Current

Currently:

My favorite picture of Corey.

My favorite picture of me.

My favorite picture of us.

"Margaret Wente Is An Idiot" or "Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret Wente. And I'm Kind of a Dumbass."

Theremina pointed us to this article yesterday, WHY ARE BLOGGERS MALE? by one, Margaret Wente. Some bits:

On why she doesn't blog (apparently guys love snowmobiling, incidentally): "It's more of a guy thing."

"That's also why guys like blogging – instant opinions, and lots of them. Men clearly have an urge to blog that women lack."

And the winner for me: "Women never held peeing contests. Perhaps that helps explain why women tend to be more restrained and less concerned with public displays of prowess. We are just as interested in listening as in talking, and more interested in relationships than scoring points. We also tend to lack the public confidence that comes so easily to many men."

(Ms Yayanos writes over at Coilhouse.)

It's an interesting bit of writing in that Ms Wente is clearly an insane person. I'm of the mind that someone like her would have done her research as Ms Yayanos points out in her own piece, but I'm pretty astounded that this was deemed fit-to-print because of the sheer lunacy of it. It presupposes, to me, that women don't have any sort of interest in this particular bit of the 21st Century. Women don't have the inclination toward it, have no desire in partaking, and would just be bad at it. Is any of that true? Of course it isn't. It doesn't take but a moment through dig through any of our bookmark folders to see it's nowhere near truth. But nevermind, that: ask your circle of friends. But I'm getting off topic.

The assumption that blogging is some sort of men's competition (which I'm not naive to believe isn't partly true) and is best left for them is absolutely ridiculous. It's like saying that writing period -- say, journalism, for one -- is merely a man's thing because it is only men who have the predisposition for it. Is THIS true? Certainly not.

Personally, I just find it curious how Ms Wente just painted a weird caricature of women the same way Tyler Perry does of black people with his movies and she believes it (I'm also of the mind that when you say something, you only say it because you believe it). It's one of the things I dislike most about a person, this sort of self-hate in a way. Marginalizing your gender group, in this case, from the inside and being certain and resolute about it.

(It also makes me think of American-born Mexican folk I've come to meet in this country who target those who're only recently arrived through any means: ready to tear them down because immigrants are not at all like them. But, I'm digressing.)

The idea posited by her writing is a very bleak one if you are a woman who blogs. Hell, if you're a woman who writes. And of course, I find it hypocritical that this is how this woman earns a living.

I wonder what makes people of any type to seemingly be set again others from their group (coincidentally, last night, Corey and I were talking similarly about those of us who aren't straight and what there is to be proud of there; my take wasn't as positive (this too is a different post).). I really want to understand because if logic falls in place and reveals some truth, then I'd be more inclined to believe the argument...

...or it could be just like Ms Yayanos says: "Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret Wente. And I'm Kind of a Dumbass."

Read: Generation A

It begins with a tsunami and ends on an island.

When bees have been extinct for years and five people from all over the world are stung, forces mobilize and trips into pharmaceuticals and celebrity and religion and World of Warcraft and Abercrombie & Fitch and tourette's syndrome and maybe even a little brain stem cloning happen.

These five people--Harj, Zack, Samantha, Diane, Julien--must surely have something in common that long-extinct bees suddenly have stung them. But they don't. Not really. Not at first. But what happens is as they begin to unravel the reason (not mystery) of what's happening to them, I find myself seeing the world through their eyes. Not because they're their eyes. Their eyes are mine. (In a previous novel (ALL FAMILIES ARE PSYCHOTIC), Coupland introduced an HIV-infected mother and her dysfunctional family. And it seems so prescient that when I was dealing with my initial HIV diagnosis, I read this novel, and I was and am Janet Drummond.) One of the strangest things and most powerful things that Douglas Coupland manages to do with his stories for me is place them in the NOW. His stories and his characters could never have existed at any other point in time. And as I read about Harj while in the middle of the 2004 tsunami, or Samantha attempting to make an "earth sandwich," I know when all of this is taking place. But the ridiculousness of this feeling of NOW for me is that I am Harj and I am Samantha, and I couldn't be anyone else. Like them, I am built for this time on earth and I couldn't have even been conceived of in any other point in history.

Coupland takes a certain amount of story time telling stories. His characters tell each other stories and reveals something that even they didn't know: that once you access your creative imagination and sit around a fire and tell each other stories, we're creating a better world for us all. But as it's asked, why is it so difficult for people to tell stories? Answer:

"Stories come from a part of you that only gets visited rarely - sometimes never at all. I think most people spend so much time trying to convince themselves that their lives are stories that the actual story-creating part of their brains hardens and dies. People forget that there are other ways to ordering the world."

And it makes me believe that Coupland feels the need to tell stories even in the age of digital everything and satellites and sms messaging is even more important than all of this tech. Maybe I'm naive in believing so, but Coupland makes me feel I am right and belong in this world. Stories. Not anecdotes, not jokes, but actual stories. Stories about us--ourselves! Humans as stories! Humans telling stories! And while not necessarily talking about telling stories as entertainment nor as a means to passing down history: when Coupland places the five in a circle, telling stories, this is what will eventually lead to their conclusion: they can save the world.

But ultimately, what GENERATION A does for me is that it makes me believe that we are not doomed in this hyperconnected world. Really, it's not that I believe this will lead us down the path of ruin, me, using this light and machinery to write this, but just because the world is changing, even if by our designs and desire and greed, the world remains a remarkable place that finds its way to let you know hoe much it's worth to stop and admire everything that you've forgotten you have. That I've forgotten I have. And I will always tell you a story.

Written by Douglas Coupland.

Unsent Email Number ?

hey.

i'm not sure what happened but good luck and i'm sorry.

i'm sorry for being an impossible person to get through to. i built up very many walls very fast when i feel i'm wronged, real or not. but you know this. i told you this the last time we talked.

and whether or not i'm right or wrong, this isn't about that. it's about me not seeing the good in a person. not anymore. because i do see it and am drawn to it, and when it's focused on me, even for a fraction of the time, i want to keep it always. but when it's taken away from me, through no fault of my own, well, then it becomes toxic to me. whether that's wrong, i don't much care, you see, because i simply can't care anymore. you hurt my feelings and for that you must pay. this is how i work. whether it's right, that's debatable.

so, here i sit, thinking that what's good about you is what i'm depriving myself of, and by depriving you of me, i get my revenge. and i'm sorry for that.

and good luck. because i want good things for you.