Excellent: new blogs for me

Well…I’m feeling a little ‘meh’ about this blog right now.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve loved it and there’s plenty to rant about so I’m not totally axing it…but I’m just hitting a point where I think this ranting takes a lot of my time and energy (and I do it in my personal life anyway) and in terms of writing I think I may invest the primary focus of my energies elsewhere for a while.

I’ll post links to the new sites over the next few weeks.

I won’t delete this account, so if you’ve got me on an RSS feed, you can keep it there and I’ll post when I work up to a really spectacular rant, or occassionally cross post from my other blogs…but it feels like the time has come to move on a little. At least for now. (Though I will say that I’m so very chuffed that it looks like I’ll hit 50,000 hits by my second blog ‘birthday’! And I’m very happy to have met so many cool people/found so many great blogs).

My first new blog (first only cos it’s been activated already whereas the other one I claimed a long time ago and need wordpress’s help in reactivation/accessing it) is accidentalboutsofcelibacyinasuburbnearthecity.wordpress.com. Yes, yes, another tired play on the title of Sex and the City. I guess what shits me about all those Sam in the City or faux-Bridget Jones colums is that they’re SHITHOUSE – embarrassing cliches and attempts to steal the ’style’ of Carrie or Bridget’s voice/writing and devoid of any actually interesting content. This is just me laughing at myself for the total *lack* of glam in the suburban bouts of “accidental” celibacy, and a place in which to discuss honestly the frustrations and negotiations involved in dating/gender/sex/desire/heteronormativity/monogamy/the politics of sexuality/funny stories.

My second (when it gets there) is something I’m pretty excited about and is going to be (or at least is intended to be) more generally about bodies/sex/desire and women – I don’t think girls and women are encouraged to discuss the specifics of desire and sex, to the point that we don’t share knowledge about how we negotiated it ourselves, to the point that women are getting surgery on their labia because they’re convinced their vulvas are ‘abnormal’ =…it might venture into men’s issues as well at times, but my primary focus will be on a site that gives women access to frank discussions, hopefully to information and resources that can help and a space in which they feel free to express their thoughts and feelings in safety. And I think that’s valuable for men as well to see that we’re *not* all prissy little ‘Charlotte’ types, abiding by ‘the rules’ and wanting flowers and ‘candy’ before we’ll ‘put out’ and that a woman with desire is not a ‘type’ of woman. This will need to be a collaborative effort if it’s going to succeed and be intersting, I will need feedback and gentle admonitions if I accidentally repeat heteronormativity, or push a monogamy line or make sex workers feel uncomfortable. I have no desire to proclaim myself a ’sexpert’ (what a stupid fucking word!) so I will take all constructive feedback on board. I’m unsure if I can still reclaim the site, so I’ll post the link when it’s up and running.
And that’s about that really…I’ll still be checking in to approve comments and hopefully won’t trail off completely in terms of posting, but come find me elsewhere. Same comments policies will apply (ie/ if you’re some bigoted fuckwit go away).

Um…I can haz some ‘lazy net’ help pls?

Ok, so here’s the deal. I have registered another blog name. I can’t access it. I have contacted wordpress for this.
But I went to set up a third blog and it will not process it as it says ‘This email address is already being used’. Is that because I can only have one wordpress account per email address?

WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Sitting around talking shit last night and listening to a Pixies album and Tom mentioned they’re playing out here soon, that he’d seen it on JJJ. A few of us said we’d go if that was the case.

I’ve never seen them live and I missed out on a lot of live music when I was a teenager due to firstly no money, second stoned friends forgetting to book, third due to getting knocked up at nineteen. So I’m gradually working through my 90’s music list. Tori in a few weeks, Rage last year…so when I realised the tix had been on sale since last week and that the first show had sold out as had all other state venues, I totally flipped my lid and just bought four tix. I’m down with that. It’s Pixie tix, I’ll be able to sell them on ebay if not to friends, and I’m pretty sure two of the three extras I’ve got are already going to be snapped up. But FUCK I’m excited!!

And everyone’s at work so I can’t tell them I have tickets.

Online dating – the joys that await me

So a friend put me onto a new website a little more interesting than RSVP. I put up a username but left my profile blank til today. Online trying to answer questions and upload pics this morning I had three separate guys try to chat with me by i.m.

The first opened with ‘Hey babe’, you know, instant ‘no’. I tried to politely deflect until he started pestering me about ‘no really, you’re not from Australia are you?’ after I’d said yes…I’m not sure what his preferred answer was but as I got less patient he grew more convinced that I was in fact from Africa and ‘pretending’ to be Australian (cos nothing picks em up like ‘I’m an AUSSIE maate!’ just reels them right on in, WAY sexier than pretending to be French) and then he got thoroughly shitted when I said I had a busy day so would need to stop talking. Oh I’m sorry, I’ll just quit work and study and be available for you to call me ‘babe’ shall I?

The second guy was much older with no pic and mentioned aliens and god on his profile.

The third was peachy keen and invited me to lunch in a neighbouring suburb today. When I was clear that I was not in any hurry to meet anyone just yet, that I was just coming out of a long term relationship he backed off a little, though still trying to convince me to go to lunch/describe what I was wearing. I don’t think ‘pink flannel pj pants and an old tshirt’ was what he was looking for there.

Last time I was on this giddy merrygoround was a few years ago and I had a guy who kept trying to turn chat to sexyfuntimes talk. I told him my boss had just told me his partner of 11 years had left him and that I was sad for him and he said ‘I bet you wish *I* was in the office instead’. Christ. If you can’t have some human empathy for a few minutes then fuck off.

Chatting to strangers in real life and spaces like twitter makes me realise I kind of like people. Online dating makes me despair that I will just hate most people. It also this time means I’m too scared to sign back in until I have very clear instructions as to how I can quickly set myself to appear as not online when I am so that I can just take this all a little slowly without the most eager of the eager jumping on me and asking me on dates before they’ve had time to even read my profile.

Heartache

I’ve been pretty damned quiet over the last few weeks. TBO and I broke up a couple of weeks ago and I’ve been taking some time to lick my wounds.

It’s astonishing to me that you can know it’s time to end something and still grieve it so comprehensively, still feel so distraught.

I don’t know if I’ll ever not miss him, ever not love him, but the acceptance and getting by stuff gets a little easier each day.

I didn’t really have the time to take the time to grieve it but I figured I had better take the time or it would just be worse. I took a week off of study, I made social plans, I cried whenever I felt like it and laughed a lot. I went away for a weekend to play with puppies and be away from Sydney.

I came back and work is still hard, my brain is scatty and over tired, I don’t care that much about property settlements and research is a nightmare. My eyeballs are gradually ceasing to ache from crying, and being physically hit again with missing him, with that sick sensation of wondering if we could have done something differently can send me into a bit of a tailspin, but it is happening less this week, work was easier this week than the last.

I have a lot of support around me and I’m so grateful for my friends, my workplace, for where I live, for my openness to counseling and the availability of my beloved old counselor who lets me talk and figure things out for myself, for my ability to find joy and comfort in small things, that watching people laugh together or kids playing with their parents still makes me smile, for exercise, for my gym membership, for small comforts like blue alpaca blankets or hot water bottles, for my experiences of grief that model for me to just go with it, not to wallow or to get into bad patterns of thinking, but to allow myself the space to just wander around crying, to take time out and spend it enjoying myself, or napping, or staring at the wall with a cup of tea.

I can really see the benefits of the choices I’ve made about what is important to me, about the types of people I choose to hang around with coming into effect in situations like this: no hokey ‘Chin up’/'Plenty more fish in the sea’ advice (why would you say that to someone grieving a specific fish: they don’t *want* other fish in that moment), just tea and food, and love and care, and invitations, and trips away and to the beach and listening and understanding and empathy and laughter. My apartment, my room, my hiring a cleaner, my ability to say ‘Fuck it I’m buying that blanket as a gift to myself’, or ‘Fuck it, I don’t have the money but I’m buying those tickets to go away’ and to accept the comfort it will give me instead of denying it to myself because I should, or because it would be more financially sensible: all these things have made getting through the last two weeks easier, healthier, more healing than if I had let my choices be more dictated to me, than if I had lived in a poorer area to match my income level, or stayed on the Coast where I had no friends my age with whom I had anything in common, or not allowed myself the treat of going away/buying the blankie.

It hurts, but it doesn’t feel poisonous or destructive – it feels like a healthy ‘letting go’ pain. I think for me I am really happy with what I gave to the relationship and how open I was. I grew up in a fairly closed down household and I’ve had to work really hard to be open and trusting in relationships. This was the longest relationship I’ve been in and I gave it everything I had. I don’t regret that, and I can also see that it was coming to and end. I am pleased that I can grieve openly and not try to hold my pain to myself or pretend it isn’t there, or to fixate on feeling angry as I might have once. This person was an enormous part of my life – I have been in contact with him now for almost two and a half years. The relationship we had changed me: it allowed me to grow, to be more open and loving, to enjoy showering affection on someone, to trust, to relax, to care…and I don’t lose that just because it’s over. I can see that those things are abilities that I take with me into friendships and future relationships and things worth having in and of themselves. I know how much I love to love now and it surprised me to learn it, I always had myself pegged as cynical and sarcastic, but apparently I’m a total softie given an opportunity and I get joy from giving and from doing special things for people.

Anyway…that’s why I’ve been so quiet and why I probably will be for a while. My attentions are elsewhere. On making sure I’m good to myself and getting a good balance of social, alone time and rest. I’ve got a run of really difficult study related stuff coming up as well so probably all in all I’ll be quiet for another month.

All hugs accepted.

What the fuck/I hate people moment of the day

Ok so I’ve messed up the formatting a little but browsing the SMH this morning I saw this picture with accompanying text:

The Grill Team
Mark Geyer
Mark Geyer A Sexy Woman?

Compare Caster Semenya and MG’s magazine covers and see who is hotter.
See the pics for yourself.

[Emphasis mine].

Then you follow through and they’ve mocked up a magazine cover mocking Semenya with a load of hilarious hi jinks like being able to vote on who is a better woman, and laugh at more ‘manly looking women’. I hate people!

16th Down Under Feminists Carnival is up at Hexpletive

Hexy’s done an excellent job this month.

I’m really proud to have had my posts included in this carnival from the beginning and will get off my self absorbed backside and host late this year/early next…WHEN did it get to be that time of year that the earliest you could commit to shit was ‘late this year/early next’??

I love a sarcastic woman!

I just read a piece by Wendy Molyneux on writing women’s comedy when you’re a woman and therefore not funny. It was delightful! Go read it.

Ahhh….father’s day

So I’ve probably talked about all these things on here before.

That I live in a Stepford-Wives/Pleasantville type of community and every father’s day there’s a bbq for the dads before school starts. Big bbq breakfast, games and paper plane comps, bonding with kids etc.

Mothers get to pay $20 to go to a shopping night in the school hall. Screw the ‘Hey, you’re awesome let’s serve you food and let you bond with the kids’, nope…pay US money to come spend YOUR free time SHOPPING in the school hall for stuff you don’t want or need. I’d rather eat my own shit. I hate shopping at the best of times and I don’t pay a cover charge for it. Ever. Also it’s full of the tupperware/avon/nutrimetics bullshit wares.

I asked last year why the mums don’t get a breakfast. The answer was mums would not eat a bbq breakfast (I call bullshit) and ‘who’d run it’? (The DADS couldn’t be expected to take time out on their way to work to cook shit for a bunch of chicks! They have like REAL jobs…except for when they’re eating bacon. Then they can be a little late)

That good dads make me sad. I know, it’s unworthy. But when I look at a man relishing his role as father, looking at his child with love and affection and clearly being a loving, responsible parent, I get this rush of emotion: and while it’s not as hard edged as jealousy, that’s basically it – my son doesn’t have that. And I don’t have that. The support and shared experience of parenting a child with a father who cares. Or at all. And we never will. And of COURSE I want for all those kids to have dads like that – but, well, it makes me a wee bit sad. I’d have liked to be sharing parenting, taking delight from sitting back a moment and watching my child and partner interact.

That my own father is a slightly deranged dysfunctional alcoholic and I have little to no connection to him. Little? Yeah even that’s stretching it. I feel pretty much nothing.

So you know my life is fucking chaos right now and I’ve not had enough sleep for a month and I’m running on empty in all kinds of ways and because it’s father’s day I’ve got to spend money I don’t have on a gift he won’t use to show affection I don’t feel for a man who’s not there. And (after being up at 2:00 a.m working on the essay) I’ve got to get up early and put aside my essay (due tomorrow) to take the day to travel up there for lunch to present the charade with fanfare.

How is it possible that a writer as shit as Sheehan gets paid?

Ever ready to slam others as irrelevant/not worth listening to as they’re ‘idealogues’ if they write from a political perspective, Sheehans latest piece is the fucking Nessun Dorma of hypocritical hate mongering.

Here he is digging at others that their ideology taints their logic/their perspective/their right to be listened to and he’s not even bothered to try to hide the fact that he’s ramming his hate-filled anti-human-rights, anti-Indigenous Australian self determination, one-eyed, ego driven bile down our throats while trying to make us believe it’s ‘objective’, ‘neutral’ and ‘common sense’.

He opens with some nonsensical paragraph about a women’s club commending it for elitism and discrimination while throwing in the standard quote of Groucho Marx’s that is so overused as to just be worthy of an eye roll when pulled out as now as if it’s the cutting edge of wit.

He then prattles on a bit and in a segue reminiscent of the Chaser’s mockery of the Anna Coren segues on Today Tonight, he manages to turn it ninety degrees into an attack on the current sex discrimination commissioner of HREOC, HREOC in general, Tom Calma and in fact anyone calling for a little more self representation and self determination for Indigenous Australians.

He’s angry that Calma and others have called for a self representative Indigenous Australian organisation to fill the void left by ATSIC. He’s angry that ATSIC was dissolved amidst claims of corruption (because lord knows the white folk never do such things and that if they ever do their organisations are *immediately* disbanded since white folk can’t be trusted with money) – well I should clarify, he’s smug that ATSIC was dissolved, he’s angry that upstarty Indigenous folks would dare to think they could ever have another representative body after that.

Would that this approach were taken to the corporate world! What. The. Fucking. FUCK?

Sheehan conveniently doesn’t mention the fact that the body, if given the go ahead, is aiming to be a self sustaining company in the next five to ten years. I mean fuck, the government has systematically fucked things up for 220 years and the plan is to make sure they make their own money and don’t need to take contributions after five to ten years? And Sheehan is still complaining? Oh you bet he is:

Australia’s indigenous population does not need more symbolic, costly window-dressing in the name of inclusion, consultation and self-determination. It needs good managers, effective programs, and fearless case-by-case pragmatism, not more tax-funded frequent-flyer points.

I’m so glad Australia’s Indigenous population has Paul fucking Sheehan to tell them what they do and don’t want or need, what they should and shouldn’t be allowed to have and do. Sheehan? Fuck you.

He’s *concerned* you understand about fund misappropriation.

Misappropriation of funds? Let’s talk about the misappropriation of funds ($45 million) by the corporation paid absolute megabucks by the government to begin building Indigenous Housing…and there’s yet to be a house built two years in shall we? The misappropriation of funds of one of those well managed effective programs.

It seems that whenever corporations and governments misappropriate funds that doesn’t get a mention: they’re all trying to do their best, meanwhile Indigenous Australia ought to be denied a self representative body because ATSIC was accused of some corruption.

He’s also angry that HREOC hasn’t *solved* the issues of violence and child abuse in Indigenous communities, ignoring the complexities of communities with life expectancies some twenty years lower than those of the average non-indigenous australians, lack of access to resources, and suffering the consequences of over 220 years of fucked up government policies, and what might be required by such communities to ’solve’ their problems. He also coveniently ignores the issues of violence and child abuse in non-Indigenous communities, and the stories of the sexual abuse of Indigenous minors by non Indigenous miners.

Ignoring also that HREOC is not a body funded or equipped for the practical work of strengthening communities by way of increased resources etc.

Ignoring that really the government is better placed to begin attempting ’solutions’ (though I’m uncomfortable with the language since government ’solutions’ to ‘problems’ have notoriously fucked people’s lives up even more) than the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission which is not charged with, responsible for, or equipped to “fix” societal problems so much as bring attention to them and lobby for change those who could make a difference if they chose to.

Sheehan then moves into such a ludicrously wilful misunderstanding of the role of HREOC and its own representation of its goals (ie/ if you go to HREOC’s website you can see for yourself how very much more than self promotion they’re interested in/responsible for) that it’s just not worth engaging in. But for your reading pleasure I’ve copied a paragraph where Sheehan shows that unlike those crazy idealogues, he’s ALL about objectivity and neutrality:

These are the major human rights issues within Australia, and the commission is largely missing in action. Instead, it forms part of a burgeoning, increasingly suffocating, passive-aggressive, ideologically-tainted rights culture flowering within our legal system and public sector. The Rudd Government, with its mania for micro-management and government control, is merely accelerating the process.

Wow “Take it down a notch, Scotty, kinda freaking me out!”

A further paragraph which might give some clarity as to where Sheehan is coming from/headed to:

In the 23 years of the Human Rights Commission’s existence, it has managed to spend, in real terms, about $400 million on itself

I mean I am writing an essay here so I can’t go chasing down how much HREOC has spent on itself educating the community and in chasing up and reporting on human rights violations but that’s less than $5 million a year right…for the most significant human rights watchdog organisation we’ve got? And in 23 years some of those areas have come quite a long way, some of which I’d wager had something to do with the work of HREOC.

But let’s “get to the fucking monkey” shall we:

Sheehan wants a public tanty over the “lie” of the Stolen Generations.

while its [HREOC's] most signal contribution to society has been to divide, not unify, by helping the construction of the greatest lie ever told about Australia: that tens of thousands of children were stripped from their families in a process of cultural genocide, a claim since reduced to ashes in the courts.

Um…burhh???!

“Greatest lie ever told about Australia”…”reduced to ashes in the courts”…is this guy for real?

Could somebody help me out here? A little collaborative posting? Is he meaning that since the courts have not granted compensation that this means that children were not taken from their families? Or that they were but from a *good place*?And that if people ‘meant well’ it didn’t happen/is okay? I mean really I am *actually* very confused by his point. First I’d need to be able to *comprehend* it to set about rebutting it, though in the end I think screaming ‘Shut the fuck up you pig-ignorant racist fuckwit’ is just as satisfying and is likely to underly my final counter response even when I can comprehend it. I’m pretty sure whatever point he’s making is so piss weak that it would just rebut itself in a bit of a fart noise.

I’m running out of patience with his idiot article, because in the end he’s another redneck racism-apologist pretending his hateful politics are ‘neutral’ (and yes I do feel ’superior’ in that I fucking announce my politics, an infinitely more honest position), but to end with I’d like to leave you with this stellar ‘observation’ of his:

The commission sees an increase in complaints as a sign of health, justifying its large budget and its incessant quest for influence.

Common sense would suggest just the opposite, that a decline in complaints is a sign of social health. But the commission, in its myopia, is more concerned with self-perpetuation.

It appears he really is as stupid as he looks. Well sure, in a fucking utopia, no one would have any human rights violations to complain about, so a human rights watchdog organisation would field less calls and complaints. But given that we do not then of course HREOC sees it as a good thing, a sign of health when people are informed enough to know they have a right to make a complaint and approach a body like HREOC for assistance. What sort of common sense does he have?

The person who must accept responsibility for this disgraceful commitment to intimidation is the president of the commission, Catherine Branson, QC, a former federal judge. One day, when the political wheel has turned, the Federal Government should liquidate the commission, ridding us of another parasitic bureaucracy beyond reform.

Let’s hope when the political wheel turns, it’s large and heavy and he’s UNDER the fucker!