...and write letters to Congress. It should be noted in advance that 1) my
Representative is Cantor, the Minority Whip, who I dislike with a terrible
vengeance, and 2) I adore both my Senators but particularly Senator Webb.
Of the votes of Sen. Webb's that I've tracked, he's only voted differently
than I would have once, which is pretty quality legislative representation
as far as I'm concerned. Also, author of Webb GI Bill. <3

I've left my edits in as strikeouts because it's funnier that way.
( I get political )

It should be noted that I practically have a form letter for senators at
this point, and if you want to use my form to send mail (electronic or
snail) to your Congresscritter, it is widely adaptable. It goes like this:
1) Thank you for [insert legislative efforts of which I approved here].
2) Politely phrased request.
3) Gratitude and support for re-election.

If you are writing to a Congresscritter you find loathesome, well, the form
letter goes out the window. Just don't make threats other than "I would not
vote for you if you were the only option on the ballot."

There's new people! I was just eyeballing my LJ profile this morning and le voila, there are new people reading me. This is exciting but at the same time I feel guilty, because what happens is this:
1) I write something people really like and/or enjoy. Sometimes it is about the Usual Suspects, sometimes it is not.
2) New people friend me.
3) It turns out that if they friended me because of a non-critter-related post, I spend the next three months dog-blogging. If they friended me because of a critter-related post, I spend the next three months getting all political.

SORRY ABOUT THAT, NEW PEOPLE.

This is not a political post but is vaguely critter-related because I have been up since zero-three-fucking-hundred because dogs. Or maybe it was cats. I'm not sure which, I just know I woke up with the sensation that either dogs or cats were doing something I should interrupt, so I got up and moved around and went pee and let dogs out on general principles. Then I tried to go back to bed for another hour but it was not so much with the working, so here I am having just finished my toast and enjoying some lovely tea from the Seattle Tea Cup (it's Green Dragon Oolong if you're wondering, which is temporarily out of stock but good stuff).

I'm also spiting you all by doing neither a funny critter post nor any substantive political commentary, because I am a complex creature and also it is 0446 and I have important things to do like chain-smoke and wait for Daniel to get to work and log into IM so I can say good morning. Neener.

But just as a reminder, or polite information if you didn't know already, I have an exclusively dog-and-cat blog over at The Manor of Mixed Blessings, so if you're looking for reliable blogging of life related to the Usual Suspects, that is the place to go.

Over here, we do tea, toast, feminism, fiber (spinning, knitting, and dyeing thereof), my impending wedding, the immigration shit that has to happen before the wedding does, dogs, cats, work, a little broad-focus social justice, and whether or not UK-style English uses a totally excessive number of u's[1].




[1] It does. Also, it neglects the beautiful and elegant Oxford Comma. UK English, you have much to answer for.

I've just completed my yearly training on diversity from my employer. On
the whole, I thought it was good. It introduced, at a 101 level, concepts
like privilege, gender identity, and size acceptance. While it failed to
prefix cisgendered people with cis-, it at least got the idea of people who
are transsexual and intersexual out there, so kudos. There was even a
question on trans-people and sexual orientation (names changed because my
memory sucks):
Carl meets his co-worker Doug and Doug's partner, Sam, at church. After
they've gotten to know each other, Sam reveals that he is FtM. What is
Sam's sexual orientation?
1. Heterosexual
2. Homosexual

(The correct answer was even #2, woo! And the blurb that followed the
question boiled down to "Sam is a man who is sexually and romantically
interested in other men, and therefore is homosexual.")

Then there was the bit of SURPRISING FAIL. It was four people with
different "personality styles" and recommendations for how to communicate
effectively with each of them.
1. Technical & Analytical: Male.
2. Creative: Female.
3. Ambitious & driven: Male
4. Nurturing "people person": Female.

WTF. Someday I'm going to run across a presentation or class in which a
woman is depicted as having technical knowledge, and that day I will fall
the fuck out of my chair dead from surprise. Apparently I don't exist, what
with holding a technical position. Maybe I should be a good little woman
and start looking for positions in Human Resources.[1]








[1] Notably, my company's ENTIRE HUMAN RESOURCES DEPARTMENT is made up of
white women. The technical positions (like mine) are overwhelmingly
populated by men. White men. Old white men. Well, OK, possibly not "old"
but somewhere around 40 and up. Srsly. People of color are even more
poorly represented than white women, and women of color? There's one over
here on the engineering side of things.

Police hunt 'The Midnight Knitter' wool grafitti bandit

I totally want to knit sweaters for trees now.


...if this gets posted twice, IT IS NOT MY FAULT. It's raining and my connection is flaky.

For those of you what are on LJ and wish to consume my dog-and-cat-blogging without too much of my personal life involved: ManorOfMixedBlessings. Le voila.

NOW MAKE IT STOP FREAKIN RAINING AND MAKE THE SUN COME OUT.

1) I owe a couple of y'all thoughtful responses to your comments on my last post. I am on it, I swear. Just not tonight, because I am exhausted and my interwebs is flakey from the rain.

2) My new license plates arrived in the mail today. They say "GRRWOOF". I am ridiculously pleased with them.

3) HOLY SHIT NOA1 ARRIVED TODAY. That's Notice Of Action 1, which means that someone at the Vermont Service Center opened the I-129F Petition for Alien Fiance I sent in, and it is now at the bottom of the pile on some over-worked bureaucrat's desk. Woot! Progress! The next thing we get will either be a Request For Evidence (if they feel the packet I put together with FORTY PAGES of Evidence that Daniel and I a) have met in the past 2 years and b) have an on-going relationship is insufficient) or NOA2, with the final approval or denial of the petition.

The VSC is taking 5 months to process K1 Visa Applications (aka I-129F Petition for Alien Fiance), so we're not expecting NOA2 for quite some time. Still, exciting!

"I don't like hanging out with other women. They're catty and shallow. I'd rather hang out with guys."

This statement is so problematic. And yet it's so fucking common. I said it when I was younger, I've heard women I consider friends (!!) say it, it's all over the place. But stop and think for a minute. Switch it around, maybe: "I don't like hanging out with Latinos, they're all lazy and here in the country illegally. I'd rather hang out with white people."

The racism in that statement is incredibly easy to spot. It's like this big glaring blinking bright pink neon sign: "BIGOTRY HERE" And yet people seem to have massive amounts of trouble spotting the glaring blinking neon sign sexism inherent in the first statement. Women say that shit to prove that they're not one of those women, the ones who will make a man turn off the football game to watch Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, nag him to pick up his clothes, expect him to visit with family instead of playing poker with the boys. Nope, not them, these women who hate other women. Why, they're practically one of the boys themselves.

This makes me so sad. Because the best thing anyone can say is "I have met some women who I found catty and shallow, and I would not enjoy hanging out with those women." And because look, y'all, you've met men who are That Creepy Dude and men who are assholes and men who are shallow and hateful and mean and I don't hear you out there all "I don't like men. They're creepy assholes. I'd rather hang out with...my dog, I guess, because I don't like any women, either." You're giving men a free pass and judging them on their individual merits, while making each woman who disappoints you stand for the gender as a whole, and that shit ain't fair and that shit ain't right.

Yes, I know, there's a lot of social rewards you can get, as a woman, by declaring that you hate your whole gender. You're aligning yourself with the people who hold the power in the patriarchal society western women live in: the men. You're trying to buy yourself a little safety from their contempt, to wheedle them into sharing a little bit of the social power they hold, whether or not you're doing it consciously. I get that. I get that there are reasons, valid fucking reasons, hateful though they may be, that a woman would buy into the cultural misogyny and stereotype every other woman on the face of the planet in an effort to get herself a little space. But it is sorrowful. It is, to borrow a phrase from Melissa McEwen over at Shakesville, a terrible bargain.

Which is why the most feminist thing I do is this: I have friends who are women. I refuse to be ashamed of them. I refuse to categorize myself or my female friends as "not like most women" because what the fuck, what are most women like? Seriously. There is no "most women." Not when you say it in that tone of voice. There is no "most women" when you mean "people who only care about shoes and makeup and losing weight."

And let me tell you why I cherish my friends who are women: because cis-men, even the good ones, even Daniel who I adore, there are some things they just don't get. They might listen, they might try with all their hearts to understand, but they're never going to know what it's like on the deep level of experience. They will never know about how hard it is to work in a technical field and have your abilities doubted not because of your experience but because of your body. They will never know what it's like to get cornered by That Creepy Dude and wish with twisting shame and fear and anger to be anywhere else but here, with some person bigger than you refusing to acknowledge your agency and your right to set your own boundaries and threatening you just by the way he runs his greasy gaze over your body. Cis-men will never know what it's like to call someone on an asshole move and have their anger dismissed with "is it that time of the month?" because hormones make women crazy, dontcha know, hurr hurr hurr, and you'd never call someone on their asshole moves if you weren't menstruating. Cis-men will never know the relentless lifelong pressure, beginning in earliest childhood, to be nice. To be accomodating. To be pretty. They will never, ever know, not in the visceral way women will know, not in the way some of you reading those examples nodded your heads and felt with me that pang of far-off shame and anger and fear.

Even when these are not the things I am discussing with other women, that shared pool of experience, that knowledge of what it's like to grow up with this shit and live with this shit and deal with this shit, it's there. I don't have to explain, I don't have to try to put it into words that convey it, they know. There is a deep river of life underpinning our relationships, a commonality in which no cis-man is ever going to share. He can look at the pretty river, he can take a picture and he can ponder the ecology of it and scoop up water samples, but he's never going to get in there and swim around.

I can't even convey the sense of relaxation and gratitude I get every time I count up my friendships with other women. I can't even tell you how fulfilling I find them, knowing that I don't have to explain all the damn time. I don't have to draw a picture, I don't have to make excuses, I don't have to decide if I have the energy right this minute to explain why what happened upset me. It's understood. They know.


Nota bene: this post is not about men and men's experiences. Attempts in the comments that fall under "But what about the men?" or "But men experience x, too" are going to be ruthlessly pruned. The lived experience of cis-men is radically different from the lived experience of women, cisgendered and transgendered. Someday maybe I'll do a post on my take on the lived experience of cis-men, but this post is not it and let's face it, I don't understand their lived experience on a visceral level any more than they understand mine. And please forgive me if I don't even attempt a take on the lived experience of people who are transgendered. I cannot do it justice. I just know than when I've read of transwomen who are experiencing the shoddier side of femininity in western culture for the first time, all I can think is "Welcome. I'm sorry it's like this, but welcome."

1) You can quit reading my whining about USCIS not opening the packet now,
they have cashed the check. This reassures me that it did not get stuffed
somewhere in the basement. Still plenty of waiting and angst to go but for
now I can relax a little bit.

2) I have to do an "Informational Speech" on March 27. The topics I am
considering: "The Bechdel Test: Its Uses, and Shortcomings", "The
Difference In Breed Standard Interpretation Between Working and Show Line
German Shepherd Dog Breeders In The US", "The Wedding-Industrial Complex
Will Eat Your Soul", "Just You Watch, There Will Be Comprehensive
Immigration Reform That Makes Life Easier About Ten Minutes After I Actually
Marry My Imported Spouse", "Why Cesar Millan Is The Spawn Of Satan", and
"Cats Wrestling at Three A. M.: Scourge Of Modern Society". I will have to
put up an actual poll on these later but if you have other suggestions for
things I can inform my Speech classmates about, please feel free to comment.

3) There is no spoon.

the classic question:

anyone have any tips for making eyebrows/lashes grow back faster?

i have an appointment to get a new contact lens prescription in a month. i'd rather not have them see/ask about my missing brows/lashes.

1) USCIS has still not opened the stupid I-129F package. NOT FUCKING AMUSED HERE.

2) I am making fantastically amazing little charms for my dog wranglers for the wedding. I may or may not post pictures when they're done. My main concerns are that people will either a) be willing to commit physical violence to become a dog wrangler at the wedding in order to obtain one, or b) deluge me with requests to make one for their own dog/cat/parrot/ferret/guinea pig/significant other/snake, or c) both. On the other hand if they work out I expect I will be too ridiculously proud of them to keep them to myself so I may chance it.

3) Waiting on invitation mock-ups to get to Daniel so he and I can make a decision on which one to roll with, at which point I will attempt to purchase paper for them and at least get it all cut out even if I can't print and assemble the suckers until we have a date, which we won't have until USCIS STOPS BEING A BUNCH OF UNAMUSING FUCKERS.

4) Have decided on wedding ring for me. Think he's still waffling.

5) USCIS: NOT AMUSING AT ALL.

Has anyone ever gotten permanent eyebrow tattoos? I'm kind of considering it - maybe just a light base so it won't look bare when swimming/sleeping, that I can pencil over later to darken as needed - and just wondering if anyone here had any experience with it. :)

I'm assuming it's better to go to a cosmetic specialist rather than a run-of-the-mill tattoo parlor, right? The cheapest I'm finding is about $450 - is that standard?

So I've had a stressful couple of days for no good reason really, things have actually been going pretty well but EVERY LITTLE THING just drives me nuts. In an effort to cheer myself up, I played dress-up with Tink.

And then I read this interview with Cherie Priest wherein she speculates on casting for a Boneshaker movie.

And then I accidentally captioned a picture and it's totally not my fault you guys, I swear.

Can I just note that Tink is a really tolerant and patient dog when cheese is involved?

http://www.allure.com/beauty/blogs/reporter/2009/07/a-simple-cure-for-trichotillom.html

My friend texted me this morning about it. It's not at all detailed but the fact that a major magazine like that is at least mentioning it, I think that's encouraging that more people who have it will be able to figure out a) that they have trich and b) that they aren't alone.

Text of the blurb:

People suffering from trichotillomania—the compulsion to pull out one's own hair, like the man on Obsessed—might have a new option for treatment: N-Acetylcysteine, an antioxidant sold at most healthfood stores. Scientists at the University of Minnesota Medical School found that, of the 50 participants who took the supplement daily for 12 weeks, over half of them reported less pulling by the end of the study. N-Acetylcysteine works by lowering glutamate levels, a chemical in the brain that triggers excitement, and potentially could be used to treat other obsessive/compulsive behaviors. [Sidenote: is there anything antioxidants can't do? I bet if someone looked into it, antioxidants could probably improve the global economy. Just saying...]

1) I had planned to spend most of the day today neurotically checking the
tracking information for our immigration package to see if it had been
delivered yet, what with it guaranteed to be delivered on Monday. I checked
just a second ago in order to start my morning off with a little frustration
at not seeing it delivered, as that's always a good way to start the day,
and instead saw this:
Your item was delivered at 12:41 PM on March 6, 2010 in SAINT ALBANS, VT
05479 to INS . The item was signed for by D RENAUD.

Well, shit, there goes my plans for the day. On the other hand, eeee! The
paperwork is there and it should land on someone's desk today, whence to sit
for the next 4 months until they finally open it up and look at it. Who the
hell would have thought that USCIS was open on a Saturday? Not me, for
sure.

2) This was going to go on facebook but in the end, fuck it, it was too
long. And let me note that when I bitch about people spamming me there, I'm
not talking about the little blurb that pops up on my news feed saying "Bob
Dobbs has joined the group Let's Make the US a Right-Wing Christian
Fundamentalist Theocracy!" Without that notification, for instance, I never
would have found the group "Can this poodle in a tinfoil hat get more fans
than Glenn Beck?" and my life would be a poorer place (yes, I did join).
The problem comes when Bob Dobbs then clicks on the button that should (but
doesn't) say "SPAM YOUR FRIENDS ABOUT THIS GROUP" and suddenly an invitation
pops up telling me that Bob Dobbs would like me to join the group "Let's
Make the US a Right Wing Christian Fundamentalist Theocracy!" I check my
invitations and requests about once a week and it's always a pile of this
shit, seriously, along with a bunch of request for items from games I do not
play, or to join someone's team on a game I do not play, &c &c &c.
I do not play facebook games because at home I am working with a freakin
satellite internet connection that enjoys slowing down erratically because
there's a cloud within a hundred miles, dropping packets because a bird flew
in front of it, and oh yeah limits me to 12.5GB of downloads per 30 day
period and 7GB of uploads. There's things I'd rather spend my bandwidth on
than getting frustrated with facebook games.

I do not join the stupid goddamned right-wing evangelical Christian groups
because right-wing evangelical Christianity is incredibly toxic and I am a
feminist. Part and parcel of my feminism are the following tenets:

1) Women have the absolute right to control their reproduction. This means
that they have the right to an abortion any time, for any reason. That's
right, even if you don't like the woman's reasons. Even if you think she
should be punished for being a slut. It doesn't matter: she still has the
right to control her own body. This means that women have the right to not
have to deal with some asshole fundie pharmacist refusing to fill their
birth control scrip. Where the fuck are the moralizing pharmacists in the
news for denying Viagra scrips, hm? Funny how it's women's
reproductive choices that are being restricted, isn't it?

2) Women are individual human beings with agency. They have the right to
make choices about their lives and to set boundaries that keep them safe
without some asshole fundie Christian telling them to get back in the
kitchen, homeschool their kids, and "submit" to sex with their husbands
whenever their husbands want it, without consideration of their own wants,
needs, or desires. They have the right to say yes to sex without some
asshole trying to slut-shame them. They have the right to say no to sex and
to have that boundary respected. Yes, even if a man is really horny. Men
do not have a right to women's bodies. No one has the right to commit rape.

3) Health care is a human right. Everyone deserves to have access to
adequate, affordable care. Yes, even poor people. Yes, even people who
have immigrated to this country illegally. EVERYONE. There is no
reason for people living in a wealthy, supposedly developed nation to have
children dying of infected teeth. There just isn't. There is no good
reason for medical bills to be the number one reason for personal bankruptcy
in this country. There just. is. not. Not at all. Ideally, I want a
fuckin public option and I want it yesterday.

4) The Defense of Marriage Act and all the state laws banning same sex
marriage are nothing but legislated bigotry. They need to be repealed
sometime last week. Marriage is a civil right and there's no reason to deny
anyone civil rights based on right-wing fundamentalist Christian theology.
Make it stop, right the fuck now.

5) We have come a long way but we are not yet post-racial, post-feminist,
post-ableist, or post- anything else. We have a long way yet to go to
achieve a truly just society, and goddamit can we just get to work?

6) Prepending "hipster" to any form of bigotry (i.e. "hipster racism") does
not mean that suddenly it is being used to ironic effect to undermine the
status quo. What it usually means is that some privileged middle-class
white kid is spouting off some seriously toxic shit and if you call him on
it, he will claim you can't take a joke. What the fuck ever. Move on,
hipsters. Racist jokes are still racist, even if you think you're being
ironic. Ditto sexist jokes, ableist jokes, fat jokes, &c &c &c. Just stop.

And you know, if right-wing evangelical fundamentalist Christianity would
shut the fuck up and keep to itself, I could peaceably regard it as a choice
of faith that people make and leave it at that. But since those people get
out there and actively try to have their theology and moral precepts (which
I find nauseatingly repugnant) legislated at local, state, and national
levels? They. are. the. enemy. End of story.

goingferal came over yesterday, bringing with her PILE OF PUPPIES. I am not kidding, check it:


That is the only puppy picture I am posting, you will have to go harrass goingferal for others. It is possible that she got pics with Tink in the same frame as puppies, but Tink was not about to hang out with puppies and play the auntie. She was relatively calm about puppies in the yard, although she did work herself up to frothing at the mouth, but she found puppies in the house unspeakably disturbing and was confined to the bedroom after she cornered one under my desk to bark at it. Beowulf was much the same, although rather than stare at puppies and froth at the mouth he nobly pretended that puppies did not exist, with random expressions of horror when they came galumphing toward him.

He did, however, flirt with Nike, who came with, and Nike flirted back and was all "yeah, I still got it, the boydogs half my age want me!"

Anyway, puppy ears are green because part of the reason they came to visit (aside from the random socialization of visiting a strange place and new adult dogs who look radically different from the other adult dogs they have met) was to get their ears tattooed. So now the little boogers have things like "BORN TO FETCH" in their right ears for ID purposes[1]. And at this age they were over it within 3 seconds of getting it done. In fact, they all learned quite quickly that the puppy scream when the stamp was done meant that cookies would be forthcoming, so the mercenary little buggers were just WAITING for their siblings to cry out in pain. They're so adorable.

The Feline Horde was mostly absent. Braxton took one look at puppies and disappeared himself. Aida made one foray towards the living room, saw them, and disappeared. Roo on the other hand hovered around the edges whining about being hungry and giving puppies really, really dirty looks. The black and tan girl with eyebrows was brave and confident and followed him around and even barked at him...as long as he wasn't looking at her. The minute he gave her the Evil Eye, she would back off to a safe distance or the comfort of the puppy pile. It was six different kinds of hilarious.

In other news, I have been mildly posting at the Manor of Mixed Blessings. I think what will end up there is critter-related posting that you will have mostly seen here, except that since I can't post by e-mail from work there the version that goes up will usually be slightly edited and cleaned up, because I will have had time to think about it. So, y'know, choose your poison for dogbloggery.



[1] OK, I kid, there's actually some complicated code there. But my version is WAY COOLER.

Long Island Iced tea mix safely hidden by roommate from Long Island.

Praise be to John!

God I want a drink right now.
Just to get rid of the small voice in my head that's so smugly reminding me that all my emotional pain is self inflicted. That the cure for what ails me is at every major convenience store/gas station and available for purchase for another two hours at least, more if I go to one of the many bars in the area.

This all started today with a short conversation with jynjyrbug over instant messenger where I mentioned that I feel as though I only have one real friend right now. In this case the definition of a "real" friend would be someone who voluntarily hangs out with me outside of a group setting in real life. Not that friends like jynjyrbug aren't friends, but it's not the same thing.

( cut for long rant about friends lost )
Ava's staying the night at her dad's house and I'm all alone. The evening was depressing enough without knowing that friendly people are having good times drinking with each other. The urge to drink was almost overwhelming. Instead I've just spent the past five hours ranting and raving in this Live Journal and now it's nearly time for the stores to stop selling alcohol. Score one for the big guy? Hope so. Still got a half an hour to go.

Still, I wish I could have just called someone else to come over and hang out. Maybe smoke some pot and play some videos games (pot's a poor substitute for drinking, but I should really start having my own stash) or watch the one season of Freaks and Geeks. Does that sound good to you? Do you live anywhere nearby? If so please call.

After writing that line I got up from my computer feeling much better and more self-controlled. I congratulated myself on a job well done. I went to the fridge to get a glass of water or something.

I just found Long Island Iced Tea mix in the fridge.
I'm hyperventilating.
Fuck. This. Shit.