Year: 2011
Dream
Posted on June 23, 2011 in Dreams
I’m riding with a crew of explorers (?) when someone either takes my horse or it dies. My fellows ride off without me, but I spy a wild horse in the brush and go to catch it. These are odd horses — more like lithe hippopotamuses with donkey fur all over their bodies. I catch one just as a pack of bandits arrives. I am brought before the bandit leader who is wearing an old Napoleonic officer’s uniform. I tell him that I know how he can make more horses without having to go out and catch them all the time: it is called animal husbandry. The leader is surprised and grateful for the secret: he gives me two horses and lets me go. My former comrades are amazed at my cunning.
Insert a Trite Metaphor for a Corral #102
Posted on June 19, 2011 in Roundup
The Democrats’ meme needs to be “We’ve been trying to fix the economy, but the Republicans keep trying to break it.”
On Fake Lesbians and Online Games: Personal Experience
Posted on June 14, 2011 in Gender Internet Privacy IRC/Chat Sexuality
The news that at least two prominent net lesbians were men left me only a little bit surprised. As a gamemaster on a MUSH ((Multi-user Shared Hallucination)) I was familiar with the practice. Some men liked crossing genders. When they did it, many of them chose to be lesbians. How secretive they managed to be varied. We knew of several “online lesbians” who went on the prowl for women. It was always a tremendous laugh for us when two of these found each other and engaged in rapacious cybersex, fully believing that they had found a female target for their lust.
There there was the gamemaster of another [[MUSH]] broke up with her boyfriend and accepted the offer of a female friend to come to her home to console her. When the friend arrived, she discovered she was a he. This encounter did not go well.
At one point, I ran a character who was a [[cross-dresser]]. There was a thrill in playing the female role while still being a male. I got to experiment with various female behaviors and dresses. There was the thrill of being chased and yet not surrendering. When my secret got out — as I knew and planned that it would — reactions were mixed ranging from outright hostility to hilarity, mostly the latter. Still, the hurt of those who had lusted after my character (“she” was chaste unlike most characters in this particular venue and meant as a commentary on the faux lesbians) was profound and I decided never to do this again.
“Lindsay Eustace” as I named my character ((Yes, after [[The Eustace Diamonds]])) was not destined to be [[Andrej Pejic]].
Roleplaying games allow us to be people we are not. The timid and lanky geek becomes the brave and massive warrior. The plain girl becomes the busty supermodel wizard. People cross the lines all of the time, but in the old days they were sitting around a table and everyone could see who was holding the mask. In this brave new world, you can’t see who is behind the mask. That may be almost OK in online gaming (as long as you keep the sex out of play) but what happens when the chameleon abilities of the game are brought to the real world as happened with Gay Girl in Syria and Paula Brooks of Lez Get Real?
You get many like those who didn’t find my gender changer funny with next to no one finding it funny.
My friend Lezzymom spoke of how extreme “Paula Brooks'” lie had become. At one point, “Brooks” asked her to watch the site over the weekend so she could spread the ashes of her dead lover over the Outer Banks. When confronted with the truth, all Lezzymom could say about her hurt was “What a joy to look back and see all the lying.”
So why did 58 year old Bill Graber do it? We can only speculate. Perhaps he had a real commitment to LGBT rights and felt the only way he could participate was to assume this identity. Perhaps he was a former MUSH inhabitant who missed the old days, couldn’t afford [[Second Life]], and created a new character out on the web. Perhaps he got off on being a lesbian. Perhaps he was conducting an experiment in fiction. Or perhaps he craved the attention that most men who blog don’t get.
From Day One of this blog, I have sought to be myself. ((It would take too much effort to be this guy.)) If there is any revelation to be made, it is that I am really the guy who you read about on the About page. I know many men are frustrated by the relative lack of attention paid to their blogs — some women are, too. This is a serious issue, I think. There is a double standard for confessional blogs: in my experience, women do tend to attract more sympathy when they speak of their problems. This suggests that we need to labor towards more inclusiveness on the whole when it comes to blogging, to stop to leave a comment to let the person know that we have acknowleged their labor and their life. But the lack of this does not justify outright lying about who you are in the real world where there are not supposed to be any masks.
UPDATE 6/18/2011: Lezzymom tells of a conversation she had with Bill Graber, author of “Paula Brooks”. Graber appears to have thought of himself as a kind of blog auteur, inventing his character as he went about four days in advance of publication.
Reflecting on Graber’s dead lover, she writes:
To use this death to essentially gain more readers for the blog. It was all about the blog. It seemed that anyone could be sacrificed or hurt to move the blog forward. I was a fairly new writer for the blog when this happened so I wasn’t as emotionally wrapped up in it as the others. But to hear him talk about using it simply to promote on the survivor blogs really showed me a new reality. There were no boundaries to who could be hurt.
I agree with Lezzymom: what Graber did is an insult to all of us who survived — be it a death, an illness, a mental breakdown, abuse, a suicide attempt. How can we who live what is real hope to compete and get the truth out there for others to see when there exist those who will make anything up just to draw in more readers for their fictions?
Will he sell his story? is my next question.
The Man Wearing Paisley and Denim
Posted on June 13, 2011 in Civic Responsibility Class Eating Insurance Psychosis
He came in wrapped in blue and yellow cotton paisley cloth around his chest and over his head, faded denims around his legs. He carried a pink paisley bag. Sat down near us. When Lynn said something to me, he said “You can stop talking now.” He got up and moved to the table behind us.
“Are you all right?” I asked him.
“I’m fine,” he said. The waitress took his order from the senior menu. Lynn started telling me about an article she had read about Weinergate.
“You can stop talking now!” he said as Lynn continued her story.
Our food arrived. I heard him drop a salt shaker on the table. “You can stop talking now.”
“Can we move?” I asked the waitress. She showed us to a table on the opposite side of the restaurant.
The man stood up after she went into the kitchen, grabbed his bag, and rushed from the cafe.
I could not but think that if the Republicans get their way, there will be more like him. He might be unwilling to take his meds. But what about those who do take their meds and won’t be able to afford them when Medicaid is wrecked? What will they say when the streets are filled with such people?
What have they said in all the years since they first closed down the asylums? What have they done to create the infrastructure to support these people?
It saves a few hundred dollars to not give people like the man in paisley the medications they need. It wrecks thousands of lives to save those dollars.
Dream
Posted on June 13, 2011 in Dreams
There is a family with a few children and a man in a gray business suit who I am told is a wizard.
Dream
Posted on June 12, 2011 in Dreams
I am in a large classroom with several other people. We’re holding the door shut against I don’t know what. (Vampires, ghosts, evil spirits?) When they get inside, they find the person that looks like them and paint them in bright poster colors. (Do they die?) I look outside into the darkness. Seems that our room is mounted to a railroad car. Is it safe? A fluorescent deer stands on the platform. No, that means it is not. A horse tries to get inside, but some of my companions hold the door shut as the train begins to move. At first the town is dark — the things have taken over — but as we move to the edge of town, the houses are decorated for Christmas with increasing garishness.
Insert a Trite Metaphor for a Corral No. 101
Posted on June 12, 2011 in Roundup
We can’t expect our greatest foe — the earth’s atmosphere to make a bold move like Gorbachev and shame us into granting it concessions.
The Soul as Hamburger Meat
Posted on June 11, 2011 in Depression Loneliness
Imagine a soft, gray rock domed and striated like a hamburger bun. No life here, you think, then you notice the blue gray beady eyes blink. It opens its maw and takes you in, chewing toothlessly on your chest. Paralysis prevents you from crying. Oh save my soul, oh save my soul, oh save my soul, you murmur but the dire suspicion that you don’t have one overwhelms you.
A few days ago, I had a conversation with my therapist. It amounted to this: I believe with good evidence that I am a good person. Many years ago, when the mania swamped my common sense, I rushed into impulse buying and sudden, unthinking action. I’m calm now, doing my best to be kind. Irritability electrocutes this kindness at times, but mostly I remember my etiquette. But I don’t think I am likable and I find the world perverse on this score.
Take for example the case of one person I know. We’re sitting next to a young man with cerebral palsy. A young girl sees him and asks us what’s wrong with them. My companion says “Aren’t you glad that you aren’t like that?”
This person is loved by all except me. This person enjoys the world. Friends call to see how this person is doing all the time. Loneliness is not their curse.
I have only Lynn who loves me. And while I love the world, I am mostly alone in it for the many hours of the day.
My therapist says that the experience of this other person should give me heart. If this mean human being can find friends, so can I. But I retorted “If the world is filled with such people, how can I trust anyone?”
I do my best to be a good listener. But I have found that the blessing for this are many people who do not know how to listen in return. The legions come and give me advice. I cover my head with my hands and wish to cry. The other good people of the world have no time for me. I know it is not because I am bad. It is because I am not likable, not even hamburger meat to them.
This Ohio Congressman is Dead
Posted on June 9, 2011 in Accountability Folly Watch Gender Micro-blogging
This particular story blazed across Twitter like a tangible blessing direct from the hand of God
It Moved Like a Cat
Posted on June 8, 2011 in Creatures Neighborhood
There’s something out there,” he said. “A cat.” He held out his arms to show how big it was. “I didn’t see what it was, but it was this big and it moved like a cat.”
Dream
Posted on June 7, 2011 in Dreams
I’m distracted from talking to my mother while playing a video game. I open the front door and find a fit-figured guy wearing a small box over his head. “Chato?” ((Not the Chato I know in real life. It’s funny how I don’t see these things while I am dreaming the dream.)) I ask. Something is wrong here. He’s come all the way around the block to see me. An episode has come over him and he needs help. “We’ve got to do something,” I say to him. “There’s a meeting that is both a DBSA ((Depression Bipolar Support Alliance)) group and a Toastmasters’ Club.” He agrees to go. The club is holding a speech contest. We decide to get dinner first — some egg rolls at a Chinese takeout. As we are going to get them, an Argentinian grabs me by one of my belt loops and begins telling me how I should order my food. I squirm away from him. When I get the food, I realize that I have to tell the people at the Toastmasters’ club that they will have to make a choice: they aren’t doing much to help people with bipolar disorder, just using the affiliation to attract members. I think I can tell them nicely that this has to stop.
