Oh intercession how I love thee…

As is generally the case with intercessions, I am going absolutely mad and have no time to knit, spin or do anything remotely fiber related. It is doubled because I’m doing two full classes and a lab, so yeah, no life. It’s going well, though. Really well. Glad I decided to double up this term because they have officially canceled the winter intercession for next year – which hoses my timeline a little bit. Ah well. I’ll work it out. Intercessions are generally the times I try to fit in “soft” classes like English, history, pysch… I try to keep the hard sciences clustered around the longer terms, but take a part time load instead of a full time load so I can focus on the really tough stuff. That’s obviously out the window now. I’ll have to suck it up. You know, pick up my injured entitlement and stop bitching because I’m still so lucky to go to school, even though they’re cutting sections and raising my tuition again and I can’t get a grant to save my life. I’m putting off enrolling in Union for one semester – I’ll try to start next spring – I need the extra time to get my FAFSA in order and arrange some student loans. I can’t afford to pay their tuition entirely out of my pocket, alas, not like I’m doing with the school I’m at now.

UGH.

INJURED. SENSE. OF. ENTITLEMENT.

Oh First World problems, how non-life-sustaining you are, yet how important you still feel.

I obviously need to get my head out of my arse and just be grateful for the opportunity, I know. Working on it. It isn’t actually too hard because being pissed off takes more energy than just rearranging my projected course schedule, I just like to kvetch a little, ya know?

Anyway, this space is not likely to get updated much between now and the first of August because OMGDROWNING in homework, but I’ll be back then, never fear.

Made of MOO and awesome

We watched The Business of Being Born in class today, which has completely re-awakened my desire to be all bad-ass with the nursing degree thing and take it all. the. way. to. midwifery. if I can just get into Union and get my lactation consultant degree and finish all these prerequisites so I can get into a nice nursing program to actually study the nursing and the delivering of the babies.

A friend of mine turned me onto these blog posts today.

Moo.

Birth is awesome. I actually have more to say about it than just “moo” and “awesome” but I’m tired, and school starts early and pastry school starts even earlier for Miss Thing, so I’ll eventually just cut and paste the rant I wrote for class about medicalized, industrialized birth and why we need more midwives. Eventually. Till then, have some blog posts about moo and awesome.

the more things change…

spring has sprung at Casa Fabulous. May Gray and June Gloom have lifted to reveal blue skies and a riot of flowers. I love summer! Having just taken my last final of spring yesterday, I’ll be spending the next six weeks with my nose buried in books for the summer intersession term. I’ll get my summer break around August, when school shuts its doors for a month.

There’s been a lot going on in the news lately, and of course the most important thing going on here in California is that the state is completely broke. Actually, we’re not just broke? We have a budget shortfall in the billions. As a result (thank you ever so, lawmakers in Sacramento) a lot of shit is about to hit a very big fan. Education has taken some hard hits, as have animal shelters, state parks, clinics, hospitals, daycare, welfare, state funded medical insurance for poor families, financial aid for college students, summer programs for underprivileged kids, or really anything that remotely improves the quality of life for anyone who isn’t independently wealthy, insured, Republican and male. But what does Das Governator care anyway? He’s got his royalties from Kindergarden Cop to live on and his kids go to private school on all that Kennedy money. The rest of us are on our own.

I consider myself lucky to be getting summer term at all as a lot of colleges have cut intersessions for the duration. My own school is cutting about 30% of sections and adjunct professors (sorry professors, sorry college students) starting in Fall. I guess this is ok though, because the state just stopped giving students new grants so nobody can afford to take the classes that are left. This does put a crimp in my timeline to get into nursing school, as critical courses that I need to take as prerequisites for other critical courses are not even being offered until next spring. Seats are so limited and competition is so fierce that I hear the school is going to institute a bikini jello wrestling lottery system for classes. If you want to get a seat, prepare to strip and humiliate yourself in a tub of strawberry flavored gelatin, baby.

There are so many students competing for so few seats that my lab partner from last semester is going to 4 different colleges to insure he gets the sections he needs to graduate. That’s a little bit ridiculous. We are insuring that everyone who grows up in California will be well qualified to flip burgers or work as a garbage collector. The governor wants to get rid of textbooks (really, I am not kidding) in schools to save money on public education, while simultaneously making it impossible to pay for colleges that no longer offer necessary classes in basic subjects.

In short, if you live in a state that still has money, graduate from college and then move here. You will be well served as the service industry is all that any of us will be able to qualify for. I, for one, look forward to slaving away at minimum wage for our new overlords from Ohio.

Enter private university. I’m applying to one for fall, to get my BS in Maternal Child Health. I’d planned to do that all along, after getting my RN, but the current state of classes has made that ridiculous. I’ll still work on knocking out those nursing school prerequisites concurrently as I can, with the aim of transferring to an accelerated BSN program after I finish BS #1 in lactation. I have no idea how we’re going to pay for it. Kid is in fancy private school (thank you Governator for making a hash of public education in CA), we’re still laid off and did I mention the state is no longer offering new grants to college students? But we’ll find a way. Where there’s a will and all, right? Wish me luck. I want this to work out.

And once I graduate? I’m moving to Portland OR, or some other state that still has money left to fund public health, so that I can pay rent, eat and buy premium cat food. Screw you, California.

Greensleeves was my heart’s delight…

With any luck, this skein will wind up as a project that lives a long and happy life, unlike the lady for whom the song was written…

Miraculous spring.

The rare hanging yarn shrub rarely blooms, but this spring has been unseasonably fibery and here you see a fully bloomed example of the Funkyus Carolinaius superfinito merinolicus.

outrage fatigue.

I’m really tired and I’m sad. I’ve spent so much emotional energy on the aftermath of Prop 8 and the court’s disappointing decision last week. I know we’ll get there eventually, but I also know it is a long and bitter uphill battle and that “getting there” isn’t really the whole battle.

I think that that point is best exemplified by the pro-choice movement, which lost a heroic and compassionate physician this week. Dr. George Tiller, gunned down in his own church as he went to worship Sunday morning. I am not going to get too much into my own views on late term abortion or choice in general except to say that first, I’m pro choice, absolutely. Second, I know that sometimes a wanted pregnancy can go horribly awry very late. There are some diagnoses that can not be made in the first trimester. Third, as someone entering the medical profession, I believe in the idea of “quality of life” and I think that “Do no harm.” is something that, beyond simple ethical standards, each physician needs to interpret based on what is harmful for each individual patient.

I think that Dr. Tiller did what was heartbreaking and necessary. He stood next to these mothers on the worst day of they’d ever had and he helped them through what was probably the toughest decision of their lives. Not every physician would have the strength and fortitude to do that. He did it through death threats, having his clinic bombed, and getting shot once before in his arms, because he had the courage of his convictions and because there was no one else.

Now there isn’t anyone else to stand with these mothers and gently, compassionately, bravely help them through an unimaginable choice.

We are diminished, because of that. And I’m sorry for it.

The taking of a life in the name of G-d, any god, is so wrong I can’t even wrap my head around it. And as much as I am disgusted by the people who are celebrating Dr. Tiller’s death right now, I’m also sorry for them. They’ve got it so very wrong. They are the most diminished of all.

I am sorrowful and tired. I am sad that I don’t have the kind of grades I need to get into medical school. The world needs more doctors like George Tiller. Then again, the world in general, and women specifically, also need more nurses like the kind I will eventually be. We all do what we can. We all serve, the best we can.

So yeah. Sure. We “got there” with the right to choose and we will “get there” with the right to marry. It’s just that “getting there” isn’t, not really, when there are nutty religious terrorists, wingnuts with guns, on the other side. Who are ready to gun you down because they lost in the courts. We need to do better than that. It is just that the violence is so demoralizing, and that is just what they’re counting on, isn’t it?

““Then, they fight you.” Gandhi famously said: “First, they ignore you. Then, they ridicule you. Then, they fight you. Then, you win.”

I think the ridicule part is over, and the fighting part has started in earnest. And this is not (as many of us seemed to hope) going to be a metaphorical fight, but a real one — with guns and bombs and death involved. The fact is: In America, whatever liberties we win and keep have all been bought in blood, and that’s a historical truth that we are not going to get past any time soon.” — quoted, from Orcinus, written by Sara Robinson.

True, ‘dat.

Rest in peace, Dr. Tiller. Thank you for your service.

Indie filmmakers chime in…

come out, come out, where ever you are.

I watched A Gentleman’s Agreement today, which, if you have not seen it yet, you should. It was quite revolutionary for the time it was made, it took on anti-Semitism at a time when anti-Semitism was rampant, politely accepted and pretty much just the way things were. The movie was, I think, ahead of its time. Gregory Peck is amazing, well he’s Atticus Finch/Superman/and a big damn hero all rolled up in one, isn’t he? He’s no less epic in this film than he was in Mockingbird. He’s amazing. The film itself is, to me, very brave.

There’s this very memorable speech by Ann Revere towards the end of the film:
“You know something, Phil? I suddenly want to live to be very old. Very. I want to be around to see what happens. The world is stirring in very strange ways. Maybe this is the century for it. Maybe that’s why it’s so troubled. Other centuries had their driving forces. What will ours have been when men look back? Maybe it won’t be the American century after all… or the Russian century or the atomic century. Wouldn’t it be wonderful… if it turned out to be everybody’s century… when people all over the world – free people – found a way to live together? I’d like to be around to see some of that… even the beginning. I may stick around for quite a while.”

Well, I don’t think it was everyone’s century, but I think we got a good start on some of that stuff. I think we’re getting there.

I found the movie, in light of some of the stuff going on right now here in CA, to be really relevant.

I grew up Jewish in a small rural town. We were not, like, a visible community. I was the only Jewish kid in my school. The thing about Jewishness (esp. if you are Ashkenazi, which I am, it is possibly harder if you look Semitic and not European, I would guess), people don’t immediately see you as being Jewish unless you tell them, or your name is Jewish sounding or it comes up. I know my experience is really very different from that of a person of color in that I can walk into a room and choose to identify myself as such, or not. Jewish people have plenty of experience of being in the closet – particularly in early to mid part of the last century. They had to be. They couldn’t get jobs or into many clubs, organizations or certain colleges or buy homes in some areas if they were “out”. If your name was Greenblatt in the 1930’s and 40’s, odds are you got a lot of rejection letters and I bet it was hard to find an apartment in a Gentile neighborhood. My grandmother’s family changed their name from a Jewish sounding name to a very plain American sounding one – they became the Myles family rather than Moserowitz. It made life easier.

I sometimes feel a little marginalized when it comes to discussing prejudice because I’m not an obvious person of color. However, being called things like “Christkiller, Kike, Yid” or worse, and getting pushed and shoved around on a regular basis because of my religion as I grew up sucked and hey, guess what, it was because of prejudice. Yet, oddly there was still a kind of blanket acceptance in the larger context because I looked just like them. As long as the Jewish thing could be ignored it was ok – and it was a lot of the time. I find it hard to claim my experience when I’m having discussions about this. Grey area. Not hard enough? Not sure. Different, at least.

I’m experiencing similar feelings around the current situation in CA.

Again, with the choice. I can choose so many things. I can choose to out myself about things or keep them to myself. I can choose to marry or not. I get a choice in the matter and the problem is that there’s this whole segment of the population that gets NO choice. And being refused that choice to marry or not marry, to identify or not identify, to be SAFE or not safe – NOT FAIR – it’s broken.

I’m trying to figure out what it means to live with the fact that I can choose how I am perceived and others can’t choose that. I am trying to figure out how to effectively help in the larger picture.

Harvey Milk said, “Burst down those closet doors once and for all, and stand up and start to fight.”

So let me step out of the closet entirely. The reason I can choose to marry, or not, is that I’ve dated women and I’ve dated men and am happy either way. I am and have always defined myself as queer. I have not been out about this in this space, though most of my friends and family are aware. Most, not all. Mostly because I felt like it was nobody’s #@$! business, but yes, partially because I was really afraid of some of the potential repercussions and that, friends, makes me a big damn coward.

So here’s the thing. As someone who could best be described as bisexual or flexible, I don’t really, at all, feel like a real part of the GLBT “Community” – I know there’s a letter in there that is supposed to include me but it hasn’t ever felt inclusive of what I am. It never has. “Ally” is a better descriptive of my own relationship with the community. I also feel way isolated/marginalized in the straight community because see, I know that I’m really not and that I’m not telling so people are making decisions about me based on false pretenses. I am also oriented towards polyamory and committedly so, though have not always been out on that front either. That is not something that either community is entirely comfortable with. I exist in this weird, narrow marginal space that’s hard to define as either/or and I have always had the choice to out myself or not, based on whether it felt safe to do so. I’m tired of worrying about being safe.

I am waiting for the time when we stop being so divisive with each other. I want that to happen because we are all enjoying equal rights and protections and perceptions of each other. I want it to be everybody’s century. So much. EVERYBODY’S CENTURY. I want to stick around and see that. I know it’s coming. I just want it now and I want it to be a lot less confusing than it is for everyone. We need to sort this stuff out.

Oh and one last word on “tolerance”. We need to throw the idea of “tolerance” in the garbage where it belongs. You “tolerate” the flu, annoying atonal jazz music, a bad smell, the dude in the line in front of you paying with pennies when you’re in a hurry, traffic on the 405 and scooping the catbox. You “tolerate” people like that lunatic who protests at funerals with the nasty signs, people who vote against marriage equality and churches based outside my state that spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to manipulate our election though frankly you should not have to because they are intolerable. To “tolerate” the GLBT community, Jews, people of color, Muslims or any other minority is insulting to those people because you are equating them with things that are not good.

How about the day when rather than tolerance, we simply expect blanket acceptance for everyone on the grounds that we’re all just folks here, for whatever value of folks that may be?

come out, come out, where ever you are.

The Courage Campaign is launching a campaign to restore marriage equality in California.

They need donations and support, even if it’s just to help their message go viral by spreading the word.

I’ve been married. I still am married legally, which confers upon me all manner of legal protections and rights, even though my husband and I separated 3 years ago and have no intention of ever living together again. We can file our taxes jointly, I am eligible for full coverage under his insurance, I’m still his wife in the eyes of the law. Because we never legally filed our separation, I am still legally entitled to half of his retirement benefits should I choose to pursue that, I am also liable if he runs up a ton of debt and defaults (and vice versa, if I have a brain spasm in a yarn shop with my AMEX card) on that debt. It is a connection we share, legally, and it is very different from domestic partnership. If I can enjoy those protections 3 years after separating, I don’t get why committed couples who are actively in relationship can’t. Whatever their gender. Domestic partnership does not confer the same protections as marriage. It emphatically. does. not. Taxation of domestic partners vs. married couples is one example of how the protections and rights differ. There are so many others. Domestic partnership was an important step forward, but it cannot be the final step. It isn’t good enough. We need to keep moving forward.

Please consider donating, or even better yet getting involved with Courage Campaign, in your community at the grassroots level, however you can.

It might have been a week of wonderful

My dad has been in town all week, so I’ve been pretty much out of touch with everyone. We had a great visit. Naturally, I didn’t take any pictures as I was too busy, but trust me on this one, it was epic. We saw Star Trek (second time for me), went to the automotive museum and there was a Memorial Day BBQ that was filled with pork, pie and awesome. We’ve had such a nice visit.

There might have been some fiber in the mail…

I might be finding this post to be completely enchanting, inspiring and seductive as far as making over my comfy knitting chair goes.

I might have done a little spinning…

The flowers might be rioting…

And someone awesome might have given me a gift certificate for the Namaste bag I’ve been coveting for like, a whole year.

Now, of course, Dad is back on the highway and into the redwoods. For us it is back to real life, school, mopping the kitchen and cleaning up after the cats. But I don’t mind. I’ve had such a delightful minibreak. The girlie is off to Escondido later this week for a visit with friends, daughter the first is bringing home fresh danish this afternoon, there’s plenty of fiber in the bins, the porch is wide and cool for spinning and my basket is full of knitting. There’s no might about it, for all of this, as ever, I am profoundly grateful.