Trans/plant/portation

Okay, here I am. I can stand on the slant of the hill and gaze upon the San Fernando Valley, when the mist and/or the smog isn’t hiding it, that is. It’s pretty, and like a lot of the West Coast, covered in desert plants. None of the palm trees I see are native to Southern California, but I appreciate them anyway. Palm trees, for me, mean that I’m somewhere not considered home. They ring vacation to me, because you can never really lose the New Jersey, I guess.

I have sat in a room with Samuel Delany for hours now, have wandered across a campus with him, hoping our noses will lead us to the dining hall (for better or for worse), acting like such engagements with him are totally no big deal. This man taught Octavia Butler. Octavia Fucking Butler. AKA one of my favorite writers of all time. But hey, let’s chat about how much we hate stairs. (Answer: A lot) I don’t pretend that Mr. Delany will have any idea who I am by the middle of next week, but he’s personable and so brilliantly smart he may be solely responsible for the huge sun spot that flamed out last week. I have great admiration for Malinda Lo, who is teaching the YA/genre section, I have scads of respect for Sarah Schulman, who inspired my many years of involvement with the Lesbian Avengers (which she cofounded), and I always revere poets like David Groff because I’m completely inept at poetry. Read More…

It’s been a month of terrible news and political developments, not the least of which were the SCOTUS decision to strike down Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act, the passage of extreme abortion restrictions in Texas, and the awful acquittals of George Zimmerman in Florida (who pursued a Black teenager and shot him, killing him) and Ezekiel Gilbert in Texas (who shot and killed a sex worker after she refused to have sex with him). All of this comes on the heels of the Steubenville trial, in which members of an Ohio football team gang-raped a young woman at a party and were convicted as juveniles, meaning they’ll be free after only a few years of light detention. It comes after three years of struggle against conservative forces pushing back gains made by workers unions in the Midwest, after a series of voting restriction laws in more than 20 states, and after a half-dozen high-profile mass shootings around the country—including one that targeted 6-year-olds—that have garnered no new restrictions on gun ownership or registration. To say that America is reeling on its collective heels is something of an understatement.

If we only pay attention to major media outlets, the narrative tells us that there is a huge polarization in the United States today, with warring factions at the extremes waging their battles through reductive and incendiary rhetoric about dead babies, massive government databases, corrupt politicians, gluttonous oligarchs, lazy poor people, insane terrorists, and tone-deaf state employees. It’s almost as if a badly written Hollywood screen play had taken over the nation. In truth, most Americans—according to places like Pew—are centrists, not pushing strenuously one way or the other for a progressive or conservative agenda. But this has occurred at the same time that people aligned with a political party have become more loyal to those parties and their stated values.

Let’s take a step back, and reassess America the Melting Pot. How has a nation of immigrants, one so presumed to be representative of a great diversity of people, values, and opinions, become so dichotomized politically? If that’s what’s actually happened, that is.
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Nobody writes a sullen woman like Susan Jane Bigelow. Don’t get me wrong; they have their reasons for their moodiness. Stuck on something of a forced sabbatical with their repressive family in a repressive country, girlfriend unreachable, this corner of the galaxy about to get into an interplanetary war—there are a lot of stresses on young women like Marta Grayline. Bigelow settles us into the tension almost immediately with two quick flashes of prologue, and then we’re immersed in Marta’s world, a familiar story for some of us, even in this far-future science fiction setup: can I hide my queerness while I’m spending time with my relatives?

Marta has tried in full earnestness mode to find her place, even if her choices began with an intense need to leave her home country, Gideon, on the gravity-heavy planet Nea. It’s almost as if it took so much energy to get distance from her preacher father and smothering family that Marta doesn’t have much left for self-confidence. And yet it’s that very sense of self that Marta needs to make a difference in the war between Nea and Adastre. And maybe conversely, it’s the painfulness of coming from a closed family in a closed country on a less-than planet that fuels Marta’s drive. Bigelow does a great job of layering on the sadness and strife that come with the legacy of paternal choices made for an entire people.

Marta finds herself commanded to join her planet’s forces in the war effort, and her little sister Beth worms her way in as an enlistee. Beth is a great foil for Marta: we’re not sure of her intentions for a good long while, and although she’s certainly from the same building blocks as Marta, she seems to be making different choices than her big sister has. There are a few warning flags as they find their way out of Gideon, but Marta is so excited to be back in her element that she overlooks them. Bigelow gives us just enough in the way of tone and word choice that we should be worried for the sisters, because of course outer space during war is not the same as piloting a trade ship in peacetime. Soon enough Marta’s ship is destroyed and she finds herself a captive on a space station, a clear prisoner of the crew there. And now the alien Abrax who were responsible for the Earth’s demise and who have been unseen for hundreds of years, make their reappearance. Bigelow does a great job of touching these presumably distant points back together—what does one young woman’s legacy, one man’s decision made once upon a time, one family’s grip on a made-up tradition all have in common?

Read the book and find out. Highly recommended. The Daughter Star will stick around in my head for a long while.

It’s not that I’m in a bad mood on this rainy Tuesday, it’s that I don’t have any energy left for annoyances. Yesterday started off with someone relaying a situation to me: what if a woman was being pestered to get an HIV test because a previous boyfriend of her hers was HIV-positive (or so they presume). What if the boyfriend refused to get one for himself and refused to use a condom? Could I test her and call him to say she was negative? Also, can people get AIDS from toilet seats?

There are so many things wrong with that hypothetical that I scarcely know where to begin. But maybe this is a good Square One:

What about this syringe looks like a good idea?

If you’re concerned your sexual partner has HIV or AIDS, don’t have sex with them without a condom. I don’t know, seems like decent practice to me. Also, if your fiancee insists you have an HIV test, tells people on social media he thinks you have AIDS, refuses to get a test himself, and IS SUCH A DUMB ASS HE SCREWS YOU USING NO PROTECTION, do not, under any circumstances, marry him.

I open up my work email inbox, and lo and behold, there are two messages asking for me to donate money to a person who is crowdsourcing some thing or other. My work email. And I have no fewer than four personal email accounts. Read More…

Life this winter and spring has been less about balance and more about fulcrums. You know, like when you’re moving up and down a lot but not getting anywhere. At least a roller coaster has forward momentum and a few thrills along the way. A seesaw just lifts up and crashes down with a jolt at the end of each direction. Nearly all of the endeavors I’ve made since last fall have come with commensurate concussions. Case manager is leaving for a full-time job. Hire new case manager. Send in manuscript to potential agent and wait. . . finally getting rejected by potential agent (but in the nicest way possible). Move office to other side of town, deal with people yelling on the phone that the office has moved. Start new manuscript, get sidelined by a different project. Apply to literary contest, fail to make the finals. Apply to writer’s workshop with no hope of getting accepted.

Then gasp at the screen when reading the acceptance letter. Read More…

Let’s pretend violence is incomprehensible. Let’s pretend that the problem with guns isn’t about a lack of background checks or the extreme availability of weapons but with crazed madmen and an unabridged desire to kill people. Let’s pretend there is no relationship between NRA public relations and gun lobbying on Capitol Hill and the fact that Congress refuses to change gun laws even though 92 percent of Americans want to see universal background checks.

Let’s pretend that bombing the finish line of a marathon is a great time to check to make sure that Tagg Romney is okay. Let’s pretend that the well funded news machine isn’t in competition with people’s photos posted on Twitter and Instagram. Let’s pretend that it’s okay to put out any garbage about the calamity still happening in Beantown and call it news–unchecked, unverified, unconnected with any journalistic integrity. Let’s pretend that social media doesn’t morph into one huge trigger for the survivors of 9/11, Newtown, Aurora, the London Underground, or the Madrid bombings. Let’s pretend though that the sight of blood on the sidewalk in those Twitter photos is even more gruesome to American viewers because our regular news is so sanitized, while bombings are a near-daily occurrence in places all over the world.

Let’s pretend that we’re not about to descend into politicized name-calling from both parties about Patriot Day and intelligence failures and President Obama’s failures as a leader. Let’s pretend that there won’t be spotlighted Senate hearings at taxpayer expense to examine how bombs could go off on US soil while we were celebrating achievement and American exceptionalism. Let’s pretend we’ll have a helpful conversation about violence and what fuels such anger among some people that they would take to calculating explosions at a sporting event. Let’s pretend those conversations will get us anywhere better as a people.

Let’s pretend this will never happen again. Let’s pretend we can avoid telling our kids about what happened today, lest their worlds be interrupted by bombs and selfishness and dismemberment and bloody shards of glass. Let’s pretend we have some hope of healing and not descending into finger-pointing and a series of cruel memes on the Internet.

Let’s pretend it’s yesterday, or the day before PanAm 103 exploded in the air over Scotland. Let’s pretend we can stay in the 5 minutes after we woke up this morning where all we were thinking about was our first cup of coffee and the lovely feeling of hot water streaming out of the shower. Let’s pretend we can turn off news of this tragedy and just look out at the spring day and the tulips across the street even if all we can muster is a weak smile.

Let’s pretend these families will find solace and recovery and strength from their communities, and when they lobby their elected leaders to improve the lives of the rest of us, that we listen to them because they earned their position of advocacy in the hardest way.

Let’s pretend to be a country with interest in each other.

And maybe then we can move on to someplace new.

Last winter, after a 2-year analysis of whether they should lift their policy excluding gay scouts and scout leaders, the Boy Scouts organization declared that the ban would stay in place, and then backtracked a little to take up the issue again in the summer of 2013. Sorry, boy scouts in America, your leaders are more invested in protecting your parents’ archaic judgmental attitudes about sexual orientation, at the expense of your potential future happiness and self-worth.

Worse, I would argue it’s going to leave you more vulnerable in the case of a zombie attack. Here’s why.

1. Their promises–Both groups have similar core mission statements that they make, though the Boy Scouts call it an “oath” and the Girl Scouts a “promise.” Boy Scouts also swear to be “morally straight,” meaning they’ll have strong character and live their lives with honesty. Go Girl Scouts, who won’t waste energy ensuring they’re justified in defending themselves, can just orchestrate a response to a mass invasion and get on with it.

2. The Girl Scouts’ Inclusivity–Beyond the feel-goodness of multiculturalism, there is the strength in having a diversity of experience on the table when a community needs to take action or set policy. If social positionality affects our lived reality, and if we are capable of learning from our experiences, then the Girl Scouts’ history helps them here. Admitting girls (and scout leaders) of all racial and ethnic heritages, sexual orientations, and gender identities ensures they’ll have a broader base of experience to bring to moments of crisis. And in a zombie apocalypse, they’ll need all the help they can get. Read More…

My older sister Kathy has always loved the “It’s a Small World After All” ride at Disney World. Every time we’ve gone to the theme park she gets giddy while she’s standing in line for the ride, gesticulating with gusto, talking in between squealing giggles like she’s transported her emotional self back to age 11. When we’re locked into our slow-moving seats the waterworks starts for her, somewhere between the smiling children from Holland and the colorful children from Africa. For me the ride is three notches above the moldy animatronics of Chuck E. Cheese, but for Kathy, it’s a gateway to our connectedness on Planet Earth. Every. Single. Time. For one quadriplegic rider at DisneyLand, however, getting stuck on the ride for eight hours was enough to sue the company. I don’t think even my dear Kathy would want to be subjected to the ear worm for eight hours straight. Everyone else got off of the broken ride, but Disney had no evacuation procedures in place for individuals with mobility issues. And whoever thought that sending Mickey and Minnie Mouse over to him to perform while he was stuck has lost their sense of perspective.

I find life like a broken, singing roller coaster a lot of the time, these days anyway. Is my family in town this week? Are we hosting a guest? Do I have a deadline to meet? Has the baby discovered a new activity that could destroy our house? Is the car still working? Fortunately for us there’s not a single simple tune playing in the background through all of this, nor a series of wooden Stepfordesque children smiling an endless smile in our general direction. Read More…

A guilty verdict was handed down by Justice Thomas Lipps today, for both defendants in the Steubenville, Ohio rape case that has caught the attention of the nation. As the verdict was read, reality descended on the two young men charged with raping a drunk and unconscious young woman at a party last August. Multiple reports about the incident noted that before and during that party, young men on the high school football team were used to behaving however they saw fit with no boundaries enforced by the adults in their lives, and that their coach, Reno Saccocchia, was considered a frequent aid in cleaning or covering up the antics of his football players. The trial highlighted accounts by several witnesses and text messages that rather than one awful moment in which Trent Mays and Ma’Lik Richmond had a terrible, hurtful lapse in judgment, this rape behavior was more about an accumulation of unaccountability by the young men, their coach, their friends, and their parents.

The trial itself was not free of misogyny. As I’ve written about during other publicized sexual assault investigations, questions swirled around regarding the ability of the young woman to give consent to her treatment. Even though there were concerns that she’d been drugged by the defendants or their teammates, even though many witnesses attested that she was drunk–which ought to have answered the question of consent right there–and even though the assailants and others said in various media that she was unconscious, “not participating,” or passed out, the defense still saw an avenue to drag her reputation and prior behavior into the testimony at trial. Decades old questions regarding the (in)ability of men to acknowledge or notice a lack or removal of consent were brought to bear as valid discussion once again. In what some analysts called a re-victimization of the young woman, texts, photos, and video of the assault were circulated among other football team members, high school students, and the Internet at large. And of course the trial called up many of those humiliating moments after the fact as part of the prosecution as well as the defense’s case. Read More…

Dear Academy Awards Producers–

Did you think the name, “Academy Awards” sounded too generic or uninteresting, so you should “update” it to “The Oscars?” Are you now concerned that your rebranding campaign has only one major cultural reference point, that of the disastrous emceeing job by Seth MacFarlane? Did the new name of “Oscar” make you think that audiences wanted the ceremony to channel the sloppy mind of a chauvinist? Perhaps you forgot that Oscar from the show The Odd Couple wasn’t actually a complete asshole?

Did you really think that the “We Saw Your Boobs” musical number was funny or in any way original? Did a feeling resembling shame even darken your hearts when you asked actresses in the audience to pretend to be embarrassed or humiliated? Were those shots ahead of time any indication at all that maybe this was too offensive for an awards show meant to highlight the best moments of Hollywood in the previous year? Was there even one moment in rehearsal or the planning meetings in which you wondered if this would cross a line for viewers or the people who have given their lives to your industry? Or were you just so taken with the idea that rambunctious young men may tune into your show over Sunday night reruns? Did anyone dare to mention, if only at a whisper, while writing the lyrics to this number, that maybe including four rape scenes in the “boobs” lineup might not be in the best taste? Maybe only for the films that were based on real life rapes?  Read More…