kali

Minneapolis is a city on the second floor, and its labyrinthine-ness means that directions have three dimensions. (Remember, the enemy's gate is down, I kept thinking.)

( Cut for some pictures )

Anyway, I am home now. I have stuff to say about the con as a whole, but I think that must wait till I have a) some sleep, and b) some perspective.

There was some *fail of various kinds, and I'm writing this down here, because I have to write about it, and I want to not be a victim of my own cowardice and, you know, speak about/interrogate how I feel. So, f-list, if I don't do that by tomorrow night, please nudge me. I really want to do this, and I think it's important that I do. But... I'm giving myself a day to compost first.

Plus, I think I'm still hungover.

Met lots of great folk! Hung out with awesome people I already knew. Got a lapdance (???).¹ Drank way too many martinis. (See above re: hangover.) invisible_lift, rm, miep and I wrote fic! Post-it Fic! That I love with an inordinate passion, perhaps disproportionate to its, er... significance. But so it goes. Hopefully there will be posting (of the post-its? Hah.) soon.

So, more soon. I promise. (Hold me to it, okay?)

¹They said it was burlesque. It was not burlesque. On the other hand, she had nerd glasses and purred in my ear? And rubbed noses? What, as they say, the fuck?

Today, for the first time, my dad fell asleep right in the middle of our conversation. At first I thought he was just joking around, but no. He wasn't.

I realize now, and again -- it doesn't seem to matter how many times I do it, the realization still feels fresh and new -- that this is not going to get easier. I will not wake up one day and get to go back to the way things used to be.

Never. Never. Never.

First, there were the PUMAs. Have you guys heard about these folks? PUMA apparently stands for Party Unity My Ass, (??? Really?) and they seem to be American feminists women of a certain age who feel utterly betrayed by the election, and spend a lot of time totting up grievances about who has suffered more, people of color, or women? (And what about female people of color? They don't seem too bothered. The sisterhood, it seems, doesn't contain them; it doesn't even seem to occur to them that it ought to...?)

In all seriousness, they actually seem certifiably nuts.

I spent a good portion of today rubbernecking the traincrash reading palinpumawatch and clicking on through to associated links. Whoa. If you don't want it filtered, go straight to Reclusive Leftist and look around. I think the mod, Violet Socks, or whatever is a deranged fruit-bat, but the real gold (or tragedy, depending on how you look at it) is in the comments, and the community being fostered. Here is a pre-election sample. At first I was mesmerized (and enraged!) but then -- I began to see the heartbreak of it. Because, from my reading, these seem to be women who have sad, sad lives. They talk about marital discord. They talk about giving up everything for their families (occasionally in really bad poetry.) They are among the casualties of the system, right? And their lives are ordinary, and seemingly filled with a host of claustrophobic, petty disappointments. And so this neo-con cult of aggressive mediocrity (Exhibit A: Not!Joe the War Correspondent¹) is going to be terribly appealing to them. Something that makes a virtue out of victimhood, that places all the blame for everything terrible that has happened to them squarely on the shoulders of someone else -- much like Sarah Palin, and her post-election, 2012 prep interviews that accuse everyone of being so unfair. At least the bizarrely named NiceDeb who actually compared Obama to Hitler (!!!) is the most offensively wingnut of conservatives; these other ladies seem to be left-leaning? Or believe that they are left leaning? But I don't think the word means what they think it means. Much like their beloved Hillary being named "secretary" of state? Because some of them don't seem to like the idea. Why? Not just too little, too late, but ...the idea of being a man's secretary? ...kinda sticks in the craw, doesn't it???

Um. No.

And yet, there's legitimacy in their quarrel with the world, right? Hasn't socialism/communism failed women in a stunning myriad of ways? Of course it has, just like capitalism, and well, basically every system in the world. It's a sexist world, no question.

And then I started thinking about feminism. Third wave? Radical? Sex positive? Post-feminist? What is the place of feminism in my philosophy?

I mean, not the PUMA way, obviously. Voting the other way for McCain and his "women's health" and Palin, who is NOT a feminist, saying that abortion wouldn't be necessary if young girls weren't "sluts" (yeah, these PUMAs are really pretty weird), dissing on Michelle Obama, who is just pretty awesome, even if she's got the most thankless (if prestigious) unpaid job in the world, AND voting against the man who not only supports a woman's right to choose, and you know, equal pay for equal work, and incidentally, say what you will, is closing down Gitmo, and trying to make government transparent, and is shutting down the secret CIA prisons round the world [And that's just the first three days in office!] cannot be considered left or feminist, in my opinion.

But what can? How do we appropriately deal with a climate of institutionalized and internalized sexism?

Unrelatedly -- but to close with a taste of awesome, via rm, author Cathrynne M. Valente makes this post of sheer poetry about our new world.

¹ I don't even like Rick Sanchez, but I must admit to enjoying that clip. But this begs another question. I love participatory culture. I think the ability of the internet to give ordinary people a voice, and an impact on affairs is staggering, and awesome (in the old, non-valley sense of the word). And yet, (oh god, am i agreeing with Sarah Palin?) -- we shouldn't be getting our news from blogs! Because there's a difference between reading people's opinions (the Op-Ed page, the Editorials) and the actual news! Is it wrong to want journalists to be, you know, trained? I don't think I've got any right to go to Gaza and be a war correspondent...! And I'd like my president to be smarter than me. I mean, the problem with majority rule is that the majority of people kinda suck, don't they? But if we agree that the Great Man theory of history is wrong...? ...Although ever seen a movement succeed without some stellar spear-heading? I just go back and forth on it all the time. But this just leads me back to one of my central problems -- how does one unite a desire for excellence with an allegiance to the interests of the common person? And the old problem of communism - what is it that binds the intelligentsia and the workers together? But this is another post, for another day...

Last night I dreamt that I couldn't sleep. All night long.

I was in an uncomfortable bed at a friend's house; the walls kept closing in. Lights were on. The walls were brightly colored - salmon, I think. People kept moving in and out of the room.

What new torture is this? I don't know how I'll be able to deal with dream-insomnia, for fuck's sake.

Also, my head has turned into an enormous vessel of snot. I am so sick. That's not a dream. I don't think. Unless I'm not actually posting this, in which case the end must be fucking nigh.

Jungian analysis, please?

So, kids, I'll be mainly off line till Sunday night, unless I go crazy and get the wifi in the hotel room. Unlikely, but you never know. Have a happy halloween, and there'll be an update when I return.

I'm starting to fear that this trip is just a bit jinxed. So far I've had a really hard time reading my Tennant paper (hofnarr made me a mourning band. I may wear it while presenting.

Yes, I am an enormous dork. This is news?

Last night was the resurrection of the stomach death which = no sleep.

Then I dropped my keys down the elevator shaft.

...

Think good thoughts; I've a feeling I'm going to need them.

So. If you looked up procrastination in the dictionary, you would NOT therein find a picture of me, because I would've thought, eh, tomorrow's soon enough to send it in, no?

*headdesk*

I have vowed to not sleep before finishing this paper. It is on Doctor Who. WHY CAN I NOT CONCENTRATE FOR MORE THAN FIVE MINUTES AT A TIME? WHY???

In the last two days, I have a) not done anything fun, and b) also not done anything productive. I have, however, read the ridiculous lj comms about lifestyle master/slaves, read the NY Times, written some fanfic, read the Guardian, read post secret, refreshed LJ 14 squintillion times, drank a whole lot of red bull.

My life is so glamorous.

Comfort me with apples. Or you know, encouragement.

I beg of you.

...Maybe I should take a bath.

Uh... my bank.

Yeah. Not much else to say there.

Also my co-writer is made of win. Go. Fanperson. =)

New episode of Supernatural = Awesome!sauce. ( cut for spoilers )

Bombs go off in New Delhi.

Some of these bombs went off in the shopping district right near my house in Delhi. I've spoken to my family, everyone is okay.

I'm still in shock. More later.

...who gave me such awesome birthday wishes. It made my day.

So far birthday loot includes:

(from the boy): two books on con artists and scams (in order to fuel the flames behind my planned galactic con man story. oh yes.), a jack/ianto otp pin, a dalek exterminate pin (it is the littlest dalek, OMG so cute, d. said it reminded him of me, don't know quite what to make of that...), FACE OF BOE for my desk, and a very fancy dinner at prune, about which more food porn later.

(from the folks back in India): a long rambly conversation involving my grandmother and various aunts, of which the upshot was - well. did you know that if you don't get married by the time you are 30, you turn into a pumpkin? and not just any pumpkin. a shriveled, old, rotten one. apparently my orange rind is showing. yeah. that was fun.

(from the mom & dad): a necklace, a set of water colours and some brushes (??? I am perhaps the least artistic person on the earth, certainly with brushes or pencils - i can just about draw a recognizable stick figure, on a good day), a cake.

(from faris_nallaneen): tickets to the floating opera in redhook, Lavinia by Ursula LeGuin (the Aeneid! from Lavinia's pov!), The Penderwicks at Garden Street (sequel to a kids book I adored), and the new posthumous Madeleine L'Engle. *squee*

I hear there is more stuff headed my way. *dances* greedy? me? never...

I am also ridiculously kinda excited about the merlin-arthur porn I see headed my way as a result of this. I can see it coming, like a great wind.

Also, I am pretty ridiculously amused by Stephanie Meyer Wanky McMormon taking her toys out of the sandbox and storming home in a huff. Hilarious. I love when professionals act like spoilt children. Oh noes! Don't let the door hit you on the ass on the way out, lady.

And for you lovelies, to brighten your day - have you seen the large hadron rap? If not, you are seriously missing out.

First, let me say, in the spirit of counting one's blessings before getting on to cataloguing the curses: I really do like my apartment. It's got a study for me (although I never use it, really - somewhere along the way, I've turned into a work-on-the-couch kinda girl, but my beautiful, jam packed bookshelves are there), and it's got a balcony where D. smokes his cigarettes and stares off into the distance - great for summer storm watching, and also to hang up the party twinkly lights, and I, magnetgirl + boyfriend and faris_nallaneen all painted the walls a gorgeous pale green and dark brown and a sort of goldy-cream & we hung fawn/silver striped curtains. It's a very nice flat, especially for NYC.

BUT THE NEIGHBORS. Oh my god.

Not all of them, I hasten to add. Not the lovely Greek family who lives on the left. They are awesome, and also, the lady of the house is the VP of the co-op board, and her very charming, old, grandfatherly husband is so great; always waits till I get my door unlocked in the hallway, as if wanting to be there to help me if I need it - not sure what he could do in an emergency, since he looks to have the approximate tensile strength of a dry, thin twig, but it's very thoughtful and sweet. There's also a young sorta Rastafarian couple down the hall, who seem cool but keep themselves to themselves. The Asian family down the hall, also perfectly respectable.

BUT JESUS FUCKING CHRIST ON A CRACKER - everyone else. Let me see.

First: Stalker Dave, who used to make a habit of ringing our buzzer @ 3am, asking to be let in. Now I am often up at that hour, but really. Also, kept leaving me excessively odd notes, and the odd plant, and coming out into the hallway whenever I opened my door, making small talk while I waited for the elevator, and then going back into his apartment. Maybe if you had a Southern accent, buddy, I could've bought that, but you don't. Told me I "saved his life" because he "was making pasta when [he] shouldn't have been" and had to take the pot outside, and forgot his keys. ???? At 4 am. Yeah. It was weird. D.'s still pretty adamant on getting a baseball bat (since I put my foot down on the gun issue).

Second. Dude down the hall is convinced that the phantom smell of cigarette smoke that lingers in the hallway is us, smoking in our apartment that, for the record, we own, and keeps putting "Quit smoking" propaganda under our door, so that sometimes we can't actually get the door open because of the wedge. Also hanging up HUGE posterboard signs in the hallway, with our apartment # on them, with gigantic notes requesting us to quit smoking. Today I came home to this gem:

Apt. # [redacted],
Please stop smoking inside the apt. It can be smelt from the 2nd floor stairwell + and is most strong in front of your apt,.. If Apt. [redacted] can quit smoking, you can too. It is best for all concerned, including most of all, you. OR request door jamb smoke excluders from the mgmt.

NATURALLY no signature, because if you're going to do something like that, why not be a fucking anonymous coward about it, eh? I've complained to the mgmt about this guy, and they were very nice, and say that he's done this to other folk, and I actually thought he'd *ahem* quit doing it after the last time, but apparently not. I don't know what the hell they can do to stop it, but it is incredibly infuriating, ESPECIALLY since, as you may recall, D. (who is the smoker, I have maybe 4 cigarettes a year) always smokes either on the balcony (as aforesaid) or sometimes in inclement weather, by a window with the fan blowing out. Not that it matters, because not even if we stood in our foyer and blew smoke out the door crack into the hallway on purpose, would this guy have a leg to stand on. Also, remember the nice Greek family I mentioned before? The nice grandfatherly gentleman had a heart bypass just before we moved here, and according to his wife [the co-op VP], no longer smokes. We learned this when she was very kindly expressing her sympathies for the harassment. Of course, it came as something of a surprise to us to hear this, because we see him in the stairwell in front of our apartment all the time, smoking on the sly. Now of course we're not going to blow up this nice old man's spot; it's his heart, after all, and he can do what he likes. BUT IT IS SO AGGRAVATING. Just the sight of one of these notes now has the effect of sending me into a fucking tizzy of pissed offness.

ARGH.