Tuesday, July 03, 2007

things that go bump in the night

Apparently, the third of july is another of the firework holidays.

My dogs are not impressed: Connor is lobbying for emigration to a firework-free country where it never gets too dark and there are plenty of slow-moving rodents, Molly is doing her best to become a hat, and Oscar, as always, advocates saliva as a cure for all ills... resulting in statements like "Muppet, honey, the fireworks don't need kisses. No, my elbow is very clean right now, thank you."

Connor's been having a tough go of darkness lately... he keeps falling down the stairs and getting stuck in the yard on his morning potty breaks, so I'm trying to come up with a way to give him a terrier-sized headlamp with some sort of paw-switch. Also, nightlights are on my shopping list.

Bobby was let go from work today. sigh.

On the plus side, I've had my first commission for side work, and I have all sorts of fabulous ideas for pre-apprenticeship programs for women in the intermountain west. If I get inspired, i may spend my weekend in the coffeeshop writing up business plans and price lists and such, and doing some looking for grants and things.

Of course, it will need to be in between the cat-sitting and plant-watering and Q-detailing and negotiating for Denver and pony sale preparation and dishes and laundry and jellyfish and book publication research and motorcycle class (thanks, mom!).

Now, however, it's time for herbal tea and a nice thick book and my featherbed.

Saturday, June 09, 2007

yee - haw.

In about twenty minutes I'm off to mingle with the hoi polloi for the following evening of wretched excess:

Cyndi Lauper
Erasure
Debbie Harry (of Blondie)
Dresden Dolls
And some tranny-boy fronted punk band

...

in the VIP suite
with snackies and beverages.

Hosted by Margaret Cho.

I mean, wow.

I've spent all day reading buddhist philosophy for balance.

And now I'm dressed like James Dean and heading off to take over the USANA Amphitheatre in West Valley City.

Yikes, man.

Friday, June 01, 2007

the object of my desire

dude...

click on the header of the previous post.

... sigh ...

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

My emotional constipation has eased

I just fell in love.

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

call to arms!

SLC Butch Mafia now Recruiting!

Overly-intellectual butch dykes currently assembling ridiculously awesome crew to fiddle with motorcycles and old cars, build tree houses, drink beer, overwhelm public bathrooms, theorize loudly about gender, strut around pool tables, wreak havoc, and stick up for each other.

NOTE: Femmes are great, but Capital-B-Butch, bulldyke, bulldagger, gender-queer, transguy, tomboy, etc is what we're after for this particular collection of folks. If you *think* you qualify, you do. Self-identification is what matters here, not what your ex-girlfriend said.

Workshops already planned for:

Dating strategies! (how to win friends and influence people into your bed)

Butch skills! (oil changes, plumbing, welding, general mechanical aptitude, attire, conversation, sports, cooking, cleaning, financial planning)

Butch etiquette! (know what to say to that asshole in the bathroom who can't figure out why you're there, which fork to use, how to whisk a femme off her feet, how to ask that other butch to date you without pissing her/hym off)

Queer History! (isn't butch just what they did in the '50s?)

Gender Theories! (learn to articulate the differences between butch and male, or between hetero- and homo- understandings of the butch/femme duality, figure out what makes butch different from trans, explain butch and femme as powerful forces for self-actualization and self-definition)

Movie Icons! (butch in cinema through the decades... Katherine Hepburn to Mary Stuart Masterson to Gina Gershon)

Anything else you want to talk about?

Wanna grab a beer?




... now we just sit back and wait...

Saturday, April 21, 2007

butch mafia manifesto rationale

hmmmmm....

i had a meeting at a local rich-lez-bee-yun-social-club on thursday. they had asked me to be part of the steering committee for adult programming, so i went to the first meeting to determine if it was something i wanted to particpate in.

it wasn't.

the facilitator of the meeting spent the entire time i was there referring to me with male pronouns and not-so-subtly tokenizing me as a working-class transgender agitator.

that's strange.

I admire people who are any of those things. I'm maybe one of them. Don't tokenize me as something I'm not.

i have the utmost respect for trans folks - i know how much work it takes to inhabit an identity so very unrecognized, and i know that I haven't done that work. I may be butch, i may be genderqueer, but I'm not trans and I don't merit the label.

grrr.

The working class part was also interesting - in a similar way. yes, I work as a welder, and yes, that means I come home dirty and don't sit in front of a computer all day. i work with my hands, but that most certainly does not preclude me from having a head. Please don't assume that it does.

The agitator part is fine - I have a history of direct action, and i'll prouldly stant up and claim anarcho-syndicalism. But really, a token activist??!!??




So I'm starting a butch mafia. a discussion group and training program. A brunch club and biker gang.

I'll keep you posted.


this shit is bananas. B. A. N. A. N. A. S.

Monday, March 26, 2007

there's an ambulance in front of my house

... so I poked my head out of the window to see what's going on, and realized the EMTs are playing catch in the church parking lot.


with a mitt and everything.

must be a slow night.

pretty, curvy, long, tall...

Are all accurate descriptors of roads and girls and the last seventy-two hours.

So this real pretty new girl showed up in my life, and she's smart and she's funny and she plays with ponies, and she doesn't seem to be expecting a damn thing from me. I likes her. We played Iron Chef Utah, and she was witness to my singing of rugby songs, and she still let me spend the night.

I spent nine hours cleaning my house and rearranging furniture on Friday. It was exactly what I needed, and felt amazing.

And then there was a drive to Moab, playing tag with a Z4 (he caught me on the straightaways, I smoked him in the corners) followed by a nap, a hot tub, a bottle of wine, and adult-style frolicking in and around said hot tub, with an amazing view of the stars. Sigh. Moab was good to me.

I came home yesterday via Colorado, and it was one of the best laugh-out-loud drives I've ever done. It really made me want a motorcycle and a certain pretty girl to hold on tight. Maybe someday.

(Timm's driving music was perfect, by the way.)

Now for canine dinner-time, a shower, another beer, picking up remnants of koala innards helpfully strewn about the house by the terrier, and something creative for dinner - Brussels sprouts, anyone?

For the curious, I'm showering these days using mint soap with NO FAKE CRAP (per the packaging) that makes me smile whenever I see it.

Also, I stopped by the tuner shop today to find out if Mr. Q can be chipped. The answer is no. Guess I'll have to spend that money on something else, then.

Also again, tomorrow I have to call Parexel back and turn down the monitor job they keep trying to offer me. I'd rather be poor and happy and weld stuff, but I'm feeling strangely bad about that decision.

... I think that will suffice as an update for now.

Thursday, March 15, 2007

Kraut

Here's my story:

I went into the cd store today - orion's music - to see dear mister tim and snack on a tasty treat.

It's so beautiful and sunshiny and gorgeous here right now, and warm enough that I'm comfortably wearing shorts and a 'beater; to do service to the glorious springtime-y weather, I asked tim for some open-sunroof-drive-to-moab music... he selected this bizarre and obscure compilation disc called "In-Kraut" that's absolutely perfect.

So that's my new soundtrack. Late 60's German funk music.



Also, Dale set up the slackline at work today between the forklift and the dumpster. OSHA would not approve.

Few things are as entertaining as watching a 40-something welder dude named Sanchez try to stand on a slackline....

welders should definitely hang out with hippies.

Ha!

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

boxes of rocks!

... that's what I welded today. and other big metal planter boxes with holes in them.

and I made a branding iron.

and I have a leetle bit of a burn from the UV on the inside of my left elbow, and it's ouchy.




i

heart

welding.







the pony's doing well, too.


I have a date on saturday with a woman described as an "older butch top" - just what I've been looking for.



perhaps things are looking up.

Wednesday, March 07, 2007

functional art

yep, got the job.

starting monday, i will be a welder of gigantic planter-boxes and other cool shit.

check out the site: www.orecontainers.com

it's better than a poke in the eye.

Oh, the places I've been

here's an interesting exercise...

i was thinking this morning about all the jobs I've had (so as to figure out what sort of job makes the most sense next.) I can't come up with any logical trajectory - can you?

Girl Scout camp counselor
Horse-shit shoveler
Barn manager for a bunch of crazy Arabians
ESL tutor for eastern European refugees
Dishwasher in college cafeteria
Futon mattress builder and delivery person
Nanny
Telemarketer for non-profit group
Itinerant shit-shoveler (again)
Girl Scout Waterfront Director
Maintenance person for section 8 housing complex
Caterer / professional cheese-cutter and fruit arranger
EMT in inner-city emergency room
Night janitor at a hospital
Receptionist for vague biotech company
Mail order sex-toy salesperson and answerer of sex-toy related questions
Houseboy for professional dominatrix
Writer of consent forms for drug studies
Kitchen gadget retail whore
Apprentice pipefitter / forklift operator / material handler
Case manager for HIV-positive men of color
Girl scout leader for high-risk teenagers
Database manager for orthopedic research
Recruiting, receptionist, and regulatory affairs for medical research
Symbolic logic tutor to brain-injured college students
Question-asker for smoking cessation training research
Counter of shoes and arranger of backpacks for specialty outdoor retail shop
Director of Quality Assurance for pain research outfit
Arranger of paperwork for cancer research coordinating committee
Nude model for artists

...

This afternoon I'm going to try to add welder of gigantic planter-boxes to the list.

Tuesday, March 06, 2007

Oh where oh where is that knight in shining armor... Fuckin' slacker.

So thanks to the universal conspiracy against me, academic bureaucracy and general ill-temperedness, I am out of work *and school* as of this morning. Also, the welfare system in this state is asinine, and the unemployment office is reviewing my claim in their own sweet time.

Stupid fucking fuckhead fucks.

This means that I get (have) to figure out what to do with my life.

I don't feel like deciding for myself (since all of my decisions have turned out terribly lately), so I think I'll leave it up to you folks.

Ready? Choose from the following options (or write in your own) and report back.

I'll be making the final decision no later than Thursday.

First choice:

1) Stay in SLC

2) Leave SLC (the question is, then, where should I go?)

Second set of choices:

1) Keep trying to get into colleges, with the ultimate goal of getting that damned doctorate. In the meantime, work at some shit job that barely covers the rent.

2) Join a union and learn a trade (Women of Steel, anyone?). Maybe later go back to college, once I can afford to eat.

3) Suck up to the pharmaceutical industry and go back into regulatory affairs. (ditto the maybe later part from #2)

4a) Drop out of society and develop a drug habit.

4b) Drop out of society and become a hermit (without the drug habit.)

5) Institutionalization. I hear the food's pretty good at some of the psych wards around here.

6) Sabotage. Whatever happened to the Unabomber, anyway?

7) Attempt to convert to Mormonism, find a man to marry me, have some babies, and take a whole lot of nice anti-depressants like the rest of the women around here.

8) Attempt a coup d' etat.

9) ________________________


Thank you for your participation.

Monday, February 26, 2007

adventures in heteronormativity, part 2

it just gets worse as you keep going...
welcome to my world.


me: what doing?

John: fighting with my ex via text.
can we make love

me: um, no. i don't even know you, and making love is one of those things i only do with folks I know.

John: what about just sex?

me: maybe, but that would take some more negotiation.
why would i want to have sex with you?

John: because i am nice, and i really need the intimacy right now

me: I'm sure you're very nice, and I'm sure intimacy would feel good, but you're going to need to do a better job of salesmanship than that.
see, i have this terribly fragile yet well-defended little heart, and it's attached to the rest of me, and while I'm as sex-positive as the next girl, i also really don't need an ass-kicking right now.

John: ass kicking? you mean physically?

me: physically and emotionally

John: i dont want to hurt you. i promise you. that is not what i want
i swear on everything.

me: I'm sure you don't. However, me-getting-hurt results from me-being-inauthentic. and while meaningless sex might feel good, i learned in the last week that for me right now, any sex with a boy is bound to have strange head-trips that go along with it.
(my, that's a lot of modifiers)

John: you had sex with a guy in the last week then?

me: not exactly.

John: pleas give me a chance. i really need you to make an exception for me.

me: my sexuality is fairly complicated, and exceptions just don't happen.

John: this is what i need, i really do

me: ever wondered what I might need?
sometimes sex is about what both people need. but you know that. you're a smart boy.
[Ed. note - actually, he's not. but I'm nice.]

John: it is give and take, i know that. but thats what i need, what you need i can try to give also

me: i don't know about that.... I'm not sure if anyone but me can give me what I need right now.

John: then at least help me, if you wont let me help you
please, understand

me: (that's what I mean about authenticity)
sorry, hon. I don't have the energy right now to help anyone but me.

John: all you have to do is lay there
i swear

me: ew.
no.

John: sigh
its not ew

me: yeah, actually, it is.
girl laying there (not enjoying herself), guy fucking her, getting off... that's exploitative and icky.
now, maybe if she's getting paid, it would be different, but the way you've brought it up, it's fuckin' using her body for your own needs, and that's gross.

John: ok. so you dont want me

me: not particularly, no.

John: ok.

me: good luck, man.

John: nothing can help me

me: somehow, i don't feel sorry for you right now. i kinda feel like i should go take a shower.

John: thanks

me: well, you tell a total stranger that all she has to do is lay there...

John: i was trying to make it easy for you, but i said it all wrong. so

me: one in four girls has been raped, y'know.

John: yea, every female in my family has.

me: sex is more complicated than it should be, and it's not fair to anyone, but there it is.

John: leave the rape thing alone, that has nothing to do with me

me: if that's the case, you should know better.
except when you present sex as something someone can do "for" you...

John: i dont feel sorry for you just because youve been raped

me: i could really care less.

John: i know youre used to getting your way with that excuse but
it does not work on me

me: hey, man. I never said i was raped, and I never said i wasn't.

John: i dont want to have sex with you anymore.

me: well, that's good.

John: have a nice life.

me: you too. good luck.


for fuck's sake. is that really how people think sex works? i like to think that this particular guy is just more inept than most, and that somewhere out there exist men who don't think of sex as something like shopping for socks (maybe they're hanging out with the girls who manage that balance of independence and mutual support that's so hard to come by in dyke-world.)

if anyone knows where I can find them, that would be great.

Sunday, February 25, 2007

hipp(it)y hop

Point # 1:

I had the best first date of my ever last night with hippy boy... laundromats, wine, garlic pizza, beer.

It was not at all what I expected and I didn't want it to end.

He's great, and smart, and slightly odd, and he smells nice, and I felt safe and normal and understood and stuff.

I don't know about sexy, though. I don't think I was very sexy. Which is kinda shitty.

I'm all sorts of crushed out and don't know what to do with it. He's exactly the person i was looking for.

Also, I look like I was recently wrestling with a lamprey.

Point # 2:

Racecar boy and I went out to the hippity hoppity bar tonight, and as we were discussing gender and how I frequently discomfit people, I made a point of smiling at and making eye contact with the biggest 'thuggiest' guy in the room.

I find that it's easier to confront these things right away rather than try to hide from something that could be uncomfy.

And he'd been staring at me for half an hour, so I thought I'd give him the opportunity to say something.

He took me up on it, waltzed on over and said "hey man, what's your problem?!?"

I said "nothin, man - I'm just having a good time"

he looked me up and down.

"what's your gender?"

"I'm a girl. Wanna see my ID?"

"yeah, right. and I'm LDS."

"No way, man... I really am a girl." (I pull back my button-down and try to show some boob through my t-shirt. This seemed like a good idea at the time.)

he turns to uber-male racecar boy sitting next to me.

"You a girl too?"

"No, man. I'm a guy."

much looking at my chest and RCBs crotch.

"uh, can I see those?" (gesturing at my boobs)

"No way, man, I don't even know you." (said with my best knock-em-dead grin)

blink.

blink.

(oh shit, I think. this could go a couple of different ways. I'm not liking my odds right now.)

he looks me right in the eye, and goes from stony glare to big genuine smile.

"Hey girl, you're all right. I'm the owner here, and you have a good time, okay? I'm glad you came in."

"thanks, man. I'm having a great time. nice place you have."

geez.

now i have to go theorize race and gender, and try to articulate why I feel safer showing my boobs to a black man with a gun than I do to an abercrombied-out frat boy.

he gets mad props for asking the question everyone else was (possibly) thinking.

and now I'm exhausted.







I'd really like hippy boy to call me back.

Monday, February 19, 2007

well now; isn't that interesting

I happened to stumble across this fascinating little article while I was drooling over lovingly restored /5s, and liveaboards in Juneau with Force 10 2 burner propane stoves and roller furling headsails, and jobs for philosophers in places like Prague and Glasgow.

... sigh ...

So, anyways, I'm strangely drawn to the idea of applied ontology, but I think the cog sci folks are getting it wrong. Here - read this:

An ontology research pipeline

Mike Uschold
Boeing Phantom Works, Seattle, WA, USA

(I snipped the first four sections because, well, they don't make much sense. You can go read them on your own at this website, if you really want: http://iospress.metapress.com/media/eafy7jvwvmdjwb0mhm2u/contributions/0/g/a/p/0gap235ukd5e9mge.pdf)

5. Summary and conclusion
I look to Applied Ontology to support the development of a research pipeline that disseminates
academic research results into industry and government. I call attention to various important issues that need to be addressed. First, we must clearly articulate the value propositions for using ontologies. What are the business cases? Under what circumstances do they apply? Benefits need to be demonstrated in a convincing way. This requires progress in evaluating specific techniques and tools used in ontology-based solutions. Where possible, evaluation should be done using a scientific methodology, and in all cases the range of applicability of approaches should be made clear. Limitations as well as strengths need to be highlighted. Ontologies need to be engineered for particular purposes to ensure successful deployment, yet they also should be re-usable as much as possible. Tools and infrastructure to support
the creation, use, and maintenance of ontologies must be created and evaluated. Finally, I call attention to the challenge of living with ambiguity and exploring the limits of what kinds of semantic processing can be automated.

[Applied Ontology 1 (2005) 13–16 13; IOS Press]

Can you see why I think this is a little screwy?

Problem 1: From academia to government? Since when have philosophers (especially ontologists) performed a prescriptive role in civil discourse? Anyone? Why would ontologists be especially well-equipped to tell folks in business and government what sort of ontology to adopt? Why should anyone listen?

Problem 2: Since when do I need to articulate the "business cases" of an ontology as a criteria for determining their value? Is he really saying that the best ontology is the one that gives me the ability to describe the most stuff in the way that gets me the most items of value? Is cash value a concept applicable to an ontology? That just seems flat-out wrong - I can't arbitrarily assign that sailboat or this motorcycle an ontological status of "mine" (or owned-by-me, if you'd rather), because it simply isn't true.

Problem 3: Evaluation should be done using "a scientific methodology," apparently. Doesn't seems to matter which one. No questions about the sort of ontological assumptions inherent in any of the methodologies one has at one's disposal.

Problem 4: "Ontologies need to be engineered for particular purposes to ensure successful deployment, yet they also should be re-usable as much as possible. Tools and infrastructure to support the creation, use, and maintenance of ontologies must be created and evaluated." Say what?

So ontologies are like parachutes? Or old german sports cars? Or bombs?

Ontologies don't seem inuitively to be the sort of things which one engineers, or deploys, or sends to the shop for maintenance with some sort of conceptual socket wrench - it's a strangely mechanical way to speak about an organic process. (Organic meaning "arising in a non-silicon brain/mind" as opposed to mechanical meaning "arising in a constructed apparatus." An arbitrary distinction, true... but bear with me.)

As far as an infrastructure to support my ontology, that would have to be an epistemology and a metaphysics... now there are some under-studied fields of applied philosophy.

I applied ontology gives you a bunch of engineers and cog sci folks sitting around the lab grumbling about how to get their computer programs to talk to one another, then what would a room full of applied epistemologists look like?

A library? a Mensa meeting?

I don't think you could get two applied metaphysicians into a room together, but if you could, it would probably look like something out of a Beckett play.

Thursday, February 15, 2007

shit, man... for real?

January sucked. In the worst kind of way.

On the 21st, dear Mr. Tim colicked and died. That was terrible, though I'm grateful that I was there and could help him go out as peacefully as possible.

Chris came over and held on to me that night, and gave me a shoulder to cry on and fed the dogs and talked to me for hours about risk and loss and love and death.

On the 30th, he fell 200 feet while ice climbing, broke his neck, and died.

www.chrishunnicutt.com

His memorial sevice is tomorrow.

Dammit, I loved that kid.

For fuck's sake.






Other shit happened too, but I don't want to talk about it right now.

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

ontology recapitulates philology

... or something like that.

Huntsman canned me, girl and I agreed that we were making each other miserable, i've taken a vow of poverty and returned to academia and it feels really really good.

$800 later Q is running quite well, thank-you-very-much, I'm kicking ass in deductive logic, doing just fine in 19th and 20th century, and afraid I'm a little over my head is Chomsky.

I have no idea how I'm going to pay for any of this... well, I mean, I'll be getting student loans, but I don't have them yet, and I think my rent check bounced, and we don't need to talk about bills, and I haven't exactly been admitted to the fine University of Utah yet....

eh...

at least I get to think again.

Thursday, November 23, 2006

thanksgiving

new girl, new car, new job... all within five days.

craziness continues.

As opposed to my earlier post, I'm now the proud owner of an E28 (1983 BMW 533i) -- that's right, my mom finally gave me Q. And I met a real nice girl.

And the university hired me to be an overpaid secretary at the cancer center... nice folks, gorgeous architecture, killer benefits.

So I get to go back to grad school. And Tim's getting better every day.

Things aren't really that bad; they'll be even better once I start getting paychecks.

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

2:18 am wednesday

I'm not sure if I'm the sort of person I think I am - I mean, just tonight I've finally articulated the following:

Truth - I drive an old baby-poo-colored automatic-transmission volvo 240 sedan that's in desperate need of an oil change.
Self-concept - I like classic european "enthusiast" cars - BMW 2002 tii, Porsche 356B, Audi coupe, MGB...

Truth - I'm running Linux on an old dell laptop, and haven't bothered to track down a wireless card that will work.
Self-concept - I'm a "geek" who keeps up with the latest in technological arcana.

Truth - My cellphone is vintage 2004, and the hingey-part is tenuous, at best. And no, it doesn't have a camera. Or even a headset.
Self-concept - I'm "wired".

Truth - I do have an iPod, but it's just a shuffle, and I'm not entirely sure where it's located at present. Also, I currently have no way of updating it without resorting to my roommate's computer. (see above re: Linux)
Self-concept - I'm hip and with-it in the world of audio entertainment... and while I listen to unusual music, it's because I'm unique (not because I can't update my music collection).

Truth - Yes, I have a road bike, but it's new and shiny, and not the beat-up single-speed cross / messenger one I wish it were, and I haven't ridden it in months.
Self-concept - I'm athletic and urban-edgy.

Truth - I have a monstrosity of a thoroughbred on stall rest and a midget appaloosa I can't seem to get over a jump. It's been over 10 years since I rode in any sort of horse trial.
Self-concept - I ride three-day event horses.

Truth - I got all ridiculous when Coffee Girl asked me my name this morning... and she's the only girl in Utah who's winked at me.
Self-concept - I'm hot and chicks dig me. Oh wait, that's the self concept I *should* have. the one I actually have goes more like "I'm strangely shaped, and I have unpleasant features, and I don't look the way i think I should look so of course no girl would want to date me - why on earth would anyone worthwhile consider me dateable?" Shit, man.

Truth - My diet today consisted of one bowl of grapenuts with soymilk and a banana, a cup of coffee from aforementioned Coffee Girl, a Super Big Gulp (tm) of iced tea with vanilla flavor, two baked potatoes (one with blue cheese dressing on it, the other with barbecue sauce), a cup of hot cocoa, and a cup of hot Ronalds (tm) tea mix. And a pomegranate.
Self-concept - I'm a vegetarian who eats healthy, balanced meals.




well, that's suitably depressing.