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© All text and images copyright1999- 2003 emjaybee
Give a hoot. Don't steal.

When you create a personal website like this one, putting even a fraction of your life online, you accept certain realities. Once you build up enough readership, you will attract the occasional wacko who wants to send you emails. Whether it's hotmanlyman122@dingus.com writing to say "U SUK! NO FAT CHCKS!" or realchristian@godloveswhitepeople.org writing "your goeing to Hel, gud riddanse," there is going to be the occasional spurt of stupidity directed your way. I knew this going in, and don't really worry about it. It comes with the territory.

But this week, checking my referral logs, I was blindsided, not by an idiot stranger but by someone I knew who turned out to be--well--strangely idiotic. With an offhand comment, he revealed his status as a world-class ass in an unmistakeable way. You see, if you're going to insult me online, and you don't want me to know about it, don't link to my site. My referral log lets me see when someone has clicked on a link to me from somewhere else on the web.

And on the off-chance that you do want me to see your comments, at least have the cojones to email me and insult me to my (virtual) face.

Here's the basic story. The person in question--we'll call him Clueless--is an old acquaintance of Matt's from his hometown. He lives in New Haven with GirlfriendofClueless. Shortly after we moved to NYC from TX,we discovered this fact, and arranged to visit with Clueless and GirlfriendofClueless a couple of times. As far as Matt and I knew, all was well. No heated words were exchanged, no-one made improper advances, and we paid our own way when we ate out and participated in such uber-geek activities as seeing The Two Towers and going to a Ren-Faire.

The last day of our second visit, we thought both of them were acting a little strange, but could think of no reason why. After we had gotten back home, we emailed them several times proposing that they come down to visit, offering to find some floor space for them to sleep on our admittedly tiny floor, or at least buy them a few drinks. They never responded, and after a few months, we gave up.

"This happens," Matt and I figured. "They have all the friends they need in Connecticut, and hey, that's cool. We're a long way off to keep up with." And we let it go, but still felt no ill-will.

Imagine my surprise when my referral log took me to the following comments buried in an unrelated Livejournal exchange:

GirlfriendofClueless: You know, I once had someone say to me, "I could really like the Smiths if they'd just gotten rid of Morrissey. He's so damned annoying." We removed them from the house a few hours later.

Clueless: they ate a great deal of our food, as well. damned parasites. we never saw them again. the female of the pair deemed herself a "feminist" and a "writer". i was pleased that i outfoxed her on both subjects.

Clueless' swipe at me was accompanied by a link here to my site, I guess in the assumption it would prove I had no bona fides as either a feminist or a writer. Well, I'll leave that to you to judge--I don't need Clueless' approval of my status as either. And I still haven't been able to recall what great Socratic debate we had that allowed him to "outfox" me as feminist and a writer. Perhaps we had a contest to see who could write the best 3,000 word essay on Lacanian theory, but I'm pretty sure I would remember that.

Overall, I was just blown away by the ludicrousness of the situation. Matt and I had both wondered if we had somehow said something offensive, but we never thought it was a Morrissey remark that put us beyond the pale. I mean, Morrissey? Is that where you want to take your ideological stand? That's what separates Good People from Bad People? Now Matt and I have both pissed off people because of our ideological stances on everything from Middle East politics to abortion, but I don't think we've ever been thrown out of someone's house because of an aversion to big-shirt-wearing-tin-eared-man-divas* before.

And then there's the whole "they ate too much" and "parasites" thing happening here, which I find strange. Guests come to your house, eat a few meals (for which we brought wine and chocolate, I might add) they attempt to sleep on a leaky air mattress in your freezing living room while three cats climb over their faces, and they're parasitic? One wonders what exactly would satisfy the hosts' delicate sensibilities. Perhaps if we had brought sleeping bags and slept under the rhododendrons out front, eating berries and drinking rainwater.

Oh well. Obviously, it's no loss to us to have these particular people out of our lives. And normally I don't use this space to air personal grievances. But if you choose to issue inane semi-libelous statements about me and my husband in a public forum, and identify us with a link, well, you're fair game for mocking. You have no one to blame but yourself.

*tm Matt. Hee.
***

In other news, I got a new scanner! Here's proof from our 1999 trip to England.

I can't tell you how hard it is not to stay home and play with this all day. I have a million old photos that I'd like to commit to digital eternity. Many of them have the added bonus of showing me in really embarrassing 80s hairstyles, so you have that to look forward to. Here's another one:

****
I have to say one more thing before I go.

Social change is very often slow, and torturous, and those of us who believe in it are used to the day-in, day-out grind of changing one opinion at a time.

But sometimes, shifts take place with lightning speed, and you wake up in a new world. In San Francisco, a courageous mayor has made history, and given the world an amazing example of the power and beauty of loving commitment between two people, whatever their gender.

Every time I look at these pictures, I start to cry. When I read this, (Salon article, clicking through ad required) I find it so moving that any remaining doubts about gay marriage are swept away. This is right, this is real, this needs to happen. It's time to grant the privileges of civil marriage to gay couples, just as it was once time to allow couples of different races to marry. To do otherwise is an injustice. We know now that gay couples aren't just a human phenomenon--they exist in nature, too. Unless you think God condemns penguins and vultures to hell. We are out of excuses for this prejudice, not that they were ever that compelling to begin with. It's time.

One more picture: These two ladies have been together for over 50 years. Now they can finally get a marriage certificate that reflects the power of that commitment. Congratulations.

February 6

Two updates in a week? That's just crazy!

First things first. In the left-hand column you will see a notify list sign up. Go join it, and I will save you the pain of clicking over here unnecessarily by emailing you every time I update. Your email will not be given to anyone else, just me. And I gave up spamming a long time ago.

***

Do you ever feel like the biggest problem we have in America is that 12 year old boys seem to be in charge? Kids who blow all our money on gee-whiz useless gadgets (Star Wars lasers), who are easily impressed by explosions (Iraq), who go back and forth between thinking boobies are icky (Ashcroft covering up the statue of Justice) and obsessing over them (Michael Powell chastising Janet Jackson), and preferring the laid-back Coach Bush who doesn't even believe in reading the newspaper to the stiff-but-smart Mr. Gore who actually asks them to think?

It's time to get the grownups back in charge before this thing gets any more out of hand. Dean seemed to be the guy to do it, by being the tough-but-fair authority figure who wasn't afraid to give it to you straight. Then he imploded, disillusioning us like a favorite uncle who gets drunk at a family reunion. That's where Kerry steps in, as a grownup who may not be the most exciting guy you ever met, but who knows how to manage money and deal with hostile neighbors.

Well that's as far as I can take that metaphor.

***
I have been thinking about emancipation of different kinds this week.

There have been several small self-emancipations in my own life. A few years ago, I emancipated myself from a type of religious belief I disliked (as I've discussed before). When I was single, I made up my mind to hold out for someone who was actually right for me, or else to be single forever, emancipating myself from the get-married-because-you're-supposed-to mindset of a lot of people (with good results). I then emancipated myself from several truly assy jobs, culminating in my emancipating myself from Texas altogether. At various times, I've emancipated myself from toxic friendships with people who didn't care about me.

And this week, I emancipated myself from--well, myself. It was re-reading this book that did it. Femininity is a hard-eyed look at the ways women are schooled, and school ourselves, to act in ways that damage us. I don't agree with all of Brownmiller's conclusions, but she hits a little too close to home when she describes the urge to self-limit and restrain ambition in favor of the needs of others. Oh man. That's been a constant pattern in my life.

All my life, I've excelled at being second banana, the supportive friend, the sideline cheerleader. I'm not sure why I tend to stick myself in this role. Maybe I just think I'm not competitive enough, maybe I've just not had enough confidence. Maybe I was picking the easy way out by hanging out with creative people yet taking no risks myself. Maybe it's just taking this long to start figuring out what I want.

Anyway, after I finished the book, I looked at Matt and said, "You know what? I need some space of my own. I don't want to be your light crew anymore or overly involved with your music. I want that time for myself, for my projects."

And Matt, being Matt, thought that was a great idea, because he rocks, and also because he prefers my happiness to whatever marginal help I can offer as a hanger-on. He figures he can draft his buddies into helping out, or else do things himself.

But the most amazing thing is how different I feel. I had no idea I was carrying around this burden until I set it down. I had no idea I was putting my own needs second all the time when it came to writing or working on my own projects. I was completely effing clueless, in other words. How did I get to be 32, I asked Matt, and know so little about myself? I guess it's not that uncommon, especially for women, to do that. Some of us absorbed the lesson of the Unselfish Spouse a little too well. It takes time to undo it.It takes time to realize that living through other people just isn't nearly as fulfilling as living according to your own wants.

The scary part though, is how I didn't know I was doing this. My subconscious, my old habits, had a strong grip on my ambition, and kept cutting it off at the knees, telling me to wait until things got better, until Matt was successful. Until I was dead or too old to do anything.

Of course, I still don't know what I'll accomplish, or if I'll have any success at all. That's the part that still lies ahead. Maybe though, I'll be able to walk towards it a little more quickly.

February 4

Hey it's another update, ain't you as excited as a redneck on Ten Cent Beer Nite at the speedway? Sure you are.

I got the more snow/less cold weather I wanted, and take secret glee in the squeaky crunching of snow under my shoes as I walk to work. After 30-some mostly snow-free years, I'm not bored by it yet. Probably helps that I don't have to shovel it.

Especially since now there's a sad story on the local news; kids who earned some extra cash shoveling snow are getting mugged on their way home. Robbing little kids? Hard to get lower than that buddy. Even other muggers have to look down on you for that. Makes me want to get a large, dead, not too fresh fish and administer a good fish-slapping to the perpetrators.

Work has been busy, finally, but not in a good way. Every season, one of the books I'm assigned gets under my skin due to its extremely assy writing. I'm working on one of those now, and man, this author could do with some fish-slapping too. It's hard to explain to someone who doesn't take notice of stuff like this, but a badly-written book is like a song played out of key. It just hurts, it doesn't feel right, and if you're a writer yourself and have some idea of how it should read, it hurts even more.If it's a subject you care about or know anything about, like this one (about a medieval historical figure), it can really get to you. Urgh.

It doesn't help that I wanted to write for this series but the books had already been assigned to "experts" in medieval history. Expert =! good writer, is all I can say.

Enough with the griping. It's spring outside! By which I mean, above 30 degrees Fahrenheit! Mmm, summery. I was able to go hatless at lunch, even. I enjoyed the wind in my hair as I went to get Chinese at my usual place down the street. The lady at the register chided me. "Long time no see! I thought you got another job!" It was nice that she noticed, though I'm sure she and her husband call me the Sesame Chicken Lady because that's all I ever order. I have nothing against other Chinese dishes, but I am trying to avoid both noodles and super-hot peppers, so that doesn't leave me many options. Plus, they always have my food ready to go by the time I get to the register--I never even have to order anymore. I would hate to break with tradition. It would feel like an awkward Seinfeld moment, confusing the Chinese food lady. There would be questions, and commentary. It's easier just to keep eating the chicken. And anyway, it's good chicken.

In completely non-chicken related news, I have a new book review up. Once again I have ignored my Tour de Testosterone books for something else. Sorry. I have commitment issues.

I have been pestered to set up a notify list by my husband and his famous cousin.I'm working on it, but Dreamweaver is not my friend. Later this week, perhaps.