Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Decade Monikers
I got thinking about the Roaring Twenties, and the Dirty Thirties. The Fighting Forties, the Faithful Fifties, the Swinging Sixties...then what happened. I'd heard these before plus the Space Age Sixties. I imagine these decade monikers came from news or other articles that garnered a fair amount of attention and then because of the rhyme/alliteration they stuck. But each progressive decade becomes vaguer. Were there any such tags attached to the 70s through to 2000? Did anyone ever hear different ones? Why was I thinking of this today? I have no idea, the rain, the sun, the passage of time.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Transgender Prom Queen
A transgendered high school student has won the title of prom queen. Actually very nice to see that people are looked at as people and not judged by their gender preference. http://www.fresnobee.com/263/story/47430.html
As someone who's always been involved in the arts I have been around many eclectic people, gay and otherwise. I had a friend once who turned out to be transgendered, hidden first from everyone but eventually it came out. He (a good looking California blonde, beach body) decided to go the full route and have a sex change. It did destroy his marriage. However, overall most of the friends accepted it, including most of the men. One of my female friends had the largest problem with it.
When my friend became a women, she had some adjustment troubles. Partly she dressed really tackily to show off her boobs. She also told me that at one point on a camping trip this guy tried to push her into a tent and basically rape her (this was before the actual operation had taken place but during the hormone shots). She struggled, frightened and then remembered that she knew martial arts and fought her off. I told her just because she was becoming a woman that she didn't need to take on all the baggage of the negative aspects of being a woman. But she was also becoming a woman in a much more concentrated period of time and that meant not gradual adjustment that girls get becoming women. As a man she had had all those man's skills and they were still accessible to her. It reminds me of the scene in Better than Chocolate about two lesbians but there is a transgendered woman in there. There are some brutal truths and yet she too gets to balance the scales.
My friend eventually moved to Florida, of all places (not known for being that open to homosexuals, let alone transgendered) after she had to file harassment charges at her job in Seattle because the men bugged her about using the women's washroom.She also severed all contact with her former friends, maybe because she didn't want anyone to know her when she had once been a man.
What I do know, from articles I read and from what she told me, being transgendered is not an easy thing at all. It's probably the loneliest thing in the world and no one would choose it willingly. Many transgendered people are denigrated by heterosexuals and homosexuals alike. The greater percentage who go for a sex change are men to women, than women to men. However, universally these people seem to have felt, even as children, that they're in the wrong bodies. Sexual orientation (do they like men or women) is really only a second issue to that of which gender they really feel like. The majority of transgendered going for sex changes are usually in their late 30's and up. One can only presume that by that time the horror, guilt, shame, unhappiness and depression weigh so heavily on them that it's either change or die.
And of course, yes, many die, killing themselves outright or through drugs because they can't fit in. When a man has a sex change operation that late in life, the shape of the body is already settled in. The hormone shots will shrink the muscles and reduce hair to a degree. But if a man was already balding, then the hair won't usually grow back. The shape of a man's hands or shoulders won't change but the edges will soften. Many transgenders get their larynxes shaved to take down the manly, telltale adam's apple.Some will always keep a deep man's voice and some of them will talk softly or whisper to disguise this.
One of my friends who is obviously gay, but not transgendered, grew up in Calgary and Saskatchewan. These places are red neck farming communities at heart and not known for liberalism or embracing gays. I've always marvelled at the fact that he never was gay bashed going through school. Greg has a great easygoing personality and is genuinely funny. I believe it was that personality that let him flow between the groups, keeping him popular enough that no one attacked him. One of my ex-boyfriends who was straight was tagged as an art fag in school and got beaten up, though he wasn't gay.
So in the long run, hats off to Johnny Vera and to the people who are learning to accept everyone for who they are and not put their judgments upon others. And a hearfelt big hug to all the transgendered people and the trials they must face in finding themselves.
As someone who's always been involved in the arts I have been around many eclectic people, gay and otherwise. I had a friend once who turned out to be transgendered, hidden first from everyone but eventually it came out. He (a good looking California blonde, beach body) decided to go the full route and have a sex change. It did destroy his marriage. However, overall most of the friends accepted it, including most of the men. One of my female friends had the largest problem with it.
When my friend became a women, she had some adjustment troubles. Partly she dressed really tackily to show off her boobs. She also told me that at one point on a camping trip this guy tried to push her into a tent and basically rape her (this was before the actual operation had taken place but during the hormone shots). She struggled, frightened and then remembered that she knew martial arts and fought her off. I told her just because she was becoming a woman that she didn't need to take on all the baggage of the negative aspects of being a woman. But she was also becoming a woman in a much more concentrated period of time and that meant not gradual adjustment that girls get becoming women. As a man she had had all those man's skills and they were still accessible to her. It reminds me of the scene in Better than Chocolate about two lesbians but there is a transgendered woman in there. There are some brutal truths and yet she too gets to balance the scales.
My friend eventually moved to Florida, of all places (not known for being that open to homosexuals, let alone transgendered) after she had to file harassment charges at her job in Seattle because the men bugged her about using the women's washroom.She also severed all contact with her former friends, maybe because she didn't want anyone to know her when she had once been a man.
What I do know, from articles I read and from what she told me, being transgendered is not an easy thing at all. It's probably the loneliest thing in the world and no one would choose it willingly. Many transgendered people are denigrated by heterosexuals and homosexuals alike. The greater percentage who go for a sex change are men to women, than women to men. However, universally these people seem to have felt, even as children, that they're in the wrong bodies. Sexual orientation (do they like men or women) is really only a second issue to that of which gender they really feel like. The majority of transgendered going for sex changes are usually in their late 30's and up. One can only presume that by that time the horror, guilt, shame, unhappiness and depression weigh so heavily on them that it's either change or die.
And of course, yes, many die, killing themselves outright or through drugs because they can't fit in. When a man has a sex change operation that late in life, the shape of the body is already settled in. The hormone shots will shrink the muscles and reduce hair to a degree. But if a man was already balding, then the hair won't usually grow back. The shape of a man's hands or shoulders won't change but the edges will soften. Many transgenders get their larynxes shaved to take down the manly, telltale adam's apple.Some will always keep a deep man's voice and some of them will talk softly or whisper to disguise this.
One of my friends who is obviously gay, but not transgendered, grew up in Calgary and Saskatchewan. These places are red neck farming communities at heart and not known for liberalism or embracing gays. I've always marvelled at the fact that he never was gay bashed going through school. Greg has a great easygoing personality and is genuinely funny. I believe it was that personality that let him flow between the groups, keeping him popular enough that no one attacked him. One of my ex-boyfriends who was straight was tagged as an art fag in school and got beaten up, though he wasn't gay.
So in the long run, hats off to Johnny Vera and to the people who are learning to accept everyone for who they are and not put their judgments upon others. And a hearfelt big hug to all the transgendered people and the trials they must face in finding themselves.
Sunday, May 13, 2007
It's All About the Brains
We have a few years to go until brain or head transplants but serious research was done on this in the 50s. Now that a face transplant has been done, who knows how close we could be, but sometime just maybe, it will be there. Bizarre to think of but then heart transplants were once unheard of. This fascinating article opened my eyes a bit.
It says near the end, but would we want to do this, while earlier it raises the issue of someone whose body is dying but the brain is alive getting such a transplant, or would it be beneficial to paraplegics. In theory, with enough science it could become possible. The fascination would be whether the brain of the person would pick up phantom memories from its host body or have phantom pains from its old one.
Since phantom pain is a very real phenomenon and there is some indication of people with heart transplants having memories that belonged to the host's heart, it's an interesting realm of the unexplored.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/technology/technology.html?in_article_id=426765
or: http://static.scribd.com/docs/kewb70kz1183c.pdf
I do have to say the whole dog head thing is kinda gross though. Shades of Mars Attacks.
Wednesday, May 9, 2007
Accomplishment
Last night I finally finished the final edit on the new story Bite Me. As well I rewrote a story I had written ten-plus years ago. Surprisingly, the writing was fairly clean but this distance of time let me see that I'd ended it too soon. I think I only ever sent it out once before so it's basically a new story. The title went from Angels Visit to Touch the Magic, which is more apt but maybe it should be Shadow World. Sometimes I get a title and then sometimes I really suck at picking them. Poetry titles make a big difference and I suck more there.
But I'm getting ready for the big sendoff. It will be ten-plus stories and the same with poems. Don't know the total count yet. I've probably already sent out ten stories in the last week to different markets. I would love to some day send out every poem I've written; good, bad or embarassing but that's a lot, maybe 200. I am perseverant to the point of insanity. It's easier to send out a bunch at once but then to find almost all of them come back and when you get many rejections in a week, gah!
Still, feels good to have those two stories completed. In the background are still the barge people story, but it's going to be a novella or longer by the time I'm done alas; the plague Gypsy story, the Cthulhu gamer story, the four species alien planet story/novellete, and a few others that are probably more than just a rewrite. New idea involves a doll maker. It's percolating, to be written after the errr, late taxes are done.
And disappointingly the story I wrote for the Baen SF contest did not win. Pooh. I think I had a good story but it was a challenge to write, not the type of SF I normally do and I had to rush to finish it. So now, time to look it over and send it elsewhere. And try to get it together on writing the novels.
But I'm getting ready for the big sendoff. It will be ten-plus stories and the same with poems. Don't know the total count yet. I've probably already sent out ten stories in the last week to different markets. I would love to some day send out every poem I've written; good, bad or embarassing but that's a lot, maybe 200. I am perseverant to the point of insanity. It's easier to send out a bunch at once but then to find almost all of them come back and when you get many rejections in a week, gah!
Still, feels good to have those two stories completed. In the background are still the barge people story, but it's going to be a novella or longer by the time I'm done alas; the plague Gypsy story, the Cthulhu gamer story, the four species alien planet story/novellete, and a few others that are probably more than just a rewrite. New idea involves a doll maker. It's percolating, to be written after the errr, late taxes are done.
And disappointingly the story I wrote for the Baen SF contest did not win. Pooh. I think I had a good story but it was a challenge to write, not the type of SF I normally do and I had to rush to finish it. So now, time to look it over and send it elsewhere. And try to get it together on writing the novels.
Monday, May 7, 2007
Living in a World of Rejection
Everyone gets some form or rejection at some point in their lives. If you're fairly well balanced, you can take it in stride, maybe momentarily sad/disappointed/angry but you move on.
However, to reject seems a much harder action for some people to commit. Take the thinner side of relationships--that is, dating. How many times has it happened that someone says to you, "I'll call you," when they have no intention of ever calling? Or the slow disappearance of the person you're dating, who can't manage to say, "I'm no longer interested," but instead becomes distant, talking less, laughing less, making love less or with less passion?
I mean, really, who is being fooled in such relationships? Not the one slowly being dumped. And if you haven't learned by now, a slow dumping is much more wounding and demoralizing than a sudden one. Though that shouldn't mean never calling again but having the guts to say, "Look, this just isn't working out," or "I'm really more into my book than you," or whatever.
I believe there's often ego tied up in this that people don't realize. "Oh, I couldn't tell him/her I don't want to see them anymore. It would crush him/her." Yeah, I've been reduced to ashes every time some guy never called. Give me a break. Ego ego ego. Not needed. People survive, they move on. Someone I've dated is not all important in my life. (A longer live-in relationship is a dfferent story however) If you've only had a few dates with someone, be decent and say it's not working. Don't be a worm wriggling away without the guts to say anything.
Which gets to the real point of this. Writing. My gods, I've been rejected so many times I cannot count. I used to say I could paper a house with rejections and a bathroom with acceptances. I think I could now paper a good sized bedroom with acceptances. But the point is, a writer lives with rejection all the time. And it's not just because personalities don't mesh (well, maybe sometimes it is), but it's more personal; it's one's writing.
Writing can be the blood and soul of a writer. A good writer can separate enough to take constructive criticism. A good writer can also be completely emotionally unstable and think that you're ripping the arms off their baby any time you say anything against their perfect child. Okay, that's not a good writer. That's a crazed writer who might, from time to time, write well, but only if they can take criticism.
Still, no matter how professional you are, how gracious, how open and noble, how thick your skin, it can get to you. The perseverance of most writers is akin to beating your head against a wall with a nail sticking out, knowing it's causing you to hurt and bleed, but still doing it, hoping you can pound down that nail. What gives first? How prevalent is depression amongst writers? Ask them.
Writing is not for the weak at heart. Over the years and the many workshops/writers groups I've been in I've seen people freeze up. Some never write again when they find out their perfect child has a flaw to some people. Some are closet writers, writing away, but paralyzed to submit.
And there you go; submission. A writer must be submissive. Passively and meekly sending in stories and poetry to the mighty god-editor of doom, awaiting the call or the casting out. You must submit your writing and submit to the will of others.
Now when you look at the aberrant personalities of past writers: Dylan Thomas, Hemingway, Oscar Wilde, Lord Byron, to name a few, is it any wonder they turned out the way they did? And of course one can ask: does writing attract the aberrant personalities or does writing create them?
However, to reject seems a much harder action for some people to commit. Take the thinner side of relationships--that is, dating. How many times has it happened that someone says to you, "I'll call you," when they have no intention of ever calling? Or the slow disappearance of the person you're dating, who can't manage to say, "I'm no longer interested," but instead becomes distant, talking less, laughing less, making love less or with less passion?
I mean, really, who is being fooled in such relationships? Not the one slowly being dumped. And if you haven't learned by now, a slow dumping is much more wounding and demoralizing than a sudden one. Though that shouldn't mean never calling again but having the guts to say, "Look, this just isn't working out," or "I'm really more into my book than you," or whatever.
I believe there's often ego tied up in this that people don't realize. "Oh, I couldn't tell him/her I don't want to see them anymore. It would crush him/her." Yeah, I've been reduced to ashes every time some guy never called. Give me a break. Ego ego ego. Not needed. People survive, they move on. Someone I've dated is not all important in my life. (A longer live-in relationship is a dfferent story however) If you've only had a few dates with someone, be decent and say it's not working. Don't be a worm wriggling away without the guts to say anything.
Which gets to the real point of this. Writing. My gods, I've been rejected so many times I cannot count. I used to say I could paper a house with rejections and a bathroom with acceptances. I think I could now paper a good sized bedroom with acceptances. But the point is, a writer lives with rejection all the time. And it's not just because personalities don't mesh (well, maybe sometimes it is), but it's more personal; it's one's writing.
Writing can be the blood and soul of a writer. A good writer can separate enough to take constructive criticism. A good writer can also be completely emotionally unstable and think that you're ripping the arms off their baby any time you say anything against their perfect child. Okay, that's not a good writer. That's a crazed writer who might, from time to time, write well, but only if they can take criticism.
Still, no matter how professional you are, how gracious, how open and noble, how thick your skin, it can get to you. The perseverance of most writers is akin to beating your head against a wall with a nail sticking out, knowing it's causing you to hurt and bleed, but still doing it, hoping you can pound down that nail. What gives first? How prevalent is depression amongst writers? Ask them.
Writing is not for the weak at heart. Over the years and the many workshops/writers groups I've been in I've seen people freeze up. Some never write again when they find out their perfect child has a flaw to some people. Some are closet writers, writing away, but paralyzed to submit.
And there you go; submission. A writer must be submissive. Passively and meekly sending in stories and poetry to the mighty god-editor of doom, awaiting the call or the casting out. You must submit your writing and submit to the will of others.
Now when you look at the aberrant personalities of past writers: Dylan Thomas, Hemingway, Oscar Wilde, Lord Byron, to name a few, is it any wonder they turned out the way they did? And of course one can ask: does writing attract the aberrant personalities or does writing create them?
Sunday, May 6, 2007
Robots R Us
I subscribed to the following list and receive a robot a week in email. I'm sharing this one because it's very funny. Some are modern robots and some, like below are history.
In 1936, the first Robot Bookkeeper was apparently created, "eliminating all possible chance of errors" and "giving both sub and grand totals." The figure standing beside the Bookkeeper is not a robot but an actual human being, as evidenced by his expression of wistful obsolescence.
Source: http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2006/05/14/
ROBOT STORIES - http://apocolis.com
Suggest a robot: metrocalypse@apocolis.com
Unsubscribe: robot-a-week-unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
More: http://groups.google.com/group/robot-a-week?hl=en
In 1936, the first Robot Bookkeeper was apparently created, "eliminating all possible chance of errors" and "giving both sub and grand totals." The figure standing beside the Bookkeeper is not a robot but an actual human being, as evidenced by his expression of wistful obsolescence.
Source: http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2006/05/14/
ROBOT STORIES - http://apocolis.com
Suggest a robot: metrocalypse@apocolis.com
Unsubscribe: robot-a-week-unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
More: http://groups.google.com/group/robot-a-week?hl=en
Friday, April 20, 2007
Youth forum on Canada's electoral and political system
If you know of anyone, (must be Canadian) who is between the ages of 18-29 interested in voicing an opinion on Canada's electoral system, house of commons, senate, etc. then have them contact me.
I recently did a forum put on by Canada's Privy Council asking for opinons and understanding by the people. It's a full day from 8-4 and possibly part of another day. Lunch and breakfast are supplied (maybe dinner too) as well as you're paid $150.
It will take place in Ottawa on May 5 & 6 and all expenses are paid. It is a fair amount of work but if you want a voice in how the country and its political systems are run, then here's your chance.
I recently did a forum put on by Canada's Privy Council asking for opinons and understanding by the people. It's a full day from 8-4 and possibly part of another day. Lunch and breakfast are supplied (maybe dinner too) as well as you're paid $150.
It will take place in Ottawa on May 5 & 6 and all expenses are paid. It is a fair amount of work but if you want a voice in how the country and its political systems are run, then here's your chance.
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