Plot happens, but doesn’t feel like it.
Author: admin
-
Happy Solstice 2020
The darkest day in a dark year. It gets lighter from here.
-
7 Word Reviews: Tenet
Very good spectacle, but very poor storytelling.
-
Write a goddam blog post
Every time I see a twitter thread that goes for more than 3 or 4 posts, I mourn the death of Google Reader and the rise of social media. Yes, birdsite it good for making us feel connected to our celebrities of choice, but it’s terrible for thoughtful conversation (which it seems like is what a lengthy thread is aiming for).
Also if your appearances, guest blogs, publications, etc. are only in birdsite posts they are going to disappear into the aether. At least duplicate that information on your site, for your and your fans’ sake.
-
Normalize Changing Pronouns
There are a fair number of people who say “your organization should normalize sharing pronouns!” and also a fair number of trans people (or people at some point on their journey of self-understanding) who say “forcing me to out myself or lock this down prematurely harms me, please don’t” and I think there are ways both are right.
I don’t have a full answer to this dilemma, but one simple thing would be to change the call “normalize sharing of pronouns” to “normalize sharing and changing of pronouns.”
For most of my adult life, I’d had the mindset “I don’t particularly feel like A Man the way other people describe it, but I don’t have dysphoria so I guess I don’t mind being one.” It wasn’t until I was 32 when I learned that someone could be trans without having gender dysphoria, and that most other people have an active experience of having a gender beyond whether or not they have gender dysphoria. Did some research, and turns out that yeah, I’m agender. Changed the pronouns in my email signature, and most people didn’t comment on it except for one co-worker who asked how they could support me.
My point with that story is that while a lot of people understand their gender as teens and children (and if you belittle trans kids’ self-understanding I will eviscerate you in prose), there’s also a lot of us who didn’t have access to all the information growing up and are at different points in our journeys. Make the world safe for us, too.
(I’d hope it doesn’t need to be said, but this doesn’t apply to transphobic jokes like “my gender is Aircraft Carrier, hur hur hur” – those people are being assholes.)
Updated to add: This post was tangentially inspired by the post “#NYLA2020 : TERF Wars – Transphobia, libraries, and trans workers” over at Digitization 101, and I definitely intend it as a “yes, and” rather than a condemnation of anyone. I just started following Jill Hurst-Wahl’s blog recently, and it’s already become a valuable resource for me.
-
Stop feeling the need to justify taking care of yourself
I see a lot of posts mocking people or HR depts or whoever who say “rest and relaxation makes you more productive,” because (they say) feeling the need to justify your rest in the frame of worker productivity is a symptom of evil capitalism.
In the same social circles (maybe the same people?) I see posts saying things like “I’m away till ___, bc Rest is Resistance” or “self-care is an act of radical revolution.”
As far as I can tell, you’ve just swapped the need to justify rest for productivity with the need to justify rest for ideological purity.
You shouldn’t feel the need to justify taking care of yourself. Stop folding logic pretzels to make a holier than thou post about resting and recovering; it’s not helping anyone (including, I suspect, the people who post them).
-
Happy International Pronouns Day
they/them, still 🙂
-
Update on Indiana absentee voting
Judge Temporarily Halts Effect Of Indiana Ballot Deadline Ruling
“In a new order, Barker said she doesn’t want Hoosier voters to have a “false sense of security” about getting their ballot in on time. The judge halted her ruling for seven days to give the appeals court time to consider the case. And she urged voters to get their ballots in well ahead of time.”
Can you imagine living in a country/state that crowed about being a democracy and *didn’t* try to keep citizens from voting?
-
Today is the last day to register to vote in Indiana
Hopefully you’re already registered to vote (assuming you’re an eligible Indiana voter; if you aren’t a Hoosier, thanks for stopping by but this doesn’t apply, sorry. If you live in another U.S. state check https://votesaveamerica.com for your local details).
If you need to register in Indiana and haven’t yet, please check https://votesaveamerica.com/state/indiana/ for information on how to register. We’re 29 days from the second-most* important presidential election of our lifetimes, and never has the distinction between more clear**. And that’s before you get to your local elections.
Please register (if you can; voter suppression is real and vile).
Please vote (if you can; voter suppression is real and vile).
*I maintain that 2016 was a more important presidential election, because the hate and incompetence of the last 4 years could have been avoided.
**A lot of us were telling you it was clear in 2016, but “promised behavior” is slightly weaker evidence than “demonstrated-and-promised-to-continue behavior.”
-
Working from home and Work Clothes
This morning, I listened to The Indicator episode “RIP Business Suit?” about how the increasing number of people working from home during the pandemic may affect clothing choices after people start going back into the world.
For years, I’d been wearing button-down shirts with the sleeves rolled up and cargo khakis. It was a way to be comfortable, have pockets, and avoid drawing attention to myself, my top three priorities in clothing. Then in March (a bare two weeks into stay-at-home orders), I read Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe which has a short section on finding your own style and clothing as a form of self-expression (e specifically mentioned Taako from Thrilling Adventure Hour, which I loved). It got me thinking, and I’m not sure I’ve put on a button-down shirt since then? Certainly not for work.
Once I started thinking of clothing as self-expression rather than gender expression, over the summer I ordered a couple long no-button cardigans – they make me feel a bit like The Doctor (a good reference point for “space wizard”). Since going back to working in the building 3x/week at the end of July, I’ve been wearing library-themed t-shirts and usually a cardigan (though we’re heading into sweater season soon). Not sure what I’ll shift into next, but personally I’m glad the tyranny of the button-down collared shirt is over.