(no subject)

1. I have had a large box of diapers and sundries hiding under the log bin tarp on my front porch for two days now without anyone noticing (or the delivery service leaving a note...).

2. I will be attending a con tonight and tomorrow. The ladies are attending tonight through breakfast. I suppose I should a) pack and b) write up some things to say for my panels tomorrow.

3. Rite of passage time? I have a referral for my very first mammogram. Whee.

4. I think it's time to have an in-depth discussion of what nonviolent protest really means -- and what it doesn't. Here's a start: it doesn't mean quiet. It doesn't mean "polite." It doesn't mean non-disruptive. Between this and the mammogram thing, I am beginning to feel a little long in the tooth.

5. OK, I've been feeling that way a bit anyway.

6. I need more: exercise, scheduled writing time, calcium.

7. Also perhaps a project or two, the kind that makes me feel connected and involved.

8. It would probably also pay to be social and leave the house a little bit more. As always.

9. I need less: stuff in my house. Working on it.

10. Dinner last night! Chicken under a brick with za'atar, roasted potatoes on the side. I continue to kick ass in the cooking department. Steven also says the quesadillas the night before were the best he's ever had, but the credit for that may go to a) the raw materials, particularly the tortillas, and b) hi, crispy fried cheese!

Extra Bonus Friday Pre-Con Link Dump

1. "The Disappearance of the Nightmare Arab." (via delux_vivens)

"Since 2001, Americans have been living with a nightmare Arab, a Muslim monster threatening us to the core, chilling our souls with the cry, “God is great!” Yet after two months of world-historic protest and rebellion in streets and squares across the Arab world, we are finally waking up to another reality: that this was our bad dream, significantly a creation of our own fevered imaginations."

I hope he's right.

Don't miss the part where he punctures Enlightenment postures of rationalism in the face of religion, the sort that inform the annoying wing of atheism today; or where he calls out "the opening of the 'age of exploration,' also known as the age of colonial exploitation." Tasty! And very much on the mark.

2. "The Careless Language of Sexual Violence" at the Rumpus. (via fightingwords)

"I am troubled by how we have allowed intellectual distance between violence and the representation of violence. We talk about rape but we don’t talk about rape, not carefully. [...] Instead, we are careless. We allow ourselves that rape can be washed away as neatly as it is on TV and in the movies where the trajectory of victimhood is neatly defined."

The author, Roxane Gay, goes on to discuss some meaty issues about writing violence that are worth airing out:

"I would suggest we need to find new ways, whether in fiction or creative nonfiction or journalism, for not only rereading rape but rewriting rape as well, ways of rewriting that restore the actual violence to these crimes and that make it impossible for men to be excused for committing atrocities and that make it impossible for articles like McKinley’s to be written, to be published, to be considered acceptable." I'm certainly making different, hard-thought choices in that department than I would have five or ten years ago -- although in my case, I've quite deliberately chosen to eschew sexual violence as plot device, period.

Someday I will get around to talking more in general about what I choose not to write and how that affects what I do. Because, of course, once I'm done, that work is invisible. This is the kind of "writing process" talk I do find interesting -- and too rare.

(see also "NY Times Responds to Backlash.")

3. For Oakland locals inspired by the quake in Japan to brush up on emergency preparedness stuff: CORE has classes and other resources.

(no subject)

W00t! Here I am in a hotel room on a Friday night, partying hard! I got my in-room fridge, and my free wireless, and my complimentary coffeemaker. Yeah! And a laptop with an iffy H key! And HD TV!

Sent my sweetie around the corner to buy some drinks, you bet! A quarter gallon of milk for those two beautiful ladies I'm planning on spending the night with. I tell you what, that sure got them in the mood. They changed into something more comfortable and hopped right into bed.

But I don't roll like that. I need my space! The girls will have to sleep in their own cribs tonight. But I'm a gentleman and I didn't forget my manners. After they passed out, I carried them there myself.