| F is for Fetish |
[May. 15th, 2008|09:55 am] |
A friend on LJ made a post a little while back that got me thinking about fetishes. The post was basically said Friend reacting very strongly to somebody showing up at a fetish night wearing a Nazi uniform. Friend was extremely offended by the dress choice and strongly condemned the individual wearing it.
My very first instinctive reaction to the post was to be surprised.
After all, one of the defining characteristics of a fetish is that it isn't under conscious control, right? And the whole point of why fetish events got started in the first place[1] was so they could provide a safe space where one can explore all the dark, oogie, uncomfortable[2] places in one's psyche. Where people with fantasies about violence or humiliation - things they could never inflict on a non-consensual partner - can instead be acted out in a structured environment. Where people who are fascinated by inappropriate lust-objects can do a little harmless role-playing and not hurt anybody.
The idea of being turned on by role-playing a Nazi is pretty disturbing. But I figure that it's kind of inevitable that somebody - or maybe a whole bunch of somebodies - would eventually develop that kind of sexual association, given our culture's apparent fascination with the power and abuses of Hitler and the Third Reich. And it's certainly not the only disturbing fetish that is openly explored at play parties. Pedophilia isn't exactly what I'd call socially acceptable, but the image of the Catholic school girl is so common in fetish events that I've seen entire theme nights based around it.
So this is all the stuff that initially goes through my head. And then the second thought hits, and I remember. The person who made the post is part of the goth/industrial community. And goth/industrial fetish nights have nothing to do with sex. They're all about dressing up in PVC and going dancing.
So what friend was offended by was not some guy coming to terms with the problematic parts of his sexuality in a safe environment - it was some dork who thinks Nazi dress looks cool at a club.
Never mind then.
OTOH, it did make for some interesting dinner conversation later. And as ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) the_axel pointed out, any time he's ever met somebody wearing any kind of Nazi regalia - they've turned out to be a Nazi.
[1]In the queer community. At least in Toronto.
[2]Or to be more accurate, where other people can explore the dark, oogie, uncomfortable places in their psyches. I keep mine firmly repressed. |
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| E is for E.S.P. |
[May. 13th, 2008|12:37 pm] |
I used to date somebody who was really big on the concept of taking a stand. He believed very strongly that most people are apathetic or cowardly when it came to confronting anything wrong or unjust, that the world would be a better place if more people were willing to call out bad behaviour when they saw it.
I had the experience of growing up in the era when cops wouldn't press charges in cases of "domestics" and when teachers and doctors refused to get involved even when I flat-out told them what was going on in my house. So this kind of commitment to getting involved pushes a great big button for me. But after a while I started to come to the conclusion that in his eagerness to take some kind of decisive action, he didn't appear to be all that interested in making sure he knew what the best action was to take. He just wanted to be doing something, and once he had made his mind up any new information was deemed to be making excuses. I was frequently confused by his conviction that he could pick out the guilty parties in a dispute where (in my mind) he really didn't seem to be in a position to know what had really happened. When he started making pronouncements about events that I had witnessed and he hadn't I finally decided he was full of shit, and that was the end of my emotional investment in his desire to take a stand on the side of righteousness.
I bring him up because he was an extreme example, and because, well, extreme or not he's an example of something that I see all the time. People seem to want a conclusion, any conclusion. When the OJ trial was going on people would occasionally ask me whether or not I thought he was guilty. I would respond that I didn't know, I hadn't been following the case. "But what do you think?" they would persist. They seemed baffled at the idea that I could honestly have no opinion. I, for my part, was baffled that seemed to want me to have an opinion based on... air or something.
I am probably especially conscious of this kind of thing. One of the ways in which I carry around my damage is that I am extremely over-sensitive to feeling like I have been convicted without benefit of trial. I can't count the number of relationships (friendships and otherwise) that have ended because somebody decided they already knew What I Did - and for bonus points Why I Did It - without deigning to ask me about it first. As soon as I feel like I'm being called upon to justify somebody else's versions of my actions, I pretty much immediately lose all interest in having the discussion at all and that's not really conducive to working things out.
So when I see people taking sides on a issue - any issue - the first thing I want to know is what they are basing their conclusions on. And a lot of the times the answer is information sources that I honestly don't know how to evaluate. What it looks like from my perspective is that people are putting a lot of faith in third- or forth-hand reports - whereas I tend to assume that even people who were there don't necessarily have the whole story. Or that people are making the emotional decision to believe person X over person Y because they simply like person X better - whereas I tend to assume that even the best of people screw up and make mistakes and misunderstand things and make errors in judgment.
It's possible that I am hyper-critical of information. I do happen to believe that most people usually try to tell the truth. I just don't believe that people unfailingly know what the truth is. If you've ever read Stranger in a Strange Land there's a passage where somebody asks a character in the story what colour a house is. She responds, "It's painted white on this side." That's me.
And this disconnect happens often enough that I've actually started to wonder if there is some additional information going around that I just don't have the skills to access. I mean, the whole time I was growing up I kept running afoul of all the unwritten rules that nobody ever explained but that everybody else seemed to understand through some kind of osmosis. It took me many years of watching people to figure out just how much information is transmitted non-verbally. Maybe this is another one of those cases where I'm missing something that is so obvious to other people that they can't even articulate where they got it - it just becomes yet another thing that "everybody knows".
Or maybe people just have ESP. |
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| ramblin' ramblin' man |
[May. 7th, 2008|09:02 am] |
Two out of two medical professionals think the_siobhan's current meat-suit is potentially salvagable. I rate that as a good day.
So to sum up; stomach issues sorted, skeletal issues sorted, respiratory and mouth issues in progress. Next thing on my check-list is to find out why my eyesight is suddenly deteriorating[1].
You know what else they don't tell you about getting older? The fact that it's so damn time-consuming.
[1]Oddly enough, I can view the prospect of going blind with a lot more equanimity that I can losing my teeth. I've been told by doctors that I would eventually lose most or all of my vision[2] since I was in my teens.
[2]Although in all probability, all I really need is bi-focals. |
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| radio-free vestibule |
[May. 6th, 2008|01:36 pm] |
It's been radio-silence around here lately, I know. Mostly because my CPU has been caught up with a bunch of pretty heavy real-life stuff that's going on. Nothing I can do about any of it, but it's keeping me kind of preoccupied.
I do have some good news to share. I got the referral I wanted to an asthma specialist. Two weeks ago I went for pulmonary testing; which consists of sitting in a pressurized Plexiglas box and breathing through a tube. It was utterly fascinating. Today I got to meet the respirologist, and I love her. She is incredibly thorough, listens carefully to everything that is said to her, and has the_axel's trick of explaining absolutely everything three different times in three different ways to make sure I completely understand it. (Unlike with the_axel, however, I didn't poke her in the nose to make her stop.)
Her first recommendation is that I go for something that is called something like an "induction test" if I'm remembering it correctly. Basically they will make me have an asthma attack in the lab so they can see what happens. Does it make me weird that I am really looking forward to this? Scientific experiment with me as the guinea pig. Fascinating.
Observation: Mount Siani Hospital has a "Sabbat Elevator". I don't know why that didn't occur to me before I actually spotted it, but it didn't.
For my next trick I go see the periodontist in a couple of hours. I probably won't want to talk about it unless the news is good. |
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| ugh |
[Apr. 28th, 2008|10:33 pm] |
I have the plague
Again.
Well, at least that explains why I pooped out early on Saturday. |
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| content generator from iamjw |
[Apr. 27th, 2008|11:58 pm] |
A list of the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing’s users. As in, they sit on the shelf to make you look smart or well-rounded but you never actually crack the cover.
Bold the ones you've read, underline the ones you read for school, italicize the ones you started but didn't finish. (I did both where I read the book in school, but I had already read it on my own beforehand.) Put an asterisk * next to the ones you'd read again or recommend to someone, even if you originally read them for school.
Added by me: Since this is the list of the top "unread" books, I'm going to add a # to the ones that I own but haven't read yet.
( list cut for space ) |
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| things I do not want |
[Apr. 10th, 2008|10:33 am] |
| [ | Tags | | | braaaains | ] |
| [ | mood |
| | beaten at the starting gate | ] |
What the fuck good is it to have the super power of being able to tell what's coming if you don't have the super power of being able to effect the outcome? |
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| request for assistance |
[Apr. 3rd, 2008|09:45 pm] |
This request is specifically directed to those people on my f-list who are trying to lose weight, especially any who are doing so by calorie-counting.
Could you please take me off the filter for those particular posts, or else put the details behind a cut-tag?
Due to some other stresses in my life, the annoying 20-year-old in my head who thinks vodka and speed are the only two essential food groups has made her re-appearance in her special slot in the DMZ part of my brain. Just recently she's started actually sounding kind of convincing. I very much want to cut off that shit at the knees, because a 45 year-old with an eating disorder is just fucking embarrassing, thanks.
This isn't meant to single anybody out. It's my issue, I'm just asking for some help with it.
In slightly more positive news, today I got notification of my first date with a respirologist. We are about to become very close. Asthma can suck my dick.
[EDIT] FYI, other health related or exercise related posts are fine. My ED issues are specifically around calorie-counting and limiting food. |
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| D is for Dishabille |
[Apr. 3rd, 2008|10:57 am] |
All you people who maintain the illusion that I'm some kind of a bad-ass would completely change your opinion of me if you ever spotted me while clothes shopping.
I am hard on clothes. I wear them until they are close to tatters. I have one(1) pair of jeans not mended with patches, and only because I need something decent to wear on casual days at work.
Part of the reason for this is that I hate hate hate clothes shopping with a deep and passionate vitriol. What I want to do is walk into a store, pick up what I need, pay for it and leave. I can do that with music, books, food and power tools. What I can't do it with is clothes.
Unfortunately I'm at the point where I really can't put off the task of going shopping for very much longer. I was down to my last two functional bras - except that on one of the them the underwire pokes a fresh hole in the fabric every time I wear it and starts creeping up and out the neck of my shirts. I've been patching the holes up but the fabric is now more spiderwebs of threads than anything else, and it's just not working any more. And on the other one I broke the underwire - snapped it in half - over two months ago.
So now I'm down to no functional bras. And last weekend I finally screwed up my courage to visit the store where I normally buy such items. Where I have been secure in the knowledge for many years that even though I might hate the process, I at least know their stock and approximately where everything is kept.
It's closed.
Shit.
OK, I can handle this. I'm a capable mature adult. I asked a few female friends were they go to buy underwear and since I just happened to find myself downtown yesterday after work, I made the last-minute decision to get this over with. I think the "last-minute" part is where the fatal error occurred.
I walked into the department store. I held my breath to hurry past the perfume aisles the way I always do, consulted the store map, and then took the escalator to the forth floor.
And found myself surrounded on all sides by women's unmentionables of every possible shape, size, fabric, colour and construction. Rows and shelves and racks of lace, cotton, polyester, boning, pleats, bows, straps, pink, red, black, white, blue, purple, striped, piped, patterned, reinforced, polka-dotted, strapless, topless, padded, belted, scooped, propped and ribboned.
I froze.
A salewoman made a vague meander in my direction and I bolted.
So I'm sitting here making this post while my underwire gradually creeps up my cleavage and tries to stab me in the neck. And I know I will have to go back to the store and try again.
I just need to psyche myself up for it first.
And maybe have a couple of belts.
And carry a power tool in my pocket. Just for comfort, of course. |
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| ughhhh |
[Apr. 1st, 2008|08:12 am] |
I swear that I am going to bed early tonight if I have to hire somebody to come over and shoot me with a tranquilizer dart. |
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| C is for Convergence |
[Mar. 31st, 2008|10:22 pm] |
*deep sigh*
Posted to alt.gothic.
Let the bitching commence. |
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| Earth Hour aftermath |
[Mar. 30th, 2008|10:48 am] |
One of the things we did last night was wander around the house and locate all the things that glow in the dark when the lights are turned off.
The TV doesn't need to be "on" all the time when we watch it once a week. There is a clock on the microwave and one on the coffee maker, we don't need both of them. We never use the VCR in the bedroom for recording, it doesn't need to be powered all the time either.
We already power 90% of the house through extension cords and power bars. We're going to rearrange them slightly so that anything that isn't say, a refrigerator can be switched off when it's not being used.
The best part is that the money we save on electricity eventually gets spent on insulation. |
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| Earth Hour |
[Mar. 29th, 2008|11:57 pm] |
Ended up being three. 'Cause we were too busy with our candle-lit dinner and our post-dinner candle-lit conversation to notice the passage of time.
We have already decided that next year we are hosting a dinner party. Because there is something about the flicker of flame light on skin that results in intimacy and conversation and a kind of gentleness towards other human life forms that you really can't find under electric light.
I will not be unhappy if this ends up being a tradition. |
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| intrepid travellers miss important local Canadian icon |
[Mar. 29th, 2008|06:53 pm] |
Highway 32 is a local road in Saskatchewan that runs off the Trans Canada and connects the towns of Leader and Swift Water. It's important to the locals in that there is one hospital that serves both communities, located in Swift Water.
So apparently, the province neglected the local road to the point where the potholes made it impassable to emergency vehicles. (For those of you who live in warm climates, frost fractures asphalt, and water erosion causes the soil underneath to move around. So every spring massive amounts of money has to be spent filling in brand new holes. Toronto has already spent a third of their pothole budget, and the snow hasn't even finished melting yet.)
So after years of ineffectual lobbying, the locals came up with a brilliant scheme to pressure the province into doing something about the problem. They published a calendar Featuring 12 local business people, posing naked with their favourite pothole.
The calendar is from 2007. We drove right by there and we didn't know about it!
This spring, the province of Saskatchewan finally started filling in the potholes. |
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| steampunk jewelery |
[Mar. 29th, 2008|11:17 am] |
I know some people on my f-list are into the whole steampunk thing. Y'all should check out clockwork_zero's jewelery. Pretty neat stuff! |
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| strategies for mohawk recovery |
[Mar. 28th, 2008|10:34 pm] |
It occurred to me tonight (after reading a series of unhappy posts about unpleasant neighbour situations) that I could rent myself out for a largish hourly rate to play the Big Scary Bull-Dyke Who Shows Up At The Door And Asks Dude To Turn Down The Fucking Porn Already.
Seriously. This could be a whole new career for me. |
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| looking up |
[Mar. 28th, 2008|09:04 am] |
1. Axel took my box apart and removed a good centimetre thick layer of dust from the video card. It appears to be happy again.
2. Cleaned the hell out of the breadbox and am about halfway through cleaning the kitchen shelves and sorting/throwing out the various jars and tins. Set mousetraps. No dead bodies this morning, but also no new poop.
3. Had "the talk". Not sure what's going to happen next, but I no longer feel like punching anybody.
Thanks for the virtual hugs and pints. They are appreciated.
[EDIT] And now I have a punching bag! How cool is that? |
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| look who's evil now |
[Mar. 27th, 2008|10:26 am] |
Had a dream that I ran away from home. Ended up in a crumbling rambling old farmhouse with dodgy plumbing owned by marchenland. Woke up.
Got up, put on coffee. Tried to make toast. Found a hole in the plastic bag and a perfectly chewed circle of bread eaten out of the loaf. And a pile of mouse shit in the bread box. Swore a lot.
Tried to sit at computer with coffee. Box booted up but screen got nothing but fuzzy vertical lines. Rebooted a couple of times. Screen now absolutely blank. Swore a whole bunch more.
I haven't even had a fucking shower yet and already I want to go back to bed. |
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