(1) When I was in kindergarten, they brought a fire truck to school one day for us to look at, touch, climb on, and be generally awed by (as 5-year-olds are wont to do). At one point all the kids started urging the firefighter to “do the siren,” so she did. Then one kid started crying. I wasn’t at all upset by the siren, and actually I thought it was pretty stupid for the kid to be crying; but for some reason, I felt a sort of peer pressure, and started crying myself just because he was. It seemed like the thing to do – even though I thought it was stupid.
(2) In 2nd grade, one time they brought a bull to school. Yes, a bull. I have no idea what the backstory behind that is, if there was even a reason or what – but it seems like a profoundly dumb idea, doesn’t it? The bull seemed pretty tame – but then, what do I know about bulls? (Not much.) I remember they had the bull tethered outside in front of the school, and we were all lined up to take turns petting it. When one little boy got up there for his turn, the bull licked his arm and left a big black mark – and the kid started wailing. Not out of pain, as I recall, but out of shock at being licked by a bull.
(3) When I was about 6 years old, there was this girl who was my age who my parents wanted me to play with. They knew her parents (don’t remember how) and I guess they figured since we were the same age, we should play. We only played twice that I remember – I went to her house once and she came to my house once. Her house was huge, had a pool, a guesthouse, they had a maid, and she had a pony FFS. Her room was very pink and had a bunch of stuff to do with ponies in it; she was very into ponies, which I found boring as hell. I wanted to play games where we ran around the backyard and got dirty and dug in the dirt and such, but she wanted to play all these girly games and not mess up her clothes. (Not that I wasn’t into my share of “girly games” – I liked to play house, and I had lots of dolls – but something about her was way too frou-frou for my taste.) She annoyed me. When my mom picked me up from her house, I asked about her family: “Are they rich?” My mom replied, “No, they just have a higher income than we do.” And being 6 years old and not knowing what that meant, but just knowing that it sounded like big adult words and a good enough explanation, I accepted it and that was that. It wasn’t until years later that I realized my mom had cleverly fooled me.
Sep 30 2008 12:02 pm | Category:
Blog | Tags:
childhood,
memories,
personal
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9 Comments »
I’ve posted it before, but it is, by far, the most appropriate song I can think of for today.
“Yeah, that has nothing to do with drugs. That’s the chemicals in your mind.”
Sep 30 2008 10:20 am | Category:
Blog | Tags:
music,
Of Montreal,
video,
YouTube
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"Sex workers, as discussed many times, are assumed to be so riddled with issues & abuse that we cannot function properly. Such views of 'sex worker as victim' are often seen as kindness; we are not responsible for our poor choices. But when you so kindly sweep away our accountability for the decision to enter into sex work you also sweep away our reason. You are saying that we suffer from some sort of diminished capacity & are incapable of being responsible, sane, functioning human beings. That inaccurate thinking discredits everything else we say or do."
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"Gendered insults against men, or using male body parts, don’t have anything like the impact or import that feminine gendered insults do. This is because historically, male genitalia or the male identity has not been abused and denigrated and physically destroyed, over and over again, to express the culture’s collective hatred of all things male."
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"People still write in this way today, but not for such dire reasons. The cloak of anonymity that most bloggers maintain is significant but sometimes even it isn’t sufficient. What if I told you that even on an anonymous blog, the community that exists is enough to cause some to self-censor?"
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"I don’t want to talk about the media. I want to talk about every day people saying these things. I want to talk about the vague acquaintance who when he ran into me two years after he saw me last, said, you look good, you got in shape. Who didn’t know I’d been stressed, I’d been mentally berating myself over every meal (and berating myself over berating myself), I’d also been physically ill. You look good, you got in shape. Who if he saw 'getting in shape' then would probably see 'letting herself go' now. Let’s face it: I do too, even though I’m in better physical health." LOVE THIS POST.
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"Ultimately, though, as I mentioned earlier, it’s up to men to end sexual assault. Not only choosing not to assault women, but men have to educate other men about sexual assault. There are a number of things men can do, from calling out sexist behaviour to refusing to remain friends with a sexual offender."
Sep 30 2008 08:30 am | Category:
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I was really happy to be able to go to BlogOrlando this weekend. Josh Hallett once again put on an amazing event (I say “once again” even though this was my first time going; but based on reports I’ve heard from people who went the previous two years, I feel justified in saying that!) and it was a great success.
I was nervous but also excited about my session. It ended up going really well – although I was very upset with myself because I forgot to bring the recorder, so I couldn’t record it for a podcast!! The room was full and we had a great discussion. I easily fell right back into “teacher mode” from when I used to be a TA in grad school; and you know, I really do like doing stuff like that!
The one thing that came out of my session was (as I predicted) we don’t have a clear definition of what is meant by the word “professional” when talking about blogs and social media. Everyone has their own conception of what that word means. To illustrate, here’s a photo of the whiteboard from my session; I started with an exercise where I had people shout out words/phrases that characterize a professional blog, and then words/phrases that characterize an unprofessional blog.
You’ll notice that some of the things in these lists contradict each other, and that’s exactly the point. One that I found very interesting was ‘lots of pictures’ under the Unprofessional heading; my response to the person who said it was something like, “That really depends on the type of blog we’re talking about, right? For a photography blog, lots of pictures would be appropriate, expected, and professional.”
After deconstructing what some of these words mean – e.g., it’s not okay to just use “credibility” as a qualifier for professional, because that’s another word that doesn’t have a common, accepted definition, so we need to define it, too! – I started presenting some examples. I mentioned a small business owner who wrote a post about her thoughts on the election, and asked what people thought of that. Two very interesting responses were shouted out at the same time. One person said it’s okay to write about her political views if she articulates what she means well. Another said it’s okay as long as it’s nothing too radical.
(Of course, you can imagine where I went with that: what is “too radical?” That’s subjective too.)
The two opinions diverged on what really mattered.
Later in the day, Nik Wilets and I were discussing how this was all very interesting because, we both agreed, to us professional/unprofessional has more to do with conduct – e.g., are you consistently late for meetings with clients, are you unprepared for meetings, etc.
Take-away: “Professional” is one of those words where someone says it and ten different people hear ten different things.
Other buzzwords:
- Credibility
- Monetization
- Non-starter
- Thought leader
- Personal brand - this term really creeps me out
Also:
And then in the afternoon, there was the Online Identity session… but I really don’t feel like writing about that right now. (Read the liveblog to get the gist of why; also, Dacia joined in the chat, which made it more bearable.) Maybe later. :\
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"You keep talking about the 'undecideds' as if they exist; they don't. There are people who don't care, but anyone with any political consciousness or belief in a failing system has already made up their mind."
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"In 1960, press critic and journalist A.J. Liebling made the famous observation that 'Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one.' That's even more true than it was 48 years ago; although it's theoretically easier to build and operate your own 'press' — whether it's blog software, a video camera, a copy of Photoshop, or podcasting — whatever you produce will go nowhere if the channels of distribution are blocked off, and many of those channels are privately owned."
Sep 29 2008 08:30 am | Category:
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"Yet so little of it feels like honesty. Much more of it feels like public relations. Managing your image, putting up only the flattering pictures, the ones that show how cool you are with all your friends, telling only the best moments."
Sep 28 2008 08:30 am | Category:
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1 Comment »