Tuesday, November 20, 2007

I'm it! Here are my seven.

Jonah and Beth both tagged me for the seven random/weird things meme. Thanks! This is good, my exam today is done and I wanna get back to blogging. I feel like I already write here some of the weird things about me, but I'll try to cook up a few more.
  1. When I was little, I used to shave every morning. I would get really really jealous of my dad shaving, so he'd give me a plastic spoon and some shaving cream (the kind with an orange top that comes out as awesome turquoise gel and turns into creamy white foam when you rub it). I would stand next to him in the bathroom mirror and shave my face almost every day (except when I got out of bed too late, which yes, I was doing even at 5 or 6 years old). Kind of funny for someone who doesn't shave her legs or pits at all now. Or... maybe it makes perfect sense.
  2. I love thunderstorms.
  3. Sometimes when I have a really intense yawn or nose-blowing, I feel like I can breathe in air through my ears.
  4. I am kind of in love the idea of my body being pregnant. Not with the idea of having a kid, I really want nothing to do with having any kids right now (or possibly ever). Just the idea of my body being physically pregnant. This is the opposite of how most people feel I think - they want the kid without all the icky physical things about a pregnancy. And I am well aware of how ridiculous this may seem, especially considering the actual reality and the extra mental/emotional and physical burden that would come with a diabetic pregnancy. And I should know better, considering that what I do all day at work is review medical records of pregnancy, scary complications and all. And even scarier/more painful, labor and delivery records (can you say, episiotomy? how 'bout 2nd degree vaginal laceration? contractions at a pain level of 10 out of 10?). But that's why this is just a fantasy, and it's about the beauty and roundness and just the general physical idea of being pregnant.
  5. Speaking of being pregnant, people think I am all the time. I get people giving up seats for me on the train for no apparent reason except that they are looking at my belly and smiling sweetly at me/it. I get asked about it my strangers and less socially conscious/inhibited family members (most recently, my grandmother and a cashier in a cafeteria). I wrote about it a long time ago - I just have a belly on me, which isn't that proportional to the rest of me I guess. Haha, or maybe my thoughts from #4 cause me to give off some kind of vibe?
  6. My ring finger is my favorite for checking blood sugar.
  7. I eat apples from the bottom up instead of around the sides. Since I eat more of the apple than most people, usually a little tiny core, it's the best way to go at it.
I'm tagging bsom, estrogenmoment, Claire, misscripchick, Liz, Kameron, FatlyYours, Jes, and Hannah. (yes, that's 9... see below how I feel about rules! or above, how I feel about decisions...) I don't know if all of you do memes, but it's worth a try.

Rules (but I'm all about bending/breaking 'em if ya want):

1. Link to the person’s blog who tagged you.
2. Post these rules on your blog.
3. List seven random and/or weird facts about yourself.
4. Tag seven random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.
5. Let each person know that they have been tagged by posting a comment on their blog.

Friday, November 02, 2007

double-decker kitteh bus

We say that our kitties like to sit on the bus, or the train. Sometimes, even when they are totally konked out napping, they will be positioned in an orderly straight line one behind the other. As if they were sitting in rows on a bus. Or sometimes it's a vertical version; with one kitty on top of the bus (aka dining room table) and the other directly below.

This week, there were some suspiciously double-decker-bus-like positions, but they were with old man doggie instead of both kitties! The picture to the left is not surprising; Quito doesn't mind the dog and at times even seems to emulate him. Or dominate him - you can see who's on top.

However, on the right, was the special double-decker bus. This cat freaks out whenever he's within a few feet of the dog (or even thinks he might be in the near future). But here he was, dozing on top of the bus! It didn't last long though...


And, I couldn't resist posting one more of old-man-doggie Zack. He got clipped yesterday and now looks like something in between a weasel, a snotty poodle with facelift surgery ,a chihuhua, and a skinny skinny lamb instead of the irresistibly cute shaggy dog you see below (by the way, he likes hanging out in his crate - we didn't put him there).

Call for submissions on wealth, redistribution, and class, and a few other things

1) I wanted to do "NaBloPoMo," or National Blog Posting Month. I'll admit the initial temptation was due to the great lolcats-themed badges. I am easy, anything related to that website wins me over immediately. But I do think it would be a great chance for me to learn to write shorter (and more frequent) posts, connect more with other diabetes bloggers doing it, and to force me to finish up all the half-written or outlined posts (there are lots) on stuff I've been wanting to write about, and generally get more comfortable writing and enjoy getting stuff out. However, I am really behind with the class I'm taking and at work, and kinda stressed, so I need to be looking for ways to limit, not increase, my internet time.

2) I went to my diabetes doctor this week - a few thoughts, I will write more later. There wasn't much in the way of surprises or even guilt because I know I've been struggling with my blood sugars a lot the last few months, and part of it is this weird absorption issue, among other things.

3) There's a new project that I heard about at Aid & Abet that looks great. It's a website called Enough, looking for submissions on wealth, redistribution, and class by November 15th-ish (loose deadline). I think it would be cool to get some stuff from you folks out there that involves health/illness, disability, and how that both affects and is affected by wealth, class, our economic system, and ideas for change, etc. I'm hoping to submit something.

One of the coordinators describes what they're looking for:

Call for Submissions: Enough

What is the difference between financial security and hoarding wealth?
What are some ways we can share resources to support community and movement-building?
How can we talk to each other about personal money issues and politics without guilt, shame, and judgment?
What does a politics of wealth redistribution look like in the day-to-day, and what are the obstacles to developing conversations about this in political communities we belong to?

These are some questions we’ve been thinking about, and we’re interested in jumpstarting conversations about how we conceive of and live a politics of wealth redistribution. We’d like to invite you to contribute some writing to a website we’re creating to explore this topic, called Enough.

The ubiquity of capitalism in the U.S. can limit our ability, even in radical communities, to conceptualize creative responses to oppression and injustice. This can manifest both in how we build movements (reproducing bureaucratic, hierarchical, business-type models; packaging and “selling” social justice work to foundations in exchange for grants), and in how we deal with personal finances in our own lives (defaulting to patterns like hoarding, excessive consumerism, and individualism in how we conceptualize our lives and futures and economic security).

We’d like to address some of the ways that class privilege and capitalist dynamics function even within communities and within the lives of individuals working to fight oppression and economic injustice. It can feel taboo to share details about things like income, inheritance, class background, debt, and spending. Silence and secrecy about money make it difficult for us to challenge ourselves and each other when classist dynamics arise. Social conditioning trains us to hoard money rather than share it and build community. We want to get people talking about building shared values and practices around wealth redistribution, because we think figuring out how much is enough, and when to give away money, are key under-discussed questions in anti-capitalist politics.

Some examples of the kinds of things we’re looking for:

-Pieces about how your class position has changed over the course of your life, and how that has affected feelings of responsibility about wealth redistribution.
-Stories about cool methods of figuring out what is “enough” when it comes to making/saving money. How do class background, class conditioning, fear, guilt, and other factors influence how you think about this question? How do you figure out what you need versus what you want when it comes to consuming?
-Examples of (or ideas for) community-based support systems that serve as alternatives to individualistic models of taking care of ourselves.
-Strategies for redistributing wealth in your community, or to support social justice work.
-Discussion of how ideas about wealth, security, scarcity get reproduced in families.
-Diatribes on the politics of inheritance.
-Discussions of professionalism and salaries.
-Exciting models of people dealing with money ethically in activist spaces and organizations.
-Strategies for overcoming immobilizing guilt about class or money.
-Anti-capitalist/anti-racist/anti-imperialist analysis of personal choices about saving for retirement, buying real estate, taking certain jobs, supporting our community, etc.
-Diagnostic worksheets to help people figure out any of the following:
My place in the economy (local, domestic, global)
Am I rich?
What sources of security do I have that I may not be aware of?
How do I know if I need something or just want it?
What are my resources besides money?

The two of us come from very different class backgrounds (Tyrone grew up in a first- generation owning-class family, and Dean grew up on welfare) and we’re hoping for a specifically cross-class conversation about these issues. We think that the anxiety that can arise when talking about these things among folks with different experiences of class can be useful and productive, and we hope to create a space where we can learn by sharing our experiences and challenging each other.

Please send us an email if you have an idea you’d like to write about, a resource you think we should know about, existing writing you think we should post in this conversation. Your piece can be short or long, written in any style.

Please send submissions to: tyronius.samson(at)gmail.com and/or deanspade(at)gmail.com.