← December 2003 | Main | February 2004 →
January 28, 2004
Body and Soul
I have been so angry and sad this week. Ever since I read this article in the New York Times about sex trafficking into the U.S. I’ve been unreasonable. Unreasonably angry, overly sensitive and just plain sick and sad.
I realize that this is a problematic article, as this Slate article points out. At the same time, I’m certainly more likely to take the Times article to heart. Numbers are not the most important thing to discuss here. That it’s happening at all is tragic and horrifying and ugly. That it is anywhere nearing commonplace is insufferable.
***
Almost every morning, and absolutely every Saturday, I drive by a women’s health clinic in my neighborhood on my way to work. I only know of two clinics like it in all of Austin. There I face down anywhere from three to thirty men, mostly in khaki pants and practically all carrying signs, grotesque, condemning and delusory. There are no women present. Also, thankfully, none of them have dragged their children away from Saturday morning cartoons to participate in this spectacle (which I’ve seen at other clinics in other cities.)
I cannot convey the trembling anger and fear that overwhelms me each day when I see them. When I think of how practically everyone I know has no health insurance. When I think of how ass-backwards our medical system is run. When I think of these men standing between me and a doctor because they as men, and more importantly, as men “of God,” know what’s best and right for little old me. I want to fucking scream. And shake. And I don’t know what all.
***
Yesterday at work our new delivery driver came in the back door. I don’t like him anyway, but leave it for now. He looks at me and beams from ear to ear. “Guess what I just heard on 101-X?” 101-X is a horrible Clear Channel “alt-rock” station here. I inwardly groan at this point, but have no idea what he’s going to say, just that I probably won’t like it.
“They’re having a contest to figure out what’s the most unattractive part of a woman’s body!” He’s filled with glee, like he’s the one who came up with this delightful little whimsy.
I raise my voice, not screaming yet, but certainly louder than is acceptable for the workplace. “I don’t want to hear this sexist bullshit right now!”
He continues, oblivious. “They (the callers-in) can’t figure it out!”
Louder, I repeat, “I don’t want to hear this sexist fucking bullshit right now!”
Here’s his trump card, “It’s WIDE HIPS!” and he so proud of himself he’s just about to about to start jumping around and beating his chest and hooting.
At this point I am pounding with both hands on my extra ample ass, and just finally screaming the same, “I don’t want to hear this fucking shit!”
***
I don’t want to hear this fucking shit.
Posted by pogo at 11:34 AM | Comments (8) | TrackBack
January 22, 2004
Book of Revelation
Last night was spent at Jacob’s side, as he went through an old crate. Sifting through a box of someone else’s old memories, words, postcards, letters, journals, old show fliers and other ephemerata, effluvia.
Things have changed so much for me in the past few years. I wonder how much of it is due to getting older and how much can be attributed to internet activity…
I used to write everyday, sometimes for hours. My idle moments were spent sipping a beer or coffee, poring over some notebook that went everywhere with me. Waiting for the bus, writing in the journal. In between classes, writing in the notebook. I struggled over the crafting of the solitary word, the purity of la palabra. I always bought the heavy-duty five subject notebooks for my classes, so I’d have an extra section at the back for drawing, writing, feeble poetry, whatever. A free space.
I also wrote zines, but that’s a whole different thing. Writing for an audience, and solitary writing are about as different as things can be. This whole blog thing, it’s an unwieldy middle ground between the two, and I still don’t feel like I’ve really got the hang of it.
My thoughts have been pretty ugly lately, and it doesn’t seem right to air those here. No one wants to read about the millionth Texan who can’t stand George Bush. Who could have the patience to read of the flounderings of yet another twenty-something with a shitty job? Why on earth should I record any of this? Certainly I, more than anyone, am weary of self-important bloggers explaining that they will be away, or why they have been away, but are back now.
And yet, here I am.
I wish my friends still wrote me letters, as well as email. Nothing thrills me more than a postcard from anywhere at all in the world. Holding an old letter or notebook in your hand brings such a horrible and welcome and overwhelming emotion, like nothing else. Words are powerful, but so is the medium. The thrill of my four year-old self receiving a letter, addressed to me, formed by hands far away, has not dwindled at all, no matter how old I get. When I moved out of my father’s house, I left a box full of notebooks from high school in the basement. I knew I didn’t want to tote them around with me, wasn’t up to that burden, but I also knew I needed to keep them in the world a little longer, as overwrought as they were.
It’s winter, and I feel so distant. I’m going to be thirty this year, and I wonder how it is that people who were such a huge part of my life have dissipated to this weak correspondence and once a year meeting, if that. At the same time, people who are so far away are still so close to my heart. I think of them so often, while people I see all the time hardly cross my mind until I run into them. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, and all of that. And all of the Friendster testimonials in the world are not going to do a thing to assuage my sadness at the realization that so many people I love are so far and distant. And all of the newsy emails in the world cannot hold a candle to a friend stopping by to pass a Tuesday night on the porch for no reason at all other than neither of you have anything better to do.
Posted by pogo at 07:35 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack