And sometimes you get a parachute

A short update to my post last week about getting locked out of Facebook. After a few days of gnashing of teeth and rending of garments, I was magically able to return. I believe I know what happened, although I don’t understand the timing. Last fall I changed my middle name to a political campaign. Even though I removed it after the election, for some reason it took Facebook 4 months to figure out I was violating their ToS.

So, I am back in, but in a more moderate way. For me, Facebook feeds this narcissistic, ego-centric view of the world. While I didn’t have access, I realize how much time I spent just crafting what I might post next with a view toward how much attention it would receive.

Facebook has its utility, which is why I (along with so many others) continue to participate in that space – namely that it is the one social media where all of my close friends are also online. Also, I like the passive nature of sharing there. I just post what I want (har har) and then people can respond as is their wont. As opposed to sending an email or making some kind of direct engagement that requires me to break through the imperceptible personal boundary. Clearly this is an issue I just need to get over. I don’t think most people feel receiving an email is intrusive. Hell, I think I’m stuck in the last decade and most people don’t even use email anymore – especially if they are under 30. But that’s another topic for another day.

For now, I have made up with Facebook. But I’m still making sure to grab all my friends’ contact information before I get cut off or leave of my own volition. In my experience, there is a lifecycle to these things and even if Facebook does nothing, some day something else will come along that will supplant their monopoly.

Standing at a precipice

I have the terrible habit of standing at the precipice for far too long. One might attribute this to sitzfleisch or a sort of paralysis that builds up the longer I wait to make my move. Sometimes you have to hurl yourself over the chasm, sometimes you have to ask for help in the leaping.

In my yoga class, we are working on handstands. For two months. That means that twice a week I get to practice hurling my body upside down. I am not at the point where I can do it without support. On Monday, I needed extra support, but I knew I needed to push myself over the hump and get past the psychological block that was holding me back. Today, I was able to go up more gracefully, with less support. But I know if I hadn’t literally hurled myself into the pose on Monday, I would still be hopping and not getting my feet over my head today.

And something interesting happened that I don’t think I’ve ever noticed before. Once I was upside down, my teacher told me to look forward of my hands. I thought I was, but apparently not FAR ENOUGH. When I did look farther forward, I felt my upper back relax and my arms and shoulders could better support me. It doesn’t seem like it should work, and yet, it did.

In the interim, yesterday morning as is my habit, I checked Facebook after I got up. But within an hour, I had to log back in and then was told my account might not be “real” and I had to verify who I was. I’ve had to do this before, so I identified the 5 people and then got to a new step: they wanted a phone number to text a confirmation code to. I gave them one, and never received the code. If I want to proceed with recovering/reactivating my account, I’m now required to give them a government-issued ID. UH, FUCK NO. Apparently this has happened to a bunch of Instagram users, which as we know, Facebook bought several months ago.

I have no idea why my account got flagged, but I have felt ambivalent about Facebook for a long time. While I mourn the lost connections (primarily the people I met overseas and that was the only way to maintain contact), for the most part, I will not miss it. Facebook had devolved into a stale echo chamber, with most of my friends reposting things they thought were funny or moving or whatever. I did like the minutia of daily life and just hearing what people were doing, but those kinds of updates were becoming fewer and fewer in between. It may have just been that the Facebook algorithm suppressed them, so I wasn’t seeing them at all.

My point here is, just like the handstand, I needed a push. Whether it came from within or without, it was the right thing for me. I spent A LOT of time on Facebook, perhaps to the detriment of other things I want to focus on – like this blog! For now, I want to spend my energy on creating stories I love and connecting with friends over a table, instead of the internet.

ETA: Another friend pointed out this piece: 7 Ways to Avoid Identity Theft Before Facebook Gets Hacked, which just adds fuel to the fire for me in staying off of Facebook. One of the reasons I’ve always felt uneasy was the degree to which they require and/or collect personal information.

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I’d be curious to hear what precipices you are standing on, where you feel you need a push and where you want to push yourself.

Pack your bags

Two years ago I traveled in SE Asia for just under three months. The topic of what to bring comes up often enough that I thought I’d write a post about it, if only for my easy reference in the future.

I was nudged to write this by a friend who asked: If you could only bring three things with you on a trip, what would they be? My quick, flip answer was: money, a camera and a toothbrush. But writing this just now, I replaced toothbrush with shoes. Oh, how fickle a packer I am! When I was preparing to go on my trip, a friend sent me an extensive packing list. The picture above shows me with my luggage: a medium-sized internal frame backpack as well as a small daypack on the ground, plus my moneybag and camera around my shoulder. And you should know I am a towering five feet one inches tall, so that should give you some idea of the size of my pack. I think it weighed about 15 pounds when I left the US. I did end up buying another tote halfway through my trip to carry all the things I ended up buying (pounds of pepper in Kampot!). If I had to do it over again, I would have left the books behind and probably tried to just load them all on an e-reader. Books are HEAVY!

Here is her list, complete with notes:

Immigration policy

I know at least two same-sex bi-national couples. Unlike their heterosexual counterparts, unless the foreign partner can attain a green card through other channels, they are always forced to make painful choices in order to stay together.

If you have ever deeply loved another person and had that love returned, you know what you would sacrifice to keep that love. This is the same equation that these couples work through. There is new legislation being proposed that would include bi-national same-sex couples in immigration reform. I urge you to take a few moments to write a letter. You can use the following letter I wrote:

To the Honorable Senator [name],

I’m writing to ask you to include bi-national same-sex couples in immigration reform. Specific provisions for same-sex bi-national couples MUST be included in ANY comprehensive immigration reform bill going forward. America’s gay and lesbian citizens should not be forced to choose between loved ones and country.

This is an important and highly personal issue for me. In 2007, my friends, a same-sex bi-national couple, moved to Canada because of the current immigration laws did not allow them to remain in the U.S. together. Sze came to the U.S. from Malaysia as a student 12 years earlier and earned a degree in Computer Science. But with her work visa expiring, she and her wife, Nadine, a U.S. citizen, left their friends, family, careers, and community behind. They were fortunate to be able to move back in 2011 when Sze got a job that sponsored her for another work permit. If the federal government had recognized their marriage, they would not have had to spend four years in another country. While in Canada, they met dozens of other couples who moved from the U.S. in order to stay with their partners.

I met another same-sex bi-national couple while I was traveling in SE Asia a few years ago who have not been able to stay in America, for the same reason as Nadine and Sze. But unlike Nadine and Sze, they haven’t been able to return. They have been separated from the support of friends and family because Tony cannot sponsor Thomas to remain in the United States.

I think this is a terrible injustice. As one of your constituents, I respectfully ask that you support gay and lesbian inclusive immigration reform.

You can write to your legislator here or call the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121.

The Weirdest Place

Last night a friend asked me what was the weirdest place I’d ever been. I had to pause, and then laugh, because the first answer that popped into my mind was Budapest and second was a Christian Values Conference I attended as a teenager (twice!). I have traveled on four continents: North America, Europe, South America and Asia and visited many places. Yet I feel that there is still so much of the world I haven’t seen. Back to my friend’s question, I started to interrogate what “weird” meant. What is it that makes something strange? Is it merely because it is unfamiliar and out of sync with my own experience of the world? In almost every setting, I recognize myself as the one that is weird, out of place.

I visited Oaxaca, Mexico in 2005, where I saw expansive straw platters heaped with roasted crickets called chapulinas. It seemed weird to me, but I was the odd-woman out; the people around me were delighted by this local treat. Contrast that with my breakdown over schnitzel in Budapest in 1992 and one might draw the conclusion that I am most certainly a strange creature.

I take my cues from the environment and surroundings. The first time I went to France I was 19. We stopped at a rest stop to use the bathroom, but I came up short when I walked in and found a squat toilet. Whatever urges I had that brought me in came to a screeching halt and I decided I could wait until I found a “proper” toilet. Fast-forward 20 years and I mastered these same squat toilets while traveling throughout SE Asia with nary a second-thought. And while the roasted and grilled bugs for sale at the night market still gave me the willies, I recognized that it is only in “the West” that we consider this abundant source of cheap protein inedible.

Does algae growing on snow qualify as weird? Because I’ve seen that in some of the places I’ve hiked. How about little chameleons and anoles hanging out on window screens? We grew up with them decorating our house in SW Florida. I think most Americans would consider that weird. We were Jewish in a sea of Christians, weirdos without a television or air conditioning. And on top of that, I was an identical twin in a time when we were considered oddities.

Which brings me back to the Christian Values Conference. It was a week-long camp/retreat for high school students, held in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. My sister and I weren’t the only Jewish kids to attend, but we were among the few. Since the ratio was pretty much the same as our high school, it didn’t feel that strange. Or rather, once again, I was the strange one. As far as camps go, I think it probably sounds more exotic than it was. The kids were all friendly and sweet. I loved the boys from Alabama and Georgia with their gorgeous southern drawls. We were divided into groups of 10 and for the week, this was our “family.” The second year I attended, the organizers wanted to include proper Bible study into the session. When my “family” found out I was Jewish, they unanimously decided to skip the Bible study out of respect for me (although I had a sneaking suspicion that most of them didn’t like it and used me as a convenient excuse, which was fine by me)! We all got along fantastically and I had a blast. There was singing in the morning and evenings, and when they would sing about Jesus, I would just hum or skip saying “Jesus”.

In my interrogation of weird places, it comes down to me. I am the common factor of strangeness. I am the stranger, the strange one, visiting strangeness until it becomes familiar.

Roe at 40

In January 1990, I was a freshman in college and doing an internship in an Ohio state representative’s office in Washington, D.C. Mostly this consisted of helping the staffers go through the mail the legislator received. I also got to explore the tunnels beneath the 3 buildings that held the legislators’ offices, take bundles of mail to be “franked” (machines that signed the legislator’s signature in lieu of postage) and handle the receipt of flags that constituents asked for.

But January 22nd, 1990, was a different day. It was cold and bright and the “Pro-Life” lobby was hitting the Hill hard. The representative’s office had been inundated with graphic postcards of aborted fetuses and there were groups visiting every elected official and dropping off dead roses. Up until that point, I had wavered as to what was the right position to take on abortion. But seeing these people so determined to make that choice for me, I determined that day that every woman should have the choice.

I think Marge Piercy said it best:

“I will choose what enters me, what becomes flesh of my flesh. Without choice, no politics, no ethics lives. I am not your cornfield, not your uranium mine, not your calf for fattening, not your cow for milking. You may not use me as your factory. Priests and legislators do not hold shares in my womb or my mind. If I give it to you, I want it back. My life is a non-negotiable demand.”

I want the final say over my future, and I believe every woman should have that right.

Lawrence V. Texas

At the urging of a friend, I read the Kennedy decision on Lawrence V. Texas today. This is the decision that overturned the laws making sodomy illegal in 2003. First, it is very readable. There are a few portions that are more technical, but for the most part, it really attempts to speak in plain and respectful language. I wanted to point out the sections that jumped out to me, and honestly, give me a lot of hope for the upcoming Prop 8 and DOMA cases that will be heard this spring. Emphases are all mine.

Kennedy begins by reviewing an earlier case, which upheld the illegality of consenting adults engaging in homosexual acts:

To say that the issue in Bowers was simply the right to engage in certain sexual conduct demeans the claim the individual put forward, just as it would demean a married couple were it to be said marriage is simply about the right to have sexual intercourse. The laws involved in Bowers and here are, to be sure, statutes that purport to do no more than prohibit a particular sexual act. Their penalties and purposes, though, have more far-reaching consequences, touching upon the most private human conduct, sexual behavior, and in the most private of places, the home. The statutes do seek to control a personal relationship that, whether or not entitled to formal recognition in the law, is within the liberty of persons to choose without being punished as criminals.

The decision goes on to quote from Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey in addressing the issue of liberty:

“These matters, involving the most intimate and personal choices a person may make in a lifetime, choices central to personal dignity and autonomy, are central to the liberty protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life. Beliefs about these matters could not define the attributes of personhood were they formed under compulsion of the State.” Ibid.

He then refers to Romer v. Evans on equal protection:

Romer invalidated an amendment to Colorado’s constitution which named as a solitary class persons who were homosexuals, lesbians, or bisexual either by “orientation, conduct, practices or relationships,” id., at 624 (internal quotation marks omitted), and deprived them of protection under state antidiscrimination laws. We concluded that the provision was “born of animosity toward the class of persons affected” and further that it had no rational relation to a legitimate governmental purpose. Id., at 634.

He goes on to address the case specifically:

When homosexual conduct is made criminal by the law of the State, that declaration in and of itself is an invitation to subject homosexual persons to discrimination both in the public and in the private spheres. The central holding of Bowers has been brought in question by this case, and it should be addressed. Its continuance as precedent demeans the lives of homosexual persons.

He then concludes:

The case does involve two adults who, with full and mutual consent from each other, engaged in sexual practices common to a homosexual lifestyle. The petitioners are entitled to respect for their private lives. The State cannot demean their existence or control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime. Their right to liberty under the Due Process Clause gives them the full right to engage in their conduct without intervention of the government. “It is a promise of the Constitution that there is a realm of personal liberty which the government may not enter.” Casey, supra, at 847. The Texas statute furthers no legitimate state interest which can justify its intrusion into the personal and private life of the individual.

Standing at the threshold

I started to write a post about liminality, which turned out to be rather squirrelly, because it turned out to be difficult for me to structure a piece of writing about boundaries and borders dissolving. I was getting away from what I really wanted to talk about, which is about living at the margins. I have talked to a couple of people about this, and the notion I want to stress here is that this is not about being marginalized, but rather about hanging around at the edges – which are also often the points of intersection and overlap.

In my mental map of where I am located relative to the groups I associate with, it’s always on the edge – almost rarely it is in the center. I feel uncomfortable in large groups. I often feel like an oddball, that for whatever reason I just don’t quite fit in. I’m too slow, I’m too alternative/mainstream, too queer/not queer enough, too sensitive, I lack ambition, I’m not driven enough, etc. If I pull my gaze out further, I often imagine the spider web or Indra’s Net, where I am one point of intersection but if I only reach out in any direction there are a multitude of connections.

I like to hang out here, because there are interesting things that happen. And mostly, because I am perfectly positioned to connect people who are closer to the center. I have this idea that I am like the gloss that monks used to write in their manuscripts, adding commentary to color to the original text, expanding on it in some way and connecting people in the present to something from the past.

Liminality is about “standing at the threshold” – except that it refers to ritual space and an internal transformation that occurs for the participant. According to the wikipedia article, liminality has become more widely adopted and applied by mainstream culture, “undermining its significance.”

I love the liminal space, because it’s the space of transformation and also the space of possibility. It’s the place where the boundaries of time dissolve and we become connected across time and geography. A friend posted on Facebook about re-enacting an action that was done hundreds of time in the past in preparation for a ritual and how it collapsed the boundary of time until he felt that he was with the people who were doing it originally. I have experienced that same thing when I prepare food that I know my grandmother or ancestors going back further made. It’s like I have this power to bring the past to the present.

In my mind, these concepts are connected, just the like various groups with which I interact. However, connecting them in words is proving to challenge my abilities. I would love to hear your thoughts on any of these concepts and how you relate to them or how they relate to you.

A Year in Review

What was your proudest achievement?

Finishing the first draft of the story I started last year and letting someone else look at it.
Being present and available to support my mom during some health challenges.
Getting THIS website started.
Learning to use my new camera!

Your biggest change?
I initially felt that 2012 didn’t have any dramatic changes, and I still stand by that. But I became more attuned to subtlety in the last year, which has felt deeply satisfying.

Your happiest moment?
As with the previous question, there weren’t really any giant spikes that stood out. It’s just been a good year. But one thing that I totally enjoyed this year was getting more into birding – first with the barred owls and then nearly tripping over the snowy owl in November!

Your most exciting trip?
I only traveled 3 times this year – I would have to say the ski trip was definitely the most fun. Oh, I just remembered I went down to Portland for a couple of days to hang out with my little sister. That was pretty awesome, too.

Your favourite meal?
Probably the dinner I had at D.O.C. in Portland.

The thing that made you laugh the hardest?
25 funniest autocorrects was pretty damn funny.

What did you do that surprised you the most?
Started another novel.

What happened that you’d have never anticipated this time last year?
Marriage equality passed AT THE BALLOT BOX in three states and a homophobic law was voted down. And Anderson Cooper finally came out of the closet.

Your favourite book / film / poem / music / museum (could be for totally spurious reasons that have nothing to do with the book / film / music in question)?
Book: I had more than one. You can see the top titles here. I guess I’d say there were three:

Why Be Happy When You Can Be Normal? by Jeanette Winterson
Stuck Rubber Baby by Howard Cruse
Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore

Movie: The Cloud Atlas and The King’s Speech

Who made you smile the most?

My sweetie.

Slow Blogging

I never stated explicitly when I posted my manifesto, but when I named this site, I was tipping my hat to the slow movement – slow food v. fast food, etc. Today I learned there is a Slow Blogging Movement! I am not alone. Even though I might not see the other snails, it’s nice to know there are others out there.

Slow Bloom Blog

Embrace YOUR pace. No one yells at a flower to bloom faster.