Costa Rica, in haiku form

1.
Long drive from airport
Sit in hammock by the sea
A beer in my hand.

2.
Bright colored orchids
Video game-like bird call
coatis gather.

3.
The ocean calls me
Leatherback turtles nest here
Crocodiles lurk.

4.
Float down the river
Herons, egrets, iguanas
Past the sugar cane.

5.
Mountain in the clouds
I wait for a little peek
Just please don’t erupt.

6.
Stray dogs in the road
All the food is so fresh here
Three cows stop traffic.

7.
Cool and dry by coast
Twelve different climates here
Muggy mountain air.

8.
Butterflies fly here
Each ficus has its own wasp
Killer manmade dam.

Facting Checking Tony Perkins

I usually ignore bigoted statements from right-wing nutbags, as much as anyone can when they are constantly invading my bedroom. But this quote, from Tony Perkins of the Family Resource Council, was just too juicy to be ignored. Too many flagrant lies buried in such a short amount of time, I can’t resist. It’s from a CNN story about the Senate Democrats passing 10-8 to the bill to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act come to the floor, even though doing so will be largely symbolic because the bill will get shot down in a heartbeat in the House of Representatives, where a small group of lunatics is currently in charge of the asylum.

Let’s look at the quote:

“Marriage is not some prize that liberals can award to a small, vocal and already well-off special interest group,” said a statement by Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council. “Marriage between one man and one woman was created prior to the formation of any governments and is given benefits by governments because it uniquely contributes to a productive society.”

LIE #1:
“some prize that liberals can award”
Marriage is not only awarded to liberals or conservatives. Since when did we ask people’s political affiliation when they pick up marriage licenses? Does he think we’re going to deny marriage licenses to gay conservatives? No, marriage is a CIVIL right, i.e. a right granted by a CIVIC organization, i.e. a government, and therefore has to, by it’s definition, be accessible to any CITIZEN of this country.

LIE #2:
“Already well off?”
On behalf of poor queers everywhere, I say FUCK YOU. Seriously. Just became some queers are rich doesn’t mean most of us are. I would even hazard a guess that most of the queers who are well off look a lot like the other members of America who are well off – by and large, they are white men. But rich or poor, black or white, they all have to have access to civil rights, by the very definition of what a “civil right” is. See above.

LIE #3:
“created prior to the formation of any governments”?
Are you kidding me? Let’s assume that he knows that marriage is a right granted by governments – although Lies #1 and #2 suggest otherwise – and therefore he’s trying to make the anthopological argument that “marriage” existed in cultures that were preceded the existence of government. Well, they had long term monogamish relationships that people got into and even presented themselves before the community to announce, but they didn’t call them “marriages.” In many, many cultures, they didn’t even look like what Tony Perkins probably thinks marriages should look like – click the link of “monogamish” and read Sex at Dawn by Christopher Ryan for more on this. “Marriage” as a word and a Western concept, exists as a civic institution. Sometimes a religious institution as well, but not always. And therefore, it confers CIVIL rights.

LIE #4:
“because it uniquely contributes to a productive society”
OK, the hopeless romantic in me wants to believe this is true, but really, how can he say this after watching the recent Kardashian marriage and divorce? Did this contribute to a productive society? Really? And did it do so more than letting the gay couple who’s been together for 40 or 50 years finally be granted their civil rights? Come on.

Thoughts about my high school reunion

I attended my 20 year high school reunion this weekend. I attended my ten year reunion as well, and an informal, unofficial fifteen year one, but this one felt qualitatively different. One of my classmates said he thought this one felt “less cliquey” – people seemed more genuinely happy to see each other, to hear about each others’ successes. Another classmate echoed the same sentiments in her blog post today.

Of course, the flip side of that is that the people who choose to attend high school reunions are often a self-selecting group of people who feel like they’ve had some success, who feel good about themselves. I graduated with a class of about 650, and about 200 people attended the reunion. Six people have died. That still leaves a huge number of people who didn’t attend. I’m in touch with some of them and know they’re doing reasonably well, but what about the others? I still wonder about a number of them.

But that’s not actually what I wanted to write about. What I’ve been thinking about today, day two-post reunion, is this: In high school I was straight-identified and aside from a confusing month at theater camp, never thought for a second that I was anything other than straight. I came out as bisexual in college, but even then most of the people I’d been with were still men. I just happened to fall in love with a girl. Now, I’m a happily married woman who happens to be married to a woman, and I’ve been out for eighteen years. It’s so familiar and comfortable to me, I forget that for others, it’s an adjustment. Perhaps that’s why my high school boyfriend and prom date, who I was madly in love with, hasn’t friended me back on Facebook. I sent him an email explaining the shift in my identity, not wanting it to be too jarring to suddenly see me married to a woman, but haven’t heard back. Maybe he’s just not on Facebook much, or maybe his wife doesn’t feel comfortable with him having contact with exes. I don’t know. But after my reunion, I’ve been thinking about how adolescence is such a self-absorbed time, and we can so easily forget that people form impressions of us, those impressions stay, and then often we struggled to re-adjust. Did people find it hard to adjust their image of me? Did I just seem to be the same person? As far as I know, I was the only out queer present at my reunion this year. But there are other out queers in my graduating class who didn’t attend. Did they choose not to go because they didn’t want to deal with people having to re-adjust their images? And it’s not just about sexuality – some of my fellow alumni have chosen jobs or careers I couldn’t have pictured them in back in high school, some of them have made decisions that surprised me.

It occurred to me that attending high school reunions as an out queer is a political act at times, though probably less so with newer graduates. There were a few people in my graduating class who were out in high school, and in many high schools today there are even more. I checked the library database of my high school, and confirmed that the copy of It Gets Better, the book, has arrived an is on the shelf. And it’s been checked out! That makes me happy.

Time is a weird thing. Nostalgia is even weirder. In a way, it’s completely unnatural to put ourselves back in a place we haven’t been (emotionally or physically) for twenty years. And yet, there’s some craving for connection that propels me to do it. Some yearning to know that I’m not a self-absorbed adolescent any more, and neither are most of the people I graduated with. We can all adjust to each others’ new realities. We have to.

Thoughts on Occupy Wall Street

First, I haven’t been myself. I feel guilty about this, but the reality is, I am lucky to have a job, and health benefits for me and my spouse, and I need to maintain that.

But I’ve been following. Closely. In news reports, from first hand accounts of people who have attended both in Boston and in New York. My initial reaction was, thank G-d. Thank G-d there are people out there as frustrated with the corporate control of our politics and income disparity in this country. After watching people react in ANGER to Obama’s fairly moderate proposals and accomplishments of the past three years, I was starting to worry. All we heard from was the people who were outraged that he would be trying to provide health care for all citizens, and protect our social safety net, and ask the wealthiest citizens to pay a little more to keep this country going. Where were my people – the people who believe in all that Obama has started and much, much more?

But now, I read articles like this one, which is a rebuttal to an attack on Occupy Wall Street, and I worry. I am deeply disturbed by the accusations of anti-Semitism at OWS. I don’t really believe it is going on – I have assurances first hand that any actual anti-Semitism was dismissed from the movement very quickly. OWS has from the very start been incredibly democratic and inclusive. I suspect that the “anti-Semitism” charges is coming from the fact that at many OWS protests, in the words of one organizer: “you will find very strong criticism of the state of Israel and their military policy. Equally as strong as the criticism of US military policy.” (Michael Oman-Reagan, Facebook message, 10/16/11) And this has long been a problem – confusing criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism. What makes it difficult is that SOMETIMES they are conflated. But not always. And I believe corporate apologists are exploiting this to try and divide the country against OWS, and divide OWS supporters themselves.

And this is my point. At this point, OWS has become a global movement. It is fucking AMAZING that they have gotten people all across the country and world talking about economic justice and capitalism. There are always going to be disagreements, especially the larger the movement grows. I hope that OWS stays focused on their economic message, and doesn’t allow itself to be distracted by foreign policy issues, or divided by the forces that want desperately to divide it. Can they withstand the winter – physically in the cold and emotionally in the face of hostile resistance? Will they allow the movement to be co-opted by people who have other agendas? I hope not. I hope they keep the pressure on us, as a country, to continue to have this dialogue about what will make this country better for all people. Not just the wealthiest 1%, or 40%, or whatever other number you want to throw around.

I leave you with a quote from the same source I cited earlier:

“It’s three things: a movement, a performance and a process. Movement: spreading the message that the performance and process …work and teaching people how to start. Performance: Think of the Woolworth’s lunch counter sit-ins, it’s theater to draw attention to a problem, not to solve it through the act. Process: The General Assembly process is a non-hierarchical, leaderless form of participatory democracy that can be used to discuss any issue and include all voices. Dissent, infighting, disagreement and confusion are all natural results of this – of course how they’re handled is a test of how well the people at any given occupation are putting the process into practice, but doesn’t say anything about the movement as a whole because there is no central authority coordinating what’s going on.” (Michael Oman-Reagan, Facebook, 10/19/11)

Why I like Tumblr better

I left Livejournal because I didn’t like their politics. They were cracking down on communities they deemed “inappropriate” and slapping warning labels on anyone’s post that mentioned sex. So I came over here to WordPress, and have liked it a lot better over here.

But then Facebook came along, and all of a sudden blogging became less interesting.

A few months ago I discovered Tumblr, and here’s why I find myself posting to Tumblr instead of anything else:
1. Simple, easy interface. I like that it’s so simple to post photos or text, and I can do it from my phone or the web. It also WORKS, which is more than I can say for Twitter when it comes to connecting to Facebook. And I HATE that Twitter has Twitpic separated out. It’s clunky and inelegant.

2. I like that there’s people over on Tumblr, and random people stumble over to my photos and “reblog” them or indicate they like them. WordPress feels too quiet lately. Maybe that’s because everyone’s hanging out at Facebook or Tumblr.

So if you haven’t already, check out my Tumblr account. My rapidly growing list of “places where you can find me” is a little out of control. One of these days, I’m going to have to make some choices and not be in so many places at once. Or maybe I don’t.

Sports and politics

Sports and politics occupy roughly the same place in my heart. I love basketball, I love watching it, dissecting the intricacies of it, analyzing and predicting. I have a slightly less enthusiastic love for baseball. Or at least for the Red Sox. But when the Spurs or the Red Sox aren’t winning, I am prone to moodiness and depression.

It’s the same with politics. I follow politics like the most avid sports fan follows their team. I root for my home team, which is usually the Democrats but only because the other teams don’t stand a chance of winning. At least in basketball, small market teams like the Spurs CAN win, and HAVE won, through shrewd management and good coaching and scouting. In politics, the Green party doesn’t stand a chance. Nor does the Libertarian party or the Rainbow party or the Socialist party. Rooting for them would be like rooting for the Vancouver Grizzlies.

But much as with sports, when things aren’t going well – when politicians are launching viciously anti-gay attacks on my family, or an all-out war on the poor, or when people who stand for the opposite of everything I believe in wind up in office – I am prone to moodiness and depression.

And the parallel goes one step further: In the case of both sports and politics, money is the deciding factor almost all the time. When was the last time someone who was poor – currently poor, not from a poor family three decades ago – got elected into office? How different would our politics look if corporations had to pay their fair share of taxes, and couldn’t buy off politicians to make policies favorable to their CEOS – while they ship jobs overseas and abuse and mistreat their workers? Money is at the heart of all the problems in this country – in both politics and in sports. The NBA may be heading toward a lockout. Despite the NBA posting billions of dollars in profits, they claim 22 out of 30 teams are not profitable. That reeks of mismanagement, but instead of taking a look at that, they’re trying to punish the players, who aren’t having it. But it’s hard to feel too sympathetic when even the lowest paid NBA players in the league make just shy of a million dollars a year. In politics, I just read this depressing article by Barbara Ehrenreich which elaborates on her book Nickel and Dimed and details the unrelenting war on poor people this country has been waging since the 1980′s. It’s all about money, money, money.

Still, the victories are few and far between, yet they continue to give me hope and keep me glued to the news. The Spurs haven’t won a championship since 2007 but every year since they look like contenders. If the Wisconsin recall elections go my way tonight, I’ll be happy again. For awhile.

But the grind of this cycle starts to wear on you.

What is blogging for?

I’m not sure what I want out of this blog anymore, which is probably why I haven’t been using it as much. I still miss the community on Livejournal, but the “are you really 18″ warning that popped up on many of my friends posts was a creepy reminder of what Livejournal has become. I used to think blogging was what I did instead of ‘zines, but it lacks the immediacy and creativity of ‘zines. Then I thought Facebook and Twitter replaced blogging and mourned the loss of longer, more in-depth posts in favor of things that could fit in a status update or 140 characters. But I’m not quite satisfied with Facebook, Twitter, Google plus, or any of the other social networking sites right now.

I think I might be oversaturated with social networking. I think I’m bored with social networking.

I want to be writing more. I want to be making art more. I want to be spending less time at my computer. Yet here I am, typing this on my computer. It’s a problem. Is the internet killing my creativity?

10 Most Rewatchable Movies of All Time

WordPress featured this blog post with someone else’s list of rewatchable movies, and I was amazed at how many of the movies on it I wouldn’t even want to watch once, much less more than once. It certainly tells you how different people’s taste can be, but I think in a more meaningful way it also brings up the question of what makes a movie re-watchable. One of the movies on the original list was Pulp Fiction, which is a movie I actually have seen multiple times, but no longer can tolerate watching. It’s too violent with no actual purpose to the violence, and I find that hard to stomach these days. On the other hand, I love the Terminator movies, which are no less violent, but provide some meaning along with their entertainment.

So here’s my list of most watchable movies:

1. Finding Nemo

It’s the best animated movie ever made, IMO. The story is sweet without being sappy, it’s funny and clever.

2. Princess Bride

It’s the movie I watch when I’m sick in bed. It’s comforting and familiar, and even though I can quote the whole movie along with it, I still enjoy watching the story unfold every time.

3. Leaving Normal

It’s been a while since I watched this one, mostly because I haven’t found a DVD copy yet and I rarely watch videos anymore. But I watched it every year for awhile there. It’s about accepting that life is about making choices, and sometimes those are bad choices, but also about learning to let go of the desire to control the outcome so much.

4.
Another one I only have on VHS, but also another one I used to watch frequently. It’s about trying to find love amid race and class politics and while living in a city. It’s also kind of a love letter to city-living, embracing the chaos that cities sometimes bring.

5. Beautiful Girls

Still another one I need to update to DVD. It’s kind of like Leaving Normal, because there are some great life lessons that I need to remind myself of by watching this movie, but like Leaving Normal it doesn’t tell me those lessons, it lets them unfold with the characters’ drama. This one is also a great ensemble movie, with a fantastic performance by a young Natalie Portman, as well as Martha Plimpton, Matt Dillion, Timothy Hutton, Annabeth Gish, Rosie O’Donnell, and Michael Rapaport.

6. The Back to the Future trilogy

Back to the Future is goofy and silly, but it’s actually very well-made within the world it creates. It works as a trilogy, and is a lot of fun to watch in one sitting, or close to one sitting.

7. The Hours

The Hours is one of those movies you can watch over and over again and still get something new out of it. There’s just so much going on, and it’s so beautifully made and well-acted.

8. Terminator 1 and Terminator 2

So good as a double-feature, and really let’s just pretend they didn’t keep making more, because every movie after Terminator 2 just got progressively worse. But the first two are classics, and enjoyable to watch again and again.

9. Harold and Maude

Could easily make my list for ten best movies ever made. So good. Darkly funny, yet deeply meaningful, brilliantly acted.

10. A Dirty Shame

No list of top movies would be complete without a John Waters movie, since he’s my favorite moviemaker of all time. I could easily put Pecker, Serial Mom, Hairspray, Pink Flamingos, Desperate Living, or Female Trouble here too. But in our sex-negative fucked up culture, this movie has been speaking to me a lot lately. I think I need to go re-watch it.

I can only come up with 10 movies for now. Maybe I’ll add another ten when I get a chance.

As a sidebar, I’m curious how my movies rank on the Bechdel test? It looks like Princess Bride, Back to the Future fail, but all the others pass the test. Although I’m not sure about Beautiful Girls, and it’s not in the database — I’ll have to go back and re-watch it.

Why I’m rooting for the Mavericks

This year, I’ve been following the NBA Finals with a sort of vague passing interest, since my team, the Spurs, were eliminated much earlier than I had hoped.

But now, as the Mavericks are about 2 minutes away from winning their first ever NBA championship, I am moved to post why I root for them, even though they are my usual rivals up I-35. Because they remain one of the few teams that has bucked the tide of the NBA, in which NBA stars are increasingly greedy, increasingly impatient, and show no loyalty to the fans who remain fiercely loyal to them, often through some tough years.

Dirk Nowitizki, Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili, Paul Pierce, Kobe Bryant. What other active players are there who have remained with the team that drafted them and nurtured them through good and bad years? Not many. And the only one on that list who hasn’t gotten a ring yet is Dirk. So, I’d like to see him finally rewarded for his loyalty. And to go up against Lebron James and Chris Bosh, who represent everything that is wrong with the NBA today, the win would be that much sweeter.

Where are the moderate Republican NRA members?

I watched the May 6th episode of Rachel Maddow’s show, in which she goes on a “date” with Meghan McCain to the NRA convention in Pittsburgh, and they have the world’s most reasonable, sensible discussion about gun regulation and gun responsibility between a liberal and a Republican NRA member. Then she tours inner city Pittsburgh with city councilor Rev. Ricky Burgess and takes a look at what guns have done to that city.

I feel the same way about guns that I do about abortion: I support people’s right to have them, but I don’t think I’d ever have one myself. I don’t know why it can’t be that simple. Meghan McCain’s response to Maddow’s question about why the NRA won’t tolerate discussion of closing the loopholes so crazy people can’t get guns, or banning assault weapons for which there is no justifiable need, whether you like guns for self-protection, hunting, or sport was to say “they fear it’s a slippery slope.” This argument breaks down ridiculously quickly, and I don’t understand why the Meghan McCains of the NRA aren’t willing to push back and demand their organization act more responsibly. They have more than enough political power to prevent any slippery slope they fear. It’s time they acted responsibly.

Which got me thinking: Why couldn’t a whole group of people who support gun rights but want some gun responsibility join the NRA, and start making the noise? I’d be willing to join the NRA as a political action, if some of you would join with me and help me make some noise about this. According to their website, a one year membership is $35. It seems to me that if enough people join the NRA and start demanding they act more responsibly, they have a couple choices: Either ignore their membership’s voices, reject those members and return their dues, or make some changes. And the first two choices don’t make for very good public relations.

I’d probably propose we join en masse, with our dues enclosed, and a letter stating our desire. How powerful would it be if we could get 100 people to join at once and sign a petition demanding they take our concerns seriously. Would they return the dues? Would they quietly take them and not respond. I’d like to get some press coverage behind this campaign, obviously.

Anyone with me on this? I’m totally serious.