for rice to cook, play word association game that ends up involving Harry Potter, Star Trek, Dr. Seuss, Pokemon, and harlequin ichthyosis.

9:50 - Eat dinner while watching that one episode of The Simpsons where Homer gets drunk and thinks he sees an alien and Leonard Nimoy inexplicably shows up and sings "Good Morning Starshine" with Mr. Burns yes this happened.

10:15 - Sabrina goes to take her turn on the computer. I am antsy. Play DDR. Fail a bunch because it is Max 2 and I only have Supernova and I have no practice on these songs.

11:00 - Watch an episode of Dr. G where a kid dies and they do the whole autopsy and can't figure out why he died and then they get the tox report back and it turns out he was supposed to be on methylphenidate, which is the generic for Ritalin, but instead the pharmacy accidentally gave him methadone, and he was taking it for a whole month and no one figured out "hey, this kid is acting like he is doped up on methadone", so it built up in his system until his heart stopped. Holy shit.

Midnight - Get on the computer and start talking to Roni about whether Sherlock Holmes was autistic and how House/Wilson is totally Holmes/Watson right down to the names and the fangirl slash, and how it annoys me when people attribute everything their children do to the fact that "that is just how girls/boys are", and which feminist blogs we like, and the difference between irreverant and offensive humor, and how the writers of the Venture Bros. are full of shit when they say they "don't know how to write women" because all the women on the show are badass, and why every time a character on TV gets a sex change they "switch back" after awhile, and how guys Roni plays Warcraft with are sexist and she should really just make fun of them because having an earnest feminist discussion with douchebags on Warcraft isn't gonna do anything. (So I guess this is the "humorless feminist" part of my day, except for the part where we spent a lot of it talking about an Adult Swim cartoon that we love, and the part where we made a bunch of jokes even while having serious discussions, and most of those jokes included a lot of swearing, and the part where we began the conversation by calling each other "barfbrain" and "trucknuts.")

2:30am - Roni signs off so I watch a bunch of Kylie Minogue videos, eat a cupcake, and discover that searching Twitter to see things people have said to Sarah Palin is very entertaining. Around 3am I am finally too tired to internet any longer and stagger back to my room to read actual books until I fall asleep.

So you can see that I am a very serious person who only does and says very serious things. Often while wearing a monocle.

Autism

2010-07-20T10:29:00.000-07:00

Over the past several weeks, I've been trying to do some healing. Not just from my mother's death, but also from the trauma of spending 10 years in schools where it was not possible to be open about any aspect of who I am, from big stuff like my sexual orientation and religious views, to small stuff like what bands I liked or what clothes I really wanted to wear. I grew up as a turtle, learning to hide in a shell of fake normality, only coming out in the safety of my own room. To the outside world, nothing about me was ever right. (To any who had a fine time in public schools and doubt that it was as traumatic as I claim, I can only say that you were lucky to be less strange than I was, and to go to better or at least more liberal schools than I did.) The only way to heal from the desperate need to hide, so far as I can tell, is to refuse to hide any longer. So I need to dust off the aspects of myself that I've shoved back into dark corners for so long, and bring them out into the light. My autism is only one of those things, but since it is the most difficult to keep hiding, I figure it's a good place to start.

But You Don't Seem Disabled

First off, I don't consider myself "disabled" (as many autistic people don't), although in some situations my specific autistic traits can feel disabling. I am sometimes perceived as being "off", especially if I am spaced out or rocking or something, which can be mistaken by strangers as signs of mental retardation, mental illness, or just being a ditz. Mostly, I just see autism as a set of needs I have to think about, just as anyone does. My particular set just happens to have a name. It doesn't stop me from doing anything I want to do. I just sometimes have to go about things a different way, or think them out a little more carefully than most people would. That can be frustrating, and it can be extremely frustrating to have people assume I am unintelligent or needing of pity before I ever say a word to them. Ultimately, most of the problems my autism causes are not a direct result of who I am, but are instead a result of not being who society says I should be. I believe that when large swaths of people are excluded from fitting into society because of who they naturally are, it is society that needs to change, not them.

Do You Mean You Have Asperger's?

Of the various "disorders" the autism spectrum is broken down into, the description of Asperger's fits me the best, yes. But lately I prefer to refer to myself as "autistic", for a few reasons. One is that, while I am certain I am on the spectrum somewhere, I've never been formally diagnosed as having a particular disorder, so for me simply saying I am autistic or on the spectrum feels more honest. Another reason is that I grew up always seeing myself as "a bit autistic", because that was the best way I knew to describe myself. I didn't learn about Asperger's until my late teens, at which point a LOT of my life began to make more sense. I tend to squirm away from the word Asperger's lately, because there are so many misconceptions about what it is. The biggest reason, though, is because when I talk about autism, I'm not talking about something I "have." I'm talking about something I am. Autism is not something that can or should be removed from me any more than my queerness or my sense of humor or my heritage. Without it, I would be someone else. "People-first" language has its place - my mother, for example, did not like her disabilities to be tied to her identity, and those who feel this way should be respected - but there are some communities, notably the autistic community and the Deaf community, who embrace what society calls a disability as an integral part of who they are. We should be respected, too.

Oh, You're One of Those

Yes, I am one of those "internet-diagnosed Asperger's" people. The thing people need to understand is that, while Asperger syndrome was first described in 1944, the papers were never translated into English until 1991, and it was not included in the DSM-IV until 1994. Thus, people of my generation, especially girls, were very unlikely to be diagnosed. Even back in 2002-2003, when I was actively pursuing a diagnosis, Asperger's was very little-known, and I found myself explaining it to counselors who'd never heard of it before. The best I could get was "It does sound like you, but I'd have to do more research." So please, do have some sympathy for people who self-educated and self-identify. A few unscrupulous people have co-opted the label for themselves to seek attention or make excuses for bad behavior, but they are a minority and should not be used to gauge us all. Most of us are simply seeking the vocabulary to name something we knew or suspected to be true all along.

I Don't Believe In That/It's Just a Label

I get where you're coming from with this. As I've said, I believe something is only a disorder when it causes distress, and for many (but not all) people, Asperger's/high-functioning autism only causes distress because society is not currently set up to accomodate a wide range of personalities and ways of being. However. The plain fact is that, with the way society is currently set up, a large group of people find that the way their nervous systems function leaves them struggling to fit in, struggling to find basic things they need such as employment, housing, friendship, love, and safety. To deny that such a struggle exists is to invisibilize these people and make it impossible for them (us) to receive any accomodation, assistance, sympathy, respect, or understanding. Without the vocabulary to name ourselves and our struggle - which is a positive and important use of labels - we cannot find each other, cannot advocate for ourselves, and cannot explain how and why we are different, why we can't help it, and why it is not up to us to change ourselves. So please, embrace neurodiversity. Accept us as part of the natural continuum of human experience. But recognize that in order to get all of the world to see us that way, we need a flag to wave.

Oh, You Poor Thing, I'm So Sorry

I'll let Jim Sinclair field this one.

What Can I Do?

I don't need pity, but there are things you can do to make life easier for me and for other autistic people you may know. In my case, the things you can do are:

Understand that I have an upper threshold on how much socializing/background noise/stress I can handle, that this threshold is lower than it is for the average person, and that once it is breached, I must devote all of my attention to taking care of myself and am no longer capable of considering your needs.

Understand that in choosing to socialize with you in the first place, I am giving you one or more of my spoons (because by socializing, especially face-to-face, I risk overtaxing myself). Recognize that being given a spoon is a special gift and a sign that I do care very much about you, even if I sometimes have difficulty perceiving or responding to your exact needs.

Learn to recognize the signs that I am becoming overtaxed, such as rocking, staring into space, looking very uncomfortable for no apparent reason, or appearing to ignore you. Recognize that, while I am ultimately responsible for taking care of my own needs, I require some personal space, time, and freedom in order to do that. Allowing me those things will make things more pleasant for everyone, I promise.

Realize that, while my social skills have improved greatly since I realized I was autistic, good social skills are something I have to actively work at. This does not mean you should let me get away with intentionally treating you badly, but do realize that when I say something that sounds rude or awkward, I often have no idea that it does. If I dislike or am angry with someone, I tend not to be subtle about it, so if my signals are unclear it's pretty safe to assume I am doing the best I can to be friendly and nice.

Realize that "tough love" can feel detrimental or abusive to an autistic person. We simply don't respond well to that kind of treatment, for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that we tend to interpret things quite literally and cannot extrapolate loving intentions from apparently unloving behavior. Even if we *can* read your good intentions, you are probably just going to make us nervous and afraid of you.

To paraphrase Pat Parker, the first thing you do is to forget that I am autistic. Second, you must never forget that I am autistic. What this means is that I want to be perceived as a regular person with real and valid thoughts and feelings, just like anybody else, and I do not wish to be defined by a single aspect of who I am. But autism is also inseparable from me, it influences what I do, and if you wish to understand me, you need to be aware of it.

Find out why so many autistic people feel that people such as Jenny McCarthy, and organizations such as Cure Autism Now and Autism Speaks, do not speak for us and should not be allowed to. Do some research on your own and do not rely on me or other autistic people to educate you completely. I like talking about autism most of the time, but I am only human. I get burned out. I cannot be "on" all the time. Meet me halfway.

Finally, the most important thing you can do is to see me for no more and no less than what I am. Let go of the stereotypes about "lack of empathy" and math wizardry and "super male brains" and Rainman. Learn about autism from autistic people. Listen to our stories first, before the stories of the media and "experts" and well-meaning but misguided parents who just wish their babies were normal.

Where Can I Learn More?

Read anything you can by Temple Grandin, Tony Attwood, Valerie Paradiz, Liane Holliday-Willey, Jim Sinclair, Alyson Bradley, or any other author/advocate who is autistic or a trusted ally to autistic people.* See them speak, if you have the chance.

Read the forums at AsPlanet or Wrong Planet. Take the level of anger there with a grain of salt, as places where autistics gather tend to also serve as venting spaces, but do recognize that the anger and frustration are real and valid, even if it is occasionally based on misunderstanding.

Read at OASIS.

See Mozart and the Whale and try to appreciate the beauty in the couple's quirkiness. Keep in mind, however, that all movies are written for entertainment and thus tend to play into stereotypes. Take it as a story of how two individual autistic people could be, not as a documentary.

How Many Closets Do You Have, Anyway?

Oh baby, I've come out of so many closets Tyra Banks could fit her whole wardrobe and have space leftover. There are more, trust me. But this was a pretty dank one. I feel better now *grin*

*Note the prevalence of women in this list; the only man, Tony Attwood (Jim Sinclair is intersex and agendered) is an expert rather than an autistic person. A full discussion of the prevalence of autism among female-bodied persons is beyond the scope of this post, but suffice it to say that the oft-quoted three-to-one ratio of autistic boys vs. autistic girls is almost certainly vastly overestimated.

Blog Paralysis

2010-07-20T09:51:00.000-07:00

I've realized it was probably kind of inconsiderate to post a scary, "I am in a downward spiral" post and then disappear for a month. Partly I didn't think about that because I forget that not all of my readers know me on Facebook (because if you know me there, you know I've been okay.) Partly I've just been out of the blogging "flow" because I'm in a weird transition period, where I'm staying at a friend's house temporarily and I'm not totally sure what's happening next. But I am safe, and I am fed, and I am much more emotionally stable than I was.

That's the good news. The bad news is that my non-blogging also has a darker cause. Because even though my last blog prompted mainly sweet, loving, wonderful responses that made me feel like I have about 20 moms and dozens of siblings (and to those who made me feel that way, THANK YOU so so much), there were also people who apparently thought little of me all along and tried to take advantage of my vulnerability. I am not writing this to point fingers or throw shade*. That's not the point here.

The point is that in blogging, and especially in the kind of earnest blogging that I need to do just as urgently as I need to breathe, that is always a danger. But the fact that this happened at a time when I was so fragile, and because it happened as a result of a post that I was terrified to write for exactly that reason, it shook me. I was in worse shape in the days following that post than I was when I wrote it, but this time I kept my mouth shut.

I have been writing all month. I have several things I'd like to post, most of them having little if anything to do with my personal life. Yet I've been experiencing a strange sort of blog paralysis. Every time I think of posting something, I can't go through with it. I am afraid things I say, things I may feel are totally innocent, will be used as further evidence of my failures and shortcomings by those who seek to harm or control me. So for a month now, I've let that fear paralyze me.

But I must write, and I must publish my writing in order for it to be useful and not remain a dead thing that cannot entertain or help anyone. So I'm trying to push forward anyway. Am I scared of what may happen? Of course. But I also know that the worst has happened - someone has read my blog and used it against me - and I have survived. I have written 170 posts on this blog and so far only one has resulted in anything bad happening, and even that post resulted in much, much more good than bad. I need to remember that. I can't let fear stop me from doing what I love.

*I realize I am probably far too white and unhip to use this phrase and be taken seriously, but I heard it on RuPaul's Drag Race and loved it. So nyeh.**

**This footnote is only here for the purpose of making you giggle*** at the end of a serious post.

***Two new nuns walk into a bar. One nun says to the other, "Hey, why are we still coming to bars, we're nuns now!" Second nun shrugs and says, "I dunno, force of habit?"****

****Badoom tish.

*****I probably should learn to use real footnotes because asterisks become really cumbersome after about two.

Rock Bottom

2010-06-20T15:37:00.001-07:00

Note: This post is very long and very personal. If you are my friend, I am going to shamelessly beg that you read it all the way through. If you're just someone who stops by because you like my essays, however, you may wish to skip it. I'll be back to the regular writing soon, I hope.

I've recently become enamoured with the blog Hyperbole and a Half, by the very funny and inspiring Allie Brosh. One thing that immediately drew me to her blog, aside from the hilarity, was the fact that she is so open and honest about the troubles she has in life, with ADD, depression, unemployment, and major health and family issues. Two things have become immediately apparent to me from reading her blog:

1) I really want to be an at least semi-professional blogger, meaning I need to write more regularly, and

2) My creativity comes to a grinding halt if I am not being open and honest.

Unfortunately I have not been able to be open and honest since my mom died, because I have been too afraid of being a failure. Specifically, I am terrified that I will be the person someone points at when they say "unschooling can fail". This has been exacerbated by the recent media storm around unschooling. But since this blog is my main outlet for ideas, thoughts, and feelings, the result is that I start bottling shit up. And when I'm swimming around in my emotions that I can't let out, I sure as hell can't find a way to write about anything else. So I've got to let it out. Please, if you are stopping by to read this, take it only as a reflection of me, not my parents or how they raised me or how anyone else is raising their kids. I'm willing to own my failures, but I am not willing to own any derision cast upon others because of them.

For those who don't know what's been up with me, here's a recap of the last several months:

October: My mother has a heart attack, is in a coma for the longest week of my life, and then dies. I am left penniless, unemployed, and alone, in a house which I suddenly am now entirely responsible for. Lots of people are super nice to me and give me money and buy me groceries and let me show up at their houses unannounced just so I can cry.

November: People are still super nice and feeding me and taking me to Tennessee and stuff like that, even though I haven't managed to start up a job search yet.

December: I find a job at an hourly daycare center, but get fired, for unknown reasons, three days before Christmas. People are still super nice and give me Christmas presents and stuff.

January: I reach some kind of weird breaking point where I decide that it has been too long and I cannot ask other people for help anymore, because I have probably exhausted their patience and I don't deserve any help because I got fired. I spent most of the month in a dark stupor, brightened only by some friends visiting for a week in their RV.

February: I apply for several jobs that sound really good but don't hear a peep back from any of them. Instead I get a job at the mall but I am let go three days later because they are not getting enough business. This is about where I reach the point of "system failure" on my job search efforts. I also find out my dad is alive, which is more depressing than exciting, because it means he has not seen fit to contact me for three years.

March: I have a minor nervous breakdown at the Autodidact Symposium, which I make monumental efforts to hide because I don't want to ruin anyone's fun, so the only people who even know I'm upset are Maria and her kids. I become overwhelmed and terrified by the sheer volume of people there who are accomplishing amazing things while I am sitting in my house eating ramen and reading webcomics. On the way home I decide (this is something I had given thought to before) that I will go through with selling my house and purchasing an RV.

April: I run out of money and have no electricity except in a small shed which is on a separate light bill. I am basically rendered incapable of doing anything toward looking for a job so I just spend the whole month cutting down weeds, playing my DS, and eating baked beans that I have microwaved in my shed. I tell almost no one about my living situation out of sheer terror that people will think I am asking for money, because I do not want to be trouble for anyone. (It was not as bad of a month as it sounds like, though I desperately missed hot showers.)

May: My electricity is back thanks to a relative helping me out. I spend most of the month making house-selling and RV-purchasing plans and writing a shitload of blog posts. The problem here is that my month of solitude had slipped me into some sort of emotional fantasyland where I have lost touch with all reality and am capable only of thinking about the distant future, not my immediate needs. I become a bit delusional about how quickly I can pull all this off. I also become very irritable and lonely, because due to a car license tag fuckup I cannot leave my house for almost the entire month.

And here we are in June. I am almost out of money again, with no job prospects and the depressing realization that summer is rapidly slipping away and I have no idea how I can make it to NEUC, which at this point is the light at the end of my tunnel because I will get to see my friends and feel encouraged and loved again, and rediscover the joy of travel. I don't know what I'll do if that light gets put out. I have already been gradually sinking deeper into a pit of despair, losing interest in RVing and basically everything else as well. I spend all my time alone, partly to conserve gas and partly because I have convinced myself that the people who have given me money all secretly hate me now because they wasted it on a person who cannot get her shit together. My brain's response to this, rather than to helpfully stir up the energy I desperately need, is to start asking existential questions such as "Do I really believe in God?" and "What does it mean to be a woman?", which is the psychological equivalent of stepping real hard on the gas pedal when your tank gets close to empty. So I turn to books like Barbara Sher's Wishcraft and Patty Digh's Life is a Verb, hoping I can gather some strength from these. They are uplifting, but being uplifted a little while buried in a mile-deep hole still doesn't get you up on ground level.

And then I reach the point where I'm sitting alone in my dark, cold room during a thunderstorm, sobbing over this PostSecret and playing "Beautiful" by Eminem on loop and feeling even more stupid because now I am the sort of person who cries while listening to Eminem. And my dogs are whining because I ran out of dog food three days ago and haven't been able to drag myself to the store, so I've been feeding them cat food and leftover chicken and stuff, but now I'm out of cat food and people food too, and I'm a terrible person. And I start whining incoherently to Justy, and I try writing, and nothing is helping. And I'm hungry, and all the food left in the entire house is potatoes and canned tuna, and I feel like I want nothing more in the world than to go to the grocery store and spend all of my remaining money on ice cream and donuts and frozen pizza. (Please do not leave comments telling me why this is a bad idea. I am perfectly aware of that.) And I become aware that I must face my autism and the challenges it has always brought me which I depended on my mother to help me deal with, and the fact that piling depression on top of that is like trying to function with an elephant standing on my back. And I am hit in the face with the horrible realization I have been desperately avoiding all along:

I need help.

I don't mean that in the "I need counseling" sense; though it would probably be a good idea if I could afford it. What I mean is that I can't do this alone. I need people. If it means admitting I am almost 25 years old and still cannot function as an independent adult, then I must admit that. If it means risking being a burden and having everyone hate me, then I must risk that. Books will not save me. Encouraging websites will not save me. I need real people to help me. I have no idea what I need them to do, I just know I need them. Because my only alternative is to slip farther and farther into my own brain, until I become unable to leave my house or do anything except stare at the walls and wonder who I am. As comfortable as that sounds right now, I know it will not get me anywhere and I will end up hating myself even more.

I feel like a lost child who has wandered off from her mother in a department store, only her mother isn't ever, ever coming back. And I have no idea what to do any more than that child would. I only know that, whatever it is, I do not have the capacity to do it alone. . Throughout this entire time, I have been exceedingly proud of the fact that I have never directly asked anyone for help, instead waiting politely for help to be offered. Proud of the fact that I have kept up a cheerful facade and seldom let on that I was suffering. This, I now realize, is the reason I have not been able to move forward. I need to learn to admit to my pain. I need to learn how to ask for help.

I am hurting, and terrified, and alone. Please help me.

A Letter to My Teenage Self

2010-06-14T13:37:00.000-07:00

Dear Bonnie,

Hi! I don't want to alarm you, but this is you from the future. No, I'm not here to warn you about nuclear war or anything like that, so just keep your shorts on. I know you've just dropped out of school and church, and you're scared and wondering if you've made the right decision. This is probably the last point at which you'd want to get a letter from the future, because you think I'm going to nag you about the importance of a good education and the importance of church and how I desperately regret dropping out of both.

If that's what you're thinking, you are absolutely wrong.

Leaving that oppressive hellhole is the best thing you will ever do. In fact, you're going to be tempted, in a few months, to go back, but don't do it. Complete waste of time - you'll leave again after like a month, because the same old problems will come back. Stay home and focus on your friends and your family. You will, as you already suspect, learn more from your computer than you ever did in school. And you'll have absolutely no trouble going to college - if you truly want to. If you need to mourn for the prom, go ahead - but know that most people's memories of prom aren't actually all that special, and you're probably not missing much. It's just a carrot held out to keep you running toward the end of high school. You will have plenty of opportunities for dressing up and dancing throughout your life.

As for friends: You know those girls you hang out with at school, the ones who didn't give a shit when you came back after being out sick for a month? I want you to listen very closely to what I am about to say: Fuck. Them. You heard me. Fuck 'em. You don't need them, they never liked you for who you really are, just as you've always suspected. Cry if you need to, mourn for all the time you wasted sucking up to them and for the comforting illusion of friendship that has now been shattered. But don't look back. You're not losing much.

Now that I've just about broken your heart, let me put it back together. Those people you're chatting with online, wasting time dicking around on a Pokemon forum? They LOVE YOU. Or at least, they will love you. It sounds strange now, and it goes against everything you've ever been told about having a social life, but I promise you these are the people you need to hang onto. That gut feeling that these are "your people" is not a mistake. A certain few of them may be your friends forever - but they will ALL impact your life in ways you cannot now imagine, and it will all be for the better. And you will, as you grow up and are able to go and explore the world, find even *more* friends. More than you will know what to do with, even, and they'll all love you *because* of how weird and crazy you are, not in spite of it.

Listen to your body. This mono thing is going to come back. You're going to have all kinds of bullshit with your ovaries, too, and your blood sugar. Just relax and try to take care of yourself. Hating yourself for not being as productive as other people isn't going to make you more productive; it will only take away what little energy you have left for doing good in the world. Be gentle with yourself.

Also, let me go ahead and save you years of confusion: Liking long-haired pretty boys doesn't make you a lesbian. They're boys. You do like girls, too, though. You're pretty queer. Be proud of that, even if it isn't safe to tell anyone in meatspace yet. Tell your online friends. They won't mind one bit. And get your ass to the queer youth center as soon as you can drive. You'll be glad you did.

On a related note, getting out of that church was a good move, too. Have fun playing around and learning about different religions, but don't take them too seriously, and don't let them convince you of anything your heart knows not to be true. If a religion is making you *less* of a good person, something is wrong.

Wear whatever the fuck you want. Do you actually like those too-tight Wet Seal prissy clothes, or are they just what you think will make boys like you? Pro tip: There are no clothes that will make boys like you, at least not the kind of boys that are worth it. Any boyfriend or girlfriend (or plain ol' friend) worth their salt will love you in band t-shirts and baggy jeans and ridiculous, Boy George-esque makeup, and black nail polish, and whatever silly thing you felt like doing to your hair this week. (This also goes for whatever music, TV, etc. you like. Be yourself.) Keep playing dressup - the friend who teasingly called you a "freak" for doing so is going to be your best friend in the world in a few years, and she doesn't actually care what you do in your spare time.

Some more about dating: Don't be afraid to get your heart broken, but when it inevitably happens, remember it's not the end of the world. That person you like right now may seem amazing to you, but they are not the only person you will ever have a chance with. As for sex, it really is as great as you think it's going to be, but only if you're doing it with someone you trust and feel comfortable with. Otherwise it's just an awkward mess that makes you feel embarrassed the next day. And yes, condoms matter as much as people say they do.

You are absolutely 100% right in your attitude about work and school: They are NOT all there is to life. You might want to write that fact down, carry it in your pocket, tattoo it on your arm so you can't forget even when everyone is telling you otherwise. Life is about trees and friendship and weird foreign food and strange music and bright colors and incense and thunderstorms. "When you grow up, your heart dies" is only true if you allow it to be. Do. What. You. Want. It's not at all selfish to fill your own happy-tank in order to have joy to share with others. If you're sitting in the dark, you cannot cast light on anyone else. As corny as it sounds, your heart is going to lead you to great things. Follow it.

Having given you a (hopefully encouraging) glimpse into the future, let me ask one small favor of you in return. Go give out some hugs. Hug Mama, hug Nannie, hug Aunt Evelyn, hug everyone in your life even if they piss you off sometimes. You'll miss them one day. I'll spare you from the mental torment of knowing when, but it will be sooner than you ever expected. Visiting a nursing home is depressing, but not as much as knowing you'll never see someone again.

And, last of all? Never, ever stop watching cartoons just because you think you've gotten too old.

P.S. - Yeah, you do grow up to be someone who uses phrases like "worth their salt" and "meatspace." Sorry about that. If it makes you feel any better, your vocabulary also includes a remarkable number of variations on the word "dick", including some most people haven't heard of before. You'll have some fun with that.

Happy Things

2010-06-05T08:46:00.000-07:00

With all the stressing I've been doing lately over moving, and money, and the state of the world, and the fact that I can't go to SMUG and I miss my friends, and the way unschoolers are being exploited by the media, it occurs to me that I haven't had much fun lately! I want to lighten up, and I want to add a bit of levity to my blog in between serious posts (since I have another of those in the works), so I thought I'd write up a little list of things that always cheer me up.

In no particular order:

My friends
My cats
My dogs
Silly packing tape with Rosie the Riveter on it
Hula hooping
Unschooling blogs
Chinese food
Barenaked Ladies
They Might Be Giants
George Winston
Little white Christmas lights I leave up all year
Sparkly nail polish
Wil Wheaton and James Urbaniak on Twitter
Dinosaur Comics
My Cabbage Patch Kid that for some reason smells consistently like cookies even after spending 10+ years in a musty closet
Knowing that NEUC is in less than three months
Twirly skirts
Dan Brown (of Youtube fame, not that Dan Brown)
Star Trek
My CD of theme songs from 80s and 90s kid shows
Fresh homemade bread
TV Tropes
Little kids
Fruity candy
Dave Barry
Jon Stewart
Incense
Blog comments (hint ;))
My rainbow bracelet my friend in Australia made me
My rainbow charm bracelet and earrings that I made at Maria's house with Shrinky Dinks
Thunderstorms (unless they knock out my power)
Old Simpsons reruns
Playground swings
Dry-erase boards
Mr. Bubble

There. I feel lighter and fluffier already! Is some of that stuff totally childish? Sure! Do I care? Heck no! Growing up is for suckers and sad people. And doo-doo-heads.

Friday Fill-In

2010-06-04T10:08:00.000-07:00

Some fluff now, 'cause I'm tired of ranting and you're tired of me ranting.

1. Atlanta, Arizona and Massachusetts is are my favorite place(s) to travel to. That I've been so far.
2. When I think about my childhood, I often remember playing games with my grandfather, even though he was stuck in bed.
3. Peace, love and understanding makes for a good friend.
4. The wind in the trees, the rain on my skin, gives me sensory overload. (I like the wind and rain, but from inside the house.)
5. Travel is so exciting!
6. My best friend knows how to castrate moths. (Really.)
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to watching a movie or something, tomorrow my plans include chillin and Sunday, I want to bake bread! (Because I like doing domestic things on Sunday, for some reason.)

Standards

2010-06-03T16:33:00.000-07:00

"You can't shake the devil's hand and say you're only kidding."

-They Might Be Giants, "Your Racist Friend"

Yesterday, I posted this on Facebook, setting my status so that only my "unschoolers" group could see:

"A simultaneously fortunate and unfortunate side effect of being around unschoolers is that you begin to have much higher standards for how people should behave and treat each other. It's good because you put up with less crap and are more careful with your own actions, but hard when you become increasingly uncomfortable around people you used to get along great with :/"

Immediately, many people said they knew the feeling.

Now, the only reason I'm elevating "unschoolers" above anyone else is because the kinds of behaviors I find abhorrent are far, far less common in the unschooling community than they are among other groups I'm part of, and because even though I have always been a tolerant, diversity-loving person, it is unschoolers who have truly taught me how to accept people warts and all. Ah, but there's the rub: Does "tolerance" mean tolerating intolerance? Does "warts and all" mean you put up with people whose main flaw is that they are unkind?

Sometimes I wonder if maybe I'm expecting too much of people, if I should be more accepting of people the way they are, knowing that I've probably done stupid things too without realizing how bad they seemed. But how do you stay friends with someone who thinks it's funny to scream and gag when they see a large woman walking her dog? Or someone who, after years of championing LGBT rights, maliciously calls someone a faggot and starts throwing around the word "tranny" even though she knows better? How about someone who used to be your good friend but you've realized she wouldn't be if you were a different color? Someone who laughs when you tell them your grandmother's "what I was doing when Pearl Harbor was bombed" story, then thinks you're silly for getting mad? These are all real examples from real friends in my recent life.

Now, lest it sound like I just hang out with really horrible people, I also have a lot of really beautiful amazing wonderful people who would sooner cut off their own arms than say any of this stuff, and of course not all of those people are unschoolers. But see, that's the thing: All of the people who said and did those horrible things had previously seemed like better people than that. I expected better of them. And that's why it hurt so much, and disappointed me so deeply, to see them act that way. I like to believe people are good, and I like to look for the good in people. But I can't deal with this kind of negativity in my life, nor do I think I should.

I don't have any answers for this. I don't know how to handle it. I don't want to be the kind of person who just cuts people off when they don't live up to my standards, nor the kind of person who is all serious business and can't take a joke. Some jokes shouldn't be taken, though. Some friends shouldn't be had. And if I implicitly support the people who do these kinds of things, then I'm also hurting my other friends. It hurts my plus-size friends if I don't speak out against fat hate. It hurts my gay and trans friends if I put up with homophobia and transphobia. It hurts my black, Latino, and Asian friends when I'm silent against racism and xenophobia. It hurts my Muslim, Jewish, Christian and pagan friends when I am silent against people who disparage them. It hurts children when I tolerate people being mean to their kids.

How do you guys handle this kind of thing? How do you balance between standing up for what's right and being diplomatic? Where do you draw the line between something you can overlook and something you can't tolerate? I'm really stuck for ideas, so I'd appreciate any that anyone has.

Any of Your Children

2010-05-31T13:03:00.000-07:00

I used to work as an aide to autistic kids, ones who were severely disabled, unable to communicate, unable to control their emotions. They required constant supervision and specialized care, 24/7. A frequent topic of conversation among the other aides and myself was how none of the parents of these children, when they made the choice to have a child, seemed to have considered that it was possible their children might turn out to need this much special care. They assumed "normal" children by default. Most people do.

When you make the decision to have a child, though, you're inviting a living, breathing question mark into your life. From the moment your child enters this world, he or she is a unique individual, born into a different world than the one you were born into 20 or 30 or 40 years before. Born out of your body, but into a different one.

Any of your children could be born premature, or with the cord around their neck, or with a hole in their heart. Any of your children could be missing a limb, or have Down syndrome, or be unable to see or hear. Any of your children could be born without ten fingers and ten toes, or without an easily discernible penis or vagina, or with two X's and a Y or two Y's and an X.

Any of your children may talk late, or never, or with difficulty. Any of your children may walk late, or never, or with difficulty. Any of your children may learn to control their bowels and bladder late, or never, or with difficulty.

Any of your children, if they have not yet found themselves on the wrong end of somebody's bell curve, could remain much smaller than average, or could shoot to an adult height so fast it strains their heart and bones. Any of your children could grow quickly or slowly in their knowledge and emotional control, as well.

Any of your children could take up interest in a sport or hobby you've never much liked. Any of your children could become friends with the type of kids you didn't get along with as a child. Any of your children, exposed to a wide variety of people, could become friends with the type of adults you don't get along with now. Any of your children could be far more or less social than you ever have been.

Any of your sons could bring home girls you don't like. Any of your daughters could bring home boys you don't like. Any of your children could bring home dates of a different gender than you had anticipated. Any of your children could live as a different gender than you had anticipated.

Any of your children could grow up and decide to become Catholic, or Muslim, or pagan, or atheist. Any of your children could grow up to be politically liberal, conservative, moderate or radical. Any of your children could choose to be vegetarian or vegan or omnivorous, to shop at farmer's markets or to love McDonald's.

Any of your children could marry and divorce three times, or never marry at all, or be blissfully wed to someone who annoys you, or not marry until well after you've passed on. Any of your children could choose not to have children, or to have twenty of them. Any of your children could become pregnant, or get someone pregnant, at a much younger age than you ever expected. Any of your children could choose to adopt rather than pass on your genes, or to give birth and put the child up for adoption, or to have an abortion.

Any of your children could choose to become a business executive, a starving artist, a doctor, a carpenter, an astronaut, or a hobo. Any of your children could prefer to live at home until they are 30 and then move in next door to you, or to sail around the world when they turn 18 - or maybe even before.

Any of your children could develop severe depression, become addicted to heroin, run away from home, or kill someone. In those cases you can reduce the likelihood by raising happy children, but you will raise the happiest children if you bear in mind that pain and fear can ruin any life, not just those of the weak or immoral.

Any of your children, when you reach your twilight days, could choose to personally spoon-feed you and monitor your oxygen, or to put you in the cheapest nursing home they can find, or to have no idea if you are alive or dead because they stopped speaking to you years ago.

Any of your children could die before you.

I could go on forever listing all the things that your children could be or do or have happen to them. The main thing is to realize you can't anticipate it all. Something will surprise you, something will catch you off guard. The more you accept that your children will make choices or face obstacles that you wouldn't have chosen for them, the more you'll be willing and able to help them navigate through those things. Because even among all the surprises and the question marks, there is one important aspect of your child's life which you really can control.

And that's you.

In Memoriam

2010-05-30T04:57:00.000-07:00

I sent this letter several weeks ago to Ren Allen's wonderful blog, Letters to the Dead. I have held off on posting it here because it's a bit depressing for the overall tone of this blog. However, I felt it was appropriate to share for Memorial Day. My uncle did not die in combat, but he did die while serving his country in the Army.

Relevant to the day, more than to my uncle: If you believe war is sometimes necessary, you will naturally see the importance of honoring fallen veterans. If you are against all war, then you should be respectful too, because these lost young men and women are the very evidence on which your cause hinges. Remember that not all of them freely chose the military, and none of them chose to begin the wars in which they fought. At the very least remember that these are the real friends and family of people you know - and we miss them.

----

Dear Uncle Dick,

You've never met me before, so I should introduce myself before I start rambling to you. I'm the only daughter of the baby sister you left behind when you died. I'm grown now, but I still sometimes feel like a kid - and yet, I'm older than you ever had the chance to be. Death at 20 is something I can hardly fathom. I know you must've had so many dreams you never got to live out. The Army was never your choice, and I wonder what you would've done if you'd had all the freedom I've had. Maybe you'd still be alive. Maybe you would've lived just a few more years, only to be sent to Vietnam and die there, with your mind and soul broken by the violence and horror. Korea, at the time you went, was a safer place, and I'm glad your time overseas wasn't spent watching your best friends die.

There's so many things I wish I could ask you. What did you think about politics? Did you like Nixon or Kennedy? Were you religious like Nannie and Mama, or a searcher like Granddaddy and me? What did you like to do for fun? I know about the dog shows, because that was Granddaddy's hobby too, but I don't know much about who you were besides that. I've seen a few of the letters and pictures you sent home from Korea, and I can see your sense of humor in them, especially that one picture of you in a dress. (We have dozens of pictures of you, but that was always secretly my favorite.) I think you would've made a great uncle, with that sense of humor. The only thing anybody really said about you was that you were kind of private and didn't share a whole lot of yourself with the family. I'm the same way, so I can understand that. We're both Virgos, maybe that's why, I don't know. But I do, selfishly, wish you'd left more of yourself behind.

Mama left me last year, gone at a young age too, though she lived two and a half times as long as you. We buried her beside you. Nannie and Granddaddy have been gone for years, and so have all our aunts, though Aunt Evelyn lived to be 93. Maybe you know all that; maybe they're with you in some comforting, tangible afterlife. But in case they're not with you, in case you never saw them again, you should know that you were always remembered and deeply loved. I've known about you for as long as I've known anyone else. Mama always talked about how she admired her big brother, and Aunt Evelyn was always going on about little Dickie with the golden curls. Even though I never knew you, I could feel the hole you left. There was something dark and broken behind Nannie's eyes, some unanswerable confusion in Mama's mind, some hardened place in Granddaddy's heart that was built to hide his pain. Mama was so little when you died, and had a bad memory besides, but she could still remember the way Nannie screamed when she got that awful telegram. Nannie never could bring herself to talk about you much. I think she was afraid she'd start screaming again.

I've mourned for you, too, in my own way. Many times I've regretted that I never had an uncle, when I knew I was supposed to. Many times I've wondered if I would've had your children to grow up with, or your grandchildren to babysit. I was scared when I turned 20, scared some family curse would come and take me then too. I wrote an essay about you in sixth grade, to warn my classmates about speeding and seatbelts and all. I drive carefully. When I hear about car accidents, I see you in my mind.

I think that's the thing that makes me most angry, when I think about how we lost you. Like so many of your generation, you died while in the Army, but you didn't die in service. Nobody got to describe your death as a "sacrifice" or take comfort in the idea that it meant something. Your death was meaningless and stupid, wholly avoidable, a product of young foolishness that wasn't your own. The "friend" who crashed the car that killed you dragged your lifeless body into the driver's seat and ran away. He only broke his arm. Thinking of that makes my blood boil, though I sympathize with him. I'm sure he was afraid of jail, and thought the blame could bring no consequence to a dead man. He was wrong. It troubled Nannie deeply to think you would do such a stupid thing. She never believed you were responsible, and she claimed to "hear" you tell her, somehow, that it wasn't true. A few weeks later she received a letter saying the driver confessed to what he'd done.

Part of me will never forgive him for taking you away from me, for taking your potential children away, for putting out my grandmother's inner light and making my mother grow up feeling unstable and lost. But I also know he was young and out for a good time, and cars weren't as safe in the 60's as they are now, and anyway his conscience has probably ripped him to shreds over the last 48 years. I hope he's found some peace about it, even though I doubt I could look him in the eye.

Even though most of the people who knew you are gone, I've still kept quite a bit of you around. I still have your coin collecting book, though it's out of date and falling apart, and somewhere around here is the bag of international coins you collected. I still have your Army hat, and your Buddy Holly record, and your favorite shirt, and your baby shoes. There's a box under Mama's old bed with your Korean knives and the keys to the car you died in. I have all your letters, too, though I haven't been able to bring myself to read many of them. In some ways I've done what Nannie did, deliberately keeping you at a distance to avoid the pain. The more I know you, the more angry I am that I don't know you. It hurts, too, seeing you write to people I did know and don't have with me anymore. Someday, when the pain of losing Mama is not so fresh, I'll dust them off. Maybe I'll write Donna and ask her to dig up some old memories - I think she knew you better than anybody else.

Until then, though, I want you to know that I care about you. All of my friends who've known me for any length of time have heard of you. I plan to tell my children about you. I think of you when I hear Buddy Holly on the radio or see a bull terrier or a little boy with curls. You've been gone so long, but you were never forgotten. I plan to keep it that way.

Love,

Bonnie

Places to Go, People to See

2010-05-22T23:40:00.000-07:00

Having cleared out my conscience a bit, I've been feeling much more able to make progress on this dream, and I've set myself a time frame: six months. I want to be out of here by Thanksgiving, because if I spend another holiday at home I'll get all sentimental and have to detach all over again, and also because I'd like to spend it with my family far away.

To further motivate myself to get moving with, uh, moving, I've been indulging in some daydreaming about where I want to go, and I thought I'd share that here. This is an extremely long (and still incomplete!) list, but I don't plan to rush through everything. First of all, there are three states I plan to use as "home bases" for extended stays - Arizona, Massachusetts, and Florida, the places where I know the most people. Plus, I plan to do a lot of workamping to keep my costs down, and that will often involve staying in one place for several months at a time.

The List

Florida

St. Augustine
Melbourne (Kayla)
Boynton Beach (Terry)
Miami (Netzi, if she's still there by then)
Everglades
Obviously, I will come back to Jacksonville for visits later on

Georgia

Alma (where my grandmother is from)
Savannah (Kimber)
Atlanta area (Donna, Bill, Abby)
Historic sites around ATL
Dragon*Con if time of year is right

South Carolina

Columbia (Lovejoys, Melissa)

North Carolina

(David W)
Asheville

Virginia/D.C.

Williamsburg
Monticello
Alexandria
Washington, D.C.

New Jersey

Manahawkin (Spiffy)
Wildwood

Pennsylvania

Philly
Gettysburg

New York

NYC (just for a day - park in Jersey)

Connecticut

(Pitres)

Massachusetts

Boston (Val, Michael, Eli)
(Dorseys)
Salem (Baptista-Toolans)
Historic sites (?)
NEUC

Ohio

Cincinnatti (Hannah & Ramona)
Cleveland (Rock n Roll Hall of Fame)
I'd say UWWG, but a Florida girl driving an RV into Ohio in February...

Illinois

(Endreses)
Joliet (where my dad is from)

Kentucky

(Rachel)
(Savannah)

Tennessee

Appalachians (ARGH, if time of year is right)
Memphis (Graceland, as a bit of a tribute to my mom)
Tri-Cities area (Ren, Laura B)
Chattanooga (Haworths)

Louisiana

New Orleans
Jena (Alanna)

Oklahoma

Norman (Annette)

Texas

Gonzales (Hillshade RV Park)
Austin (Monica)
Waco (Cameron T)
El Paso (Samantha)

New Mexico

Albuquerque (Whatever SUSS is being renamed as, if time of year is right)

Colorado

(Coateses)

Arizona

Tucson (Bobbie, Lin, Megan)
Tempe (Roni and Lyle)
Sedona
Grand Canyon

Nevada

Everyone says I should go to Vegas, but no one has given me a convincing reason yet. I don't gamble and I don't know what else is there. Fill me in?

California

Escondido/San Diego? (Uncle Joe)
San Francisco (Meet Bobbie and Lin there, if possible)

Oregon

Corvallis (Diana)
Portland

Washington

Seattle
(Maiers)
Vancouver (LIFE is Good, if the time is right)

Wyoming

Yellowstone

South Dakota

Mount Rushmore

Please note this is NOT a complete list - this is a brainstorming list. If you/the place you live are not here, it doesn't mean I don't want to visit you! You're probably missing because I don't strongly associate your name with the place you live, or I don't even know where you live, so none of these states brought you to my mind. I'm pretty open to visiting anyone and anyplace - as you can see, most parts of the country are "on the list." If the place you live is nowhere near anywhere I plan to go - well, even better! I'd love to hit as many states as I can, but there's some places I haven't yet found a particular reason to visit. Maybe that reason will be you?

And if you are on this list and didn't expect to be, please realize that I'm not inviting myself to your house (though I'd love to visit anyone who'd like me to)! This is just a statement of intent that I think you're way cool and I wouldn't dare swing by your area without, at minimum, inviting you out for coffee.

Also note that the only reason Canada isn't on the list is because I don't know much about the logistics of crossing the border with an RV full of pets. I imagine there will be some bureaucracy involved. I still very much want to see Canada (and Alaska), but for now I'm keeping "The List" to the lower 48 for simplicity's sake. it is apparently not that difficult to cross the border and I will definitely make sure to find ways to meet up with my Canadian friends!

Finally, if you know of any super awesome places I absolutely have to go, PLEASE let me know! I'm especially interested in historical sites and lesser-known state and national parks - especially ones that offer workamping. (If you know places with living history or science-related workamping opportunities, I'm especially interested in those!)

I expect to be on the road for as long as I can afford it - I was originally thinking two years, but after hearing many people's success stories of finding work on the road, I'm now thinking I'd like to travel for five years or more. Of course, those five years will be the second half of my twenties, so I fully expect a lot to change in that time! Maybe I'll be married by the end of it. Maybe I'll have found a city I love and decided to stay there. Maybe I'll settle on a career that needs college and end up doing a degree. Who knows? Who cares? The biggest point of this journey is to find out exactly who I am, where I want to be, what I can do that I didn't think I could before. So I'm trying to keep my mind and my eyes open, and just let it flow.

The Caveat: Taking Friends on the Road

I currently live alone, pets notwithstanding, and my RV will probably have room to sleep 4-8 people (depending largely on how well those people know each other!) I also know that plenty of people my age are itching to hit the road themselves. In fact, when I first announced my travel plans, at least five people's immediate response was "Can I come?" The answer to that, no matter which friend is asking, is: Yes and no.

No, I'm not looking for a roommate or a permanent travel buddy. I'm very introverted, with a lot of weird sensory needs and idiosyncracies, and I just can't see myself sharing a tiny space on any permanent basis with someone to whom I am not married and did not give birth. I value my friendships too much to put them to that kind of test, especially with friends who may not be able to easily go home if it doesn't work out. Plus, I have a lot of friends who want to travel, and I don't want to put myself in the really awkward position of having to audition them to see who gets to go!

But yes, if I know you reasonably well, you can come along - for a while. I'd love to bring people with me to specific destinations, especially when I'm traveling to places where I don't know anyone. Maybe I can swing by where you live and carry you across the country until you reach a friend's house or decide to fly home - hey, it's cheaper than flying out, staying in a hotel and flying back, right?

Here's the ground rule, though: If you come along for more than a week or so, you're going to need to help pay your own way. Note, however, that I don't necessarily mean "I won't bring you along unless you give me money". Maybe we'll arrange to take turns workamping (only one person needs to work, usually, to get the site free), or maybe you can "pay" by helping out with stuff I will definitely need help with, such as pet care and dealing with mechanical problems. Maybe we can sell crafts or services and pool money to make ends meet.

If there's a place on my list that you really, really want to go, or you just want to travel, let me know! I'm not able to make any promises at this point, but I'm absolutely willing to talk to you about it. My house isn't even on the market yet, so we have plenty of time to come up with something.

Selling Tara

2010-05-21T00:27:00.000-07:00

Over the last few months, as I've been mentally preparing to sell all my stuff, my house, my land - the last tangible ties to life with my late family - I've noticed a strange thing happening. The closer I get to actually making real progress toward leaving, the more depressed I get. Instead of getting more excited, I retreat. From hearing the stories of others, I expected every box or bag removed from my house to leave me feeling lighter and more ready to move forward. For me, the opposite is happening: each box I remove, no matter how little I care for the stuff inside, feels like it's taking a piece of my heart with it. Each day spent clearing clutter results in two or three days where I am too emotionally exhausted to even think about it. I began to wonder: Am I that materialistic? Am I really this upset about getting rid of old socks and office supplies? What is my deal, anyway?

Today, seemingly out of nowhere, I finally realized what was going on. See, last September, after an extended vacation, I decided I was finally ready to move away from home. I had grown too much for this house, and this town, to hold me anymore. But my mother's health was poor, and I couldn't just leave her alone. I began to resent that - knowing it wasn't her fault, but wondering why I had to be stuck this way while others my age were free.

Then, without warning, she had a heart attack. I spent several long, dreary days in the ICU waiting room, hoping she'd wake up enough to know who I was in the five-minutes-per-hour I was allowed to spend with her. Not having anything else to do in those other 55 minutes, I sat in the hospital's computer lounge reading about fulltime RVing, wondering if I could live like my friend Shannon who had just rolled into town in her bus. I swore to myself that if my world was going to come crashing down around me, I was going to rebuild it into something better.

It took a lot of healing time after my mother's death before I could bring that dream to mind again. And even though I've been making definite plans for a few months now, I haven't been able to make myself act on them. I didn't know why that was until it dawned on me today: I am getting what I wanted because my mother died. I lost my wonderful mother, who never wanted anything in her short life except to have me and to make me happy, and I am benefitting from that loss. My life will be big and exciting because, and only because, hers ended too soon.

Needless to say, that doesn't feel so good.

But I think it's definitely the root cause of my self-sabotaging inaction: It is easier, on a certain level, to mope around and to let my mother's death ruin my life. After all, losing someone you love dearly isn't supposed to make your life better. It's supposed to ruin it. It's supposed to leave you crushed and broken. At least that's what my subconscious seems to be telling me. Mourning forever is a sign that I really, really loved her, right?

Of course, that's not at all what she would've wanted for me. She spent her whole life struggling to get me the things I wanted. Rolling pennies to buy me Barbies, carefully rationing her Social Security checks to rent me a clarinet, scraping up money so I could go to Williamsburg. She always wanted to go to Graceland, but there were things I wanted to see, and that came first for her. There is absolutely nothing in any of her actions, in any part of her life, to suggest that she'd ever want to see me make my life small and sad.

And yet, I still find myself having trouble letting go of all that my family spent years accumulating and building for themselves. My family put a lot of money and dreams and love into this place: moving this house here, building a stable, maintaining the land, and creating everything else I am about to leave behind. Worse still, I am thumbing my nose at the importance of owning land - a notion that perhaps only my Southern readers will understand, but one that has been ingrained in me all my life. "Always hold onto your land," my great-aunt warned my mother at every turn. "As long as you have land, you'll always be okay." Yet here I am, selling Tara. Selling the place my family worked so hard on so they could have a horse, and breed dogs, and raise a little girl with the freedom to run across acres of grass and woods.

What I need to remember is that what my family was truly trying to build was a bigger life - not just for themselves, but for me. I am the only one still here to live that life. If I make it smaller for the sake of people who are gone, I will be wasting not only the effort they put into building a home, but also the effort they put into building me. I am who I am - free-spirited, stubborn, an incurable dreamer - because of them. I am not benefitting from losing my family; I am benefitting from having had them. The biggest thanks I can give them is to live the biggest, brightest life that I can - even if it means giving up some of the things we loved together. Even if it means leaving the place I grew up and never coming back.

Because my family didn't just want to give me a piece of land. They wanted to give me the world.

Non-Angry Music Rant

2010-05-14T04:37:00.000-07:00

I don't mean I'm ranting about non-angry music, but I'm ranting about music in a non-angry manner. Maybe rambling is a better word.

This is way off the usual topics of this blog, if there are any, but I guess since I was talking about an Alabama song in my last post I got to thinking about this. I hear people all the time talking about how they like "all music except rap and country." First of all, that's a lie. No one likes every song they've ever heard even in a genre they like, and few if any of the people who say that are into polka or throat-singing or whatever. I don't mind people not liking certain genres, but I'm not sure why they follow that by saying they like everything. "I like a lot of stuff" would suffice.

I like country music. I'm from the South, I grew up on country music, and it's as much a part of me as any other music I like or once liked. When I was a teenager, I realized country music was Not Cool, that it was only for certain people and that those people were Not Cool. So I kinda stopped listening to it, except I didn't really. I just didn't put any on my computer or on lists of my favorite songs, or admit to my non-Southern friends that I liked it. Now that I'm grown, I'm realizing how silly that is.

I don't really understand all the animosity toward it, I guess. I don't get why it's the black sheep of all music, why just the mention of it makes people act like they're going to barf, even if they've never really heard any of it except while stuck in bad diners with relatives they didn't like. Yes, a small percentage of it is xenophobic or psycho-patriotic, but that is a VERY small percentage. A lot of it is also as canned as any current pop music, but even the worst of pop music is not the target of as much ire as country. *Good* country music is really fascinating, telling the stories of pockets of American culture that are not represented in any other part of the media. Good rap music serves the same purpose. I think at least *some* subset of the "I hate rap and country" crowd feels that way because they don't want to hear those stories. Not all, but some.

Think about it this way: Most people, on hearing that someone "hates" rock music, would protest. "You hate ALL of it? But there's so much variety - The Smiths are NOTHING like Megadeth who are NOTHING like the Red Hot Chili Peppers who are NOTHING like Janis Joplin." That is true of rock music; it's an enormous genre and if you listen to enough of it you're likely to find at least a few songs to enjoy. It's *also* true of country music and rap music.

If you hang out at my house for awhile or ride in my car, it is quite possible that at some point you will hear a country song or two. If you are really *that* personally offended by Willie Nelson, or Reba McEntire, or Johnny Horton, or Travis Tritt (none of whom sound ANYTHING alike), I'll be happy to switch it for you, because I'm nice like that. But if you'll just sit tight for a minute and listen with an open mind, you might like it. And even if you don't, you'll probably find that the next thing that comes on is Peter Gabriel, or Loreena McKennitt, or They Might Be Giants, or Donovan, or Smokey Robinson, or Matisyahu, or Tchaikovsky, or Rammstein, or Goldfrapp.

Even if you don't love them, none of those artists will kill you. Alabama won't either. I promise.

The "Aha!" Moment

2010-05-13T04:46:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was kind of bored with the music on my iPod, so I decided to dust off some old CDs I burned when I was 17. One of those CDs contained a song that is inextricably linked to one of my favorite unschooling moments, and since I'm on a roll with history and big connections lately, I thought it would be fitting to share that story here.

When I was in my late teens, I happened to watch a documentary on TV about Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt. Now, I should say that even though I'd been to school for about ten years, I had only the faintest idea who these people were. I think I'd heard of Eleanor on The Simpsons one time, and I knew who Teddy Roosevelt was because of teddy bears, but I'm fairly sure I had no idea who FDR was at all. I still really didn't care for history at this stage of my life, and the only reason I got interested in this show was because they mentioned straight away that FDR was paralyzed from polio*. I'd always been interested in disabilities and diseases, and I'd once had a math teacher who'd had polio as a girl, so if school can be thanked for any part of this story, that's it.

So I watched this show, and it was mostly not about Roosevelt's presidency, but about his personal life and his relationship with Eleanor. I was surprised at how engaged I was by this show - it was history, true, but it was about people's lives and vulnerabilities and relationships. That made it interesting for me. Being a young girl, I mostly came away from it feeling really angry at FDR for cheating on Eleanor and breaking her heart after he promised never to see his mistress again, and after she supported his presidency and supported him physically on top of that. I kinda just saw him as this big jerk in a wheelchair and had no real idea of why he was important.

But not long after I saw that show, I was listening to the radio and heard a country song I'd known all my life, called "Song of the South" (which has no connection to the infamous Disney movie of the same name). I'd always thought this song was stupid and complained loudly whenever it came on, because the chorus just keeps talking about sweet potato pie or something. But this time, I paid attention to the whole song, because this part jumped out at me:

Well somebody told us Wall Street fell

But we were so poor that we couldn't tell

Cotton was short and the weeds were tall

But Mr. Roosevelt gonna save us all

All of a sudden, I GOT it. Just hearing that one little verse made everything suddenly click for me - I literally felt like a lightbulb had come on in my mind. Suddenly I not only understood why Roosevelt mattered, but also what the Depression was *about*. I knew what a stock market crash was. I knew why my grandmother wouldn't let us throw out expired milk. That song and that documentary were the final pieces in a puzzle I'd been building all my life, from comments my grandparents made and song lyrics and things on TV (and, okay, maybe a thing or two from school as well).

I was SO EXCITED when those pieces fell into place. What I felt was no less than the kind of joy one gets from discovering a new favorite hobby or making a new friend. From then on, I adored that song. From then on, I loved hearing anything about FDR or the Depression. From then on, I paid close attention to song lyrics, especially ones that sounded like they might be about real life. This was one of the first times I could recall being excited about any kind of history before the 1960s (a more accessible time, thanks to sitcoms and rock music). That kind of "aha!" moment, when bits of information gathered from here and there finally snap together, is really what makes unschooling work, and it happens all the time. This was just one of many, many examples from my life. Learning this way is always exciting, because it involves a spark and a surprise - and no strain or struggle at all.

*It's now widely believed to be more likely that Roosevelt had Guillain-Barré, but at the time of this show, his disease was still accepted as polio.

People With Passions

2010-05-12T02:07:00.001-07:00

While I'm in the process of exploring my own passions, Youtube has brought me some wonderful examples of people who are doing the kinds of things I want to do and absolutely loving their lives. First, this guy:

That guy is Bill Barker, and he's been playing Thomas Jefferson at Colonial Williamsburg since the early 90s. I just love hearing him talk. The man is absolutely geeked on Jefferson - that's all he does, his only job, to "be" Thomas Jefferson and talk about him. You can hear in his voice and see on his face that this is truly his passion, that he's not one bit less excited about it than he was when he started. According to his bio he has a B.A. in history, but it would appear that most of the education required for his job came from his own study of Jefferson and participation in theatre. I'd be willing to bet that at least a person or two in his life has thought his fascination with Thomas Jefferson to be a bit strange or excessive, but I absolutely LOVE seeing people who are that excited about something. It's pretty rare.

Second, this woman:

SaFire is only 26 (according to her Youtube profile) and already owns her own business and website where she teaches hooping lessons professionally. She also travels the world performing, teaching and learning. One thing that really struck me is that she has a post saying how thankful she is that she didn't win a million dollars in a contest, because she wouldn't have created her website if she had. That is true dedication to a passion.

What both of these people have in common, and what amazes me about them, is how they just completely exude positive energy. Maybe what they do isn't "important" in the same sense as being a doctor or an activist or something, but because they are so fully alive in what they do, they bring joy and light and learning to others. If everyone made that the goal of their work - no matter what type of work it is - imagine how bright and shiny and fun and *smart* the world would be.

Passions Series: History, Part I: Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Past: Colon Movie Blog for Theaters

2010-05-08T03:35:00.000-07:00

This post is part of a series on my passions, interests and hobbies. Other entries in this series can be found here. The posts in this series tend to run long (1500+ words), so you may want to make sure you're in a comfy chair.

What I love

History! Specifically U.S. history, more specifically the ways people have lived on this land for the last ~400 years. My interest lies in several areas:

1) The everyday lives of Americans at every social and economic level, and how they differed from life today;

2) The lives of the presidents, specifically the ways in which they were flawed, vulnerable, or goofy, just like the rest of us;

3) The different political climates of days past, specifically what has changed (a man with Wilson's awful teeth, Lincoln's lack of formal education, or Jefferson's atheism would never be elected today) and what hasn't (smear campaigns - Martin van Ruin, anyone?);

4) The histories of groups which have either been forgotten or sorely neglected by your standard history textbooks - i.e., everyone besides wealthy white Christian men.

On a global scale, I'm fascinated by the progress of societies as they've developed throughout human history, the history of diseases and how they were handled by various cultures, how various religions and other rituals and traditions developed, the way languages have developed and spread and evolved over time, and the history of all kinds of technology - especially of simple things you wouldn't normally associate with the word "technology", like blankets, tables, and shoes.

How I came to love it

Did you notice how broad the above is? Maybe you wondered why I even bothered to list those things individually, when "I love all of history" would've sufficed. Or maybe you noticed the few things I didn't include:

1) Battles
2) Treaties
3) The drawing of borders
4) Long, boring speeches

Look through a typical history textbook, and you will find that they are in fact made almost entirely of battles, treaties, the drawing of borders, and long, boring speeches. Barely a word about how people actually lived, unless you're lucky enough to be looking at a humanities book, in which case you might at least get some cave paintings or the lyrics to "Old Folks at Home." Almost nothing about science, except quick mentions of plague or smallpox. And since it's the personal and scientific sides of history that fascinate me, there was never anything in these books for me.

In fact, until just a few years ago, I absolutely hated the living shit out of history. You couldn't get me near it. History class was a chance to squirm, space out, act goofy to get attention, doodle - anything but listen. I would've preferred calculus. I would've preferred getting hit in the head by basketballs in gym class. I would've preferred getting hit in the head by rocks. Anything, I thought, was better than hearing one more damned thing about feudal serfs. And it wasn't even the teacher's fault - I was lucky enough, every year, to have my least favorite subject with my favorite teacher, my gifted ed teacher who I'd known since elementary school. She was absolutely on fire for the subject she taught, and she tried to bring it to life for us by showing us all kinds of awesome artifacts, and assigning fun projects, and even one time showing Monty Python and the Holy Grail in class. It was the best history class I could've hoped to have in K-12 school.

But she still had a curriculum to cover. We still had to talk about the damn battles and treaties. We still had to talk about Europeans all the time, with no room for Asia or the Middle East or Africa. We still had to read My Brother Sam is Dead, which I'm sure is a good book, but at the time I didn't care one bit about it. The plain fact was, at that stage of my life, I wasn't ready to love history. At least not history that far back. I was excited about time periods just before my own, like the 80s and the 60s, and occasionally as far back as WWII. If I could connect to it - if I actually knew people who lived during that time, if I could see movies and hear popular music from that era - I was interested. I just wasn't able to relate to those dusty old dead people and their dead, dusty wars.

But that's all about how I came to hate it, and I'm supposed to be telling you how I came to love it. I know. I just wanted to make sure the stage was properly set so that when I reveal how I came to love it, you will smirk. Because the main things that made me love history - after years of reviling it in school - are as follows:

1) Two cartoons
2) A video game
3) A parody of a history textbook.

See, when I was 18 I was volunteering at a local elementary school, which required getting up at the bare ass-crack of dawn, at which time there is nothing on TV except infomercials and PBS cartoons. So I started watching Liberty's Kids, mostly just to have background noise to keep me awake through breakfast, and after awhile I found myself actually getting into it. The characters - Ben Franklin and the other historical figures, plus some kids invented for the show - were presented as real people. Sometimes actual quotes were used, especially for Franklin and for people like Paul Revere, and since the show had to put them in some kind of context, they made sense. And despite being a PBS cartoon, the show isn't babyish at all; it shows the realities of war (toned down a bit, of course, to avoid being nightmare fuel) and the complex political climate of the time. I learned a LOT of American history from this show.

About a year later, my then-boyfriend bought me a copy of America: The Book. If you're not familiar with this book, it's put out by Jon Stewart and the other writers of The Daily Show, and it parodies those godawful textbooks I hate so much. It has sidebars like "Were You Aware? The phrase 'Did You Know?' is copyrighted by a rival publisher", and "activities" like "Found a country" and "Construct a tri-corner hat out of whalebone, fine felt, and a mercury solution." The actual text of the book, while still being parody, actually does contain real information, most of which was new to me as a person who had spent my life avoiding history. I was surprised when I realized I was actually picking up facts from this book!

So I got a little bit interested in history from those two sources, but it didn't really take off into me wanting to learn more. Fast forward to 2008, when I started playing Civilization II. This is a computer game where you start from just a tiny village and have to build up your society over thousands of years, until you either conquer the world or send a spaceship to Alpha Centauri. It's a very complex game, because most of what you're doing is deciding which scientific and cultural developments to pursue, what military units to build, and what improvements to build in your cities. Once I was sucked into the world of this game, I started getting curious about the details of it. What's a trireme? A phalanx? Why did polytheism come before monotheism? Who's Adam Smith? What's an aqueduct? Why do I have to discover astronomy before I can research navigation? Answering these questions led me to a lot of Wikipedia-surfing, but it also led me to historical programs on TV. I'd flip past the History Channel or the Military Channel or A&E, and there'd be a show on about early civilizations, or weapons that are in the game, and I'd be hooked. Before I knew it, I was watching these kinds of shows all the time.

In January of 2009, I made a list of goals for myself, some serious and some frivolous. One of the frivolous ones was to memorize several songs from the cartoon Animaniacs, where they name all of the countries in the world (as of 1993) or all the states and capitals. The first one I decided to memorize was one where they name all the presidents (up to Clinton), and that was where the big fascination with American history started. I'd play this song over and over, trying to memorize it - remember that memorizing all the presidents was not my goal, even though that's what I was doing; my goal was to learn the song for novelty's sake - and eventually I started getting curious about some of the lesser-known presidents. Specifically, the line "John Tyler he liked country folk" stuck out in my mind. What did they mean by that? I looked him up on Wikipedia, which led to reading a whole bunch of other stuff, and soon I was getting hooked on this stuff. Then, because Presidents Day was coming, the History Channel started almost constantly airing a series about all of the presidents. Despite it being shown ad nauseum, I watched this every single time it was on. When I got mono and had to miss two weeks of work, my main comfort was that I had a lot more time to watch historical shows. That's how fascinated I was, and this obsession was still going on months later.

And here we are now. I haven't spent the whole past year engulfed in history, because I took a huge rabbit trail into sci-fi, which actually gave me a lot more philosophical context for why history is important. But that's a topic for another post. I'm still really enjoying history, which is exciting. So many of my interests end up being fleeting, and even though I learn just as much from those, I'm always really happy when one sticks.

Since this post got way the hell long, I'm breaking it into two parts. In the next post, I'll tell you why I love history, why I think it's important, and how I use it in my life.

Passions Series

2010-05-08T03:11:00.000-07:00

One of the most common questions you hear in the unschooling/autodidact community is, "What are you passionate about?" For awhile, when I was depressed, I was answering that with a shrug and a change of the subject. But when I really got to thinking about it, I realized I have TONS of passions! I decided I wanted to write about each of them, how I got into them, what they mean to me, and what place they hold in my life.

So I'm going to be starting a new series on this blog, sharing my passions with you all. And I'd encourage anyone else who has a blog to do the same! I'd LOVE to know what you're passionate about, why you love it, and how you got there. My hope is that by looking through my posts, people can gain some insight into why interests matter, what sparks an interest, and what can kill it - and that maybe, amid all my gushing about the things I love, you'll find a new passion for yourself.

I'm going to be using this post as an index of all the posts in the series, so if you're getting here later on, you should see a list of my interests below. Before I get into that, though, a warning: These posts have a tendency to be really, really wordy. There's a couple reasons for that. For one, I seem to have been born without the gene that allows people to be concise, and everything I write is wordy. (Hell, I'm on my third paragraph already, and this is just supposed to be an index.) For two, once you get me started talking about my interests and passions, I basically can't shut the hell up. But the main reason is that I want to really be thorough here. I want to make it clear exactly why these things matter to me and what the story is behind each interest, because I want people to know what that looks like. I want to help people recognize the value and the process behind each burgeoning interest in their children, their friends, or themselves. And I want nervous new unschooling parents to see the map that leads from point A (which might be South Park or Pokemon) to Point Z (which might be ancient history, a foreign language, or an amazing career).

This is all a roundabout way of saying that before you read these posts, you might want to settle in with a cup of tea.

My Passions

History, Part I: Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Past

Wishes, Dreams, and Art

2010-05-06T21:00:00.000-07:00

I keep wanting to write a post about the things I'm thinking about for my future, and every time I try and actually form it all into some sort of coherent essay, I get stuck or my mind wanders off. So I finally decided just to throw some things down that I'd like to learn to do. This isn't strictly a post about careers. Some of these may make me money, some may not - if I think too much about how to make money on a hobby, I convince myself that I never will, and I kill the interest before it even gets started. So I just want to poke my nose into stuff, and if something is going to work its way into a full-time thing, I'll let it unfold organically.

Full-Time RVing. I already posted about this here. This is the one thing on this list that I am almost 100% sure I will do, which is good, because it will give me the freedom to pursue some of the others...

Hula Hooping. I can already hoop, a little, in the sense of being able to keep the hoop up around my waist, but I really wanna learn the cool hoop-dancing stuff, like this. I would also like to make my own hoops and possibly sell them or teach others how to make them.

Living History Interpretation. This is one that I think I might like to turn into a career. You know when you go to places like Colonial Williamsburg, and they have all these people in costume who act like it's the 18th century and explain how to make soap or talk about how they used to go to school with Ben Franklin? And if you happen to be 14 when you go, like I was, you spend a lot of time trying to get them to break character because it's the equivalent of a seven-year-old yanking off Santa's beard? I used to think these people had the worst job in the world, kinda like being stuck in the Goofy suit at Disney World. But now that I am totally geeked on history, I absolutely LOVE the idea of that kind of make-believe time travel. And there are tons of museums, farms, etc. around the country where I could find work doing this sort of thing. Even if it doesn't exactly pay well, many places offer a free RV hookup if you volunteer to do this kind of work - which is basically the equivalent of having your rent and utilities paid. If I get good at it, I might even like to branch out into acting in small plays, especially historical ones.

Making Comics. I've had a few ideas for comics floating around my head for years, but nothing has ever come of them yet - because I can't draw. I finally got sick of that this week, dusted off my copy of Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, and started practicing. We'll see where this goes. I don't know if I'll ever feel confident enough about my comics to publish them, but I'll definitely feel better just for having written them down!

Singing and Playing Music. Technically I've been playing music ever since I first got my hands on an instrument, and I've probably been singing since I could talk. But I've let go of a lot of my music practice in recent years, and I'd really like to get good enough to perform in public again. I have no aspirations toward making this into a career - I just love performing music and I'd love to be in a community orchestra, or play for friends at parties, or what have you.

Building Computers. Thanks to the blessing-in-disguise of my current computer being a piece of shit, I have a lot of experience digging into the guts of computers and swapping out the parts. I figure if I can do that, it shouldn't be too difficult to learn to build them from scratch. Admittedly the limited space of an RV won't let me do too much of this, but I can definitely see building computers for people here and there when I'm parked for extended periods.

Dancing. I have some experience with dancing, here and there - I've taken little bits of ballet and bellydance lessons, I've performed "Thriller" in public four times in the last eight months, and at ARGH last November I learned a traditional Indian dance in just two or three days, and performed it in the talent show. I've also done a lot of things that are related to dancing, like yoga, marching band, and Dance Dance Revolution. Despite all this, I really don't think of myself as a dancer at all, because I just don't have that much practice with any one style. I'd really love to learn many different types of dance - especially bellydance, swing dance, and even though I have a mental block about it only being for skinny teenagers, I wouldn't mind getting back into some ballet. I LOVE dancing and I want to start doing more of it!

Doing Science. Okay, so one of my BFFs has a habit of hopping from one career to the next, and *I* have a habit of looking at whatever she's doing and going "Ooh! I wanna do that!" Right now, she is working in a biology lab, doing entomology work, so of course now I wanna do something like that too. I worked in a college lab before, washing test tubes and labeling things, and as boring as that sounds it was one of the best jobs I've ever had. The cool thing is that if I park my RV at state parks, they frequently need people to help out with science and conservation work, and just like the living history gigs, you can usually get a free RV hookup and probably some additional pay out of it. Not bad.

Writing. This may seem weird to put on a "wishlist" like this, since the fact that you are reading this confirms that I already write. But I have some specific things I've been itching to write and haven't sat down and done it. Specifically I'd really like to put up a blog or website that is more strictly focused on unschooling, since this is more my personal blog of whatever my brain happens to throw up that day. I *might* consider speaking, eventually, but it's not on my list of wants right now - I'll just greet it if it comes knocking.

Conference Chasing. Well, it would be a waste of all that freedom if I didn't use it to hit as many unschooling conferences and nerdy pop-culture conventions as possible, right? ;)

---

Looking back over this list, the main thing that stands out to me is how much of the work I want to do is in the arts. Dancing, writing, acting, drawing, making music... all the things (lucky) kids are encouraged to do, but adults are almost universally nudged away from because they're not constructive and you "can't" make a career out of them. These are things I've wanted to do my whole life, but was always subtly led away from them, down the more practical path. "That's no way to make a living" and "You need something to fall back on" (i.e., put the flute down and go get a business degree) are the battle cries used against anyone who wants to take a creative path in life. Few people suggested that these interests would be worth pursuing even if I didn't make a living off them.

Shortly before I left high school, I auditioned for a school of the arts. It seemed like my dream life, taking classes in all those different things. Except when I mentioned that at the audition, it was hastily and sternly pointed out to me that at this school, you had to pick a major and stick with it. I was auditioning as a clarinetist, which meant I could not take a visual art class. Or a drama class, or a dance class, or even a creative writing class. I could only take academics and band classes. Even in public school, if I'd jostled my schedule around, I could've taken more than one type of art! I was deeply disappointed, and the teacher's manner made me think I was wrong to even mention such a thing, wrong to even want to be creative in more than one way. I walked out of that school nearly ready to cry, and never went back to take even a single class.

After that, I subconsciously let go of the idea that I could be an artist and a musician and a writer and a dancer. I still picked at all those things, the way you might pick at a plate of cold dinner, but I no longer saw them as things I could really get good at and have lots of fun with. Only now, in my mid-20s, am I beginning to rediscover the joy of art for art's sake. It's amazing how much damage was done to me by a school I never even went to.

So now I say: To hell with you, snot-ass school of the arts! From now on, I'll let the world be my art school. It won't force me to pick a major. It won't play keepaway with worlds of knowledge while curiously claiming to be concerned with my education. And best of all, I won't have to wake up at 5AM to go to it - it's there all the time.

On Mediocrity

2010-04-22T17:30:00.000-07:00

All my dreams involve combing my hair.

-Armand Tamzarian, The Simpsons

I have something of a confession to make, though I doubt it will startle those of you who know me best. I've always known it, in the back of my mind, and for a long time I was ashamed of it. But now, I think it's best just to come right out and say it.

I am really not that cool.

Now, when I say that, understand that I'm not being down on myself! I have plenty of good qualities, and I like myself just fine. I'm a good friend. I'm kind to animals, and I treat kids like individual people. I have a unique (and sometimes obtuse) way of looking at the world. I get along with people from many cultures. I've sat up with people at 3AM and talked them out of suicide, and sometimes I make people laugh so hard they snort chicken up their nose. I can write fairly well, I buy awesome Christmas presents, and as far as I know, I usually don't have bad breath.

So I'm not saying I don't like myself. I'm just saying I'm not that exciting.

See, ever since I've really gotten involved with the unschooling community, I've started feeling a little... bland. It feels like everyone else around me has some amazing talent, or has started their own business, or dresses really cool, or travels around the world, or has unique beliefs they're really passionate about, or can turn water into wine, or whatever. I have a friend who has wrestled a Japanese deer. Even my dad, who was once an actual, honest-to-God carny, seems more interesting than me.

Me? I'm a geek. Most of my deep thoughts are sparked by Star Trek. Where others might quote Emerson or Thoreau, I quote Dave Barry. Where others post insightful remarks about their deepest beliefs, I post fart jokes and complain about not being able to catch Mewtwo. Where others buy fresh, organic, local produce, I buy Twinkies and Dr. Pepper. My only "party tricks" involve having an encyclopedic knowledge of The Simpsons and being able to sing that song from Animaniacs where they name all the presidents real fast. To quote Dave Barry (see? I told you) - "My only area of proven competence is listening to the radio." And I do that quite a bit - you're much more likely to find Prince or Elton John in my library than anything new and edgy. Edgy music makes me want to wear slippers and tell kids to get offa my lawn.

But I don't get down on myself too much for not being that interesting - because I kinda like it that way. I don't see all those things as needing to be changed. I like my Simpsons reruns, and my Dr. Pepper, and my Elton John. I used to feel like because I was an unschooler I was obligated to develop some really unusual talent to prove unschooling creates awesome people, or something. (This pressure came only from the voices in my head, not from any of you, so don't worry. Except about my sanity.) But I'm starting to realize that putting that pressure on myself is getting in the way of my real passions. They're usually sort of nerdy and pointless, but at least they're mine.

Those of you who are awesome tightrope-walking fire-breathing globetrotters who play the didgeridoo are awesome and should keep it up. But if you just kinda like to hang out on the couch and not do anything too Earth-shattering, and you're feeling a little inadequate, you're awesome too. Come hang out with me for awhile, and you will definitely start feeling more interesting. Or maybe you will scream that if I ask you to play Trivial Pursuit one more time, you will spit beech nut in my face. But you will not feel inadequate.

Except at Trivial Pursuit. I will pwn you at that.

Gotta follow that dream...

2010-04-21T18:05:00.000-07:00

Okay, first off, for those of you seeing this post when it's new, I realize St. Patrick's Day and winter have been over for a damned long time now! Sorry about that. Gonna work on the layout soon. For those of you stumbling on this six months later, disregard this paragraph :p

Some of you may have heard me hinting at some big plans, or big changes. I was gonna hold off until I had made a final decision before I made any announcements. Too many times in my life I've spent months telling EVERYONE I was gonna do something, only to back out at the last minute and feel like a fool. So I try not to announce things prematurely, and so far I've only told a few people about my plans. But in this case, I'm having trouble taking the big step forward, and I thought some input from others might help with that!

So what are the big plans? I'll give you a hint: It's what all these people have in common. Besides being unschoolers, and hippies (I mean that as a compliment). Ah hell, I'll just spit it out already.

I'm thinking about RVing. Like, really RVing. The kind of RVing where you devote full-time to traveling around the country, seeing friends, finding work on the road, chasing dreams, living in an RV that you sold your childhood home to get...

And there's the sticking point. Selling this house is simultaneously a big reason I want to do this, and the main reason I'm nervous about it. On the one hand, my family is gone and all I have here are memories. It seems pointless to try to live in the past, pointless to try and make a family home not feel empty when I'm by myself. The only reason I didn't get the hell out of this town when I turned 18 was my mom, and she's gone now. This is my chance to get out before anything else ties me down here.

On the other hand, my home IS my family, in a way. There's so much of them in it. When my grandparents bought this land nearly 40 years ago, there was nothing on it but a pump house and a tiny, pitiful trailer. My grandparents built a stable (which my grandma fell off the roof of and broke both wrists) so my mom could have a horse. Then my great-aunt moved this house - which was designed by her late husband - here from Georgia(!), and got rid of the trailer. When my dad (and I) came along, he moved another trailer here, built three new rooms onto it, and added an extension out from the stable to use as an auto shop. My grandpa added a carport in front of the pump house, built a deck onto the house, and planted a crape myrtle in the backyard. Aside from one of the rooms of the trailer, all those things are still here. They put so much work - and love - into this place, and their presence is palpable when I look around. The idea of never being able to come back to our little homestead is really, really painful.

But I can't live their dreams. I have to live my own. And I have a lot of reasons for wanting to do this! For one, I've always wanted to get out of the south. Sure, it's beautiful here, but there's plenty rotten in Denmark - or Dixie, as it were. Too much racism, too much homophobia, too much treating non-Christians like dirt. I'm not naive enough to think those things don't exist outside of the south - hate doesn't have a climate preference - but here, they live way out in the open. I'll always come back to visit, but I'm really not sure I wanna live here.

A more positive reason is that I have so many friends all over the place, who I miss terribly when I'm not around them, which is most of the time. Not that I don't have local friends! I have wonderful friends in Jacksonville, and I'll always be ready to visit them when it's time to head south for the winter. But I also have wonderful friends in Arizona, and New England, and Canada, and pretty much all over the continent. (Outside of it, too, but so far no one has figured out how to caulk an RV and float it across the Pacific.) I really wanna split my time between all my friends, instead of seeing some never, and seeing others so often that I risk taking them for granted while I'm missing the far away ones! Plus, I live on the wrong side of the city, so that even my "local" friends are all at least 40 minutes away. It's only once in awhile that I really get a chance to hang out with people. In an RV, I might not always be right in town, but at least I'll be able to choose my locations and move when one place gets old.

Finally, maybe the biggest reason I want to go is that I have no idea what I want to be when I "grow up". Living on the road would give me a chance to try out different kinds of work - including unconventional jobs at places like farms and national parks - and find what I want to do. I also want to try on lots of different places, because at this point I have no idea where I want to be. I wanna feel all kinds of weather, try all kinds of food, see all kinds of cities - all the good stuff.

So those are my tentative plans, and my reasons for and against. I'd love to hear what you guys think of all this. I'd especially love to hear from RVers, of course, or from anyone who has ever had to make a tough decision like this. But I wanna hear from anyone else reading this, too.

Especially people with great big yards ;)

In Defense of Disney

2010-02-24T11:27:00.000-08:00

As the world's biggest producer of kid-oriented movies, Disney is an easy target for criticism. Many people feel that it provides poor role models for little girls, encouraging them to see being a pretty princess as the highest goal of any woman. Many are troubled by racist themes in older Disney movies, and some of the morals are troubling, too - should Ariel, for example, really have given up everything she knows for a man she just met? Perhaps the most widespread criticism is adaptation decay: Disney takes beloved legends, folktales, and even historical accounts and twists them around to be more interesting and to fit the action-comedy-romance mold. All of these are valid criticisms, and when I see a Disney movie that I didn't grow up on, I have a tendency to weigh it down with all this baggage and and ruin the movie for myself.

But when it comes to movies I loved as a child, my view is totally different. I recently picked up Aladdin at a thrift store for 99 cents, on a worn-down VHS in one of those huge ungainly old Disney boxes. I rarely watch movies over and over, but I've found myself replaying this one almost every day. Aladdin is special to me: it came out when I was seven and just starting to develop the attention span and understanding of relationships to really appreciate a full-length movie. It was the first movie I saw in a theater, too, and I remember having all kinds of Aladdin things as a child - an electric toothbrush, and a little fortune teller from a box of Captain Crunch, and a Jasmine doll and Raja plush, which I still have. I even had a cat named Jasmine for a little while (we soon realized she was a he, and changed his name to Jazzman). Aladdin influenced me later in life, too: I used to use screen names involving Jasmine or variants thereof, and I've always been fascinated with Arabesque things, like belly dance and Moroccan decor. And Robin Williams has been a favorite actor of mine ever since he played the Genie.

For all that I love this movie, if I really wanted to complain about it, I could easily find plenty of fuel. It's not faithful to the original story, or to the concept of a djinn. Certain scenes portray the people of the Middle East as barbarians who cut off body parts or behead people on the slightest whim. The heroes are somewhat "whitewashed" (Aladdin having been modeled on Tom Cruise), while the villain and the angry merchants look far more Arabic. The sultan seems to be Muslim, given his repeated references to Allah, but he lets his daughter dress like a harem girl. Jasmine's skimpy costume and impossible hourglass figure make her a poor role model for young girls, to say nothing of the fact that she falls for a guy she hated 30 seconds ago just because he has a flying carpet. If I wanted to reach Comic Book Guy levels of nitpick, I could claim that the movie misleads children into thinking monkeys and tigers are tame, cuddly pets, or I could complain that parrots are new world birds and wouldn't have been hanging around third-century Arabia. If I was really looking for a reason to hate Disney, I could believe the claims that Aladdin whispers "good teenagers, take off your clothes" and believe that kids are stupid enough to become sex-crazed maniacs just from hearing that.

If I wanted to hate Aladdin, I could sit and watch it with all those things kicking around my mind, and I could tut-tut about how this is exactly what's corrupting our kids and ruining their ability to appreciate real literature. I could resolve that my children would never watch Disney adaptations of stories until they had read the original version. I could resolve that my children would never watch TV or movies at all because it ruins their imagination and isn't natural or "Waldorfy" enough. But if I watched with all those thoughts in mind, I'd miss everything there is to love about the film.

I'd miss the incredible music, and Tim Rice's genius lyrics. I'd miss the breathtaking animation during the "Whole New World" sequence, and the complexity of the parade during "Prince Ali". I'd miss Williams' brilliant voice acting, and all of Genie's clever, multilayered jokes, and his rapid-fire references to pop culture and literature and history. I probably wouldn't notice that Aladdin is Cinderella turned inside-out, or appreciate the subtle differences in meaning that come from reversing the male and female roles. If I were concentrating on Jasmine's skimpy costume I might miss the fact that she completely deconstructs the princess fantasy: she shows how limiting such a life can be, and is willing to leave all her luxury behind to be free. I'd miss the sweetness of the relationship between Jasmine and Aladdin; how he loved her before he knew she was rich and important, how her love was the only reason he wanted to be rich and important, and how she liked the penniless but honest Aladdin much better than the pompous, false Prince Ali. I'd miss the many moral themes of the story: integrity, honesty and keeping promises, being true to yourself and your friends, judging people on their character and not by their outward appearance, and the importance of freedom.

If I were a parent watching with kids, and I chose to be negative, I'd miss chances to talk about why Middle Eastern architecture is so grand, or about why Jasmine might prefer Aladdin to be honest about who he is. I'd miss a chance to wonder about where the ideas of genie lamps and flying carpets came from anyway, or to bring home hummus and baklava for the kids to try, and mention how this is that weird food Genie was talking about in the movie. I'd miss giggly late-night conversations about what three things each kid would wish for if they had a genie, and whether they'd use the last wish to set him free. I'd miss picking up Jumanji and Flubber and season one of Mork & Mindy, because the kids loved Genie so much and they might like those, too. I'd miss talking about what kind of monkey Abu might be and pointing out similar ones on our next trip to the zoo. I'd miss mentioning that in One Thousand and One Arabian Nights, the story was set in China, and I might miss a kid asking to hear the original to compare them. If I were universally Disney-negative, I'd miss dozens of other movies and songs. I'd miss Disney World and Kingdom Hearts.

But most of all, I'd miss the joy. I'd miss having one more favorite movie to pop in when a rainy or grouchy or everyone-has-the-flu kind of day needs brightening up. I'd miss loudly singing along with the soundtrack in the car. I'd miss the Raja plushies and the spinning fortune tellers. I'd miss those great moments all Disney movies seem to bring, when a teenager or young adult drops all pretenses of being cool and is reduced to a giddy ball of pure, childlike joy, and doesn't feel at all self-conscious because their friends are all doing it too.

Those are all the things I give up if I choose cynicism. If I choose joy, all I give up is the chance to feel indignant and smug for a little while. Some people seem to like being smug a lot more than playing around, so maybe for them it's a fair trade, but I just don't see it. I'll take the joy.

To every politician ever

2010-02-08T16:35:00.001-08:00

Article

2010-02-04T23:02:00.000-08:00

Tonight I happened to stumble onto this great article* by Heather Corinna, about rejecting the fear of being abnormal. The article is focused mainly on sexuality, but so much of what she says applies to all of life. Being truly myself without worrying about if I'm "normal" is something I've always struggled with, and this article does an amazing job of addressing that. The quotes that really woke me up:

"The most concise definition of normal is "being approximately average." Doesn't that sound so super exciting? I sure hope in my life I can reach the amazing goal of being approximately average. Who needs world peace, the end of global hunger, to develop the cure for HIV or to win a Pulitzer when we could accomplish that?"

"It might help to think about the people in the world you admire most. It's likely that a big part of why you do is that there is something exceptional about them: something different. Maybe they had a challenge or adversity they have faced remarkably well, better than a lot of other people have. Maybe they're different in a way you can relate to, and they don't hide that difference or act like there's something bad about being different in some way. Maybe they have asked something of themselves or others that is more than what people will usually ask. Whatever it is, it's unlikely that you feel inspired by someone else because they're just that normal, just so awesomely homogenous. When you like or admire other people, the first thing that comes to your mind when you think about how cool they are probably is not "Wow, they are so totally average!""

I highly recommend reading the whole thing. It's a great little refresher course on being your own damn self.

*Speaking of abnormality, I found this site via a Google search for "Peewee Herman abstinence rings". Yes, those exist. No, I don't know why.

Fun

2010-01-31T09:19:00.000-08:00

And when I think I know what's best for me

Fate, she takes me back
To exactly where I need to be

-Amy Steinberg

Last weekend I was having a major freakout because I still had no job prospects and I thought my lights and water were about to be cut off. Then on Saturday, my friend Jill emailed me and asked if she and her family could park their RV here for awhile, and they could give me money right up front toward the electric bill. On Sunday, they were here. They just left yesterday, on their way to a fixed water pump and other states. The timing couldn't have been more perfect, really - I was getting desperately lonely and desperately broke, and their visit helped with both of those. One lesson I've learned in the four months since I lost my mom is that when you're open to possibilities and don't try to force things, things have a way of working out. Maybe eventually I'll learn that lesson well enough to skip the freaking out stage entirely.

But as Edie Brickel would say, shove me into shallow water. I always mean for this blog to have more of a "what I've been up to" feel, but then I end up writing nothing but essays and navel-gazing stuff. People seem to like those posts, but I forget that I can write fun stuff here too. I wonder if people who only know me through my blog think I'm a pretty serious person. Really, I am just a goofball who occasionally has a serious thought and likes to write them down before I get distracted by a fluffy squirrel.

So here's what we got up to this week. I wish I had pictures, but both Jill and I forgot to take any all week! But there was much jumping on the trampoline, on which the kids had me play "Gummi Bears" with them - you know, from the old 80s cartoon? Ironically, they had to teach me how to play, because I didn't have the Disney channel as a kid and have never seen the cartoon! But I was Princess Calla, and Kaya was Igthorn, and Pearl and Fern were Gummis. We also played Super Mario, where Kaya and I took turns being Mario, and whoever wasn't Mario had to be the Koopa shells and Goombas and stuff. I love how the advent of DVDs and Youtube and things mean that kids are still into stuff from when I was a kid.

We also went to the Salvation Army store a few times and picked up a bunch of old movies. I found out the SA is the best place in the world to buy movies, if you don't mind VHS and you like watching older stuff. Jill got a huge stack of Disney movies for the kids, and I found a bunch of my favorites - Star Trek IV, The Breakfast Club, and The Nightmare Before Christmas, to name a few. I pretty much doubled my movie collection, which was pitifully small (if you don't count the 30+ Elvis movies I inherited from my mom).

All in all it was a great week. The thing I love most about hanging out with unschooling families is that I can be friends with the whole family. There's not that invisible wall separating the kids and telling them to run along and play because grownups are talking. If kids aren't kept sheltered from all signs of the adult world, there's no reason grownups can't talk while playing Mario Party DS and being climbed on by cuddly little girls.

When they were ready to leave, Kaya was looking a little sad, and he suddenly had to run into the RV (which Danny had already pulled out into the road - the kids were going in the car) to draw me a picture, and the girls followed suit. That's a nice memory to keep in mind when the job hunt is getting me down. Maybe I don't have a BA and I'm not bilingual and I'm not a "specialist", but dammit, drawing me a picture is a Major Emergency, and that counts for a lot more in the grand scheme of things.

My fridge, right now:

Integrate

2010-01-19T02:59:00.001-08:00

I grew up, and still live, in the rural South. We never had much money, but my parents were accumulators of things, and we had a TV and a radio and an old record player. I remember the house always being full of music - wonderful, classic music that predated my arrival by decades. I remember flipping through my mom's record cabinet, running my fingers over the thick cardboard jackets and memorizing the faces on the most colorful ones. I would see those faces again and again throughout my life, repeating like a familiar rhythm as I grew in my knowledge of pop culture and recent history.

It didn't occur to me, back then, that they all looked like me. I suppose it didn't occur to me that anyone should look different. Almost nobody did, where we lived, and the ones who did lived in separate neighborhoods, pushed back almost behind the town, where people passing through wouldn't know they were there. Certainly everyone in my neighborhood looked like me, and everyone in my church, and all of my parents' friends. Even in the movies we watched, all of the characters looked like me - with the notable exception of Gone with the Wind. Every place we went was a hall of mirrors, reflecting larger and smaller versions of myself. I never felt racist, never had any ill feeling towards people Not Like Me. I just didn't pay much attention. Since I saw myself everywhere I went, I had no reason to expect to see anything else.

No matter what I saw on the covers of those records, I knew they each held a piece of magic within. Music was my life, my inspiration, my consistent source of joy through an inconsistent childhood. The radio expanded my choices, playing more from those artists and many others who I'd never heard before. Even without moving the dial from our favorite oldies station, I was exposed to a dizzying array of sounds: the doo-wop and rhythm and blues of the '50s, the classic soul and British pop-rock of the '60s, the passionate folk music and stirring protest songs of the early '70s. This mixture of sounds lit up my soul and filled me with an energy that could brighten almost any bad day.

But radio is radio, and though I knew the songs by heart, I had no idea who any of the artists were. I could pick out The Beatles, sure, and Elvis. Those were my mom's favorites, and sometimes I'd help her tape their songs onto scratchy cassettes. Everyone else was anonymous.

By the time I was ten or eleven, I'd outgrown my mother's music, wanting to move on to something cooler, more now. I turned to contemporary pop radio, and when that wasn't cool enough, to MTV and VH1. I would spend hours each day simply soaking in music and images, resisting my teachers' attempts to stretch my list of tasks beyond school hours. To any outside observer, it was surely "unproductive" and a "waste of time".

But it was here that I first saw the black faces of the people who wrote, performed, and danced to many of my Most Favorite Songs, both from the MTV world and the sunny oldies radio of my earlier years. As my love for their music grew, I realized that these were real people with real stories. They weren't just Others living in trailers behind the grocery store, but people. People who did real things in the world and had fans of all colors and creeds. People I even thought I could be friends with, if they weren't so famous and far away.

And I remember my change of heart clearly enough to say this with certainty: It is no coincidence that when people who didn't look like me began showing up on my TV and in my CD player, it wasn't long before they began showing up in my life as well. My circle of friends today contains multitudes; we're a veritable Rainbow Coalition of assorted geeks, hippies and other misfits, each with a unique background and perspective on life. But I don't think it would be that way if, all those years ago, my ears hadn't opened my eyes.

Bored

2010-01-18T21:08:00.001-08:00

What "I'm bored" can mean:

I need something and I don't know what it is.

I'm lonely and want you to spend time with me.

Life has gotten monotonous around here, let's do something new!

I'm not sure what I want to do next. I could use some ideas.

I'm feeling a little down and could use a distraction right about now.

I need a change of scenery.

I wish my friends lived closer. I miss them.

I'm between major interests/hobbies right now. I need a new one.

I've learned all the interesting stuff around here. Show me something new.

I'm not getting enough exercise, and it's boring to do it by myself. Let's go play outside together.

I need something to do that makes me feel purposeful and important.

What "I'm bored" almost NEVER means:

I don't appreciate the hundreds of dollars worth of toys and games I have.

I am oblivious to all the stuff there is to do right in front of my face and need you to point it out to me.

I can't do anything on my own. This is your cue to give me orders.

I am volunteering to do any random household chore you feel like assigning, no matter how tedious, boring or lonely it is.

Since I'm not sure what I want to do, I am willing to do anything. Just blurt out an activity and I'll happily do it.

I should be able to completely entertain myself by now, independently of other people. Since I can't, I am immature.

Update on the Haiti Fundraiser

2010-01-16T17:12:00.000-08:00

I mentioned in this post that a Livejournal community I'm in has been making donations to UNICEF for help in Haiti. At that point, we were just shy of $8,000. We've now reached over $15,000.

That's $15,000 raised in two days.

$15,000 raised mostly by people in their early 20s, many of whom are in college and are already living off ramen as it is. This has done a lot to renew my faith in the human spirit.

We've also been posting about this on Twitter, and so far we've been retweeted by:

Zachary Quinto
Simon Pegg
Neil Gaiman
Tyler Shields
Wendi Lynn
CNN iReport

That's a big deal not because attention from celebrities is awesome (though it is), but because these people have thousands of followers. Hopefully most of those followers would have donated somewhere anyway if they were able, but star power can be influential. (Hence why my Twitter feed is mostly full of me bugging Star Trek actors right now. Some of them have over a million followers.)

If you'd like to contribute to our UNICEF fund, the link is here. Some other great places to donate:

Doctors Without Borders
The American Red Cross, Canadian Red Cross, or International Red Cross and Red Crescent
The Salvation Army

If you can spare it, please give something somewhere. Even if it isn't much, it matters.