bitterfig

Yesterday I had lunch with my sister, her husband and kids and my brother-in-law’s mother and sister at the Hancock building.  Traffic was light because of the holiday so I was able to bike in.  There are people I work with who regularly bike 20+ miles a day but for me the five miles from my place near Logan Square downtown and back was a pretty long ride, definitely the longest I’ve attempted this year and it left me pretty exhausted.  This may have been for the best because I was actually able to sleep last night despite the war zone like noise levels that go along with the 4^th of July. 

 

Still, I do think I might need to start adjusting my calorie intake a bit for my level of activity.  I’m riding my bike fairly regularly now and I know that burns more calories than my usual walking but I’m still eating the same amount (around 1800 calories per day which according to thedailyplate.com is a little less than maintenance level for a sedentary person of my size).  I’ve been quite tired the past couple of days but also restless, I can’t seem to concentrate on anything and I think it may have to do with this but I’m afraid to eat more.  Every time I do manage to eat 1850 or 1900 calories during the course of a day I usually counter it by doing extra exercise or eating less the next day.  

 

I find it very frustrating that it’s still so difficult for me to make these adjustments.

 

On a more positive note lunch went well.  Everything seemed okay with my sister and I talked and had a nice time without drinking (or really eating since we had lunch at The Cheesecake Factory where about the only item that fits my caloric restrictions and vegetarian standards is a dry side salad). 

 

I don’t get downtown very often so following lunch I decided to pay a visit to the nearby MCA (Museum of Contemporary Art) and see the Jeff Koons exhibit.  When I got there, there was a sort of installation/performance piece called “Peace Salon” taking place out front on the plaza.  It was by Chicago based artist Genevieve Erin O’Brien and she was offering “free buzz cuts for peace.”

 

I picked up the handout that explained it, which I quote here:

 

“Participants who would like to make a commitment to peace are offered a free buzz cut.  By having their heads shaved, the artist believes that the participants are acknowledging their connection to a larger world around them.  In doing so, she believes that they are symbolizing their solidarity with out soldiers at war and honoring their sacrifices in their ongoing commitment to create peace.  Furthermore, my shaving one’s head O’Brien hopes that the individual is released from a physical attachment since she sees attachment—to ideas and things—as the source of war.  By shaving one’s head, the participant is choosing to be one step closer to peace.”

 

I thought this was a pretty interesting idea.  For me, cropped hair is associated not with soldiers but with holy people, monks and nuns.  It also inverts the 60’s notion of long hair as a symbol of rebellion and peace loving. 

 

An interesting idea.

 

And I’ve always been sort of curious about how I’d look with a shaved head.

 

So I decided to give it a go. 

 

I have to admit a big part of my motivation to go through with it comes from the fact that I’m going to visit the parents in Upstate New York on the 14^th.  “How Far Will You Go For Peace”, a sign near the installation asked.  I think I read it as “How far will you go to piss off your parents.”

 

I’m still trying to decide if what I did was very bold or very stupid.  I’ve never had my hair this short before so it’s going to take some getting used to.   If nothing else it'll be interesting to see how it effects my lesbo street cred. 

( more pictures of me with no hair )

After a week of eating in the 1700 to 1800 calories per day range I’m feeling better.  Not good mind you but better.  I’m totally dragging my ass at work but at least I’ve been able to drag said ass to work which is an improvement over last weekend, physically at least.  Despite eating more or maybe because of it I’ve been very sad for the past few days and I feel revoltingly, hideously ugly.

 

I met with my new therapist for the first time on Thursday.  It wasn’t too bad, it may actually prove helpful but I’m finding it really exhausting to present myself again and again to all these different people- the intake worker, the psychiatrist, and now the therapist.  The whole experience of going to a community mental health clinic is really making me aware of my middle-class prejudices. 

 

I don’t like the fact that they have a “cash only” policy.  It seems like such an insult, like I can’t be trusted to write a good check or pay with a valid credit card.  It just seems icky to me that there’s a selection of condoms available in the ladies room.  When my therapist suggested that since I’m not happy with my job that when my depression is under control she could refer me to their “ready to work” program all I could think of was myself in a room of semi-illiterate people who have been on disability their entire lives being told things like “Don’t use excessive profanity during a job interview.” 

 

I hate myself for being sure a snob.  I know part of it is that I equate low-rent, half-assed recovery with my ex-boyfriend and his whole marginal lifestyle.  He didn’t have a bank account and he had to take jobs that paid in cash because he had all these creditors who would have garnished his wages if he’d gotten a check.  Most of our dates seemed to involve AA meetings and most of his friends were on welfare and/or disability.  I think I was finally convinced to leave the relationships when he started talking about how someday we would have a place together and when his friend June’s boyfriend got out of jail we could have them over for dinner. 

 

Basically when I go to a place like the mental health clinic I feel like I’m stepping back into a kind of life I’ve made every effort to distance myself from. 

Today was Earth Day, the deadline for all Whole Foods Markets to eliminate plastic bags. The store where I work actually finished up our stock of plastic and has been all paper for about a week. It hasn’t been the easiest transition. Not all customers are happy about the change and I don’t think there’s anyone on the front end who wouldn’t happily bitch slap the next person to ask “What will I use to clean up after my dog?” Stuff like that is expected and pretty minor. The major problem came when we didn’t have enough full sized paper bags—I guess the order had been made when we still had plastic. For most of yesterday we had to bag all orders in little paper bags. This of course required twice as many bags per order as it would have with the bigger bags which probably ruled out any environmental good done by not using plastic. Chaos.

My own personal observance of Earth Day I decided to focus on one wasteful habit of mine, bringing my lunch to work each day in a plastic bag I throw away and using plastic forks and spoons from the deli to eat it with. Starting today I used one of my older recycled plastic totes and brought silverware from home. Also I’m going to try to ride my bike for shorter trips instead of driving. I don’t know if I’m going to ride to work like I did sometimes last year. I really feel nervous about some of the intersections on the way (most of all the Damon/ Diversey/ Clybourn intersection where I had my accident last year but also the place where Logan Blvd. crosses Elston—a couple of new businesses have gone up at the corner in addition to a very busy Target and I really don’t want to ride through it). Final thing I want to do for Earth Day is find out once and for all what is up with recycling (or lack thereof) in my neighborhood. The City of Chicago blue bins aren’t here yet and you can’t get blue recycling bags from the old program in stores any more. I don’t even know if the city is still taking blue bags to be recycled anymore or if they’re just treating them as trash. I haven’t recycled in a couple months but I just haven’t been focused enough to sort things out.

One of the advantages of living in a major city—I get to see every obscure ass film Tim Roth appears in the theaters as soon as it’s released. 

 

Yesterday I went to see Funny Games.  It’s directed by Austrian Michael Haneke, best know for controversial films such as The Piano Teacher (2001) and Cache (2005).  Funny Games is rather peculiar in that it is a shot-by-shot English language remake of a film of the same title that Haneke made in 1997.

( cut for spoilers and discussion of violence. )

Last night I read a couple of posts at telesilla ’s journal on heterosexual privilege in fandom that really got me to thinking on a more general level about sexuality, honesty, deception and the advantages I often gain by allowing myself to be preceived as straight in most of my day to day interactions. 

It's something that's been confusing to me for a long time. When I was in college I took a class on the literature of the Harlem Renaissance. Many novels of this period, such as James Weldon Johnson’s Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man and Nella Larsen’s Passing dealt with the issue of light skinned blacks that were able to pass as white. Stories of passing in novel’s and films were a vital part of the popular imagination until the 1960’s when they were more or less rendered obsolete by the movement towards racial pride and changing the social boundaries that divided black from white (though new stories of passing do occasionally emerge, Philip Roth’s The Human Stain for example).

While I realize there's a big differance between race and sexuality I’ve always been drawn to the idea of passing as a trope for my sexual identity. Since I was a young child, I’ve been bisexual, attracted to both men and women. I’ve probably kissed a few more men then women, but I’ve had sex with exactly one of each and when I was dating a few years ago I went out with both men and women. I am not heterosexual, I am other, queer. 

And yet I realize that most people who encounter me “read” me as heterosexual. I don’t look like people think a non-heterosexual woman looks so I’m automatically assumed to be straight. So long as I keep my mouth shut and my behaviors in check I am allowed to partake of the privileges that come with being a heterosexual. 

And there are privileges that come with heterosexuality. To most people it is the norm and being treated as a normal person and not a freak or a deviant is a privilege. Not having my parents freak the hell out is a privilege. Not being perceived as a threat or a target is a privilege. I reap these privileges but as a result I feel alienated from both the heterosexuals who assume I am one of them and the like and am sometimes treated as inauthentic, a fake, someone who isn’t really queer. I’ve always felt that unlike many of the people I’ve known who are “authentic” homosexuals I have a choice, but do I really? 

When I was in a relationship with a man, I still thought of women (a lot). If I were with a woman would I stop being sexually interested in men? Probably not. I’d be exclusive because fierce loyalty and exclusive devotion to a single partner is in my nature but I’d still think about men, still be turned on by them. I can’t be a “real” lesbian any more than I can be a “real” heterosexual. 

I try to be as honest as possible about what I am but it would hardly be appropriate for me to announce my sexual history and preferences at say a job interview or upon meeting a new person. Frankly most people aren’t interested in who I am nor should they be. 

With family and people who become friends it’s more difficult. When is it appropriate to reveal to say a co-worker you’re friendly with that you swing both ways? If they’ve been forthcoming about their sexuality (be it straight or “real” gay) does that mean I can be forthcoming about mine? With my parents I’ve dropped some major hints just because I don’t want to lie, but is it right to push the issue when I know they’ll be upset? 

I think that sexuality is a very complicated thing and must people, be they straight or gay, prefer view it as an absolute and not to acknowledge all the nuance and gradations and that it is this limitation and not personal deception that leads to the sort of passing I’ve spent most of my life engaged in.

I continue to be sick.  Again.  Last time was the flu, this time it’s a pretty bad cold including a hacking cough that makes it sound like I’m about to throw up.  Truly lovely.  Even though I’m sick I’ve still managed to pick up a couple hours work at Biff’s office today and yesterday.  The other woman who works there part time has pneumonia so I’m comparatively healthy. 

 

I’m trying to work at Biff’s as much as I can because I’m completely out of paid time off at the market which means that I’m not earning any income for the days I miss work (Tuesday, and tomorrow at least.)  I’ll probably have to dip into my savings which I always hate to do.  Of course it doesn’t help that recently in a fit of self-indulgence I bought myself a bunch of DVDs—Eastern Promises (gratuitous violence! homoerotic subtext!), Stardust (Mark Strong!), Danny Boyle’s Sunshine (more Mark Strong!  Philosophical inquiry into the meaning of existence!  Cillian Murphy’s cheekbones!), and the anime collections for Magic Knight Rayearth I (Clamp cuteness!) and Simoun (cuteness and genderfuck!  It’s set on a planet where everyone is female till they turn 17 when they choose their sex). 

 

I will say in my defense that I got all of these used on e-bay so even though I spent too much I could have spent a whole lot more.  I tend to think this way far too often.  For instance when grocery shopping I recently shelled out $11 on a big, big bag of Pacific Rose Apples (which are the yummiest) and justified it by thinking that  compared to the people I see at the market who spend $112 on a cut of meat it really wasn’t that  extravagant. 

 

This afternoon I watched Lost in Translation.  I saw it in the theater when it first came out but I’ve wanted to watch it again based on a conversation I had with this guy I went out with a couple times over the summer (known as the Guy in the Ethyl Meatplow t-shirt).   We were talking about movies at one point and I mentioned that I liked Sophia Coppola’s films.  He was said that as an Asian (he was Filipino, born in the Philippines but raised in America) he’d found Lost in Translation really offensive and stereotypical.  I didn’t remember any of this, but it had been about four years since I’d actually seen the film so I thought if I ever watched it again I’d keep an eye out. 

 

Watching it again I still really didn’t see anything that I would consider offensive.  I can almost see how scenes like the one with the “tear my stockings” woman border on derogatory stereotypes but to me the humor saves it.  Bill Murphy’s character is sort of rude sometimes but it seems to ring true for the character and you get the feeling he’d be just as snide in any setting. 

 

Yet as I write this I realize I’m using the same excuses that people give me when I’m offended by sexism in a book or a film.  It’s just part of the story, it’s the character, it’s meant to be funny.  This sort of bothers me.  Is there something there that I’m unable to see from my vantage point of white privilege?    Does everyone wear their own pair of blinders that shuts out what doesn’t apply to them? 

During the winter when I can’t exercise outside I watch DVD’s of television shows and anime while I work out inside.  I find things like the fixed scene length (for the purpose of commercials) and the repetition of the theme song and closing credits very reassuring. 

So far this year since I put my bike away in November I’ve worked my way through two cancelled American network television series-- Twin Peaks (both seasons) and Birds of Prey (a 2002 WB adaptation of the DC comic book that only aired for 13 episodes)—as well as the Japanese animated series The Rose of Versailles (aka Lady Oscar) and am currently about halfway through Princess Tutu. 

( cut for spoilers and pictures... )

I must admit I’m feeling rather smugly satisfied about Al Gore winning the Noble Prize,   I always thought he was dismissed and denigrated in a very nasty way after the 2000 Election with so many people laughing at him and saying he’d become a crazy mountain man just because he grew a beard, put on a few pounds and continued to work for environmental awareness.  I think he’s quite vindicated now.  And you’ll notice no one is giving George W. Bush laurels for making the world a better place so maybe winning the 2000 Election wasn’t the be all and end all.  In fact it seems more and more like getting out of politics is the beginning rather than the end of making a contribution to positive change in the world.  Look at what Jimmy Carter has accomplished since his presidency.

 

Gore’s cause- environmentalism- is something that’s been of concern to me for a long time.  Even though I’m generally pretty down on my upbringing, I did grow up with an acute awareness of the beauty of the natural world and the ways in which it was threatened by human carelessness.  My parents, who are basically conservative, were always interested in history and the past and this brought them into uneasy contact with more liberal, sophisticated people who had moved to our rural area as part of the “back to the land” movement of the 1970’s.  I grew up knowing people who lived without electricity, had solar houses and lived in isometric domes.  Most of them eventually mainstreamed in the years to come but it made an impression to see people living a conservationist lifestyle.  I remember having “no electricity” days when I was little and being upset by the use of pesticides on roadside plants.  Things like that get into your character and combined with my general pessimism and apocalyptic imagination have resulted in me taking environmental issues very seriously.  I really never doubted the significance of the ozone hole or the reality of global warming even though these things are still denied by a lot of people. 

 

I’m not an activist, I do a few things.  I’ve been a vegetarian since 1994, motivated in part by moral issues- not wanting to kill or eat animals- in part by eating disorder neurosis and in part by environmental concerns.  You can produce much more food per acre by raising crops than by raising meat.  Vegetarian food sources are a much wiser use of land resources.  I recycle to the best of my ability given that Chicago’s recycling program is slipshod at best (the “blue bag” program was reveled as something of an unmitigated disaster and the new “blue bin” program is still being tested and isn’t available in my neighborhood yet.).  Working at Whole Foods has done a lot to rekindle my consciousness of environmental issues.  For the last year I’ve been bringing my own shopping bags to the grocery store and I consider it an accomplishment when I can get through a day without taking my car out.   

 

 I know I could do more, but the things I am doing have become firmly entrenched in my daily life, which is positive.  I think that positive change can come about from people incorporating environmentally sound habits into their lifestyles.  If it’s just something you do on a daily basis it’s not disruptive to you or your family and over time it can make a difference. 

For some reason I can not begin to fathom I was paid on September 29, then one week later (October 5) got a pay check for one week.  I will get my next check on September 19.  I can’t figure out if this is a good thing (getting a check after only one week) or a bad thing (living two weeks on a one week paycheck—though of course I still had part of the last paycheck left over.)  Either way it messes up my budgeting, which I have a certain way that doesn’t account for random one week pay periods.

 

On Friday I went to Andersonville (a neighborhood quite a ways to the northeast of where I live) to meet with one of the editors of a website interested in local journalism.  They’d contacted me back in August and I submitted a piece to them last month, an article about the Bucktown Arts Festival adapted from my journal.  They seemed interested in having me do more stuff for them but I sort of wanted to find out more about the site and what they were looking for just because it seemed rather sports heavy and also because with my two jobs I’m probably not going to be able to do articles very often. 

 

I got an idea of what the website is after—community based journalism about events that aren’t really being covered by larger news sources.  The editor said that it would be okay for me to write for them where I could, that they wouldn’t require weekly pieces or anything like that.  It’s okay to only write for them when something I’m interested in comes up and I have the time

 

They don’t pay, so I really don’t have the luxury of going out of my way to cover things for them but I would like to do some writing for the site.  It’s a good excuse to talk to people and since a lot of my co-workers at the market are artists, musicians or activists of various kinds it could also give me an opportunity to help them out with a bit of publicity. 

 

The meeting went well, but directly before it I had a rather upsetting (at least to me) incident.  The editor I was meeting was going to be out of the office and couldn’t get back till 3:30 p.m. and because the buzzer was broken he asked me to meet him outside.  I showed up early as usual and was standing by the door reading Mishama and minding my own business when a woman dragging along a huge suitcase came up and started talking at me. 

 

I really would have preferred to have kept reading my nice little book about fascism and homosexuality but I thought it would be simple common courtesy, one human being to another, to at least acknowledge this woman was standing there talking and not just tune her out or tell her to please fuck off.  So she spent about five minutes going on about how she was an educated woman and a word processing specialist and her sister and a EKG machine and how she was in an intensive outpatient program.  Eventually she finally got to the part where she asked for money.  I didn’t have any cash on me so I said, “I’m sorry, I don’t have any cash.”  She snapped back, “I’m sorry you wasted my time.”   So much for human courtesy, I guess the proper etiquette would have been to ignore her or tell her to go away. 

 

The office where I had my meeting was right next to the Andersonville Brown Elephant.  Brown Elephant’s are a series of thrift shops in Chicago run by the Howard Brown Heath Center, a GLBT health organization, so after my meeting I went in and looked around.  I didn’t really find anything I liked.  There was a book of zodiac images by the retro hipster artist Shag I wouldn’t have minded getting but it was fifty cents and the credit card limit was $10 and I really wasn’t lying when I told the lady I didn’t have any cash.  When I was there, it was mostly quite but when I was about to leave this old Billy Bragg song “Richard” started playing really loud. 

 

This is a song that fascinated me when I was in college because it seems to precise and detailed, as if it must be talking about an actual situation but I never could figure out what that situation was.  Like an overheard fragment of conversation, a window into someone’s life but you have no idea what you’re looking at.  I remember I actually wrote a story based on this song, trying to create a context for the lyrics. 

 

Hearing it again, echoing in the warehouse space of the Brown Elephant was a sort of odd experience.  It was so familiar and yet it’s been years since I’d listened to it.  I’d always been so focused on the lyrics I never realized that Billy Bragg does a lot of really strange things with his voice during the song, there are some very odd vocal inflections going on not to mention harsh guitar riffs.  Still, it’s the lyrics that really get to me.  My favorite lines-- “You helped me make this bed, but you won’t help me sleep in it.”  “Our Titanic love affair sails on the morning tide.” and “Do you think I only love you ‘cuz you sleep with other boys?” 

 

 

Maybe because I watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind again last week, when I heard the song this time the line about sleeping with other boys sort of reminded me of how Joel thinks that Clementine is unfaithful and promiscuous.  She denies it and both times I’ve watched the film I found myself believing her.  It always seemed to me like part of his fantasy of her as someone free in ways he will never be and also as someone he can be resentful towards. 

Yesterday was my little niece Kitten’s third birthday.  She’s getting to be such a big girl. 

 

I had a day shift at work so I was hoping to spend the evening making her a wonderful original hand-made Birthday card but we were short staffed at the market so I ended up working a fairly epic shift (8:37 a.m. to 5:40 p.m. to be exact) and by the time I got home (I’d ridden my bike) I was too exhausted to do anything productive.  At least I managed to balance my till for the second day in a row. 

 

Yesterday was also my one year anniversary at the market.  When I started a year ago I’d hoped to be in a graduate program for creative writing by this time but since I wasn’t able to get in I have to start looking at other options.  I’m simply not making enough money.  I refilled my Effexor XR prescription this morning and I had to put it on my credit card because my medical flex-spending account has run out.  This means I’ll have to hit my brother-in-law up for free samples at least for the rest of the year.

 

I hate being a poor relation. 

 

I was listening to Talk of the Nation on NPR a few days ago and found out that there’s a program in Chicago that gives low-income families cash incentives for things like getting a library card, getting an annual check-up, paying the rent and other bills on time, attending parent/teacher conferences, and going to church etc. 

 

Listening to the piece I found myself having a bit of a knee-jerk reaction along the lines of “What the fuck?  I pay my bills on time.  I’m never late for work.  I take my medication and stayed in school and nobodies giving me cash incentives.”

 

Of course before I get too resentful I need to keep in mind that I’m an educated, middle-class white girl who has access to resources and benefits that the average person living in true poverty would kill for.   I’m having some financial difficulties right now but problems but I’m not trapped by poverty.  Much as I dislike doing it, I have my family to fall back on and I have the education and skills to get a higher paying job, it’s simply a matter of overcoming my lack of confidence so I really can’t begrudge people in genuine poverty what little help this program gives them. 

 

Though I still can’t help wondering about people on food stamps who shop at Whole Foods.  Even with my 20% employee discount its still super expensive. 

 

Sigh.

 

I am a miserable excuse for a social justice liberal.