This kind o'stuff...

Is why a large chunk of the population avoid religious matters altogether.

Here we go... (I've cluttered up the comments with my shock at that behaviour).

When a Christian is bereaved, and writes a piece about it online, do atheist bloggers (not anonymous trolls, real people) comment with "Look, there is no afterlife. NO AFTERLIFE."?

No. Because, you see, that would be no place to discuss theology or politics.

I don't care if the comment was intended to be "friendly" or "helpful". What comes across instead? "Ah, this agnostic woman feels vulnerable and unhappy. I'll get her converted while she's mentally too weak to resist."

As a regular reader of that blog, that commenter is perfectly aware that my dead grandfather was an atheist. He raged against religious indoctrination and cruelty until he died (if anyone's interested, for him the main issue was how religion is used to keep oppressed people down - y'know, the whole message of "all things bright and beautiful" etc.).

I know many, many very good people of many faiths. It's a cliche, I know, but I don't want to bash all religion (here my grandfather and I would part ways, he did!).

But now, you see, he is DEAD. And my mother is bereaved.

On various Trans Day of Remembrance threads on the interwebs, someone always turned up to argue issues of feminist and queer theory.

That behaviour was wrong, and this behaviour is also wrong. I'm aware it is the interwebs, free speech and all that, but you wouldn't do it in a conversation.

Changing History

I'm probably the last Terry Pratchett fan to read his newest novel, Nation. It's not a Discworld, this one, and it gives free rein to the darker topics that one can really only touch upon in comic novels.

And I'm not sure if Pratchett intended this reaction, but the happy ending almost broke my heart.

SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER ALERT!

He uses his "parallel universes get out of jail free card" for good reason here. The British Empire is at its height when a flu outbreak wipes out a great deal of important people, leaving a good, intellectual, unhappy, unprepared man as the King of England.

He's not, really, central to the story, though. A storm that wrecked the ship which carried his young daughter has also killed nearly every inhabitant of an island chain that is not located in the Pacific Ocean, no, not at all.

A young boy travels home to find his whole Nation dead. The voices of his ancestors ring in his ears, and he knows that he must keep the Nation going. He is now a chief, caring for the survivors that wash up on his shore.

Because this is a novel, the young girl is also alive, washed up on the same island.

I won't spoil the intricate plot in the middle. The King has, of course, been searching for his daughter. When they are reunited, she immediately becomes angry at the behaviour of his entourage. Turning up like that with flags and guns, insulting her friends! Treating them like they're "savages"!

And the King of England... listens. He teaches the surviving islanders cricket, with which they are less than impressed, and admires their ancient artefacts. He's not able to stay the tide of colonialism by himself, but is able to... manipulate the situation to give the people the best possible chance (at his daughter's suggestion - she has inherited his brains*).

The people tell him which trappings of "civilisation" they would like, and which they decidedly would not. On their terms.

The world isn't a fairytale. From most English characters comes the applicable bucketloads of racist hate and disdain. But at the end of the book, I was supposed to be concentrating on the two main characters... but I was almost crying, wondering if history could have gone that way in this universe, with someone in a seat of imperial power deducting from empirical evidence that brown people are people...


Incidentally, as far as I, a white person, can judge, Terry Pratchett definitely "gets" issues of race. Also, I am female-assigned, and I know that he's truly brilliant when discussing sexism. I love a certain passage in Men at Arms in which Vimes, the grumpy protagonist (I'm sure any similarities to the author are entirely coincidental) gets stuck at a dinner table with a lot of rich, powerful people. The topic turns to... immigration.

They begin their usual slightly racist (speciesist, fantasy world) ranting... and he has fun egging them on until their real, appalling opinions emerge. They don't suspect a thing.

"You know," Vimes shook his head, "you know, that's what's so damn annoying, isn't it? The way they can be so incapable of any rational thought and so bloody shrewd at the same time."


*In a scenario that is not racist, I shan't give away the joke that explains why it isn't a racist depiction, a cannibal is impressed enough to express a wish to eat them.

The most offensive thing you'll read this decade...

Don't look at this article if you're having lunch. You'll lose your appetite pretty quickly.

A synopsis: Kid with Asperger's has been shot dead by his father. Lots of other autistic kids are killed by their parents. It's such a shame that these children have autism, which makes their parents kill them.

I was going to write something blackly comic about it, but I just can't.

Parts of it, yes - "Jacob Grabe, 13, could sense a storm coming several days out. He would get agitated and make strange noises. Silverware bothered him. He could eat only from plastic forks and spoons. He breezed through complicated algebra but struggled with basic division." Oh no!! He must die!!!!1

Nope, I can't even laugh here. Because Oh no, he must die is what his own father thought, and this journalist totally empathises with that thought process, like it's a logical one that people often go through.

I want to rewrite part of the article, in fact, to make it more respectful (well, it could hardly be less respectful). However, this piece about a murdered child doesn't really bother talking about the child. So, I've nothing to go on - I can't put "Jacob Grabe, 13, loved computer games and detective novels" because I've no idea what his interests were.

Jacob Grabe: RIP.

The other children mentioned, whose names the author doesn't bother with (I'm aware that the little girl was called Katie McCarron): RIP.

And here's an idea that should be common sense:

Say you're planning to have children. If you think you'll "snap" if they are neurologically atypical - DON'T BOTHER. Introduce yourself to the humble condom or contraceptive pill.

If you're ever likely to shoot a child, suffocate them or burn them to death because they are disabled, please shoot yourself instead, before you have time to breed. It is YOU "society" should reject, it is YOU who shouldn't be "mainstreamed".

Signed: Oliver, an autistic guy who will also, actually, never be able to live a "normal life" but has NOT been shot by either of his parents. Crazy world, eh?

Questions...

Is there an equivalent, for any other group of people, to pronoun slips for trans people? Something that is not necessarily purposeful, but can be purposeful, and pops up in every single conversation?

Because I can't imagine somebody who really does care about somebody else, say, a overweight person who's sensitive about their appearance, talking like this:

"Catherine, who is a lard-arse, went to work today, and she's got a fucking massive arse, and she got some difficult calls from customers, god, she's fat and ugly, and then she went home".

And, once one person doesn't bother to use the right pronoun, it infects other people, and the trans person is immediately totally undermined -

"What did that hideous gargantuan woman do after that?"

Is there an equivalent? Of course, people from every marginalised group have to face racism, or ableism, or whatever continously - but from people who truly care about them? And even from people who understands, to whatever extent that is possible, what it's like to be them?

I also want to know - what proportion of post-hormones, post-op transsexuals are really no-hormones, no-op transsexuals who were just desperate not to have that discomfort and pain in every. single. conversation?

A River in Egypt

My mum has written the definitive post about my grandfather. I still can't really be upset that he's dead, because both he and I were aware of the impossibility of the concept. My grandfather was immortal.

He projected an air of immortality wherever he went - from his "I'm king of the world" pose in photographs, to his undisguised contempt for "old codgers", most of whom were a decade or so younger than him.

I remember thinking Hagrid ludicrously naive when he gently suggested that my grandfather might not, actually, live to be a hundred.

In conclusion, it's equally ludicrous now that everyone's saying he's "dead". I saw his body, of course, to check - but they'd shaved off his beard just before I last saw him alive, so it looked nothing like him (he hated his face without hair, I have no idea why he consented to the procedure).

Now I'm thinking about it, this might be considered the "denial" stage of grief. Er... NO IT ISN'T.

Joyful Fun

So today, I went to the doctor's and talked about getting referred to a GIC (note that I said neither "saw a doctor" nor "got referred to a GIC").

I ALREADY have a pounding headache created by bureaucratic fools. This headache will be permanent for a few years, I guess.

My grandfather is dead. I'll write a coherent post about him later.

We're a family of Jewish atheists. Did we take the ashes home from the funeral? Nope. We took home all the extra food and lived on it for two days.

Half-formed thoughts about Bad Things

Currently, I've been thinking about how people cope with stress and trauma. My grandfather is currently in hospital and failing to respond to treatment, and I just hope that my grandmother isn't behaving the way she normally does when there's a problem (I can't go and see him, because I've got full-blown flu, which would kill off him and half the ward in an instant). I hope she's not being REALLY REALLY EXTRA CHEERFUL and totally dismissive of everyone's concerns - that's what generally happens, and that upsets him (he's unconscious now, so actually I don't suppose it matters).

"My head has fallen off."

"Nonsense! Buck up, you'll be fine!"

My grandmother refuses to read books, or to watch films, that might be at all sad in any way. Now, this coping method is pretty bad on its own - but where does it leave her when something happens that she can't ignore? Does she go completely crazy? I don't actually know the answer to that one, not having been alive at the deaths of her parents.

Note that I'm coping with this situation by mainly ignoring it - that's simply because I can't get my mind to believe it. The doctors have said "Your grandfather is going to die" before, and they've reached that conclusion by grossly underestimating his physical and mental strength.

What about coping with traumatic events in the past? Well, my grandmother "dealt" with that one by not telling anybody about it, until she finally snapped and told the nearest person, who was an eleven-year-old child. Who wasn't allowed to tell anyone how freaked out he was by the revelation, because it was a secret.

Again, not so good.

For people with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and for some people without, there's the issue of triggers - situations or sensations that cause you to recall the event. If it were possible, you'd cope while avoiding these altogether.

However, it's my understanding that, sometimes, you can't really predict when you'll be triggered. Say you were in a car accident that killed your friend - no-one has to mention death, or car accidents, or your friend's name, because somebody who's just shaken your hand at a party is wearing the same strong aftershave as the paramedic who pulled you out of the wreckage.

And that's why a lot of people with post-traumatic stress seem to be coping extremely well - firstly, maybe they can keep a calm detachment when the incidents are mentioned, because words don't necessarily register on that visceral level, and secondly - well, in a way it's all or nothing, isn't it? If you can't predict when something will trigger you, you can't avoid it; you just become an excellent liar in your non-verbal communication.

(These are things that I've learned from talking to people with PTSD and people who wouldn't be diagnosed with it, but have suffered trauma. I don't know anything else about PTSD, please correct me if I say something completely wrong.)

So... my conclusion to this part? I'll try more to ignore irrational-appearing behaviour, I guess, and not treat people like they're insane when they do "go off on one". Actually, I generally do that anyway - everything other people do is equally incomprehensible.

I realise that most people have suffered severe trauma. Get any group of people in a room, somehow get them to trust one another, and you'll hear some awful stories (especially if those people are women/female assigned, because they have the more hideous side of reproduction to deal with, and of course they're more likely to have been raped).

I say that so I can mention that none of what I would consider the more terrible things have happened to me. I'm not trying to compare my experiences to those of those people, and I'm not going to tell you what I'm talking about. In the scheme of things, it's not important enough for anyone to pursue it.

I am triggered by two things that I know of. One is fairly easy to avoid entirely, and another is everywhere - but, here's the key thing, most normal people slightly dislike it. Like the reformed Discworld vampire who knows that "I'd kill for a cup of coffee" is part of common parlance, I can say "Egad, that's so annoying!"

Of course, that can backfire. On many occasions (actually, it happened a few days ago!) I can say "Egad, that's so annoying!" and lots of other people can agree (Hagrid always does, and he has no idea what happens in my head... well, I guess he does now). However, the perpetrator(s) can then say "Lol! You're all irritated! I'm in a happy and childish mood, so I'm gonna do it some more!!!" which is the kind of humour I'd enjoy (anyone seen that comic by the trans guy that proclaims "Failed to Mature"?) on any other occasion.

So, I'm thinking that... if you're reminded of the Bad Things all the time in daily life... facing them head-on might, counterintuitively, be easier than trying to avoid all related subjects. Because the related feelings appear anyway.

That's probably the conclusion that every mental health professional in the world has come to with ease, but meh. I'm going to ignore it, as I'm sure most people do (just not on the same level I described earlier).

You can probably tell that I'm only typing this because I've nothing else to do - too sick to get up. And very feverish, as you can also probably tell. This wandering train of thought actually started with the Worst Film Adaptation of a Novel Ever Made in the History of Cinema, the film of Philip Pullman's "Northern Lights" (the film has a different, goddamned stupid, title, as I'm sure you know).

If you haven't read the books, fine - go and rent the DVD. You'll think it was a reasonable film.

If you have read them, spend an entertaining hundred minutes chewing off your own ears, instead. It will be infinitely less painful.

This cinematic travesty (how is it even possible to hire Nicole Kidman and Ian McKellen! and get something that shite?) is relevant because the story has been systematically stripped of all negativity. Dead child? No, no dead children allowed here, sorry. But the dead child is absolutely vital to the story... quick, play the saccharine music and hope nobody notices that there is now no story!

There's a hideously, appallingly mutilated child, too. That one is even more vital... OK, let's show him for precisely four seconds, with no relevant reactions from any other characters, and move on, and ensure that the film has no atmosphere whatsoever, because then no-one will care about him anyway - LOOK AT OUR CGI!!

My grandmother would certainly enjoy watching that film. But I don't understand what would make it entertaining. The bad guys don't do anything... bad. Well, nothing we can take seriously. So... why are the good guys after them, again? Is it because creepy music plays whenever the bad lady appears, thereby giving them a clue?

By the end of that gloriously cheerful cinematic romp, I'd completely separated its characters from those in the novel, and wouldn't have batted an eyelid if the whole lot of them had exploded.

In fiction, Bad Things musn't be underestimated.

Kamelot...

... are a great big heap o' fabulous.



I want to write a post about the National Identity Register and its corresponding ID cards, but so frustrated can't construct sentences WORST IDEA IN HISTORY OF UNIVERSE argh.

Trans Day of Remembrance

It's International Trans Day of Remembrance tomorrow.

(Incidentally, I'm trying to black out this blog for that very reason). Embarrassingly, the top part just will not comply. Can somebody tell me how to do it?)

The list of names for this year:

Kellie Telesford

Brian McGlothin

Gabriela Alejandra Albornoz

Patrick Murphy

Stacy Brown

Adolphus Simmons

Fedra ?

Ashley Sweeney

Sanesha Stewart

Lawrence King

Simmie Williams Jr.

Luna ?

Lloyd Nixon

Felicia Melton-Smyth

Silvana Berisha

Ebony Whitaker

Rosa Pazos

Juan Carlos Aucalle Coronel

Angie Zapata

Jaylynn L. Namauu

Samantha Rangel Brandau

Ruby Molina

Aimee Wilcoxson

Duanna Johnson

Dilek Ince

Teish Cannon

Ali ? and two other women, names unknown

I didn't want to talk about "cause of death" and "age at death" in this post. These people, mainly young women from ethnic minorities, were not born to be murdered. They had personalities, friends, families, interests and passions.

I could link to the few cases in which we have information about one of these people as an individual, but it's always an addendum in a piece about their deaths.

So, all we have is their names. In the cases of most such victims, we don't have even those.

Sometimes, I fantasise that I could be allowed near these people's killers, with a weapon. Any weapon. The murderer of Kellie Telsford is walking free around London...

But the answer doesn't lie that way.

Just... remember.

Stephen Fry in America

I'm full of busy, so this one will have to be quick...

Anybody been watching "Stephen Fry in America"?

I think it was the last episode wherein we saw working-class American families eating at soup kitchens along with the homeless, because an ordinary 9-to-5 no longer pays even the grocery bill.

In the same episode, we saw a bunch of millionnaires wittering on about how socialised healthcare and other such things were BadWrong, because charity! and the trickle-down effect! could fix everything perfectly - and one simply needed to ostracise other rich folk who didn't contribute enough to Good Causes. Send 'em to Coventry.

...?

...oh, never mind.

My parents are travelling to the US this week. Because they've got a bit of nouse, they're aware that they'll only see the shiny happy parts. So they won't come home going "Everything's so BEAUTIFUL! And new! And the people are all so polite and welcoming! And we need to move there right now!!!" like I've heard so many deeply stupid white, wealthy, able-bodied tourists do.

On the end of that episode - it's sad that the American Dream still thrives, in a way. At least, the part about the streets being paved with gold. Those people were willing to die for the chance to enter the US - and plenty of them do, every day.

As Hagrid put it - "They want to sponge off the state! And get all the free... um... er... never mind."

I'm sure the tax dollars used to maintain that big fuckin' border fence could pay for a lot of life-support machines or schoolbooks. And if the authorities let in every Mexican in Mexico, and those people thus learned that their choice was between living in poverty in their homeland and living in poverty somewhere else (with added racial discrimination!) they'd soon go away again.

Oliver's Solution To Our Own Immigration "Crisis" will have to wait for another post, if those wishy-washy liberals won't let him simply do a swap - we'll have all the world's asylum seekers and economic migrants if it takes our Sun readers, fox-hunters, traffic wardens, the BNP, Julie Bindel, bankers and... y'know, child murderers and stuff.

Deal, world? Didn't think so.

On another political note, I'm getting into the anti-choice (sorry, pro-life-until-birth-after-which-who-gives-a-fuck?) mindset. I'm currently LRP-ing a pro-life Catholic French minister. While that sounds like lols all by itself, I know, the setting is a world troubled by zombies.

But they're not zombies! They're unfortunate victims of a psychosomatic illness, whom I'm sure can be cured with a little effort! We must keep every single one of them well and happy (Hagrid made the character, as you can tell if you've ever come across any of his more tiresome ones).

Politics

Oh, I know, one can blog about politics.

Whether one of my best friends excommunicates me or not, I might have to start voting Lib Dem.

Actually, look carefully at the alternatives. The only thing that would have stopped my becoming an ardent Lib Dem supporter is if, when Nick Clegg turned up at the university on Thursday, was if he had said "Hello, Oliver. I'm going to break into your house tonight and eat your cat".

If you actually listen to the man, you'll find out that he's a proper old-style socialist, with some caveats - caveats that I appreciate.

But the man can say what he likes, because nobody listens, anyway...

It's teatime!

Zombies!

I think that our culture is so media-saturated, we now all live our lives backwards. We went to a most enjoyable, and extremely peculiar, party last night... and we spent half of it discussing what headlines would be written if our campus media got the wrong end of the stick (there was only one sofa and about thirty people, so it was a bit of a squash).

I like "President in Five-Hour Halloween Orgy With Transsexual" best. He pointed out that his reputation would probably be greatly increased.

Now, what made this party peculiar? I hear you cry.

Well, the hostess had brought in a student of landscape gardening - who had landscape-gardened the living room. The floor was now a real lawn, and there was a beautiful shrine and grave (those of the teenage years of our hostess, who had just turned 20).

I really have nothing to blog about atm. I'm lacking inspiration on the serious stuff. I could post a picture of my new tattoos when they're healed, I guess. I'm going to go and play Zombie Fluxx now.

Foot... ball?

Right, David Mitchell can have his own category.



In some ways, I've grown up into a slightly shorter replica of my dad. In this particular, minor, way, we both pour a great deal of bile and contemptuous scorn into the word "football" - enunciating both its syllables, Foot. Ball.

Though my dad was actually on a school sports team, which would have been pretty much unthinkable for me. I can't quite look back at school P.E. and laugh yet - it's more looking back and screaming "Nononono make the memories stop I beg for a swift death".

And remember, I played with the girls! Well... I'm not sure that you can call them "girls", more "enraged she-beasts from the Book of Vile Darkness who've been handed blunt instruments and then cheered on in their bloodshed". If I'd had to share sports lessons with the other boys, I wouldn't be alive to write this.

Menstruation? It does rather jar with my sense of self, but I'm glad that the sports teachers never kept track of my menstrual cycle. Eight periods a month is probably not the ordinary number.

I guess the attendant anaemia would have explained my height and weight...

Anyway, come on, people. Give me a positive view of sport. One that doesn't recall me having my head trodden into freezing mud.

It's going to look like YOUR FACE.

Hey, real people have been commenting on this here thing. And I hadn't noticed. Ahoy there.

And I got my first insulting anonymous comment a few posts back, w00t.

Anyway, I has mostly been... worrying, because my marks this term have to be decent. And wondering if I ought to improve my idiosyncratic French, because I have just got to go and study some Upper Palaeolithic cave art in the flesh... paint... at some point.

Anyway, my rant of the day. I'm aware that we're having a global economic recession, sorry, "downturn" and that there are bigger issues out there, but this is my blog.

People who meet a tattooed individual, then trot out the cliche: "What's that going to look like when you're 80?"

Now, that doesn't annoy me because I've got tattoos. Nor does it annoy me on the behalf of others who do. The general response is a lighthearted "Fuck off, when I'm 80 I'll probably be in a wheelchair or dead; if a blobby tattoo is my biggest worry, my whole life is gonna be one giant party."

Of course, I'd say the same - but the topic, in all seriousness, is upsetting. I'm insulted, on the behalf of every 80-year-old in the country who finds themselves with another new physical disability every day, and every 80-year-old in the country who is in constant, debilitating pain.

The people asking that question are never, ever elderly themselves. And they're able-bodied enough to wander the streets being rude to people. They've never, ever considered what life might be like for the very old - they prefer to make jokes about their possible appearance.

Here's a classic case - my own grandfather, though something similar will happen to every one of us:

My grandfather can't walk any more. Because he had to have one leg amputated, an operation that had to happen under local anaesthetic, because a general anaesthetic would have killed him (yes, I realise that many women have caesarean sections under local - and that's just another type of bodily trauma that these appearance-obsessed people, who seem never to have encountered it, can ignore). He's blind in one eye, but has to lie with the working eye facing the wall because the appropriate side of his body gets too painful (he can't sit for long, for the same reason). He can't wash or dress himself, and has to use a catheter. Imagine how dignified that must make him feel.

So... in answer?

AWFUL. It's going to look awful. So, because tattoos start fading from the very beginning, I'm going to hide in a hole for the rest of my life, because my precious, precious looks are irreversibly damaged - because unattractive things and people shouldn't be seen in public. And when you're 80, and you still meet every stupid standard of beauty in the world and are also perfectly physically fit, because that seems to be what you're expecting, you can drop by my hermit-cave and laugh at me.

Edit: That's odd: I was thinking about tattoos and unconscious ageism, and don't have time to rant about the sexist vitriol directed at tattooed women - an awesome blogger read my mind and wrote one for me, today.

Eeeeee!

http://xkcd.com/491/

That is all.

Masculinity fail

The comments for my fieldwork last term pointed out that "Oliver found the physical aspects of the work demanding, and he had some absences through illness" - egad, can I get a disclaimer already, for all the eminent archaeologists that see them and mock what they assume to be a particularly wussy cis boy???

"Incidentally, Oliver has XX chromosomes and weighs less than 120lb whatever he eats, and YES WHILE HIS CATEGORY IS CERTAINLY WITH THE BLOKES, doesn't feel that the comparison of physical strength that people are now going to make is necessarily fair. Many of his absences were owing to migraines, which he gets at certain points in his menstrual cycle, OK??? He has the body and constitution of a consumptive Georgian romantic heroine or an elven princess, all right? If you want to fight over this issue, he'll gladly... erm..."

Also, if you're trans masculine at all, you really don't want to come out to my supervisor - his attitude isn't the problem, he's been bloody wonderful - but he might make you feel rather inadequate. "Hello, Oliver, I'll be with you in a minute. I've got to move fifty pianos with my left hand, demolish a skyscraper with my right, father two children (with the obvious parts) and open some beer bottles with my teeth."

OK, he might never have said that in so many words. But his superhuman strength is admired throughout the department, and he really doesn't understand the concept of illness. I reckon he thinks it's a fiction invented by heartless capitalists.

Anyway... I think I'll post a more light-hearted take on the toilet issue, as the only other option is to stab people in the head with rage.

So, I use the Gents, unless I'm in a dodgy place where it seems less than safe to do so. I miss the cameraderie of the Ladies'. WHY don't other men talk while they're having their pees?

And WHY do they always go alone? It's not just homophobic men not wanting to seem gay, or gay men not wanting to be stabbed - men in gay bars do it too!

It's not a secret mission. Everybody can guess where you're going.

Welcome Week

According to Sarah and D, two Warwick freshers have died this week. Of alcohol poisoning.

Up here, our teetotal SU president is trying to make introductory events less like compulsory drinking contests.

And people are COMPLAINING. Apparently all the fun!!! of Freshers' Week!!! (now renamed Welcome Week) is all gone!!!

FUCK OFF.

That is all.

We won't inherit the Earth, whatever my bumper sticker said. The Earth is full of twats.

Battybattybats' writings on the fabulousness that is the Goth subculture makes me want to write an elegy for my other much-maligned cultural family - that of the geek.

However, I'm feeling snarky, rather than poetic - or, indeed, elegiac (?). So, I'm going to start by aggressively debunking the main myth that is associated with geeks/nerds/whatevers - as suggested in this week's copy of our student rag, Vision.

Apparently, our freakish hobbies and interests exist only to soothe our troubled souls - troubled, because we simply don't get laid enough.

That latter part might, indeed, be the case - until our sample geek reaches 18 and leaves high school!

After that, ze gets laid ABSOLUTELY ALL THE TIME. If ze so wishes - a fairly large proportion of us are on the asexuality spectrum somewhere - meaning, O Vision writer, that they're not trying.

Oh yes - and in my sample of geeks, i.e. those at my university, threesomes/foursomes/etc. seem to be more common than average.

We rarely get laid out of our tribe, yes - but the thought of sleeping with the average person generally leaves us cold. Bear with me, said Vision writer, and say we're in a parallel universe in which every "normal" student suddenly WANTS US BADLY. Let's try it with both sexes -

Male Student: Let's have sexual intercourse (yes, I realise that non-geeks are less direct, but I can't replicate what they actually do).
Geek: OK, but we'd better have at least half a conversation first. What do you think of (insert obscure film/book/mathematical equation)?
Male Student: I am amazing. Listen to my immense sense of entitlement and vastly inflated sense of self-worth. I like football.
(In the unlikely event that Geek is still horny, ze wanders off and masturbates).

Female Student: Let's have sexual intercourse (see disclaimer above).
Geek: OK, but we'd better have at least half a conversation first. What do you think of (insert obscure film/book/mathematical equation)?
Female Student: I am amazing. Listen to my immense sense of entitlement and vastly inflated sense of self-worth. I like shoes.
(In the unlikely event that Geek is still horny, ze wanders off and masturbates).

Sorry about the binary examples, there - but most of the genderqueers I've met are fellow geeks. Heck, "geek" is a gender.

Incidentally, we also build more lasting relationships. Take a look at the average online forum dedicated to Dungeons & Dragons, MUDs, Terry Pratchett, whatever (No, someone is not a geek just because they play bloody World of Warcraft. They might simply be emulating the worst aspects of the subculture).

Anyway, you'll see so much evidence of marriages, civil partnerships, and every other kind of committed relationship.

I'm an autistic geek, so I am one of those few that do have problems getting laid (see my last post but one). But even I've managed it a respectable few times, and I'm in a great relationship.

I believe it's fitting to end with a Discworld quote.

Vision writer, and all your ilk; I think you have something wrong with your head.

I think it's stuck up your bum.

(I know I've let the side down by not finding the exact quote, but tough.)

Prophecies

Hagrid decided that, today, we would go and visit Mother Shipton's Cave in Knaresborough. The borderline-illiterate signs and museum displays were filled with spookiness and lots of "ooooh... some of her prophecies came true... ooooh" which was thoroughly enjoyable.

Sadly, the Internets tell me that they've been fairly selective, so as to heighten the atmosphere. Here's the big one that wasn't mentioned anywhere:

The world to an end shall come
In eighteen hundred and eighty-one.

FAIL. You really have no idea how disappointed I am.

I became a geek...

So that I wouldn't have to talk to people. I could talk to dragons and things instead. In my head.

But what's the most common geek pastime nowadays? Online multiplayer RPGs.

So you have to talk to fucking THOUSANDS of people! A normal person's social life actually involves fewer of 'em.

I'm off to drink alcohol! in a place of revelry! with fellow humans! then.

Edit - oh yes, people at university are fairly accommodating of my autistic self. Someone who knows about our stance on extra-marital shenanigans, and about my communication difficulties, came up to me yesterday and just said "I would like to have sex with you."

Good! I understand that! If you'd flirted with me for hours, I just would have stared at you like an anthropologist witnessing a tribal ritual that ze finds utterly foreign, then I'd have wandered off.

"Now?" I asked, because the statement wasn't specific enough.

"Not now, because I'm busy, but at some point in the next few months."

Ladies, gentlemen and genderqueers, we have conversation with no subtext, no hidden agenda and no idioms! Yes, I know I'm Mister Subtext and Idioms when the communication is written, my Literature A-Level marks attest to that... but I need a bit of time to figure them out in speech. By "a bit of time" I mean "two solid minutes to sit with my mouth open in a foolish way".

I know that my pathetic tally of sexual conquests could be because I'm ugly as fuck, but there is this aspect as well - I have only slept with people who gave a statement exactly like the one above.

And, of course, most of the people willing to be that blunt are random creepy drunk men covered in vomit stains, or similar, who, y'know, I've turned down. Apparently, nice people don't tend to be so direct.

I mean, I've ignored lines like "Shall we have sex?" because... well, how should I know? I'm just getting this "theory of mind" thing, so I've only just understood that your thoughts aren't the same as mine... and now you want me to read them?

Anyway, I met another person last night, who also seemed to speak without any of the peculiarities that make up normal conversation. When something bad was mentioned, he said "Oh dear," in a heartfelt way. At every "Oh dear," Hagrid and I simultaneously thought "We love you. We damn well hope you're gay, because we want you to have our babies and live with us forever".

More insights into the world of autism, that eeevil disease that eats away YOUR CHILD leaving an EMPTY SHELL, no, wait, it doesn't.

Final edit (info from Lisa Harney) - Apparently Stonewall (you know, that charity supporting rich white cisgendered gay men, yes?) is honouring Julie FUCKING Bindel. Yup, that Julie Bindel. Not a different Julie Bindel, who isn't a crazed raving fucking bigot, but the more well-known one... who is.

I'm going to write a piece for the Mail that says "Well, the Pakis and the spastics should all be shot, but the gays... they're lovely!" and see if I get honoured too.

Manga Ollis

OK, so a couple of years ago, I looked like this:



Now, I look like this:



Hagrid has pretty much continuously looked like this (which is, of course, how he gets the pseudonym - particularly from the small child that pointed and yelled "Look Mummy, it's Hagrid"*):



I guess that for him, as a pansexual (who has never been entirely out, in case his mother goes OH NO, I RAISED *TWO* OF THEM**??? and cries, but I'm very sure she doesn't read this), the variety has been pleasing. He's had the depressed femme and the comparatively cheerful androgynous man: now he just needs someone resembling an Uruk-hai for balance.

No can do, I'm afraid.

Well, making those was some time I'll never get back...


*Actually, he resembles Hagrid in personality, too - yup, entirely. You guys, I'm doing Hagrid!

**My queer-theory-sense is tingling... his (out) sister is bi- rather than pansexual, because she only likes men and women.

Surprise!

I think, in a few months' time, I'm going to surprise Hagrid.

I hope he likes the surprise - if not, I'm screwed.

O yes, my mum reads this - NO, I'm not bloody pregnant! Not as far as I know, anyway. There are no twins (she always says "is it twins?" whenever I look the least bit worried).

Entrenched stereotypes

Obviously, people see what they expect to see. Obviously, if someone has been fed the stereotype of black men being scary, dangerous, criminals, etc. they will remember and recount the ethnicity of the mugger when a young black man steals their wallet, and forget about race altogether when they're recounting their other three muggings by young white men.

And obviously, they won't remember the race of the black man who holds the door open for them, smiles nicely at them in the street, etc.

(I was thinking of that particular example because I've had too many accounts like that from white people, recently - "This BLACK man assaulted me" vs "These men assaulted me" and "I thought he was going to attack me because he was black, and then he did" - well, yes, but also NO! logic FAIL! you eejit.

Anyway, this insightful post reminded me that, in the case of stereotypes about trans people, the need for many of us to pass as non-trans adds an extra layer of difficulty.

The post points out the doublethink inherent in social attitudes to trans women - that all trans women can somehow be hilariously obvious "men in dresses", AND "deceptive" enough in their exact "portrayal" of femininity to "trick" nice young men.

The second concept is more dangerous than the first, of course - it ensures that trans women are murdered, and their killers get off with a slap on the wrist. It gives an excuse to deny trans women employment, etc.

However, the first stereotype ensures that trans women are mocked and ridiculed.

Of course, if a trans woman passes as non-trans, it's impossible to tell that she is trans. That's... kind of the point. So, the first stereotype continues - the average person has only noticed trans women who, in their eyes, look "humorous."

We need to get rid of this concept that a male-assigned person in female-assigned clothing is inherently funny. I'm not sure how, in real terms, we manage that - ban humourous drag shows? Banning things is generally not the way to go...

But anyway, less seriously, it made me laugh how tenaciously stereotypes, particularly this one, hang on. I went on a trip, to an undisclosed location, with a cis male friend and a friend who is a trans woman. This cis male friend has been known to act with even less tact than myself. Therefore, a while before the trip, I said to him "You might notice that my friend is trans. Please, please don't say anything incredibly appalling. Kthx."

Although this particular trans woman passes as non-trans, she didn't seem too bothered about people knowing on this occasion, or perhaps she just assumed that everyone did. So when we were in our little group, she talked about her obstinate stubble, not being able to take off her trousers because she hadn't packed more forgiving undergarments, how she'd been on hormones for enough time to compete in the Olympics, had she wanted to do so... And throughout the trip, my cis male friend, indeed, said nothing incredibly appalling.

On the final day, I was with that friend, and I was talking about something to do with trans... ness, I forget what. "It's like this for me, but for some trans women like *name of trans woman friend*, it's..."

Whereupon, my cis male friend stared with eyes like saucers. "She's trans???"

She just didn't look enough like a hairy lumberjack in a frock, it seems. Thus, the evidence of his own ears could be discounted.

A very short Sexism 101

This is Professor Ben Barres, a neuroscientist at the prestigious Stanford University.

According to a colleague, "His work is much better than his sister's."

Professor Barres, oddly, doesn't have a sister who is also a neuroscientist at the prestigious Stanford University. If he does, she hasn't been seen since he turned 40, when he started injecting the testosterone...

Right, left, upper and below.

My book on Palaeolithic art considers scrapping a hypothesis about cave art's educational use, because some of its scenes "can't" have been observed or copied properly.

Why? Because animals that are "quite clearly male" are depicted trying to initiate sex with other males.

You obviously don't need observational skills to get your doctorate, anyway.

1) How heterosexist.

2) How divorced are we from the natural world nowadays??? This "fully heterosexual bison" dogma is one step away from the famous piece stating that "a cow has six sides - right, left, upper and below".

The 8-year-old anorexic

My uni has a new timetabling computer system. Tasty. Sadly, it's *completely fucking incomprehensible*, so I now have even less idea where I'm supposed to be when. It's reached new heights of incomprehensibility. It's like... a po-mo theoretical archaeology book, THAT'S what it's like.

Ha, mildly damning insult.

We've got a new telly, and I'm still ill. Channel 4 is my friend.

I watched "Dana: The 8-Year-Old Anorexic". Here is a comprehensive list of all the people I now want to stab in the eyes:

1) The child's dimwit mother, who managed to learn absolutely nothing about anorexia despite having an anorexic child. Ah, the child has said she is better and there's nothing to worry about. That's OK then, I can go back to ignoring her. Anorexics? Devious? ...oh, never mind.

She also moaned about how hard it would be for her to constantly watch what Dana ate, and to constantly ensure she was getting enough. Oh, she's 8 and has a debilitating often-fatal psychological disorder, how hard for meeeee! (And don't most parents pay attention to their 8-year-olds' food?)

2) We didn't see much of the father, but apparently both parents blamed the (non-anorexic) teenage sister, because "teenagers go on diets". Apparently, a lot of shouting at the sister went on.

Yes, because anorexia is *just like* a fad diet. Though I'd be surprised if the older girl didn't have a psychological problem of similar severity, with parents like that.

3)EVERYONE in the programme who gave a variation on "How horrible, a child has an adult illness!" as if an adult woman having anorexia was practically fine, because adult women are supposed to be skinny, don'tcherknow.

Children will always copy adults. We've had about 150 years, out of several million, with this "childhood innocence" concept - and, frankly, children anywhere but the privileged West have never had carefree, innocent childhoods.

How about we work for a society where women don't feel they have to starve themselves? That would have the nice effect that fewer 8-year-olds would do the same. But, y'know, the adult women are just as important as the 8-year-olds.

I have no idea why...

The national media persist in describing the titular family in The Family as "dysfunctional".

They're more functional than my family, Hagrid's family, and far more so than the families of the vast majority of my friends, many of which have been *actually* dysfunctional, what with the beatings and the abuse and the parental addictions and all.

So either those journalists had idyllic family lives, or... they're not admitting something.

I know of one, 1, family more "functional" than the one on Channel 4. And, frankly, that makes them freaks. And they're enormously rich, which oils the wheels of family life somewhat if there are few problems already.

Though the Hugheses are pretty damned rich - a PS3 and a Wii? In my day...

I have no idea why...

Kitteh Blogging - the inferior acquaintance of baby blogging

Now, when we chose this here kitteh, we were assured that she was used to adults, children and other non-human animals, and would happily play and socialise with an organism that fitted in any of those categories. However, we’ve hit upon a problem – she’s decidedly not used to computers.

She goes absolutely mental whenever there’s a screen in front of her, with its moving cursor or scroll bar - jumping up and down on the keyboard with all four feet, attacking the screen with claws and teeth and, in fact, making a decent effort to eat the whole thing. She can’t be dissuaded – the only thing to do is to shut her in another room, which feels mean as she’s only a baby.

Hagrid is a professional computer nerd, who spends a decent chunk of his time working from home. Is this an insurmountable problem, the only solution to which is the hire of a small child to amuse her while we work?

Also, she feels the need to tell me whenever she makes use of the litter tray – not just half-heartedly, either. I’m meowed at and bitten for as long as it takes to get me to view the poo. I just have to see it for her to be gleefully happy again.

Is that normal feline behaviour?

As you can tell, I’m at home with the kitteh. I’m also so ill that it’s an immense effort just to get up for the Viewing of the Excrement, and as for cleaning it out… bending down makes me very dizzy.

Also, I thought I’d sorted out an issue of mine, of the sort with a capital I… but, it seems, I haven’t. I think I’ll take some preventative measures to stop me from going so utterly mental again. To the outside observer, they’ll be both hilarious and peculiar – but, sadly, I can’t tell y’all what they’ll be.

OK then, imagine that I’m the bloke that went on Trisha with his phobia of scotch eggs (yes, he did). No, say it was only a phobia of a particular brand of scotch eggs, made in minuscule quantities in a Northern Scottish cottage industry. A scotch egg of this brand tastes much better than the average supermarket fare. It is more pleasing to the eye, the palate and the soul.

Would it be fair for me to ask my friends not to eat them, to avoid triggering me? (I know “trigger” shouldn’t be used lightly, but say that I have, like most people, had experiences to which the concept “should” apply, but I’m still affected more by the eggs). Do I ask them to stick to Tesco’s Finest or M&S for their daily proteiny goodness? Or is that entirely unfair? Does it matter, if they’re unlikely ever to travel to the single town in the North of Scotland wherein those particular, terrifying eggs are available?

I have a serious case of Analogy Fail, here – but it’s intentional, so that no-one has any idea what I’m talking about. As usual, haha. Give me your answers.

I was actually around several other trans guys / female genderqueers on Friday. It was weird, like looking in several mirrors at once – though the binary trans guys had all obviously gone through transition the “regular” way, living as butch dykes beforehand, and ending up straight guys rather than, say, *giant fairies*.

There are supposed to be the same number of trans people, of every variety, in the world as there are French people (so says my little book on the subject, though I’m sure that’s a conservative estimate). The problem is, if you’re French, you can take a wild guess as to the location of another French person – and, y’know, it’s not common for French people to deny, and hide, that they are French, “Cette baguette? Il n’est pas ma baguette! Je les déteste! J’adore le pain grillé! Est je ne sais pas pourquoi la baguette est dans mon pantalon!” (that’s an FtM in denial about his nation, see? But he’s speaking Franglais, because it’s a while since I applied myself to irregular verbs etc.).

And whatever the reason, you do tend to see more trans women / male genderqueers out and about.

So, anyway, it was nice to be in a space where a lot of people looked like me.

Interesting...

I would like to send this to everyone who's ever thought I "must" dislike them because I'm not very verbal around them/can't process their speech, even though I've always been able to express myself through/understand the written word.

From Wikipedia, yes, that gem of all sources -

"In hyperlexia, a child spontaneously and precociously masters single-word reading. It can be viewed as a superability, that is, word recognition ability far above expected levels. The more common definition also includes difficulties with comprehension of printed material beyond or even at the single-word level. Many hyperlexics also have trouble understanding speech. Most or perhaps all children with hyperlexia also lie on the autism spectrum.

Hyperlexic children are often fascinated by letters and numbers. They are extremely good at decoding language and thus often become very early readers. Some hyperlexic children learn to spell long words (such as elephant) before they are two and learn to read whole sentences before they turn three. An fMRI study of a single child showed that hyperlexia may be the neurological opposite of dyslexia.

Often, hyperlexic children will have a precocious ability to read but will learn to speak only by rote and heavy repetition, and may also have difficulty learning the rules of language from examples or from trial and error, which may result in social problems.

Despite hyperlexic children's precocious reading ability, they may struggle to communicate. Their language may develop using echolalia, often repeating words and sentences. Often, the child has a large vocabulary and can identify many objects and pictures, but cannot put their language skills to good use. Spontaneous language is lacking and their pragmatic speech is delayed. Hyperlexic children often struggle with Who? What? Where? Why? and How? questions. Between the ages of 4 and 5 many children make great strides in communicating.

Social skills often lag tremendously. Hyperlexic children often have far less interest in playing with other children than do their peers."

Whee!

I'm not continuously miserable any more!

Living as a woman, I was always down.

Now I'm only sometimes miserable.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating...

I say, it's lunchtime!

But I oughtn't really to leave the office empty. The other chap is having some difficulties moving house, so isn't here - incidentally, when Hagrid helped Kim to move house, one of them tidily packed his car keys. Or was it the new house keys? At the bottom of the bottom box.

Anyway, yes. Don't know why I just told that scintillating story.

Oh yes - I'm very pleased with myself. Here's why -

I was at the supermarket last night, when a charming youth ran up to me and shouted, "WHY ARE YOU WEARING FUCKING MAKEUP YOU FUCKING POOF" in my face.

This pleases me for two reasons.

Firstly, I've been practising keeping my temper. I very rarely lose it with someone I know, but when chavs hurled abuse (at me or anyone, especially girls or vulnerable-looking people) I used to hurl abuse back, and hurl my whole self at them if I figured I could take them on (which was rare, because they obviously hunt in packs).

That was why I got so many beatings at school - I couldn't keep my mouth shut, and didn't have the physique to match my testosterone levels...

(Actually, I reacted quite differently to bullying from males or females. I'd get really fucking angry at boys, but girls always managed to make me cry).

So, I'd have a problem if I tried to follow the advice they give to mugging victims - don't make eye contact, just hand over the stuff, it's worth less than your life, etc. I know that I'd say "No, fuck you, that's my stuff," and stare them straight in the eye.

I was incredulous, and impressed, when my friend recently followed the advice to the letter. I would be in hospital if our places were exchanged, or I would have died too young to decide upon a decent funeral playlist (actually, those particular muggers weren't too hardcore - just hospital).

So, I have to keep reminding myself, "Someone mental enough to randomly scream at you or mug you is certainly mental enough to stab you in the gut. Which, I've heard, is unpleasant. Oliver, don't react."

And I didn't react yesterday... OK, that's a lie. I did call him a cunt - but only when I was out of possible knife-range.

That's progress, right?

Secondly, the more obvious reason: WHEE! O superbly passable me! I got called a poof! And I am a poof! EXACTLY RIGHT! Fifty points! And I obviously wasn't trying - the eye make-up.

That makes up for several of the latest people assuming I'm a butch dyke.

Which, incidentally, makes me wonder whether any of those people have eyes. How butch am I, exactly? Where is my pickup truck and my ability to lift pianos? How many seconds of sports talk does it take before I beat myself into unconsciousness?

Lols

Slippery Slopes

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Thoughts...

Firstly, here's my tattoo (the angle's a bit off, so it looks a bit squashed, but it's the only pic I currently have).




OH YES, five hundred geek points please. Kthx.

More pensively:

Here's a murder trial ruling that has escaped the usual "disability panic" defence.

People are slowly, slowly starting to get the idea that murdering a disabled child is not a "mercy killing" or "for the best" - comments that have been everywhere after reports of similar murders; not just in the more fascist corners of the internet and in the more fascist newspapers, but everywhere.

However, the progress of this understanding that disability is not the end of the world has come too late for the little girl in question, Naomi Hill.

And over in the US, a "trans panic" defence has been (almost, this is a preliminary hearing) thrown out, ensuring that the killer of a young trans woman named Angie Zapata will be charged with first-degree murder (anyone who assumes that a murder charge for the murderer of a trans woman is normal needs to do some extensive reading on the thousands of similar cases).

Two signs of real progress, and two reasons to hope. Maybe the world, after all, is becoming a more humane place.

But, again, too late for Angie Zapata and Naomi Hill.

I'm not sure what to think.

And Part III...

It would also be nice if they could decide what they wanted *before* they sent out the email telling us, supposedly, what they want...

Then everybody would get fewer indignant emails going "We're having to amend this and send it out again! We asked for 30-something men last week, and didn't get any 60-something women! Not one! Why not? The audition is in 6 minutes in Belgium, so you'd better jump to it!"

Today, somebody was casting a musical adaptation of His Dark Materials (incidentally, three of the Best Books In The World Ever, currently also being adapted into the Three Worst Films Ever, but that's a whole other opportunity to watch me spit with rage).

They're trying to cast Mrs Coulter, but have failed to mention that the character is physically attractive - no, make that stunningly beautiful. The whole point, at first, of the character is that her looks allow her to get away with pretty much anything, as she captivates powerful men; and even manages to con her cynical, monstrously intelligent 11-year-old daughter.

Now, I can tell from the rest of the breakdown that they're not altering the plot, or any of the characters - they want a pretty faithful adaptation, it's just that they're expecting the usual mind-reader on the other end of the Interwebs. And they'll actually lose faith in this mind-reader, and all connected with hir, if ze sends in a load of normal-looking people...

And now I have to tell a load of normal-looking people, those that want submitting for the part, that they're too ugly...

Casting Directors, Part II

Now, away from casting directors' enlightened views of racial minorities, poor people and Northern people, and on to their similarly enlightened views of the LGBT community (yes, I'm aware that these sets of groups often contain the same people, who I'm sure are quadruply happy to know that those who control our media are portraying them so well).

My favourite today:

"However in our story, there is a possible slight sexual ambiguity towards the end of the piece (it is a comedy after all!!) so not too macho for this one."

Lollerskates, those comical gays.

I also like:

Male transsexual (MALE) (note: the only description).

EPICALLY UNBELIEVABLE LOGIC FAIL.

To be fair, some casting directors do not live in cloud cuckoo-land. One of them has just forwarded this quotation from Eve Ensler to DPM's inbox - presumably because she liked it, though it comes with no explanation...

"This is from Eve Ensler, who wrote The Vagina Monologues.

I don't like raging at women. I am a Feminist and have spent my life trying to build community, help empower women and stop violence against them. It is hard to write about Sarah Palin. This is why the Sarah Palin choice was all the more insidious and cynical. The people who made this choice count on the goodness and solidarity of Feminists.

But everything Sarah Palin believes in and practices is antithetical to Feminism which for me is part of one story -- connected to saving the earth, ending racism, empowering women, giving young girls options, opening our minds, deepening tolerance, and ending violence and war.

I believe that the McCain/Palin ticket is one of the most dangerous choices of my lifetime, and should this country chose those candidates the fall-out may be so great, the destruction so vast in so many areas that America may never recover. But what is equally disturbing is the impact that duo would have on the rest of the world. Unfortunately, this is not a joke. In my lifetime I have seen the clownish, the inept, the bizarre be elected to the presidency with regularity.

Sarah Palin does not believe in evolution. I take this as a metaphor. In her world and the world of Fundamentalists nothing changes or gets better or evolves. She does not believe in global warming. The melting of the arctic, the storms that are destroying our cities, the pollution and rise of cancers, are all part of God's plan. She is fighting to take the polar bears off the endangered species list. The earth, in Palin's view, is here to be taken and plundered. The wolves and the bears are here to be shot and plundered. The oil is here to be taken and plundered. Iraq is here to be taken and plundered. As she said herself of the Iraqi war, 'It was a task from God.'

Sarah Palin does not believe in abortion. She does not believe women who are raped and incested and ripped open against their will s hould have a right to determine whether they have their rapist's baby or not.

She obviously does not believe in sex education or birth control. I imagine her daughter was practicing abstinence and we know how many babies that makes.

Sarah Palin does not much believe in thinking. From what I gather she has tried to ban books from the library, has a tendency to dispense with people who think independently. She cannot tolerate an environment of ambiguity and difference. This is a woman who could and might very well be the next president of the United States. She would govern one of the most diverse populations on the earth.

Sarah believes in guns. She has her own custom Austrian hunting rifle. She has been known to kill 40 caribou at a clip. She has shot hundreds of wolves from the air.

Sarah believes in God. That is of course her right, her private right. But when God and Guns come together in the public sector, when war is declared in God's name, when the rights of women are denied in his name, that is the end of separation of church and state and the undoing of everything America has ever tried to be.

I write to my sisters. I write because I believe we hold this election in our hands. This vote is a vote that will determine the future not just of the U.S., but of the planet. It will determine whether we create policies to save the earth or make it forever uninhabitable for humans. It will determine whether we move towards dialogue and diplomacy in the world or whether we escalate violence through invasion, undermining and attack. It will determine whether we go for oil, strip mining, coal burning or invest our money in alternatives that will free us from dependency and destruction. It will determine if money gets spent on education and healthcare or whether we build more and more methods of killing. It will determine whether America is a free open tolerant society or a closed place of fear, fundamentalism and aggression.

If the Polar Bears don't move you to go and do everything in your power to get Obama elected then consider the chant that filled the hall after Palin spoke at the RNC, 'Drill Drill Drill.' I think of teeth when I think of drills. I think of rape. I think of destruction. I think of domination. I think of military exercises that force mindless repetition, emptying the brain of analysis, doubt, ambiguity or dissent. I think of pain.

Do we want a future of drilling? More holes in the ozone, in the floor of the sea, more holes in our thinking, in the trust between nations and peoples, more holes in the fabric of this precious thing we call life?"

Is true, no?

Though how we over here are supposed to influence the US elections I have no idea. Let's register our new kitteh as an American voter (what? That'd work if we were voting for McCain/Palin, methinks).

I would write a blog right now, but...

Bruce Parry is on the telly.

Inconsequential Things and Advice

I have a very sore throat (and all the other symptoms of man-flu). It hurts to talk. If people could STOP TELEPHONING ME for five minutes, that would be lovely. Though I'm not working - I'm in my designated illness dressing gown, drinking hot water and watching Jeremy Kyle.

Thanks to Kim for cheering me up last night.

This morning -

Me: "I can be all beautiful and femme! Look... this is a gorgeous feminine pose!"

Hagrid: "No... that's a very masculine pose."

Me: "Oh. What about this one?"

Hagrid: "Masculine."

Me: "I know... this one is feminine! You can't say it isn't!"

Hagrid: "Ew. That one's just... disturbing."

Also, you know when you are talking to someone who is vaguely familiar, and they mention that you met them in a bar/club, and you slowly realise that that night was one of horrible drunkenness and behaviour that was so embarrassing that NO I DON'T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT I JUST WANT TO DISAPPEAR FOREVER, and you may have done anything from trying to seduce them to vomiting on their shoes, and you can't remember?

That happened to me on Wednesday. And has been happening all year. And I really, really wasn't a drunk fresher compared to the standards of most. By those standards, I was stone cold sober.

Here is my only piece of advice to my friend whom, after a foundation course, is off to uni now:

DON'T DRINK ALCOHOL DURING FRESHERS' WEEK.

This is no moralistic tirade or expression of excessive interest in another's liver...

You'll avoid every single one of those moments! Isn't that just lovely?

Repetitive Daily Trangst Update

I'm 100% sure that my dad doesn't read this blog - he's a proper autistic person, who neither likes nor understands people communicating with other people, and prefers his one-sided communication with machines.

"Autism speaks" still wouldn't have him as a token (insert ablist slur), though, because his life isn't a tale of woe. He's supposed to be one of the best... whatever it is he does... in Europe, so... he probably doesn't spend enough time sitting around in his own poo.

Whenever I see him in the evenings after work, the bags under his eyes make me glad that I'm not good at anything at all, and inspire me to stay that way.

I specify one-sided communication because his goes "You are a machine. I have fixed you. Now you work" and mine goes "Right, you son of a bitch! Do what I say!" "No." "What in the name of Jesus' knickers do you mean, no? You're a computer! Compute!" "Only if you ask me nicely." "Please?" "No." I think the robot revolution is already here.

I think he tried to compliment me yesterday, is the point. We were in my parents' house, with Gareth in another room, and I was shouting through a list of the world's most beautiful women (that's not actually a regular pastime of mine - I'm not FHM or whatever, and besides, we have much better taste).

Whereupon my dad said vaguely "No, my wife is the most beautiful woman in the world. And my daughter is the second."

I don't need to tell anyone that I'm an only child.

I think someone has given him suggested compliments for females. He meant that he was vaguely glad of my existence, no matter how much I puzzle him.

/daily trangst update

Reminds me of Venus Envy in which the dude is called "princess" by his parents... although I'm plenty more femme than he is... he exists mainly to beat stuff up...

My Pet Peeve

Look, the world's going to hell anyway. This is my blog, so I'm going to write about something that, while it's unimportant in the grand scheme of things, annoys the crap out of me.

Whenever someone who doesn't belong to a very select group of my friends start talking about The Lord of the Rings, I have to stick my fingers in my ears and go LA LA LA LA LA I'M NOT LISTENING.

Why? Because they will always, always say "I never finished the books" and then they'll joke about the length of Tolkien's descriptions.

Our current GM did the same thing recently! It's like being an evangelical Christian who's never read the Bible... OK, many evangelical Christians ain't so good with the readin', but you know what I mean.

It's a thousand pages. Not a thousand pages of doctoral research into nuclear physics, a thousand pages of swords and monsters and poems and stuff. Tasty? Yes, tasty tasty.

Now, it's true that the books have one obvious flaw, which is pretty much rectified in the film versions. Tolkien... didn't find interesting anything that the average person might find interesting. So, all the crucial, dramatic moments in The Lord of the Rings get a grudging sentence of description, while everything else gets a decent chunk.

It's rather like when you're reading a Victorian novel, and you suddenly find that the plot has been set aside while the author gives a phrenological description of the newest character.

But that's a comparably minor issue, yes? It's worth dealing with an author's foibles to read a story of that magnitude.

Apparently not. People suddenly become so viciously anti-intellectual, they could be mistaken in a poor light for John McCain. "It's too loooong" they moan. "There are too many words". "Everyone has too many names" - try reading the Children of Hurin, sunshine! Or even, gosh, some real mythology!

Unless you're dyslexic, illiterate, or blind, reading a book is the most leisurely of leisure activities in existence. You have to turn the pages. That is the extent of the effort you have to make. You have to make sure that your eyes are open, so that you can see the words. Have I covered everything here?

Now, all these people that just "couldn't" finish the books are neither illiterate nor blind, and the vast majority are not dyslexic. In fact, I know several badly dyslexic people who love the books, and read them, slowly, often.

So, can we modify the "Tolkien-wrote-long-books" jokes from people who never finished them? Can't they just say "I have the shortest attention span known to humanity! Yay me - what? I say, a pony!"

Of course, the films aren't without their flaws. Some lines (either written for the film or needlessly modified) that enrage a pedantic sod like me:

"No parent should have to bury their child"

Excuse me? Why are we suddenly anti-sexist? The Lord of the Rings is innately sexist! You'd have to not make the films at all! Dispense with this horrible American quasi-anachronism at once, and try "father" and "his" so it doesn't sound shit.

"It makes the trees grow tall... and come alive... and even move."
"Alive???"

Trees are already tall and alive. That's why they're TREES, and not, say, small flat rocks. And yes, they move. Being ALIVE - oh, we've been through that already. I believe the line ought to be "and walk about" - something that trees do not ordinarily do. I wouldn't employ a screenwriter unfamiliar with the concept of a tree.

There are dozens more, but I suppose they're minor quibbles *twitch*.

Finally, two people have made their best attempts to destroy The Lord of the Rings for me.

Firstly, there is another pseudonymous Bob. Because Bob is very handsome, I allowed my baser instincts to take over, and I... listened when he mentioned those five words.

Bob thinks that The Lord of the Rings is all about Frodo and Samwise's latent homosexuality, which they are man enough to throw into the appropriately named Crack of Doom. While Sam becomes a "real man" who breeds millions of small hobbits, Frodo is still consumed with lust, writes some poetry then goes off in a boat with a load of gay elves. He thinks the effect of Tolkien's Catholicism on his work should not be underestimated.

And absolutely finally, there is whoever made this:



Is so catchy...

Athens Boys Choir

Watch this...

Then watch it again...

Then taste the tasty awesomesauce.

I am feminist fail?

I'm alive! My grandma drove me somewhere, and I'm alive (I just wish I was rich enough to own a car, so that she would never drive me anywhere ever ever ever ever ever ever again...).

I think she thinks that appropriate gears and speeds are for fascists, capitalists and/or the under-85s. Which she thinks are all the same thing. Like first and fourth gear, in fact.

Firstly, I have the most awesome tattoo ever in the history of the world ever.

I hope that's clear. I also hope it heals well.

I've been watching people descend on this blogger with the understanding that they are, in fact, Hermione Granger and she is, in fact, a house-elf (the metaphor, applicably, of that man pseudonymously named Hagrid).

When she says "You are not Hermione Granger and I am not a house-elf", they say "well... well... you're a SLUT! Ha! Yes, a SLUT! And a BITCH! HA!"

Thus ends my detailed analysis of "sex-negative" - no, wait, YES sex-negative, also incredibly woman-negative, the-porn-industry-is-a-monolith, feminism.

I refuse to share a label with women who are so bitterly, evilly judgemental of other women (racism, transphobia etc. in the movement are a thousand million other posts... hell, could be a thousand million encyclopaedias).

"Female Chauvinist Pigs"? If you're living under a rock, this is a fairly new, popular "feminist" book in which the author, Ariel Levy, does NOTHING but insult and belittle other women (and some transmen/transmale genderqueers, for good measure).

Classy. That'll end male domination, I'm sure. That's just as useful as fighting for employment rights or reproductive freedom, fighting against rape or female genital mutilation... etc. etc. Those issues will take care of themselves!

Sadly, the issue is as old as feminism itself - no, hang on, Mary Wollstonecraft never wrote "A Vindication of the Rights of Some Women, and A Great Long Bitch About Others" - OK, then, at least a few decades old.

My introduction? I was 15. I was wandering through Waterstone's, having just had my lip pierced at a shop around the corner. I thought "aha, I have never browsed through the feminist section before, even though I am feminist - I am feminist because it's evident that women are equal to men in worth, and they (I thought "we" at that point) are hardly ever treated like that is the case".

The first paragraph I read in the first academic book I skimmed through? All about how women were JUST DISGUSTING for having body piercings, tattoos, etc, because they were TORTURING THEMSELVES for male approval.

Yup, I loved all that male approval that my gothy appearance procured! All those beatings from boys at school, and all the street harrassment!

I'd assumed that other feminists had my back, and I had theirs - but I had the sense just to laugh at that particular author and assume that most feminists were lovely people, dedicated to gaining women every freedom.

Well... fuck that belief. Royally.

I know some people would think that I can't speak about these issues - I'm disqualified as I "quit" womanhood.

Look. If a woman says/writes, "I believe this..." or "This happened to me..." I listen. Intently. I assume that that woman is telling the truth. I mentally file the information away for future use. If the statement is my first example, a belief, I check that it does not contain blatant racism, misogyny or any other ideology that only exists to hurt - if it does not appear to, I accept it.

If a woman says/writes "Women all think", "Women all do", "A real woman would never"... they fail the misogyny test. Just as a man would, if he expressed the same sentiments.

So... do I call myself a feminist any longer? What do I call myself instead? I particularly won't call myself a "trans-positive feminist" because that implies that hatred of trans women is an optional feminist extra, like peanut butter on toast. Is "womanist" vastly culturally inappropriate, as I'm white and English? "Trying not to be a dick to women" doesn't roll off the tongue.

Ethnic bees and actors

Sometimes, I feel vague ethical twinges about submitting actors for parts. I get a bit media-deterministic in my wilder moments, and I figure it can't be good that every TV/corporate training/film role requires a stereotype.

Also - gems like these, that you find in almost every casting breakdown -

"actor should have neutral accent" - they mean RP, tinged with Estuary English, but not enough to terrify. They don't say that, because they mean That's How I Talk, So It Must Be Neutral, The Default Human Is The London Yuppie, Yah Boo Sucks To You Scum.

"actor can be white or ethnic" - this means I Have Absorbed That Blatant Tokenism Will Get Me A Cool Grand From The Arts Council, But Sadly, I Am A Racist, Illiterate Fuckwit.

(Incidentally, when my friend D beekept, which is now a word, somebody said to him "These are ethnic bees. They are from Africa". I'm assuming that that person didn't mean it in a beautiful, Alice-Walker-esque, Africa-is-the-mother-of-us-all way).

Far, far worse ones are common - we just haven't had any in recently, so I can't source current examples.

Yes, I am having a boring day.

My friend Ed told me last night that he is looking for a sheep. If you happen to have a spare one, please do tell me.

I got cornered, and told off (by someone I don't know) on Saturday, because she learned that I was changing my name. She kept repeating "But (old name) is such a pretty name!" with a look in her eyes that said I Will Eat Your Soul.

Hagrid bore my oh-so-decidedly unpretty self away, laughing at my expression of utter puzzlement. "Well, that's you told" he said.

This is vaguely applicable.

The Sad Tale of Bob

In this tale of woe, there are two main characters. Let us call one Bob, and the other Arseholeface - OK, let's not, let's call him Fred (those who know me will be aware that I often give the name Bob to characters with whom I am sympathetic, but I've made an attempt to remove some naming bias, at least).

Bob is fairly sociable, and extremely wealthy. So, it was natural that, come his 50th birthday, he decided to hold a bloody massive party.

OK, now everyone in the world knows who Bob is, as I know very few extremely wealthy 50-year-old people... never mind. Let's plough on.

The party was held in a giant marquee in his back garden. There were 120 guests, plus some caterers, a DJ, and some Portaloo operatives. It was a most excellent party - I ate, drank, and was merry - danced, and improved my not-so-mad Mario Kart skillz (there were a lot of kids, so Bob was prepared).

Now, Bob and his wife, whom we will also call Bob (this is why I can't GM) are friendly, lovable, accepting people - and a cynic with my upbringing understands that these are rare qualities among the very rich. Where Bob and Bob went wrong, then (as did their children, Bob, Bob and Bob) was to hold their party in their Dead Posh Neighbourhood.

What would the average person, in the average neighbourhood, do if their neighbour was having a fairly loud party? Remember, this is a posh neighbourhood, so the houses are very, very far apart - closing your window would be the technical solution to the problem of what noise was left.

Also, the residents immediately on both sides of Bob's were all at the party.

Finally, all the neighbours had been sent a letter informing them of said party.

However, Fred did not like that his Very Important Evening was being disturbed by what, by the time it got to his house, was a small amount of noise - noise he'd been warned about a week in advance, noise that he knew would last an entire hour more.

Instead of using the double-glazing that I'm certain he could afford, or, y'know, joining in the party (there were a couple of happy gatecrashers), or engaging in any behaviour that might be attributed to a normal person, ever...

He turned up and started shouting in Bob's face.

Bob asked him to be less aggressive. He became... more aggressive.

Bob pushed him out of the garden.

He fell, humourously, upon his bottom.

Bob walked back in, and reminded the DJ that he must finish up by the time Bob had promised in the letter. Which the DJ did.

However, the next thing he knew, Bob had been arrested for assault, and carted off to the police station - where the police did have the decency to look a bit sheepish as they fingerprinted him and gave him a caution (!)

It emerged later that Fred had been yelling at them, too.

Can I take a straw poll, here? Would you, yes, you, phone the police if someone pushed you off his property?

Would you phone the police even if someone, irritated at your trespassing, had punched you one?

Would you then shout at the police until they administered the harshest possible punishment to whoever pushed you?

Would you assume that the police have nothing better to do, and they're just sitting belching the alphabet until your call?

Here is where I get a bit inarticulate with rage... D'you think that, if Fred had been poorer, or had his skin had contained a bit more melanin... would the cops have acquiesced to his shouted demands? Or would they have locked him up for Wasting Police Time in the Most Fucking Major Way Ever?

(I never saw Fred. If you think that my assumption that he's white is uncalled for, I say - no, he would never call the police otherwise. Not in the city where I grew up, at least. I also say, ha, you're a fool).

So... Bob now has a criminal record.

And I've got yet another model of masculinity to avoid - that which is "manly" enough to go around shouting the odds, but runs to Mummy in the form of the nanny state when things don't go entirely his way.

Kitteh, part II

So, I searched the websites of some animal shelters for a kitteh, but there weren't any the right age. So, I searched all the classified ads, looking for the nicest-sounding owner (I'm not encouraging unpleasant ones to get more cats!).

I immediately found an excitable advert extolling the virtues of my babies! They need new mummies and daddies! They're used to being kissed and cuddled! They are beautiful fluffy balls of fun!!! and thought OK, that's perfect. Even though I would rather drown in a barrel of eels than write that advert myself, I want to buy a kitteh from someone who has.

We walked through the door, said hello, sat down, and were immediately covered in kittens. The lady had 10, from two litters, and was obviously only selling them because her husband thought that 10 more cats was excessive.

Four of them had new homes, five of them didn't (she's hoping her husband won't question that calculation).

I sat there, covered in friendly kittehs, panicking because how the hell can one possibly choose? Will we have to choose our children like this?

This was, I swear, the conversation that came next:

Kitteh: (to Hagrid) You are mine now! Kthx!

Hagrid looked puzzled, as you would if a cat had just telepathically yelled at you.

Hagrid: "I... like that one."

Kitteh: "You better! I love you. Lovelovelove you - put me down and, I swear, I'll claw your hand off to the best of my ability - love you!"

Hagrid: (still puzzled) "I... love you? Yes, yes I do." He has never looked at a girl like that before!

Me: "Pass her over, then."

Kitteh: "I don't fuckin' think so, mate - I want my daddy back! I love him lots and lots and lots!"

I gave her back, and she smugly fell asleep in his hand.

She comes home on the 27th. Hopefully, she'll get as keen on me when she realises I'm the more reliable source of food.

Barack Obama

Look, US politics are important over here, no matter how much we're fed up at how much our media reports on them. Frankly, no-one listens to a small, overpopulated island whose last achievement was the New Wave of British Heavy Metal in the 80s - and OK, a normal person would replace that with victory in the Second World War 45 years before then, but I'm optimistic.

Basically, we have delusions of grandeur. The US has political and corporate sway - and loadsa nukes.

That's why I'm paying attention.

I've heard British people my age, who know a bit about our own political matters, compare the Dems to Labour, and the Republicans to the Tories. No... Political savvy failure. Read both candidates' proposed policies, and all their speeches - with your eyes. Yes, read them.

John McCain is rather closer to Nick Griffin than he is to David Cameron. In his turn, Barack Obama is what we, here, would call a "conservative" - and had his family moved to Britain instead, I reckon he'd be in David Cameron's place right now (actually, he wouldn't - we don't seem to like politicians who are great orators any more. We like ones who resemble confused bunnies).

So... they're not like our candidates. You can't view them as much of a muchness, and it's actually quite important who gets in - yes, for the whole world. You don't like them being that important? Go and do some empire-building for Britain, then, so we can have the political clout instead. Look how well that turned out the first time! We could have another War of Independence... with our armed forces made up of five men and a cat, with one combat boot between all of them. Oh.

So - use whatever influence you have to get US citizens voting for the right candidate.

When I talk to people, I'm not even bothering with "Think of all the poor starving children with no healthcare..." etc. - if they ain't thought of them before, they ain't gonna start now.

North Americans are proud patriots, yes? *wins small prize from Royal Society of Obvious-Stating* So, we need the "Your country won't be the punchline to every joke in Europe" angle.

"You won't have to pretend to be Canadian when on holiday in Europe, so that people don't punch you in the face" (I remember that being common a few years ago, at least).

"No-one will think you spend your days alternately beating your wife and having sex with your sister, taking breaks to take potshots at passing black people".

At posh dinner parties, no-one will say, "I must introduce you to Bob... though he is American".

I think that angle is our slim, but only, chance at success.

Here's Obama, anyway, doing his speechifying at the DNC.



He does seem to have those family values goin' on, incidentally - the family seem to quite like one another, and he's never, as far as I know, divorced a wife because she became disabled (I'm not thinking about anyone called John McCain here at all, tis just an observation).

Anyway, this is enough politics, or my mum will kick me off her blogroll (everyone calling her "little comrade" when she was small kind of put her off - I'm frankly surprised she's not a card-carrying fascist now).

Sarah quite fancies Barack Obama. I'd quite like to look and sound like Barack Obama. A Yorkshire Barack Obama. With a flat cap.

That's another problem with his appeal, apparently. He's in too good physical shape. For fat people. To vote. For him.

Please, America. Don't make this true!

Casting directors...

Are like very small children with ADD in the Shiny Land of Shiny.

I'll carefully craft a submission for, I don't know, a 25-year-old South Asian slim, stunning one-legged female plumber who can sing and play the barrel-organ, and they finally pick a tone-deaf, pasty John Prescott clone with five legs.

And am I the only one who dies a little inside when asked for a "named" actor? 'Cause actors are actually given names at birth, like everybody else - they're not like a modified Inuit tribe where, instead of getting a name at two or so, you only get it once you've gone through the rite of passage that is appearing in a bloody awful soap?

Levels of disaster...

Once we've done all the DIY that I ought to be doing right now, rather than writing crap on the interblag, and the house is thus suitable, we're going to get... a KITTEH!

KITTEH KITTEH KITTEH KITTEH. In about a month's time.

Also, KITTEH.

What shall we call it?

Incidentally, KITTEH.

Today, I saw my cousin Helaina in an ITV documentary about living with her disabilities. It was excellent - none of that bollocks that documentaries are crammed with nowadays - no overly loud music, no "interesting" camerawork, no THIS IS THE GREATEST DISASTER EVAR!!!11 O NOES!!!11111 WE MUST PITY THEM! I CAN'T HEAR YOUR PITY YET! CRY, BITCHES! kind of stuff.

I'd give you a link to what I assume is clips from it, but I can't watch and check; ITV's website refuses to play videos unless you are the willing bitch of Microsoft.

Hagrid's looking over my shoulder and saying INSULT MICROSOFT MORE! Microshaft Microshaft Micro$oft! but I'm struggling to summon up the energy to care - aren't I supposed to be stuffed with political principle? Never mind.

Anyway, I'm in awe of Helaina's parents - not in the "Oh, the burden of a crippled child! Why didn't they just shoot her?" kind of way that is still worryingly acceptable, but simply in awe of all their hard work over the years, both to help their own child and for other people's children.

Now, I'm autistic, and my grasp of social nuances is about as great as Microsoft's love for free software, but...

Why, when people use the wrong name/pronoun for trans people, can't they just say "Whoops, sorry" or "BobFUCKRoberta" (my name is permanently E-fuck-Oliver for one person, whose memory is filled to capacity with D&D rules)?

Why do they say "Oh, but it's so hard to get it right"? I sort of understand that they're trying to say "I really didn't mean to do that, I'm sorry, it's not because I'm a bigot of any variety, I just forgot". But the whiny tone - exactly like the one I just used when reminded that I ought to be painting a door! - alters our perception of the statement.

We want to respond with "And it's super-easy to be trans" then list the latest murder stats for people like us, or simply just discuss the smaller, daily incidences of annoyance and insult.

If you've... learned to walk, passed an examination, gotten over an illness, brought up a child, done a job, cooked a meal... done many things... you're surely capable of using a word without much difficulty.

Or do they mean emotionally difficult? Because the patience of the less adorable trans person ends here - we're back to "It's super-easy to navigate the world when your existence is offensive" again.

Do they mean "It's easy to forget something, it'll take time to remember consistently" - 'cause that would be rather more reassuring.

I'm not attacking anybody in particular here - we were just discussing on the interblag why on earth "but it's so hard" is the most common response.

I've just come to the conclusion that if people are gonna be so tactless, they can't complain when I do it. Fellow auties - we get a free pass!

Incidentally, I'm living a double life at the moment - my grandma knows nothing, so no-one is using my new name in front of her. Of course, she's deaf as a post - I could say "I'm a Nazi warlord who eats babies!" and she'd say "Ahh, that's nice."

But she might learn to lip-read...

Finally, I'm incredibly glad that I live in the UK. The concept of all the North Americans going "Bugger me, it's hurricane season again... better evacuate," with the same resignation that we'd use to say "It's drizzling," is crazy.

I hope everyone gets out safely. If I was the praying type, that's what I'd do.